Knowing The Roots of War

Rudy Rummel has done me the courtesy of publishing this book on his website. The book is the first installment of the legacy of a 50 year career in foreign and defense affairs. In part it represents an effort to repay a country that provided vast opportunity for a boy born in a tiny house without running water nor electricity in the swamplands of North Carolina.

The work described in the book deviated intentionally from the common paradigm of the scientific school engaged in the examination of war. I hope that many of you will find the research of interest. For those with comments, suggestions, even outrage, I promise to answer all communications I receive.

In the Army, the defense industry, at RAND and finally in the Foreign Service I despaired of the biases, irrationalities and career concerns that unduly influenced bureaucratic decision processes. On retiring it was my aim to develop a book around the theme of dysfunctional decision processes and pursue ideas for improving these processes.

My mathematical/scientific background made it painful to write my observations and experiences on decision processes without reference to some objective record of experiences and events in support. I re-read Tuchman "The March of Folly," thought back to the data collection and analysis I had done on the political aspects of warfare as a graduate student at USC and accepted that many of the most important decisions made by bureaucracies involve going to war and that warfare is perhaps the only political process for which there are good data sets covering long periods and many political groups. BINGO! I decided to do a broad survey of the patterns in, trends and results of the efforts to manage political conflicts through the use of warfare.

This book is the result of that decision. Using my data set, which incorporated Wright and Richardson material as well as my own and melding it with descriptions from Kohn's Dictionary of War I assembled a data set of 1029 incidents of the political use of warfare over the six centuries from 1400 to 2000. I used warfare as a tracking mechanism for political affairs, with interest in how effectively it has been used and as end subject for study. I explored the data I gathered relatively theory free.

I had left the academic world despite a couple of rather attractive job offers because of a distaste for the narrowness of perspective of academic reviewers. Starting this work I did some reading, missed in my years abroad, and early on ran across a volume I am sure many of you have seen, "What do we Know About War?" The answer by a practitioner in the foreign affairs field to this rhetorical question inevitably is "Virtually Nothing." A community of very talented, highly trained people, were researching in great depth and precision issues so narrowly defined and so far from the real world as to be discussing triviality (in effect a misuse of what they termed the scientific method). I hoped in this work, apart from substantive results, to demonstrate that with a broader perspective and with a greater flexibility in the use of statistics that pulling together of a mix of traditional reading and statistical examination could produce results and findings that would be of relevance to policy makers. Briefly some of the major substantive findings are as follows.

High on my agenda of research objectives was that of looking at results of decisions to employ warfare as a tool to manage conflicts of interests. I felt comfortable scoring the results achieved by the party firing the first shot in warfare in some 500 incidents since 1800 - did they achieve their objectives that were in conflict, or not? This gave me a very large data set. I coded success and failure, not win or lose which can be quite different. I had another 200 earlier incidents that I scored with a lesser degree of confidence because aims were rather difficult to define in these dynastic wars.

Those who read my book will see that decision results are as bad as Tuchman described and I expected. Over a two hundred year period (when combatants were of roughly similar power levels) success rates, for the party initiating the fighting, have been steadily falling, reaching a level of about 25 percent at the end of the 20th century. Expecting the worse, I still found it shocking that with the loss of life of soldiers, the civilian suffering, the economic costs, the leaders of the world had so consistently failed in their efforts to use warfare to obtain desired results on issues in conflict.

The recent experience on the decision to go war with Iraq - bad intelligence, party interests, ideology rather than dispassionate analysis - seems to typify many of the historical decisions. Unfortunately without systematic data on decisions processes I could not document the distribution of reasons for the bad decisions..

I sought to explore this subject further and found the expected benefits of power advantage, success rates reached about 80 percent when a big power initiated warfare against a small nation. The data seemed to contain yet more information and I made some assumptions about moral values changing over time and found that superior moral positioning also produced better results in going to war, with a good moral position being about as advantageous as a one step advantage on a three point power scale. I am currently struggling with a paper incorporating this information, Paul Kennedy's observations on military over commitment and the cyclical patterns discussed below in an effort to define some of the forces that America must recognize if it is to avoid the fall from power which its great power predecessors have experienced.

In the one area in which I approached my research with a theory in mind, as I expected there were three major revolutionary periods - involving conflict over religious, political and economic systems. The revolutionary eras are separated by periods in which fundamental ideological disputes are rather uncommon. I demonstrate that in the revolutionary periods close to a third of warfare incidents, and these are more intense incidents, involved disputes over the fundamental structure of society compared to about five percent at other times. In summary of a very complex process, a period of relative quiet on the ideological front slowly lead to the evolution of a political theory aimed at reducing the unfairness/inequities in society. After some years of violent struggle aimed at furthering or hindering change in line with the political theory some changes would be accomplished and the long enduring struggle would result in warfare fatigue. The two effects together would lead to another era of relative quiet. After a time mankind in its struggle to ever create a more perfect society would start yet another reformist/revolutionary movement. We are on the threshold of a fourth revolutionary period.

I also examined the use of warfare by Islamic and Christian groups and found some unpleasant (for a Westerner) patterns of "peaceful" Islam if warfare participation rate is the criterion used. Huntington's work and my years in living Muslim countries had set me off on this.

Time trends in the issues in conflict is a another subject investigated. Although there has been a remarkable, and I use the term advisedly, constancy in the rate of warfare initiations for centuries, the issues over which these wars have been fought have changed quite sharply. A subject worthy of some concern is the extent to which warfare issue change in the non-Western World has lagged behind that of the West.

The work published here is primarily an examination of the facts of the use of warfare. However, it is not sensible to ignore the intuitive and the judgmental that emerge from a multi-year immersion in a vast body of systematically coded data. I conclude, rather sadly from my perspective, that warfare may be, usually is, used in an effort to achieve desired political aims, but it is as well an end unto itself used to demonstrate national determination and courage and it is a mechanism to serve personal and party interests as well. In some degree, I believe but cannot prove, that the low success rates I detected as discussed above result from my use of the overt objectives as criteria rather than the difficult to observe covert objectives.

Read the book. The methodology and the conceptual approach offer new horizons for studying the management of political conflict. The present phase in the discipline of rigid hypothesis testing, allegiance to obscure statistics and 95% levels of confidence is past, until broader theories are developed to guide such detailed investigations. For now it would be well to focus on the use of modern computer capabilities and simple statistical processes to enable investigation on an exploratory basis. The computers and iterative statistical work will enable the detection of relationships beyond the reach of the traditionalist's intensive reading and will provide the means for defining precisely the basis for conclusions making it possible to stride forward as the great traditionalists did, but with greater discipline on the detection of patterns and infinitely greater credibility on reporting of those findings.

This collection of papers is about the political environment in which warfare takes place. The analyses presented are feasible because warfare is more consistently tracked over extended periods of history than is any other single category of event.

Warfare does not, of course, spring onto the scene without reason – it is too costly, too dangerous and too risky, quite apart from the social prohibitions normally limiting its use. At least in more modern times, warfare typically erupts when societies are in conflict. Warfare is the ultimate instrument available to social groups to manage conflicts for which non-violent compromises cannot be found. Consequently in this interpretation that approximates reality, the warfare patterns of a time reflect the social conflicts of the time. The religious wars, for example, were not wars engaged in for the sake of warfare, but rather were actions undertaken in an attempt to resolve key conflicting interests. In general warfare will track the most important and intense conflicts of interest of the day.

The consequence is that the attributes of warfare, in particular the issues stated as leading to the warfare, may be employed to track and analyze social trends. It is not necessarily an unbiased track since it is expected that in the usual case it will largely be the most important and intense conflicts that will be manifested in warfare. Nonetheless, because there is a data base available warfare is invaluable as an indicator that may be employed in statistical work to track social events and thinking.

This collection of papers on warfare is also a collection on the major political developments over the past six hundred years. The evolutionary changes in warfare issues reflect the changes in social and political structure. The cycles track mankind’s, at least Western mankind’s, major thinking about structuring society so as to achieve maximum justice and fairness.

I devoted a lifetime, during the years of American supremacy, to foreign and defense affairs related work – as scholar, analyst and practitioner. From early childhood, when my father was stationed on the USS Honolulu in Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese attack, warfare has been an integral part of personal and professional life. On retiring from formal employment I undertook to consolidate knowledge and wisdom gained in a fifty year career into a detailed examination of patterns in warfare and violence over an extended period of history. The aims were several fold:

a. to develop as much as proved feasible a general understanding of the causes or Roots of War.

b. to study the results of decisions to undertake warfare to manage conflicts of interest.

c. to demonstrate an improved methodology for the development of this understanding of regularities and patterns in historical events.

This volume of collected papers contributes in significant ways to those three aims. Looking to the third aim first, some 35 years ago I left the academic world in frustration at the lack of reality in what was then being developed as the scientific study of war. In the years since then the rigor and technical skills of the scholars in this field have greatly improved, but the community is locked into a self defeating research paradigm that requires rigor at the expense of relevance. The methodology demonstrated here maintains a type of rigor, or at least of reproducibility, but places great emphasis on relevance. It uses basic statistical analyses, computer driven, to find a mid-ground between the rigorously statistical and the traditionalist.

Most of the papers presented here focus on the first of the aims listed above. Both analyses and conclusions are described in detail. The fundamental conclusions derive in very direct measure from the analyses done on a data base of descriptions of 1029 wars engaged in worldwide since the year 1400. The data base purports to be exhaustive of all wars of consequence that occurred during these years. Exclusive of pre-literate Africa and the Americas it is approximately that. The data in their original form are available from the work of George Kohn and from my work. Those who are interested can obtain a copy of the spreadsheet of coded data directly from me on request.

While most of the final observations made derive from demonstrated patterns and relationships found in objective analyses on this data base there are also important interpretations and use of outside (of the data base) knowledge. The interpretations flow from the data analyses it is true, but are not objective in the sense that they are not readily reproducible by others. I have attempted to carefully separate the interpretations from the objective findings.

With respect to the second aim, in a thirty year career at think tank, university and in the foreign service, I came to accept that in a bureaucracy insulated in the near term from the consequences of its decisions many factors other than the considerations which the bureaucracy is meant to take into account have a powerful effect on the selections of the courses of action. That is somewhat awkwardly phrased, although it is precise enough. In illustrative language, political leaders select courses of action that serve their chances of retaining office, conform to their personal ideology or support their party or factional interests in equal or greater degree than they do to serve the interests of the public they are in principle meant to serve. Bureaucrats perform similarly with retention of office considerations replaced with a more general concern about advancement and/or protection of career. I aimed to better understand war making decisions, consequences and failings.

I study in great depth here the results that political leaders have obtained in their decisions to undertake warfare as a conflict management tool. I accept in principle the Clausewitzian dictum that war can be considered as politics by the most extreme means and strive to determine how successful the decisions to go to war have been. The examination covers both the interim results of wars and the extent to which wars are terminated in a definitive manner.

The specific research work described here took place over approximately a four year period from 1999 through 2003. However, its roots, as opposed to the roots of war, go back to several years in the American defense industry, culminating in 6 very rewarding years at the RAND Corp. and to a stimulating exposure to the academic discipline of international relations at the University of Southern California.

When I set out on this work I had rather modest results in mind. The findings exceeded my expectations and I feel obligated to share and document what I have done. Accomplishing that documentation has been a daunting assignment. These papers contain most of what I have to say. They are written without critiquing from others and inevitably suffer in consequence. There is unevenness and there are gaps and of course redundancies. My efforts to open dialogue with scholars in the field of warfare studies did not prove particularly successful. My age and health dictate that I publish despite the flaws, a few of which I recognize. Offsetting the flaws is the rather large, even massive, development of new understanding and specifications of areas requiring further study about the subject of use of warfare to further national or group interests..

While I am not in any sense someone who might be classified as a pacifist, the fundamental conclusion that is inescapable is that quite in antithesis to the Clausewitzian model of the employment of warfare to manage conflicts, warfare has demonstrably been used, if you will, to mismanage conflicts. Society has need of and opportunity to seek means for better controlling the use of warfare for the practice of initiating warfare is inordinately costly in lives, disruptions and treasure and is shown here to be frequently a failure. It is my observation that this presentation of results provides some background that can lead to better control of warfare. Just as importantly it opens a wide range of ideas and hypotheses for further investigation.

The papers are loosely grouped into two sections. The sections are preceded by a sweeping review of warfare over the years. This review paper sets the tone of the research which aims for the broadest possible analysis and interpretation of all use of organized, political or sanctioned violence.

The first section on Analyses contains four papers on respectively, Management of Warfare, Christianity and Islam in Warfare, Historical Cycles in Warfare and finally an examination of the Trends in Warfare over the centuries.

The second part, Interpretations and conclusions, contains two papers which provide complementary summaries of the relationships developed in the analytic papers of Section 1. These are followed by a paper tracing the statistical cycles through history done in a manner somewhat more along traditional lines than is done in the analytic papers. The final two papers in this section interpret the structure of warfare and explore implications of these findings for society’s management of the instrument of warfare. These two papers, 10 and 11, are those with the most immediate operational implications.

A demi-section contains a paper giving an overview of the data and briefly discussing methodology.

War is one of the great contradictions of human society, sanctioning as it does the taking of normally sacrosanct human lives. It remains as an institution of the modern world despite its contradictions. The interest here is in documenting what we can about the roots (sources) of this institution as it has manifested itself since before the religious wars of Europe and then to apply that learning as we derive lessons for our generation that may help to ameliorate the inevitable threat of violence we will face in future years.

I can find no better way to start this study of the roots of war than to reproduce a conversation between U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger and British Foreign Secretary Callaghan which took place during the mid-1970s in the midst of an immensely frustrating series of negotiations over the ethnic conflict in Cyprus.

Kissinger: You know, one respect in which all the humanitarians and liberals and socialists were wrong in the last century was when they thought that mankind didn’t like war.

Callaghan: I came to that conclusion a few years ago when I saw the position in Northern Ireland, Henry.

Callaghan: There is only, mind you, a handful of people who do for a long period. Most of us like it for a day or two, but there is a handful who like it forever.

Kissinger: That’s right. It doesn’t mean that the humanitarians were wrong; it just means life is harder than we thought.

Callaghan: I don’t know what sort of age we’re passing through or going to pass through, but historians like yourself ought really to give us a rundown on it sometime and tell how you think this next half century is going to look.

Kissinger: I’ll tell you...I’m glad I’m not going to be running part of it. It’s going to be brutal.

Here are two eminent statesmen of our times as they reflect on the reality that they saw as makers of foreign policy. War is largely hated over the long haul, but it is widely loved for its excitement, at least for a short period. Perhaps loved is too strong a term; it cannot be denied, however, that war brings strong, often pleasurable emotions of fear, risk, success, excitement for many members of society. Apart from the substance of the exchanges between Callaghan and Kissinger, they spoke with the emotion of frustration as they were bedeviled by an ethnic conflict with roots which had been growing for centuries. The words spoken in their philosophic dialogue in the midst of shuttle diplomacy in the mid-20th century, certainly just as well characterize the wars of the new millennia.

John Keegan, widely respected as a historian of warfare, writes on the emotions associated with war:

The written history of the world is largely a history of warfare....war antedates the state, diplomacy and strategy...Warfare is almost as old as man himself, and reaches into the most secret places of the human heart, places where self dissolves rational purpose, where pride reigns, where emotion is paramount, where instinct is king. [While] Pacifism has been elevated as an ideal; the lawful bearing of arms... has been accepted as a practical necessity.

Keegan places peace on a rhetorical pedestal, as an ideal. Quincy Wright in the classic Study of War picks up this thought and rather unobtrusively refutes it On hearing of a conflict situation, people instinctively prick up their ears. ...peace is intrinsically less interesting. It is hard to deny that although we almost universally desire in principle to have peace and security, wars recur and ears do prick up when hearing of fighting. Yet the data examined here shows that wars seldom reach satisfactory conclusions.

I am going to turn to fiction for a quote that highlights an important aspect of this study:

Germany and Austria started the war [WWI]. They both lost. World War Two, Japan and Germany took on the whole world, never occurred to them that the rest of the world might be stronger. Particularly true of Japan. Ryan went on. They never really had a plan to defeat us. Hold on that for a moment. The Civil War, started by the South. The South lost. The Franco-Prussian War, started by France, France lost. Almost every war since the Industrial Revolution was initiated by the side which ultimately lost. Q.E.D. going to war is not a rational act. Therefore, the thinking behind it, the why, isn’t necessarily important because it is probably erroneous to begin with.

Despite the immense costs, the immense suffering which it brings, must we consider war an irrational act?

There has been endless speculation as to the root sources of the warfare that has characterized human history. This is a study of that question. It is, I believe, the first effort to use modern computational power to augment a systematic review of the roots of all, repeat all, incidents of significant political violence (war) between the year 1400 and the present.

What are the roots of war, where do its causes reside? I believe answers to this question are best understood by exploring the many different types of events of political violence that take place, not just by examining those that are often formally called wars. In the last six centuries just over 1000 significant incidents of the political use of violence (wars) have taken place. The range of issues over which war is fought is astonishing. I have reproduced a few lines of description from a small number of these wars to illustrate some of the variation.

Franco-Burgundian War, 1464-65, King Louis XI of France’s efforts to increase central authority met with opposition from French nobles, who formed an alliance to fight against Louis. Louis was able to get the lesser nobility and middle classes to his side. Nonetheless his forces were defeated and he had to give back territory to Burgundy.

Polish-Turkish War, 1671-77, Cossacks did not accept Polish rule in the Ukraine. With Tatar and Turkish help they made raids in this region. The Poles pushed back the Cossacks but themselves were forced to withdraw when a large army of Turks attacked. Turkish protection was given to the Ukraine and Podolia ceded to Turkey.

Demerara Uprising, 1823, British plantation owners opposed efforts by missionaries to obtain greater rights for slave laborers in what is now Guyana. Several thousand slaves rioted, raiding and seizing plantations, hoping to gain freedom. Many were killed.

Sioux War, 1876-77, Gold was discovered in a region held as sacred by the Sioux and set aside by the U.S. Government for this tribe. The Army failed in its efforts to keep whites from seeking the gold. Sioux anger grew. Indians raided settlements and refused to go back to the reservations set aside for them. The army moved against them. [Note: It was in this conflict that Custer made his fabled last stand.]

Sino- Vietnamese War, 1979, China had supported North Vietnam against the United States. The Chinese and Vietnamese were, however, traditional enemies. Vietnam began to lean toward the Soviet Union. When the Vietnamese moved into Laos and Cambodia and forced the Chinese of Vietnam to flee, Chinese troops invaded the area of Vietnam bordering China. They seized control of a number of areas. Declaring they had met their objectives Chinese troops withdrew after significant fighting.

Rwandan Ethnic violence, 1990-94, Seeking of power in a newly established state overlaid with the enduring ethnic hostility between the dominant Tutsi and Hutu tribes resulted in the genocidal killing of close to a million persons in a period of a few months.

These descriptions of war derive from several sources; however, the basic sources for the data on war are George Kohn’s Dictionary of Wars which provides coverage back to Greek times and the author’s own collection covering the time period 1750 to 1960.

In the above examples, the slave uprising over human rights is least like what we usually think of as a traditional war. It is nonetheless one of the cases in which society’s prohibition against the taking of human life was set aside; it is further an example of uprisings/repressions sparked by application of unequal rights under the law. It involved the use of violence to achieve, broadly defined, political objectives.

The fight over gold on Sioux lands is more formalized in a military sense, but also derived, as have many wars, from the initiatives of private citizens. Ethnic and power balance issues prevailed in the Sino-Vietnamese conflict. In Rwanda long enduring tribal hostilities produced a horror perhaps as bad as that of Hitlerian Germany. This more recent conflict carries many of the features of other modern conflicts.

Historians tell us reams about battles, kings and presidents, give us dates and describe in depth the disputes that required war for their resolution. The above are but a few examples to illustrate the breadth and complexity of information available. As these cases demonstrate conflicts often involve ethnic or religious antagonisms. Disputes over territory, over discrimination, over the right to rule occur from the earliest to the most recent wars. The summaries also show the need for a broad definition of war if we are to encompass the various social forces that underlie human conflicts. Slave uprisings, civil rebellions, interstate conflicts, even acts of terrorism occur and recur and are sanctioned as promotive of group interests, however mistakenly.

A war as the term is used here is any more or less continuous, significant use of sanctioned violence intended to contribute to the achievement of group political aims.

This definition is very broad, but it does exclude criminal violence and incidents so small as to involve very few casualties. There was more or less a lower limit of 25 to 50 casualties. When in doubt, I tended to include the incident in the data set.

I sidled into the research reported on here, following a rather indirect path. From early in the 1960s I was immersed in bureaucratic decision making in foreign affairs, although usually not over life and death matters of war. This book emerged because of a deep anger and frustration with the decision processes I saw and participated in during those years. It was with a re-reading of Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly that I recognized that the patterns in bureaucratic decision making which I had observed characterized at least certain events in the history of major political affairs. I looked for other cases of Folly and found a surprising abundance.

With many listings of wars, their causes and their results available an opportunity existed for a systematic examination of results from decisions to undertake war -- clearly a critical area of decision making. With prior experience in the study of war using statistical techniques it was natural to meld the two interests into the study reported on here.

The summary descriptions of wars, their aims and consequences which I quote above are derived from extended research by historians who are tasked with surveying as much relevant material as possible and as a requirement of their profession of making some sensible description of it all – even when sensible seems reachable only with imaginative stretching of the facts. My life experience is that often it all does not really make much sense. Tuchman’s term Folly better fits the processes I had observed. Decision maker Folly seemed to offer the element needed to expand the mechanistic conclusions I had reached in earlier research on warfare. Research which I had originally aimed at decision making in bureaucracy grew into this extended study of the roots of war, including decisions to undertake it.

