Peace and Conflict Studies

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim University of Dhaka Course Name: Theory to and analysis of peace Studies No: PACS-205 Subject: Approaches to war Submitted to: Mohammad Shaheenur Alam Lecturer Department of peace and conflict studies Faculty of social science Submitted by: Mahadi Hassan 6th batch,2nd semester ID NO-102 Department of peace and conflict studies Faculty of social science Date of submission: 25 September, 2012 Firstly, I thanks to Almighty Allah who gave me opportunity to complete my assignment. The Great war was the second total war in modern times. Everyone in the belligerent states was involved, both soldiers and civilians.

War become history based for the victorious and prejudiced against the defeated.

The victorious are adorned whereas the conquered are defamed, whether wright or wrong. However, it is Cristal clear that the War is the most destructive war of human history. The history of War is reach and strong regarding information. Collecting information about this subject is not rare.

There are a lot of books, magazines, documentaries and web-sites are available about the topic. To prepare the assignment, I have taken assistance from some famous books and web-sites. And finally, I have tried to abloom the whole scenario of approaches to war and its historical background.

I farther acknowledgement my debt to those librarians who allowed me to have their kindly assistance. Introduction War has taken place from the beginning from record time and in all parts of the world.

War is a function of ambiguities in the state system. If the world’s land mass was all distributed between groups of people, each homogenous in make-up, occupying territory sufficient rich for its needs and blessed with a popular government, then there would be little war. Unfortunately people territory, resources and power are distributed unevenly. It is often uncertain where some states end and others begin.

Since the 19th century, the size and expense of war, machines and uncertainly about the consequences of war for society, as a whole, have made violence an increasingly unsustainable means for conducting international affairs.

Despite its costs and the availability of non-coercive method s of diplomacy, war has been institutionalized to handle conflict. The use of violence remains among states as an accepted instrument for the extension or protection of their power. Organization military is persistently used in pursuit of the social goals of domination.

Resources, skill and technology have been developed to prepare for war. Maintenance of strong military power id presupposed to be the normal conduct of sovereign state business.

The decision making power is concentrated in a small group of leaders and advisors whose judgments is distorted by misperception, enemy images and inadequate information processing. Definition of war In the broadest sense war is a violent contact of distinct but similar entities. In this sense a collision of stars, a fight between a lion and a tiger, a battle between tow primitive tribes, and hostilities between two modern nations would all be war.

This broad definition has been elaborated for professional purposes by lawyers, diplomats, and soldiers and for scientific discussion by sociologists and psychologists. International lawyers and diplomats gave usually followed Grotious conception of war as the condition of these contending by force as such,’ thought they have often excluded from the conceptions of violent contention between juridical unequals.

Furthermore, they have insisted that force refers to military, naval, or air force that is to armed force thus excluding from the definition contentions involving only moral, legal, or economic force.

Legal and sociological definitions suggest that states of war’ are separated by exact points of time from states of peace which preceded and follow them. International layers have attempted to elaborate precise criteria for determining the moment at which a war begin and ends they have been obliged to acknowledge the occurrence investigation, aggressions, reprisals, defensive expeditions, sanctions, armed neutralities, insurrections, rebellion, move violence, piracy and banditry as lying somewhere between war and peace as those are popularly, understood.

The recognition of such situations casts doubt upon the reality of sharp distinction between war and peace and suggests the utility of searching for a variable of which war and peace are extreme conditions. Such a variable might be found in the external forms or the internal substance of international relations. Philosophically minded military writers have sought the first, emphasizing the degree in which military methods are employed.

Thus Clausewitz defined war as ‘an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will, ‘and elsewhere he emphasized the continuity of violence who other political methods.

War he wrote is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means. Psychologists, ignoring the form, have found the substance of war in the degree of hostile attitude in the relation of states. Thus Hobbes compared the oscillations of war and peace to the weather: AS the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of fairness or the contrary. As the weather may degrees of fairness or foulness, so the relations of any pair of states may, friendly, correct, strained ruptured, hostile, or any shade between.

We may thus conceive of the relations of every pair if states as continually varying ad occasionally passing below a certain threshold, on which case they may be described by the term war, whether or not other states recognize the situation as juridically a state of war and whether or not the precise form of conflict which sociologists designate war has developed. Although subjectively there might not be. Whatever point of view is selected, war appears to be a species of a wider genus. War is only one of many abnormal legal situations. It is but one of numerous conflict procedures.

It is only an extreme case of group attitudes.

T is only a very large-scale resort to violence. A study of each of these broader categories when applied to the specific characteristics of war abnormal states of law between equals conflict between social group, hostile of great intensity, and international Violence through use of armed force –may throw light upon the phenomenon of war, although war does not exist except when hostility and violence contemporaneously pass beyond a certain threshold producing a new situation which law and opinion recognize as war.

