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At any time in recent years, there have been between 20 and 40 wars going on around the world. Since 1945, almost all of them have occurred in the Third World and almost all of them have been extremely bloody in large part because they are fought over race, religion, ethnicity, or language, which can bring out the worst in people and have led to some of the bloodiest conflicts the world has ever seen.
What Is War?
This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer.
Until recently, most political scientists defined war as an armed confrontation between two internationally recognized states that resulted in a certain number of deaths on the battlefield, typically 1,000 per year. Since the end of World War II, however, almost all wars have been civil wars fought largely within a single country and pitting the state against its domestic enemies. And with the launch of the war against terrorism following the 9/11 attacks, we are engaged in a fight that is not confined to a single region and includes a party that has no desire to gain control of any particular state. In short, we have had to expand what we mean by war to include all systematic political violence in which at least one of the parties is a sovereign state.
By that definition, there have about 14,500 wars which claimed the lives of at least 3.5 billion people throughout recorded history. Depending on where one sets the threshold for the number of deaths, there have been between 224 and 560 wars since 1816.[1]
Wars have also gotten a lot bloodier. Three hundred years ago, most wars were fought by poorly armed and poorly trained soldiers. Relatively few people died, especially in the civilian population. The industrial revolution, however, "modernized" warfare with the creation and spread of such lethal weapons as the machine gun, airplanes and missiles laden with bombs, and, of course, weapons of mass destruction. Well over 100 million people died in the 20th century's wars. Some of them were so-called "quiet crises" because they did not get much coverage in the western media, including the 1990s civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) which took 2.5 million lives.
Not all the killing involves the use of high-tech weapons. Most of the 600,000 victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda were killed with machetes. The New Yorker's Philip Gourvitch begins his book on Rwanda, "The dead of Rwanda accumulated at a rate three times the rate of Jewish dead during the Holocaust. It was the most efficient mass killing since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."[2] Rebels in Sierra Leone routinely asked their captives whether they wanted "long sleeves or short," and on the basis of the answer cut their arms off at the wrist or the elbow. Well over half the casualties in today's wars are civilians.
Sanda Kaufman discusses the ways that people in the U.S. frame the situation in Iraq.
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Last but by no means least, modern warfare typically involves parties with very different weapons and other resources. The fighting between Israel and Palestinians typically pits well-armed Israeli troops against much less well-equipped Palestinians, some of whom feel they have no choice but to resort to suicide bombings and other activities that are widely viewed as terrorism.
Why Is War Important?
This question is also not an easy one to answer.
There is no question that war has been a common feature of the human experience ever since the dawn of civilization. What is less clear is whether war still "works."
During the 1980s, the Beyond War Movement (now the Foundation for Global Community) argued that war had become obsolete. Obviously, people could go to war and did go to war with alarming frequency. However, Beyond War argued that war had become obsolete because it no longer performed the function it was invented for -- to settle disputes that people could not solve through peaceful means. Since 1945, very few wars have been fought to a conclusion in which one side won a decisive and definitive victory. In fact, when there was a victor, it was rarely the supposedly stronger side that won, as was the case for the United States in Vietnam. Far more common are the conflicts that drag on and on, becoming bloody stalemates.
It is not just peace activists who reached this conclusion. Consider, for instance, the words of John Keegan, probably the preeminent military historian of our time:
War truly has become a scourge, as was disease throughout most of human history. The scourge of disease has almost within living memory been very largely defeated and though it is true that disease had no friends as war had had friends, war now demands a friendship which can only be paid in false coin.[3]
What Can Individuals Do?
Individuals can do two main things about wars. They can fight in them, and they can oppose them.
Despite the growing consensus that wars cost too much in terms of human lives and physical destruction, it is by no means clear which of these choices individuals should make. If it were, we would not go through the intense political debates that surround most contemporary wars.
That is not true for a handful of people who consider themselves to be pacifists who oppose war in all its forms. Many countries, including those with strong military traditions such as Israel, allow certain categories of people to become conscientious objectors (COs) who are exempted from military service. Typically, applicants for CO status have to demonstrate that they hold religious or similar beliefs that bar them from participating in war. Typically, too, conscientious objectors have to perform some sort of alternative service, sometimes in the military, sometimes in the civilian sector. No country officially allows people to become "selective" conscientious objectors who would be exempted from military services for opposing only some kinds of wars. In most countries, people who are denied conscientious objector status and refuse to go into the military are imprisoned.