If we look at retrospective accountings of how decisions to enter war were made, there is ample evidence of much confusion, the civil side of the so called fog of war, both in how such decisions were made and what outcomes were expected. While the title, Knowing The Roots of War, does much to define the aims of this work, I find that the following quotes capture the essence of a basic concern here, further defining the aims. The quotes may be truly called well said. K. J. Holsti quotes from German leaders:

After the armies of Imperial Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914, launching one of the most destructive and futile armed conflicts in history, Prince von Bulow asked the German chancellor why all the diplomatic steps taken to avoid the war had failed. At last I (Bulow) said to him:’Well, tell me, at least, how it all happened.’ He raised his long, thin arms to heaven and answered in a dull exhausted voice: ‘Oh if I only knew.’

Robert McNamara in a volume titled In Retrospect details with indescribable sadness how he participated in America’s disastrous involvement in war in Vietnam.

When John F. Kennedy became president, we faced a complex and growing crisis in Southeast Asia with sparse knowledge, scant experience, and simplistic assumptions. As time passed, we came to recognize [the situation] was far more complicated than we had initially perceived...We remained divided over how to deal with it.

In an earlier century, as the American nation saw escalating civil conflict over slavery and local rights, President Lincoln wrote I sometimes think...that our present difficulties might be settled without the shedding of blood. In looking ahead to that conflict realistically Robert E Lee saw a terrible reality of limited Southern capacity and wrote to a cousin grimly, I prefer annihilation to submission.

Bruce Catton writes further that these ...two men had the terrible capacity to make men love them...Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln....These two would be followed to the bitterest end. He goes on to say, The secession of the cotton states might have ended as a political-pressure play. [But it did not] ...because the only logic that prevailed now was the rough logic of chaos itself. It was that America stumbled into the bloodiest conflict of its history. The Union was maintained and slavery abolished, the price was high.

On December 8, 1941, Prince Konoe, a former prime minister of Japan, heard on the radio of the attack on Pearl Harbor. While most Japanese were reveling in the news of the successful attack, Konoe was despondent. A colleague reports that when he met Konoe, the latter’s voice was filled with dread and sadness. ‘It is a terrible thing that has happened. I know that a tragic defeat awaits us at the end. I can feel it. Our luck will not last more than two or three months at best.’

The premier Japanese naval strategist, responsible for planning the attack on Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto, is quoted as saying:

We can run wild for months to a year but after that the oil wells of Texas and the factories of Detroit [would mean defeat].

These are not distorted nor merely self serving descriptions, I suspect. As a mid-level analyst at RAND I saw, personally, some of McNamara’s frustration and anger. At the time, I had thoughts similar to those attributed above to the Secretary of Defense.

In a Clausewitzian model, as groups pursue their political and other interests, war is an instrument which can be used to further those interests. Machiavelli, Clausewitz and presumably those who would label themselves today as realists would explain such violent pursuit of political interests ideally as rational, presumably even carefully reasoned matters. Tuchman explores much less reasoned and rational processes in decisions to go to war; decisions such as those remembered by the participants quoted above. It may be that a reasoned model is one that we must discard if we are to comprehend the roots of war.

Japanese leaders other than Prince Konoe and Admiral Yamamoto must have realized, at least in the abstract, that American power was very likely too great for Japan to overcome; they went ahead with Pearl Harbor anyway. America did not know why nor how in Vietnam; America went ahead anyway. Catton asserts that events seemed to have taken on a momentum of their own as the Civil War evolved.

The memories cited in these cases, small in number though they are, convey much about war that needs to be understood. World War I touted as the war to end all wars brought destruction, defeat for the Germans and it brought on World War II. It was destructive and futile and was re-fought within a generation because it left more conflicts than it resolved. The Japanese lost devastatingly in that follow-on war, although many positive things came from the settlement of that war. This war resolved conflicts and even produced benefits for the losing aggressors (for those who survived). But clearly the Japanese and the German leaders did not intend to rebuild their countries in the mode that actually followed on the war. America accomplished little of what it aimed for in Vietnam and the war produced a repressive and archaic regime for Vietnam. Overall world system change, which the Vietnam war probably contributed to, did ultimately more or less resolve the issues in conflict. That, however, was not the valuation made at the time of American withdrawal. The Civil War preserved the Union and it abolished slavery on the North American continent. It found a solution to the conflict through near annihilation of the youth of the South.

This hallowed institution, of making war to find favorable resolution of conflict, is often strangely irrational in both its inception and its conduct. This study indicates that far more often than not that the sacrifices in treasure and lives that were demanded of the people did not lead to the favorable outcomes that were sought when they entered upon their political conflicts. If this is rational decision making, it surely is as well poorly informed. Apparently we must accept that wars are entered with hope rather than conviction as to consequences.

Yet, a scholar and leader as thoughtful as Henry Kissinger has said that it is historical fact that almost all significant changes in history have involved violence and upheaval, an observation rather similar to that made by Keegan. It is difficult to ignore that wars -- American Revolution, the Civil War, the NATO intervention in Bosnia to cite a very small number-- have been apparently necessary steps along the road to reform and Yes, to progress. It requires only a cursory review to find many wars that lead to needed changes.

Still and all, most would agree that war, as a process, is despicable and the practitioners of war often behave in inhuman ways. Leaders have sought war as a means to resolve disputes in their favor. The German Chancellor did not understand what went wrong. Prince Konoe knew the weaknesses of Japan, but his views did not prevail. McNamara made repeated pleas for better information on which to make decisions. The decisions had to be made anyway. Perhaps Robert Lee saw the future more clearly than others, but he lead his men into fields of slaughter for four years, almost accomplishing the annihilation he preferred. His vision of the future South did not prevail.

The managers (political and military leaders) historically have failed to foresee the actual consequences of alternative courses of action, they have failed to foresee how to efficiently manage the use of violence. Nonetheless, fighting for one’s people is widely glorified and be-ribboned chests proudly occupy our TV screens. So many of the folk heros from various societies wear the accouterments of the warrior, from club, to the chain mail of Beowulf, to the night vision goggles of today’s special forces.

Here is a human institution that from the record very often fails to meet the standards of functionality and rationality that we seek in our institutions. It must be considered one of the great contradictions in human society which places so much emphasis on rational decision making. Thousands of studies aside, the use of political violence is more widespread, but no better done, in the world today than at any time in history. This work records some additional learning about patterns in war, especially with respect to its management and roots.

Some 600,000 killed in the 1860s, 8 million or more died after August 1914, upwards of 40 million were butchered in World War II, and in Vietnam after American intervention some unknown millions perished. In each case the party deciding to fire the first shot did not achieve its aims in undertaking the war. Millions died in the failed efforts. These wars, as Kissinger implies more generally, did bring unprecedented and unforeseen change. Slavery was abolished, communism derailed, Hitlerian ethnic cleansing finally stopped. In many ways these consequences are the antithesis of the instigators’ aims. War often seems more a product of desperation than the pursuit of a rational purpose. Not infrequently it is a last lashing out in a darkness of vision. Yet, few will deny the social value of abolishing slavery; no one can decry the necessity of terminating the Nazi effort to cleanse Europe of the ethnic groups they feared and detested.

It is satisfying to be against war and to focus one’s analysis on its prevention. But, if we are to study society as it is, hopefully to produce evidence that has a systematic empirical base, we must examine wars not as undifferentiated; all are perhaps undesired, but some produce better consequences than others. Harking back to medieval thinking we may even differentiate some as more nearly just.

There are wars that society condemns. But, other wars are associated with needed changes and are deemed heroic. Periodically in history social systems became so distorted that the injustice and inequality perpetrated on the weak by the strong virtually demanded changes. And it was only through violence that the grip of the privileged classes could be broken.

The most profound cases of such constructive violence are those associated with the great revolutionary movements in society. The Church in the fifteenth century had become unacceptably corrupt, straying far from its appointed rounds as human shepherd. A hundred years of religious wars later a new, better balanced, more equitable and effective system came into being. Could the reforms have been accomplished through good will and good analysis, without the brutal violence? Probably not.

A century and a half after the religious wars wrought their changes, the monarchical system of divine right which was in good measure established to create order out of the chaos of the religious wars had become inefficient, corrupt, out of keeping with the economic systems of the day. The American colonies successfully, though violently, sought a system based on a theory that government derived from the will of the people, not from a divine delegation to an often corrupt dynasty. Soon thereafter France lopped off the head of a King Louis and over time instituted a political form which accepted Rousseau’s fundamental principle that the right to govern derived from the will of the people. Monarchies gradually disappeared and a better form of government more attuned to the times evolved. Could it have been done by telling the kings and their hangers-on that they were archaic and had to step aside for the welfare of the majority? Probably not.

Will there always be inequities which can only be corrected (in part) by violently forcing the haves to share with the have nots? As a realist I must give the undesired answer of Probably Yes. Perhaps war remains as a valued human institution because often when looking back those who survived see that their war ended with desirable, if not fully foreseen, consequences. Given this history, perhaps it would be unwise to universally condemn war, despite the emotional appeal of shouting a resounding condemnation.

There is as well much violence that leads to little of benefit. The youth who straps explosives to his body and dismembers other young in a disco, is eulogized as a warrior of the faith – so apparently it is for some not so young who drive aircraft, passengers, crews and themselves into the offices of those having nothing to do with war. Iran sent the flower of its youth to death in Iraq. These events happen, conflicts remain and it is difficult to see benefits materializing. Hutus and Tutsis butcher demonically and perhaps stop through sheer exhaustion with little resolution. Equally, we cannot eulogize war.

Human society requires beliefs, reasons for being, requires symbols which creates islands for self identification. Many are sincere in their adherence to their basic beliefs. Violence is promoted with a moral rationale made, but society often does not benefit. False prophets lead followers to disaster.

Others, power hungry seeking to become historical figures or simply seeking to become wealthy have corrupted these human belief systems and used them as the springboards to reach their aims. Saddam Hussein sought some concept of glory in invading Iran in part in response to fear of the Shi’ite revolution of Khomeni. He sought plunder in Kuwait. He found defeat and little glory. If there was a redeeming purpose here it has not been brought to the attention of the West. The perception is simply that of the use of violence to further the aims of a highly repressive and brutal regime. Hitler, Bin Ladin, and similar figures have sought niches in history and appealed to beliefs that would mobilize their people – they produced wars with little in the way of redeeming benefits.

Wars produce change; sometimes they produce needed change. Wars are heroic; the great commoner historian, Studs Terkel, essayed an entire volume about World War II entitled The Good War. There are nonetheless wars, to use a commonplace, that seem to have no redeeming social value. It is in this morass of good, evil, inefficiency that I seek knowledge and comprehension

We can neither condone nor wholly condemn war if we are constrained to judge the use of violence by consequences from the actual events, for war has as an end product produced good and bad as well as the death and destruction accompanying its execution. Moreover, as students seeking to understand what is, we can not fully condemn war when society accepts its use and applauds at least some of its results. Brutality and death are there; but it must be acknowledged that changes highly desired by society are on occasion there as well. Exploitation is there. As faulty as the institution is, society has maintained it, kept it alive and well. It is, I believe, necessary to step back and look dispassionately at the institution.

There are volumes written on the laws of war. In the 20^th century rules were established prohibiting use of gas weapons in war, prohibition on the use of land mines is now being pursued, prisoners must, by international agreement, be treated with humaneness. We now have an international war crimes tribunal. Millions of men and women serve in war making organizations. And they are in many cases honored as among the bravest and most admired members of society. Vast industrial enterprises seek the most effective and efficient killing tools that can be invented. War is proscribed except under certain conditions, but use of political violence remains as an unquestioned tradition.

The political leaders of our states, our nations, our ethnic groups presume that when the circumstances are correct, war making is to be pursued and to be sanctioned. War making is defined variously and its sanctioning is based as much on the power of one’s position as it is on any set of rules. It cannot be avoided that in World War I, in Vietnam, in the American Civil War, that in some measure the war was pursued because war making was a tradition that people accepted as valid and moral. The street celebrations that accompanied the decisions to go to war in World War I are widely recounted. War is an excitement in a sometimes dull existence; it is in the minds of many, perhaps even a majority, a personification of the national greatness – at least at its inception.

That is, I suggest it is not just conflicts that lead to war. It is a result of a tradition that asserts that war is an accepted alternative to resolve conflict favorably and that its conduct is a heroic assertion of the national essence. This tradition is maintained despite the vast uncertainties associated with whether pursuit of war will produce results that are better than compromise and perhaps even than surrender, when power differentials are great. Keegan, Callaghan, Wright are among the thousands who have seen the importance of the war making tradition in producing war.

In what must be considered as a classic conversation, Richard Holbrooke quotes Izetbegovic of Bosnia and Milosovic of Yugoslavia at a dinner party held during the Dayton peace negotiations in 1995. Holbrooke’s wife assigned the role of ameliorating the hostility between these two leaders of the Balkans asked them:

How did the war start? Did you know that your initial disagreements would lead to this terrible conflict?

I did not think the fighting would be so serious, Said Izetbegovic. Milosovic nodded in agreement and added. I never thought it would go on so long.

Holbrooke writes, It was a striking conversation. They both professed surprise at the dimensions of what they had unleashed. Yet neither man had made a serious effort to stop the war until forced to do so by the United States.

If there is one most important finding in this work it is that repeatedly wars are started with the most limited understanding of the probable consequences. Just as repeatedly wars once started are not easily stopped by the leaders initiating them. This tradition of seeking a solution through a contest of relative abilities to administer violence when no other solution offers much appeal is a root cause of war. Izetbegovic and Milosovic are only two among many, many leaders of our political processes who have not foreseen what they were about to wrought. Here is certainly a clue as to how we might contain violence and destruction even without totally exorcizing it.

In this volume I seek to understand and specify in ordinary language the causes, the roots, of the use of violence. I seek also to take a step toward understanding the accomplishments and failures in war. I do not mean to undertake the traditional investigation of whether this or that strategy or this or that general showed greater ability to win either battles or wars. Rather, I seek to start a process of understanding in Clausewitzian terms of whether the resort to war has historically been a useful adjunct to political aims. Can we understand the role of tradition, as opposed to hope, in using war to manage specific conflicts of interests?

As this is written terrorists kill indiscriminately and ineffectually, the West responds to violence with violence, without necessarily a good comprehension of longer term consequences. Will this war on terrorism produce unseen consequences as has been so common in the past? The thought of nuclear terrorism is appalling, but the tradition of turning to violence when all else fails is as old as mankind. Robert Lee’s statement of his preference of annihilation over surrender may have had an element of rhetoric; history suggests that other such extreme statements also hold elements of truth. Will we see more of the suicide wars with the use of weapons of today? I see no hope to abolish this war tradition. But, it does seem within the realm of the achievable to contain and control the use of that tradition. Much of the waste of human life and well being may plausibly be said to relate to ignorance of the consequences of the use of the tool and ignorance of how to use it. I seek here to reduce the scope of our ignorance.

At the end of the 20^th century the West had seen an unprecedented period of peace at home. Yes, after centuries of deadly internecine warfare there was a bright spot for the West in the final fifty years of the century as peace prevailed in large measure within the borders of its homeland. This Pax rooted in a fear of nuclear holocaust and sustained by the military and economic dominance of America may, or may not, be an enduring state

The Rest of the world saw quite a different end of the century picture. In the last decade of the century there were almost four new wars started in the average year and up to 30 to 35 wars, as broadly defined here, were on-going at some time during some years. With the exception of the years during which World War II raged, worldwide violence was more widespread in the 1990s than at any time during the past six hundred years.

In today’s world, the killing power of weapons is such that a few fanatics can cause immense numbers of casualties. With the recent rise of ethnic and religious violence there is a sharply enhanced potential for fanatics to seek to become the great martyr. We all live with this threat. Leaders be they dictators, democrats, revolutionaries, terrorists, all accept violence as the ultimate means for management of the key issues in conflict.

In rational terms it is suggested that some containment of the propensity to kill when all else looks unpromising should be possible, for the killing, in retrospect, has proved to be equally unpromising. This promise of possible means for containing violence by rational argument regarding its risks is set against the uncertainty of the systems that will be established in this new millennia. We are entering an era of great change with many new social forces which must be slowly comprehended and then addressed by the world’s leaders. The Cold War, which as understanding developed ultimately provided a kind of perverse stability to the system, is gone. There is no life or death ideology at issue among the major powers, a situation looked forward to for decades but one which on arrival has been found to create forces that propel centrifugally toward a highly fragmented and threatening power structure. This process of political fragmentation is accompanied, seemingly opposed by, global integration in multiple fields, a trend which is taking place at an unprecedented rate and perhaps on an unmanageable scale – trade, investment, media, migration, terrorism, humanitarian institutions.

The very basis for world order, the sovereign state, or better the sovereign nation-state, is, it appears, losing its conceptual sovereign legitimacy as borders are penetrated by multiple interactions outside of government institutions. Military forces, however, remain tied to the nation-state, or even to smaller units. Nationalism remains one of the fundamental integrative and conflictual forces of the world. We suddenly found, it had been there but unfound, on September 11, 2001 that a multi-national terrorist organization threatened us (the world). Of course, many have found the multi-national corporation and defined it as threat. In Afghanistan at war we found multi-national humanitarian, NGOs voicing their view of the war. Although the Taliban tried to keep the CNN, BBC, NHK, all but Al Jeezera, out of its territory, the multinational media operated in Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan and in the areas of Afghanistan not under Taliban control. Eventually the efforts at isolation failed as globalization had to be acknowledged even by this fanatical group seeking to go back 10 or 12 centuries.

A complexity that is essentially beyond current understanding prevails in this First War of the New Millennia as it has been called. We are destined to learn by the costly process of error and correction.

In this war America with varying support from others seeks to destroy terrorist capability with military might and makes efforts as well to win the difficult propaganda war. Will it maintain the moral high ground it started with? Do America’s leaders even accept that maintenance of moral supremacy, or at least equality, in the eyes of others is important to this most powerful of nations? For that matter, is it (moral posture) that important? The terrorist organization which is said to spread across 60 nations, seeks the moral ground of Islamic Jihad, will it prosper? The humanitarian organizations sought to portray a massive famine as at least threatening in the Afghan phase of that war. They sought to define their moral superiority as the true friends of humanity.

Another powerful part of the new globalization, the media, continuously seeks to portray a new crisis, new excitement, a new failure of the politicians with a cadre of often sadly ignorant anchor persons and reporters. Here at least one can discern a clear need as we enter a still uncertain new system. The media which seeks to be ever present, somewhat all knowing, should consider itself to have an obligation to be far better informed and educated and less pontifical. The urge to create a sense of omni-knowledge is in need of being tempered. There is every reason to believe that in Afghanistan, in Iraq the media dis-informed at a rate all too close to that at which it informed.

The East-West conflict provided a stable base for comprehending events. What new systems of thought will evolve to guide us in a period of ethnic terrorism? There are many questions and not so many answers. The fight against Islamic extremism, terrorism to many, is truly a base war for a new era. If the West prevails, multi-national terror will be suppressed, for a time only perhaps. If the West does not prevail, the next years are likely to see a new, perhaps more bitter resurgent Islamic/Christian struggle -- potentially a monumental conflict that could endure for decades. Much will depend on occupancy of the moral peaks, of which there are many, or few, depending on the observer. It is here that the international media is most flawed. Most of its agents know little of Islam, for they are largely Western. The media giants seldom have the courage to acknowledge the deficiencies for the competition for prominence is profound. Rather than reporting reality we find this major institution of the new globe reporting opinion on events seen through distorted and fogged lenses.

The end of the Cold War has released micro disputes -- ethnic, regional, religious -- in unprecedented measure. It has not lead to peace nor stability. The process of globalization itself seems to threaten new meta-disputes if the many demonstrations such as in Seattle, Davos and elsewhere are an indication of trends. Will, as has characterized past periods, the demonstrators on the left reach some unholy means of cooperating with the holier than though fundamentalists on the right? Will those demonstrators be supremely confident on watching BBC, CNN and others that they know the truth of which they shout?

Although under threat, the world’s political processes are as yet largely built around the internal needs of the sovereign state. Even the great nations with their vast obligations and interests throughout the world normally bring to power leaders who, if they have management skills at all, are skilled at managing the process of power acquisition in a domestic setting. As an American living abroad I often wince at the arrogance of statements by American leaders who clearly are aiming their words at a domestic audience, but who convey a message that is heard throughout the world. With democratic systems prevailing new, inexperienced leaders come to power every few years. Again and again a new leader must learn, after coming to power, about foreign affairs where decisions, interpretations and processes are usually far removed from that leader’s life experiences. The mistakes these leaders make while learning can be enormously costly if they involve war.

The constraining force of the cold war which kept some of the ethnic and other hostilities in check is gone. The result is a flowering of ethnic conflicts in Africa, the Balkans and perhaps the Middle East and South Asia. A former secretary of state notes that in the cold war, the superpowers had tacitly cooperated to contain conflicts, and this stabilizing influence is now largely gone. The system changed.

We have just exited a time period that is commonly referred to as the Cold War. In the vernacular of the time, the term Cold War is not meant to refer to an incident of actual fighting but to a long term conflict of interests between political groups which held sharply opposing and enduring ideas as to the most just structure for human society. Individual political interests motivated various groups during the years of the Cold War, but overarching the individual group motivations was the prevailing concern about whether socialist or capitalist principles should prevail. During this time certain regularized responses to crises and conflicts came to be expected; there were prevailing thought patterns and expectations that produced a kind of predictability.

One is not likely to be able to easily comprehend violence in its many forms without some appreciation of the prevailing systems of thought of a particular time. The Cold War endured with events again and again interpreted within the context of the Iron Curtain analogy that Winston Churchill put into our vocabulary.

