风萧萧_Frank
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War and Violence in World Politics, The Realist's World
https://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/samplechapter/0/2/0/5/0205082408.pdf
Unlike breathing, eating, or sex, war is not something that is somehow
required by the human condition or the forces of history. . . . Conflicts
of interest are inevitable and continue to exist within the developed
world. But the notion that war should be used to resolve them has
increasingly been discredited and abandoned.1
—John Mueller, 1989
The optimists’ claim that security competition and war among the great
powers have been burned out of the system is wrong. In fact, all of the
major states around the globe still care deeply about the balance of power
and are destined to compete for power among themselves for the
foreseeable future. . . . In short, the real world remains a realist world.2
—John Mearsheimer, 2001
Throughout human history, war and the threat of war have been a constant part
of international life and central to understanding how the world works. Though
all of the international relations paradigms provide explanations for the existence
and frequency of war, the structural realist view that war is rooted in international
anarchy provides least cause to expect that war can ever be substantially eliminated. In a world with no effective and reliable higher authority to impose order, realists insist that states will from time to time need to protect their vital interests through the use of force and violence. In this sense, war is inextricable from the realist’s world.
However, as suggested in the quotations above, this view of war has come under
increasing challenge. The amount of interstate war has declined in recent decades. Most important, the great powers have not warred against each other since World War II.
As John Mueller suggests in the quotation above, conflicts of interest might remain, but war as a means of settling them “has increasingly been discredited.”
This chapter will examine the evolving record of war in world politics. First,
we will examine the role of war in world politics, including both an examination
of the frequency of war and a discussion of how observers from the various international relations paradigms have come to terms with the moral questions posed by an activity that involves so much purposeful taking of human life. Second, we will examine the emergence and evolution of twentieth-century-style “total war.”
The destruction rendered by twentieth-century technologies of warfare raises
questions, both moral and empirical, as to whether the Clausewitzian view of
war as the “continuation of policy” (see Chapter 1) can remain relevant. Third,
we examine the evidence of a decline of the frequency of war in recent decades
and competing explanations of that decline offered by various international
relations paradigms. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of trends
in twenty-first-century violence.
As you read, keep in mind Mearsheimer’s assertion in the quotation above
that “the real world remains a realist world,” and ask yourself whether trends in
the use of force and violence do, in fact, portend a fundamental change in how the
world works. Do war and violence remain the ultimate currency of influence in
world politics or have the evolution of military technology and moral norms combined to create a world in which war is increasingly “burned out of the system”?
WAR IN WORLD POLITICS
For many lay observers of world politics, war is an unfortunate interruption of
the normal state of peace among countries. When wars do occur, they are often
blamed on individual leaders with militaristic ambitions and inclinations. Go
onto the street and ask passersby about the primary cause of World War II,
and their answers will likely begin with the name Adolf Hitler. Likewise, depending on whom you ask or where you are doing the asking, the 2003 invasion of
Iraq by the United States is likely to be blamed on either Saddam Hussein or
George W. Bush.
When it comes to thinking about war, scholars suggest that Americans in
particular tend not to be natural-born realists. The American view of war as an
exceptional state of affairs is not hard to understand given U.S. history and geography. Due to the luxury of its location in the Western Hemisphere, no war has
been fought on American soil since the Civil War, and the last time foreign troops
fought on American territory was the War of 1812. Americans have experienced
terrorist attacks on the homeland, such as the September 11, 2001 attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but no American alive today has ever had
foreign soldiers march across his or her property, has ever had to hide in a shelter
while bombs rained from above, or has ever experienced the death of a child
on U.S. soil at the hands of an enemy army. Nevertheless, the record of human
history stands in sharp contrast to the view of peace as the norm.
The Prevalence of War and Violence
The United States, in its relatively brief history as a nation, has fought in a dozen
major interstate wars and has been involved in countless smaller-scale military
conflicts. The average number of years between American involvements in major
wars has been less than two decades, and the result is that every American generation since the American Revolution has lived through years of America at war.
Well over 1 million American soldiers have died in battle, and the number of
wounded is many times that number (see Table 4.1).
The global record is even worse. Political scientist J. David Singer and his
associates in the Correlates of War Project have been collecting and analyzing
data on modern (nineteenth- and twentieth-century) war for more than four
decades.3 Despite defining war very conservatively as sustained military combat
with a minimum of 1,000 battle deaths—a definition common among political
scientists—the record of the past two centuries is sobering. According to the Correlates of War data, 401 wars occurred during the period 1816 to 1997. Those
wars were of three types:4
Interstate wars: those pitting two or more legally recognized sovereign states
against one another. World Wars I and II and the 1991 Persian Gulf War are
obvious examples. There were 79 of these wars from 1816 to 1997.
Extra-state wars: those in which at least one participant is a nonstate actor.
In many cases, these have been wars of independence waged by colonies
against imperial powers. Examples include the Franco-Algerian War of 1954
and the Portuguese-Angolan War of 1975. There were 108 of these wars
from 1816 to 1997.
Intrastate wars, or civil wars: those fought among groups within the borders
of a sovereign state. Examples include the 1992 fighting among Serbs,
Croats, and Muslims in Bosnia as well as the conflict in Chechnya. This is
the largest group, with 214 wars from 1816 to 1997.
Collectively, there is an average of 2.22 new wars per year.5 When one considers
that most wars last more than one year, the average number of wars in progress
around the world at any time is even higher. Indeed, it would be hard to find a day
in the past two centuries when at least one war was not taking place somewhere.
Military power and violence come in forms other than war. Coercive
diplomacy—threats and small-scale demonstrations of military power short of
war—remains a frequent backdrop to international politics. The Correlates of
War Project captures this lower-intensity use of military power in its data on
militarized interstate disputes (MIDs). MIDs are defined as “conflicts in which
one or more states threaten, display, or use force against one or more other
states” and thus include wars plus a much larger number of cases of coercive
diplomacy.6 Since 1816 more than 4,000 such disputes have occurred—meaning
that, among other things, forces have been mobilized, military alert levels have
been raised, warning shots have been fired, or small-scale skirmishes between
opposing forces have taken place (see Theory in Practice 4.1).
Most of those 4,000-plus militarized disputes never escalated to war as we
have defined it (a sustained conflict with 1,000-plus battle deaths), and the sum
total of death and destruction wrought by them pales in comparison to full-scale
warfare. But each clearly involves the use of military power and self-help, and
in combination with the actual wars that break out, the prevalence of coercive
diplomacy contributes to the realist characterization of world politics as a
Hobbesian war of all against all.
The human cost of all this war and violence has been staggering. The 412
wars from 1816 to 1997 produced more than 53 million battle deaths.7 Yet even
that horrifying total grossly underestimates the human carnage produced by war,
as it does not account for civilian casualties. In World War II alone, estimates of
total deaths, civilian and military, range anywhere from 35 to 60 million, with
most estimates in the 50 million range.8 Thus, once you add in civilian deaths,
the total cost in human life of World War II equaled all the military combat
deaths in all the 412 wars of the past two centuries. Total deaths (military and
civilian) produced by twentieth-century wars have been estimated at approximately 87 million worldwide.
War and Morality
For realists, the absence of a higher authority makes it difficult to establish and
enforce standards of morality in the conduct of interstate relations. Recall the
quote from Hobbes at the beginning of Chapter 1: “Where there is no common
power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are in war the
two cardinal virtues.” Thus, in the realist view, the frequency to which states
resort to war to settle disputes is predictable, if not always desirable. It is, as
Clausewitz suggested, the “continuation of policy.”
This view does not, however, imply that war for states is always the preferred
option for protecting national interests. War, for realists, is a matter of the rational
calculation of costs and benefits. The implicit question that any realist would ask
before going to war is, “Are the interests that can be successfully protected or
promoted worth it in comparison to the potential costs?” Those costs might
include money expended, economic assets destroyed, political goodwill lost, and
the number of one’s soldiers likely to be killed. In some cases, the calculation
might lead one to choose war as a necessary and prudent act. In other cases, the
costs might be seen as too high.
For example, John Mearsheimer, one of the most outspoken contemporary
realists, and one of the theorists quoted at the beginning of this chapter, opposed the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq precisely because he did not believe the cost–benefit calculation added up in favor of war. In his view, continued UN sanctions, coupled with the threat of massive American military retaliation in the event that Iraq acquired and used weapons of mass destruction against the United States or its allies, were sufficient to contain Iraq at a much lower cost than going to war.10 His opposition to the war was not simply that people would be killed but, rather, that American interests would not be served. Others, including other realists, disagreed with Mearsheimer’s analysis of the Iraq case. The point, however, is that the realist view of war as inevitable and useful does not apply to every particular war.
