War
War
is a common experience of mankind.
Each
culture experience it in different ways,
It
is shaped by varying ethical values, philosophical perspectives, and historical
experience.
Throughout
history, war has served as a tool for advancing one state’s power over
another’s,
It
is used as a way of changing, preserving, and regulating the conduct of world
affairs
What it is? What
it is not?
War is an act of organized violence
It is carried out by political units
against each other.
Violence is not war unless it is
carried out in the name of a political unit.
Violence carried out in the name of
a political unit is not war unless it is directed against another political
unit.
War
is regarded as the state of sustained
hostilities between armed forces of two or more organized groups, like
nation-states, who seek to fulfill their goals in a manner that entails the
sacrifice of a number of human causalities.
Many
examples of violent conflict, such as “gang wars”, race riots, or individual
crimes, are not generally considered as wars.
This
is because they lack political objectives and do not have political impacts.
To
be identified as such, war must involve a clash of the armed forces of two or
more organized groups who attempt to pursue a combination of political goals at
the possible risk of human and material losses.
Defining War
Since
Herodotus and Thucydides, many have speculated about the nature, causes, and
consequences of human conflict.
War
is, undoubtedly, a nebulous concept.
For
war, argues Gilbert Winham, “has had the capacity to shape political relations
among nations”.
An
illustration of this argument is given by Raymond
Aron.
He
refers to international relations as “a science of peace and war”,
Hence
the title of his work (R. Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of
international Relations, London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1966, p.6).
Aron
contends that relations among nations are often marked by conflict,
Conflict
occurs because states seek incompatible goals, and that war is a no less
natural phenomenon of international relations than peace.
He
declares that “inter-state relations present one original feature which
distinguishes them from all other social relations: they take place within the
shadow of war, or, to use a more rigorous expression, relations among states,
involve, in essence, the alternative of war and peace.
Karl von
Clauzewitz’s
work On War is considered to be one
of the most useful studies of this particular element of international
relations.
(K. von Clausewitz, On War, Washington: Combat
Forces Press, 1953. See also G. Winham, “The Relevance of Clausewitz To a
Theory of International Negotiation”, p. 5.., p. 5)
Clausewitz put it, war is a continuation of policy by other
means-so, states, which possess the legitimate authority to use force, may
resort to war for whatever political purpose they deem appropriate.
Fundamental
in Clausewitzian thought is the link between war and national policy.
“War is nothing but a continuation of
political intercourse with an admixture of other means.
In
short, war and politics are inseparably connected; war belongs to policy; and
the former is a continuation of the latter through the application of other
means.
To
emphasize the major importance of this observation, Clausewitz rejects
subordination of the political point of view to the military, arguing that
policy creates and guides war.
Thus
Clausewitz, not surprisingly, suggests that “the minister of war should not be
a soldier, but a statesman who knows just enough about war not to expect
results from military means and measures which they cannot produce”
Edward Luttwak. In his Strategy: The Logic of Peace and War, he
presents an exposition of some of Clausewitz’s propositions.
Luttwak
does not see a straightforward “engineering” solution of war because of the
complexity arising from the interactions among its political, psychological,
and military dimensions.
Thus,
in place of the linear thinking of warfare, Luttwak introduces the “paradoxical
logic” of strategy as a broader concept that conditions all forms of war and
its reciprocal activity.
War Theory
The
term “war theory” will be taken to mean the establishment of rules of war as a
social tool for specific cultures, based upon the particular notions of that
culture’s notions of justice and statehood.
The
Western
war theory, of the Just War Theory as it is commonly known, is an
amalgam assortment of Greek, Roman, Catholic, Enlightenment, and modern notions
of war, which have built on each other and been molded into a cohesive theory
over the span of some 2300 years.
It
argues that wars should be fought for noble and worthwhile reasons.
Just-war
theorists also try to establish ethical rules for warfare.
War
must be the last option.
All
peaceful means to resolve the conflict must be exhausted before war breaks out.
The
cause of the war must be just (such as overturning aggression and righting a
great wrong).
The
war must be winnable.
The
war’s purpose must justify the cost in money and lives.
The
military must make every effort to prevent or limit civilian casualties.
Western
model has no particular authors or time period where the various concepts were
welded into a unified theory.
