The Relations Between War and Politics

The focal questions about war

 In dealing with both theoretical and practical points of view about war, at least six fundamental questions arise: 1) What is war?; 2) What types of war exist?; 3) Why do wars occur?; 4) What is the connection between war and justice?; 5) The question of war crimes?; and 6) Is it possible to replace war with the so-called “perpetual peace”?

Probably, up today, the most used and reliable understanding of war is its short but powerful definition by Carl von Clausewitz:

“War is merely the continuation of politics by other means” [On War, 1832].

It can be considered the terrifying consequences if, in practice, Clausewitz’s word “merely” from a simple phrase about the war would be applied in the post-WWII nuclear era and the Cold War (for instance, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962).

Nevertheless, he became one of the most important influencers on Realism in international relations (IR). To remind ourselves, Realism in political science is a theory of IR that accepts war as a very normal and natural part of the relationships between states (and after WWII, of other political actors as well) in global politics. Realists are keen to stress that wars and all other kinds of military conflicts are not just natural (meaning normal) but even inevitable. Therefore, all theories that do not accept the inevitability of war and military conflicts (for instance, Feminism) are, in fact, unrealistic.

The art of war is an extension of politics

A Prussian general and military theorist, Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (1780−1831), the son of a Lutheran Pastor, entered the Prussian military service when he was only 12, and achieved the rank of Major-General at the age of thirty-eight. He was studying the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and became involved in the successful reform of the Prussian army. Clausewitz was of the opinion that war is a political instrument similar to, for instance, diplomacy or foreign aid. For this reason, he is considered to be a traditional (old) realist. Clausewitz echoed the Greek historian Thucydides who had described in the 5^th century B.C. in his famous The History of the Peloponnesian War the dreadful consequences of unlimited war in ancient Greece. Thucydides (ca. 460−406 B.C.) was a Greek historian but had a great interest in philosophy too. His great historiographical work, The History of the Peloponnesian War (431−404 B.C.), recounts the struggle between Athens and Sparta for geopolitical, military, and economic control (hegemony) over the Hellenic world. The war culminated at the end with the destruction of Athens, the birthplace of both ancient democracy and imperialistic and hegemonic ambitions. Thucydides explained the war in which he participated as the Athenian “strategos” (general) in terms of the dynamics of power politics between Sparta and Athens and the relative power of the rival city-states (polis). He consequently developed the first sustained realistic explanation of international relations and conflicts and formed the earliest theory of IR. In his famous Melian dialogue, Thucydides showed how power politics is indifferent to the moral argument. This is a dialogue between the Melians and the Athenians, which Thucydides quoted in his The History of the Peloponnesian War, in which the Athenians refused to accept the Melian wish to remain neutral in the war with Sparta and Spartan allies. The Athenians finally besieged the Melians and massacred them. His work and dark view of human nature influenced Thomas Hobbes.

Actually, Clausewitz was in great fear that unless politicians controlled war, it is going to degenerate into a struggle with no clear other objectives except one – to destroy the enemy. He was serving in the Prussian army during the Napoleonic Wars until being captured in 1806. Later, he helped it to be reorganized and served in the Russian army from 1812 to 1814, and finally fought at the decisive Battle of Waterloo on June 18^th, 1815, that brought about Napoléon’s ultimate downfall from power.

The Napoleonic Wars influenced Clausewitz to caution that war is being transformed into a struggle among whole nations and peoples without limits and restrictions but without clear political aims or objectives. In his On War (in three volumes, published after his death) he explained the relationship between war and politics. In other words, war without politics is just killing, but this killing with politics has some meaning.

Clausewitz’s assumption about the phenomenon of warfare was framed by the thought that if it is reflected that war has its origin in a political object, then, naturally, it comes to the conclusion that this original motive which called it into existence, should also continue to be the first and highest consideration in its conduct. Consequently, the policy is interwoven with the whole action of war and must exercise a continuous influence upon it. It is clearly seen that war is not merely a political act, but as well as a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. In other words, the political view is the object while war is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.

Another important notice by Clausewitz is that the rising power of nationalism in Europe and the use of large conscript armies (in fact, national armies) could produce in the future absolute or total wars (like WWI, WWII), that is, wars to the death and total destruction rather than wars waged for some more or less precise and limited political objectives. However, he was particularly fearful of leaving warfare to the generals for the reason that their idea of victory in war is framed only within the parameters of the destruction of enemy armies. Such an assumption of victory is in contradiction with the war aim of politicians, who are understanding victory in war as the realization of the political aims for which they started the particular war. Nevertheless, such ends in practice could range from very limited to large aims and according to Clausewitz:

“… wars have to be fought at the level necessary to achieve them”. If the aim of the military action is an equivalent for the political objective, that action will, in general, diminish as the political objective diminishes”. This explains why “there may be wars of all degrees of importance and energy, from a war of extermination down to the mere use of an army of observation” [On War, 1832].

Strange enough, but he was of the strong opinion that generals should not be allowed to make any decision concerning the question of when to start and end wars or how to fight them, because they would use all instruments at their disposal to destroy an enemy’s capacity to fight. The real reason, however, for such an opinion was the possibility of converting a limited conflict into an unlimited and, therefore, unpredictable warfare. It really happened during WWI when the importance of massive mobilization and striking first was a crucial part of the war plans by the top military commanders in order to survive and finally win the war. It simply meant that it was not enough time for diplomacy to negotiate in order to prevent war from breaking out and to be transformed into unlimited war with unpredictable consequences. In practice, such military strategy effectively shifted the decision about whether and when to go to war from political leadership to military one as political leaders had, in fact, little time to take all matters into consideration being pressed by the military leadership to quickly go to war or to accept responsibility for the defeat. From this viewpoint, military plans and war strategies revised completely the relationship between war and politics and between civil politicians and military generals that Carl von Clausewitz had advocated a century earlier.

It has to be recognized, nonetheless, that Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz, in fact, predicted WWI as the first total war in history in which generals dictated to political leaders the timing of military mobilization and pressed politicians to take both the offensive and strike first. The insistence, in effect, of some of the top military commanders on adhering to pre-existing war plans, as was, for instance, the case with Germany’s Schlieffen Plan and mobilization schedules, took decision-making out of the hands of politicians, i.e., civilian leaders. Therefore, in such a way, it limited the time those leaders had to negotiate with one another in order to prevent the start of the war actions and bloodshed. Furthermore, the military leaders as well as pressured civilian leaders to uphold alliance commitments and consequently spread a possibly limited war across Europe into a European total war.

As a matter of illustration, the best-known design of such nature is Germany’s Schlieffen Plan, as it was named after German count Alfred von Schlieffen (1833−1913), who was the Chief of the German Great General Staff from 1891−1905. The plan was revised several times before WWI started. The Schlieffen Plan, like some other war plans created before WWI by the European Great Powers, was founded on the assumption of the offensive. The key to the offensive, however, was a massive and very quick military mobilization, i.e., quicker than the enemy could do the same. Something similar was designed during the Cold War when the primacy of a nuclear first strike was at the top of military plans’ priority by both superpowers. Nevertheless, a massive and even general military mobilization meant gathering troops from the whole country at certain mobilization centers to receive arms and other war material, followed by the transportation of them together with logistic support to the frontlines to fight the enemy. Shortly, in order to win the war, it was required for a country to invest huge expenses and significant time in order to strike the enemy first, i.e., before the enemy could start its own military offensive. Concerning WWI, the German top military leaders understood massive mobilization was of crucial importance for the very reason regarding their war plans to fight on two fronts – French and Russian: they thought that the single option to win the war was by striking rapidly in the west front to beat France and then decisively launching an offensive against Russia as it was the least advanced country of the European Great Powers and for the reason that Russia would take the longest period for massive mobilization and preparation for war.