For the rest of society, the choice of what to do about a war is more difficult. Most are willing to be drafted (if their country has a draft) whatever their position on the war itself.
Many base their support or opposition on just war theories. There are many of these that lay out criteria that determine when and if a war can be considered morally and ethically acceptable. The best developed of them grows out of the Catholic tradition which emphasizes four criteria:
- The cause the war is fought for must be just.
- War must be the last resort.
- There must be discrimination. In other words, non-combatants must not be targets.
- The force used must be proportional to or commensurate with the injustices or other causes which gave rise to the war in the first place.
Others all but automatically support wars out of a sense of patriotism which leads to an attitude of "my country, right or wrong." Americans saw this in much of the early support for the war in Vietnam or the remarkable proliferation of displayed flags in the aftermath of September 11. The point here is not to argue that patriotism is or is not justified, rather simply to point out that at the early stages of a conflict, at least, it often includes an emotional, "knee jerk" reaction to an international provocation.
Perhaps most importantly of all, it is hard for individuals to unambiguously use any criteria -- including pacifism, concepts of just and unjust wars, patriotism, and more -- in determining how they should respond to most recent conflicts. It is hard not to sympathize with those millions of Americans who displayed flags and showed their appreciation to firefighters and police officers in New York who sacrificed so much. However, it is also hard not to ask whether the war on terrorism (at least after the fall of the Taliban) or the 2003 war with Iraq violated the last resort, discrimination, and proportionality criteria of a just war.
In short, today's wars are not much like World War II in which very few people in Britain or France had trouble deciding what the right thing to do was. As individuals try to determine how they should act, they increasingly find today's wars to be ambiguous in at least two respects. First, as noted earlier, they wonder if wars can fulfill their political goals. Second, they wonder ethically, if the ends justify the means.
What Can States Do?
In essence, states face the same basic choice as individuals. A state which enters an international crisis can either go to or stay out of war.
Only a handful of states stay out of war for reasons akin to those of the individual pacifist. Even in the case of Switzerland -- the country which has most assiduously avoided war over the last several hundred years -- the decision not to fight has had as much to do with national interests as with an ethical objection to war.
Indeed, the dominant theory of international relations, realism, holds that states should make decisions about going to war on the basis of their national interest. They should make rational decisions after determining the likely costs and benefits of going to war. Would fighting protect or weaken national security, including the security of its borders, population, and resources? Would it expand or weaken national power?
Despite the common belief that such assessments lead to war, a realist analysis has led leaders not to take up arms in many recent conflicts. Thus, the United States and the other major powers refused to send troops to such places as Bosnia and Rwanda because, they claimed, vital national interests were not at stake and/or the costs of fighting would far exceed any benefits they would accrue.
The decision to respond with force against the Al Qaeda network and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is but the most recent example of the way that national leaders go beyond the strictures of realism and include ethical concerns in their decisions about going to war. That is to say, there is little doubt that American and other politicians felt they had not just the right, but the duty, to launch the war on terrorism. Similarly, the debate in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate authorizing President George W. Bush to use force against Iraq was filled with references to whether or not a war against the first state accused of being part of the "Axis of Evil" was legitimate.
In the end, states also face the same kinds of ambiguities individuals do. It is simply not easy to either make those rational "cost-benefit" analyses the realists want or determine how important it is to act ethically, especially if the human and economic costs of doing so could be great, as they probably would have been in Bosnia or Rwanda.
What Can Third Parties Do
Here the situation is somewhat different.
Of course, other countries can decide to join in or oppose a war using the same basic criteria that states which are direct parties to a conflict have to use. Thus, in the aftermath of September 11, most western governments had little trouble supporting the United States in the war against terrorism on both realist and ethical grounds. A year later, however, many of them reached very different conclusions when faced with the choice about supporting or opposing war with Iraq.
But third parties -- including international organizations and NGOs as well as states -- can play a very different and potentially more constructive role. All wars end...eventually.
Sometimes (though rarely these days) a war ends when one side definitively defeats the other. Sometimes, wars end when both sides realize they have reached a "mutually hurting stalemate," at which point they begin negotiating the terms to stop the fighting.