There were other earlier periods in which enduring but different thought patterns guided the responses of leaders. Just over a century ago, there was the era of colonial expansion. European nations went to what in retrospect seems foolish lengths to acquire colonies that often could not possibly be construed as useful either economically or strategically. Such pursuits evolved from the prevailing thought patterns of the times, not from rational analysis. Before that era, the Eurocentric observers referred to the struggle over ideas of the French and American revolutions. For several decades European monarchs interpreted events with a fearful looking over the shoulder at the pursuing monstrous concept of government responsible to the people.

In each of these eras, leaders, and informed publics, saw many events as evolving from a fixed set of underlying forces. Until the end of the Cold War it would have been almost impossible to conceive of Russia’s predecessor the Soviet Union as an ally of the premier capitalist country. Yet since 1990, Russia and America have found several realms of cooperation. The guiding ideas changed. In order to better comprehend how conflict patterns recur and evolve, I shall refer to time periods of relatively stable driving concepts as systems, systems of thought.

Henry Kissinger is unusual in our times as having experience as renowned scholar and as a very highly respected foreign policy decision maker. He described these systems in the following terms.

International systems live precariously. Every ‘world order’ expresses an aspiration to permanence, the very term has a ring of eternity about it. Yet the elements which comprise it are in constant flux; indeed with each century the duration of international systems has been shrinking. The order that grew out of the peace of Westphalia lasted 150 years; the international system created by the Congress of Vienna maintained itself for a hundred years; the international order characterized by the Cold War ended after forty years...Never before have the components of world order, their capacity to interact and their goals all changed quite so rapidly, so deeply, or so globally.

He concludes regarding the uncertainty which must be faced in the new millennia by asserting,

Thus, in effect, none of the most important countries which must build a new world order have had any experience with the multistate system that is emerging. [balancing] balance-of-power systems with global democratic opinion and the exploding technology of the contemporary period.

Generally accepted systems (of thought) characterize international affairs. Such acceptance of a presumed regularity of behavior by the many actors on the scene helps policy makers to comprehend events. Currently we are in a transition period in which the rules for the new system are still evolving, giving greater than usual scope for misunderstandings of intentions. I will emphasize what I believe is a critical conclusion of Kissinger:

The wisdom derived from participation in past systems will often not be applicable to the still evolving system of the 21^st century. And by implication we must set much of that wisdom aside in looking forward.

It is with in-depth, systematic study such as this that we may hope to better understand the experiential wisdom developed in the past and be better prepared to develop a new wisdom base in the future.

It is often helpful to place a work into a niche so that readers may better comprehend its purposes. I will contrast this work with that of John Keegan who has written a widely acknowledged, sweeping history of the soldier’s war, essentially from the beginning of time (A History of Warfare). This work covers the politician’s war over a lesser, but still extended, period of time.

Keegan wrote as the traditional British scholar. He read, read and read, found the true relevant patterns and placed his conclusions on paper, an exercise that has been done for many decades. Such is a respected exercise with a vaunted reputation for intellectual excellence. In undertaking and preparing for this work I have read extensively, but less than some. I have, on the other hand, counted much more. In a somewhat more serious vein, this work is a very conscious effort to blend the strengths of the traditionalists with those of the modern counters.

The conclusions presented in this work represent a first with both the favorable and unfavorable consequences of that position. The results derive from a first, a statistical examination of all 1029 incidents of use of political violence in the years from 1400 to the present in all parts of the world. The systematic, quantitative examination and use of modern data processing are important parts of what I have done. This new computational power is employed flexibly to enable extension of the capability to comprehend patterns and regularities similar to, but far more rigorously than, the methods of the classical scholar. This is as well at least a near first.

I uncovered the recurring patterns of behavior through examination of historical events. I used counting to find those relationships and patterns. Consequently, I can say with some accuracy how often certain patterns prevailed, under what conditions, in what time periods and perhaps just as importantly when and where they did not prevail. Modern computers and basic spreadsheets enable this controlled seeking of patterns that supplemented human abilities to find the thread of regularity. At the same time it provided important controls against the researcher seeing the sought.

The approach to this tour through historical records is an evolution of the traditionalist’s approach to development of political theory, as adapted given modern data recording and processing tools. It bridges, as my career bridged, three somewhat distinct schools of foreign affairs – the practitioner, the traditional scholar and the quantitatively oriented scholar. It develops strengths from each and extends the scope of each. The statistical tools I employ are those most interested layman will comprehend readily enough, making the results of the investigation available to the community at large.

This paper is the core of the study of Knowing the Roots of war. It evolved from the original subject of investigation – the study of the making of foreign affairs decisions in government. Pursuing that aim I found patterns in these data that on first discovery were extremely hard to believe.

Across all time periods, in all types of governments, for any power relationships other than big/small, the party making the decision to go to war, that is firing the first shot in a war, has for two hundred years had less than a fifty-fifty success rate, often much less, in achieving its objectives in firing that first shot. Time-after-time, year-after-year, conflict after conflict, political leaders took decisions to initiate wars in which they failed to achieve their objectives. Based on a listing of 500 incidents of warfare that took place in a two century interval this provides a hard to dispute validation of Barbara Tuchman’s statement in the first paragraphs of The March of Folly.

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom...is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?

Why did successive ministries of George III insist on coercing rather than conciliating the American colonies though repeatedly advised by many counselors that the harm done must be greater than any possible gain? Why did Charles XII and Napoleon and successively Hitler invade Russia despite the disasters incurred by each predecessor?

Former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara makes a saddened assertion in his memoirs of the Vietnam War build-up that is strangely similar to Tuchman’s:

Readers must wonder by now...how presumably intelligent, hardworking and experienced officials-both civilian and military-failed to address systematically and thoroughly questions whose answers so deeply affected the lives of our citizens and the welfare of our nation.

There is perhaps no better way of stating the results found here than to assert that Folly Marches Onward.

The very first computer runs on the data collected here forced open new vistas in my investigation of bureaucratic decision-making. It forced me to stop and think back on the wars of my era. World War II, the Falklands, Korean Peninsula, First Gulf War, the Suez war -- we find that there are so many cases in which those who started the fighting did not find success. The data are not here to examine details of the decision processes that lead to such unsuccessful use of violence, although the quotes given in the opening paper on warfare do provide provocative evidence in a few specific cases of how poorly made were decisions that lead to the deaths of millions. Here is truly a subject that demands scholarly investigation.

The data I do have show that wars are commonly started that do not produce intended results, as often as three cases in four the initiator of violence fails. Digging further it is also shown that wars do not normally resolve the conflicts that brought on the violence. The prospects for re-fighting a war within a generational time period are very high. Wars are often even fought for a third time.

Extending the data some, I was able to produce indirect evidence as to a possible partial explanation for this pattern of failed decisions. It is not the direct evidence used in determining success rates, Rather, I used indirect indications to suggest that attaining the moral high ground is extremely important in the successful use of violence and that perhaps being attacked tends to give one an initial position on a moral peak, relative to the aggressor/initiator, accounting for some of the poor performance shown by aggressors.

I also looked at what I termed the suicide war, in which there was no expectation of successful resolution of conflict, rather the aggressor group had accepted that it would be better to die fighting than to submit. After a brief review I put this aside as a special case on which I had very limited evidence, but which is especially worrisome in light of the events of Sept. 11, 2001. In some measure such feelings of hopelessness are probably also a factor more generally in the poor success rate syndrome.

Because these results are so important let me review the main conclusions before proceeding to develop the details:

a. In several hundred violent incidents over the past two hundred years the party deciding to undertake the use of violence (firing the first shot) succeeded in its aims less than half the time; since 1950 that success rate has fallen to less than 30 percent.

b. Wars are fought a second time in half or more of incidents and frequently are fought a third time.

c. Provocative evidence was found that suggests that the relative moral position of the combatants is very important in determining success. This may account in part for the poor success rates for aggressors.

The results of the search for patterns in management of the war instrument are overwhelming in their implications. Leaders from throughout the world, for two centuries or more, have decided to send their people to the killing fields, uselessly!

I could have just devoted a few pages to delineating the frequencies of success and failure under differing circumstances and in discussing how often war participants return to the killing fields after a few years. I choose not to do that. Doing it would have deprived the reader of the sense of excitement I felt in looking for the truth and would as well likely have reduced the credibility of my findings.

For this paper, I am going to take you down the main thoroughfares that were explored in my research. I believe it will help you to understand, help you to see how regular the patterns are under so many varied conditions. While it will take a bit of your time to wend down these roads, some with dead ends rather than enlightenment, I believe most of you will enjoy the journey. I certainly did.

I had started this work in frustration with the processes of decision making that I had experienced in the Federal foreign affairs bureaucracy. My experiences in decision making were largely unrelated to decisions of whether to make war or not. Quite honestly, despite involvement with providing advice on the enemy’s strength in the Vietnam conflict, I had thought of my frustration with bureaucracy as having little to do with decisions as critically important as going to war. In researching bureaucratic decision making, I idly picked up an old copy of The March of folly. Although it had not so struck me when I first read it nearly 20 years earlier, on rereading I found a deep empathy with Barbara Tuchman’s railings against the folly of leaders in their decision making, especially decisions relating to the use of violence. I had somewhat, and mistakenly, scoffed at the work on first reading.

The rereading sent me back to reviewing writings on decision making in foreign affairs. I came across analyses done by Graham Allison and Morton Halperin and published in World Politics. They described a world of decision making in key foreign policy areas that was so very much like what I was trying to describe from my own experiences in the field of international economic assistance.

Allison and Halperin scoff at the ideal, that decisions are made from a focus on the interests and goals of a nation, the alternative courses of actions available and the costs and benefits of each alternative. Rather they list five propositions about how decisions actually tend to be made, such as, decisions in this model reflect compromise from a need to gain adherence...are rarely tailored to facilitate monitoring...and most tellingly are made because there comes an unavoidable deadline and ...often derive from interests of junior players committed to a specific solution and in search of a problem.

Historian A.J.P. Taylor writing on the same subject states that leaders use the past to prop up their own prejudices and John Fairbank argues that Americans tend to use history as a grab bag from which each advocate pulls out a lesson.

Robert Jervis continues along similar lines stating somewhat like McNamara that decision-makers use models of behavior derived from recent dramatic events to guide their judgements and consequently fail to apply fully their intelligence to some of the most important questions they face.

Former Secretary of State and scholar, Henry Kissinger decries the extreme difficulty of rational decision making in the face of multiple crises...[abstractly it was] an ideal time to review the situation... [there were, however] two obstacles... The summer of 1974 was replete with crises...May, the Syrian shuttle...June Presidential trips to Middle East and the Soviet Union...July...Cyprus, August unraveling of Nixon presidency, afterward the transition, Cyprus, detente, trade bill...stalemate in Middle East and culminating tragedy in Indochina.

My thinking on the bureaucratic decision processes which I observed as a participant in foreign economic areas reflected many of the factors that others, such as the above, have described in the area of decisions on the use of violence. I concluded this subject was a fruitful one for investigation.

To my frustration I cannot share with you, the reader, much about decisions processes directly in this record of incidents of violence. I am only able to look at the results of those decisions. Those results which presumably come from faulty decision processes are alarming. I believe these findings will be provocative to scholar and practitioner alike.

In this exercise I was interested in the political management, not the military management, of the use of violence. The data set I had available for these reviews was massive in scale, although not originally developed for the purposes to which I put it. Uncertainty levels are greater than perhaps usual, but the relationships are very strong and the uncertainty levels are not such as to threaten in anyway the conclusions.

1) how often and under what conditions did decisions to initiate violence lead to successful achievement of objectives?

2) were wars brought to a conclusion by successful resolution of the issues at hand?

Let us take that first road together. As an initial step, I had examined outcomes in all non-civil fights that took place in the second half of the 20^th century, about 50 in number. I felt the examination of results in this most recent time period would likely produce the most relevant findings. In these conflicts, the initiator of the fighting was coded as winning or not winning. Not winning is not quite the same as losing – failing to achieve objectives such as acquiring control of territory (not winning) can and frequently does occur without losing. Such outcomes were coded as not winning. I have interpreted not winning as failure since the apparent reasons for undertaking violence were not realized. This assumption leads to a very important consequence, which is that of the potential for there being a difference between failing and losing, although in practice they are often the same. Nonetheless, the results I discuss here are of failure to reach objectives, not of losing.

The party that fired first, declared war with no previous hostilities or undertook an act of very strong provocation was coded as the initiator. I excluded civil conflicts because I often did not see a reliable way of deciding whether a participant won, or not, in such conflicts. The question of win/not win seemed less murky when the participants were from clearly identifiable, separate political groups. Where feasible I also coded whether the attacked party achieved its apparent objectives or not, on the same grounds as used for the initiating party.

The results from the first step I took of looking at the wars that had occurred since 1939, were startling. The party firing the first shot – the direct initiator -- failed to win in over 70 percent of incidents. I had expected a good deal of decision maker Folly but nothing like this. It was clear that I needed to look much more closely at this pattern of the initiator losing with such a high frequency to see if there were intervening variables that were creating some sort of a spurious relationship.

The data were sitting there on my computer available to be sliced up in any reasonable way that I saw fit. I did not feel the earliest incidents in the data base, those before 1800, would tell me much of value on the management of use of violence in the modern world. To expand the analysis, I undertook to code the outcome of all non-civil wars since 1800. I split the data into four half century intervals. Examination of these four intervals did begin to show somewhat of a change in the relationship. The initiator still failed to win as often as not, but did noticeably better in the first part of the 19^th Century when prevailing values on international conflict were somewhat different than is true today. From 1800 to 1850 the initiator won, on its own terms, in just over half of the incidents recorded. This was still not a very good record, for it is hard to accept that the leadership apparatus of a political group could undertake to kill and to have its group members killed without a better judgement as to whether there would be success or not. I still needed to look further. Moreover, I was most interested in the more current events for which results from initiating fighting seemed to be even worse.

Examining the data case by case showed a considerable number of instances in which relatively backward, technologically, groups were attacking more advanced groups – American Indians against settlers of Western origin and African tribes against British, French and Germans. I thought that perhaps these events were biasing the results, for seldom did these tribal groups succeed in their desperate attempts to halt penetration of their lands by the people of Western heritage. They were initiators in many cases that had failed. (I will come back to this type of war under the label suicide war later)

Splitting the data into Western (a term used as broader than European) and Non-Western groups softens the results somewhat but leave them unchanged in my mind. Leaders have started wars, for whatever reason, that they have had a high rate of not winning.

In this sample, the Western nations when they initiated fighting had a success record of 52 win/48 not win – a rate that is still low in my view given the costs and risks involved. Western nations that were attacked, often this involved attacks by less developed societies, won almost 80 percent of the time. Interestingly, Non-Western groups, that were almost sure to lose if they initiated the attack, had an almost 50/50 chance of winning when they were attacked. This pattern of high rates of win by the injured party remains throughout almost all of the cases examined. This is a pattern I later examined under the concept of holding the moral high ground.

One further test I did along this line was to look at 72 cases of Western against Western (this was presumed to control for modernity differences) and I found that the attacker reached its goals in 11 of 34 cases (32 percent of the time) while the attacked party was not defeated in 29 of 38 cases (76 percent of the time). While the power difference of Western compared to non-Western during this time, helped to explain the pattern of Western successes against non-Western groups there was still a puzzling pattern of the very high rate of not winning when Western attacked other Western.

I undertook to code once again all of the incidents that occurred during the 19^th and 20^th Centuries. In this effort I added power ranking using a three point scale based on my judgement as to whether the group was a big power, middle power or small power. Finally, a part of the data began to better fit my preconceptions. When there was a two step power difference, small-big, or big-small, the big power won 60 to 80 percent of the time, regardless of which party initiated the fighting. I expected even larger margins of success, but 80% did seem more plausible than the earlier numbers I had examined.

However, the pattern of initiator very frequently failing to reach its goals still held for the cases that I had coded as having a one step or zero step power differential, in both the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The following two tables record the findings that I developed.

While in the 19^th century the attacker won less often than the attacked party, the difference was generally not very great except when power levels were similar. In all combinations the attacking party does much worse relative to the attacked party in the 20^th century than in the 19^th century. Something clearly has changed. My belief is that with the spread of representative government, the need to mobilize the will of the people has become more important. If another party initiates warfare, it seems likely that a greater will to resist will emerge. I suspect as well the moral high ground factor is involved. The break-up of colonial relationships results in the higher success rates for the weaker power that are shown in 20^th century data. Refer to the section below on the moral high ground for some further exploration of this subject.

There is also a different world value system in which aggressive war is constrained by the legal authority of the UN.

An unweighted average for both centuries and for all zero or one step power difference combinations gives the result in the table which follows.

For 535 combatants (there is some redundancy in the rows in the tables), over 230 wars, during a two century period, excluding big power/small power fights, the initiating party failed to win two thirds of the time, while the attacked party won in over 60 percent of the incidents. This is a remarkable finding in my judgement. It needs to be verified with further research. However, I am convinced that the pattern shown is essentially that which will come from any further investigations of these or other data.

Nonetheless, coding of some of the cases is difficult. I felt it useful to go back and do the same exercise for the 18^th century data even though the political systems are less relevant for modern circumstances. The results are in the following table. Coding of win/not win was even more difficult for the complex dynastic wars of Europe in the 18^th century. Nonetheless, results tend to track along the same pattern as for the 19^th and 20^th centuries. For zero or one step power differences, about two thirds of the time the party starting the fighting does not win its objectives. For the attacked party win rates are lower in this earlier time period primarily because of a greater prevalence of wars being terminated with no clear result. As in the data presented above, for cases of two step power difference (big/small) the big power wins about 80 percent of the time, regardless of which party initiated the fighting.

If one assumes that undertaking fighting was, or should have been, done with the expectation of achieving objectives (winning in these terms), the decision making apparatus has failed miserably. Given the costs of wars in lives and treasure, win rates of 70 to 80 percent would seemingly be the lower edge of what would be classed as good performance by leaders. If one is not reasonably certain of achieving objectives, the logical choice seemingly would be to never start the fight.

Except for the separation out by large power differences between the combatants these results seem to hold in all conditions. Moreover, the indication is for the initiator to do significantly worse in the later time periods – especially in the second half of the 20^th Century.

To further explore this question, I speculated that more stable and stronger governments make better decisions. To determine if this were true, I looked at results for monarchies, democracies, dictatorships. Let me note an important consideration here. To develop rigorous definitions of democracy, monarchy, etc. over this time period, the coding would have taken far more time than a single researcher could reasonably devote to the task. I have a sound knowledge of politics and history and knew I could code many cases from on-hand knowledge. I chose to do that. It means on the one hand exploring subjects that would otherwise be beyond the resources of an individual researcher and on the other hand of getting some erroneous classifications. I think that on the order of 90 percent of my classifications are correct. This rate of errors, if attained as I believe it was, would have had no effect on the patterns of trends and relationships shown here.

The tables generated from this data set and shown below demonstrate the expected pattern that democracies produce better leadership results than do either monarchies or dictatorships. In the 19^th century, probably due to greater legitimacy of kingdoms at that time, monarchies do better than dictatorships. I show separate tables for the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, the patterns are quite similar with respect to the types of government involved. Democracies produce the best results, but they are not particularly good results for the 20^th century. Of considerable interest is the lower rates of success for all types of government for the 20^th century, compared to the 19^th. Again, I think it may relate to the rise in representative government and that in such “people’s governments” it is easier to mobilize a war effort if the other party is the attacker. Many ascribe such thinking to Franklin Roosevelt who needed aggressive actions by an Axis Power to bring America into World War II on the best possible public attitude terms, into a war that he was convinced had to be fought.

*the results for this time period are influenced by a high frequency of wars against groups that were technologically less advanced, especially for the major democracies, the US and the UK.

As a special case, I examined separately the small sample of events after 1984. During these years there were no incidents involving monarchies. Dictatorships fail to win 7 out of 7 of the wars they were involved in, while democracies win 8 of 9 of their wars. But, this is a very small sample.

Part of the pattern initially observed can be statistically explained by a knowledge of political form. Democracies do better, but not all that great. Democracies appear to be not all that peaceable, despite some claims. Democracies start just under half of the wars they fight. Dictators start about 60 percent of wars they engage in. This is a surprisingly small difference.

He who makes the decision to fire the first shot is likely to fail to achieve apparent objectives unless possessing an over whelming power advantage. He who is attacked has a good win rate (up to 70%).

As my overall study of violence progressed it was increasingly clear that a major component underlying patterns in warfare was human basic beliefs. This should not be surprising since killing and risking being killed involve both the universal sanctions against taking of human life and the universal wish to protect one’s own life. Initially I had related the starting of wars to the belief, or moral, structure of the conflict, but I had not posited the same relationship for the rate of success in warfare

When the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington happened and the prospect for conflict between Islam and Christianity was discussed people began to talk of relative moral position as very important in achieving success. I had, previously, vaguely thought that in part the poor success rates of the parties initiating conflicts as shown here might be attributed to the moral opprobrium attached to being classed as the aggressor. It struck me, after September 11, that some of the data I had available should make it possible to examine at least roughly how important holding other aspects of the moral high ground has been.

With the data I had readily available on a spreadsheet, it was not difficult to go back and sort information into win and not win categories. What I needed was some index that would allow me to specify the moral position of the combatants. Somewhat through the back door I was able to make such classifications in a manner I believe to be satisfactory for preliminary investigation. The classification derived from the different systemic values between the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Balance of power politics was still widely practiced and a relatively acceptable behavior for nations in the 19^th century. It was the right of monarchies to pursue their interests by means of force. K. J. Holsti notes [In the European tradition] War... was highly institutionalized. It was recognized as a legitimate form of statecraft, to be used at the decision of dynast...to advance state interests, including the honor and prestige of the monarch. Changes were beginning to be felt following the American and French revolutions. But, changing systemic views largely awaited the 20^th century [in modern times] Quincy Wright observes War has tended...to be regarded as more abnormal and more in need of rational justification. Thus, I accepted a presumption that it was morally more acceptable to initiate war in the 19^th century than it has become in the 20^th.