Combining the four points id view, war is seen to be a state of law and a form of conflict involving a high degree of legal equality, of hostility, and of violence in the relations of organized human groups, or more simply, the legal condition which equally permits two or more hostile groups to carry on a conflict by armed force. It is to be observed that this definition implies sufficient social solidarity throughout the community of nations of which both belligerents and naturals are members to permit general recognition of the behaviors and standards appropriate to the situation of war.

Although war manifests the weakness of the community of nations, it also manifests the existence of that community.

Causes of war Although war is probably the most brutalizing of human experiences,it has been an inseparable part of the evolution of mankind. How can this apparent contradiction be explained or is war an inevitable outcome of the social and political institutions in which individuals and states operate? To biologists, fighting is a natural part of animal behavior.

Homo sapiens included. As shown by Raymond Aron in 26, just as animals respond aggressively to fear, pain, or infringement on their space, so does human bellicosity stem from such crude stimuli as insecurity, greed, envy, selfishness, or stupidity? Some species may be more aggressive than others, and some may not be aggressive at all; yet the most peaceable animals will fight when attacked or threatened. This linkage between animal and human behavior has been extended to the geopolitical sphere.

Building on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, German geo-politician Friedrich Ratzel viewed the state as a living organism that, like all organisms, grows, matures, decays, and dies. as in Darwin’s human jungle where only the fittest survive, Gatzel’s states is engaged in a constant struggle for survival. In this straggle the stronger state tends to expand at the expense of its weaker neighbors this in turn allows it to preserve its vigor and to prolong its life cycle. On a state loses its expansionist impulse, it goes into rapid decline, which in many cases, ends in its eventual demise.

To predominant schools of thought, known as political realism, war is an inevitable outcome of human insecurity and the desperate quest for power in generates. In realist thinking, most saliently represented by American historian Hans Morgenthau, the world is violent, hostile environment, in which the will to self-preservation rules.

In such a setting, one must remain constantly on the alert, making others cower so that they did not arrack, always ready to kill before being killed.

The realist perception of war as an unavoidable corollary if human nature, something that could be partly modified by political institution but not eradicated altogether, has been challenged by a rival school of thought, that of political idealism. At its extreme, idealist thinking maintains that peace, not war constitutes the natural human condition. This is because there exists a harmony of interests’ among human beings, wherein the interest if the individual (and by extension, the nation) and at the community full coincide.

Hence just at the individual promotes the general good by pursuing his own interest, and vice versa, so national interest is best served by promoting the universal galas of peace and prosperity. More modernist idealists concur with their realist counterparts that war is endemic to human nature; however they believe that this chronic disease can be fully cured through the appropriate political institutions.

Immanuel Kant maintained that eternal peace could be established provided all states were to become true republics, and then join together in an international federation of independent states.

The ideas that bad states wage wars while ‘good states’ coexist in peace and harmony, and that universal organizations can decisively curb war, if not eliminate it altogether, gained political currency during most of the twentieth century. Given the numerous universal ideologies vying for supremacy, form liberalism, to Fascism, to Communism, to realism, religious fundamentalism, the rival great power have been increasingly disposed to portray themselves as champions and there opponent as warmongers.

At the same time, Establishing the league of Nations, and later the United Nations, those powers indicated a certain willingness to tone down the ‘bad-state and good state’ recrimination on favor of concerted effort to regularize international relations and reduce the occurrence of war. Not surprisingly, things looked differently on the other side of the Atlantic, to Marxist, Leninists, including those occupying the Kremlin between 1917 and 1991; the distinction between peaceful and aggressive states is immaterial.

Rather, the nation-state as a socio-politics institution is the root of all evil, the cause of war.

As argued by Vladimir Lenin war is nothing buys an oppressive tool allowing the ruling classes to keep the oppressed classes in awe. Once Socialism triumphs, the state will wither away, and with phenomenon of war. Until then War is a necessary indeed a legitimate instrument to spread the socialist message throughout the world. There is nothing immoral in war as such what determines its moral value is the cause for which it is fought, wars waged by the oppressed classes against their oppressors are legitimate and just, wars fought to perpetuate reactionary and oppressive institutions are immoral.

The day will come when two warring factions will have possibility of exterminating each completely. The day may come when all humanity will thus be divided into two opposing camps. Will we then behave like the doves or like the wolves the answer to this question will settle humanity’s fate. Kinds of war Royal authority is a noble and enjoyable position. It comprises all the good things of the world, the pleasures of the body, and the joys of the soul.

Therefore there is as a rule, great competitions for it. It rarely is handed over (voluntarily) but it may be taken away. Thus discord ensues.

