Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

War, Peace and Collective Security

  • Chapter
Non-Offensive Defence

  • 17 Accesses

Abstract

In a piece that predated her own country’s 1989 invasion of Panama, and its massive intervention the following year in the Persian Gulf, Randall Forsberg, Director of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies in Brookline, Massachusetts, and an ardent supporter of ‘Defensive Defence’, spoke of ‘The end of conventional warfare among the big powers’. This, she insisted,

represents a sea change in human history. … It signals the beginning of the end of war … because it involves an unprecendented constraint on the use of force as a tool of power. … We have ended war, at least … among some countries. [But people] … think we cannot end war; it lies too deeply embedded in human nature. … We must change the deeply held belief that we cannot avoid war indefinitely, except perhaps by [retaining] nuclear annihilation as the penalty. …

If the big powers continue to threaten to … intervene militarily … whenever their perceived ‘interests’ warrant it, fear of conventional war among the big powers will be sustained. … Leaders and citizens of countries … who are prepared to use force to achieve political … ends in the Third World can reasonably be expected to consider going to war in the northern hemisphere … if the penalty of nuclear annihilation is eliminated.1

‘The most persistent sound which reverberates through man’s history is the beating of war drums.’

(Arthur Koestler, Janus: A Summing Up, Prologue)

‘They start bloody wars they can’t afford … [like] that old fool Chamberlain. … “Peace in our time”. … Didn’t give a thought to the cost of it. Didn’t enter his head to go into a few figures, get an estimate — soppy old sod.’

(Alf Garnett in The Bird Fancier by Johnny Speight)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes and References

  1. R. Forsberg, ‘The Case for a Nonintervention Regime’, Defense and Disarmament News, vol. 3, no. 1 (1987) pp. 1,4.

    Google Scholar 

  2. M. Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience (OUP paperback edition, 1981) pp. 13–18.

    Google Scholar 

  3. I. Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1984 edition) pp. 10–15.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience, p. 30.

    Google Scholar 

  5. T.C.W. Blanning, The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars (London: Longman, 1986) p. 113.

    Google Scholar 

  6. P. Brock, Pacifism In Europe (Princeton UP, 1972) p. 339; and A.C.F. Beales, The History Of Peace (London, 1931) pp. 46–53.

    Google Scholar 

  7. J. Dymond, ‘War: Its Causes, Consequences, etc.’, in Essays on the Principles of Morality, and on the Private and Political Rights and Obligations of Mankind (London, 1829).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience, pp. 45–6.

    Google Scholar 

  9. G. Ritter, Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk: Das Problem des Militärismus in Deutschland (Munich, 1954) vol. I, p. 329.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience, p. 53.

    Google Scholar 

  11. See R. Stadelmann, Moltke und der Staat (Krefeld, 1950) p. 206; and J. Colin, The Transformation of War (London, 1912) p. 343.

    Google Scholar 

  12. See Bartlett, Global Conflict, pp. 7–8.

    Google Scholar 

  13. See, for example, G. Mann, The History of Germany Since 1789 (London: Pelican, 1974) p. 434.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Quoted in Bartlett, Global Conflict, p. 9.

    Google Scholar 

  15. See also R. von Caemmerer, The Development of Strategical Sciences During The Nineteenth Century (London, 1905) p. 95.

    Google Scholar 

  16. See A. Home, To Lose A Battle, pp. 77, 217–221.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Quoted in E. Friedrich, War Against War (London: Journeyman, 1987 edition) p. 13.

    Google Scholar 

  18. See Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience, pp. 70–1, 79 and 95.

    Google Scholar 

  19. War and the Human Race, M.N. Walsh (ed.) (London and New York: Elsevier 1971), especially pp. 6, 9 and 77.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Important psychological studies include: E.F.M. Durbin and J. Bowlby, Personal Aggressiveness and War (London, 1939); W. Brown, War and the Psychological Condition of Peace (London, 1942); and J.D. Frank, Sanity and Survival: Psychological Aspects of War and Peace (London, 1968).

    Google Scholar 

  21. Blanning, The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars, p. 4.

    Google Scholar 

  22. R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (OUP, 1976). Other important ethological works include: R. Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative (London, 1967); D. Morris, The Naked Ape (London, 1967); and K. Lorenz, On Aggression (London, 1966).

    Google Scholar 

  23. See, for example, B. Malinowski, ‘An Anthropological Analysis of War’, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 46 (1941); K.F. Otterbein, ‘The Anthropology of War’, Handbook of Social and Cultural Anthropology, J.J. Honigmann (ed.) (Chicago, 1973); and A. Montagu, The Nature of Human Aggression (New York, 1976).

    Google Scholar 

  24. See, for example, Blanning, The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars, p. 14.

    Google Scholar 

  25. G. Blayney, The Causes of War (Melbourne, 1977) p. 150.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Clausewitz, On War, pp. 75–7.

    Google Scholar 

  27. See, for instance, L. Morton, ‘Japan’s Decision for War’, in Command Decisions, K.R. Greenfield (ed.) (Washington: USGPO, 1960) p. 124.

    Google Scholar 

  28. M. Howard, The Causes of Wars (London, 1983) p. 22.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Clausewitz, On War, pp. 89, 606.

    Google Scholar 

  30. R. Forsberg, ‘The Case for a Nonintervention Regime’, p. 1.

    Google Scholar 

  31. H. Afheldt, ‘A Comment on General Rogers’ Paper’, presented to the conference of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Berlin, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  32. P.A.G. Sabin, ‘Shadow or Substance?’ Adelphi Paper, no. 22 (London: IISS, 1987) p. 59.

    Google Scholar 

  33. See, for example, W. Millis, Arms and the State (New York, 1958), p. 325.

    Google Scholar 

  34. See, for instance, Bartlett, Global Conflict, pp. 172–3, 199–200.

    Google Scholar 

  35. See Home, To Lose a Battle, pp. 176–89.

    Google Scholar 

  36. See Bartlett, Global Conflict, pp. 182–3, 196–202.

    Google Scholar 

  37. For a Norwegian perspective, for example, see Soviet ‘Reasonable Sufficiency’ And Norwegian Security, R. Tamnes (ed.) (Oslo: Institut for Forsvarsstudier, 1990).

    Google Scholar 

  38. London Declaration On A Transformed North Atlantic Alliance (NATO Press Service Communique S-1 (90) 36, 6 July 1990).

    Google Scholar 

  39. Quoted in A. Home, To Lose a Battle, p. 103.

    Google Scholar 

  40. I. Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden, pp. 10, 56.

    Google Scholar 

  41. R. Forsberg, ‘The Case for a Nonintervention Regime’, p. 5.

    Google Scholar 

  42. M. Howard, Liberal Conscience, p. 135.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Aberdeen, UK

    David Gates (Ministry of Defence Lecturer in Defence Studies)

Authors
  1. David Gates
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 1991 David Gates

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Gates, D. (1991). War, Peace and Collective Security. In: Non-Offensive Defence. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10585-4_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation