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[email protected] IRCW 1 – Unit 5 Causes of war and conditions for peace Professor: R. Kerr Date: 14 December 2015 Number of words: 1.467 Putting an ancient adage to modern use The title is Latin, meaning if you want peace, prepare for war.1 This ancient theory might be older than Rome. It would be nice to know whether the adage holds some truth, but as Cox has famously mentioned; ‘Theory is always for someone, for some purpose’.2 So the better question to ask might be, who benefits from this theorem? I would like to create a better understanding of that question by discussing it in the light of different multi-‐disciplinary approaches and different theories on IR. The different theories that will pass in the discussion are separated in the traditional and the critical approaches to IR. Multi-‐disciplinary approaches There are several multi-‐disciplinary approaches, or studies, inquiring about war. They are War studies, Strategic studies, Security studies, Conflict studies, and Peace studies. War studies is most intrigued by the question what war actually is.3 Strategic studies fill more the pragmatic part of the inquiry into how power can best be applied.4 And while Security studies is less State Centric in its approach, only Conflict-‐ and Peace studies really have a position in Vegetius’ statement. They share their normative view on war, namely that it is bad and therefore should be prevented, and even avoided while preventing it. So while all studies would not necessarily support a preparation for war would as a means for peace, only Peace studies will take the position that Vegetius was 1 Renatus (1996), pp. 63. 2 Cox (1981), pp. 126-‐55. 3 War and War Studies (2015) 4 Freedman (2008), pp. 22-‐33.
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definitely wrong. They get their theorethical idea for this position from Galtung, who believes that social justice should not be sacrificing personal non-‐violence, or the other way around.5 Traditional schools of tought Aside from the multi-‐disciplinary approaches several schools of thought might have an imput in the adage as well. Realism and Liberalism focus on the systematic possibilities of peace and war. Looking at realism, it would say one needs to prepare for war to survive and to balance the international system. They assume that states have no real way to prevent a predatory state to keep itself from attacking those states. They do however see one option to decrease the chance that another state might start a fight, and that is by having the right amount of power themselves. It is still debated what this right amount of power is, either sufficient to keep a balance and thus create no hard feelings,6 or sufficient to make sure that the other states can, in their right mind, not consider an attack because they will lose.7 There are also certainly theories that would not see the benefit in preparing for war. The so called security dilemma proposes that a state preparing for war, to enhance its possibilities for peace, might be considered a threat and therefore be engaged.8 This could make preparations for war a very tricky road to peace. Liberalism therefore promotes a different path. They see two possibilities by which states would have a decreased appetite for war. One is through increased interdependency.9 This liberal argument would have that when two states are mutually dependent any attack on the other state would imply a lose-‐lose situation. The second possibility to increase peace is given by ensuring that the people of a country have a vote in the choice to go to war. Democracy would ensure that those that have to die will make their leaders think twice about starting a war.10 Combining this Liberal and Democratic argument should then create a peace loving state. There are however some anomalies in this theory. First of all the liberal approach assumes an inherently friendly world, where 5 Galtung (1964), pp. 1-‐4. 6 Waltz (1979), pp. 102-‐129. 7 Kreisler (2002) 8 Herz (1950), pp. 157-‐80. 9 Mill (1848). 10 Kant (1795)
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war is being started by misconceptions of anothers messages because everyone aims for the most gain for the group as a whole. Relative gains do not say much to liberalists. Secondly liberal democracies are apperantly not prone to fighting each other, the strange thing is that it seems they are more prone to fight autocratic regimes than average.11 Some supporters of the combined liberal and democratic argument (LDP) would say this is what is supposed to happen because wars increasing the liberal democratic spread in the world will help towards achieving world peace in the long run.12 It unfortunately seems that a systematic view of the world, whether it is realistic or liberal, cannot give us any convincing answer if we should prepare for war. Critical Schools of thought Because the traditional theories are not able to give us an answer, the realm of ideas might be able to provide some insight in the matter. An often given example for this point is that the traditional theories are unable to explain why the US would react differently to possesion of nuclear arms by North Korea than by Brittain.13 Since this is unexplainable in any systematic approach to IR, culture must have a role. It is therefore that war is not understandable by looking at material facts alone. The focus should be on ideas behind a war because ‘War is as a matter of fact an inherently normative phenomenon’.14 This ties to the ideas of the Copenhagen school, that trying to keep political issues from the security agenda is the solution to not feel those issues as a threat.15 Any preparation for war in their eyes would therefore seriously diminish chances to peace. After the importance of norms was recognised the next step that was taken, by Post-‐modernists such as Foucault, was to challenge the existing norms. Groups following this train of thought are known as critical theorists. To explain the critical in critical theory, Foucault argued that ‘Critique is a matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions (…) the practices that we accept rest’.16 In a way it seems critical theorists would disagree with the adage that you should prepare for war because they seem to 11 Doyle (1986), pp. 1151-‐69. 12 Owen (2005), pp. 122-‐27. 13 Wendt (1992), pp. 391-‐425. 14 Bull (1979), pp. 595-‐6. 15 Diskaya (2012) 16 Foucault and Kritzman (1988), pp. 154-‐155.
