"War . . . is merely an idea, an institution, like dueling or slavery, that has been grafted onto human existence. It is not a trick of fate, a thunderbolt from hell, a natural calamity, or a ...desperate plot contrivance dreamed up by some sadistic puppeteer on high. And it seems to me that the institution is in pronounced decline, abandoned as attitudes toward it have changed, roughly following the pattern by which the ancient and formidable institution of slavery became discredited and then mostly obsolete."-from the Introduction
War is one of the great themes of human history and now, John Mueller believes, it is clearly declining. Developed nations have generally abandoned it as a way for conducting their relations with other countries, and most current warfare (though not all) is opportunistic predation waged by packs-often remarkably small ones-of criminals and bullies. Thus, argues Mueller, war has been substantially reduced to its remnants-or dregs-and thugs are the residual combatants.
Mueller is sensitive to the policy implications of this view. When developed states commit disciplined troops to peacekeeping, the result is usually a rapid cessation of murderous disorder.The Remnants of Warthus reinvigorates our sense of the moral responsibility bound up in peacekeeping. In Mueller's view, capable domestic policing and military forces can also be effective in reestablishing civic order, and the building of competent governments is key to eliminating most of what remains of warfare.
Since at least the Middle Ages, the laws of war have distinguished between combatants and civilians under an injunction now formally known as the principle of distinction. The principle of ...distinction is invoked in contemporary conflicts as if there were an unmistakable and sure distinction to be made between combatant and civilian. As is so brutally evident in armed conflicts, it is precisely the distinction between civilian and combatant, upon which the protection of civilians is founded, cannot be taken as self-evident or stable. Helen M. Kinsella documents that the history of international humanitarian law itself admits the difficulty of such a distinction.
InThe Image Before the Weapon, Kinsella explores the evolution of the concept of the civilian and how it has been applied in warfare. A series of discourses-including gender, innocence, and civilization- have shaped the legal, military, and historical understandings of the civilian and she documents how these discourses converge at particular junctures to demarcate the difference between civilian and combatant. Engaging with works on the law of war from the earliest thinkers in the Western tradition, including St. Thomas Aquinas and Christine de Pisan, to contemporary figures such as James Turner Johnson and Michael Walzer, Kinsella identifies the foundational ambiguities and inconsistencies in the principle of distinction, as well as the significant role played by Christian concepts of mercy and charity.
She then turns to the definition and treatment of civilians in specific armed conflicts: the American Civil War and the U.S.-Indian Wars of the nineteenth century, and the civil wars of Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1980s. Finally, she analyzes the two modern treaties most influential for the principle of distinction: the 1949 IV Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War and the 1977 Protocols Additional to the 1949 Conventions, which for the first time formally defined the civilian within international law. She shows how the experiences of the two world wars, but particularly World War II, and the Algerian war of independence affected these subsequent codifications of the laws of war.
As recognition grows that compliance with the principle of distinction to limit violence against civilians depends on a firmer grasp of its legal, political, and historical evolution,The Image before the Weaponis a timely intervention in debates about how best to protect civilian populations.
The question of what causes war has concerned statesmen since the time of Thucydides.The Steps to Warutilizes new data on militarized interstate disputes from 1816 to 2001 to identify the factors ...that increase the probability that a crisis will escalate to war. In this book, Paul Senese and John Vasquez test one of the major behavioral explanations of war--the steps to war--by identifying the various factors that put two states at risk for war. Focusing on the era of classic international politics from 1816 to 1945, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War period, they look at the roles of territorial disputes, alliances, rivalry, and arms races and show how the likelihood of war increases significantly as these risk factors are combined. Senese and Vasquez argue that war is more likely in the presence of these factors because they increase threat perception and put both sides into a security dilemma.
The Steps to Warcalls into question certain prevailing realist beliefs, like peace through strength, demonstrating how threatening to use force and engaging in power politics is more likely to lead to war than to peace.
This book analyzes the Crimean War from the Ottoman perspective based mainly on Ottoman and Russian primary sources, and includes an assessment of the War's impact on the Ottoman state and Ottoman ...society.
The late nineteenth century saw a rapid increase in colonial
conflicts throughout the French and British empires. It was also
the period in which the camera began to be widely available.
Colonial ...authorities were quick to recognise the power of this new
technology, which they used to humiliate defeated opponents and to
project an image of supremacy across the world. Drawing on a wealth
of visual materials, from soldiers' personal albums to the
collections of press agencies and government archives, this book
offers a new account of how conflict photography developed in the
decades leading up to the First World War. It explores the various
ways in which the camera was used to impose order on subject
populations in Africa and Asia and to generate propaganda for the
public in Europe, where a visual economy of violence was rapidly
taking shape. At the same time, it reveals how photographs could
escape the intentions of their creators, offering a means for
colonial subjects to push back against oppression.
Theodore McLauchlin's Desertion examines the personal
and political factors behind soldiers' choices to stay in their
unit or abandon their cause. He explores what might spur widespread
desertion in ...a given group, how some armed groups manage to keep
their soldiers fighting over long periods, and how committed
soldiers are to their causes and their comrades.
To answer these questions, McLauchlin focuses on combatants in
military units during the Spanish Civil War. He pushes against the
preconception that individual soldiers' motivations are either
personal or political, either selfish or ideological. Instead, he
draws together the personal and the political, showing how soldiers
come to trust each other-or not. Desertion demonstrates
how the armed groups that hold together and survive are those that
foster interpersonal connections, allowing soldiers the opportunity
to prove their commitment to the fight.
McLauchlin argues that trust keeps soldiers in the fray,
mistrust pushes them to leave, and political beliefs and military
practices shape both. Desertion brings the reader into the
world of soldiers and rigorously tests the factors underlying
desertion. It asks, honestly and without judgment, what would you
do in an army in a civil war? Would you stand and fight? Would you
try to run away? And what if you found yourself fighting for a
cause you no longer believe in or never did in the first place?
"Nearly four decades after a revolution, experiencing one of the longest wars in contemporary history, facing political and ideological threats by regional radicals such as ISIS and the Taliban, and ...having succeeded in negotiations with six world powers over her nuclear program, Iran appears as an experienced Muslim country seeking to build bridges with its Sunni neighbours as well as with the West."--
"Ethics of War and Peace in Iran and Shi'i Islam explores the wide spectrum of theoretical approaches and practical attitudes concerning the justifications, causes and conduct of war in Iranian-Shi'i culture. By examining primary and secondary sources, and investigating longer lasting factors and questions over circumstantial ones, Mohammad Jafar Amir Mahallati seeks to understand modern Iranian responses to war and peace. His work is the first in its field to look into the ethics of war and peace in Iran and Shi'i Islam. It provides a prism through which the binary source of the Iranian national and religious identity informs Iranian responses to modernity. By doing so, the author reveals that a civilization-conscious soul in modern Iran is re-emerging."--
These essays are a significant contribution to understanding the failure of sustainable economic development and the armed conflict that it spawns in developing states.
