Theoretical Explanations of the Causes of War
A midterm quiz essay for the Causes of War graduate course at the Seton Hall University School of Diplomacy, 1 October 2012, under Dr. Edislav Manetovic, PhD. (I got an A!)
The Realist and Liberal schools of international relations theory offer two interpretations of war, peace, and motivations of statecraft. At the most general level, realists are concerned with power and the acquisition of it, and liberals are concerned with rights and their promotion to illiberal states.
Within realism, power is seen as the key factor in statecraft. Classical realists like Hans Morgenthau contend that states are driven in their international actions by a desire to maximize their own power, and they treat power as an end. Neorealists hold that, yes, states are motivated by power, but that power is only a means, and that ultimately states desire security in the anarchic system.
Realists posit that as states seek to maximize their own power (whether for security or power’s own sake), conflicts of interest arise between two ore more states as they compete with each other for scarce commodities, including power and regional power. When you have two states that are competing for power, very often a security dilemma will arise, wherein the actions of one state to increase its power make the other state feel less secure, which can cause it to seek more power itself, perhaps through armaments or alliance-forming. These actions of the second state can likewise make the first state feel less secure, causing it to pursue new means of security. Two examples of this practical application of neorealist theory of conflict are the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union, threatened by US nuclear missiles in Turkey, sought to restore a balance by placing its own missiles in Cuba, and the current showdown regarding Iran’s alleged nuclear program; Iran, threatened by the encirclement of US military bases and the presence of a nuclear Israel, appears to be taking steps to claim more security (and regional power) by developing nuclear weapons, which in turn makes the US and Israel feel less secure.
Realist conflict theory also relies on the application of the rational actor model. This model explains that states that are rational actors are those who seek to maximize their power but not to the point of harming its security in the process. This model applied to the current Iran conflict would hold that if Iran were a rational actor, it would cease its nuclear program if it believed that its continued pursuit would threaten the existence of the state. Because Iran hasn’t stopped, we can surmise (assuming Iran is rational), that despite threats and rhetoric coming from the US, Israel, and others, it does not feel sufficiently threatened to stop its program. This is an example of how rational states in a security dilemma will continue their pursuit of safety and power to the point where it conflicts so much with the security and power of its neighbors that it gives rise to the beginning of a war.
The school of liberalism, while largely regarded as a domestic theory of governance, has a role to play in the international realm as well.
Joseph Schumpeter believed that liberal states would be inherently pacifistic on the world stage because he believed a government that is accountable to its populace would never support a war. However this ideology of a belief in a system that is so inherently at peace plays into Kant’s creation of a “liberal union,” or a club of liberal states like we see today with much of the Global North (North America, Europe, Australia). The liberal states of today are indeed united by a belief in the innate superiority of their systems and in the inevitability of non-liberal states to adopt liberal ways such that while they are generally peace-building themselves, they come into conflict with non-liberal societies.
Often times this conflict arises from what Machiavelli termed “liberal imperialism,” wherein a liberal state uses the tacit consent of the governed as a legitimizing force for establishing dominance over a non-liberal state, and then extracting resources from that state for use by the imperialist liberal state. Machiavelli’s favorite example of this essentially neoliberal application of statecraft was Rome, a popular republic whose actions were more legitimate than the actions of the aristocratic republics in Venice and Athens. (This “liberal imperialism,” or “neoliberalism,” is also an example of realist ends achieved through liberal means.)
A solid (theoretical) explanation for why liberal states are peaceful with each other but prone to create war with illiberal states is that liberal states feel threatened by states whose authoritarian or monarchical rulers are not constrained by its citizens, so therefore liberal states make war on illiberal states out of security considerations. Going further and applying neoliberalism’s imperialistic qualities, the liberal states then hope to export liberalism to the illiberal state they attacked so that that state will be brought into the fold of the Kantian “liberal union” and will be non-threatening from that point forward.
And, alas, we see the fatal conceit of liberalist foreign policy, the hubris that believes its system to be so inherently good that the unsaved need saving and that all who are illiberal must thirst for the fruits of liberal rights and happiness. Indeed liberal states are peaceable with each other, generally highly developed, and regarded as the standard of civilized man, but liberalist foreign policy nonetheless uses realist means to advance itself. Liberal states will make war on illiberal states so as to increase their power and ensure their security. Liberal states feel threatened by societies who prefer to exist in some other, non-liberal way, which accounts for American bellicosity toward China but not toward India or Brazil. And liberal states tend to make war on illiberal states based on this perceived threat and insecurity.
Competition for scarce resources (power is a scarce resource) and influence, the desire to ensure the safety, security, and survival of the state, and the desires to spread a peaceful ideology by force so as to sow peace all give rise to conflict and war. Conflicts of interest among states give rise to conflict and war. Liberalism is an ideology that does create a different class of states, but these states nonetheless are motivated in the international realm by the same motivations that inspire non-liberal states. In the decision-making process on the course to war, misperception, incorrect estimation and assessment, and psychological pressures on leaders do influence decisions made. But the reasons those decisions need to be made are still the product of a state’s pursuit of power, and thus security, whether you’re liberal, Communist, nationalist, or other.
