Session 22 - War and Peace..Back to the Basics.

Jack S. Levy in his reading “War and Peace” talks about how it is one of the primary aims of political scientists and IR theorists now to reduce and mitigate the occurrence and effects of war, to find out why wars occur, variations in war and peace and he does this by tying up these concepts with the various theoretical frameworks present in the field of International Relations. He looks at the two dominant theories in International Relations, Realism and Liberalism to demarcate the origins and reasons for war and peace.

While mentioning the general trends noticed about war recently, Levy talks about how there has been a drastic decrease in “great power wars” and how while earlier on wars and their occurrence revolved around major states, presently during the 20^th century, it can be seen that wars have shifted to more minor states and nations and while earlier on wars were fought on an inter state level, it is now more inclined towards intra state level. Even though the occurrence of wars as a whole has decreased, the severity of the wars have increased. Another trend noticed and mentioned by Levy is that there has been a rise in the regional and ethno national wars, which have led to an exposure towards domestic variables causing wars.

To understand the variations in war and peace, Levy looks at three perspectives on wars, starting with the Realist theories of war. If one is to summarize his views regarding the Realist school, Levy claims that anarchy and chaos in the international system is the departure point, which starts any and every conflict. Realism blames survival and security maximization as the primary reasons as to why states go to war. Rosseau a leading theorist claims, “Wars occur because there is nothing to prevent them.” Realists believe that once there is anarchy and a threat to ones survival and security or power, nothing can mitigate the adverse effects of it. Another core factor of Realism, which explains the frequency of war, is the distribution of power and polarity in the international system. Other things that Realists look at, is the offense-defense balance in the international system. Levy further describes paths of war in Realism, where the first path mentions “a direct conflict of interests between two states and calculations by at least one side that this conflict is better resolved by war than by peace,” while the second path states “two or more security-seeking states, each of whom is more interested in maintaining its current position than in extending its influence.”

Levy then shifts his focus on the Liberalist view on war and its occurrence. Liberalism contradicts the claims of the Realist schools and talks about peace and harmony between states, which occurs as a result of a complex system of economic and strategic interdependence. Trade also plays a major part in preventing wars as Levy claims that trade alters the domestic balance of power within states by increasing the influence of groups who benefit from trade. Liberalism also talks about the “democratic peace” and through this Levy explains that it has been noted that over the years, democratic countries are rarely likely to wage wars against their fellow democratic states. This also becomes a major cause because of which war is eventually prevented. Levy mentions the “democratic culture and norms model,” which explains that people will not vote themselves to be engaged in war or turmoil, but would rather vote to live a life of peace and harmony.

War is definitely one of my most favorite topics to study about in the field of Politics and International Relations. Through this reading, Levy touched upon the topic of war and gave us an overview about what the two leading paradigms in International Relations view the topic of war as. This piece of writing was not that complex to understand, and Levy did a good job of summarizing the major points quite compactly. What really made me think this time was that we started the course by studying about Realism and now as we reach the end of our course, we are slowly creeping back to Realism. This really makes me ponder, that no matter how much we crib and complain about Realism, Realism will stay with us till the end!