For Clausewitz, war has to be a political act with the intention to compel the opponent to fulfill the will of the opposite side. He further argued that the use of force has to be only a tool or a real political instrument, as, for instance, is diplomacy, in the arsenal of the politicians. War has to be just a continuation of politics by other means or instruments of forceful negotiations (bargaining), but not an end in itself. Since the war has to be only initiated for the sake of achieving strictly the political goals of civilian leadership, it is logical for him that:

“… if the original reasons were forgotten, means and ends would become confused” [On War, 1832] (something similar, for instance, occurred with the American military intervention in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021).

He believed that in the case of forgotten original reasons for war, the use of violence is going to be irrational. In addition, in order to be usable, war has to be limited. Not all unlimited wars are usable or productive for civil purposes. However, history experienced during the last two hundred years several developments like industrialization or enlarged warfare, exactly going in the direction that Clausewitz had feared. In fact, he warned that militarism can be extremely dangerous for humanity – a cultural and ideological phenomenon in which military priorities, ideas, or values are pervading the larger or total society (for instance, Nazi Germany).

The Realists, actually, accepted Clausewitz’s approach, which later after WWII, was further developed by them into a view of the world that is distorted and dangerous, causing the so-called “unnecessary wars”. In general, such kinds of wars have been attributed to the US foreign policy during and after the Cold War around the globe. For example, in South-East Asia during the 1960s the US authorities were determined not to appease the Communist powers the way the German Nazis had been in the 1930s. Consequently, in attempting to avoid a Communist occupation of Vietnam the US became involved in a pointless and, in fact, unwinnable war, arguably confusing Nazi aims of geopolitical expansionism with the legitimate post-colonial patriotism of the people of Vietnam.

Carl von Clausewitz is by many experts considered to be the greatest writer on military theory and war. His book On War (1832) is generally interpreted as favoring the very idea that war is, in essence, a political phenomenon as an instrument of policy. The book, nevertheless, sets out a trinitarian theory of warfare that involves three subjects:

1. The masses, who are motivated by a sense of national animosity (national chauvinism);
2. The regular army devises strategies to take account of the contingencies of war;
3. The political leaders who formulate the goals and objectives of military action.

However, from another side, the Clausewitzian viewpoint of war can be deeply criticized for several reasons:

1. One of them is the moral side of it, as Clausewitz was presenting war as a natural and even inevitable phenomenon. He can be condemned for the justification of war by reference to narrow state interest instead of some wider principles, like justice or so. However, such  approach, therefore, suggests that if war serves legitimate political purposes its moral implications can be simply ignored or in other words, not to be taken into account at all as an unnecessary moment of the war;
2. Clausewitz can be criticized for the reason that his conception of warfare is outdated and therefore not fitting to modern times. In other words, his conception of war is relevant to the era of the Napoleonic Wars but surely not to modern types of war and warfare for several reasons. First, modern economic, social, cultural, and geopolitical circumstances may, in many cases, dictate that war is a less effective power than it was at the time of Clausewitz. Therefore, war can be today an obsolete policy instrument. If contemporary states are rationally thinking about war, military power can be of lesser relevance in IR. Second, industrialized warfare, and especially the feature of total war, can make calculations about the likely costs and benefits of war much less reliable. If it is the case, then war can simply stop to be an appropriate mean of achieving political ends. Thirdly, most of the criticism of Clausewitz is stressing the fact that the nature of both war and IR has changed and, therefore, his understanding of war as a social phenomenon is no longer applicable. In other words, Clausewitz’s doctrine of war can apply to the so-called „Old wars“ but not to the new type of war – „New war“. Nevertheless, on the other hand, in the case that Clausewitz’s requirement that the recourse to war has to be based on rational analysis and careful calculation, then many modern and contemporary wars would not take place.

The concept of war

There are many definitions and/or understandings of war. However, from a very academic point of view, war can be understood as an armed conflict between at least two sides, usually but not necessarily states, fought usually for some (geo)political goals. The focal conceptual idea of war is the use of force between large-scale political subjects like states, empires, or coalitions. Historically, wars have been fought mainly for the control of certain land for different reasons, ranging from a purely political one to a purely economic one or a combination of several of them.

There are many types of war and warfare that can be seen from the numerous adjectives that can be given before the word “war” like civil war, guerrilla war, total war, limited war, gang war, tribal war, regional war, local war, world war, religious war, race war, cold war, trade war, independence war, propaganda war, cyberwar, class war, etc. Some of these names, however, are, in fact, metaphors that exploit the image of violent conflict over some political or other goal taken from IR and transfer it to some actors who are not the states.

Nevertheless, from a legal viewpoint, states can be in war without, in fact, using force against each other (for instance, Montenegro’s declaration of war to Japan in 1904) or vice versa, states can use force against each other on quite a large scale but formally not to be in a declared warfare against each other (for instance, the German invasion of Poland in 1939). Nonetheless, the identification of warfare with some political background concerning the reasons and goals, in theory, means that it can be applied to the system of IR and domestic civil wars. On both levels – interstate and domestic – wars are in practice very often caused by some disputes over sovereignty and land.

The beginning of the modern form of warfare, as presumably an organized and more or less clear goal-direct violent activity, comes from the development of the European state-system in the early modern period, i.e., from around 1500 onward. Any war has either a formal or quasi-legal character from the point of international law. The declaration of a state of war does not necessarily mean to be followed by an outbreak of hostilities (for instance, Austria-Hungary started hostilities against Serbia in 1914, one month after the war declaration). After the Cold War, it is more and more used the term “new” wars which are characterized as being linked to intra-state ethnic conflict (for instance, the destruction of ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s), the usage of advanced military technology, or the involvement of non-state actors of different nature like terrorist groups or guerrilla movements. Hegemonic and guerrilla wars are on diametrically opposite ends of the scale of different wars. The first one is a war for the creation of dominance of huge portions of the world or the entire world order by deeply restructuring the global balance of power. The guerrilla war (in Spanish “little” war) is, in fact, an insurgency or “people’s” war which is fought by irregular troops who are using tactics that are suited to the terrain and emphasize mobility and surprise rather than superior firepower.

The causes of war

It can be said that each war is, to a certain extent, unique and unrepeatable, as each of them is the product of a specific set of historical circumstances followed by particular social, economic, and political backgrounds. Nevertheless, there is a historical fact that war as a phenomenon appears constantly and, therefore, many theoreticians argue that there should exist deeper explanations of war from the point of view that certainly there are some common elements in all of them which are applicable to all historical times and political-economic societies.

In the theory of IR, there are many approaches to the reasons for military conflicts, but certainly, there is no single or unified view about the causes of war and warfare.

According to the majority of theoreticians, war is nothing but a large-scale expression of the selfish, violent, and power-seeking nature of humans. In other words, war is a product of instincts and appetites that are natural elements of human individuals. Consequently, war is endless for the reason that human desires and appetites are infinite, while the resources to satisfy them are always finite. As a result, the struggle and competition that give rise to war inevitably, in the majority of cases, express themselves in violence, bloodshed, and war crimes. Some zoologists claim that social aggression is simply biologically programmed and especially in males, resulting from territorial and sexual instincts that are found in all species, including humans. Technically, war can be fought in order to protect the (home)land, acquire wealth and resources, achieve national glory, advance religious, ideological, or political principles, or establish racial or ethnonational hegemony, etc. For instance, one of the causes of war can be autarky (“self-rule”) – the principle of economic self-sufficiency, which can result either in colonial expansion or a withdrawal from international trade. Nevertheless, in all of these cases, war provides a necessary and inevitable framework for aggressive behavior that is hard-wired in human nature.

