Causes of War.

“Causes of war – Power and the Roots of Conflict” by Stephen Van Evera, written in 1999 is one of the recent authoritative books that are used as a reference for war study. It is a fiend of an academic book to grapple with which is to be expected from such a professor of political science at MIT and member of MIT security studies programme; a ‘tour de force’ of conflict examination from the 1789 to the 1990s and lays out the political high points of history to state the “Causes of  War”.  Reading it, one is taken through a whole range of historical scenarios from 1700s balance of powers perspective wars, to modern day conflict like those of the of two WW’s, the 1967 Arab-israeli war and the current discussed attitude to war in the 1990s. Given the time the book was written in, there is no analysis of more recent conflict like the Falkland war, Balkans war, ‘War on Terror’, Kuwait, Iraq or Afghanistan wars and no African genocides (not considered wars) however the thrust of the causes suggested by the analysis could still apply to some of these as well, in some cases more so but ignoring the drivers for ‘ethnic cleansing’.

The construction of the book is dominated by reference material and historical detail using a retrospective analysis to lay out a development of conflicts as a result of politic, resources and stress factors supported by a description of events that unfold to the point of war in the cases studied.

He builds on previous studies and develops a ‘defensive / offensive theory’ proposal around a number of hypotheses:-

“H1.    War is more likely when states fall prey to false optimism about its outcome

  H2.    War is more likely when the advantage lies with the first side to mobilise or  attack.

  H3.    War is more likely when relative power of state fluctuates sharply – that is when windows   

            of opportunity and vulnerability are large.

  H4.    War is more likely when resources are cumulative – that is when the control of   resources  

            enables states to protect or acquire other resources.

  H5.    War is more likely when conquest is easy”.

In all case there is a strong evidence of culpable illusion at play that leads state to act into war, false optimism and perception of ‘facts’ that feed on its-self and occasionally are propagated by power / political expediency to move on a hyperbole situation for unconvinced ends and has little to do with a offensive - defensive balance wrapped around technical weapon supremacy. It is instructive to move through the arguments the book presents built as it is on the examples of recent classical war fare of the 18^th/ 20^th  centuries and one can find little reason to counter the exceptional work that has gone into the presentation of assessing the implications drawn from the hypotheses.

           

It is possible to trace some of the created pressure points that made war seemingly compulsory particularly using the two WW’s, Korea, the Cuban crises of 1962 or the Arab - israeli war as examples that were arguably generated from a historical cult of war attitude however such (enthused) attitudes have now in the general populace or military, are over recent years being managed down due in no small measure to the capability of much greater destruction that can be inflicted. This realism of destructive ability by its expansive nature undermines some element of the ‘benefits’ of the structured hypotheses, which is of overt gain. Some more recent examples of war could still fit the core hypotheses such as the “war on terror” leading to the Iraq & Afghanistan wars, conflicts which are not wars in the total sense but serve to make a point of unintended consequences that have ramification both immediately and over generations even though there is clear military dominance with some participants to ‘win’ and little cumulative benefits. (H4.-H5.)

In just taking an overarching view and assessment of the causes of war, concentrated on the prime historical evidence available whether from the victor or vanquished can lead one to think that what causes wars is understandable via a process of analysis. This is only possible after the event and offers little in the way of rationalising an emotive offensive - defensive strategy when immediacy of action is required; it does of course help lay out paths of persuasion leading up to action when there is sufficient pre-scoping vision. What it also does do is to make one wary of the use of power plays both by the machinery of defence or the economics that support military strength as both are designed to take advantage of stress points and use political or populace uncertainty to respond to perceived risk demands and if the culture of a state organisation is stressed a willingness to react aggressively can be expedited. This can be easily done at a tense time if there is an individual who is at reign in a very key position, is driven by self importance, armed with an ego that has trampled on all to gain the power position and yet lacks any great discretionary perceptive ability of others persona or their presentations; an ego that over-rides offered judgment or does not even seek it, to press forward with ill-conceived policies that pressurise a conflict situation. In some situation it is too easy for such people to develop megalomaniac or administrative sociopath tenancies to hold their position against which reasonable argument by non belligerents find it impossible to counter, then a war outcome is not only a possibility but a likelihood even while there is a strong sense of the stupidity of it.   

The analysis takes evidence from a raft of documents, observations, perceptions and persuasions of the times, yet nowhere in the book does it attempt to place the cause of war on the deliberate action of people and political machination that formulate causative action to fracture social structure that although not seen as the direct precursor, are more likely to open the probability of war becoming a fact. Wars do not just happen, there is often a gestation period caused by a number of created persuasive aspects that of their own seem to be innocuous yet contain the seeds of ‘unintended’ consequence that join with other created aspect to make war inevitable. After the event it is academic to pick up the high big picture points that one can assess as perhaps being trigger points of war but miss the incendiary powder of amalgamate angst.

Any undercurrent of social tensions that has neither expression nor vision for a change of circumstances, backing a large proportion of the populace into invidious positions, restricting their hopes, aspiration or opportunity is unrequited powder stresses. The only chance they have of change is to willing follow a path to war that is not wholly about fighting an enemy but about fighting the oppression that has been foisted upon them by a venality of democratic, despotic or dictatorial ways and means. The path to a war is in some way a relief mechanism that is taken for change but also one that can be used as a distraction from cultural deterioration by influential power. The people that have the power do not see the monster that they create by slowly disenfranchising parts of their populace until it is too late. 