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look for alternatives. A well-‐placed critique to the critical position is that being against an idea should not hold the status of a theory because we don’t gain any knowledge from it.17 But Critical theory is more; it is a force of change in a certain reality,18 the breakdown of the consensual part of a Gramscian hegemony.19 Looking at critical theory from this perspective it does look like Marxism, LDP and some religious theories. This is because they all try to show clearly what elements oppose the reaching of their utopia and can work polarizing in that sense. Since none of them explicitly state that this world peace has to come about through peaceful means the critical theories, or at least some of them might well support violence to achieve their end state in a later stage of their development. Just like we have seen fundamentalist fighting for their religion, Marxists revolt for equality and our countries took part in liberal wars. In this way critical theory could turn into a supporter of war preparations, as easily as it might be able to find alternative outcomes to war, in achieving peace. Should we prepare for war? Looking at the different studies and theories we saw both supporters and opponents to a preparation for war if one wants peace. Peace-‐/Conflict studies are heavily against preparation, just like the original liberal views and the supporters of the copenhagen schools. All of them feel that too much will be lost for both contenders and they thus will not attack. Realists would disagree, because when you do not preparing for war is like an invitation to be preyed upon by states that are looking for a short term gain. More idealist theories aim at having people think alike and, in that way, take away the incentive for war. It sounds like the balance is tipping towards not preparing for war, however, the question that must now be asked is; When do we assume this peace to start? Now? Or someday after all opposing ideas are erradicated? Just as expected different studies or schools of thought give different answers to the question if we should prepare for war when we want peace. What makes it worse is that apperantly a single school of thought can also develop from not preparing to supporting war preparations while holding the desire to achieve peace.
17 Keohane (1988), pp. 393. 18 Hoffman (1987), pp. 233. 19 Cox (1993), pp. 49-‐52.
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Bibliography Books Bull, Hedley (1979), 'Review Essay: Recapturing the Just War for Political Theory', World Politics, Vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 595-‐6. Cox, Robert (1981), 'Social Forces, States, and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory', Millennium: Journal of international Studies, Vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 126-‐55. Foucault, Michel and Lawrence D. Kritzman (1988), Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 1977-‐1984 (New York, NY: Routledge), pp. 154-‐ 155 Freedman, L. (2008), 'Strategic Studies and the Problem of Power', in J. Maiolo T. Mahnken, ed., Strategic Studies: A Reader (London: Routledge), pp. 22-‐33 Kant, Immanuel (1795) 'Toward Perpetual Peace', http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1795_1.pdf Accessed 6 December 2015 Keohane, Robert (1988), International Institutions: Two Approaches, pp. 393 Mill, John Stuart (1848), 'On International Trade', in William J. Ashley, ed., Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy (London: Longmans, Green and Co) Renatus, Flavius Vegetius (1996), Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press), pp. 63 Waltz, Kenneth N. (1979), Theory of International Politics (Long Grove, IL: McGraw-‐Hill), pp. 102-‐129 Articles Cox, Robert (1993), 'Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method', in Stephen Gill, ed., Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 49-‐52 Doyle, Michael W. (1986), 'Liberalism and World Politics', The american political sience review, Vol. 80, no. 4, pp. 1151-‐69. Galtung, Johan (1964), 'An Editorial', Journal of peace research, Vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-‐ 4. Herz, John H. (1950), 'Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma', World Politics, Vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 157-‐80. Hoffman, Mark (1987), 'Critical Theory and the Inter-‐Paradigm Debate', Millennium: Journal of international Studies, Vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 233.
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Owen, John M (2005), 'Iraq and the Democratic Peace: Who Says Democracies Don't Fight?', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, no. 6, pp. 122-‐27. Wendt, Alexander (1992), 'Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics', International Organisation, Vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 391-‐ 425. Websites Diskaya, Ali (2012) 'Towards a Critical Securitization Theory: The Copenhagen and Aberstwyth Schools of Security Studies', http://www.e-‐ ir.info/2013/02/01/towards-‐a-‐critical-‐securitization-‐theory-‐the-‐copenhagen-‐ and-‐aberystwyth-‐schools-‐of-‐security-‐studies/ Accessed 6 December 2015 'War and War Studies', (2015) http://keats.kcl.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/1421205/mod_resource/content/3/LO2_ WarAndWarStudies.html Accessed 6 December 2015 Audio Visual Kreisler, Harry. 'Through the Realist Lens: Conversation with John Measheimer', in Conversations with History. 2002.
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