Why do wars occur?

This essay will discuss the views of different political ideologies on why wars occur. In

particular, the essay focuses on the political theories of realism and liberalism, as well as the

critical theory. After highlighting these leading political theories of war the essay then

discusses the different causes of war and provides specific examples.

Finally, it will be argued that it is important to distinguish different types of wars or conflicts.

It is useful to differentiate between different levels of aggression in order to understand why

wars occur.
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Before starting the discussion it is useful to clearly define “war”. According to the

Encyclopaedia Britannica, war is defined as a “state of conflict, generally armed, between two

or more entities. It is characterized by intentional violence on the part of large bodies of

individuals organized and trained for that purpose.”

The political theory of realism or rationalism argues that wars occur because it is human

nature to act in one’s own self-interest. While this explanation was originally applied to

individuals, neo-realism later focused more on states as actors who pursue their nation’s

interest.

James D. Fearon (1995), for instance argues that conflict or war typically happens because of

anarchy. An example can be given at the international level, where there is no single leader or

central authority which would suppress the political or military ambitions of individual states.

In this connection, the security dilemma concept must be mentioned. It can be described as a

conflict in which two or more states are involved. The arms race during the “cold war” is a

good example. This competition can easily result in war, since each nation state tries to

maintain its security. This can result in an upward spiral of ever increasing military

expenditures, since each state feels the need to match the other’s power to ensure its survival.

This, however, implies that one state’s security always results in another state’s insecurity

(Schelling, 1960).

A further political ideology which tries to define the causes of war is liberalism. According to

the liberal thinker Doyle (2004), “peace and democracy are just two sides of the same coin”.

Consequently, liberals argue that wars occur due to the lack of democracy and freedom. A

good example of such a war is the Vietnam War, in which the US has underestimated the will

of the North-Vietnamese to “liberate” their country at all costs from foreign intervention.
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Schumpeter (1919) described the interaction between democracy and capitalism as the basis

for liberal pacifist thinking. He argued that only a small group of people benefit from war, and

in a democracy it cannot be justified to pursue the interests of a minority at great expense to

the majority.

Similarly, Hoffmann (1980) describes liberalism as “the protection of individual freedom, the

reduction of state power, and the conviction that power is legitimate only if it is based on

consent and respects basic freedoms”.

All of these definitions indicate that liberalism is built on a pacifist foundation in which there

is no justification for war.

In contrast to realism and liberalism, critical theory argues that the occurrence of wars can be

explained by the ongoing conflict between the “elite” and the “rest”. These conflicts can be

over political power, economic well-being, and resource sharing. An example where a country

has tried to economically benefit from going to war is the first Opium War (1839-1842), in

which England attacked China to open up a market for its highly profitable opium trade.

Critical theory has an ambivalent position concerning war. On one hand, the critical theory

justifies war, as long as it is fought by suppressed people against their suppressors. Most

representatives of the critical theory see conflict as something positive, because it helps to

break up old political structures. Examples of such “liberation wars” are the independence

wars of former colonies or the “revolutionary war” of the proletariat against the capitalist

system. On the other hand, the critical theory argues that violent dominance of elites or ruling

classes is fundamentally bad. Their fight for dominance is criticised and described as

exploitation.
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Having reflected on the different causes of conflicts and wars as interpreted by the various

political ideologies, it is important to categorize the reasons of war. This can be achieved by

distinguishing different types of war Brown, Seyom (1987):

At the international system level wars are often fought because of a vacuum of power. The

cause of war on this level is usually due to the lack of an authoritarian leader or a dominant

state. This international anarchical condition leaves states no choice but to act in their self

interest in order to survive. One must note here that anarchy in this context describes the

absence of a ruling authority in the international system and does not mean the frequently

used synonym for chaos.

Secondly, Brown (1987) argues that wars fought in early history between primitive tribes

were often about claiming additional territory. The larger the territory and the more diverse

the ecosystem in that territory was, the more incentives the ancient tribes had to secure them

for themselves. This would give the winning tribe larger hunting grounds as well as the

possibility to collect more fruits, and just in general have a more secure supply of resources.

But the concept of fighting war over a territory can even be found in the 20th century. For

example in World War II, the Nazi-ideology of “Lebensraum” promoted the idea that a

German nation could become the dominant world power if it could expand its territory to the

east, which was a primary goal of the war.

Brown identifies a third reason why many wars are fought: to make an economic profit.

Although many economist would argue that wars actually damage economic growth, because

a country’s expenditure goes to warfare instead of expanding the domestic economy. On the

other hand, wars can be an enormous incentive to economic growth. A war requires

production of weapons and other supply for the military, which boosts the economy. Some

countries have heavily invested in infrastructure to prepare for a war, for example in Nazi

Germany, where many highways and railways were built to supply the troops. This led to a

pre-war economic boom in Germany. It can be argued that a further example for a war fought
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for reasons of profitability is the Iraq war. Many political scientists argue that the US has been

fighting the war against Iraq to gain economic influence, open up new markets and secure

energy resources, which is why the Iraq war is often referred to as a “War for Oil”.

