International Conflict Chapter 5.1

1
International ConflictChapter 5.1

• PSC 124
• Northrup
• Spring 2007

2
Overview

• Theories about war
• Types of conflicts
• Conflict of Interest

3
What Causes War?
Pearl Harbor
Skulls of victims of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia
Battle of Chancellors-ville, US civil war
Child soldier, Sierra Leone
Nagasaki
Darfur
4
Theories about War Individual Level

• Organized around levels of analysis
• Individual level
• Leaders behave rationally can achieve more by
  war than other means
  
• Leaders behave irrationally cognitive bias,
  groupthink, crazy leaders
  
• Biological theories - testosterone
• Neither theory holds up well
• Wars caused by leaders - both types occur
• Neither a reliable predictor of war

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Theories about War The Domestic Level

• Characteristics of states or societies that make
  them more prone to violence
  
• Social-psychological theories compensatory
  machoism
  
• Aggressive capitalists? Totalitarian communists?
• Democracy leads to peace?
• Again, none of these is particularly powerful as
  an explanation or predictor

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Theories about War The Interstate Level

• War explained in terms of power relations
  (realist view)
  
• Power transition theory
• Deterrence stop war by building arms
• Theory of arms races make war more likely by
  building arms
  
• Trade prevents war
• Inequities produced by trade system can cause
  war
  
• Again, theories contradict each other, arent
  great predictors

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Theories about War The Global Level

• War is cyclical
• A linear explanation - war likelihood is becoming
  obsolete because of (economic integration,
  powerfulness of todays military technology,
  global political norms and integration, spread of
  democracy, )
• Still, not great predictors and if war is
  obsolete, there still are an awful lot of them

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Conflict Explained as Power Seeking to Achieve
Interests

• Conflict is a result of power seeking (realist
  perspective) relative to other states
  
• Six categories of interests (3 tangible
  interests, 3 conflicts of ideas)
  
• Territory
• Control of national governments
• Economics
• Ethnicity
• Religion
• Ideology

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Conflicts over Territory

• Tend to be one of the most intractable types
  why?
  
• Irredentism goal of regaining lost territory
• Post WWII, international norm against altering
  borders by force (governments come and go,
  borders stay)
  

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Secession

• Secession nationalist group in a region
  attempts to form own state (examples?)
  
• Secessionist wars can spill over into other
  countries in region (e.g. former Yugoslavia)
  
• Conflicts of secession seen as domestic problems
  unless spillover or severe human rights
  violations but international community still
  reluctant

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Current Major Border Disputes

• Israel Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, West Bank,
  Jerusalem
  
• Kashmir
• Spratly Islands

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Control of Governments

• Can control territory in other ways than by
  winning territory militarily
  
• Can attempt to control the government by
  assassinating a leader, providing funds to
  support rebel forces
  
• Sometimes military invasion used to change
  government regime change (examples?)
  

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Economic Conflict

• Most pervasive form of conflict
• Economic exchange based on mutual gain, so seldom
  leads to war
  
• Economic conflict still related to international
  security

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Economics and Security

• States may behave in a mercantilist fashion
  attempt to gain relative power surplus can
  translate to military power
  
• Theory of lateral pressure economic growth -
  geographic expansion, maybe violence
  
• Economic competition in strategic materials, e.g.
  uranium for atomic weapons
  
• Distribution of wealth within and across states
  revolutions in poor countries
  
• Drug trafficking impact on receiving state