And it was not only with respect to the right to wage war for reasons of power and prestige that changes were occurring. In the 20^th century the spread of representative governments brought with it the belief in rights of national self determination, of greater racial equality and eventually a proclamation of universal human rights.

We are familiar enough with current moral values, but perhaps have forgotten some of our university history lessons on attitudes that were common in the 19^th century. The following quote from the 19^th century German philosopher Treitschke eloquently describes widely held feelings of this time regarding the rights of people and nations:

All great nations in the fullness of their strength have desired to set their mark upon barbarian lands. All over the globe today we see the peoples of Europe creating a mighty aristocracy of the white races. Those who take no share in this great rivalry will play a pitiable part in time to come. The colonizing impulse has become a vital question for a great nation...The consequences of the last half century have been appalling for in them England has conquered the world... It is the short-sightedness of the opponents of our colonial policy which prevents them from understanding that the whole position of Germany depends upon the number of German speaking millions in the future.

Such a view is difficult to reconcile with the values on issues of human rights, racial equality, national self determination and some equality of opportunity which are features of the 20^th century belief landscape. Even the noted realist Henry Kissinger observes, After a series of ups and downs, the Western Hemisphere seems on the verge of turning into a key element of a new and humane global order. A group of democratic nations has pledged itself to popular governments, market economies, and hemisphere-wide free trade.

These changes of course did not occur over night and do not coincide precisely with the turns of the centuries. But breaking the data into two parts on a century basis is convenient and proved a reasonable division based on change in values. If my assumptions regarding the effect of moral high ground on aggressor success rates is valid, I would expect relationships regarding issues in war to be different between the two centuries. The next step was to look at these relationships over time.

All were coded as either a yes or a no. I considered the first two of these variables as indicative of pursuit of traditional power politics and the final three as representative of concerns closer to the humanitarian focus of the 20^th century.

Assuming that being the aggressor gave one a moral disadvantage, I thought it possible that presence of one or more of these factors could either further degrade the moral position of the aggressor, or possibly be offsetting factors, depending on the issues. I made the following presumptions:

1. Pursuit of power politics would not be particularly disadvantageous to an aggressor

1. Pursuit of power politics would put an aggressor in an even more disadvantageous position

2. Pursuit of humanitarian issues would offer compensating moral value that would in some measure offset the disadvantage of being an aggressor.

To make a preliminary test on these presumptions I combined variables a) and b) into a single index of power (realpolitik) politics and variables c), d) and e) into a second, humanitarian index. I then examined the success rates for initiators in the two centuries.

The results are as expected. Being an aggressor should have been a minor disadvantage in an era when power politics was considered acceptable. Moreover, prevalent beliefs regarding racial inferiority of non-Western peoples should have meant that there was little advantage for an aggressor to pursue humanitarian issues of national self determination, racial equality of opportunity and so forth. The data show just such results in terms of success rates:

humanitarian objectives offer a large advantage, partly offsetting the aggression effect

With respect to realpolitik, aggressors should find relatively little disadvantage in pursuit of power politics in the 19^th century and experience major disadvantages in the 20^th century. The statistical results are consistent with expectations.

an aggressor pursuing power politics does well compared to other periods, winning almost forty percent of the time

Although the data employed here do not directly reflect the moral base of the combatants I believe the patterns of the relationships do give a good indication of the importance of a moral base in war. In today’s world the aggressors, all other things equal, have done very poorly. Today, a group starting war over power issues has done even more poorly and has almost always failed. In the 20^th century moral correctness is derived from humanitarian factors. An aggressor, when fighting over issues with a humanitarian base, has had almost a 35 percentage point advantage over the aggressor not pursuing such factors. Again for the 20^th century the aggressor undertaking a contest over power issues has lost about 35 percentage points in success rate. These percentages represent huge differences in success rates. I feel one must be cautious in accepting these relationships because the implications are of such a powerful effect. On the other hand, when I coded these data I had no expectation of using them in this way, consequently I believe it is very unlikely that any bias was introduced in the coding.

I am inferring relationships using the 20^th century data. However, by looking at the relationships between success rates and the same war issues for the 19^th century, I can test to see if the moral base assumptions that I make are consistent for the systemic views held in the earlier time. The examination of results for the 19^th century tends to validate the interpretation that the shown empirical relationships derive from relative moral positions of the combatants. With the acceptance of a belief in racial superiority of the European that was widespread in the 19^th century, the humanitarian issues recorded here as reasons for fighting did not give the initiating party the needed moral advantage. Consequently the aggressor had only a 40/60 chance of winning regardless of humanitarian issues. At the same time, the aggressor did not incur much additional moral burden in wars fought over power issues. The relationships shown are consistent with the interpretation and are sharply different for the two centuries.

A fundamental question the answer to which will determine much about our future in the 21^st century is that of what will be the moral basis for warfare mobilization in the coming years? Will Islamic fundamentalism or Christian human rights, or neither prevail?

It was also possible to use the data I had developed to roughly explore possible interaction between relative power levels and moral positions of the combatants. I had previously shown the effects of relative power on success rates. In the following table I make an effort to see how great the effect is of the moral position (as I interpret these data) compared to the power position.

	19^th century	20^th century
	Start Fight, % Win	Start Fight, % Win
Power-same	39	19
Power, 1 step advantage	64	33
Power, 2 step advantage	82	57
Realist Issues- Low	38	55
Realist Issues-High	45	18
Humanitarian Issues-Low	40	13
Humanitarian Issues-High	41	46

Each power step advantage averaged giving about a 20 percentage points increase in expected win rate. Overall win rates were, as noted, lower in the 20^th century for the aggressor, but the power step differential is similar. As expected neither the realist/power issues nor the humanitarian issues were strongly related to success rates in the 19^th century. However, in the 20^th century pursuit of realist/power issues by the aggressor had a negative effect of 30 or more percentage points on success rate, while pursuit of humanitarian issues produced a positive 30 percentage points.

These numbers seem rather large to me and on the grounds of common sense I would treat them with caution. Unfortunately the sample sizes are not such that I can do power differential and issue variations together. If I make a linear arithmetic interpretation in the 20^th century, to fight over humanitarian issues is worth 1 to 1.5 steps in power difference, while to pursue power politics results in a similar virtual loss in power position.

The conclusions I reach seem valid as to the direction of the effect, but because of the very strong effect and the practical importance of the relationships further investigation is certainly required. Nonetheless, as a war manager, there is very plausible evidence that maintenance of the best possible moral position can be extremely important in improving the probability of success.

The above reflections are based on the assumption of a rational effort by the war initiator to achieve certain objectives. The events of September 11, 2001 brought an abrupt message that rational pursuits are not always the case. On that date a group of 19 persons took over 4 airliners with the intent of flying them into American institutional targets at the expense of their own lives. Clearly this is a political use of violence that is not rational in the everyday use of the word rational. Such suicidal acts do not meet the requirement assumed here of rational decision-making and need to be treated separately.

The suicide war appears to have been a response that has characterized a few societies that felt themselves confronted by an apparently invincible enemy whom they see as bringing alien and unacceptable beliefs. Perhaps in a misguided sense of frustration, the American right in the early years after World War II were confronted with a perceived Communist monolith whose image of power and achievement was epitomized in Khrushchev’s famous battle epithet in the 1950s that We will bury you. Better Dead than Red became the battle cry of hopelessness, as we all know today a misguided battle cry.

Allan Eckert in his magnificently documented series on the early American frontier describes discussions during Shawnee Indian council meetings in which leaders openly expressed their feelings of hopelessness.

The Shawnee chief asked, Shall we now kill all our women and children and then fight them [the settlers] until we ourselves are dead? The debate continued and a few years later the tribe split with some moving beyond the settler’s reach but there were large numbers Remaining to fight until the last man of them should die... Many of this tribe which had been dominant could not accept the loss of their prestige and way of life – better dead than white, to paraphrase.

Japan was believed to have contemplated something close to a fight to the death toward the end of World War II, based in part on behavior shown against the American forces in the Pacific islands. The Britannica indicates that a Southern African tribe, the Xhosa, near the end of the 19^th century after repeated defeats by Western settlers undertook the destruction of their own cattle and crops, reducing their own number drastically.

There is reason to suggest that such a view of the world is part of what motivates the fringe elements of Islamic society today. Commandeering commercial airliners to use them as suicide bombs against a few civilian targets is meaningless in terms of achieving political aims. This is a pursuit that apparently emanates from a vision of ultimate despair.

I do not know of any studies of such group use of violence, but clearly to the extent it characterizes human behavior it leads to conclusions different from those discussed earlier regarding success factors in warfare.

Leaders have frequently brought their people into unsuccessful wars. Did they bring them out successfully when things went wrong? There is a common observation in military and diplomatic history that leaders have not necessarily been good at concluding wars. Henry Kissinger observes as an example, But, like other conquerors before him, Hitler did not know how to end the war he had so recklessly started.

Another means for approaching much the same question, about the rates of success obtained in political management of use of violence, is that of examining the question of whether wars are successfully concluded, or not. To explore this subject, I looked at whether there is repetitive fighting over similar issues between the same combatants.

In this search I coded all conflicts that were started during the 20^th century, about 245 conflicts. For each conflict, I coded two variables: a) was there an earlier war between the same combatants over the same or very similar issues (within the prior 25 years) and b) was there a war over the same or very similar issues within the 25 years following the end of the fighting.

I was able to make an acceptable coding of results for over 200 of the wars of the 20^th century. Of these, 50 percent were followed by another similar war within 25 years of termination. Some 55 percent had been preceded in the prior 25 years by a similar war. The unit of analysis is different from the prior discussion regarding an initiator achieving objectives. In that analysis the unit was the combatant. Here I look at the war (all combatants) rather than at particular participants. The data show that in the 20^th century, somewhat more than half the time a war has to be re-fought, presumably because no satisfactory conclusion was reached with a single fight.

Even more than one re-fight seems to have been necessary in many cases. For wars that had been preceded by a prior war (25 year time limit) over similar issues, another war followed 63% of the time. That is, something like a third of cases involve three or more successive wars, perhaps still with no resolution of the conflict leading to the war.

Logically, one might expect that the political relationships between the participants would influence continuity in the conflict. Thus, I would expect that wars between sovereign nations would be more likely to lead to acceptable resolution of issues in conflict than is likely to be the case in civil wars. This prediction is born out, although the pattern is not as strong as I had expected. Just under half of wars between sovereign nations involved a further conflict within the 25 years following the war. In contrast roughly 60 percent of civil conflicts were followed by further fighting.

Continuity of conflict remains a strong factor in war results. For sovereign participants, if a war had not been preceded by an earlier session of violence, 71 percent of the time no further fighting erupted. When a war between sovereign participants had been preceded by an earlier fight, the percentages reversed themselves and 70 percent of the time another fight ensued. In Civil conflict, continuity was more pronounced with over half of wars followed by more fighting even without a pre-war.

I have examined the data many different ways and the conclusions are always fundamentally that leaders who decided to start wars in most circumstances (except when there were large power differences) did not very often achieve the group’s objectives. In an effort to better understand this pattern I have looked at:

a. Time differences – initiator does better but still poorly in the 19^th Century.

b. Form of government differences – democracies do better, but the advantage is not great.

c. Possible differences between revolutionary and status quo eras (see paper 5 on cycles for definition of these eras) – no discernable differences.

d. Power difference – two step difference on my scale – big-small or small-big – is an important factor in success with big winning 70 to 85 percent of the time, regardless of which side initiates the fighting. One step power differences may be worth 20 percentage points in success rates in war.

e. The data show that virtually the only way other than a preponderance of power to have a high win rate is to get the other party to do the attacking.

By examining the data along these several dimensions, I believe that I have conclusively shown that under a wide variety of circumstances the party deciding to initiate violence is likely to fail to win considerably more than half the time. In the process, I found that democracies do better, but their advantage over others seems to be declining as we enter the modern era. I found that success rates in the 20^th century are below those in the 19^th century for reasons that I cannot definitively explain but strongly suspect relate to the change in values about national self determination and human rights and the morality of warfare itself.

In the 20^th century, the party deciding on violence as a solution, assumed to be cast as the aggressor, can improve its win rates if pursuing humanitarian objectives – presumably thereby gaining a better moral position. In contrast if the initiator/aggressor is seeking power advantages or territory, the success rate is one in five or less. Thus, I postulate that the moral high ground is a key factor in improving success rates.

a. In the 20^th century about 56 percent of 200 plus incidents of violence were followed by a similar violent incident (combatants and issues same or similar) within 25 years of termination.

c. For sovereign nations fighting a first war, there was not a follow-up war just over 70 percent of the time.

d. For either sovereign or civil conflicts that were preceded by an earlier war, a follow-on (third) conflict occurred about 70 percent of the time.

That is, for most types of war a re-fight within the course of the next generation is very likely. Only the fights among sovereign nations without a history of prior enduring conflict can be expected to end definitively.

We have pursued our objective over hill, through valley and perhaps through intellectual swamps. Relations in the hills have been compared to those in the valleys, figuratively, and contrasted with those in the swamps. Always the patterns lead on to an identical conclusion. The instrument of warfare has been selected with consistent inefficiency and failure.

On completing much of the work on incidents of violence in this research, I read a copy of Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations in which he discusses the violent propensities of Islamic culture. After living and working in three fundamentally Islamic nations – Afghanistan, Jordan and Egypt – I had in undertaking this work mixed views as to whether attribution of violent propensities to Islam could be supported. In an effort to cast further light on whether Islam is a relatively violence prone faith, this chapter gives a detailed exploration of the patterns in and frequency of wars involving nations and groups that are predominantly either Western Christian or Islamic.

At the end of the 20^th century the adherents of the two major missionary religions of the World, Christianity and Islam, represent almost half of the world’s population. A quick look at the 1000 plus incidents of violence contained in this data set showed almost 900 (88 percent) involved either a Christian or Islamic group, or both. Clearly if there was a more violence prone religion it must be one of these two. I decided to undertake a searching look at the participation of adherents of these religions in warfare with two ideas in mind. One was to test as possible Huntington’s assertions regarding the militancy of Islam. The other thought was to further demonstrate the utility of the method employed here as a useful tool for extending and supplementing scholarly work done along more traditional lines such as that of Huntington.

The two religions derive from common roots and have historically had a long and often contentious common border, although today both have spread to regions which are not densely occupied by the other. Islam eventually expanded eastward into Asia and the Far East away from the European base of Christianity. Christianity once it had safely converted Europe had its greatest impact Westward into North and South America. The major additional thrust of Christianity along the Northern rim of Asia was in its Orthodox form. The interest here is primarily in Western Christianity.

Dating from the times of the original Arabic invasions into North Africa and into Spain, from Christianity’s counter moves during the 11^th and 12^th centuries in the Crusades, from the expansion of Turkish Islam into the Balkans and Eastern Europe and finally Western Christianity’s expansionist drive during the so called colonial era, conflict between Christian and Muslim has been a recurring feature of Western European history. Both distrust and dislike have been bred as the result of the centuries of dispute over land and faith.

Today a fundamentalism is resurgent in Islam bringing with it a militancy that the West views with concern, distaste and some fear. Some in the West, Samuel Huntington in his respected book The Clash of Civilizations for example, attribute a current propensity for violence as a part of the heritage of Islam.

Huntington states Muslim bellicosity and violence are late-twentieth-century facts which neither Muslims nor non-Muslims can deny. In another place he states even more strongly, Islam’s border are bloody, and so are its innards, indicating wars both with non-Muslims and with other Muslim groups.

I had been assigned by the U.S. Government to three countries that are predominantly Muslim – Jordan, Afghanistan and Egypt. I have lived for over 20 years in the Philippines with its significant Muslim population in the south and worked extensively in Malaysia. I worked with and socialized with many Muslims and considered them as friends and respected colleagues. Huntington statements both touched responsive chords and raised hackles because of the ostensible ethnocentrism that was implied. With data readily available, I undertook to examine the pattern of conflicts as related to religious groups. Huntington did aver that the causes of the bellicosity of Islam might be time dependent rather than enduring, although he seems to have leaned strongly toward the latter explanation.

I decided as a first step to examine Islamic and Christian violence in more recent times. Insofar as possible, all violent incidents that were initiated in the 20^th Century were examined and a count made of:

I subdivided the counts into three time periods. The results are shown in the tables below.

TIME INTERVAL	Christian/Not Muslim*	Muslim/Not Christian	Christian & Muslim
1900 to 1939	46	6	16
1940 to 1969	34	16	17
1970 to End	36	27	16

TIME INTERVAL	Christian/Not Muslim*	Muslim/Not Christian	Christian & Muslim
1900 to 1939	1.15	0.15	0.40
1940 to 1969	1.13	0.53	0.57
1970 to End	1.20	0.90	0.53

*Wars coded as Christian/Not Muslim could involve Christian only groups or Christian and other groups

Christian group involvement in wars seems to be rather stable during the 20^th Century, up perhaps slightly in the second half of the century. Muslim involvement in wars shows quite a different pattern. Before mid-century there were very few Muslim only wars and a not very high frequency of wars involving both Muslims and Christians. Muslim wars which did not involve Christians more than tripled during the mid-years of the century and almost doubled again during the final thirty years before the end of the century. Even so in terms of total wars Christian groups were involved more frequently than Muslim groups, possibly contradicting the assertion of Bloody Islam.

For 1990 I counted about 35 primarily Islamic states and roughly 58 predominantly Christian states. I checked on relative population figures and got a ratio of about 1.7 for Christians to Muslims in current times. The two approaches each gave a ratio of Christians to Muslims in the world of about 1.7. I decided to correct Muslim relative participation rates in war by multiplying by 1.7 to approximate the rate that might have been expected to occur if Islam were as populous as Christianity.

After experiencing lower participation in war rates than Christian groups in the first two thirds of the last century, Muslim groups had population corrected participation rates roughly one third higher than Christian groups in the last third of the century.

The above analysis presumes the war as a unit of analysis. Thus, a war involving five Christian nations is counted only once as would be a war with two or more Muslim nations/groups. Another method for looking at relative participation rates would be to sum all identifiable groups involved in fighting. I made another count to see if the trends looked different using this as the unit of analysis.

The trends are the same for either way of looking at the data. Islamic Group participation in wars is very much higher toward the end of the 20^th Century than it was in the early part of the Century.

Huntington’s assertion that Islam is involved in more wars (when Christian groups are used as the standard) in the latter part of the 20^th Century is tentatively supported. Given the much lower participation rates in the early part of the century it seems fair to say that this has not demonstrated that propensity to violence is an enduring characteristic of Islamic society, despite what some call its militant heritage. Even for the most recent data, given the periodicities in social conflict demonstrated elsewhere, the high rate of participation in violence may only be a phase through which Islam is passing because of its resurgence of fundamentalism. Perhaps it resembles in some ways the Protestant reformation 600 years earlier with its intense violence. It seemed that further exploration was justified.

Moreover, one could argue with some forcefulness that the end of the century war involvement of Muslims derived in no small measure from distortions imposed on Muslim communities in the years of European (Christian) colonialism. It was clear that a longer term look was needed, in the event that the late 20^th century situation was not representative of long term patterns.

In the first instance, insofar as the data available for this research is concerned, both religions appear rather warlike. Together the adherents of these two religions represent just under half of the world’s population, just under 30 percent are Christian and some 17 percent or so are Muslim. Of the 1000 plus wars recorded between 1400 and 2000, 88 percent have involved either a predominantly Christian, or a predominantly Islamic group or nation. Over the entire 600 years, the rate of participation by Western Christian groups is more than twice that of Muslim groups, although if an indicative correction is made to account for population differences the Western Christian frequency of involvement in warfare is reduced to about a third higher than that of the Islamic groups of the world.

Of the 300 plus wars in which Islamic groups participated, 119 involved a fight with a group from Western Christendom, 50 saw an Islamic group fighting an Orthodox Christianity group and 109 involved fights between two or more Islamic groups. Over the entire time period Muslims fought other Muslims in 35 percent of wars, or roughly the same rate at which they fought Western Christian groups, 39 percent of wars. There were fights with Orthodox groups in just under a quarter of wars. Totals in these counts can exceed a 100 percent since a war will often involve several groups fighting one another.

Thus over the full time period studied, from 1400 to the present, Islamic groups were involved in a significant share of incidents of political violence. However, Western Christian groups participated in wars at a rate at least a third and probably more above that of the Islamic groups. Fighting between the two groups was common, but more so for Islam. Just under forty percent of wars involving Islam, involved a fight with Western Christendom, while Western Christendom fought less than 20 percent of its wars with Islamic participation. Presuming that Muslims see all Christians as more or less the same, another quarter of the wars of Islam were with Orthodox groups for a total of wars with Christian groups of near 65 percent..

Of particular importance in deciding which of these presumptions – long term propensity to violence or a time specific propensity – is most nearly descriptive of intrinsic tendencies, is that the policy responses to Islam will be different dependent on which pattern is deemed more valid. If Islam has a continuing pattern of a higher tendency to resort to violence, then others, must be prepared to fight for inevitably that fighting will be necessary. Conciliatory moves may do little to assuage conflicts in such a case. On the other hand, if the current surge in Islamic participation in violence is cyclical in nature and related to resurgent fundamentalism and perhaps as well to a search for stability in new political entities freed from colonial rule, then non-military responses can be much more appropriate.

The data I present elsewhere on cyclical tendencies in the intensity of commitment to meta-ideological truths provide the basis for suggesting that the current fundamentalist urge in Islam could be the cause of the current wave of violence. I present, with partial validation, a theory or concept of surge and counter surge in reform/revolutionary beliefs with a half cycle currently in the range of 25 to 35 years. These two observations would support an assumption of decline in Islamic militancy within the next two or three decades.