Others, like neo-realists, are claiming that the regular occurrence of war in history is a result of the anarchic structure of the system of IR. For them, war is an enduring feature of IR and world affairs. The possibility of war stems from the inescapable dynamics of power politics. As states pursue their own national interest, they will inevitably come into conflict with one another. Nevertheless, neo-realists claim that violent power politics is something real and natural. Moreover, the state’s egoism and rivalry between and among political actors are inherent tendencies within human nature towards self-seeking, competition, and aggression. From a neo-realistic point of view, the international system is, in fact, anarchic, and, therefore, (nation)states are simply forced to rely on self-help for the sake of achieving national survival and security. The common viewpoint by the neo-realists is that states can be stable and protected only by the acquisition of military power, which means a strong likelihood of war. The crucial factor distinguishing between war and peace is the balance of power. In principle, states will avoid war if they calculate that their chances of victory are slim. Furthermore, decisions about peace and war are made through the deeper and profound analysis of a cost-benefit in which national self-interest may dictate either the use of war or its avoidance. Nevertheless, neo-realists claim that states that wish to preserve peace must, therefore, be prepared for warfare as on this way they hope to deter potential aggressors and to prevent any other state or coalition of states from achieving a position of regional predominance or global hegemony (for instance, the British traditional policy toward continental Europe).

The third group argues that war results from the political construction of states and the ideologies that they express in the international arena. For instance, the liberals thought that in the 19^th century, aristocratic states were aggressive, contrary to those states with the republican (democratic) political system, due to the martial inclinations of their ruling class. For the neo-liberals, peace is natural, but by no means an inevitable condition for IR. War arises from three sets of circumstances and each of which is avoidable:

1. State egoism in the context of anarchy may lead to conflict and the possibility of war. The anarchy in IR can and should be replaced by an international rule of law, achieved through the construction of supranational bodies (for instance, the UN);
2. War is often linked to economic nationalism and autarky – the quest for economic self-sufficiency (as a result, it is expected to conflict with one another). Peace can be in this case achieved through free trade and other forms of economic interdependence, which may make war economically costly that it becomes unthinkable;
3. The deposition of a state towards war or peace is crucially determined by its constitutional character. Nondemocratic authoritarian states tend to be militaristic and expansionist, accustomed to the use of force in order to achieve both domestic and foreign goals. Contrary to what they claim, democratic states are more peaceful, at least in their relations with other democratic states. However, the neo-liberals forget the historical link between inner political democracy and external military imperialism (for instance, the case of the UK, which was around 1900 the greatest imperialistic state in the world and probably history).

In the 1930s, it was almost a common opinion that the Nazi-fascist states of extremely authoritarian political regimes were aggressive. Marxist political philosophy explains war primarily in economic terms and argues that states with a capitalistic social-economic order are driven to aggression (imperialism) for the real reason of their uncompromised economic competition for control over the markets, while, contrary, socialist states relate to each other peacefully. For Marxists, WWI was an imperialist war fought in pursuit of colonial gains in Africa and elsewhere. The origins of modern warfare can be traced back to the capitalistic economic system. War is the pursuit of economic advantage by other means. By Marxists, socialist movements are presented as anti-war or even of a pacifist orientation, being shaped by a commitment to internationalism that means cooperation and peace but not confrontation and war. The world’s most powerful capitalistic states use war, directly or indirectly, for the sake of defending or expanding their global economies and political interests. Therefore, war is closely associated in modern (capitalistic) times with imperialism and hegemony. As a suggestion, long-term peace can be built only by a radical redistribution of global power. The Marxist conclusion during the Cold War was that global socialism was bringing global peace, prosperity, and cooperation between different nations, groups, states, etc. Furthermore, for them, justice in domestic social relations brought peace in the international arena. Finally, for Marxists, economic class exploitation, followed by imperialistic cross-sea colonialism, was bringing global conflicts and wars.

However, liberals believe that the constitutional and governmental political structure of states inclines some of them toward aggression while others toward peaceful cohabitation. They shared an idea that the states with democratic political arrangements do not go to war against one another, as is implied by the so-called Democratic Peace Thesis. By contrast, the liberals argue that authoritarian states are inclined towards militarism and warfare for the reason that such political regimes are heavily dependent on the armed forces to keep inner political and social order in the absence of the democratic process of elected representatives of the people and through the need to subdue subordinate national and ethnic groups. For instance, communist states are aggressive for the reason of their undemocratic totalitarian political and economic organization, followed by their universalist ideology. Contrary, liberal democracies exist peacefully as a result of their economic interdependence with each other, and the constraints of democracy on the use of force by the state’s authorities. From the empirical standpoint, the liberals so far have the better of this argument, as there are few cases of democracies that have been going to war with each other. However, historically, the greatest and most violent imperialists and exploiters of colonies were exactly the liberal democracies, which, as well as producing numerous examples of war crimes, exterminations of ethnic groups, or direct support of dictatorial regimes abroad. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of militarism, either in quasi-democratic (the USA) or authoritarian (North Korea) political systems, is usually leading to a glorification of armed forces, belief in heroism and self-sacrifice, and the recognition of war as not only a legitimate instrument of foreign policy to protect national interest but as well as an expression of national patriotism.

The branch of political science theoreticians – social constructivists – place special emphasis on cultural and ideological factors, which are most influential on the process of making war. A view on war, politics, and peace by the feminist movement is very unique and new. Feminists adopted, actually, a gender perspective on war, politics, and peace as they claim that wars historically, in fact, are fought between males. However, they forgot to take into consideration several important cases of female warmongering, like the former US Secretaries of State Madeline Albright and Hillary Clinton, mystical Amazon female warriors, or the British PM Margaret Thatcher. Nevertheless, the feminists claim that the origins of the war are the warlike nature of males and the institution of patriarchy that they created. Contrary, there are allegedly close associations between women and peace based on the natural peacefulness of women and on the “fact” that women’s experience of the world encourages stress on human connectedness and cooperation. In other words, the image of international politics as conflict-ridden and prone to violence reflects masculinist assumptions about self-interest, competition, and the quest for domination.

Critical theorists like Noam Chomsky have been showing a particular interest in the concept and feature of hegemonic war. They argue that the global Great Powers use war either directly or indirectly for two practical reasons: 1) to defend, or 2) to expand their worldwide political and economic interests. Consequently, according to them, great wars are associated with the state’s hegemony projects, while global peace is going to be built up only by the restructuring of IR and the international system of Great Powers. A UK academic and IR theorist, Mary Kaldor, in her book New Wars and Old Wars (2006), claims that there is a direct link between new types of war after 1990 to the crisis in state authority due to the impact of privatization and globalization. There are violent fights for the sake of obtaining either access to or control of the state, state’s authorities, and institutions, which are leading to huge violations of human rights in many cases carried out in the name of identity and mainly have been pointed against civilians and their rights. Another feature of the post-Cold War armed conflicts across the world is asymmetrical warfare, which is a war fought between two opposite sides but with clearly unequal levels of military, economic, and technological power and potential. In principle, but not necessarily, in such kinds of wars, warfare strategies tend to be adapted to the needs of the weak. Many contemporary wars are caused by insurgency – an armed uprising which is involving irregular soldiers with the final political goal to overthrow the established and usually legitimate regime. Furthermore, contemporary the so-cold “New wars” have several common features like:

1) They tend to be civil wars rather than wars between states;

2) The issue of identity is generally very prominent, and it can be even the chief cause of the conflict;

3) “New” wars are asymmetrical as they are often fought between unequal sides;

4) The distinction between military and civilians is disappearing;

5) “New” wars in many cases are more barbaric compared to “old” wars as it was clearly shown in the 1990s with the case of the violent destruction of ex-Yugoslavia especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina and South Serbian Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metochia where in 1996−1999 the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army sponsored by the US Clinton-Albright Administration took up an armed uprising against Serbia’s authorities and institutions for the sake to separate the province from the rest of Serbia and proclaim independence which happened in February 2008.

