Any analysis of war would be incomplete without its
antithesis, peace and in ‘War and Peace’; Jack Levy incorporates both
conditions while viewing them through both realist and liberal lenses,
separately initially and then collectively.
Reading Levy’s piece seems like a walk down memory lane of
sorts with familiar theories related to the two biggest schools of thought in
International Relations, springing up repeatedly. The Realist perspective of
war, which regards the phenomenon as a necessary consequence of the evil nature
of man and the anarchic system is discussed first. This is followed by an
analysis of war from the liberalist vantage point which considers it’s
occurrence to be undesirable for states keeping in mind their economically
interlinked and interdependent natures. Finally, Levy analyzes war through an
amalgamation of the viewpoints of the two schools in order to provide a more
holistic picture.
It is interesting to think of an ideal world where peace and
harmony prevail though it soon becomes equally difficult to think of a scenario
where war does not rear it’s ugly head. Conflict is an inevitable outcome of
the behavior of human beings and the fact that contentment and happiness cannot
exist perpetually. If the behavior of humans is mapped onto the states that
comprise them it becomes apparent that world peace is largely an unattainable
ideal. Even if interstate conflict could be eliminated in the nuclear age,
which is a questionable assumption in itself, intra state conflict and the
possibilities of civil war would remain. Even if the behavior of humans does
not influence the nature of states, the simple reality is that a world with diminishing
resources cannot exist in harmony since survival is paramount for everything
and everyone regardless of whether they be of natural origin or social
construct.
I agree with aizaz that it would be foolish of us to think that a world would prevail where there is no war. Other than what aizaz has said about human beings, the international system is such that all states want maximum power for their own security and secondly, if we talk about the intra state conflict, it would even exist as there can never be equality between people i.e. economic equality. Some people will be having more wealth than others and that would eventually create issues as resources are scarce but wants are unlimited.
ReplyDeleteThank you for associating war to the behavior of humans. Do we all not behave differently as humans? If we do, how can we accept a step by step procedure provided by major schools of thought such as realism and liberalism.
ReplyDeleteWell classical realists argue that war is caused by man's innate evilness.
DeleteFinally someone mentioned intra-state war that has been overlooked by most of the scholars when talking about War. We do not know a world without a War. There can not be a world without War. And that is a fact.
ReplyDeleteIntrastate wars are a whole other topic that we never really got to spend much time discussing. This is because the course is on IR, not civil wars. Within the domain of IR, civil wars only matter insofar as they affect the international system.
DeleteSolid post and spoken like a true realist.
ReplyDelete