Week 2

Key Concepts: War

 Key concepts: War
•A concern with war has formed the traditional core of
security studies, and some analysts think it should stay
that way.

•Although recent decades have seen wars decline in both

their number and intensity, huge sums of money are still
spent on waging them and developing weapons system to
win future ones.

•Inthis chapter we will examine some of the different ways

of understanding war’s place in world politics, some of the
major trends that have been identified in armed conflicts
since 1945, and the extent to which the nature of warfare
has changed over time.
 What is War?
• Cicero defines war broadly as "a contention by force”

• Hugo Grotius adds that "war is the state of contending

parties, considered as such”

• Thomas Hobbes notes that war is also an attitude: "By

war is meant a state of affairs, which may exist even
while its operations are not continued

• Denis Diderot comments that war is "a convulsive and

violent disease of the body politic"

• for Karl von Clausewitz, "war is the continuation of

politics by other means"
 Why wars occur?
• It is one of the oldest and most important issues in
the study of international politics. Over the
centuries, writers have attempted to find the
causes of war in human nature, in the
characteristics of particular types of societies and
governments, and in the nature of the international
system.

• Different thinkers have proposed numerous

theories that explain war and many also have
offered prescriptions for peace.
• Throughout the history there has been many
important thinkers. For instance

Sun Tzu (544–496 BC) was a Chinese general

who wrote the book: The Art of War

Thucydides (460-400 BC) was an Athenian

historian and general. He wrote History of the
Peloponnesian War

• Among these thinkers, Carl Von Clausewitz was

one of the the most important one.
 Three Philosophies of War
• According to Anatol Rapoport who wrote an
introduction to the Penguin edition of Clausewitz’s
unfinished classic, On War, there are three
philosophies of war: they are labelled as the political,
the eschatological and the cataclysmic.

• Clausewitz was arguably the most important

proponent of the political philosophy of war.

• He was born in 1780 and died in 1831. He was a

Prussian and had active role in five different wars.

• Political philosophy of war: War is an act of violence

intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.

• This philosophy conceived of war as being rational,

national and instrumental.
 Three philosophies of war
Political Philosophy
Here war is compared to a game of strategy like chess.

• War as rational —-> The decision to employ the military

instrument by waging war ought to be made on the basis of
a rational calculation taken by the political authority.

• War as national —-> Political authority = sovereign states.

• War as instrumental —-> He saw war as a legitimate

instrument of state policy that should be used only with a
clear purpose in mind.
Eschatological Philosophy
eschatology: a Christian belief concerning death, the
end of the world, or the ultimate destiny of
humankind

• War is compared to a mission or the denouncement of a

drama

• It revolves around the idea that history, or at least some

position of history, will culminate in a final war leading to the
unfolding of some grand design.

>divine
>natural
>human
Cataclysmic philosophy
- War is compared to a fire or epidemic.

- War as a catastrophe that befalls some portion of humanity or

the entire human race.

- In this view, war could be seen as a scourge of God or as an

unfortunate by-product of the anarchic international system.

Two variants:

- War is something that others threaten to do us.

- War is cataclysm that affects humanity as a whole and not just
this or that group of humans.
Trends in armed conflicts since 1945

• According to the Uppsala Conflict Data

Program (UCDP) an armed conflict is defined
as a contested incompatibility that concerns
government or territory or both, where the
use of armed force between two parties
results in at least 25 battle-related deaths.
 Types of conflict
1. State-based armed conflicts are those in which a government is one of the
warring parties. There are several different types of state-based armed conflicts.

• Interstate armed conflict —-> occurs between two or more states.

• Intrastate armed conflict —-> occurs between the government of a state and
internal opposition groups. These conflicts may be further subdivided into:

>civil wars, which are fought for control of an existing government

>state-formation conflicts, which are fought between a government and a
territorially focused opposition group that is seeking to redraw the borders of the
existing state.

• Internationalised intrastate armed conflict —-> occurs between the government of a

state and internal opposition groups but with additional intervention from other
states in the form of troops.

• Extrastate armed conflict —-> occurs between a state and a non-state group
outside that state’s territory.

