INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

TECHNOLOGY PARK MALAYSIA

AM25623-5-INS
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
WHY DO NATIONS GO TO WAR?
APT2F-1809-IR

NAME : JESICA DWI NOVIA PUTRI

STUDENT ID : TP052614
 1.0 Introduction

Why are wars occurring and recurring especially in cases where careful and rational
actors make the decisions involved? This question has many answers. Given the importance of
the question and the wide range of answers, it is essential to have a perspective on the different
sources of conflict. Simply put, war is defined as an event that occurs between two or more
parties, where each party pits both physical and non-physical strength, directly or indirectly, it
aims to win and solve problems, even though sometimes the war itself is the problem. War is a
species of real and direct violence, also deliberately organized, violence is collective, direct, real,
personal, intentional, organized, institutional, instrumental violence, sanctions, and sometimes
ritual and regulated. It is very clear that war is a very special category of violence, or state of war
(van der Dennen, 1977). Some existing war terms describe concerns about behavior and
attitudes, regarding assumptions about the factors that cause the war itself. The term 'imperialist
war' reflects that the attitude of the two becomes the root cause of the war and the assumptions
about which country the guilty has caused. 'nature of war' is not commonly found on the
battlefield, but is often found in hostility behaviors and attitudes that characterize a country's
foreign policy.

War seems to have become an inseparable part of human life. In his article entitled "The
Great War Figures Hoax: an Investigation in Polemomythology," B. Jongman and J. Van der
Dennen reported that since 3600 BC the world had only enjoyed a peace period of 292 years.
During that period counted 14,531 times of war, both large and small, with 3,640,000,000
casualties. (RAND Internal Pub, 1961) Another note states that from 1496 BC to 1861, or for
3,358 years, there was a peace period of 227 years and the remaining 3,130 years were filled
with war, or 13 years of war for each year of peacetime. (Novicow, 1912) This figure is not much
different from the calculations made by experts from the Soviet states that in the past 5,500 years
there had been 14,500 large and small wars with 3,600 million people killed. (Tabunov, 1986).
However, even though historical experience has proven that not all countries that wage war with
other countries have achieved the desired goal, some have even made the country divided, until
now there are still countries that are waging war with others for the ideals they fight for. No
matter how heavy the risk, many countries, including the United States, are willing to fight
openly against other countries.
To show how necessary it is to consider the reasons behind the conflict, it should be
remembered that the war will possibly last longer due to the lack of capacity to commit to an
agreement. The war will last until one of the parties reaches victory, or The situation has
changed, so that the current conflict costs on both sides are very high. Lack of agreement and a
middle ground, this is often the main element why a prolonged war occurs. Conversely, if an
agreement allows it to be enforced, the state starts to have an asymmetrical view, for example,
about one of the two countries relatively strong. In that case, bargaining and war triggering
failure will occur. At the time of entering the war, here can be seen more clearly the real forces
possessed by the countries involved in the war and given the possibility of credible negotiation
and the possibility of avoiding further war costs then, the States could come to an agreement to
end the war. Thus, different war durations can correspond to different sources of failures in
bargaining.

2.0 The realm of rationality

Before discussing more about the failure of bargaining that triggers war, there are other
alternatives to the causes of war such as the realm of irrationality. This can be seen as rational
and failure in bargaining is still categorized as a cause of conflict that is often seen as irrational.
This definition of a rationalist explanation is broader than is usually the case. Understood in
International Relations, where it is popular to equate a rationalist approach to realistic and
neo-realistic conflict theories with unitary actors concerned solely with material costs and
benefits. Broader definitions are important to explain that the actors are important, and they get
prizes from what they face from different results. Choose their actions to optimize them, despite
their confidence in the adversaries' actions, so it is not appropriate to justify 'material costs and
benefits' nor is it appropriate to limit the use of a rationalistic approach to the unitary actors'
world. With this viewpoint, it is possible to discuss some war causes which are often considered
to rely on some level of "irrationality," as we will see with our broad definition of rationality,
even many of these can be interpreted as rational causes of war. This isn't just a semantic issue,
as the differentiation has profound consequences for how and when wars can be launched, and
how they can be stopped or finished.