Accepting that conclusion, patience in waiting for a more conciliatory Islam and avoiding in the meantime violent conflict as much as possible in the expectation of changing attitudes in the not too distant future would make sense. This is a very important conclusion if accepted. In some ways this would be the antithesis of the lessons learned at Munich by Chamberlain and company. I would like to re-iterate that one time lessons derived from behavior in single events devoid of context are as likely to be wrong as otherwise.

Apart from this patience, moves that might hurry along the demise of the more strident fundamentalism would be well worth considering. Assuming as seems rather clear that a good part of the surge in fundamentalism derives from resentment at recent European/Christian domination and perceived bias against Islam, then as second and in some cases third generation leaders come onto the Islamic scene, it becomes important to create a better image of the West in their minds. Respect is of course always part of that. Support of Muslims in Kosovo is very functional in this sense, apart from having a good moral base as well.

The issue of the intrinsic propensity to violence in Islamic culture is of both academic and policy interest.

In the short run study of the 20^th century Islam proved violent, over the long term 600 year period Christianity proved more violent. Are there other sub-divisions of these periods in which there is a propensity for violence, or non-violence by one or the other of these two cultures? I looked at six intervals of 100 years each to see if results would vary. For this exercise, I expanded the coding by including Asian or Other groups. Others would be any group not meeting the conditions of Islamic, Christian or Asian. These were primarily American Indian or African groups.

As is the usual case in exploratory research, I answered the question(s) that I had in mind and found several unexpected relationships and patterns that answered unasked questions. The table below shows the initial findings from this exploration.

Years	Muslim	West Christian	Orthodox Christian	Muslim vs Muslim	Muslim vs West Christian	Muslim vs Orthodox Christian	Asian	Other	total wars
1400-1499	38	88	15	14	15	10	30	1	135
1500-1599	44	79	14	13	20	5	35	7	126
1600-1699	38	97	17	13	15	8	30	19	135
1700-1799	33	85	19	15	13	6	37	24	126
1800-1899	55	216	32	13	28	22	39	78	259
1900-1999	97	133	45	40	28	20	49	39	248
total	305	698	142	108	119	71	220	168	1029

Going beyond the question of the warlike tendencies of Islam and Christianity, the table shows some important other patterns. For the 400 years from 1400 to 1799, examined on a century by century basis, there was a remarkably constant level of warfare, with regional, religious group participation also relatively constant. Muslim groups were involved in about 0.4 wars per year, Western Christian group in almost 0.90 wars per year with Orthodox Christians adding another 0.15 wars per year. Muslims shared their fighting more or less equally between other Muslims and Western Christian groups, each at about 0.15 per year. Asian nations were involved in 30 to 35 wars per century over this entire time period.

Some may ask is an understanding of historical patterns at all relevant in grasping the meaning of current patterns? I would suggest that the answer to this question is emphatically yes and refer the reader to recent events in India involving disputes between Hindu and Muslim over a temple/mosque site that dates back 500 years, to the Serb/Muslim conflict in Kosovo the resurgence of which is said to relate to a battle that took place in the 14^th century and of course to the crusades of nearly a thousand years ago which are still vividly remembered in Arab culture.

Even with some rough correction for population differences the Western Christian participation rate in wars until quite recently is clearly above that of Muslims, suggesting that if there is a greater propensity to warfare associated with religion in these cases, the warlikeness laurel wreath would go to the Christians. This emphasizes that Islam, at least in most of these 600 years, was not a relatively warlike culture, about 60 percent of wars in which Muslims participated involved them fighting either Western or Orthodox Christians – around 15 to 20 percent of the greater number of wars with Christian involvement saw Christians fighting Muslims. Thus, absent some significant bias in these data, Islam was relatively (compared to Christians) peaceful for four hundred years from 1400 to 1800. And during this time period there was a remarkable stability in overall warfare levels and distribution of participation.

The 19^th century saw a major change in this pattern of stability. The number of wars doubled in the 19^th century compared to the 18^th century. Western Christian participation already high at over 60 percent of wars before 1800 went up to close to 85 percent during the 19^th century. There was a rise in Muslim wars, but only in proportion to the increase in wars overall, and most of the increase in Muslim wars was in wars with Western Christendom. A tripling of participation rate from the Other Groups category also occurred during this century.

One continuing pattern remains. Western Christendom was fighting in many more wars than were the Muslims. The intra-Islam conflict remained at pre 19^th century rates of 13 to 15 conflicts per century. The increase in Muslim participation in wars was more than accounted for by the increase in conflicts with Christendom. Thus, for five hundred years I cannot find the evidence of a bloody Islam as suggested by Huntington.

With the advent of the 20^th century still more changes took place. Western Christian participation in wars by number [WWI and WWII were massive although counting only as one war each in this coding] fell by almost 50 percent while the Muslim rate of participation in wars almost doubled. The fall in the West’s participation in wars would be significant but somewhat less if the two world wars were counted as multiple wars which in many senses they were. Intra-Muslim warfare more than doubled. Still Muslim participation in wars remained below that of Western Christian groups, even when wars as massive as WWI and WWII are counted as single events.

Looking within the 20^th century we do see some support for Huntington’s conclusions (see the table below). There is a trend over the century with Western Christendom involving itself in fewer and fewer wars, while Islam is increasing its participation rate steadily. Finally in the last quarter of the century Muslim rates surpass those of Western Christendom, by a substantial margin. Muslim versus Western Christendom wars, however, fall to about half of the traditional rate. Intra-Muslim conflict rates double over the traditional rates of 10 to 12 percent before 1800 and quadruple or more over the rates shown in the 19^th century. The trend for lower rates of participation in war for Western Christendom is steady throughout the century and the upward trend for Islam is similarly steady throughout the century. Civil wars related to finding stable political patterns in states created in colonial years and newly freed may well account for much of the increase violence.

Years	Muslim	West Christian	Orthodox Christian	Muslim vs Muslim	Muslim vs West Christian	Muslim vs Orthodox Christian
1400-499	29	66	11	10	11	7
1500-599	35	63	11	10	16	4
1600-699	28	72	10	10	11	6
1700-799	26	68	15	12	10	5
1800-849	20	83	15	6	9	8
1850-899	22	84	10	4	12	9
1900-949	31	67	30	9	17	9
1950-974	41	54	8	15	9	7
1975-999	47	38	15	25	7	10

Is Huntington’s description of bloody Islam born out? In the short run, literally yes, although mildly so. And it is only when accompanied by a fall in Western war participation rates that Islam becomes relatively bloody. Thus, Islam’s relative bloodiness might be thought of as much a result of Christian fatigue with wars and the consequent decline in the West’s war participation rate as from Islam’s bloodiness.

It is widely acknowledged that there is a fundamentalist surge in Islamic beliefs in the late 20^th century. I argue that the relative warlikeness characteristic of the current situation is not likely to be sustained, but rather seems likely to return to traditional levels. In particular it seems difficult to argue that intra-Islam conflict will be sustained at current levels. In some measure, as in the Christian religious wars, the conservatives and reformers will tire of the battle and compromises on both sides will slowly bring them closer together. And one can argue that the West’s recent peacefulness may also be transitory. So, I suggest a rejection of Huntington’s implications of a sustained violent propensity in Islam.

The fall in Christendom’s participation in wars is a phenomenon worth understanding for both Christians and non-Christians. For half a millennia or longer, more than half of wars involved at least one Christian group. For a period of over a century (the 19th) this participation rate approached 85 percent. While the number of wars has been growing the predominant war makers of the past appear to be closing up shop. Moreover, within Western Christendom the locus of war making is shifting significantly. At the end of the 19^th century, 75 percent of the wars recorded involved at least one participant with a heritage of Western Christendom. Of these, almost 90 percent were from Europe or North America. By the end of the last century, Christendom’s overall participation rate was down to 37 percent. If we look only at North America or Europe, the participation rate was a very low 20 percent (see the next table).

years	Total Wars	Total Involving West Christian	Involving Europe/North America	Involving Latin America
1870-1900	84	63	56	7
1970-2000	101	37	20	17

It was not possible to record issues leading to war on a participant by participant basis with the information available for this research. Thus, the issues cited are recorded by war if the issue is attributed as a factor in deciding to fight for any of the participants in that war. Two groups fighting one another may well have different aims and/or different sources of tension. For example, group A may have undertaken a fight in retaliation for terrorist raids on its people while Group B will be fighting for political independence. Thus, in this work citations of variations in issues for different categories of war can describe how certain types of wars differed but cannot ascertain the views of the individual combatants involved. Nonetheless, certain inferences can be made about the views of individual combatants by comparing wars of different types.

For example, religious friction is cited as an issue involved in wars for 55 to 60 percent of wars involving Islamic groups, regardless of the opposition. In contrast, in wars involving Western Christian groups, but no Islamic nations, religious issues occur only about 19 percent of the time. The contrast undoubtedly reflects the all encompassing nature of Islam since it represents both a religion and rules which are meant to apply to virtually all phases of life. In contrast, Western Christendom has for several centuries espoused separation of Church and State, in greater or lesser degree. In another difference, while political philosophy was seldom listed as an issue in fights involving Islamic groups, this was an issue in which Christian groups found great importance (23% of wars).

Apart from these differences the patterns in the politics of warfare are not greatly different between the Islamic and the Christian nations. Each fight about half of their wars as sovereign affairs. About half of wars are civil. The non-religious issues such as economic discrimination, trade, race and strategic power concerns occur some what more often in the Western wars, but the differences are not pronounced.

Looking at the full time period can demonstrate fundamental differences in the two cultures and help demonstrate long standing patterns of conflict. However, even the most rigid of belief systems show changes over time. Changes in beliefs will be reflected in different patterns in warfare. Another factor is also important. Rulers who have much to say about the when and the why of war are, more often than not, persons with the capability to acquire power that at least has a large secular element. The motivations of rulers do not commonly reflect those of the true believer segment of society. Consequently their motivations and therefore the factors in warfare are more likely to reflect the times in which they rule.

Examining the 19^th and 20^th centuries we see major shifts in the patterns of Islamic and Christian wars, pattern shifts beyond simply in the changing frequency of participation already noted. In the 19^th century wars between Western Christian and Islamic groups (at 32 in number) represented 57 percent of Islam’s wars, but only 15 percent of the wars engaged in by Western Christendom.

The 20^th century saw a very sharp change in both Christian and Islamic warfare rates. Islam’s number of wars almost doubled. However, the increase in Islam’s apparent warlikeness was not aimed at Western Christendom. In the 19^th century there were 32 wars involving direct fighting between Islamic and Western Christian groups, this number fell very slightly to 29 in the 20^th century. That is, the expansion in fighting by Islamic groups was directed at groups other than those of Western Christendom.

In the 19^th century there were only 13 wars in which Islamic groups fought other Islamic groups. This number tripled to 41 in the 20^th century. In the 20^th century Islamic groups have fought one another more often than they have engaged a Western Christian group. Islamic wars that did not involve any Christian group increased almost nine fold from 6 in the 19^th century to 53 in the 20^th century – strongly influenced by the instability exhibited in the newly independent nations of Asia.

The Islamic pattern of religious issues as central in warfare remains at about the 60 percent level in the 20^th century. Western Christianity was involved in wars, almost all with Islam, in which religion was an issue in only 10 percent of cases by the 20^th century. What may be ans important precursor of change in Islam is that political philosophy is cited as an issue in 20 percent of the wars of Islam by the 20^th century. This is up from only 4 percent a century earlier, which may be indicative of some secularization taking place in the Islamic world.

Between the wars of the 19^th and 20^th centuries there were major changes in the political structures of those involved. While Turkey’s eastern Mediterranean and Balkan empires were breaking up in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Western Christendom was maintaining and expanding its position in North Africa and Asia, with break-up not occurring in large measure until the second half of the 20^th century. These trends were reflected in the warfare of Islamic nations. In the 19^th century 57 percent of the wars involving Islamic participants were at least partly sovereign in nature and only 16 percent involved purely civil war. In the 20^th century, the numbers were reversed at 32 and 60 percent, respectively. In the West civil wars were even more common in the 20^th century reaching 77 percent of conflicts involving the West outside of their disputes with Islam. The structures of societies were clearly changing.

While the 19^th century saw the West repeatedly engaged in wars with the aim of gaining political control, this type of conflict had almost disappeared by the mid 20^th century. Also by the 20^th century trade issues, which had been meaningful earlier, were almost gone in wars between the West and Islam. Strategic power issues remain steady, although at a rather low level.

This section is written from a perspective that derives from a Western Christian heritage, although I have lived in two Arab countries and in Afghanistan and worked extensively in Malaysia. Clearly Islam is not a homogeneous grouping. There are major ethnic and racial differences within the Islamic community, probably more so than in Christianity. Even more there are very large differences in level of development and in attitudes toward modernity. Yemen (Arab) and Afghanistan (mixed but heavily Pashtun) are poor, rather isolated and often radically conservative. Indonesia, the largest Islamic country by population, is Malay and very liberal by Islamic standards. Pakistan and Iran are among the next largest Islamic countries in population and are clearly not part, geographically nor culturally, of the Arab heartland where Islam originated.

The prevalent recent interface between Western Christendom and Islam is around the Mediterranean where Arabs prevail – in recent centuries the interface with Turkish Islam has been with Eastern, Orthodox Christianity. Often it is the Arab that the West thinks of when forming a mental image of Islam. The Arabs control oil, recently shed Western colonialism, are in conflict with Israel and are seen as the major terrorists of the world (even though Osama Bin Ladin was protected by the Afghan Taliban, he is a Saudi Arab by birth).

Arabs represent about 23 percent of Islam in terms of population. It is instructive to examine their participation in violence if one wishes to look at Bloody Islam to use Huntington’s term. Over the entire time period Arabic groups were involved in only 4 percent of all violent conflicts; that participation did increase to 10 percent in 20^th century wars. Arabic groups also increased their participation rates in wars involving Islam against Islam, from 16 percent in the 19^th century to 29 percent in the 20^th century. That is Arabs participated in wars involving Islamic groups at a rate about in proportion to their share of the population. In wars in which Islamic and Western Christian groups fight, Arabic participation has fallen dramatically in the 20^th century from close to 70 percent in earlier years to a lower but still substantial 27 percent. Arab groups in the 20^th century fight other Islamic groups just under half of the time they fight – this is a tripling over earlier years.

In terms of issues, Arab groups are involved in fights related to religion almost 70 percent of the time in recent years – high even by the standards of Islam. Oil clearly shows in the data with strategic issues rising from 10 percent in earlier years to 35 percent in the 20^th century. Arabic wars of recent times relate to religious tensions and to oil.

These numbers on Arabic participation in violence involving Islamic nations and groups tend to emphasize the extent of diversity in the Islamic community. In most recent times, Arabic groups have greatly increased their involvement in fights with other Islamic groups. And despite the frequent expressions of animosity on both sides of the cultural divide, with the disappearance of European colonialism in Arabic areas, the number of fights between Arab and Western Christendom has fallen slightly. The focus of Arab violence has moved sharply away from the West. Will this trend be sustained as the Islamic fundamentalists attempt to build conflict with the West – perhaps to reduce intra-Islamic conflict by focusing on the external enemy?

Over the long term Islamic groups have participated in war at a rate somewhat below that of Western Christian groups. It must be accepted that part of this difference could be related to a bias in the data toward events recorded in Western languages. I have, however, no firm basis for asserting there is a bias, nor if there is one to give a firm estimate of its magnitude. I would think that some very small, largely internal conflicts which are recorded for Western Europe would, because of both language differences and lesser familiarity with local history, be under reported for Islamic societies. In looking at the rates of very small incidents recorded for Western Cultures it would appear that the bias, if present, should be somewhat less than 10 percent, although that is a crude estimate.

Islamic participation in warfare increased dramatically after the middle of the 20^th century to the point that Islamic involvement rates, corrected for population, exceeded those of Western groups by a substantial margin. Consequently there is some basis for considering Islam to be rather militant at the current time. However, it might be equally valid given the existing patterns to say on a relative basis that the West has become more peaceful or perhaps less militant, rather than focusing on an increased militancy for Islam. There has been no increase, in fact a very small decrease, in Islamic wars with the West during the past century. It is also reasonable to suppose, given the cyclical patterns seen in the data on violence overall, that the militancy may well erode with the maturation of the next generation.

The detailed look at the more recent violence suggests many changes over time. Changes have occurred in rates of participation in violence, in targets groups in violence and in issues. In addition there have been changes in sub-groups with Turkish Islam bowing out of much of the violence, with Arabs and Asian Islam increasing their proportions. And of course the West has sharply reduced its participation in violence.

Saddam, Nasser, Osama Bin Ladin, Qaddafi, Arafat are names associated with hostility toward the West and with Islamic militancy. All are Arabic. Moreover, with relative peace and tolerance established between Turkish Muslims and the West, the threatening Muslim group that borders the West and controls a large portion of the West’s oil sources is that of the Arabs. It is possible that the perceptions in the West of Islamic militancy are most related to the Arabs.

Again, in the recent past Arabic participation in Muslim violence has surged. But fights between Arabs and the West declined very marginally from the 19^th to the 20^th centuries. Most Arabic fighting does not involve direct confrontation with the West, unless one wishes to count Israel as part of the West. Thus, it would appear to be at least questionable to associate active militancy toward the West (as opposed to rhetorical militancy) with Arabic groups.

In terms of issues worth fighting for, the striking feature of Islam is the prevalence of religious beliefs as an indicated basis for warfare. It is probably here that real and apparent militancy prevails. A primary conclusion from an examination of trends in warfare is that ethnic/religious hostility is at an unusually high level at the start of the 21^st century. Such hostility tends to be both brutal and enduring. Jews and Arabs, Indonesians and Timorese, Pakistanis and Indians, Sudan Muslims and Christians, and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, all engender images of inhumanity quite inconsistent with the fundamental values of all religions, including Islam. But, in the above list of conflict pairs there are no dyads that are directed at the West. And it is not at all evident that Islam shows more brutality than is the case for its opponents.

Although my personal inclination would be to think of Islam, with its adherence to Jihad, as being more warlike than Christianity, the objective data provides no support for that inclination. Quite to the contrary to the extent that these data are at all representative of real world events, prior to the middle of the 20^th century, Islam participated in far fewer wars than did Western Christendom. This is a fact that is not easily brushed aside. I tend to conclude given the general changes over relatively short periods of time in the politics of conflict that we cannot speak of Bloody Islam -- based on an objective review of all data on violent conflicts.

A major objective in undertaking this research was to determine if a cyclical pattern in the intensity of violence in the world system, detected in previous research with less adequate data, would be shown in an examination using these more complete records. I expected not only to find a long term cyclical pattern in the intensity of violence, but I expected it to be related (causally) to the rise (and fall) of ideologies that strove to define the correct social/moral structure for all society. I shall call these sweeping ideologies by the term meta to differentiate them from beliefs that are not meant to apply universally. The latter belief types I will refer to later using the term micro or we/they.

In previous work I had observed that the overall violence level in the world system had consistently been at its highest during those times when revolutionary ideologies were having their strongest effect on the belief structures of society. Each of these periods of intense violence was characterized by disputes over an ideology that was meant both to apply universally and to bring about a re-ordering of society at large into a more just form.

I had posited from the earlier research that the struggle between conservative and reformer over the extent to which the then current meta-ideology was to prevail, created violence and chaos levels that brought about a conservative backlash. Thus, the meta-ideology effectively contained the seeds of its own destruction in that the disruptions caused in the existing order by believers seeking to force reform, created the conditions of uncertainty and fear that promoted increased support for a return to the greater security that is associated with promotion of the status quo. The consequence was that the reform periods characterized by high violence levels were followed by periods of relative quiet on both the ideological and the violence fronts.

I found the expected patterns in these data which cover both a much longer period and a greater breadth than the materials I had worked with before. The first step in determining the regularity of rise and fall in intensity and revolutionary fervor for this investigation was to divide the 600 years for which I had data into seven sub-intervals using known occasions of meta-ideology surge and retreat. The intervals are:

Status Quo 1 – 1400 to 1520, prior to Martin Luther’s open break with the Church.

Revolutionary 1 – 1521 to 1650, from Luther’s open break with the Church through the Treaty of Westphalia, aimed at ending the religious strife.

Status Quo 2 – 1651 to 1775, post Westphalia until the forceful promulgations of concepts of representative government that were behind the American and French Revolutions.

Revolutionary 2 – 1776 to 1850, from Rousseau and Paine through the final gasps of revolutions spawned by their thoughts in 1848-49.

Status Quo 3 – 1851 to 1913, post republican strife, until the start of the violent struggles over Marxist-Leninist concepts of a more equitable and allegedly more efficient economic structure.

Revolutionary 3 – 1914 to 1989, the Communist/Capitalist struggle which I have chosen to end with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Status Quo 4 – a rump session beyond the cold war until the end of the data in 1999/2000.

Revo Periods -- The three revolutionary eras (REVO 1,2,3) are those in which I expect to find surges in the intensity of violence, a greater prevalence of ideological disputes being cited as reasons for war and a greater prevalence of incidents of civil conflicts. To test this expectation, I made simple summations from the descriptions of all the war/violence incidents, including in a time period all the incidents of violence that started during the specified years.

To create an index of the intensity of warfare during a time interval, I computed for each incident a composite intensity measure by multiplying the duration of the conflict times the number of groups participating and multiplying that result times the square of the casualty index. This index of intensity, on a per war basis, was summed over all incidents starting during the time period. Because I was interested in the intensity of overall conflict in the system, not the intensity of violence in individual wars, I divided this sum by the number of years in the interval to obtain an indication of average intensity of violence on-going throughout the interval. This index provided a measure of the relative levels and the extent of violence found on a per year basis throughout the world system.

