Abstract
The last chapter raised questions about the cause or constitution of war, against the background of two alternative claims: war is a reflection of the human condition vs. war is a social artifact. At stake is whether war is determined by human nature or is a social product. Other animals, and not only human beings, are violent. Some, such as packs of wolves, engage in group violence. These activities would undoubtedly look the same whether a particular pack of wolves was located in twelfth-century Europe or twentieth-century Asia, assuming we are dealing with the same species of animal. War between human beings involves many more levels of organization and convention than violence between animals. Its reasons go beyond the need for food or protection to a range of more complex motives, ranging from glory to justice to economic gain. While war requires some level of group identity and conflict, this can take many different forms with consequences for how violence is organized. Wars between monarchs in the eighteenth century clearly differ in structure, intent, and forms of weaponry than the “War on Terrorism” at the beginning of the twenty-first.
It is not what people do, the physical motions they go through, that are crucial but the institutions, practices, conventions that they make. Hence the social and historical conditions that “modify” war are not to be considered accidental or external to war itself for war is a social creation.
Michael Walzer1
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Notes
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977), p. 24.
Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Oxford: Polity Press, 1999), p. 17.
W. E. Hall as quoted in R. J. Vincent, Nonintervention and International Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 9.
Brian White, “Diplomacy,” in John Baylis and Steve Smith, eds, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 250.
James DerDerian, On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western Estrangement (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).
Keith Hamilton and Richard Langhorne, The Practice of Diplomacy: Its Evolution, Theory and Administration (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 7.
White, “Diplomacy,” p. 251. Other works on diplomacy include: R. P. Barston, Modern Diplomacy (London: Longmans, 1988); G. R. Berridge, Diplomacy: Theory and Pracrice (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995); Hamilton and Longhorne, The Practice of Diplomacy; J. L. Richardson, Crisis Diplomacy: The Great Powers since the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), and Adam Watson, Diplomacy: The Dialogue Between States (London: Methuen, 1982).
Torbjorn L. Knutsen, A History of International Relations Theory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 11.
Augustine, The City of God (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc. [VIII] 1954).
Books that discuss these factors include: Knutsen, A History of International Relations Theory; Charles Tilly, ed., The Formation of Nation States in Western Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975) and Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990–1992 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992); N. Elias, The Civilising Process (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), and William McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force and Society since A.U. 1000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).
This emphasis on the individual and historical consciousness influenced thought about relations between the Italian city-states. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) was one major thinker, whose work continues to influence thought about international relations. His famous book, The Prince, was part of a tradition of advice books that prescribed rules for the successful prince. For a discussion of Machiavelli’s place in the tradition of princely advice books, see: Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume One, The Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 113–38. While the old guidebooks emphasized moral questions about how a good Christian prince should act, Machiavelli raised questions about what an individual prince needed to do to be successful. He thus shifted from a focus on ethics and the distinction between just and unjust acts to a focus on rules, self-interest, and calculations about how to realize the latter. Machiavelli was responding to issues of the time. Spain and France were emerging as states on Italy’s border. Italy was the place where they competed for power and influence. See: Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince and the Discourses (New York: The Modern Library, 1950). Machiavelli’s concern was Italy’s position and its survival. He appealed to the Prince to raise an army, unify Italy, and chase foreign invaders from Italian soil.
J. Bodin, Six Books on the Commonwealth (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, [1576] 1967).
This was personified by Louis the XIV of France, who called himself the Sun King. Everything in his palace had suns on it. The symbolism was that Louis was like the sun. Everything revolved around him. The king was absolute. This model was widely copied by other monarchs. For a more in-depth discussion of Louis the XIV, see: David Kaiser, Politics and War: European Conflict from Philip II to Hitler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), pp. 139–202.
For a discussion of mercantilism, see: B. J. Cohen, The Question of lmperialism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1973).
E. de Vatell, The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law Applied to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns (Philadelphia: T&J. W. Johnson, [1758] 1916).
On the subject of imperialism, see: J. A. Hobson, Imperialism (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1902); V. I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Form of Capitalism (New York: International Publishers, 1939); Geoffrey Barraclough, “Industrialism and Imperialism as Catalysts of a New World,” pp. 43–64, in An Introduction to Contemporary History (New York: Penguin Books, 1967); Cohen, The Question of Imperialism; Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1961).
