The War Puzzle (Cambridge Studies in International Relations)
John A. Vasquez
Language: English
Pages: 507
ISBN: 0521708230
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This book constructs a new scientific explanation of the causes of war. The author describes systematically those factors common to wars between equal states to see if there is a pattern that suggests why war occurs and delineates the typical path by which relatively equal states have become embroiled in wars with one another in the modern global system. The book differs from others in that it employs the large number of empirical findings generated in the past twenty-five years to solve the puzzle of war and peace.
Review
"Vasquez provides an answer to the question of international relations without pretension. This extraordinary book turns to, and employs past scholarship even as it exposes itself to crucial contemporary debates. The points raised here should be received as an indication of the stimulating nature of a work that should be read widely, both for its argument and its approach." The Review of Politics
"This is a book that L. F. Richardson would have read with scientific interest and admiration for the many accomplishments that have taken place in the half-century since his pathbreaking work. It provides a challenging standard for the growth of scientific understanding of war. Research funding agencies should also take note of the high return on their limited investment in this field, and the investigators should be proud. The war puzzle may not be entirely solved; but today we understand many more parts of it than Richardson did or, for that matter, than Thucydides ever dreamed imaginable. The War Puzzle bears wtness to this scientific progress." Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, American Political Science Review
"The War Puzzle issues a powerful indictment aganst political realism, both in theory and in practice, and the evidence it adduces makes at least a plausible case." William J. Dixon, Mershon International Studies Review
"Vasquez's synthesis makes considerable headway in our collective search for a better understanding of why states go to war...Whether one comes away from reading Vasquez's interpretation of one path to war as a fan or a critic, something will have been learned in the process." The International History Review
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wars would be ranked separately from complex wars. For dyadic wars, a pure limited war would be a 4 and a pure total war a 16 . For complex wars, the advantages of the scheme are impressive. For example, take the Vietnam War, which as a civil war involves a total war between the Republic of Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, but how does one incorporate the war between North Vietnam and the US? It is a total struggle for survival by one side, but limited on the other. The scheme in
in a vicious circle in which hostility makes actors define issues in ways that are intractable and threatening, and actors become hostile, in part, because of the way they have defined the issues that divide them. The relative equality makes for an interdependent decision-making situation from which neither side can escape, because neither side can overcome the other.20 Stalemate results and the issue festers. Frustration ensues, and a cost-benefit calculus of normal politics gives way to the
explanation is true, disputes involving territorial questions should be more likely to result in war, which seems to be the case. The d ifference between the interaction explanation and one based on territoriality is that the latter sees territory as a special issue prone to violence . If the interaction explanation were correct, then the number of issues over which wars are fought should not be so clustered around territorial questions and disputes. There should be more crises involving
by force or the threat of force, territorial and border conflict need not continue for the entire relationship of two states. This explains in part why the probability levels in Bremer’s (1992) study are so low . Often a major war or series of wars stabilize the situation, and the two states are able to work out their relative status so as to avoid continual warfare. The United States’ relations with Mexico and Canada illustrate two different ways in which this can occur. With Mexico, the
aspect of a larger package of behavior associated with war. Alliances can be seen as part of a political culture of war that has been constituted by realist discourse and shaped by the practices of power politics. Making an alliance becomes a way of handling security issues and of preparing oneself in case war might occur. Not all states can make an alliance and not all states, particularly newer states and those on the periphery, accept this norm, so the relationship is far from perfect.