To obtain measures of ideological ferment, for each interval, I summed the number of citations of ideological disputes and the number of civil war fights and divided these sums by the total number of wars initiated during the time period. These calculations provided indexes of the relative prevalence of each of these two issues in the wars that took place during each of the intervals studied.

The patterns shown in the data are as expected. Figure 1 shows that the three revolutionary time periods (REVO 1,2,3) all exhibit an upsurge in the average of the composite intensity of violence index compared to the status quo (S Q 1,2,3) eras that preceded them. Each revolutionary era is moreover followed by a time period with lesser levels of violence (S Q 2,3,4). Even more indicative of the change in human belief structure that occurs in a periodic pattern are the indications of meta-ideology dispute prevalence during the revolutionary time periods (see Figure 2). During the three revolutionary eras (REVO 1,2,3) almost thirty percent of wars were said to have meta-ideological disputes as one of the issues in conflict in the war. In contrast in the first three status quo intervals (S Q 1,2,3) meta-ideological issues occurred in an average of only 6 percent of wars, a difference of 5 to 1 in relative prevalence. Also reflecting the ideological conflicts, civil wars were 50 to 60 percent more prevalent in REVO 1,2 and 3 than in S Q 1,2 and 3 (see Figure 3).

As a further check on the validity of my interpretation, I took these three indicators – intensity of violence, frequency of civil wars and frequency of ideological disputes -- of revolutionary intensity, normalized them, and computed an average for the normalized values of the three over each full time period. The results are shown in Figure 4 which clearly shows that the index of the reform oriented variables taken together shows much higher values in the three

periods which I defined from outside sources as revolutionary. The average level of this composite indicator is more than twice as high during the revolutionary eras than it is during the status quo years. The index has an average value of 1.4 in Revo eras compared to just under 0.6 for the S Q years.

As expected, there are three periods of relatively intense violence and during these periods the conflicts center on meta-ideology and form of government. Equally importantly there are extended periods alternating with the revolutionary eras in which violence is lower and in which ideological and civil conflicts are relatively rare.

Since these data cover virtually all known incidents of sanctioned violence there is a conclusive demonstration that periodically violence levels in the world system have surged. These surges are concurrent with known upswings in meta-ideologies advocating fundamental reform. The posited surges in reform ideologies which define the dates specified for each era came from outside data. Confirmatory evidence for the postulated relationships between system violence and ideology was, however, found from within the data set. That is, historical references were used to define start and end dates for the revolutionary periods. But, the citations of issues in conflict from the descriptions of violent incidents in this data set are used to show that ideological disputes characterized the specified revolutionary eras.

As a constraint on the interpretation of this representation of the world conflict system, prior to about 1650 the ideologies depicted here are derived from Western thinking and tend to impact primarily on Western groups. In the years after about 1700 the ideas remain Western derived, but have impact more or less throughout the world as Western influence spread across most of the globe.

Status Quo Periods -- Of course, the upsurge in intensity of violence during the revolutionary periods means that things are, relatively, more peaceful during the non-revolutionary or status quo periods. In order to build a theory of the oscillation in conflict and violence it is necessary to understand what types of conflict characterize these less violent periods – for there are no periods in which conflict and violence are absent.

The downward surge in the intensity of violence is demonstrated in the charts on intensity shown earlier. Following the three revolutionary eras specified, the down surge in violence is accompanied by a sharp decline in citations of meta-ideological issues in wars – by 84, 59 and 70 percent in S Q 2, 3 and 4 respectively. These are times characterized by few disputes over the fundamental shape society should assume.

For another explicit change expected in the status quo periods, it is among the big powers that overall ideological forces are formed and promulgated, thus I expect the big powers to be less involved in conflicts during status quo eras. This is the case. With basic beliefs no longer as driving issues, big power participation rates in wars are about 30 percent less in the status quo eras. This is an important finding -- that of meta-ideological quietude at the big power level. I will return to this relationship later.

Other issues characterize the conflicts leading to war during these time periods. The following table shows the percentage change in frequency of certain issues from the Revolutionary era preceding each of the Status Quo eras.

A Fundamental Finding -- The issues shown during the status quo eras are not meta-ideology issues, but are rather issues of cultural difference, or what might be termed micro-ideology issues. This is important as a conclusion, for it leaves war as idea/belief based even in the status quo periods, just as in the revolutionary eras. But, in the absence of disputes over definitions of systems of universal justice the wars were derived from beliefs with a less embracing coverage. I shall refer to these as micro or we/they beliefs. Periods of relatively intense violence derive their violence from meta-ideologies advocating overall reform and engage the major powers. Violence in the eras of less intense overall system violence derives from ideas of in-group vs out-group and engage the lesser powers predominantly.

Status Quo Years	Frequency of Race as Issue	Frequency of Discrimination as Issue	Frequency of Terror as Issue	Relative Participation of Big Powers
2. 1651 to 1775	up 136%	up 200%	up 40%	up 13%
3. 1851 to 1913	up 47 %	up 20%	up 55%	down 27%
4. after 1989	up 39%	up100%	up 15%	down 37%

To use a term cited by Henry Kissinger in his memoirs when referring to the end of the 20^th century and one popularized by Samuel Huntington, these eras following reformist periods show a high frequency of issues that appear to be associated with fault line conflicts -- issues such as race, discrimination and terrorism. I did not start with this concept in undertaking this research so that the variables which I coded do not cover these types of issues as fully as might be the case, nonetheless terror, race and discrimination are attributes we see in today’s conflicts, which both Kissinger and Huntington refer to by the term fault line.. If we ignore the first revolutionary time period in which the West was struggling with the form of its fundamental religion, Christianity, we also find that religion is a relatively common issue in conflict in the years that I call status quo.

Another Fundamental – Power issues, issues which are deemed by realist purists to be rather ideology free, are present throughout the 600 hundred year interval. They occur somewhat more often in revolutionary periods when the big powers are apt to feel threatened ideologically, but also can found for both the lesser powers and the big powers when undue disruptions are threatened during the status quo years. But, compared to the frequencies of 20 to 40 percent for the major belief related factors cited as underlying conflict, the power issues seem to run in the frequency range of 10 percent low and 16 or 17 percent high. That is belief related issues are cited as major factors in war more than twice as often as are power issues.

The argument is made here that it is not coldly rational balancing of power that drives the conflicts that cannot be resolved through peaceful means. Mankind exhibits a universal behavior of seeking beliefs and ideas that justify existence, which are set out to define morality and which define group membership and allegiance. Understanding and managing violence requires perhaps more balancing of beliefs than of power. In the following sections I will layout a theory of how these ideas vary over time and cause the oscillation in levels of warfare and the distribution of conflict factors over time.

The above work is what might be termed an examination of the facts of the history of political violence. The data used are on the objective end of the scale and the relationships presented are reproducible by others given the data. The next sections derive from those facts, but the interpretation extends beyond the facts. I will refer to reviews of the major political theories found in Western thinking during these years to develop support for the concept of warfare which I am putting forward. I used these reviews of Western thinking in a selective, although in a very careful manner, but did not attempt to create a systematically recorded set of data. Thus, in measure, I remove my bean hat, give up counting and place a chapeau aimed at scholarly interpretation of history, ala the traditional traditionalist.

Contingent on the validity of these data, it can be stated factually that a long term cycle in intensity of violence exists in the history of the West. The period of the cycle has been shortening as technological change has accelerated. The cycle appeared to be about 150 years in length five centuries ago and may be as short as 75 years more recently.

Second the upside of the cycle can be related to known periods in which reformist concepts (concepts believed in fervidly enough to be called ideologies) were widely held. This again is a statement, although not grounded in the data collected, which reflects almost universally accepted descriptions of historical patterns, consequently it can also be safely termed fact.

The downside is causally related to the chaos of the upside. Conservative reactions (backlash) against extended chaos of reformist periods are widely accepted in the historical literature. I will seek to provide concrete support of the conscious development of conservative ideologies to counter the perceived chaos of the revolutionary periods.

Underlying these words is an apparent presumption that the cycle of rise and fall in violence intensity relates to rise and fall in basic beliefs about overall social order in the World – perhaps more precisely to social order in the West. In an effort to clarify, at least for American audiences, the direction of the above arguments I will refer to the U.S. civil rights movement that became strong in the 1960s. There was following World War II a slow realization of the obvious, to almost all of right and left, racial injustice and discrimination in American society. In this case the basic belief in equality of opportunity and treatment was part of society’s dogma regarding what would be judged a fair and just society, it only took the extension of the dogma to cover the black citizen in America to create a perceived need for reform. During the 1950s and 60s a public receptiveness developed for those advocating reform and reform movements gained momentum. There was a shift in the population’s attitudes with people moving more to the reformist end of the scale of public values.

Progress was made on what came to be called the civil rights movement with legislative actions and changes in public attitudes. But many opposed the reforms which were taking place. With the need for reform being encased in dogma, the conflict between the reformists and the conservatives became intense, resulting in some violence and much unrest. Many changes were nonetheless instituted over a decade or two. Then the momentum began to fade. The conservatives began to argue 1) that progress had been made reducing the need for further reform and 2) that the chaos and occasional violence associated with the struggle for still more change was intolerable. There was as well resentment from the white majority against the privileges being accorded the black community, many members of which did not behave well in terms of white cultural norms. Some reversals occurred, but largely the movement simply weakened and the advances made were sustained in large measure. The movement’s institutions remained, but stabilization of the new order became the priority of the day.

In a much more delimited and thereby comprehensible microcosm, this American social conflict situation contains the majority of the elements of the theory which will be put forth as explaining the rise and fall of violence in the overall Western belief system. I will now apply these elements to the larger picture.

I have empirically demonstrated that over a very long interval of history there are extended and continuous intervals in which warfare is more intense and widespread. These are periods in which issues of meta-ideology are most prevalent. Between these intervals in which there are revolutions in values, there are times in which warfare is at significantly lower intensity levels, in which there is little evidence of dispute over the fundamental shape of society. The patterns suggest that periods of intense political violence have derived in significant measure from ideas and beliefs that have been promulgated in order to create a more just human environment. The patterns further suggest that there is an orderly oscillation in warfare intensity that is continuing today. There is, I believe, a near universal regularity in human behavior which will explain this pattern.

As many have observed man has a fundamental ambivalence in values. He wishes to do what is good given social values and he wishes to serve self. These two values are commonly in opposition to one another within one individual. Abstractly, the opposing values can be thought of as running along a single scale with one end labeled serving self and the other serving public values, such that an increase/emphasis of one implies a reduced priority for the other..

It is acknowledged that there are many variations in both self and public values. For example, on the self end of the scale the often related values of security and low risk which some prefer will produce somewhat different behavior from that shown if the self values tend to rate excitement or power highly. On the public or altruistic end of the scale one of the more obvious variations will be between those who place high priority on secular considerations such as adequate welfare and those who lean toward spiritual values such as conformance to a religious dogma.

However, for simplicity the formulation specified here focuses on a single scale. Much can be captured in explaining broad trends in violence levels with the specification of a simple, single axis value system, emphasizing at one end public values and at the other self or selfish values.

Within a population there will be a distribution of intrinsic values, with some members of the population leaning more to self and some more to public. One would expect a heavier concentration in the center of the scale at which point something close to equal concern is given to self and public values. The tendency to weight self and public values in certain proportions is intrinsic to individuals and can be thought of as being maintained over the long term. However, if these values are only considered as enduring, a model for static behavior in society results. In order to explain the cyclical variations that are shown in the data examined here, another element has to be added to the model to get dynamic behavior.

The individuals in society are presumed to be ambivalent, that is to have both elements of self and selfless (public) in their value system. In making their decisions, all other things being equal, they have an intrinsic level of weighting which they give to the opposing needs on the one hand of supporting public objectives of justice and equity and on the other of serving self. A particular individual can give a greater weighting to his selfish needs than to his public values, or conversely.

In practice the weightings which are assigned depend not only on an individual’s intrinsic leanings. There are extrinsic factors which are defined by the current situation which influence a shift in weights at a particular time. Thus, a time of perceived threat to self, will cause people to shift their weights thereby giving greater attention to self serving and to lessening their concern about furthering the public good. In contrast, when self is not perceived as at risk and when there are perceived injustices of great importance, the weightings can be expected to shift toward concern with serving public values while at the same time downplaying the self, at least relatively. Such a shifting of opinion from a reformist leaning to greater preference for support of the status quo occurred in the American civil rights case as progress threatened some of the majority with loss of position and as perceptions of chaos and some violence created feelings of insecurity.

In the model that I am positing as a means for explaining the causes of the observed cyclical patterns in warfare there are: a) an intrinsic distribution of individuals along the scale of selfish to selfless and b) a time specific induced shift in that distribution that relates to situational factors. Consequent to this positing is a conclusion that the commitment to the time specific value mix of self and public is dynamic – changing with the situation.

The model further presumes an antithetical relationship between the public and the self. There are always the activists seeking a better world and always the selfish seeking reinforcement of the system that they benefit from. Two situational factors, one internal and one external to the system of violence and conflict, appear to influence the views of the middle – whether they will lean toward the committed reformists or the committed conservatives.

For the purposes of illustration of the arguments being made here, let us presume an initial situation of stability in the societal reward system. Thus we enter our model at a time in which society leans toward traditional views. In such a time, there is little threat either of loss of position or loss of life. In this time, the inevitable imperfections of the traditional rules that give advantage to some more than others remain in place. The consequence over time is commonly that them that has gets, since them that has, have understood those rules better. Later we will add a presumption of technology change to reinforce this tendency.

b) there is a growing gap between the rewards taken by them that has and the rewards taken by them that has not.

With the members of society feeling secure and perceiving a growing gap in allocation of rewards, the articulate members of society leaning toward the public end of the value scale find a receptive audience, in the middle, when they advocate their ideas of the reforms needed to reduce the gap in rewards, a gap which they persuasively define as unjust.

That is, a period of perceived security resulting from stability and of lack of change in the societal system (religious, political and economic) provides the fertile ground for the seeds of reform and thus forms the basis for its own demise by fueling reform inclinations.

When such a status quo period has endured for some time, society’s values will have shifted perceptibly toward the reformists. Society begins to respond positively to those advocating changes that purportedly will reduce the perceived (growing) inequities and injustices. New ideas are advocated by the reformists and find a sympathetic ear from those in the great middle. As a consequence, changes that are aimed at benefitting the has nots are undertaken -- following that period of stability.

A reformist era then emerges But, the advocated changes deviate from tradition and commonly will if carried out result in some, usually the then current haves, losing rewards so that others may gain them. The diehards on the self oriented end of the scale oppose the proposed changes and their opposition grows as the reformists become more and more radical as their ideas are accepted by the large middle. The traditionalists and the haves continue to oppose, violently in the extreme case, the reformists.

Three results ensue in the standard case. 1) Tensions and violence cause perceptions of insecurity. 2) Reform efforts have some successes and perceptions emerge that meaningful correction of injustices and inequities have been accomplished. 3) The reform successes are achieved at the expense of many which causes rising resentment. As time progresses, the mass of opinion – responding to 1) the insecurity, 2) the perceptions of reduced injustice and 3) the resentment at relative losses in favor of the has nots -- shifts away from a current concern with public (reform) values and towards a nostalgic view focused on the good old days of stability. Thus, the stage is set for the classic conservative backlash.

Over the period of reformist primacy, the very successes of the reformist and the methods pursued to beat back the traditionalists create the fertile ground for the seeds of conservatism, again the tendencies of the time provide the impetus for its demise.

We have then the central elements of the model. As specified it does seem to have a flaw. The dynamics of the reformist (revolutionary) eras provide a plausible and satisfying explanation for creating the conservative backlash which is a well recognized response to a period of reform. While there is plausibility to the them that has gets assertion as a destabilizing force in stable periods, in a well designed societal system one might expect that the has elements would not have a blatant relative growth in rewards and cause the perceived gap to grow rapidly – perhaps even evolutionary reform would be adequate to sustain a modest leaning of society toward maintenance of tradition. I believe the model can be strengthened by adding another element (technological progression) that I will describe later.

The above refers to the underlying, objective conditions. Such changes in conditions are not sufficient to bring change in my observation. There must be a Burke, a Paine, a Luther (an intellectual if you will) to coalesce the receptive public opinion to a point that action will occur. Intellectuals make opinion, but they also react to public leanings. While they are the catalysts for change they are also captives of the system, responding to the changing objective conditions and seeking to mold public opinion, but also being molded by that opinion. A Rousseau, a Marx cannot “sell” their prescriptions for a more just society until the market is ready for their ideas. The influence of the intellectual must be added to the above summary, as the catalyst that creates action from the public potential that is described.

The intellectuals are ever seeking furtherance of their ideas and personal recognition as thoughtful idealists. The ideas of the reformists are formed and prevail when injustices are most pronounced and when relative stability has created feelings of security. The ideas of the conservative are formed and prevail when injustices are perceived to have been reduced and when the chaos of reform has created insecurity.

These forces define the internal dynamics of the cyclical process. There is an external factor that intervenes to shorten the status quo period. In the modern materialist world, a great portion of the rewards in society come from the economic sector. Spiritual and government efficiency are factors of importance, but it is the weekly paycheck that determines the amount of food, education, medical care and recreation that can be bought. The paycheck tends to over ride other considerations for many people. It may well be, I believe is, that the change in technology that is reflected in the economic sector injects a destabilizing force that brings forward the shift toward public reformist values.

Looking at the two most recent eras, such an explanation seems satisfying. In the industrial revolution that swept the world of the 19^th century, the owners of capital gained huge rewards. While owners’ earnings soared with enhanced production technology, the existing systems for determining the share of the economic output that would go to labor were designed to work with an earlier technology in which the rural sector dominated and it was largely craftsmen who worked off the farm. The consequence was a vast gap in well being between robber baron and industrial worker, a situation which provided a huge impetus in support of a socialized economy to assure a more just distribution of rewards.

In the 19^th century situation described by the above parameters, the need for change was within a national economic system. As the 21^st century emerges, new technology emerging even more rapidly appears to be creating sets of them that has across a nation and leaving members of other nations to be largely has nots. The contemporary turmoil about globalization and north- south wealth may well be the precursors for the new revolutionary ideology that will evolve and be accepted by many, while being opposed by the traditionalists, thus providing the force for a new revolutionary era of intense violence.

I have described a system that powerfully influences violence levels and one that derives from very fundamental beliefs about the correct order for mankind, more or less as a whole. Thus, it involves strongly held beliefs which do not change rapidly

Perhaps the recent more rapid rate of technological change is shortening the cycle. If so, the current status quo period should endure for something on the order of 50 years or less and can be expected to emerge into a time of intense violence by mid-century or earlier.

The earlier discussion focused on the unchanging or cyclical consequence of an internal dynamics that continually generates countervailing forces. An external force of technology development was brought in that tends to prevent continuation of the status quo since economic change is likely to produce benefits that will not be equally shared. This will further fuel desire for reform. But, technological/economic change is progressive, not cyclical. I believe apart from its destabilizing effect new technology influences life values in ways that are progressive such as increasing the value put on human life as medical and income factors reduce life’s insecurity. Or, in another case, religion’s influence on society is undercut when the fear of early death tomorrow is reduced with better health technology. As a greater and greater proportion of society achieves significant education and surplus wealth, the requirement for a more representative form of government increases.

The result from these technological developments is a progressive change in human values that is change, to use a math term, which is monotonic, more or less constantly progressing upward. It brings changes in emphases in political and social philosophy. This progression is plausibly noted in the evolution of issues fought over during the revolutionary eras from the central concept of religion, through the primary political value of form of government to finally the least rigidly held belief of the form to be taken by the economy. If there is progression perhaps these issues have now been in a sense solved. However, the cyclical tendency seems to still prevail and is laid on top of the progressive tendency to give an upward moving overall posture.

In this section I review the development of the intellectual forces that have characterized the three cycles observed during these years.

SQ 1 -- The first 120 years of these data precede the initial revolutionary period, that of the Protestant reformation. No effort was made to examine data that antedates this time period to determine if a pre-occurring revolution might be present. Within that constraint of data, the theory would predict that there should have been an extended period in which meta issues were at a minimum – which is true within the data. Issues associated with meta-ideology occurred in only 5.5 percent of the 157 wars recorded during this time period compared to 18.2 percent in the following revolutionary era’s 181 wars. That is, meta-conflict issues occurred at a rate of only 30 percent of the rate demonstrated in the following revolutionary time period. The only time period with a lower level of conflicts over basic philosophy, was that of SQ 2 following the religious wars, at 2.6 percent. Violence was also at a relatively low level in SQ 1 , which again provides support for the theory from within the data set. The relationships exhibited from within the data set are entirely consistent with the theory developed here.

Stepping outside the data, we should expect to see an increase in the perceived injustices (in this case within the Church) within the system. The late medieval Catholic Church faced a complex and often contradictory set of needs. Over the centuries, the church, particularly in the office of the Papacy, had become deeply involved in the political life of Western Europe. The resulting intrigues and political manipulations, combined with the church's increasing power and wealth, contributed to the erosion of the church’s spiritual role. Abuses such as the sale of indulgences (or spiritual privileges) and relics and the spiritual and moral corruption of the clergy, exploited the pious and further undermined the church's spiritual authority.

William Langer in his massive An Encyclopedia of World History provided a good overview of the prevailing historical views of this era as he wrote of [The Popes] living in splendor and luxury while using their position either to aggrandize their families or to strengthen the temporal position of the Church.” He states, “Of religious leadership there was almost none... Pius II and Sixtus IV, mid to late 15^th century, were noted for their nepotism. Innocent VIII, 1484 to 1492, was the first pope to recognize his children and was reputed to be indolent and altogether corrupt... Langer calls Alexander VI, 1492-1503 ruthless and thoroughly immoral. The Britannica tracks the same events and behavior and notes that Even from a Renaissance viewpoint, his [Alexander VI] relentless pursuit of political goals and unremitting efforts to aggrandize his family were seen as excessive. In September 1493 Alexander created his teenaged son Cesare a cardinal. His son Juan was made duke of Gandía (Spain) and was married to Maria Enriquez, the cousin of King Ferdinand IV of Castile; Alexander VI holds a high place on the list of the so-called bad popes.