For many, this cold, calculating cost–benefit approach to war can be morally
troubling, especially when discussing an activity in which millions of lives are
at stake. But one might counter that this approach to warfare is really not so
exceptional. Consider, for example, the case of the automobile. In 2003 there
were 42,643 traffic deaths in the United States,11 and since the beginning of the
automobile age early in the twentieth century, close to 3 million people have been killed due to automobiles in the United States.12 In contrast, the number of U.S.
military personnel killed in all of the major U.S. wars of the twentieth century
was approximately 617,000 (see Table 4.1), or about one-fifth the number of
automobile-related deaths. Likewise, the 486 U.S. soldiers killed in the Iraq War
in 2003 represented just 1 percent of the number of people killed in U.S. traffic
deaths that year.13
Given such numbers, one might reasonably suggest that the human cost of
the automobile rivals or even exceeds that of war. Yet while people commonly
oppose war in general and individual wars in particular on moral grounds, few
picket General Motors or call for governments to ban automobiles on such a
basis. We need automobiles; they are essential to our modern economy and way
of life, and they may even save some lives by allowing quick transport to hospitals and easy access to foods or medicines. But one can make a similar case for
war as an activity sometimes needed to defend one’s territory, to ensure access
to vital resources, or to defeat aggressors who would do harm to one’s people.
In fact, one might reasonably argue that the loss of a life on a field in France
fighting Nazi aggression is more noble and, in a sense, less tragic than a death
in a car crash while picking up a pizza.
Critics of realism do not accept, without discussion, this view of war as a
cost–benefit calculation based purely on national interests. Located at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum from realism, pacifism is the position that any use of violence employed with the intent to kill or do physical harm to other human beings is morally unacceptable. It is an absolutist perspective that allows for no exceptions. No good cause or vital interest can, from this perspective, ever justify the purposeful killing of another human being.
Unlike realists, who distinguish between someone’s personal morality and the
morality that person employs as leader of a sovereign state, a pacifist sees no such distinction. Pacifists operating within the Judeo-Christian tradition might well argue that the commandment “thou shalt not kill” contains no footnote specifying that political leaders are free to kill, or to order others to kill, if democracy, or oil supplies, or security from terrorist attacks are on the line.
Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist who once served in the Russian army
and who wrote about war in his novel War and Peace, became an ardent pacifist
later in his life. At the age of 80, he stated the pacifist position on war quite
clearly in his famous 1909 Address to the Swedish Peace Congress:
War is not—as most people assume—a good and laudable affair, but . . .
like all murder, it is a vile and criminal business. . . . With regard to those
who voluntarily choose a military career, I would propose to state clearly
and definitely that not withstanding all the pomp, glitter, and general
approval with which it is surrounded, it is a criminal and shameful activity;
and that the higher the position a man holds in the military profession the
more criminal and shameful his occupation. In the same way with regard
to men of the people who are drawn into military service by bribes or by
threats of punishments, I propose to speak clearly about the gross mistake
they make— . . . when they consent to enter the army . . . they enter the
ranks of murderers contrary to the Law of God.14
Tolstoy’s words can be uncomfortable. Applied to our own times, everyone
involved in the U.S. military establishment, from the secretary of defense down to
the army reservist who finds him- or herself unwillingly fighting in Baghdad,
must, in Tolstoy’s view, be considered a criminal and murderer.
Critics of pacifism argue that it is an unacceptable position for two reasons.
First, it denies any right of self-defense in the face of violence. Realists, in particular, would suggest that any state that adopted a pacifist position in a world where anarchy prevails and where other states are willing to use or threaten violence would find its interests trampled. Second, and even more important, pacifism denies the right to use violence when needed to defend other innocent lives. Thus, critics of pacifism might ask, if someone had the opportunity to kill Hitler but refused to do so, wouldn’t that person have the blood of the 6 million innocent Jews who perished in the Nazi death camps on his or her hands?
The unyielding morality of pacifism seems unacceptable to many because it
does not accept the need to confront aggressors and evil-doers with force or even the threat of force. Consequently, the norm of pacifism has never diffused on a broad scope, as most observers have maintained a need to use violence in world
politics from time to time (see Theory in Practice 4.2).
Far more influential have been the norms embedded in the just war doctrine,
a perspective on war and morality that (1) accepts, in contrast to pacifism, that
war can sometimes be both necessary and just, but (2) allows, in contrast to
amoral realism, that ethical and moral considerations must be part of determining
when and how to fight. For a war to be considered “just,” the human costs musbe assessed, and those human costs extend beyond a narrow concern with the
impact of war on military personnel and their fighting capabilities. Instead, in
the just war perspective, human life is valuable in itself and must be factored into
the equation.