Often, third parties intervene while the fighting is still going on to stop it and then stay on afterward to help keep and build the newfound peace. In particular, the "international community" was involved in one way or another trying to stop the bulk of the intrastate and ethnic wars that broke out after the collapse of communism. There have also been cases in which coalitions of states and international organizations have worked together to end a conflict, as was the case with the late 2002 agreement to end the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo which had taken about 2.5 million lives. However, there were many instances (e.g. Bosnia) in which third parties were not very effective, and many times when they might have intervened, but did not.
The Ambiguity of War
The bottom line here is that little is clear-cut and nothing is simple as far as war is concerned today.
Almost two hundred years ago, Karl von Clausewitz summed up the conventional wisdom about war. "It is a continuation of political relations, a carrying out of the same by other means." War was something political leaders could and should turn to when diplomatic and other peaceful measures failed.
A few scholars have tried to make the case that war is rarely worth the costs, including during the periods Clausewitz concerned himself with. Whatever one's historical interpretation, it is certainly the case that since the end of the 20th century, it is hard to make an open-and-shut case about the real political or ethical justification of more than a handful of wars. Many observers have come to share John Keegan's assertion that war has become a scourge, but perhaps an unavoidable one.
[1] Karen Mingst, Essentials of International Relations, 2nd Edition (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), 166-167. I have added one war to her total, since her book was completed before the War on Terrorism began.
[2] Philip Gourevitch, We Regret to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (New York: Farrar-Strauss-Giroux, 1998), frontispiece.
[3] John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Knopf, 1993), 59.
Use the following to cite this article:
Hauss, Charles (Chip). "War ." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: September 2003 <http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/war_unequal_power/>.
Sources of Additional, In-depth Information on this Topic
Additional Explanations of the Underlying Concepts:
Online (Web) Sources
The Costs of War.
Available at: http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/econ/documents/research/war.pdf.
This paper examines the costs of war from an economic point of view. The author suggests a framework for assessing the economic costs of war and discusses the costs of some past conflicts.
Fitzgerald, Valpy and Frances Stewart. The Costs of War in Poor Countries: Conclusions and Policy Recommendations.
Available at: http://www3.qeh.ox.ac.uk/pdf/oup/wau_ch9vol1.pdf.
This paper offers an analysis of the costs of war to impoverished nations. It is primarily an economic analysis, but covers a variety of angles. The report is aimed at helping policymakers understand how poor nations deal with conflict so they may develop effective approaches for aid in the future.
Hartung, William D. The Hidden Costs of War.
Available at: http://www.fourthfreedom.org/pdf/Hartung_report.pdf.
This report consists of three sections, analyzing the costs of war from a few different angles. The first section concentrates on the costs of the U.S.'s military build up and war on terrorism since September 11, 2001. The secons section offers a historical perspective on the costs of war, presenting a review of the costs of U.S. military actions up through the 1991 Gulf War. The final section considers the potential costs of the U.S. intervening in Iraq in 2003.
Williams, Christopher and Lee Yun Joo. The Minds of Leaders: De-Linking War and Violence. Westmorland General Meeting Preparing for Peace Initiative.
Available at: http://www.preparingforpeace.org/williamsjoo.htm.
This article examines several factors that influence a leader's desire, ability, and choice to go to war. It furthermore suggests alternative ways to think that will lead leaders away from choosing to go to war.
Offline (Print) Sources
Keegan, John. A History of Warfare. New York: Knopf, 1993.
This work traces the history of armed conflict, offering a variety of provocative perspectives. The author divides his discussion into broad categories including "stone," "flesh," "iron," "fire", which allow him to focus on broad as well as narrow aspects of mortal combat. Keegan addresses some fundamental questions about war such as why men fight, how primitive people did battle, what factors constrain belligerent parties, and the circumstances that motivate war. Throughout the work, the author pays particular attention to forms of weaponry and other aspects of the martial arts, including fortifications, logistics, and the organization of armies.
Wright, Quincy. A Study of War, 2nd Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.
Quincy Wright's book still stands as one of the seminal works on the study of war. His is one of the first efforts to quantify and systematize the study of war. It is valuable both for its place in the history of war studies and the insight it provides into the nature of violent conflict.
Forsberg, Randall and Elise Boulding. Abolishing War: Dialogue with Peace. Cambridge, MA: Boston Research Center, November 14, 1998.
This book presents a dialogue with peace activists Elise Boulding and Randall Forsberg, examining the strategies necessary to effect the end of war.