War, national interest, and the League of Nations

In broad terms, the national interest refers to the goals of foreign politics, objectives, or policy preferences that benefit a nation or society as a whole. That is the foreign policy equivalent of the public interest. However, the concept of national interest is vague and contested. The concept is most widely used by realist theorists, for whom it is defined by the structural implications of anarchy in IR, and, therefore, the concept of national interest is closely linked to national security, survival, and the pursuit of power.

Nonetheless, for those theorists dealing with the phenomenon of decision-making procedure, the national interest refers to the strategies and goals that are pushed by those politicians who are responsible for the conduct of national foreign policy. This may mean, however, that it degenerates into mere rhetoric. Alternatively, the concept of national interest may refer to the goals of foreign policy that have been endorsed by the democratic process. In many practical cases in modern history, ethnocentrism was directly linked with the concept of national interest, even to the degree that it became a synonym. Ethnocentrism is a policy in which the actions and intentions of its own or other national groups or individuals are evaluated by the application of cultural, political, or in general civilizational values and theories drawn from the observer’s own culture and experience.

It was traditionally thought that national interest was a legitimate goal of the nation and other forms of states in their war practices. In other words, for centuries warfare was legitimized by proclaimed formal national interest, especially of national security. Historically, many European states have been regularly involved in warfare with each other, especially their neighbors, for the sake of getting land, different dynastic claims, or, for instance, colonial gains. Nevertheless, in all such and similar cases, resort to war was a generally accepted mechanism for keeping the balance of power or establishing a hegemony, but under the moral and legitimate umbrella of the protection of national interest.

The term and concept of balance of power are used in different ways. As a policy, the balance of power refers to a deliberate attempt to promote a power equilibrium, using diplomacy or war, in order to prevent any state or political actor from achieving a predominant position. However, as a system, the balance of power refers to a condition in which no one state predominates over others, tending to create general equilibrium and to prevent the hegemonic ambitions of all states. Nevertheless, neo-realists argue that the international system tends naturally towards equilibrium because states are particularly fearful that the other state would be a hegemon.

Up to the late 19^th century, in fact, there was no developed legal constraints of war and when it was agreed on the general law on war in order to limit the use of some of the nastier technological possibilities for both making and using weapons.

The situation changed after 1918 as a consequence of the unexpected cost and carnage of the Great War (1914−1918), when some international mechanisms to prevent war were established, including the institution of the League of Nations. The League of Nations was established at the end of WWI by those Great Powers who won the war, meeting at the Paris Peace Conference with the strongest support in the person of US President Woodrow Wilson. However, due to the post-WWI policy of isolation, the US Senate did not ratify the US membership in the League of Nations and, therefore, the post-war strongest nation-state came out of a new global security mechanism. Moreover, among all post-war Great Powers, only the UK and France became members of the League during its existence, while other Great Powers of Germany, Italy, Japan, and the USSR, either joined the organization late or resigned or even did both.

The task of the League of Nations was to prevent military aggression in global politics by applying a system of collective security. Therefore, it was hoped that all potential aggressors are going to be either deterred or at least effectively punished by the collective international security body of the League or, more precisely, its leading nations – the UK and France. However, this great illusion became visible in the 1930s, starting with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, when the Great Powers of the UK and France became unwilling and probably unable to impose effective sanctions on the aggressor. The case of Manchuria was soon followed in 1935 by the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), in whose political fate no other Great Power had any direct interest. Both cases became the decisive test of the efficacy for the League of Nations, which failed and, therefore, left the room open for the start of WWII. Neither the UK nor France got sufficient international support for the imposition of some serious and effective measures against the aggressor, except partial economic sanctions, which, however, had been lifted in 1936. The Brits were happy not to risk the loss of even a small part of their fleet in the conflict with Italy when the British colonies in Asia-Pacific had been menaced by expansionist Japan and when the USA still followed the policy of isolation and neutrality. Similar to London, Paris held that the campaign against Italy for the colony in East Africa would be abortive at the time when all the French army was needed to prevent possible early conflict with Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, Abyssinia was consequently incorporated into the Italian colonial empire in 1936. In fact, as an imagined institution to resist the aggression and warfare in IR, the League of Nations effectively stopped functioning and formally continued to exist in a phantom condition till 1945, when it became officially replaced by the UN.

In essence, the collective security mechanism of the League of Nations failed to eradicate war from the practice of nation-states to protect their national interest. After 1945, a stronger international legal system and regime against war and the use of weapons was created, including the supranational institution of the organization of United Nations (the UN), as well as based on the idea and the concept of collective security. Therefore, after WWII, formally, the war became illegal for almost all purposes except self-defense and collective security. At the same time, war became increasingly perceived as an immoral practice in the IR. Nevertheless, practically, the national interest still plays the focal role in contemporary wars, as it was clearly stated, for instance, in US President Bill Clinton’s speech to the nation after the Kosovo War in mid-June 1999. The justification of wars in both Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, following the case of 9/11 in 2001, started to move the criteria of warfare in the direction of making pre-emptive and preventive attacks more publicly acceptable in the eyes of a nation.

Collective security and the system of the UN in IR

An idea of effective collective security is the foundation of the UN. Fundamentally, collective security has to be a system to protect global peace and security through the common agreement and activity of all nations. Therefore, the focal idea of the concept of collective security is to institutionalize a permanent arrangement of the balance of power in which the whole international community has to agree to oppose any armed aggression by any member state. The theoretical logic of the concept of collective security is double: 1) No state can stand up to all of the other member states of the system together; and 2) The military aggression will be consequently permanently deterred. However, in practice, it became impossible to apply this logic to the post-WWII nuclear Great Powers, especially to those two – the so-called Superpowers. Furthermore, five Great Powers with a permanent veto right in the UN SC have been self-protected, likewise so have their regional clients (for instance, Israel).

Nevertheless, there are important necessary conditions for collective security:

1. All member states must accept the status quo sufficiently in order to renounce the use of force for any purpose other than for the very purpose of defense of their own borders and territory;
2. All member states have to reach an agreement about a clear legal definition of the act of aggression in order to avoid a particular self-individual explanation of aggression so that practical paralysis can be avoided if the case of aggression happens;
3. All member states, but particularly the Great Powers, have to be willing to commit their own armed forces and funds to prevent aggression even in the case if it is remote from or opposed to, their immediate national interests. However, another solution is to establish, pay for, and find means of controlling, an international armed force to deal with the prevention of the act of aggression;
4. All member states have to prevent actively any breaches of sanctions that might assist the declared outlaw.

As it is known, attempts by the League of Nations to effectively implement the concept of collective security failed because of the inability to meet all of these conditions. The UN Security Council (SC) is a mechanism for collective security. On one hand, its operation in 1991 against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait (its former historical territory separated from Iraq by the Brits at the very turn of the 20^th century) is usually seen by Westerners as a good instance of the successful implementation of the concept of collective security. However, on the other hand, NATO military intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 without permission from the UN SC can be understood as a good example of classic military aggression against a sovereign state.

The UN Charter model of both democracy and global politics recognizes that the world community consists of sovereign states, connected through a dense network of different relations. The model defends single persons and groups who are regarded as legitimate actors in IR. Peace and peaceful collective cohabitation are the ultimate political goals of the model, which can be achieved by worldwide democracy. The UN, immediately after its creation in 1945, recognized that certain peoples are oppressed by colonial powers, racist regimes of foreign occupants, and, therefore, they are assigned rights of recognition and a determinate role in articulating their future and interests. Consequently, in Africa and Asia started a new type of war – the Identity war. That is a war in which the quest for cultural regeneration, expressed by the demand that a people’s collective identity is publicly and politically recognized, became a primary cause for conflict. Nevertheless, the UN placed restrictions on the resort to force, including the unwarranted use of economic force or sanctions.