Fourthly, some of the most vicious and long lasting wars have been fought over religious

beliefs; examples are the crusades of Catholics to the “Holy Land”, the Muslim “Jihad”

against non-believers or the war between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Every

religion, at some point in time, has tried to expand its sphere of influence by fighting a war

against people with other beliefs. Usually both parties who engage in a religious war believe

they are doing so for a “just” cause.

In addition to Browns explanations there are a number of possible factors that can trigger

wars. For example wars are fought for reasons of prestige, for individual fame and national

honour and to set a patriotic statement. A typical example of such an incident is the Falkland

War in 1982, the United Kingdom defended a few small islands off the coast of Argentina

against an occupation by the Argentine military. The war was not about territory, since the

Falklands are tiny islands, nor about economic interests, but about power and patriotic

sentiments. Especially men often see war as an opportunity to demonstrate their strength and

virtue. During some historical periods there was a real “culture of war”, such as before the

First World War, when large sections of the European population where in a state of

“hysterical desire for war” Brown (1987).

Sometimes wars occur due to reasons of misjudgements, mistakes or miscalculations. An

almost curious example is the so-called Football War between El Salvador and Honduras in

1969. It was triggered by an undecided world cup qualification game, but the real reasons of

course were much deeper and concerned issues of land reform and immigration. Another

good example of a clear misjudgement was Hitler’s “two front” war against France and

Russia. The Nazis made the mistake to open two fronts, which overstressed their resources.
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Finally, wars can be caused by racial conflicts or the fight for independence. This occurs

when wars are fought by suppressed people against their rulers or against foreign occupations.

In the 1950s and 1960s, many former colonies of the British and French empires fought

against the colonial powers, such as in the Algerian War of Independence against France.

Sometimes a social conflict within a society can be characterized as a class war or a racial

war. The war of the black majority against the system of Apartheid in South Africa is an

example of a racial conflict. The French Revolution is another example, where the middle and

lower classes fought against the French aristocracy.

Usually, there is a mixture of motives and reasons for every war. To comprehend the reasons

behind why wars occur, one needs to differentiate between the individual and collective

motives.

A behavioural scientist who has reflected on the individual motives for aggression which can

lead to war was Konrad Lorenz (1966). He argues in his book “On Aggression” that

individuals are violent in nature. Human aggression can be triggered by many stimuli but the

most frequent are situations of perceived threat or rivalry. Konrad Lorenz’s theory of the

innate aggression could give a plausible explanation of why people have been fighting wars

throughout all recorded history. If this theory is correct than the causes of war are in our

biological nature.

Another possible approach to understanding why individuals fight wars is based on

psychological concepts, such as Narcissism. This is related to the desire of many men to

achieve glory and individual honour by fighting a war. These psychological theories of war

argue that men can increase their social status by fighting in a war and coming back as “war

heroes”.

Finally, the aggression hypothesis is a possible step to understanding why individuals engage

in violent behaviour and wars. This hypothesis perceives frustration to be a major factor in
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aggression. It can be observed that frustrated individuals are often very aggressive. They

engage in violent behaviour, because they feel inferior and insecure.

These psychological explanations of war and aggression are all based on the emotions of

individuals (Brown 1987).

However, one needs also to look at the more complex system of collective behaviour. The

knowledge of individuals’ actions, which are based on decision making, reasoning and

emotions can’t be entirely transferred to collective behaviour. This is because to achieve

collective actions one needs to convince and /or possibly force many individuals who might

have different incentives to fight wars.

Collective behaviour resulting in war can have many possible explanations, for example when

many people loose their common sense and moral beliefs and blindly follow political

propaganda. One might argue that wars are only possible, because soldiers do not behave as

individuals, but as a collective. Many soldiers would never commit the brutalities of war if

they would be fighting alone against a single opponent (Fromm1992). However, as a group,

they often completely loose their moral standards and critical judgement. Military leaders

often use this phenomenon. They try to strengthen the collective character of their units by

suppressing any kind of individual behaviour among their soldiers. Having outlined the

individual and collective motives for engaging in war, it must be noted again that there is

unusually not one single factor that triggers war but mostly a combination of complex acts.
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This essay has discussed possible reasons for wars as seen from the three political ideologies,

namely realism, liberalism and critical theory. Different causes of wars have been analyzed

and each of the categories has been supported with specific examples. Further the essay

looked at explanations for wars from the perspective of states as well as individuals. To

conclude this essay demonstrates that there exists numerous hypothesises and explanations

about the occurrence of war. It is necessary to look at all these aspects to gain a full

understanding of this highly complex issue.

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References

 Brown, Seyom (1987) Causes and Prevention of War (Palgrave MacMillan)

 Doyle, Michael W. (22 June 2004) Liberal Internationalism: Peace, War and

Democracy, www.nobelprize.org

 Fearon, James D. (Summer, 1995) ‘Rationalist Explanations for War’, International

Organization, Vol. 49, No. 3, 379-414

 Fromm, Erich (1992) Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (Holt Paperbacks)

 Hofmann, Etienne (1980) ‘Les Principes de Politique’ de Benjamin Constant, 2

volumes (Genève: Droz)

 Lorenz, Konrad (1966) On Aggression (Bantam Books)

 Schelling, Thomas (1960) The strategy of conflict (Harvard University Press)

 Schumpeter, Joseph (1950). Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York:

Harper & Row)

 http://www.britannica.com/