A Theory of War

This lecture owes its inspiration to Walter S. Jones' book, The Logic of International Relations (7th ed., 1991, Harper-Collins), Chapter 11, "Principal Causes of War," various editions of which I used for many years in my introductory international relations classes. One of the best overviews of the causes of war is presented by Jones. It is my view that these may be usefully reconstructed with the following line of reasoning. Nation-states' leadership groups pursue goals against resistance with varying degrees of success over time. As they continue to do so, they identify various sources of frustration, alienation, and disempowerment (see the GDA model for details). Each such source becomes in varying degree perceived as a source of stress.

... (in process of being revised)...

System stress is felt as frustration, alienation and disempowerment; and if stress is strong enough and prolonged enough, it leads to efforts at stress reduction as a goal in and of itself, to target and destroy the cause(s) of stress. To accomplish this task, one requires sufficient relative force. It is at this juncture that war becomes a kind of "reality testing"--when perceptions among those involved, are in conflict about whether force will work to reduce that stress.

Probably the easiest way to detail this process is to begin with Lewis Fry Richardson's arms race model, from his book, Arms and Insecurity (1960, Boxwood Press):

    Lewis Fry Richardson's           Cross-reference to Jones'      
       Armament Model                "causes of war" discussed below

     dy = ax  - by  + c               <-- Jones #  7
     dx = a'x - b'y + c'

where x and y were operationally defined as follows:

 dy: change in y's defense budget     <-- Jones #  2
 dx: change in x's defense budget     <-- Jones #  2
  x: size of   x's defense budget     <-- Jones # 12
  y: size of   y's defense budget     <-- Jones # 12
  a, a': fear of the other (REACM)*   <-- (conflict - cooperation) <-# 3,5
  b, b': fatigue (BURDF)*             <-- competing demands from 
                                           other frustrated goals)
  c, c': ambition, revenge, grievance <-- Jones' # 3,4,8,15 below
  _______________________________________________________________________

  * - REACM and BURDF are names in IFs for these parameters.

"Defense budget" may be thought of more broadly as the buildup and maintenance of "coercive potential" or the ability to destroy value or deprive others of access to values.

Think in terms of Maslow and Lasswell, Maslow providing "ends" or goals based on human needs (survival, security, belonging to a community, self-esteem, and self-actualization or fulfilment), and Lasswell's providing "means" or values (wealth, respect, affection, power, skill, well-being, enlightenment, and rectitude) pursued to attain one of the "ends" or needs cited by Maslow. You can then make sense out of the historically specific details.

Jones' list of causes of war:

power asymmetries - meaning one nation sees a chance or a necessity to use violence to attain goals;
Examples of usage
"Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War"
McNair Paper Number 54, Chapter 2, October 1996
"Negotiations and Power Asymmetries: The Cases of Bosnia, Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka"
power transitions - change in system distribution of military capabilities, new opportunities for war
national integration - separatism (sovereignty), irredentism (join another state)
international social darwinism - survival of the fittest, warfare a great purgative of weakness. The concept is associated with the works of 19th century Herbert Spencer. The belief in social Darwinism justifies war, and hence contributes to the likelihood of war.
communications failure - secrecy, misperception of motives
communications failure - technical errors
arms races - excessive military preparations based on worst case scenarios given arms (defensive) buildups (arguments against arms race models are specious!)
internal cohesion through external threat - distract the masses, build support but inducing fear of attack
international conflict through internal strife - internal breakdown precipitates external intervention, leading to proxy wars for instance (Vietnam, Monroe Doctrine)
relative deprivation - frustration causes aggression
instinctual aggression - people enjoy using violence to attain goals; it's in our nature to attack to attain goals (perhaps contributing to depersonalized ideologies used to justify violence?)
economic/scientific stimulation - new weapons, new hopes
MIC - profits made in war, support others' wars
population limitation - "Lebensraum"
conflict resolution - force as simply another means.

Commentary

none of the above are Jones' own explanation for the onset of war ("the function of a war settlement is to allocate values in proportion to war power." (1991, p. 254). "Wars end when the parties arrive at a common picture of their relative power and a common assessment of appropriate settlement claims." (p. 255) "As the power estimates of the two sides become congruent, their offers of settlement converge." Jones' explanation has similarities to or elements of misperception (5,6), armes races (7) and conflict resolution (15), but none are precisely his own.
most of the 15 theories are interrelated. They are far less contradictory or competitive than they are complementary, each describing in more detail than others some facet of what appears to be a single process. I've tried to indicate this with the "causal model" diagram below.

Causes of War: a Synthesis

           Perceived threats to survival, security,  ______
           community, self-esteem, self-actualization      |
                       |                                   |
           frustration, alienation, disempowerment         |
                       |                                   |
                     stress                                |
                       |                                   |
               symmetric response                          |
             (principle of reciprocity)                    |
              (threat->counterthreat)                      |
                       |                                   |
           Richardson escalation process                   |
                       |                                   |
                  misperception                            |
          of relative force capabilities                   |
                and/or intentions                          |
                       |                                   |
                      war                                  |
                       |                                   |
                   settlement                              |
                   or collapse                             |
                       |___________________________________|

The above process can be interrupted at any stage by appropriate actions to reduce perceived threat, by stress reduction, by asymmetric responses (offering cooperation rather than threatening sanctions, for instance), by careful cost-accounting and strategic analysis (remember Stoessinger: no nation this century that began a war has won it; implication: initiators do not perform accurate strategic analyses, with devastating results to themselves and others), and by making settlements which do not restart the process with more threatening behavior.

Think about this as you select goals to pursue, factors to take into account, and policies to implement, via Expert Choice and the International Futures Simulation!

Revision dates June 24, 1995,...; last revised February 7, 1998.