It leads to war and fighting, and to attempts to gain superiority. Wars and different kinds of fighting have always occurred the world since Good create it.

The origin of war is the desire of certain human beings to take revenge on others. Each party is supported by the people sharing in its group feeling. When they have sufficient excited each other for the purpose and the two parties confront each other, one seeking revenge and the other trying it defend itself, there is a war. It is something natural among human beings. No nations and no race (generation) is free from it.

The reason for such revenge is as a rule either jealousy and envy, or hostility or zeal in behalf of God and His religions, Or zeal in behalf of royal authority and the effort to found a kingdom.

* The first kind of war caused occurred between neighboring tribes and competing families. * The second kind of war caused by hostility is usually found among savage nations living in desert, such as the Arabs the Turks the Turkomans, the Kurds, and similar peoples. * The third is kind the religious law calls ‘the holy war’ * The fourth kind finally is dynastic war against seceders and those who refuse obedience These are two four kinds of war.

The first two are unjust and lawless, the other two are holy and just wars. Structural factors of war The Balance of power Balance of power to indicate the special meaning given here to an otherwise ambitious concept. As used here, this term refers to the relative capabilities counties have for coercing one another.

Valances of power may be global or local and their components will vary with different issues. Military components usually constitute the heaviest weights in a coercive valance. But the balance of power also includes nonmilitary pressures that counties in conflict can bring to bear on each other.

The component of a particular balance may be almost entirely economic, as in the balance of power between Japan and her oil suppliers in the Middle East. In such cases, the balance of power is virtually indistinguishable from the patterns of interdependence. When there are economic and political goods and privileges that the parties can provide or withhold from each other in a given negotiation or conflict these assets constitute the balance of power for the issue at hand and altercations over the issue have a good chance of being resolved without the invocation of the military balance between the participants.

Generally countries engaged in a rich range of transactions across a number of issue areas can invoke many bargaining counters opportunities to withhold to proffer items of value to each other that is without resorting to military threats. The Converse also generally holds: countries not normally engaged in substantial nonviolent interaction with one another may jump quickly to the military balance as the only balance of power relevant when conflicts arise. The pattern of interdependence

Interdependent relationship clearly is not necessarily peaceful. The natural of the dependencies and the context of the overall relationship among the parties will determine whether interdependence is likely to produce conflict and violence or cooperation and peace.

Indeed the presence of crucial dependencies in which one country is highly dependent on others for military security or for its basic economic wellbeing can also provide opportunities for intolerable provocations that seem to be worth war to terminate.

If a pattern of heavy cooperation between countries fails to produce what either or both had been led to expect would be the result, there may be greater bitterness and much less room for compromise than in disputes among concerned only secondary or peripheral interests are involved, noncooperation becomes all the core intolerable and the sanction of war looms, Implicitly or explicitly, in the background. Alliances A prominent structural feature of international relations is the pattern of alliances.

Usually formed against a command opponent or set of opponents, alliances typically involve mutual pledges of military help in case one or more of the member is attacked. An important determined of who is likely to fight whom, when, here, and how alliances themselves reflect balance of power needs and material dependency relationships. They also can reflect ideological or cultural affinities and enmities, sometimes even those that contradict material needs.

On this basis of the historical record, whether alliances tend more often to cause or to deter wars remains an open question. Hunan Costs of War

Throughout history, war has caused great suffering to many who were subject to an extreme leave of violence. Total destruction even resulted from primitive weapons. The level of destruction inflicted by war was well demonstrated by great Peloponnesian War of 431 B. C.

between rival Athenian and Spartan alliances. The Thirty Years War (1618-48) sparked by religious differences Central Europe. Mercenary armies pillaged villages and burned peasant properties. The inhabitants in towns of Catholics and Protestants were slaughtered. Universal and self-perpetuating violence resulted in attrition and financial exhaustion.

The growth in the number of wars since the 17th century is reflected in an increase in the number of deaths. In the 20th century, there were more war-related deaths than in all the previous centuries combined. In wars from 1900 to 1990, 1078 million lives were lost (Sivard, 1991, p. 20). Twice as many people were killed during World War I as had been killed in all ware combined from 1790-1913.

The Second World War brought about more than 50 million fatalities. Nearly 35 million of those were civilians. Between the end of World War II and 1991, 21. 8 million people were killed in 127 observed ware.

Comparatively, five and half a million lost their lives in violent conflicts between 1990 and 1995.

Civilians constitute between 75 and 90 percent of those victims (Smith, 1997, p. 13). As was dramatically demonstrated in World War I and World War II, the development of military technology has contributed to rapid increase in human casualties and the severity of economic destruction. In modem warfare, missile attacks and bombings do not differentiate between soldiers on a war front and women and children. In fact, more civilians have been killed in wars than have soldiers.