2. Non-state armed conflicts are those where organised, collective armed violence
occurs but where a recognised government is not one of the parties. Examples
 Four main trends in armed conflicts
since 1945
• From the mid-1970’s there has been a significant decline
in interstate armed conflict with internal conflicts.

• Since reaching a peak of 52 state-based armed conflicts

in 1991 to1992, the number of these conflicts has
dramatically declined.

• A third significant trend in armed conflicts since 1945 is

the decline in battle-deaths. Battle-death counts do not
include either the intentional killing of civilians, or so-called
indirect deaths.

• The final trend worth identifying here is the shifting

regional spread of armed conflicts. At different times
different regions have experienced far more wars than
others.
 Who fights? Who dies?
• Besides the soldiers of states, there are other political
units come in many shapes and sizes.

• The other main actors engaged in warfare are

international organisations and a variety of armed non
state actors.

• Various international organisations have engaged in

contemporary armed conflicts (Afghanistan, Bosnia,
Somali..)

• as far as armed non state actors are concerned, the most

common participants in the world’s contemporary armed
conflicts have been mercenaries, private military
companies, insurgents and a wide variety of
paramilitaries, militias and self defence forces as well as
the infamous suicide bombers.
 War Classifications: Intensity of conflict
1. Total war: wars in which leaders utilize all available
resources Massive loss in life and widespread
destruction
e.g. Thirty Years War, WWII, Iran-Iraq War

2. Limited war: wars that involve less-than-total

resources Initiated with limited aims (i.e. less than
critical)
Nuclear weapons never deployed
e.g. Korean War, Gulf War I (1991)
 War Classifications: Types of conflict
1. Conventional warfare: uses conventional weapons and battlefield
tactics

• Conventional weapons —-> effects can be limited in space and time

to those who are legitimate targets of war
• Only combatants are legitimate targets
• Lost or won when one side acknowledges defeat

2. Unconventional warfare: willingness to ignore conventions of war

• Unconventional weapons —-> effects not limited (e.g. WMDs)

• Flouting restrictions on legitimate targets
• Refusing to accept traditional outcomes of battles

3. Asymmetric wars: one side has big advantage over the other
Tactics of the weak include 1) guerrilla warfare, 2) nonviolence, 3)
terrorism
 Total War
• A conflict of unlimited scope in which a belligerent
engages in a mobilization of all available resources at
their disposal, whether human, industrial, agricultural,
military, natural, technological, or otherwise, in order to
entirely destroy or render beyond use their rivals
capacity to continue resistance.

• The practice of total war has been in use for centuries

but it was only around 1850 that it was identified by
scholars as a separate class of warfare

• In total war there is less or no differentiation between

combatants and noncombatants (civilian), than in other
conflicts as nearly every person from a particular country
or opposing area, civilians and soldiers alike can be
considered to be part of the war effort
The French Revolution introduced some of the concepts of war.

•The new republic found itself threatened by a powerful coalition

of European countries

•The only solution of the new government was to pour the

state’s entire resources into an unprecedented war effort

•This was the advent of conscription

•The model for total war was WWII: The London Blitz, The
Bombing of Conventry, Cologne, Estresden, the Siege of
Stalingrad, fire bombings of Japanese towns, and the later use
of atomic weapons leave no doubt about the totally of the
conflict
 Limited War
Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, Gulf War II, Afghanistan were all
characterized by the restrained use of weapons and military
options

• In total war the goal of the government has been to

bring about the surrender of the enemy

• The objective military function is to achieve the

enemy’s surrender at a minimal cost of resources/
national treasure

• Total war is also an unambiguous concept and

generally understood by those doing the fighting
• Limited Wars on the other hand imply limited goals and as
such are ambiguous and complex concepts

• This uncertainty requires that the government and the

military constantly explain and rationalize the reason for the
conflict

• A task which comes increasingly difficult as time passes as

casualties mount
 The new wars debate
• New wars are intrastate rather than interstate wars.

• New wars take place in the context of state failure and

social transformation driven by globalisation and liberal
economic forces.

• In new wars, ethnic and religious differences are more

important than political ideology.

• In new wars, civilian casualties and forced displacement

are dramatically increasing. This is primarily because
civilians are being deliberately targeted.

• In new wars, the breakdown of state authority blurs the

distinction between public and private combatants.