The creation of new rules, procedures, and institutions was designed to aid law-making and law enforcement in international affairs, with the ultimate security purpose of avoiding conflicts and especially wars. There was the adoption of legal principles delimiting the form and scope of the conduct of all members of the international community, which provided a set of guidelines for the structuring of international rules and behavior. It was as well as expressed fundamental concern for the rights of individuals, and the creation of a corpus of international rules seeking to constrain states to observe certain standards in the treatment of all citizens. The preservation of peace, the advancement of human rights, and the establishment of greater social justice became proclaimed as collective priorities. Public affairs now included the whole of the international community. With respect to certain values as peace and the prohibition of genocide, international rules within the umbrella of the UN Charter and law now provide, in principle, for the personal responsibility of state officials and authority in general and the attribution of criminal acts to states, including different types of war crimes.

The UN recognized the systematic inequalities among peoples and states accepting the concept of “common heritage of mankind” (UNESCO). Nevertheless, it would be quite misleading to conclude that the era of the UN Charter model simply displaced the Westphalian logic of both IR and international governance. I would claim that the essential reason for such a standpoint is that the UN Charter framework represents, in many respects, an extension of the former pre-WWII interstate system of IR. The UN was designed partly to overcome weaknesses in the former League of Nations, but also to accommodate the international power structure as it was understood in 1945. Nevertheless, the UN Charter system of IR, including dealing with war and warfare and taking into consideration the practice of the veto rights in the UN SC, is, in fact, and unfortunately, democratically wrapped and dressed in the old Westphalian Order in IR.

As a matter of fact, the division of the globe into powerful nation-states, with distinctive sets of geopolitical interests, is built into the UN Charter conception in 1945. As a result, the UN is virtually immobilized as an autonomous actor on many pressing issues. Manifestation of this is the special veto power accorded to the five permanent members of the UN SC (the UK, the USA, the USSR/Russia, France, China). This privileged political status added authority and legitimacy to the position of each of the major Great Powers. The five veto power states are, therefore, protected against censure and sanctions in the event of unilateral military action in the form of their veto. They have the right to unilateral strategic state initiatives if they are necessary for self-defense.

The UN submission to the agendas of the most powerful states is reinforced by its dependence on finance provided by its member states. In sum, the UN Charter model of IR, despite its good intentions, failed effectively to generate a new principle of organization in the international order – a principle which might break fundamentally with the logic of the Westphalian Order and generate new democratic mechanisms of political coordination. However, the UN Charter system is distinctively innovative and influential in a number of respects. It has provided an international forum in which all states are, in certain respects, equal. Such a forum is of particular value to third world countries and to those seeking a basis for consensus solutions to international problems for the sake to avoid military conflicts.

Finally, it has not to be forgotten that the UN Charter has provided a general framework for decolonization, and for the pursuit of the reform of international economic institutions. It also provided a vision of a new world order and IR based upon a meeting of governments and of supranational presence in world affairs, championing human rights and trying to prevent military actions across the globe.

Just War and Just War theory

One of the most disputed topics with regard to the concept of war is the idea of a Just War – a war held to be founded on the principles of justice in principle caused and conducted in the name of humanity like, for instance, self-defense or protection of minority groups, etc.

That there was such a phenomenon is an inherent aspect of politics and foreign affairs recognized even by the authors of Antiquity like classical Greek writers, as represented mostly by Thucydides and his famous History of the Peloponnesian War. In the Antiquity, the early Christians had been pacifists and, in fact, practicing abstention from the policy in general. At that time, the authorities of the almighty Roman Empire, once converted to Christianity in the 4^th century A.D., in fact, had been forced to reconcile the pacifist philosophy of Jesus Christ with the demands of everyday real politics, war, and power on the ground from Britain to Egypt. A Christian philosopher and theologian St. Augustine (354−430) argued in De Civitate Dei that day-to-day acceptance of political realities was inevitable for all Christians living in the fallen world of the Roman Empire. This topic was further developed by another Christian (Roman Catholic) philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225−1274), who made a distinction between Just and Unjust war by using two groups of criteria: 1) Jus ad bellum – the justice of the cause; and 2) Jus in bello – the justice of the conduct. By definition, Jus ad bellum is a just recourse to war. It has to be based on certain principles that restrict the legitimate use of force. Jus in bello is the just conduct of war. It has to be founded on certain principles that stipulate how war should be fought.

These two elements of Just War theory – just cause and just conduct – continued later up today to dominate the debate over the concept of war. In the 20^th century, just cause became narrowed to the issue of self-defense against aggression and helping the victims of aggression. Basically, the theoretical doctrine of just cause is concentrated on discrimination between combatants (soldiers) and non-combatants (civilians) and proportionality between the injustice suffered and the level of retaliation. However, the Total War, as both world wars have been, has strained, in effect, to breaking point the doctrine of Just War.

During the time of the Cold War, nuclear deterrence added an additional dimension to the debate for the reason that two opposite groups of thinkers became formed:

1. The biggest number of political scientists and military experts of the concept of Just War have condemned nuclear war as Unjust War on several grounds: of discrimination, proportionality, no prospect of a successful outcome.
2. However, there are Christian thinkers who considered the factor of deterrence: the threat to use nuclear weapons is morally acceptable. Some Roman Catholic clergy like the US Bishops have distinguished between 1) the mere possession of nuclear weapons, constituting a so-called existential deterrent (being acceptable); and 2) the real intention to use those weapons (being not acceptable).

In principle, the Just War theory is founded on the general idea that war can be justified and has to be understood and/or judges within the framework of fixed ethical criteria. In other words, Just War is a war in which both final purpose and conduct meet certain ethical standards, and, therefore, can be (allegedly) treated as morally justified. By such definition of Just War, it, basically, fluctuating between two theoretical extremes: 1) Realism, which is understanding war through the prism of realpolitik – the pursuit of power or self-interest; and 2) Pacifism, which denies the existence of any war and violence which can be morally justified.

The Just War theory is, in fact, much more a topic or ethical and/or philosophical reflection and studies, rather than fixed political doctrine. Historically, the philosophical origins of the Just war theory are going back to the Roman philosopher Cicero. However, it became first systematically developed by philosophers and theologians like St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vitoria (1492−1546), and Hugo Grotius (1583−1645).

In the Just War theory, concerning the idea of Jus ad bellum, there are six basic principles to be respected regarding just resources to war:

1. Last resort. It means that all sides have to try and exhaust all non-violent options (like diplomacy) before one of them decides to go to the war in order that the use of force is going to be justified. This principle is, basically, the principle of necessity.
2. Just cause. According to this principle, the purpose of war has to be to redress a wrong that has been suffered. Therefore, this principle is usually associated with the principle of self-defense as a response to the military attack (aggression). It is historically understood as the classic justification for war.
3. Legitimate authority. This principle is understood that the lawful war can conduct only legally constituted government (state authority) of a sovereign state, rather than a private individual or group (like political movement). It means that the war in principle can be conducted only between sovereign states while all other „wars“ are going, in fact, to the category of military conflicts.
4. Right intention. It requires that any war has to be conducted on the foundations of aims that are morally acceptable rather than revenge or the desire to inflict harm. Nevertheless, those morally acceptable aims of the war may or may not be the same as the just cause.
5. Reasonable prospect of success. Accordingly, war must not to be conducted if the cause is, basically, hopeless, in which life is expended for no purpose or real benefit (for instance, the Pyrric victory).
6. Proportionality. This last principle of Jus ad bellum requires that warfare should result in more good than evil. In other words, any response to aggression should be measured and proportionate. For example, a wholesale invasion is not a justifiable response to a border incursion. From that viewpoint, for instance, the 2001 Afghanistan War was an unjustifiable response to the 9/11 attack. Nevertheless, the principle of proportionality is understood by many experts as macro-proportionality for the sake to distinguish it from the Jus in bello

In the case of warfare, however, there are three principles to be respected concerning Jus in bello or just conduct in war:

1. Discrimination. Accordingly, the force has to be directed only at military targets, on the very grounds that civilians (non-combatants) are innocent. The injury or death inflicted on the civilian population is, however, and therefore, acceptable only if they are the accidental and unavoidable victims of deliberate attacks on legitimate targets. This phenomenon in war is usually nowadays called to be collateral damage – unintended or incidental injury or damage caused during a military operation. In practice, nevertheless, the term is used as a cynical euphemism in order to justify war crimes (for instance, ethnic cleansing can be a euphemism for genocide).
2. This principle in overlapping with Jus ad bellum holds that the force used must not be greater than that needed to achieve acceptable military aims, and must not be greater than the provoking cause.
3. Humanity. It requires that any force or torture must not be directed ever against captured enemy personnel (prisoners of war), wounded, or being under control. This principle is a part of formalizing the so-called Laws of War. One of the pioneers of international law who drew up conditions for a Just War that remains influential even today was Francis Suarez (1548−1617), a Jesuit theologian and philosopher of law, particularly international law, called the last of the great scholastics.