The
Just War Theory traces its roots to Aristotle and Cicero.
Its
true codification came during the Roman Empire, where war-waging powers were
carefully tied to the power of the state, and reflected the Roman values and
notions of justice.
Chinese War Theory was developed
in the tumultuous period following the decline of influence of the House of
Zhou (772 BCE) that ruled over a unified China.
The
following five hundred years were a field of war, as local rulers vied for
supremacy as the sole power over the once-unified area.
As
a result of the destruction and instability caused by the incessant war, there
emerged a series of competing politico-philosophical systems that sought to
restore peace and harmony.
Alongside
these theories emerged a specific class of texts and authors whose primary
focus was war theory.
While
these arose from the realities of warfare, they also embodied many
politico-philosophical ideas, making the war theory compatible with the ideals
of statecraft.
The
primary texts consist of Xunzi’s Confucian writings and Han Feizi’s Legalist
theory, as representative of the two major politico-philosophical movements;
and Sunzi’s and Sun Bin’s books on the Art of Waras representative of the war
theory.
It
is also an extension of the competing politico-philosophical theories,
embodying ideas of justice, exemplary rule, and quietism amongst others. Of the
various military treatises, the two best known authors, Sunzi and Sun Bin,
whose works – separated by nearly two centuries – are both entitled The Art of
Warfare.
The
Islamic War Theory is a direct
outgrowth of the Islamic theories of justice and state, both of which are based
on the primary religious sources. While these theories have developed
significantly over the 14 centuries of the existence of Islam, and a great many
competing conceptions of them exist, all these rely on the same primary sources
for the authority of their claims.
Now coming to the
Qur’anic theory of war, it is important to say that war is sanctioned only in
exceptional circumstances and peace is the norm. The permission
for war in Qur’an is given reluctantly and extreme conditions of persecution
and oppression. War is not permissible if people of other persuasions,
religious faith and nationality are part of any treaty or causing any kind of
harm to Muslims. Also, to begin with Muslims should only preach their faith
peacefully and even put up with resistance and opposition and bear adverse
conditions with patience and endurance of high degree.
Why is humanity prone to war? The Qur'anic answer unfolds in the course of
several verses revealed at various times, the essential points of which may be
summarized as follows:First, man's fundamental nature (fitra) is one of moral innocence, that is, freedom from sin. In other words, there is no Islamic equivalent to the notion of "original sin." Moreover, each individual is born with a knowledge of God's commandments, that is, with the essential aspects of righteous behavior. But this moral awareness is eroded as each individual encounters the corrupting influences of human society (30:30).
Second, man's nature is to live on the earth in a state of harmony, and peace with other living things. This is the ultimate import of the responsibility assigned by God to man as His vicegerent (khalifa) on this planet (2:30). True peace (salam) is therefore not merely an absence of war; it is the elimination of the grounds for strife or conflict, and the resulting waste and corruption (fasad) they create. Peace, not war or violence, is God's true purpose for humanity (2:208).
Third, given man's capacity for wrongdoing, there will always be some who choose to violate their nature and transgress against God's commandments. Adam becomes fully human only when he chooses to heed Iblis's (Satan's) temptation and disobeys God. As a result of this initial act of disobedience, human beings are expelled from the Garden to dwell on earth as "enemies to each other" {2:36, 7:24). Thus, wars and the evils that stem from them, the Qur'an suggests, are the inevitable consequences of the uniquely human capacity for moral choice.
Function of War
In the modern international system,
the functions of war, as a social practice, may
be considered from three
perspectives:
1.that of an individual state,
2.that of the system of states,
3.and that of the society of states.
From the point of view of an individual
state, war has been an instrument of policy, one of the means by which
states objectives may be attained.
From the point of view of the
system of states, war has been the principle mechanism, in what Waltz
called, the distribution of capabilities,
an element rejecting the distribution of power across states in the system,
and, at one and the same time, an ultimate arbiter of the shape of the system
and the position of states within it.
It is war, in this respect, that
helps to determine whether particular states survive or are eliminated, whether
they rise or decline.
From the point of view of the
society of states, war has a dual aspect.
On the one hand, war is a
manifestation of disorder, a threat of breakdown of the society of states
itself and of a return to a pre-society state of affairs where war of all
against all prevails.