Furthermore, the destruction of war caused by nuclear weapon touches every corner of human civilization. Mass destruction is random, as when 100 to 200 thousand Japanese civilians were killed in a few seconds by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The results of that act changed our perceptions of major wars involving nuclear weans. Nuclear weapons, with their capacity to overkill, generated fear of human annihilation during the Cold War period. Most experts agree that compared with past conventional ware, there would be no return to normal life after a nuclear war.

Compared with the pre-modern wars between princes where soldiers killed each other to win a battle, civilians are not excluded as the object of destruction and abuse in modern warfare.

In colonial wars, European troops slaughtered native populations. During World War II, massive bombing, motivated by revenge, was targeted at civilian population centers as is well illustrated in the Allied bombing raids on Dresden, Germany that left 100 thousand civilian fatalities. Massacre, rape and eviction are common especially in ethnic warfare (e. g. , Serb atrocities in Bosnia, Hutu killings of Tutsis in Rwanda).

In contemporary wars, half of the innocent civilian victims killed by bullets, bombs and landmines are children. In addition, children have been coercively recruited to be combatants in Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone and other internal wars. Civilian populations are targeted to destroy the support base of opposition forces by inflicting physical and psychological damage. Modern problems with war are not limited to the fatalities and injuries. People die due to the indirect impact of war as well as direct injuries.

Warfare destroys the means of subsistence by disrupting economic transactions and social activities.

Health care centers and water supplies are bombed in order to destroy the social infrastructure. Loss of crops and livestock leads to the destruction of family and community livelihoods. Scarcity of resources can cause social collapse as well exemplified by the Iraqi society that endured the effects of bombing and an economic embargo on hospitals, health care services, schools and the entire infrastructure. Huge damage to power plants resulted in the long-term shutdown of sewage treatment and water purification plants.

Many died because of unsanitary conditions. Among the victims were thousands of infants. Just war theory

Recourse to war for a solution to international conflict is condemned in several key international treaties. Where the United Nations Charter and the League of Nations Covenant denounce war as a national policy, war remains lawful in international law if it is conducted for self-defense. Thought most states do not consider decision on war can be morally and legally codes, to identify circumstances in which war can be morally and legally justified as an instrument of international and national policy. History and were further developed in the seventeenth century by Hugo Grotius the father of modern international law.

The theory includes two sets of criteria that restrict warfare as an instrument of maintaining social order. Once category of the doctrine governs the morality of becoming involved in the violence of war(in Latin, jus ad bellum; the justice of a war). The other category focuses on the actual conduct of war (jus in bello; justice in a war). The just war theory espouses that there are right or just circumstances under which going to war is considered morally acceptable. Just war may be undertaken by a legitimate authority for a reasonable cause and with an ethical purpose.

In just war theory, decisions on war ought to be made and legitimized by duly constituted authority, and war has to be conducted by a competent authority.

The principle of right intention allows fighting war for self-defense but not for the purpose of revenge or desire for territorial expansion. War should have the goals of restoring just order, and its outcome needs to produce peaceful conditions As opposed to realism, which accepts war as a legitimate tool of power politics, just war doctrine stresses that warfare should be at least limited based on the presumption that it is not possible to abolish warfare. At the core of the just war tradition is the conviction that the taking of human life may be sanctioned’ or even necessary to prevent aggression. Thus, unlike pacifism, in just war theory, some wars are viewed as a remedy for immoral or sinful human behavior. According to the critics of just war theory, the argument that if war can be limited and if the belligerents can be reasonable enough to accept extraneous limitations on their conduct, they should be reasonable enough to avoid fighting altogether Overall, the criteria for the moral justification of war have not been applied to most wars.

And its ignorance is often justified by strategic military efficiency or ideological absolutes. ——————————————– [ 1 ]. Freedman Lawrence, War(New york), Oxford University press 1994 [ 2 ]. Quincy wright, A Study of war, abridged by Louise Leonard Wright(Chicago) and London: University of Chicago press, 1966, 5-7 [ 3 ]. Immanuel Kant, Eternal peace and Other International Essays(Boston: the World Peace Foundation1914) [ 4 ].

Konrad Lorenz , King Solomon’s Right, as cited in Raymond Aron, peace and War: A theory of International Relations()Malabasi, Fla: Krieger, 1981 [ 5 ]. Ibn Khaldun, The Mugaddimah: An introduction to History, trans. Form the Aravic by Franz Rosenthal, ed. (Princeton University press )1967 [ 6 ]. Ho-won Jeong, (2000),peace and conflict studies, an introduction, England, Ashgate publishing Limited [ 7 ].

Ibid [ 8 ]. Kegley, Jr. and Wittkopf, 1995,p. 515. [ 9 ].

Howard, 1979,p. 6.