In this atmosphere, by the end of the 15th century many held that reform from within Roman Catholicism had been tried and the reformists had failed.

Barbara Tuchman, describes Alexander VI, 1492-1503, in the following devastating terms after 35 years as Cardinal and Vice-Chancellor, his character, habits, principles, or lack of them, uses of power, methods of enrichment, mistresses and seven children were well enough known to his colleagues...[and when he was elevated to the Papacy one remarked] Flee, we are in the hands of a wolf.

The corruption of the Church was further highlighted in the eyes of many non-Italian Europeans by a growing nationalism. There were slow changes in economic technology and structure away from feudalism which produced the beginnings of a significant middle class. Along these lines Langer indicates that the Reformation came not only from the corruption and worldliness of church, but also from the dislike of foreigners by both the Germans and the English. He notes furthermore that the growth of the middle class and of a nascent capitalist economy gave power to people who viewed Roman Catholicism as a restraint on their development. Thus, we have a feature that seems to be part of the move toward revolution, which is of technical and thereby economic change creating new economic classes seeking change to accommodate their new positions.

The distaste for the papacy increased at a time of rising nationalist spirits. The popes, who had long intervened in the politics of Germany, France, and England, faced setbacks when the monarchies in each country acquired new power. In Bohemia, Jan Hus criticized the luxury loving clergy and used nationalism to argue against the Pope’s use of warfare. The sovereigns found a need to assert this power against the papacy and, in most cases, against local clerical representatives of the church.

Although there are ancillary conditions cited -- nationalism and economic change -- the fundamental sources of the Reformation springs from the abuse of privilege within the Church.

In this section I am striving to produce enough evidence to support the plausibility of the explanation offered for the rise and fall in violence. I have made a brief commentary on an extraordinarily complex subject in order to demonstrate the plausibility of the explanation I have offered. More detailed investigations by others will reinforce the validity of the conclusions made here.

In its fundamentals, I have produced evidence for increasing real injustice in part related to technological change as well as evidence of increasing perception of injustices. These are the conditions which, in this exposition, create the drive for fundamental (meta) reform.

REVO 1-- In this period we should expect to see the presence of intense and extended violence as reformists attempt to change the structure of society. Late in the period we would expect signs of revulsion against the chaos and violence that always accompany such efforts to undertake fundamental change.. We also expect to find that reforms of significant dimensions occur. Consequent to these latter two conditions we expect, of course, forces leading to the demise of the revolutionary period.

Addressing the most fundamental of human beliefs the religious reformers, Luther, Calvin, as well as Wycliffe and Hus, helped to bring about changes that were aimed at ameliorating if not eliminating abuses by the church. But, they put many of their ideas for change in absolutist form, leaving little room for compromise. The true believers on either side were willing to fight to impose their views of truth and the more cynical among the leaders would promote the side that favored their position, with violence when believed useful. Consequently there was a period of over a century in which there were repeated and devastating wars in much of Europe. These were wars in which there was conflicts over the position of Church and of religious beliefs in life and state.

Changes did take place. Most prominently a competing Protestant version of Christianity came into being. Still in its infancy, it had acquired none of the barnacles of Roman Catholicism, producing a less corrupt institution with fewer material benefits for its leaders. The threat the Protestant’s brought from the outside as well as perceived needs for change from inside, brought about important reforms from within Roman Catholicism.

In reaction to internal demands for reform and the pressure induced by the growing number of Protestant successes, Paul III convened the Council of Trent in 1545. The Council’s reform recommendations were far reaching. Its conclusions regretted the corruption of the clergy and attempted to limit luxurious living by the clergy and to control the appointment of relatives to Church offices The financial abuses that had been so flagrant in the Church at all levels were brought under better control. New religious orders and other groups were founded to effect a religious renewal, the Jesuits for example.

The reforms in the Church went far to meeting the criticisms which had been primary factors in the rise of the Protestant groups. Between the internal reforms of Roman Catholicism and the alternatives developed by Luther, Calvin and others, the years of the 16^th century saw a reduction in criticism of the Church’s privileged position. We do find as predicted clear evidence of reform that reduced the perceived inequities and injustices.

There was also produced a period of vicious warfare that evolved from the needs of the true believers and of the monarchs to establish either supremacy of one of the religious factions or to create a new atmosphere in which tolerance of religion would be present. It took a century of destruction to finally lay this issue aside. The vicious disruptions of life and welfare that were part of the religious wars are widely acknowledged.

The armies of both sides plundered, leaving whole regions ravaged. To quote Langer the result was Terrible conditions in Germany. Irreparable losses of men and wealth. Destruction of towns and trade. Reduction of population; increase of poverty, retrogradation in all ranks. By 1648 most belligerents were exhausted. Since 1644, representatives of the powers had been talking about terms. Finally in the Treaty of Westphalia, religious tensions in Europe were largely brought under control.

The decades of warfare produced an intense revulsion against the violence that threatened life and status. Appeals for peace met with highly receptive audiences. Again the conditions that are suggested by our theory of cycles in fundamental beliefs are supported.

SQ 2 – The time was now ripe for a conservative reaction, which is what took place in Europe of the 17^th century.

Langer wrote The religious wars also engendered a luxuriant growth of political ideas that in the end provided a strong theoretical basis for the reassertion of royal authority. The Britannica noted the same point, The bitter experience of civil war and its attendant anarchy in France had turned Bodin's attention to the problem of how to secure order and authority in a state. Bodin thought that the secret lay in recognition of the sovereignty of the state. According to him, supreme power is the distinctive mark of the state. This power is unique, absolute in that no limits of time or competence can be placed upon it, and self-subsisting in that it does not depend for its validity on the consent of the subject. Bodin assumed that governments command by divine right because government is instituted by providence for the well-being of humanity.

Of course, the theory of divine and natural law appealed to by Bodin carried the obligation of the sovereign to govern in a just manner. Bodin indicates, the right to rule is subject to principles such as enforcement of the Ten Commandments and protection of the rights of liberty and property of the governed. Nonetheless, The needs of the political situation forced Bodin to give his sovereign virtually unlimited authority.

Thomas Hobbes in England came to similar conclusions in his analysis of requirements for peace and security. In Hobbes’ concept the citizenry must grant authority to a central figure in order to guarantee its own security, a concept brought to the forefront because of the past century of insecurity. Once the sovereign is established, its power, responsible only to God, is absolute.

A set of intellectuals developed a theory that was consciously and explicitly derived to prevent further depredations as seen in the religious wars. For perhaps a century its offerings survived.

As this period of stability moves to its conclusion we should find some evidence of an increasing perception of corruption and injustice in this system. I argue that as a stable system consolidates, society begins to once again note the inequalities that are present and growing.

The weight of evidence appears to be that the [French] monarchy was by the late 1780s doomed to destruction, both from its inability to carry on the absolutist, administrative work formerly accomplished by men like Colbert and by the nature of its critics' desires; the gap separating the Roman Catholic traditionalism of the monarchy and the neoclassical ambitions of nascent public opinion was too wide.

Langer describes the British situation in a pithy commentary on George III, blindly following the traditions of 18^th century England, He built up in Parliament...by the usual means of patronage and bribery a party of King’s friends. Barbara Tuchman provides a devastating critique of the British King’s and Parliament’s abilities to manage the relationship, admittedly a difficult one, with the American colonies. Revenues were a major issue. But, incompetency seems more at fault. George III said to his prime minister that one certainly cannot seriously think that a private gentlemen ...is to stand in the way of an eldest son of an Earl [for government office]. She describes the parliamentarians as venal, narrow-minded, self-righteous and pedantic.

In France Louis XIV bequeathed not national unity but an enlivened and embittered dissent ... [with] a disordered and impoverished state. The monarchs of the day with their petulance, frequent incompetence and almost universal greed destroyed the concept of kingly divinity. At the end of the 18^th century, an aging Louis and the heirs came increasingly under the influence of their mistresses which brought heavy expenditures and a rampant growth in luxurious living at the top. In Spain and Portugal the monarchies produced an equal number of incompetents. Maria I became insane and her son as regent undertook a drastic repression of all revolutionary thought in 1792.

Thomas Paine wrote, ...monarchy, the enemy of mankind and the source of misery, would be abolished. Eliminate the ambitions of kings, and peace would result. Thus, after a century the institution which was to create stability was seen as a major source of social injustice and inequity.

Again economic change seems to have accelerated the process of dissatisfaction with a system increasingly out of keeping with the times. There were the beginnings of the industrial age which created a need for government of a nature unlike that required to manage an uneducated peasantry. There are among the historians of the time the inevitable references to the rising middle class as a factor in discontent with government.

During the years of the second Status Quo period, from 1648 to 1775, we have the essential elements of the theory of rise and fall. The era commenced with a conscious effort by political philosophers to develop a theory, divine right of kings, of government which would produce stability. This characterized the beginning of the epoch. By the latter years, there were increasingly perceptions of injustice, inefficiency and corruption in that ruling system. In the background, economic relations were changing as steam power began to have its influence and the markets developed by empires resulted in the rapid growth of towns and cities.

Revo 2 – To support the concepts offered here we must find at the start of the second revolutionary epoch pronouncement of political concepts which are meant to correct the patent evils of the now discredited monarchies and to replace them with systems of government more in keeping with the economic and social systems of the times. As the epoch evolves we must find recorded an increasing distaste with the violence which has already been shown to exist in the data analyses in the first part of this paper.

The fundamental shift in the political concepts is that the King, having failed his obligations of effective and fair government, is to be shorn of his divine right to office and must recognize that his continuation in office is the result of the social contract with the people. Thinkers argued that sovereignty or divine (more commonly termed natural) will resides with the people.

Man is born free," wrote Rousseau in the Contract Sociale, "yet he is everywhere in chains. And in Émile: God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil. He further wrote that Those who are associated in it take collectively the name of people, and severally are called citizens, as sharing in the sovereign power, and subjects, as being under the laws of the state. He promulgated and promoted the revolutionary concept that the people had an “inalienable” right to have a say in their government.

Paine in a book published in the late 18^th century spoke out effectively in favor of republicanism as against monarchy. In a pamphlet he began as a defense of the French Revolution he evolved an analysis of the basic reasons for discontent in European society and a remedy for the evils of arbitrary government, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and war. To the ruling class Paine's proposals spelled bloody revolution and the British government ordered the book banned and the publisher jailed. Paine himself was indicted for treason, and an order went out for his arrest. As noted, he called the monarch, the enemy of mankind and the source of misery...

Obviously, carrying these theories into the realm of reality would require the disenfranchisement of many privileged persons. The true believers in the changes needed to bring a just order were opposed by the many advocates of the status quo. Once again there began the struggle to determine through might who would be judged to be right. Between 1775 and 1848, warfare and unrest reached a level not seen since the peace settlement reached in 1648 in Westphalia.

Exhaustion after the Napoleonic Wars early in that period provoked the initial steps toward the conservative backlash. The Wars had proved a catastrophe for nations such as Denmark, both economically and politically. Copenhagen, the capital and the country's commercial and administrative center, had been devastated by the bombardment of 1807, and Norway had been lost in 1814. Trade had been seriously affected by the blockade of England. Also in Scandinavia the Swedish army unable to defend Finland allowed the Russians to advance as far as Umeå in Sweden. In March 1809 Gustav IV was deposed. Spain suffered widespread devastation as armies fought back and forth across its land. England avoided land battles on its territory but incurred huge and destabilizing economic costs. More than anything, a widespread longing for a quick and cheap peace brought the men of 1809 to power. The revulsion against and fear of instability was widespread as predicted.

The surviving traditional regimes set out to maintain political stability in Europe, relying on what was known as the Concert of Europe. But, the changes that were on-going were too powerful to readily resist. Kings and princes saw themselves severely threatened by the revolutionary thoughts of the people’s will.

De Tocqueville noted in 1835 The spell of royalty is broken, but it has not been succeeded by the majesty of the laws. The people have learned to despise all authority.... Meanwhile The new industrialization had brought bitter industrial relationships, cyclical and technological unemployment and the growth of towns, along with the general increase in prosperity. Protest against... the [accompanying] squalor took many forms.... Revolutions occurred in 1830.

Burckhardt wrote of the period, In Western Europe...politics developed into a general radicalism, namely a way of thinking that attributed all evils to existing political conditions...find salvation in demolishing and rebuilding structure from the foundation....Then came the February Revolution of 1848. In the midst of the general upheaval, it caused a sudden clearing of the horizon....for the June days in Paris almost at once restored the monarchist... party to power.

Slowly the warfare and the threat of demise of the established monarchies brought on a new system designed to promote stability. Fundamental to that new system was the co-opting of the nationalism released by the French revolutionary processes.

Conservatism, historically, has been a response to the principles and activities stemming from the French Revolution. All conservative theorists reject the idea of violent change and uphold the need for order and continuity. Edmund Burke accurately predicted the terrorism and violence of the French revolution. In his reaction against the French revolution he nonetheless built on its ideas of nationhood, but he drafted the ideas for the conservative cause. He noted that a country is not a mere physical locality, but a community in time into which men are born, and only within the existing constitution and by the consent of its representatives can changes legitimately be made.

A need existed to develop a new derivation of a state that would promote stability based on political concepts that incorporated the philosophies that had deposed the divine kings.

SQ 3 – Social theorists used nationalism and the social contract to construct concepts of the State that required the blind obedience of the people in a manner rather analogous to the thoughts of Bodin and others about requirement for obedience to the divine king.

Political theory of the time advocated that states and nations should coincide, a theory which produced modern nationalism. There was A temporary alliance of democracy and nationalism...created. The counter reaction to chaos of the first half of the 19^th century was that of the appeal to national identity as the basis for forming a strong state to which the people owed allegiance in much the same sense that they owed allegiance to king under the principle of divine right. To thinkers such as Hegel, there was the divine principle of the state... There was a difference, however, that probably evolved from the need to accommodate the growing middle class. While the people owed unswerving allegiance to the nation state, the state’s right to rule increasingly reflected the sovereignty of the nation (the people) not divine will. This was a principle widely accepted by the later part of the century.

After the 1848 attempts at revolution, nationalism as a conservative line of thinking became particularly strong in Germany and Italy. German nationalism began to stress instinct against reason; the power of historical tradition against rational attempts at progress and a more just order; the historical differences between nations rather than their common aspirations. The French Revolution, liberalism, and equality were regarded as a brief aberration, against which the eternal foundations of societal order would prevail.

Despite the defeat of the revolutions, important reforms resulted from the 1848 uprisings. Manorialism was permanently abolished throughout Germany and the Habsburg lands, giving peasants new rights. Democracy ruled in France, even under the new empire and despite considerable manipulation universal manhood suffrage had been permanently installed. Prussia, again in conservative hands, nevertheless established a parliament, based on a limited vote, as a gesture to liberal opinion. The Habsburg monarchy installed a rationalized bureaucratic structure to replace localized landlord rule.

These appeals to each nation’s unique and historical attributes provided a basis for internal stability, especially if they were tempered with a leavening of ideas of government deriving raison d’etre from the people. Thus, although in Spain particularly the monarchy tottered and France continued to find unrest, much of Europe showed a peacefulness that had been unknown for more than half a century. The drive for empire also released appeals for aggrandizement to be directed outward and there were many small wars against non-European peoples while the continent experienced what many felt to be an unparalleled and enduring sense of peace and security.

The conservative forces, determined to limit further change, now held wide sway. The stage was set for the next reformist moves. With religion no longer at wide issue and few expressing strong opposition to the rhetoric of some degree of representative government and many concessions made to this fundamental concept from the American/French revolutions, it was perhaps inevitable that the industrial evolution that occurred in this century would bring forward the issue of equity in the distribution of the rewards of this new industrial base.

The solution to one set of needs, for stability, seems to form the basis for the next set of problems. National unification and the obligation of the citizenry to the preservation and even the glorification of the nation formed the basis for a new unrest. The wars of Napoleon based on vast conscript armies caused a backlash, referring back to good old times of more limited wars with smaller armies. The forces of popular identification with the glory of the state were not so easily contained. This was particularly true in Germany, located as it was with little in the way of natural barriers to invasion from either the east or the west. Hegel and Nietzsche idealized the German nation and characterized the state as the embodiment of the nation asserting that the state is the end and the individual as subordinate to, as Hegel put it the march of God in the world.

Roots of Revo 3 -- Economic and technical change were rapid in the 19^th century and the owners of the new enterprises were capturing most of the increased benefits of greater productivity for themselves. One of the most eloquent of those criticizing conspicuous consumption in the face of the deprivation faced by the working class was the American academic Thorsten Veblen. While he wrote profoundly of the disparities and the apparent exploitation by the owners of capital, it was, of course, Marx who articulated reform concepts which captured the imagination of millions.

Once again we see many streams of thought expressing increasing perceptions of inequities and growing inequities in an era of relatively unchanging rules of the game. The capitalists of the period captured a vast share of the growing production base and it was only as the era came toward its close that there seemed to be some evidence of labor improving its position. With the stability and security felt after 40 or 50 years of very low, or distantly located violence, there was a receptive audience for appeals to reform the system to correct the massive injustices that many perceived to exist.

Revo 3 -- These times are recent enough, the social systems similar enough to today, so that we can empathize more readily with the views of the leaders of the time than most of us can with those of earlier times. The conservative forces building on nationalism politically and on the clear advances made in productivity on the economic side allied themselves to maintain whatever vestiges of the old system that had survived. Not unlike the violent collapse of the French monarchy, the remaining vestiges of inherited privilege fell under the violence of the unintended, but probably inevitable given the tensions of the day, World War, referred to at the time as the Great War.

In Spain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, throughout Europe the old system tottered and collapsed over the years following the war. At the far Eastern edge of Europe, a virulent and deceptively virile form of Marxism gained a national basis and a clear kind of international credibility. Once again the era of conservatism, with its appeal to nationalism and retention of much of traditional privilege of aristocracy and of the support for the rights of owners of capital to run enterprises as they saw fit, contained seeds which lead to its demise. Wealth begat wealth and the reforms that might have come as labor became more skilled and demands for labor grew and as unions matured did not occur and bring rapid welfare improvements for the workers commensurate with the gains accruing to owners. Inability and unwillingness to address needed changes spawned support for a five or six decade long struggle pitting those espousing massive state intervention in the economy against those espousing retention of major elements of the economy in the hands of private persons.

With the European system reeling from the devastation of World War I and most of the world pummeled by the great economic collapse of the 1930s, mankind sought correction to the manifest injustices of the capitalist world. Hitler took the ideas of such thinkers as Hegel and built on the traditional concepts of obedience to authority. He propelled Germany into a quest for national glory based on a system in which ultimately the State would control if not own the great industrial enterprises and would dictate to all of society.

Also railing against the system’s inequities and immoralities ( in their views) communists sought, with the USSR in a leadership position, their version of utopia in which all would be owned, people included, by the State. In both the national socialism of Hitler and communism of Stalin, the citizen owed virtually everything to the state. Individual freedoms were severely circumscribed in return for the state’s interventions against the corrupt and evil owners of giant enterprises.

In opposition to these concepts of the supremacy of the state or the nation, there were the great democracies of the world in which the citizens reigned supreme within the constraints of the social contract. The state manifested the will of the people, if not it had no right to exist. Varying degrees of state intervention in the economic structure were tried within the general structure of democracy in recognition of the evils that unbridled capitalism could practice. Early in the rise of communism, nationalization of enterprises involving key sectors – communications, steel, transportation were common among the Western democracies, although later a more balanced posture of developing a restrained or bridled capitalism came to prevail.

Thus, the industrial states of the World aligned themselves into two groups, one side consisting of states espousing democracy/bridled capitalism (euphemistically the Free World) against a set of largely Soviet dominated nations (euphemistically aligned behind the Iron Curtain). Hitler and his national socialism were a temporary aberration as his version of utopia was attempted and failed in the space of a few short years. But for fifty years or more the Free World or the West confronted the Soviet Bloc. While the level of direct violence, after the excesses of the two world wars were laid aside, was limited by the fear of nuclear holocaust, the public fatigue with the threat of that holocaust and with the burden of paying for institutions of mutual deterrence grew just as the aversion to the direct violence in prior revolutionary eras had grown.

As the end of the 20^th century approached the burden of maintaining a revolutionary posture resulted in the peaceful demise of the Soviet Union. The West which had always leaned more to maintenance of the status quo was tired of the contest and delighted to ameliorate if not lay aside its devotion to massive armies of nuclear weapons.

SQ 4 (Rump Session) – This fatigue brought on by a seemingly interminable cold war and fear of nuclear holocaust set the stage for the current epoch which is characterized by the absence of ideological disputes between the major powers. We have lived through this revolutionary epoch. The omnipresent terror of considering a possible failure of deterrence remains a vivid memory.

The other condition presumed necessary for a new status quo epoch is that of accomplishment of significant reform. That has also occurred in ample measure in the 20^th century. After a near disastrous retrenchment into tariff protection in the 1930s, a regime of rather free trade has emerged and brought unparalleled prosperity to those nations prepared to exploit the new trade opportunities. Within the national economy the unbridled power of the owners of capital has been extensively, if less than perfectly, constrained with progressive taxation on incomes, with the growth in union power, with safety regulations and with such policies as unemployment compensation. The massive increases in productivity, rate of technical change and the need for efficient workers also resulted in living standards of the workers in enterprises improving to unprecedented levels.