War crimes

After WWII, there was a growing number of significant non-state actors in IR, like the UN or various specialist agencies connected to it. Nevertheless, two key developments stimulated the growth of such organizations after WWII:

1. The realization that to build cooperation and collective security was a much wider task than merely deterring aggressors in traditional attacks on the fixed international order. It, therefore, involved finding ways of agreeing on international policy in a variety of practical areas.
2. The increasing coverage of international law to include new foci, including human rights, social justice, natural environment, and regarding warfare – war crimes.

The final result of such post-WWII development in IR and global politics was that the application of the UN system took place within the context of growth and expansion of international law which dealt as well with war crimes. As a consequence, IR became less concerned with the state freedoms and independence alone but becoming more interested in general welfare with regards to including those affecting various non-state actors, such as pressure groups of different kinds, not least those demanding the investigation of war crimes including ethnic cleansing and genocide.

However, since the Cold War’s two nuclear Superpowers for geopolitical reasons, often been supporters of anti-democratic regimes that notoriously violated their own citizen’s rights, like the US support of the authoritarian regime of General Pinochet (1973−1990), in Chile than the removal of such structural condition appeared favorable to a general improvement in those countries requiring the investigation of the violation of human rights in some cases of the civil wars connected with war crimes.

The phenomenon of war crimes is commonly understood as individual responsibility for violations of internationally agreed on laws and customs of warfare. The responsibility of such kind is covering both the commission of war crimes in a direct way and ordering or facilitating of them. In principle, the rule violated must be part of the international customary law or part of an applicable treaty.

Chronologically, the first and unsuccessful attempts of the prosecution of war crimes have been after the Great War (1914−1918). In this respect, it has to be clear that the first massive war crimes against the civil population during WWI were committed by the Austro-Hungarian army in West Serbia in August 1914. Nonetheless, the same problem of individual responsibility for war crimes became once again actual during and after WWII, with the declarations in 1942 and 1943 by the Allied coalition. It was, basically, the expression of the determination to prosecute and punish at least major war criminals on the opposite side, but, unfortunately, not on their own as well (for instance, regarding the 1945 Dresden Massacre). Another practical purpose was to establish the tribunals for such cases to take place in Nüremberg in Germany (for the Nazi German war criminals) and Tokyo in Japan (for Japanese war criminals).

The war crimes committed in WWII had been covering the so-called “crimes against humanity” as defined by the Charter of the International Military Tribunal that was established in Nüremberg like killing, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhuman acts committed against the civilian population either before or during a war. In addition, the same category of war crimes was persecutions on political, racial, or religious foundations followed by the crime of aggression and crimes against peace like planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression.

War crimes are in general  understood in terms of all of those acts that are defined as the so-called “grave breaches” of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol 1 of 1977. Later, the acts of war crimes are defined in the 1993 Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, by the 1994 Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda followed by Article 8 of the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Nevertheless, in the 1990s, there was a greater willingness by one part of states to establish the so-called “international” courts for the matter of prosecution of potentially committed war crimes with the first such tribunal established after WWII which was dealing with the cases from the territory of ex-Yugoslavia followed by the similar court for Rwanda and successful negotiation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The conflicts which followed the brutal destruction of ex-Yugoslavia (1991−1995) have been widely referred to as the Europe’s bloodiest conflicts after 1945, partly because of the severity and intensity of the actual warfare and partly because of mass ethnic cleansings on all sides. However, this war practice from the 1990s became infamous for the war crimes they have been alleged to have committed. Nevertheless, the case of Yugoslav destruction in the 1990s nit became officially the first military conflict after WWII formally to be judged as genocidal in character by the Western international community.

Regarding the process of the persecution of war criminals, it was at a 1998 international conference in Rome where  formulating a treaty for signature and ratification a new statute for an International Criminal Court (ICC) was envisaged. The court had to have a global jurisdiction, to be complementary to national courts dealing with the cases of genocide, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing. The ICC was to be a permanent institution, unlike several previous courts for the investigation of war crimes (for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, for instance). However, three states openly announced not to vote for the creation of the ICC–USA, China, and Israel under the claim (at least by the USA) that their soldiers and peacekeepers abroad could be easily brought before the ICC on politically motivated charges, not on real war crimes evidences.

Warlordism

Warlordism is a broader term used to mark a condition of the weak central government of the failed states in which a single warlord, or rival warlike militants, each usually led by one dominant military leader. Such leaders are in control of a significant portion of the state’s territory, opposing official governmental forces and, that is most importantly, exerting power within that controlled territory as a private independent state. Nevertheless, in many if not the majority of cases, warlordism is a direct result of a military coup or civil war within a state, which causes a division of that territory between warring parties (for instance, the case of Bosnian Muslim extremist Naser Orić in the town of Srebrenica in 1992−1995).

Historically, warlordism is mostly associated with the Chinese provincial/regional military commanders doing their job during the first half of the 20^th century. In 1916 (after the death of Yuan Shikai), the Chinese territory was divided between several regional warlords and rulers. The point was that they all claimed to have military and political power over their territory based on a personal private army. Originally, those Chinese (and many other) warlords were mostly former soldiers of the official governmental authorities who were at the same time a kind of gangsters, bandits, and even local officials. In principle, all warlords are highly dependent on revenue from the local community (towns and agricultural areas) for the very reason of supporting military troops.. The winning warlords (like Pancho Villa in Mexico) were successfully controlling easily defended areas, even the whole provinces of the country. Nonetheless, as a matter of fact, the most bloody wars between rival warlords and governmental authorities required the massive (forceful or voluntary) mobilization of the local inhabitants.

In the majority of cases, warlords had controlled a certain territory depending on their military power, which had to have a strong (local) logistical support. Such a situation on the ground is enabling the warlords to collect (forcefully) taxis (for “national liberation or independence” or similar) with the control of other (material/natural/human) resources, including, in all cases, food production.

Nonetheless, the practice of warlordism can occur when the central authority of the state fails, where multiple warlords and their loyal militias or paramilitary parties and troops fill vacuums of power through violence and fear (for instance, Taliban units in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021). Although warlordism is a prominent historical feature, like in ancient China or Medieval Europe, recent instances of warlordism still exist in several countries in Africa, Asia, or South American Colombia.