Toscano, R. "An Answer to War: Conflicts and Intervention in Contemporary International Relations ." In The Handbook of Interethnic Coexistence. Edited by Weiner, Eugene, ed. New York: Continuum Publishing, 1998.
The author begins by noting that conflict theorists must shift their attention away from theoretical frameworks such as game theory, weapons systems and the "theology of deterrence, and instead focus on the mechanisms that can cause, prevent or stop conflicts. He suggests that theorists should recognize the polycentric, puralistic nature of many contemporary conflicts. Click here for more info.
Schelling, Thomas C. Arms and Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale Law School, December 1967.
This book examines the ways in which nations can and do use violence, war, and threats to manipulate their adversaries.
Sandole, Dennis J. D. Capturing the Complexity of Conflict: Dealing With Violent Ethnic Conflicts in the Post-Cold War Era. Pinter Pub Ltd, April 1, 2000.
This book explores the terrain of ethnic conflicts in the post-cold war era, focusing specifically on the causes, conditions, and perpetuation of violent conflict and war.
Waltz, Kenneth. Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press, October 15, 2001.
This book covers topics such as international conflict and human behavior, international socialism and the coming of the First World War, and international anarchy.
Kaufman, Stuart. Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, July 2001.
This award-winning book presents an entirely new general theory of ethnic wars. The theory combines rational choice and psychological explanations into a symbolic politics theory in order to explain why people engage in ethnic warfare. The core assumption of the theory is that people make political choices based on emotion and in
response to symbols. The author applies the theory to several cases from the former Soviet Union and the Balkans.
Kaldor, Mary. New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
This work takes a look at violent conflict in the globalized, post-Cold War world. Kaldor argues that what we now call wars are a new form of organized violence (new wars) and are not like what we used to call wars (old wars). New wars, she explains, are not massive conflicts between states trying to inflict the most damage, but rather they are a mixture of war, organized crime, and large-scale human rights violations. These new wars, she argues, are fought for particularistic political goals and employ tactics of terror and destabilization that are outlawed by the traditional rules of modern warfare.
Suganami, Hidemi. On the Causes of War. Oxford: Clarendon Press, May 1996.
The author examines the origins of wars through complex interconnected and overlapping spheres.
Tzu, Sun. The Art of War. Oxford, OH: Oxford Press, June 1971.
Translated by Samuel B. Griffith, this is the ancient and still-relevant text of Sun-Tzu. It is considered essential reading for military strategists as well as anyone generally interested in warfare.
Mearsheimer, John J. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2001.
This works explicates the author's notion of "offensive realism" as he theorizes on the state of the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century. He argues that each of the great powers in the world seek to maximize their share of world power and that this will result in further wars. He tests his theories against the history of world politics.
Theories of War and Peace: An International Security Reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, November 1, 1998.
This edited volume is comprised of essays that address questions surrounding the causes of war and how they can be prevented. The work includes essays by leading scholars, on recently developed theories on the causes and prevention of war. Click here for more info.
Vayrynen, R., ed. To Settle or to Transform? Perspectives on the Resolution of National and International Conflicts. London, Newbury Park, New Dehli: SAGE Publications, 1991.
The author offers a different approach to analyzing and handling violence. He suggests studying the functions of political violence. In this way the issues of social structure will be incorporated in the conflict resolution process.
Click here for more info.
Shaw, Martin. War and Genocide: Organized Killing in Modern Society. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, June 2003.
"This comprehensive introduction to the study of war and genocide presents a disturbing case that the potential for slaughter is deeply rooted in the political, economic, social and ideological relations of the modern world. Most accounts of war and genocide treat them as separate phenomena. This book thoroughly examines the links between these two most inhuman of human activities. It shows that the generally legitimate business of war and the monstrous crime of genocide are closely related." -Publisher's Description
Black, Jeremy. War and the World: Military Power and the Fate of Continents, 1450-2000. Cambridge, MA: Yale University Press, April 1, 2000.
This work presents a history of modern warfare from a global perspective. The author examines the nature, purpose, and experience of war over the past 500-plus years. Black investigates the components of both land and sea warfare and considers the political, social and cultural impact of war.
Cashman, Greg. What Causes War?: An Introduction to Theories of International Conflict. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, December 1, 1999.
This book contains a theoretical analysis of the causes of war and international conflict. It contains a review of the literature on the topic and includes multiple schools of thought.
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Examples Illustrating this Topic:
Online (Web) Sources
Conflicts in Africa.