Karma Nabulsi, Traditions of War: Occupation, Resistance and the Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 183–90. Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1625] 1853).
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th edn (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0813286.htm1
While states had previously met after wars to sign peace treaties, this represented a commitment to meet in times of peace to prevent war. The Congress system eventually gave rise to the looser format of the Concert of Europe, with the great powers consulting together on problems as they arose. Clive Archer, International Organizations, 3rd edn (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 6–7.
Some important debates about the permissible limits of intervention characterized Concert diplomacy in the period 1815–56. For a discussion of these, see: Ian Clark, The Hierarchy of States: Reform and Resistance in the International Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), and Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812–22 (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1957).
See: C. von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [1832] 1976).
For a discussion of total war, and the influence of Clauswitz’ thought on the First and the Second World Wars, see: J. F. C. Fuller, The Conduct of War 1789–1961 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1969). See also Michael Handel, “Clausewitz in the Age of Technology,” in Michael Handel, ed., Clauswitz and Modern Strategy (London: Frank Cass, 1986), pp. 51–92.
Terry Terriff, Stuart Croft, Lucy James, and Patrick M. Morgan, Security Studies Today (Oxford: Polity Press, 1999), p. 67.
On the consequences of nuclear winter, see: Lester Grinspoon, ed., The Long Darkness: Psychological and Moral Perspectives on Nuclear Winter (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); Owen Green et al., Nuclear Winter (Oxford: Policy, 1985); Carl Sagan, A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and its Implications (New York: Random House, 1995).
See: John Lewis Gaddis, “International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War,” International Security, 17, 3 (1992–93), 5–58; C. W. Kegley, “How did the Cold War Die? Principles for an Autopsy,” International Studies Review 38, 1 (1994), 11–42.
See, for instance: K. M. Fierke, Changing Games, Changing Strategies: Critical Investigations in Security (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); Mary Kaldor, Global Civil Society: An Answer to War (Oxford: Polity, 2003); Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), and Dan Thomas, The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights and the Demise of Communism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
There is a vast literature on globalization. See, for instance: John Baylis and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Jan Aart Scholte, Globalization: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000); Patrick O’Meara, Howard D. Mehhlinger, and Mathew Krain, eds, Globalization and the Challenges of the New Century: A Reader (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), and David Held and Anthony McGrew, eds, Global Transformation Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).
On ethnicity and war, see also: Hakan Wiberg and Christian P. Scherrer, Ethnicity and Intra-State Conflict: Types, Causes and Peace Strategies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999); David Turton, ed., War and Ethnicity: Global Connections and Local Violence (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1997).
For a discussion of playing with a weak hand, see: K. M. Fierke, “Besting the West: Russia’s Machiavella Strategy,” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 1, 3 (1999), 403–34.
Gene Sharpe, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston, MA: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973).
Anonymous contributor, “Talk of the Town,” The New Yorker (April 13, 1981), as quoted in: Lawrence Weschler, Solidarity: Poland in the Season of its Passion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), p. 56.
For a discussion of acting as if, see: K. M. Fierke “Logics of Force and Dialogue: The Iraq/UNSCOM Crisis as Social Interaction,” European Journal of International Relations, 6, 3 (2000), 335–71; K. M. Fierke, “Constructing an Ethical Foreign Policy: Analysis and Practice from Below,” in Margot Light and Karen E. Smith, eds, Ethics and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
For further reading on terrorism, see: Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction (London: Phoenix Press, 1999); Nadine Gurr and Benjamin Cole, The New Face of Terrorism: Threats from Weapons of Mass Destruction (New York: IB Taurus, 2000), and Bruce Berkowitz, The New Face of War: How War will be Fought in the 21st Century (New York: Simon and Schuster International, 2003).
Bruce Hoffman, “Defining Terrorism,” Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). For a history of terrorism, see also: Jessica Stern, The Ultimate Terrorists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).
Russell D. Howard and Reid L. Sawyer, Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security Environments (Guildford, CT: McGraw Hill, 2003), p. 13.
Some, such as Coker, have argued that we have entered a period of “humane warfare” since the end of the Cold War, with attempts to once again limit warfare. See: Christopher Coker, Humane Warfare (London: Routledge, 2001).
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Fierke, K.M. (2005). War and Diplomacy. In: Diplomatic Interventions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230509917_2
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