War, Peace And Security Flashcards
Definition war
- act of violence
- continuation of political activity by other means
- collective killing for collective purpose
Definition peace
- capacity to transform conflicts with empathy, without violence
Negative vs positive peace
Negative peace
- absence of armed conflict
- critique: understanding is too simplistic - misses the transformation from conflict to peace
Positive peace
- presence of social equality and creation of culture of peace within and between societies
- critique: requires a changing mindset and set of structures to maintain peace - conceptual ambiguity
War
- occurrence of
- large scale (not sporadic or occasional)
- organised (identifiable warring parties, executed by armed forces or trained fighters)
- violence (not just threats or sabotage)
- between politically defined groups (no private quarrels, organised crime)
War vs armed conflict
War
- a state-based conflict or dyad which reaches at least 1000 battle-related death in specific calendar year
Armed conflict
- contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties (of which at least one is the government of state) results in at least 25 battle-related death in one calendar year
Types of wars
- interstate
- intrastate
- internationalised intrastate
- extrastate
- decline of extra/interstate conflicts, increase of intrastate
Interstate wars and conflicts
- conflict between two or more governments
- classical war
- eg - WWI, WWII, Korean War, Russia-Ukraine war
Intrastate wars and conflicts
- conflict between a government and a non-governmental party with no interference from other countries
- civil war
- eg - Congo wars, Rwanda civil war
Internationalised intrastate wars and conflicts
- intrastate war where the government side, the opposing side or both sides receive troop support from other governments that actively participate in the conflict
- eg - Syrian civil war, Yemen civil war, Nagorno-Karabakh war
Extrastate wars
- war between a territorial state and a non-sovereign entity outside the borders of the state
- colonial or interventionist war
- eg - Boer War, French Indochina War
Old vs new wars
- changing actors, scale and means of war
- from mercenaries to state armies (and back)
- from extended war on battlefields to smaller violent clashes
- from longbow to rifles to tanks, WMD (weapon of mass destruction), drones
Revolution of military warfare
- technology-driven changes in military operations
- eg - drones, satellite imaging, benefiting remote warfare
- high-tech warfare lowers risks for the intervening party
Causes of war according to IR theories
Neo-Realism
- war occurs because of imbalance of international system or the absence of benevolent hegemons
Liberalism / Democratic Peace Theory
- war occurs when democracy and social peace lack; democracies do not fight each other
Institutionalism
- war occurs because of the absence of (strong) international institutions
Social Constructivism
- war occurs where norms of peaceful behaviour are weak
Drivers in old and new wars
Old wars
- fought for geopolitical interests (territory) or for ideology (eg democracy, socialism)
New wars
- fought in the name of identity (ethnic, religious or tribal)
- identity politics is constructed through war -> political mobilisation around identity is the aim of war rather than an instrument of war
Different financing in old vs new wars
Old wars
- largely financed by states (taxation or outside patrons)
- old war economies were typically centralising, mobilised the population
New wars
- take place in weak states where tax revenue is falling and new forms of predatory private finance include loot and pillage (rabovať), taxation of humanitarian aid, diaspora support, kidnapping, or smuggling in oil, diamonds, drugs, people etc
- revenue depends on continued violence