Available at: http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa.asp.
This page focuses speficially on conflicts in Africa and provides much background information as well as current analyses of conflicts on the continent. One may also link out from this site to information on a variety of other major conflicts in the world.
Focus on Iraq. Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF).
Available at: http://www.fpif.org/iraq/index.php.
This section of Foreign Policy In Focus, is devoted specifically to analysis of the war in Iraq and other Middle East events. It includes links to a range of resources regarding this most recent U.S.-led war.
INCORE Internet Country Guides. INCORE.
Available at: http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/services/cds/countries/index.html.
This page presents a clickable map that provides access to guides about conflict hot spots around the world. These guides provide information about internet resources on conflict and ethnicity specific to particular countries and regions.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).
Available at: http://www.history.com/.
IWPR pioneers cross-community editorial projects that supports the independent press in regions in transition and informs the international debate on conflict. The focus of the Institute is on the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Central Asian states, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. They publish WarReport, and offers electronic reporting and monitoring services via the web or email. This site is searchable and has an excellent list of links.
Sudan: The Continuing Costs of War. World Vision.
Available at: Click here for more info.
This paper analyzes and bemoans the ongoing and staggering costs of the Sudanese civil war. The war has been in progress for over 15 years with extraordinary levels of financial, human, and other costs.
Uppsala Conflict Database. Uppsala University.
Available at: http://www.pcr.uu.se/database/index.php.
The Uppsala Conflict Database is a free resource of information on armed conflicts of the world.
Offline (Print) Sources
Martin, Pierre and Mark R. Brawley. Alliance Politics, Kosovo, and NATO's War: Alliance Force or Forced Allies?. Palgrave, 2001.
This book discusses the role of international politics and alliances in the NATO action in Kosovo. Click here for more info.
Gurr, Ted Robert and Monty G. Marshall. Peace and Conflict 2003: A Global Survey of Armed Conflicts, Self-Determination Movements, and Democracy. College Park: Center for International Development and Conflict Management, 2003.
Brown, Michael E. and Richard N. Rosecrance, eds. The Costs of Conflict: Prevention and Cure in the Global Arena. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing , January 1999.
This volume seeks to address questions surrounding the value of conflict prevention efforts. The authors of this work present an analytical and methodological framework for evaluating this question. The authors test their framework by employing case studies of the costs of violent conflict and war in Bosnia, Somalia, Cambodia, and El Salvador.
Cranna, Michael, ed. The True Cost of Conflict: Seven Recent Wars and Their Effects on Society. New York: New Press, May 1995.
This edited volume, put together by a coalition of international humanitarian aid organizations, clearly illustrates the extensive costs of violent conflict. It reveals not only blatant costs in human lives and the like, but also some of the more hidden costs such as economic damage to participants and communities, as well as environmental damage. The seven conflicts examined are: East Timor, Mozambique, Sudan, Peru, Kashmir, and the former Yugoslavia.
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Audiovisual Materials on this Topic:
Online (Web) Sources
The Mideast: A Century of ConflictPart 4: The 1967 Six Day War. NPR. October 3, 2002.
Available at: http://www.npr.org/news/specials/mideast/history/history4.html.
This audio clip discusses the 1967 Six Day War. When it was all over Israel had seized all of the Sinai and Gaza from Egypt, the West Bank and all of Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. 1.5 million Palestinians live under Israeli control in these newly occupied territories.
Offline (Print) Sources
A Child's Century of War . Directed and/or Produced by: Saywell, Shelley. First Run Icarus Films. 2001.
In this film, children's voices from the past and present are intertwined as they relate the high cost of war. Click here for more info.
East of War . Directed and/or Produced by: Beckermann, Ruth. First Run Icarus Films. 1997.
Former Wehrmacht soldiers talk about their experiences on the Eastern Front of World War II.
Click here for more info.
First Kill. Directed and/or Produced by: Schrijber, Coco. First Run Icarus Films. 2001.
This film explores the psychological and emotional effects of war on humans. More specifically, it interviews veterans in its efforts to understand the seductive power of war, and the complexity of emotions that war and killing bring to those involved. Click here for more info.
Time of the Locust . Directed and/or Produced by: Gessner, Peter. First Run Icarus Films. 1966.
Critically examines American involvement in Vietnam through a compilation of American, Japanese and Vietnamese combat footage. Click here for more info.
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