Thus, with the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War more or less coterminous with REVO 3 can be said to have ended. The big powers see no threat from one another, at least no eminent threat, and are at peace (uneasy, as is characteristic of the anarchic international system). While there are ample disputes which the advocates for change would like to raise to the level of meta concerns, such has, as of this writing, not been achieved. It should be expected that this epoch will endure for at least another generation.

The utility of a theory is ultimately determined by its ability to forecast likely future courses of events. Before attempting to look ahead I believe it helpful to very briefly recount the historical record cited here.

b. a significant record of reforms ensuing from the preceding revolutionary movements

SQ 1 – I did not study the period before 1400 which should have been a revolutionary epoch, thus, it is not possible to comment on the extent that conditions a. and b. prevail. However, I have shown that meta disputes (c) were at a very low level as expected and there was a significant increase in criticisms of the morality of the Church (e). Big power participation in war (d) was 30 percent below that of the following period (REVO 1).

SQ 2 – I cited many expressions of dismay about the destruction from the religious wars (condition a). Reform in the Catholic Church and the establishment of alternative institutions of faith fulfilled the parameter (b). Meta disputes were almost absent as demonstrated from the internal data as was the case for big power participation in wars (conditions c and d). As this epoch matured there was an increasing perception of corruption and inefficiency on the part of the Divine kings (e). Thus all of the conditions that should be present in a status quo era have been shown to be present in SQ 2.

SQ 3 -- The period following the last gasps of the revolutions advocating representative government is a little different. There was a revulsion against war, but it was rather localized and it also was stronger at the end of the Napoleonic wars than at the end of the revolutionary era. However, by 1848 there was both a fatigue with unrest and a sharp increase in concern about their future incumbency on the part of Kings and Nobility. The parameter of a turn against violence and chaos, the general form of condition (a)., was there and a number of citations have been made. Similarly I made several references to reform achievements in government (b). Meta disputes declined sharply as did big power involvement in wars with other big powers, from the internal data (conditions c and d). It was during this interval that the perceptions of the inequities and injustices in the distribution of rewards from the rapidly growing industrial sector grew (condition e).

SQ 4 -- This is a rump session that at this writing is very near its inception. Therefore observing its characteristics is not an easy task. From the internal data, big power participation in war is down sharply (d) and meta disputes (c) are not common among the big powers. The revulsion against the fear of nuclear annihilation is something that almost every one of age 30 and above recalls all too vividly (a). Without, giving citations but again based on living experience, the robber baron of old has been severely constrained by laws and customs as well as by the newly acquired power of labor (b). The increasing level of protests

Condition	SQ 1	SQ 2	SQ 3	SQ 4
a. war revulsion	unk	yes	yes	yes
b. reforms made	unk	yes	yes	yes
c. low meta conflict	yes	yes	yes	yes
d. low big power fighting	yes	yes	yes	yes
e. growing injustice seen	yes	yes	yes	preliminary evidence

against globalization, against environmental degradation and against the gaps in welfare between the West and others appear to portend the expected growing discontent with the injustices in the system.

Of the twenty conditions that should be demonstrated over the four eras, 17 are shown to be present in significant degree. One condition for the recent era seems to be present but on a preliminary basis. The two other conditions were ones on which no observations could be made because required comparisons were to conditions that were before the data set. Thus, in terms of actual observations the agreement with the postulated conditions that should be present is very close to 100 percent.

REVO 1, 2 and 3 – It has been demonstrated from the internal data that all three of the revolutionary eras were characterized by all of the conditions (a) (b) and (c). There is little merit in constructing another table as above; suffice it to say the agreement with the theory is 100 percent.

The Next Epoch – If we assume from this analysis that significant shifts in underlying social forces require about two or three generations to mature, it would be reasonable to expect that a new revolutionary period is likely to commence 20 to 30 years from now. It will be built on political concepts that evolve to correct the then currently perceived injustices and inequities in society. The injustices should be either worsening or perceived to already be pronounced. Such injustices are not absolute but rather are measured relative to the values of society of the time.

We should now see the precursors to the ideas that will take root and cause the disruption of society toward the middle of this century. If we are to get clues as to how the concepts will take root, it might help to look at primary values that seem to characterize the meta beliefs of today. My observations are that the following are very widely held beliefs in the West, that are espoused at least in terms of rhetoric.

These values taken together in some manner might be expected to form the basis for the next revolution, as those intellectuals in society most concerned with a just order strive to mobilize public perceptions to a view that the current system is failing, failing to conform to values. That mobilization of perceptions can be expected to occur in the first instance among the middle and upper class youth.. The two issues that currently seem to raise the greatest range of hackles are economic globalization and environmental corruption. The most articulate are in the developed world and they have democracy, human rights protected and social advantage. But, globalization causes loss of jobs in the developed world and environmental degradation is universal, consequently the affluent youth have some self interests on these issues that overlap their perceptions of public interests. This is probably a necessary condition to get support for change.

Despite the intensity of the beliefs of a few, I do not feel that environmental issues apart are likely to be a basis for a possible world revolutionary movement. Economic globalization and gap between the wealth of the developed nations and the rest do seem rather likely candidates as a basis for a new concept of a correct and just order for world society..

In my reviews of historical writings for each of the eras leading up to a period of world revolution, I came across references to significant economic change taking place – change in cultural environment and the rise of a new middle class with aspirations to have a position commensurate with their class’s new economic status. The economic changes leading to the socialist revolution seem clear enough and the American and French ideas seem to derive in no small part from the industrial revolution that was on its threshold. Looking back still further feudalism was breaking down and some urban economic enterprises were growing before the religious upheavals that started in the early 16^th century. Thus, I accept economic change, probably driven by technological change, as a probable factor in adding a dynamic element to the cycle.

The most probable course for a new meta reformist drive is one that might parallel the 19^th century. Rather than basing the arguments about inequity and injustice on the heads of the owners of capital, the target in the 21^st century is likely to be the leaders of the have (rich) state’s and their associated multi-nationals. The have’s possess growing wealth. A few newly industrializing states are undergoing extremely rapid change with many of their citizens prospering, but many old professions are disappearing creating tensions along with the prosperity.

To provide the needed source of activists there are those of the old industrial countries living the good life and profiting from cheap labor. The newly industrializing are prospering but with major dislocations. And there are many in south Asia and Africa where life is not improving at a pace commensurate with the TV and movie scenes of first world affluence that they now view from a globalized media system. Misgovernment is wide spread in the Third World and helps to further exacerbate the tensions. AIDs threatens to reverse the recent progress in a number of countries. The basic ingredient of the potentially disaffected are there awaiting the new intellectual giant that will mobilize them.

Demagogues will argue that great (intolerable) inequities exist between countries and will likely assert this gap results from the unfair and inequitable global trading system. Today, we see semi-violent, raucous demonstrations by youth against globalization.

The advocacy of human rights, not a driving issue unto itself, may be the catalyst that enables the advocates of reform to mobilize the forces required in reaction to the perceived injustices resulting from globalization. In researching for this book, I found to my surprise that two of the more prominent recent American diplomats were backing away, some, from their established realist positions in developing foreign policy. Particularly striking is Henry Kissinger in the third volume of his memoirs citing a new found adherence to the principles of Wilsonianism.

I had frequently criticized the applicability of all-purpose Wilsonianism for conducting foreign policy. I had emphasized the need for a consistent view of the national interest and recognition of the importance of the balance of power. At the same time, it was wrong to treat Wilsonianism as the idiosyncrasy of a few American intellectuals. Instead it was the instinctive expression of a society founded and shaped by immigrants who had affirmed universal principles of liberty and justice...An international order based entirely upon national self-interest would not be sustained by a people who thought of their country as the ‘shining city on a hill.’

This statement is rather surprising since most of us know Kissinger as someone who made his career as a hard line realist. Richard Holbrooke if you will a hard nosed somewhat liberal diplomat followed suit.

I came to the conclusion that the choice between ‘realists’ and ‘idealists’ was a false one: in the long run, our strategic interests and human rights supported and reinforced each other....American foreign policy needed to embrace both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

Both Kissinger and Holbrooke are acutely sensitive to America’s debacle in Vietnam and the inability of the government to sustain a course of action based on power, a course which appeared to many to have been strongly at variance with the moral ideals such as those which are traditionally said to have guided Woodrow Wilson.

Human rights, obviously, transcend national sovereignty. Human rights are severely abused in many of the less developed countries of the world. It is not difficult to envision a new philosophy, the foundation is there already, that demands a paternalistic interventionism to protect the human rights of the downtrodden. Afghanistan and Iraq perhaps are first cases. And these cases raise fault line issues that may well exacerbate tensions between Islam and Christianity, unless handled with great sensitivity and skill. The West and China are likely to be at odds over any such movement. Within the West, conflict will inevitably arise as questions of distribution of economic rewards are raised. (This was written before France and Germany dissented on Iraq.)

Clearly, the last points are speculative. The purpose was to demonstrate a plausible scenario rather than to prognosticate as to the actual. It is, I believe, plausible that a drive to promote and protect human rights could mature and that a perception of widespread injustices generated by the current economic system in an era of rapid globalization could mature and provide the recruitment base for the advocates of forceful intervention on human rights.

Wars are ever present, often central to a political group’s existence but are ever changing as the result of man’s adaptive behavior. Generals are traditionally accused of fighting the last war in their tactical and even strategic decisions. Politicians are equally prone to the misuse of historical experiences.

While we can look at some elements of the history of warfare to develop understanding about today’s conflicts, it is also true that there are substantive and meaningful differences in patterns and relationships in today’s world that can, if not properly considered, negate the validity of historical examples.

History is replete with lessons, but a single case does not a pattern make. The lessons of history much be understood within the context of the times. Man is adaptive, responsive to the past and forever seeking a better future. Yes, lessons there are in the historical experience, but equally there are mis-lessons.

In this paper I explore some of the trends in the history of use of warfare. Understanding of those trends and of the social forces underlying the trends will help in applying the lessons of history in a thoughtful and fruitful manner.

Just as military leaders are brought up with exposure to Clausewitz and Liddel Hart, many foreign policy leaders are brought up with exposure to European Diplomatic history, often as interpreted by Morgenthau and Carr. The time periods which are used are those of Napoleon and Bismarck and perhaps Hitler and Eisenhower and Chamberlain and Churchill. Understanding these periods and the thinking of these giants of the past is necessary.

But, I will demonstrate here how much one must also consider the changes that their very presence induced. If we look at the history of conflict we find that a period as little as two generations can and has generated very different values and rules of thumb. There are, it seems clear, some enduring social forces acting to bring about conflict, but those forces are manifested in different ways at different times. Moreover, some of the forces of a century ago were not enduring and to use them as the basis for lessons of history will often be highly misleading.

Wars are the product of the central beliefs of mankind. Those beliefs are in part the product of enduring traditions and in part the product of the adaptation of those enduring traditions in the light of the technological reality of the times. It is only by grasping something about the interaction between beliefs and technological evolution that we will be able to grasp something about the nature of warfare at a particular time, including that of our time.

This paper seeks to define trends and reasons for those trends to suggest future patterns

The paper (12) at the end of this collection describing the data developed and used here contains tables on the overall frequencies of occurrence of the issues studied in understanding warfare. If we are to understand modern warfare issues it is necessary to examine the time dependent changes that are not reflected in the overall frequencies. I look at the trends in the major issues in the following paragraphs. I have collected the issues that have shown a largely steady trend upward and separated them from those showing a downward trend.

As already presented there are cycles in human belief systems and to examine trends it is often necessary to control for the cyclical effects which can create perturbations that have a magnitude equal or greater than the trend changes. To do this, in the following tables I have separated the data into status quo and revolutionary eras.

ERA #	Avg. value all issues	% Racial issues		% Discrimination. issues		% Economics issues		% Terrorism as issue		% Meta-Ideology
ERA #	Avg. value all issues	S .Q	Revo	S Q	Revo	S Q	Revo	S Q	Revo	S Q	Revo
1	0.32	10	12	03	03	08	08	02	04	06	18
2	0.65	26	35	09	11	07	11	07	11	03	22
3	0.88	50	32	13	10	13	15	16	13	09	43
4	0.98	45	NA	17	NA	24	NA	17	NA	13	NA

These issues are lumped together in this table in an empirical categorization. These are the issues that showed a largely consistent upward trend over these six centuries. And as can be seen in the second column the normalized average for all columns shows a steady upward progression. In contrast to the issues clustered as downward trending over this time period (table below) these issues appear to relate to people’s beliefs. I will return to that interpretation below.

In order to simplify I normalized each column by dividing by the largest entry in the column and then averaged the rows across all columns, Status Quo and Revolutionary. The results show an extreme regularity in this and in the next table. A large share of the variable used here show either a consistent upward or downward trend over the six hundred year time period. The upward trending group tripled in relative frequency while the downward trending group fell by two thirds. The implication is for some systemic force underlying the trends.

ERA #	Avg. value all issue	# Big Involved per war		% Sovereign Nation Fight		% Fight to gain Colonial Control		% Fight to gain Throne/Presidency		% Fight over Territory
ERA #	Avg. value all issue	S Q	Revo	S Q	Revo	S Q	Revo	S Q	Revo	S Q	Revo
1	0.90	0.94	1.29	64	61	42	34	45	34	26	27
2	0.87	1.38	1.05	68	46	44	31	32	23	30	23
3	0.58	0.77	0.58	47	30	37	10	20	17	28	16
4	0.36	0.35	NA	20	NA	06	NA	28	NA	15	NA

The regularity in the trends is emphasized the following table that extracts the normalized average columns from the tables of upward and downward trending issues.

ERA SEQUENCE	upward Trend	downward trend
ERA SEQUENCE	Average Frequency Values
ERA 1	0.32	0.90
ERA 2	0.65	0.87
ERA 3	0.88	0.58
ERA 4	0.98	0.36

If we look just at the summary labels for the issues, clustering them by either upward or downward trending, there is an underlying force that is suggested.

The downward trending issues appear to be those associated with the aims and objectives of governments run by monarchs in the era when realpolitik and mercantilism maintained supremacy as concepts. The upward trending issues are those associated more with the current beliefs of human rights, equality and national self-determination. Terrorism’s rise is likely the product of the increased interaction between the strong and the weak. Otherwise, this cluster of issues appears to reflect the rise of representative governments. I look at the trends these categories as defining fundamental changes taking place.

years	%sov	%relig	%office	%strat	%land	%trade
1400-1599	63	40	40	8	25	8
1600-1799	64	31	32	17	29	12
1800-1949	42	21	21	13	23	5
1950-2000	27	33	20	14	17	1

years	%civ	%race	%econ	%discrm	%phil	%terror
1400-1599	36	9	8	3	10	3
1600-1799	34	26	9	8	11	8
1800-1949	45	39	12	11	21	12
1950-2000	75	41	17	13	33	17

Composite indices using the conflict issues from this data base were constructed to represent these two conceptual types of wars. The change in prevalence between the two types of wars over the centuries has been profound. In the 15^th to the 18^th centuries the wars of the kings occurred with a relative frequency of 0.90 and remained frequent until the mid 19^th century, starting a fall (as monarchies began to recede) which brought their relative frequency down to under 0.40 in the late 20^th century. This represented a two thirds reduction in relative frequency. The wars of the people, under 0.35 in relative frequency in the earliest years, grew to over 0.80 after the mid 19^th century and then to almost 1.0 in the final years of the 20^th century, tripling in frequency.

This major transition in warfare type occurred in large degree after about 1850 and was more or less completed by World War II. The beginnings of the modern era of relative health security and widespread improvements in quality of life for workers can be found in the middle of the 19^th century. The technological advances changed society as education spread and the quality of life was enhanced. Political structures had to evolve to adapt to these changes and that lead to changes in issues in warfare and values and limits placed on the warfare process.

The tables given above cover the full six hundred years of the data base. But, the major evolution of values and warfare systems have taken place within the past two hundred years. I shall examine these two centuries in more detail.

After centuries of warfare, the West, at least on its home territory, is almost at peace. Within the borders of Western Europe and North America, the West, only the low intensity Anglo-Irish, Spanish-Basque and American ethnic conflicts have marred the record of peace since Germany’s defeat in the Spring of 1945. Is this a situation that is unique, likely to endure, a random event? Perhaps these sweeping questions cannot be answered with any certainty, but a detailed examination of the more recent record of warfare does cast some light on likely answers.

While the West has seen peace to an unusual degree, many parts of the world have seen near unprecedented levels of violence in the most recent fifty years. Is this a result of a shift of wars from Europe, or from outside causes, will it endure?

The human record of perceiving current trends within their historical context, rather than as unique and perpetual conditions is not outstanding. At the end of the 19^th century a pattern of stable peace in Europe, similar to that of today, tended to be viewed as enduring. In interpreting the current conditions it is important to look with some care at the trends in patterns in violence during the more modern times, which I shall take as beginning with the initial formation of governments of the people at around the turn of the 19^th century. The detailed examination of the wars of this two hundred year time period will enable us to uncover information of considerable consequence as we seek answers to questions such as those above.

One pattern that has been clearly shown particularly in the paper on cycles and in the first part of this paper is that relationships, patterns and interpretations of events evolve, evolve relatively quickly. A generation makes for change with respect to the less deeply embedded forces of society while the lapse of two or three generations brings sweeping changes in even the most fundamental of man’s action patterns.

Facing this era of proliferation of killing power and perhaps lulled into complacency by the absence of overt threat to the West, it would be well to understand in depth the forces and patterns underlying political violence in the modern era. Moreover, it would be well to suggest how the end of the 20^th century patterns fit into the longer term and more enduring forces leading to deadly conflict. That is the ambitious aim in this paper. Inevitably there is redundancy with the earlier papers; it is also true that the work here goes beyond that earlier presented.

There were roughly 500 incidents of political violence started during this two hundred time period, roughly twice the rate of new war start in the prior four hundred years. Excepting the period from the start of WWI through WWII, new war starts ran at about 2.5 per year – the years around the two world wars were low in new starts which reflects the limitation of the definition of these two incidents as single wars rather than an agglomeration of several almost autonomous fights. If some correction is attempted to account for this the number of new starts of war remained rather stable for 150 plus years, except for the years of the great depression during which there was very little fighting.. Starting with the last half the 20^th century wars starts accelerated by at least a third to something in excess of 3 per year.

Late in the last century we find not only that new war starts increased, there was an increase in numbers on-going during a year because of a major upsurge in the duration of conflicts. Looking back wars fell in duration from the range of 3 to 4 years at the start of the 19^th century to average duration of 2 to 3 years, a figure maintained through the mid 20^th century. By late in the 20^th century the average war was lasting 6 to 7 years, often even longer.

In recent years there are more wars and wars less easily resolved given long wars as well as more wars.

Over this entire time period there were some 500 violent incidents across the world. England fought in 77 wars, the US in 67 and France in 53. The war participation of these nations overlap, but in a simple indicative statistic, the total war participation of these three major democracies exceeded 30 percent of all wars. In the earlier years it was higher, reaching over 50 percent at times. After 1946 the aggregate number of French, US and English wars totaled only 7 percent of all wars, a remarkable fall in war participation. Particularly in the case of the US, a very large share of its earlier wars were relatively smaller incidents against the fragmented and weak American Indian tribes. With the disappearances of political colonialism this type of war has largely disappeared. Similar though less extreme patterns exist for England and France.

Statistically the three major democracies were involved in the following percentages of the wars which were started during five major time periods. The time groupings are made to illustrate the change in behavior most vividly.

Group Identity	Start War (#cases)	% Win War
Western	Yes (83)	52
	No (81)	77
Non-Western	Yes (120)	17
	No (78)	42

Relative Power	Initiate Fight % Win	Not Initiate Fight % Win	Attacked Win minus Attacker Win Rate
same	39	70	+31
one step stronger	64	68	+4
two step stronger	82	85	+3
one step weaker	29	38	+9
two step weaker	11	13	+2

Relative Power	Initiate Fight % Win	Not Initiate Fight % Win	Attacked Win minus Attacker Win Rate
same	19	71	+52
one step stronger	33	50	+17
two step stronger	57	88	+31
one step weaker	39	64	+25
two step weaker	27	50	+23

NOT INITIATE FIGHT	INITIATE FIGHT	TOTAL CASES
Win	Win	TOTAL CASES
62%	34%	535

NOT INITIATE FIGHT	INITIATE FIGHT	TOTAL CASES
Win	Win	TOTAL CASES
50%	34%	185

	% start	%win if start	% not start	%win if not start	total cases	% win
democracy*	49	70	51	82	55	76
monarchy	44	38	56	47	125	43
dictator	52	18	48	68	33	42

19^th century		20^th century
humanitarian index	% win if start	humanitarian index	% win if start
lo	40	lo	13
hi	42	hi	47

19^th century		20^th century
Realpolitik index	% win if start	Realpolitik index	% win if start
lo	49	lo	55
hi	38	hi	19

WAR TYPE	FOLLOW-ON WAR
PRIMARILY SOVEREIGN NATIONS	49%
CIVIL OR MIXED CONFLICT	58%

POLITICAL RELATIONS	PREVIOUS WARS	FOLLOW-ON
SOVEREIGN	NO PRE WAR	29%
SOVEREIGN	PRE WAR	70%
CIVIL AND NOT SOVEREIGN	NO PRE WAR	52%
CIVIL AND NOT SOVEREIGN	PRE WAR	64%

Christians in Wars not involving Muslims	0.65
Christians Groups in All Wars	0.95
Muslims in Wars not involving Christians	0.81
Muslims Groups in All Wars	1.30

TIME INTERVAL	CHRISTIAN GROUPS	ISLAMIC GROUPS
1900 to 1949	144	45
1970 to End	79	75

years	wars of kings	wars of people
1400-1599	88	34
1600-1799	95	51
1800-1949	60	75
1950-2000	39	98

1800 to 1839	1840 to 1879	1880 to 1919	1920 to 1959	1960 to 1999
2.35	2.75	2.48	1.55	3.32