Session 22: What is War?

Jack Levy in his article, "War and Peace" has again brought us to an overview of the realist school of thought. It is amazing that realism is so often invoked to provide a theoretical framework and epistemological and ontological grounds to explain war and the prospects of peace. One thinks that this prominence of realism will continue in the future as well, even though the conflicts under consideration are now intra-state rather than inter-state.

Hence, the question remains can intra-state conflicts be explained by the realist assumptions of power and security or other variables like culture, identity, social structures or institutions are required to be incorporated into the discussion to get an understanding of these conflicts? One thinks the answer is NO. The reason is realist theory is primarily designed to understand the conflicts between the states and provides an explanation of state behavior and their alliances and security fears relative to each other. Thus, the theory's unit of analysis is state. However, one believes that intra-state conflicts require a new level of analysis and the methodological choices to derive a new theory might be different. Moreover, one believes that it is possible that non-state actors within a state's territory invoke a conflict to topple an incumbent government or to create a space for themselves in the institutions of power. Hence, in these cases on can use realist assumptions of power and distribution of capabilities only partially for a starting point. Otherwise, the inter-state and intra conflicts will be explained from different theoretical frameworks.

Jack Levy explains three perspectives that argue about the occurrence of war: constant, particular, and variation. He believes that the perspective that variations in war and peace best explains the occurrence of war is correct in the sense that most wars in the world occurred with different severity and intensity and with different consequences. For instance, WWI saw the defeat of Germany and the creation of League of Nations to promote cooperation in the region. On the other hand, WWII ended with the nuclear bombing of Japan by USA and the emergence of United Nations as an international forum for discussing and resolving conflicts. Hence, it is true that each war has its own dynamics and peace emerges from its end differently.

As a whole, Levy's piece is a good overview of the realist and liberal explanation of war and peace, and provides an understanding of deeper connections to assess war and its consequences.