War and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

The R2P is one of the most important features of the post-Cold War global politics and international relations (IR) regarding the relations between war and politics, which was formalized in 2005, focusing on when the international community (the UN) must intervene for human protection purposes. The R2P was officially endorsed by the international community by the unanimous decision of the UN General Assembly as a principle at the UN World Summit in 2005. This agreement was regulated in paragraphs 138−140 of the documents of this World Summit. There are three crucial decisions concerning the principle of the R2P:

• Every state is responsible for protecting its population. In general, that means not only the citizens but more broadly all residents living within the territory of the state from four crimes: a) genocide, b) war crimes, c) crimes against humanity, and d) ethnic cleansing.
• The international community has the responsibility to encourage and assist states for the sake that they will realize their fundamental responsibility to protect their residents from the four crimes defined in the first decision.
• In case, however, that the state authorities are „manifestly failing“ to protect their residents from the four crimes, then the international community has a moral responsibility to take timely and decisive action on a case-by-case basis. In principle, those actions include both coercive and non-coercive measures founded on Chapters VI−VIII of the UN Charter.

The R2P was, for instance, invoked in some 45 Resolutions by the UN SC, like Resolutions 1970 and 1973 on Libya in 2011. Nevertheless, the R2P principle is directly connected with the principle of Responsible Sovereignty, that is, in fact, the idea that a state’s sovereignty is conditional upon how state authorities are treating their own residents, founded on the belief that the state’s authority arises ultimately from sovereign individuals.

As a very complex principle, from the international community’s viewpoint, it is, however, generally accepted that the mainstream consensus is that the R2P is best understood as a multifaceted framework or a complex legal and moral norm that embodies many different but related components. Regarding this issue, in 2009, the UN Secretary-General divided the R2P into three pillars, which had important traction in the further discourse:

1. Pillar I refers to the domestic responsibilities of states to protect their own residents from the four crimes.
2. Pillar II regards the responsibility of the international community to provide international assistance with the consent of the target state.
3. Pillar III is focusing on „timely and collective response“ in that the international community is taking collective action through the UN SC to protect the people from the four crimes, but without the consent of the target state, i.e., its governmental authorities.

Nevertheless, although states did not formally sign up to this structure of the three-pillar approach, they, however, help distinguish between different forms of the R2P action. Among other examples, international assistance in Mali or South Sudan was provided within the framework of the R2P and the consent of the governments of Mali and South Sudan (reflecting the Pillar II action) but the military intervention in Libya in 2011 was done without the consent of the Libyan government (reflecting the Pillar III operation).

Nonetheless, the widest justification for humanitarian intervention within the internationally recognized legal framework of the R2P is to stop or prevent the genocide that is seen as the worst possible crime against humanity – the “crime of crimes”. Nevertheless, in practice, it is very difficult to provide a consistent and reliable “just cause” reason for the international humanitarian intervention within the legal framework of the R2P. This is for the very reason that the phenomenon of genocide is usually understood as a deliberate act or even a planned program of mass killings and destruction of the whole human group or a part of it based on ethnic, ideological, political, religious, or similar background. Probably, the most regarded attempt to fix the principles for the international military intervention concerning the R2P is given by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (the ICISS), proposed in 2000 by Canada:

• Large-scale loss of life. It can be, nevertheless, real or propagated, with genocidal intent or not, that is the product of several causes like deliberate military-police action, state neglect or inability to act, or a failed state situation (the so-called „failed/rogue state“) (the 1994 Rwandan genocide, for example).
• Large-scale ethnic cleansing. Actual or apprehended, whether carried out by killing, forcible expulsion, acts of terror, or raping (for instance, the current Palestinian holocaust in Gaza).

Nonetheless, once the criteria for humanitarian intervention are fixed, the next question immediately is on the agenda: Who should decide when the criteria are satisfied? In other words: Who has the „right authority“ to authorize military intervention for humanitarian purposes? From the general point of view, accepted worldwide answer to these questions is that only UN SC as a global security body is authorized to give „green light“ to the international military intervention (what was not done, for instance, in the case of NATO intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 and, therefore, this intervention of 78 days is a pure example of military aggression on the sovereign state). This conclusion reflects, in fact, the UN’s role as the focal source of international law, followed by the UN SC’s responsibility for the protection of international security and peace.

However, one of the crucial problems is that it may be in practice very difficult to obtain the UN SC’s authorization for the military intervention for the very reason that there are five great powers with veto rights (for instance, the USA always used a veto right to bloc any anti-Israeli action by the UN SC). Some of them or all may be more concerned about the issues of global power, their geopolitical or other goals, etc., than they are concerned with real humanitarian concerns. Nevertheless, the principles on which the R2P idea is recognizes such problem by requiring that the UN SC’s authorization to be obtained before the start of any military intervention, but at the same time accept that alternative options must be available if the UN SC rejects a proposal for the military intervention or fails to deal with it in a reasonable time. Under the R2P, these possible alternatives are that a proposed humanitarian intervention should be considered by the UN general assembly (GA) in an Emergency Special Session or by a regional or sub-regional organization (for instance, the African Union). However, in practice, for example, NATO was (mis)used in such matters by serving as a military machine that carries out military interventions, like in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 or Afghanistan in 2001, and later in keeping the order in those occupied territories.

From one viewpoint, the value of the R2P is still contested, especially among the theoreticians of global politics and IR. However, its supporters defend the principle of the R2P for the reason of its seven crucial (positive) features:

• The principle is re-conceptualizing the notion of sovereignty for the very reason that it requires that state sovereignty (independence) is, in fact, a moral responsibility rather than a practical right. In other words, the state has to deserve to be treated as a sovereign by maintaining all international duties, including the R2P.
• The principle is focusing on the powerless rather than the powerful people by addressing the rights of the victims to be protected, but not the rights of the state’s authorities to intervene.
• The principle of the R2P is establishing a quite clear red line, as it is identifying four crimes as the signal for international action and intervention if necessary.
• The consensual support for the R2P among states is very significant, as such consensus is helping international understandings of rightful conduct, especially concerning the issue of the Just War in the case of the international military intervention.
• The principle is broader regarding the operational scope compared to the pure form and understanding of the humanitarian intervention, which poses a false choice between two extremes: to do nothing or to go to war. However, it is argued that the R2P is overcoming such simplistic choice by outlining the broad range of coercive and non-coercive measures which, in practice, can be used for the sake of encouragement, assistance, and, if necessary, force states to realize their responsibility based on international law and standards.
• Although it does not add anything new to international law, the principle of the R2P is drawing attention to a wide range of pre-existing legal responsibilities and, consequently, is helping the international community to focus its attention and responsibility on the real crisis.
• Concerning the case of Iraq in 2003, the R2P became at least in the eyes of Westerners, an important principle in restating that the UN SC is the primary legal authorizer of any Pillar III use of force. However, the same policy did not work in the case of NATO aggression on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) in 1999. Why the R2P as a principle is not used by the international community against the Israeli ethnic cleansing of the Gazan Palestinians is for the very reason that the West Bank of Israel is in fact the USA.

What is a humanitarian military intervention?

The principle of the R2P is in direct connection with the question of practical humanitarian military intervention, if necessary. According to the widely accepted academic concept of humanitarian military intervention (the HMI), it is a type of military intervention with the focal purpose of humanitarian but not strategic or geopolitical reasons and objectives. Nevertheless, the term itself became contested and extremely controversial as, basically, depends on its various interpretations and understandings. In essence, it is the problem of portraying military intervention as humanitarian to be legally legitimate and morally defensible.

Nevertheless, in practice, the use of the term HMI is surely evaluative and subjective. Nevertheless, some HMIs, at least in terms of intentions, can be classified as humanitarian if they are motivated primarily by the desire to prevent harm to some group of people, including genocide and ethnic cleansing. In practice, we have to understand that in the majority of cases of HMI, there are mixed motives for such intervention – declarative and hidden. The evaluation of HMI can be done in terms of pure outcomes: HMI is really humanitarian only if it results in practical improvement in conditions, and especially a reduction of human suffering.