Versions of the just war doctrine exist in most societies, cultures, and religious traditions. The Judeo-Christian variant makes a distinction between jus
ad bellum (“justice of war”) and jus in bello (“justice in war”). Jus ad bellum is
concerned with the circumstances in which it is morally acceptable to enter into
a war. There are six criteria:
1. Just cause. Going to war for reasons of legitimate self-defense or to repel
and punish aggression are considered just reasons for war. The protection
and promotion of human rights might also be a just cause.
2. Right intention. War should be fought solely to attain that just cause and
not for additional, unspoken purposes of promoting self-interest.
3. Last resort. Before going to war, less violent means of resolving the problem
must be exhausted, or a reasonable conclusion must be reached that those
other means will be futile.
4. Probability of success. Even when fought for a just cause, war is a waste of
human life if the objectives of the fighting cannot be met. Thus, there must
be some reasonable expectation that the goals of the war can be successfully
obtained.
5. Limited objectives. Fighting must cease once the just cause is obtained.
Further fighting to take advantage of the weakness of one’s opponent or to
exact retribution for the misdeeds of one’s adversary would unnecessarily
threaten further human life.
6. Legitimate authority. The only actors with the legitimacy to use violence in
world politics are sovereign states and those international organizations duly
authorized by the world community to use force (e.g., the United Nations).
Nonstate actors are not authorized to wage war on the grounds that chaos
would result if any actor with a good cause had a green light to use violence.
Jus in bello is concerned with the way one conducts and fights a war once it
is under way. There are two criteria of jus in bello:
1. Discrimination. Those conducting and fighting a war must take all reasonable efforts to discriminate between soldiers and civilians, and to attempt to
limit harm to the latter.
2. Proportionality. The degree of violence used must be proportionate to the just
cause pursued. For example, dropping atomic bombs on Baghdad in 1991 to
force Iraq out of Kuwait would have been a disproportionate response.
In order for a war to be considered just, all the criteria of the just war doctrine must be met. A doubt about any one of them puts the justice of that war
in jeopardy.
While the just war doctrine might seem like an acceptable compromise
between amoral realism and unequivocal pacifism, the doctrine has its critics.
A major problem is the inherent difficulty of reaching a consensus when applying
the criteria. Well-intentioned individuals might, for example, honestly disagree as to whether a particular cause is just or whether war is really a last resort in a
particular case. And given that the “probability of success” criterion involves
speculation about the future, how can certainty be possible? Thus, pacifists and
amoral realists might well agree that the just war doctrine, with criteria loose
enough to justify almost any military engagement, does little more than legitimize
and give moral cover to the decision to fight. Still, just war theorists maintain
the value of entering moral considerations into the calculation. War by its very
nature is an uncertain enterprise, and virtually every calculation of war’s results
and impact—military, political, economic, and moral—is subject to falsification
as events unfold. But that does not relieve us of attempting a good faith calculation in each area.
Moreover, constructivist and liberal critics of realism might well argue that
just war doctrine has had an impact on the actual behavior of states as they contemplate both whether to fight and how to fight wars. For constructivists, just
war doctrine is a good example of how powerful norms, developed and diffused
over the centuries, can shape and constrain state behavior. For liberals, it is the
institutionalization of those just war norms as formal laws, monitored and
enforced by international institutions, that is key. For example, the Geneva
Conventions of 1949 seek, among other things, to formalize the jus in bello
principle of “discrimination” by specifying in great detail the measures that states
must take to protect civilians in times of war. Though states often violate that
principle in practice, it is not irrelevant to their war planning.
A good illustration is the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Some critics argued that the
U.S. “rules of engagement” in Afghanistan (the formal rules governing when and
how soldiers can use force in conducting operations) were too restrictive, giving
insurgent fighters an advantage over U.S. forces. But the concern of military planners was to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties. Those casualties could turn
Afghan public opinion against the United States and, because they would violate
the norm of discrimination, could also delegitimize the U.S. war effort on a global
level. That the U.S. military felt the need to pay homage to that discrimination
norm in its war planning is a good illustration of the power of such norms.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN WAR
Even when constrained by just war considerations, war has always been a brutal
enterprise. But as the achievements of the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution
spilled over into the military realm, the brutality of warfare increased. The result
was a twentieth century that historian Niall Ferguson characterized as “the bloodiest era in history.”15 It was the era of “total war,” underlined by the introduction
of nuclear weapons.
The Emergence of Total War
Not only has war been a frequent element of world politics; it has also become
more lethal over time. To be sure, many horrible conflicts with enormous loss of
human life occurred well before the twentieth century. The Thirty Years War
