SUBJECT: POLITICAL SCIENCE III

COURSE: BA LLB SEMESTER III

Structure:
Understanding War
Theories of War
WAR
The birth of the modern international system is very much linked to war. War has been a
mainstay of world affairs for so long that some writers see it as a natural condition in
foreign affairs.
Whether or not we seek to locate its deeper causes in human nature, the fact remains that
war is used here to mean ‘organised violence carried on by political units against each
other,’ It is as old as recorded history. It would be comforting to think that more reasonable
ways might be found to settle our differences. Yet the evidence points to the uncomfortable
conclusion that wars, in their many forms and admittedly interspersed with long periods of
peace, have long been part of the human condition. As the distinguished writer on war, Sir
Michael Howard, observes, those who yearn for peace probably assume that war is deeply
abnormal. Those who study the world in all its complexity, however, soon come to realise
war is a deeply ingrained part of our social lives.
War takes many forms. They can, moreover, be fought by a wide variety of different actors,
with the state playing an especially important role. It would be wrong to think of war as an
activity engaged in only by states. However, as US sociologist Charles Tilly observes, states
and wars have an intimate relationship that goes back at least 1,000 years, in large part
because states are the only organisation capable of mobilising the necessary material
resources to fight wars successfully over the long term. That is why, as he says, ‘war makes
the state and the state makes war’. Others point out that wars are often fought between non-
state actors. According to these thinkers, the only thing one really needs to fight a war is an
army or group of armed people ready to do battle. Deciding where to draw the line between
war and some lower-level form of armed conflict remains a challenge for contemporary IR.

WARS IN THEORY
If we accept that there are many different kinds of war, it logically follows that there can be
no single reason to explain them all. As such, there can be no single universal theory of war.
However, if we assume that wars represent rational means to achieve desired ends, we
should at least be able to explain why they happen in particular instances. IR has made a
distinct contribution to this study by identifying two separate causes: one connected to the
1
structure of the international system itself, the other to changing power dynamics among its
constituent units.
The IR scholar most readily identified with what has been called a structural theory of war
is Kenneth Waltz. The central figure in structural Realism, Waltz wrote two IR classics:
Man, state and war (1959) and Theory of international politics (1979). War, he argues is not
inherent in human nature. Rather it is a product of an international system lacking an
overriding authority. Waltzian anarchy generates a security paradox, forcing states to ensure
their own survival through preparations for war. This did not mean that states will go to war
at all times and under any circumstances. There are mechanisms to prevent this, one of the
most important being nuclear deterrence, neatly summed up by the Cold War concept of
mutually assured destruction (MAD). Indeed, so successful was MAD that, at one point,
Waltz argued that deterrence would be enhanced and war made less likely by increasing the
number of nuclear states. However, while MAD has deterred war between nuclear-armed
states, it has not undermined the system’s propensity towards conflict. War, in Waltz’s view,
is hard-wired into the structure of the international system we inhabit.
According to another IR scholar, A.F. Organski, war is most likely to occur when there is a
decisive shift from one great power to another. We do not delve too deeply into Organski’s
idea here. We need only register his main argument. This claims that there is a ‘fundamental
problem’ that can very easily ‘set the whole [international] system sliding almost
irretrievably towards war’. Organski identifies this problem with the differential ‘rates of
growth among the great powers’. Over time, their uneven development leads to some
powers falling behind while others surge ahead. The point at which a rising power overtakes
another in the system is especially one that has recently been hegemonic is the most
dangerous in terms of international peace and stability. It is at this transitional moment,
Organski concludes, that wars are most likely to break out.
IR scholars remain deeply divided over these general theories of war. In the view of some
like Niall Ferguson, they are mere theories that can easily lead to gross oversimplifications
of reality. Others simply state that they are far too general focused on what Clausewitz calls
the ‘nature of war’ rather than its more transient forms. As a consequence, these critics
claim that neither Waltz nor Organski can deal with the multitude of reasons for states to
initiate and join wars. According to the Austrian–American political scientist John
Stoessinger, war is neither impersonal nor structurally determined. One cannot simply
blame events. Wars, in the end, are made by men and women whose knowledge of the world
is necessarily imperfect. This means that we are never in full possession of the ‘facts’ and,
as a result, make mistakes especially on the eve of a major conflict. Indeed, Stoessinger
argues, most wars start because of miscalculation, misperception, an underestimation of its
costs, and an overestimation of one’s own capability to carry the fight through to a
successful conclusion. Otherwise, how do we explain Germany’s decision to launch a war
2
against the Soviet Union in June 1941, or Japan’s even riskier attack on the USA in
December 1941? Equally irrational seems the North Korean decision to invade South Korea
in 1951. The North may have assumed it would win quickly likely with significant Soviet
aid and, on this basis, felt confident enough to attack. As it turned out, this was a massive
miscalculation based on incomplete intelligence about the strategic position of the South, an
underestimation of the international community’s opposition to aggressive warfare, and an
overestimation of the support it would gain from its Soviet neighbour.
The complicated question of ‘why nations fight’ has been addressed more recently by
Richard Ned Lebow, a leading American scholar. He has advanced a novel if controversial
way of thinking about war. He asserts that there are many theories of war, nearly all of
which suffer from an excessive dependency on rationalist and structural explanations.
Rather than looking for causes at the systems or unit level of analysis, he argues that it
would be more useful to explore the motives of those who initiate a conflict. He identifies
four motivations long attached to discussions on war: fear, interest, standing and revenge.
Using an original data set he then goes on to show that in most cases wars happen either in
an attempt to improve one’s standing or to ‘get even’ with states who have made successful
territorial grabs.
There is no easy way of making a quick and easy assessment of these theories and
arguments. Each should be weighed on its own merits; their value measured not in purely
abstract terms, but according to how useful they are in explaining different kinds of conflict.
While Waltz and Organski provide us with theories that make broad brush generalisations
about large-scale wars as a generic phenomenon in IR, they are less useful in explaining the
motives and perceptions that propel leaders into conflict. Writers like Stoessinger and
Lebow permit us to get up close to real people making foreign policy decisions under highly
stressful circumstances: a strategy with its own costs and benefits. The argument has been
made that they sometimes get so close to the actors that they lose sight of the structural
context in which their decisions are made. Put in everyday terms, Walts and Organski are
very good at describing the shape nature of the forest, but tell us very little about the
individual trees. Stoessinger and Lebow, meanwhile, might be great at describing trees, but
are not so good when it comes to telling us about the larger forest of which they happen to
be a part. Different theories tell us different things about the world. As a result, they cannot
always be judged as better or worse than the alternatives.

REFERENCE:
Cox, Michael and Campanaro, Richard (2012) Introduction to international relations:
undergraduate study in economics, management, finance and the social sciences.,
International Programmes, University of London, London, UK.
3