Put as an additional argument on the cause of war, modern society as constructed through the process of democracy and shaped by free market exploitation, is not prepared to pay to concede peace and avoid war. There is within the human physcy a fundamental flaw that drives it to want, by some elements of it, to be superior to others and will endeavour to make a section of society construction a deserving authority by dubious means of riches that it accumulates to hold onto their own. Some deserve to be rich by virtue of their right and others deserve what is left or what they can get providing the balance of power and rewards do not fall into the wrong hands – some are meant to rule others to be ruled. As long as this is the nature of humans in not holding to being “my brothers keeper” even though it is quite clear that having a portion of society that is impoverished, deigned the right to access an equitable quality of life even though ‘underserved’, is ultimately  destructive.

The growth of social fractional dynamics that make a war easy to be established or taken advantage of via social discord can be used by power structure that seek to maintain or strengthen its own position. Controlling the social dynamics and projecting into a war over any likely cause, a cause often that might initially be supported by a mythical majority like say a war on terror, islam, immigration or saving the national interest like:- economics, energy food or water war, is an excellent diversionary tactic and allows power to maintain its grip for a period while it consolidates its position into a new order and it seems avoids giving way to a social paradigm shift for the proletariat horde.

Wars are never won there is short window of conflict success from the subjugation and the destruction of the opposing power but assuming there is no annihilation of the populace, real or constructed ideological oppositions will ultimately break down the conquest by the use of continuous insurgency to drain the ‘victor’ and the response will be an increase oppressive civil action that feeds the endemic resistance. This is particularly a point where conquers are not self sustaining, have no real indigenous support  base and operate in a divergent heritage cultures  an example of this would be the middle east tensions, Afghanistan and potentially why isreal can eventually fail. 

Which take us to the conclusion of the causes of war argument today that rest with the spectre of nuclear defensive / offensives balance which is only valid with states that have legitimacy and are stable? The causes and view of war in nuclear terms may fail with non-state axis or undisciplined fractions. It is suggested by Prof Stephen Van Evera in Causes of war: - that due to the MAD scenario:-

 “It will punish a world where states suffer large misperceptions or communicate poorly. It will punish a world of regimes led by elites indifferent to the suffering of their people, or fanatically dedicated to expansion. It will punish a world that allows the spread of the capacity to use nuclear weapons anonymously. But if these dangers are avoided, MAD liberates the world from some potent causes of war. It makes conquest nearly impossible, erases first-strike advantages and windows, precludes false optimism, and eases competition for power-generating resources. With theses dangers at bay, the risk of war is sharply reduced.”

This offers a reality check against the outbreak of a nuclear war but does little to slow a conventional one ramping into a nuke use within a failing conflict.

What of today, do any of the hypotheses apply or indeed is there any evidence that they are at play now? One can in historic terms pick such direct elevated big picture causal links of assumption, misunderstanding, built belligerence, etc and link these to the causes of past wars. It is difficult to do the same when the movement is actually taking place in real time as there is often a ponderous attitude that assumes, prior a big event, there is time to see a war developing, time to perhaps negate its scope to acknowledge the futility of one but this has never happened and is not happening now.

Take say energy, water resources, or in a few minor cases territorial gain, as potential issues of conflict, that seems the most likely fractious point of contention. Given the increasing pressure on the diminishing availability of these resources and the limited ability of states to live within their own created high consumptive resource base, any one of these would be significant stress points to create a war scenario. However the most tendentious stress and one that has not ever been seen as threat as a cause of war is the dis-functioning of economics as it is now commandingly practiced by the whole world. It is now a system to impoverish any opposition by the manipulation of financial structures by the allowed uncontrollability of market forces, financial institutions, structures and corrupt individuals into which the political hierarchy of developed states are in thrall with, place this with the deliberate unwrapping of good social dynamics (as in a good society) and something has to come to pass. 

The analysis has, it seems to me, missed out the means and methods of communication that have been controlled by the state that contributed to the propaganda propagation of past wars. Now as modern media is more widely available and so far open via internet; that ability to see in real time and communicate directly with a mass of people helps by-pass media control by states. Even though there are official ‘embedded’ journalists injected into conflict situations to present the official versions, does make such authorised reporting suspect. The benefit of having more independent spectrums of communication available for popular consumption, may make state and dictators find it increasing difficult to enact a war without raising internal active dissent, people may not believe or accept that any war is ‘just’ balanced against the distrusted opinion of state forces, it cannot be relied on to sway a favourable opinion. If the legitimacy of a government has been destroyed by the self serving in pursuit of acts that are against the best long term interest of the people and it takes government for governing sake that becomes the prime raison d’être for its existence divorced from the cultural stress of civil society, it abrogates responsibility for control or direction. In such a situation the people may well be the bringer of war and perhaps as a metaphor consider the difficulty of Greece.

So the causes of war may well be in historic terms by analysis, due to;- political stress, stress of resources, cultural divergence, misunderstanding, illusions of power or poorly understood  communications etc but ultimately the real causes of war is I content,  human nature; to hold onto ideas that run counter to the best one could want for others. It is too easy to make others the causes of one’s own difficulties. It is too easy to place opprobrium onto others to desensitise oneself from others miss-fortune. Not to be willing, able or want to reach an equitable position if it means giving up the idea that it is you and not the other that is wrong. The nature of humans is to do the easy thing that destroys, rather than do the hard things to create a peace that cost in financial terms less (and unwilling to invest) when there is choice but ultimately (cumulatively) gains more than a war would cost, when there appears no choice, no alternatives.

 Behind this is the problem that afflict modern situations; Currently the west is ‘guided’ by short term strategic policy capitalist thinkers vs. long term strategic policy centralist thinkers and it is such thinking that is applied now to economic, social and national security. All of which, considering the state of nations today, is dysfunctional, a conflict of policies and strategies that is increasingly suffering from a sixth hypotheses, I suggest:-

H6. War is more likely when power becomes self serving, corrupted, proscriptive and unwilling to invest in a good society and enough people are disenfranchised, disillusioned from hope for peaceful transformation, hence they fall into war.

© Renot 2012

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