Specially, it a means that the
society of states limits war to keep it within the common rules laid down by
the society of states itself.
On the other hand, war, as an
instrument of states policies and a basis determinant of the shape of the
system, is a means that the society of states employs to achieve its own
purposes.
Specially, it means that the society
of states embarks on war to promote the common values and interests laid down
by the society of states itself. In other words, war holds an ambiguous role
from this perspective of being simultaneously the decisive threat to the
society of states, and the instrument of protecting it.
Wars often start over territory. A
civilizations lands might be too small to support the current population well,
and a war is an excellent solution in two ways.
If the war is won, more territory is
acquired by the victorious nation. This decreases the number of people crammed
into one area, which alleviates population density.
Limits on War
It was the 1648 Peace of Westphalia
that coded the principle of sovereignty, and its corollary rule of
non-intervention, and that conned the right to wage war to sovereign states as
the prerogative of their sovereignty.
The society of states also
restricted the way in which war is waged, jus
in bello, as articulated in the final acts of 1899 and 1997 Hague
conferences, the four 1949 Geneva Conventions, and two 1977Additional Protocols
for instance.
In addition to restriction imposed
on the conduct of war, the society of states also limited the geographical
spread of war by enunciating laws of neutrality, laying down rights and duties
of neutrals and belligerents in relation to each other.
It was the 1945 Charter of the
United Nations that conned the right to war to self-defense against the
violation of the territorial integrity or political independence of a state.
On the other hand, the society of
states has also sought to use war as a means to protect and enforce common
rules, to protect common values and to maintain international order: a critical
aspect of war, bearing in mind that international order lacks mechanisms of
just change. Specially, the goals of the United Nations, as laid down
The Geneva Conventions
In 1864, several states created an
international agreement that regulated acceptable behavior during war and armed
conflicts. Since then, the Geneva Conventions have been amended in 1906, 1929,
and 1949 as the nature of war and warfare has changed. The agreements prohibit
torture, rape, genocide, mutilation, slavery, and other crimes against
humanity. The conventions also state that prisoners of war must be treated
humanely and that civilians may not be used as hostages.
Important
Theories
War
seems to be part of the human condition. We have records of war going back
beyond written records, and there is even evidence that some animals like
chimps and ants go to war as well. But why do we do it? Here are ten of the
most important theories.
The Male Warrior
Hypothesis
Formulated
by a group of evolutionary psychologists, this
hypothesis suggests
that men evolved to be violent and warlike in order to secure access to women
and other resources. Essentially, forming violent coalitions with fellow men
was a mating strategy. The more successful the "war coalition" was,
the more successful the men would be in passing along their genes. Often this
idea is reduced to the notion that men's
sex drives are at the root of war, which is only half the story. In fact,
the idea is that men evolved to form war bands with each other to gain access
to resources. Having such resources would have made them better able to support
families and communities, and thus pass along a genetic predisposition for
forming armies.
Another
version of this idea is the "demonic
male hypothesis," which suggests that the urge to go to war goes back
to the last common ancestor between humans and apes. Because chimps exhibit
behavior that is warlike — with one band of males attacking another band —
evolutionary biologists have suggested that human males inherited the urge to
make war from distant evolutionary ancestors that we share with other hominids.
War as Predation
Essayist
Barbara Ehrenreich spent many years researching the origins of war, and
determined that the male warrior hypothesis didn't exactly fit the facts.
Instead, she suggests that war grows out of the ancient human fear of predatory
animals. When humans were evolving, one of our formative experiences as a
species would have been hiding from more skillful predators than Homo
sapiens. But once we'd gained the tools necessary to be predators
ourselves, we celebrated
this accomplishment in "blood rites" of sacrifice.
These rites began as hunting rituals, but over time evolved into war rituals
with neighboring humans. This theory explains why war doesn't usually feel
"natural" to most men, and requires a kind of ritualistic
transformation like a religious warrior ritual or Basic Training. War is a
learned behavior, and its rituals are a defense against fear of predation.