2.1 War and violence in the name of religion

In principle, a war that occurs between two general states, different beliefs or religions.
Due to different beliefs automatically the thoughts and paths that they think are right may be
different from each other where this can lead to contra between the two parties and lead to
conflict. For instance, in their goals which may not be the same as what they want to achieve,
such as the spread of ideologies or the spread of religion itself. In such a situation, the chances
of success in bargaining and finding a middle ground are small. One reason that such motivations
could be placed outside the realm of "rationality" is that such goals are often not set out by a
leader as if they were acting by choice but instead acting on behalf of or under the direction of a
higher being or religious code, the leaders claim. And, in these situations, the leaders do not
actually see themselves as "optimizing" or "choosing" between paths, but rather as directions
ordered. That is, even if agreements are available and fully enforceable, those agents are driven
by a specific objective that may be incompatible with another population's well-being or
autonomy. So that, there is a crucial difference between a leader who chooses and optimizes,
though his or her rhetoric may be religious in nature, and a leader who believes that he or she
acts simply as a channel for a higher self. In that context, from a reasonable viewpoint, several
wars which are considered to beIn fact religion also can be well known. Let us discuss two
famous examples, often considered to be at least partially religious wars, to make this point
clear: the Crusades and the Thirty Year War.

With regard to the 30-year war, although there was an eruption of religious divisions
within Europe prior to 1618 emanating from multiple Protestant reforms and movements, some
leaders used religious motivation to justify actions and mobilize people, when again part of the
instability arising from a multilateral power struggle and a lack of enforceable agreements. The
difficulty of introducing a new distribution of power which was so different from the official
distribution of power that the papacy and imperial power preserved was a key reason for the
failure of many attempts at peace. The agreements concluded in Westphalia in 1648 cut the
connections between some of the territorial and religious disputes, and the principles of
autonomy and territory embodied in the agreement laid the foundation for modern states. In
some of the same territories, Catholics and Protestants mingled to establish religious tolerance,
and religious leaders were forbidden to have authority over individuals in separate territories. So,
while the 30-year war contained religious interests, the different sides were also driven by
independence, stability and sovereignty and were finally able to find a somewhat complicated,
self-sustaining compromise.

The long-standing Israeli-Palestinian dispute may be seen as another example of a

religious conflict that is frequently given non-rationalistic reasons. This can therefore be
perceived more usefully through a rationalistic prism. One of the central challenges in resolving
this conflict in the Middle East is reaching a secure compromise on behalf of the many different
forces that make up the dispute on both sides that is reliable on the long term. While the Oslo
peace agreements adopted land for the values of peace, as one would expect in a rationalist
conflict, when fighting resumed the blame on both sides for "fundamentalism" (a standard
non-rationalistic explanation). A more useful lens for viewing this conflict is A rationalistic
interpretation of the dispute based on multilateral negotiations that we will discuss below. In this
case, Palestinians and Israelis are comprised of many different constituencies, it is indeed
multilateral, even though it appears to be a bilateral conflict. In these environments, it may be
that compromises are not feasible even with entirely rational individual actors, because the states
end up being inconsistent in their decision-making, because they collectively combine the
interests of several different actors. This rationalist explanation is one that we will discuss further
below
 2.2 Revenge

Revenge is another war motive one would naturally put inside the collection of reasons
for the non-rationalist war. In the context of a repeated play, however, it is necessary to
differentiate between an emotional version of revenge and a version of what someone may call
revenge: the process of retaliation that includes activating strategies of one kind. It's the
emotional variant that falls under the explications of non-rationalism. Revenge in emotional
terms involves actions motivated only by anger at a past action and not motivated by the
potential incentive effects, nor decided ex ante as part of an optimal strategy. Wars motivated by
revenge are also rare, but popular examples include the motivation of the Achaeans during the
Trojan War , at least according to the definition in the Iliad.

2.3 Ethnic Cleansing

As in the previous discussion of religion, motivation to exclude another racial group or

religious minority may be rationalized in theory by a desire to gain a larger share of the social
cake, in the present and/or the future (Esteban and Ray, 2008). Such philosophies are usually
uncompromising and not justified by a logical choice but by comparison to other principles.

Namely the war that had occurred in the Yugoslav state, precisely in Bosnia. This war can
be said to be one of the Muslim massacres in the world that has been criticized by many people.
Based on people's assumptions, we can assess the origin of this war, which is an ethnic and
religious factor. But if you look closely, we can find some surprising facts. The Bosnian War was
one of the wars that took place in Europe, from 1992 to 1995. This war involved several camps
consisting of Bosnia and the Yugoslav federation. Formerly this country was called the Yugoslav
federation which consisted of several countries in it, but now the federation is divided into two
countries, namely Serbia and Montenegro. Although this war had an impact that could endanger
the world community, especially with regard to Muslim societies, fortunately the conflict in
Bosnia was successfully handled with various resolutions of the Yugoslav conflict. The existence
of historical differences and experience is one of the things that underlies the occurrence of this
war, differences can be found on all sides of the social life of the Yugoslav state. We can see
ethnic differences, racial differences, and also historical differences that exist. Of course, they
have one error that has, in the past, has been colonized by other nations. But apparently, the
difference can finally lead to conflict which is the cause of horizontal conflict. Not only in
society, the war continues at a higher political level, so that it can also trigger the occurrence of
vertical human rights violations. Obviously it makes people confused about the various conflicts
that exist in the country, especially in Bosnia itself. Not only are the battles going on between
Muslim ethnicities in Bosnia and other ethnicities, but ethnic clashes in the Bosnian state can
also be found. With more and more conflicts born, Bosnia's divisions were inevitable. Therefore,
various stages need to be carried out to resolve all the conflicts in Bosnia, and also Yugoslavia
completely. In this case, politics also turns out to be mixed with other conflict triggers, namely
ethnicity. One of the things that are unemployed to the people is that the leadership in the country
is mostly led by ethnic Serbs. This certainly raises a big question mark on the community, what
does this all mean. This automatically led to criticism from the community, so that a conflict was
born which was caused by racial and racial conflict. It is truly ironic, a political body that is
supposed to be responsible for the welfare of the people actually prioritizes certain races. As one
is worried, the same thing is starting to be felt in our own country.

It should give final caveat to the possibility of wars caused by the insanity of one or more
leaders. As we can see below when we address Schelling's and others' "spiral" theory of war, fear
of an opponent's insanity may also trigger a moral desire to strike, and the distinction between
moral and non-rational is blurry. We put these explanations in the rationalist explanations since,
because of their confusion about the rationality of others, it can be the completely rational agents
who end up in war.
 3.0 Conclusion

While the theoretical conception of the different causes of war is progressing well,
and there are numerous war case studies and the study of particular conflicts, there is still a
comparatively lack of systematic empirical research that analyzes the nature of wars in other
cases. A richer understanding of the origins of wars would help advance the theory further,
helping to sort out more frequent and important causes of those less so; and ultimately helping to
develop policies to avoid conflict costs.

4.0 References

1. Cioffi-Revilla, C., 1996. Origins and evolution of war and politics. International Studies
Quarterly, 40, pp. 1-22.
2. Ember, C.R. & M. Ember., 1992. Resource unpredictability, mistrust, and war: A
cross-cultural study. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 36, 2, pp. 242-62.
3. Ferguson, R.B., 1984. Warfare, Culture and Environment. New York: Academic Press.
4. Keeley, L.H., 2006. Book review of Otterbein How War Began. Journal of
Interdisciplinary History, 37, 2, pp. 261-262.
5. Livingstone, F.B., 1968. The effects of warfare on the biology of the human species. In:
Fried, M.H.; M. Harris & R. Murphy (Eds.) War: The Anthropology of Armed Conflict
and Aggression. New York: Natural History Press pp. 3-15.
6. Lopez, A. and Johnson, D., 2017. The determinants of war in international relations.
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization,.
7. Mesquita, B. and Lalman, D., 1986. Reason and War. The American Political Science
Review, 80(4), p.1113.
8. Otterbein, K.F., 1997. The origins of war. Critical Review, 2, 1997, pp. 251-277
9. Thayer, B.A., 2004. Darwin and International Relations: On the Evolutionary Origins of
War and Ethnic Conflict. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.
10. Turney-High, H.H., 1949. Primitive War: Its Practice and Concepts. Colum­bia:
University of South Carolina Press.