The Persuasive
Hawk
In
debates over conflicts, there are hawks and doves, with hawks favoring forceful
actions to end tensions and doves advocating negotiation. Hawks usually win
because of inherent biases we all have. Nobel laureate in economics Daniel
Kahneman and government researcher Jonathan Renshon crystallized this idea in
a famous article for Foreign Policy, where they explained that,
oddly, the Persuasive Hawk Theory is a result of humanity's optimism bias:
Psychological
research has shown that a large majority of people believe themselves to be
smarter, more attractive, and more talented than average, and they commonly
overestimate their future success. People are also prone to an "illusion
of control": They consistently exaggerate the amount of control they have
over outcomes that are important to them — even when the outcomes are in fact
random or determined by other forces.
In
other words, we go to war because we mistakenly believe that we are always
going to win, because we are the best. A related idea is the "Rubicon
Theory,"
which suggests that when people believe they are already threat they cross a
psychological threshold where new biases take over. Instead of proceeding
rationally, they become overconfident and engage in riskier behavior — such as
starting a war instead of seeking peaceful alternatives.
Malthusian
Overpopulation
Based
on Thomas Malthus' population theories, this idea suggests simply that war is
the inevitable result of an expanding population with scarce resources.
Stanford economist Ran
Ambramitzky explains
this idea quite simply in a paper. The human population increases at a
geometric rate, faster than the food supply. Voluntary "preventative
checks" try to keep population growth down, such as when people make
rational decisions about the number of kids they are going to have based on
their income, etc. When these checks fail, "positive checks,"
including war, famine and diseases, reduce the population and balance it with
resources. Malthus believed that as long as humanity didn't come up with decent
preventative checks, the positive check of war would ensure that population
didn't outstrip food supply.
This
idea overlaps a bit with the "ecological
imbalance" theory of war, in which "conflict flash
points" are the result of ecological stress from humans exploiting too
many resources from the land. When resources run out, conflicts arise.
Youth Bulge
A
popular theory right now, this
idea suggests that violence and wars are the result of a large population of
men
with a lack of peaceful employment opportunities. The excess youth will be
drawn to fighting and be killed, reducing the population.
Groupthink
Groupthink
theory explains
that during a crisis, groups — no matter how smart or well-informed — will
suppress dissenting opinions because of the pressure to agree on a plan of
action, leading them to make terrible decisions. This is in some sense a more
policy-oriented version of the male warrior theory crossed with the persuasive
hawk. The idea is that, when threatened, people naturally form bands of
"us" vs. "them," and then make risky decisions in order to
maintain their sense of superior group identity. Political scientists have recently
applied the theory to the Iraq war.
Bargaining Model
Perhaps,
say some social scientists, war isn't a deep-seated urge that or emotional
reaction that comes from our evolution. Maybe it's just a form of political
maneuvering that we've developed along with civilization. Seen in this light,
war is just an extreme version of bargaining, where two groups try to resolve
disputes over everything from allocation of resources to social justice. Writes
scholar Dan Reiter:
Critically,
the bargaining model does not see war as the breakdown of diplomacy but rather
as a continuation of bargaining, as negotiations occur during war, and war ends
when a deal is struck.
This
model is helpful for international relations, because it suggests that every war
is a negotiation and resolution waiting to happen.
Terror Management
The
theory suggests that humans form cultural groups such as tribes and nations
because they need to believe in something that will live on after they die. We
all fear our own mortality, but our cultures give us beliefs and rituals that
buffer us from that fear. Problems arise when these beliefs are threatened. Terror
management theory suggests that for many people, an attack on their nation or
group arouses their basic fear of death. You can see traces of the Rubicon
theory here, where threats to the group cause people to cross a threshold where
they are willing to make violent decisions that they would never make in
everyday life. Terror management theory holds that crossing this threshold
makes people willing to die to preserve their culture — because, after all, it
is only their culture that can live on after them.
The Aggressive
Drive
Aggression
is a fighting instinct that helps individuals and species survive. In animals,
there are innate inhibitions against killing others of the same species, such
as the display of submissive gestures. But it's
different for humans:
weapons and communal aggression ("militant enthusiasm") escalate our
ability to defend ourselves, but also to inflict violence on other groups. The
inevitable expression of human aggression is war. This idea suggests that war
is specific to humanity, as a result of our advanced tools and social
organization.
War Is Learned
(And Can Be Unlearned)
First
proposed
by anthropologist Margaret Mead in the early twentieth century, this
hypothesis suggests that war is not the inevitable consequence of our
competitive, aggressive nature. Rather, it is a social invention that can be
unlearned. This actually dovetails with the "aggressive drive"
theory, which suggests that humans may be aggressive like other animals — but
our social organization is what leads to war. It is also a sharp rebuke to the
evolutionary psychology idea of warrior men, and to the neo-Malthusian notion
that war is inevitable when our population grows. Given that war is a social
response to our environment and to each other, it makes sense that the solution
to war would be social as well. We can learn peace instead of learning war —
and we don't have to change our genomes to do it.
Causes of War
Political scientists have long
debated the causes of war. These scholars have come up with the following list:
Human nature:
Humans are naturally violent and aggressive, making war inevitable.
Regime types:
Some regimes are more prone to waging war than others.
Example: There has been extensive
research on whether democracies are less likely to start wars than other
regimes. Overall, it appears that democracies are less likely to fight other
democracies, a phenomenon scholars refer to as the democratic peace. Democracies
are, however, just as likely as other types of regimes to fight nondemocracies.
Ideology: Some
political beliefs favor war more than others. Some scholars blame fascism, for
example, for World War II.
Religion:
Religious belief has driven many states to war, either to spread the faith or
to eradicate heretics.
Example: During the early modern
era, nearly every European country experienced numerous wars of religion as the
Catholics sought to destroy the Protestants. The wars of religion culminated in
the Thirty Years’ War, which stretched from Spain and France to the eastern
stretches of Germany during the seventeenth century. It was a brutal and
horrific war, and the Catholics’ failure to win the war marked the end of the
major religious wars in Europe.
The global
system:
Because the global system is anarchic, states must engage in war to protect
themselves.
Economics and
resources:
Disputes over resources often lead to war.
Types of War
Although
all wars are violent, not all wars are the same. In fact, there are many
different types of wars, which can be classified according to which people
actually fight, the intensity of the conflict, and the extent of combatants’
use of violence, among other factors.
Scholars
generally describe five types of war:
Total
war
Limited
war
Guerrilla
war
Civil
war
Proxy
war
Total War
A
total war is a war in which combatants use every resource available to destroy
the social fabric of the enemy. Total wars are highly destructive and are
characterized by mass civilian casualties because winning a total war often
requires combatants to break the people’s will to continue fighting. World Wars
I and II were total wars, marked by the complete destruction of the civilian
economy and society in many countries, including France, Germany, the Soviet
Union, Italy, Great Britain, and Japan.
Limited War
A
limited war is a war fought primarily between professional armies to achieve
specific political objectives without causing widespread destruction. Although
the total of civilian casualties may be high, combatants do not seek to
completely destroy the enemy’s social and economic frameworks. The Persian Gulf
War of 1990–1991 was a limited war in which the United States and its allies
forcibly removed Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
Guerrilla War
A
guerrilla war is a war in which one or both combatants use small, lightly armed
militia units rather than professional, organized armies. Guerrilla fighters
usually seek to topple their government, often enjoying the support of the
people. These wars are often very long but also tend to be successful for the
insurgents as evidenced by Mao Zedong’s victory over Chiang Kai-shek in China
in the 1940s, the Vietcong’s victory over the United States in the Vietnam War,
and the Mujahideen’s victory over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Civil War
A
civil war is a war fought within a single country between or among different
groups of citizens who want to control the government and do not recognize
another group’s right to rule. Civil wars are almost always total wars because
each side feels compelled to destroy the enemy’s political support base.
Regional rifts, such as the American Civil War between the North and the South,
characterize some civil wars, whereas other civil wars have been fought among
ethnic rivals, religious rivals, and rival clans. Revolutions can spark civil
wars as well.
Proxy War
A
proxy war is a war fought by third parties rather than by the enemy states
themselves. Many of the militarized conflicts during the Cold War, such as the
Korean War and the Vietnam
War,
can be interpreted as proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet
Union, neither of which wanted to fight each other directly.
Categorizing
Wars
A
war can often be a limited war, a guerrilla war, and a civil war all at the
same time. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 is a great example. The
United States sent trainers, money, and weapons to Afghan rebels to fight
against the invaders, making it a low-intensity, limited conflict from the U.S.
point of view. The Afghan resistance mostly relied on guerrilla tactics. And
the war split Afghanistan, so it was also a civil war.
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