There are three deconstructing attitudes regarding HMI:

• By presenting HMIs as humanitarian, it is giving them a full framework of moral justification and rightfulness, which means legitimacy. The term HMI itself, therefore, is containing its own justification as it has to be the intervention that is serving the interests of humanity by reducing death and crucial forms of physical and mental suffering.
• The term intervention itself is referring to different forms of interference in the internal affairs of others (in principle, states). Therefore, the term conceals the fact that the (military) interventions in question are military actions involving the use of force and violence. Consequently, the term humanitarian military intervention (the HMI) is more objective and, therefore, preferred.
• The notion of the term humanitarian intervention can reproduce significant power asymmetries. The powers of intervention (in practice, NATO and NATO member states) possess military power and formal moral justification, while the human groups who need protection (in practice, in the developing world) are propagandistically presented as victims living in conditions of chaos and in the Middle Ages. Consequently, the term HMI, in fact, is supporting the notion of westernization as modernization or even, in fact, Americanization.

More precisely, HMI is entry into a foreign state or international organization by the armed forces with the declarative task to protect residents from a real or alleged persecution or the violation of their human (and in some cases minority) rights. For instance, the Russian military intervention in Chechnya in the 1990s was necessary for the reason to protect the rights of the Russian Orthodox minority in the Chechen Muslim environment. However, the legal and political lines of HMI are ambiguous, especially in the cases of moral justification for armed incursions in crisis-affected states for the sake of realizing some strategic and geopolitical aims, as was the case with NATO military intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999. All counter-HMI supporters are quoting the Charter of UN which clearly states that all member states of the United Nations shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. However, on the other hand, the UN SC is authorized with specific interventions. The justification of HMI in order to protect the lives and rights of the people is still under debate over when it is right to intervene and when not to intervene.

Finally, concerning HMI, the focal questions still remain like:

1) Balancing of minority and majority rights;

2) The amount of death and damage that is acceptable during HMI (the so-called “collateral damage”);

3) How to reconstruct societies after HMI?

In fact, both concepts, the R2P and HMI, are in direct connection with the concept of human security. The origins of the concept are traced back to the 1994 UN Human Development Report. The report stated that while the majority of states of the international community secured the freedom and rights of their own residents, individuals, nevertheless, remained vulnerable to different levels of threats like poverty, terrorism, disease, or pollution.

The concept of human security became supported by academic scholars as an idea that individuals, as opposed to states, should be the referent object of security in IR and security studies. In their opinion, both human security and security studies have to challenge the state-centric view of international security and IR.

Does in practice humanitarian military intervention work? 

Regarding any kind of humanitarian military intervention (HMI) within the moral and legal framework of the R2P, the focal question became: Do the benefits of humanitarian military intervention outweigh its costs? Or to put the question in a different way: Does the R2P, in fact, save lives?

Basically, the crucial issue is to judge HMI not from the side of its moral motives and intentions, or even in terms of international legal framework but rather from the side of its direct (short-time) and indirect (long-time) outcomes from different points of view (political, economic, human cost, cultural, environmental, etc.). However, the problem to be settled requires that real outcomes have to be compared with those outcomes that would happen in some, in fact, hypothetical circumstances, for instance, what would be on the ground if the R2P did not occur? However, such hypothetical circumstances cannot be proved in reality like arguing that earlier and effective HMI in Rwanda in 1994 will save hundreds of thousands of lives or without NATO military intervention in the Balkans in 1999 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo will experience massive expulsion and above all ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Yugoslav security forces. Nevertheless, in practice, for instance, the NATO military intervention in the Balkans in 1999 became the trigger for Serbian retaliation against the Albanian population in Kosovo. In other words, NATO aggression in Kosovo in 1999 succeeded in the initial goal of expelling Serbian police and Yugoslav army from the province, but at the same time helped a massive displacement of the ethnic Albanian population (however, a big part of this “displacement” was arranged by the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army for the purpose of a TV show in Western corporative media) and giving a post-war umbrella for the real ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Serbs by the local Albanians for the next 20+ years. In this particular case of the HMI, the R2P military action resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe, which means it has absolutely counterproductive effects compared with its initial (humanitarian/moral) task.

Nonetheless, it can be said, at least from the Western points of view, that there are some examples of HMI that were beneficial like the establishment of a “no-fly zone” in North Iraq in 1991 which not only prevented reprisal attacks and massacres of the Kurds after their uprising (backed by the USA and her allies) but at the same time allowed the land populated by the Kurds to develop a high degree of autonomy (but not like as Kosovo Albanians enjoyed in Yugoslavia from 1974 to 1989). In both cases, Iraq in 1991 and Yugoslavia in 1999, both operations have been done by NATO airstrikes involving a significant number of civilian casualties on the ground and a minimal number among the aggressor’s side. For instance, estimates of the civilians and combatants killed in Kosovo in 1999 are 5.700 according to the Serbian sources (the casualties in Central and North Serbia are not taken into consideration on this occasion). The Western academic propaganda claims that Western HMI in Sierra Leone was, in essence, effective as it brought to an end a 10-year civil war which cost up to that time some 50.000 lives, followed by providing the foundations for democratic parliamentary and presidential elections in 2007.

There are many other R2P military interventions that, in fact, failed or were much lesser effective and, therefore, raised questions about their purpose. The HMI under the legal umbrella of the UN peacekeepers, on some occasions, failed as humanitarian catastrophes happened (Kosovo after June 1999, the Congo), while some HMI were quickly left as being unsuccessful (Somalia). However, several R2P interventions ultimately resulted in a protracted counterinsurgency fight (Iraq or Afghanistan). That is the crucial problem that is  concerning the effective results of the HMI/R2P: such military interventions in practice may result in bringing more harm than benefits. One of the classic examples and problems concerning this problem is that to change some authoritarian regimes by the use of foreign occupying forces, in many cases only increases political tension and provokes real civil wars, which, as the outcome of subjecting ordinary people in the country to the situation of constant civil war and suffering. In principle and from practical experience, if the civil struggle is resulting from an effective breakdown in government, foreign interventions of any kind may make internal political things just worse but not better.

While political stability, governance founded on democratic principles, and respecting human universal rights are theoretically and morally all desirable goals, in practice, it cannot always be all the time possible for outsiders of all kinds to impose them or to enforce them. Therefore, the HMI has to be understood from a long-term perspective results and not as a result of the pressure from the public opinion or politicians that something has to be done. It is known that some HMI simply failed as a result of badly planned reconstruction efforts or an insufficient supply of different types of resources for the purpose of reconstruction. Consequently, the principle of HMI/R2P places stress not only on the responsibility to protect but as well as on the responsibility to prevent and the responsibility to reconstruct after the intervention.

Is the HMI justified? 

The HMI has become, during the last 30+ years, one of the hottest disputed topics in both IR and world politics. There are two diametrically opposite approaches to the HMI practice: 1) It is clear evidence that IR affairs are guided by new and more acceptable cosmopolitan sensibilities; and 2) The HMIs are, in principle, very misguided, politically and geopolitically motivated, and finally morally confused.

The focal arguments for the HMI as a positive feature in IR can be summed up in the next five points:

• The HMI is founded on the belief that common humanity exists, which implies the attitude that moral responsibilities cannot be confined only to one’s own people, but rather to all entire mankind.
• The R2P is increased by the recognition of growing global interconnectedness and interdependence, and, therefore, state authorities can no longer act isolated from the rest of the world. The HMI, consequently, is justified as enlightened self-interest, for instance, to stop the refugee crisis, which can provoke serious political problems abroad.
• The state failure that provokes humanitarian problems will have extreme implications for the regional balance of power and, therefore, will create security instability. Such an attitude is providing geopolitical background for surrounding states to participate in the HMI, with great powers opting to intervene for the formal sake to prevent a possible regional military confrontation.
• The HMI can be justified under the political environment in which the people are suffering, as not having a democratic way to eliminate their hardship. Consequently, the HMI can take place with the sake to overthrow the authoritarian political regime of dictatorship and, therefore, promote political democracy with the promotion of human rights and other democratic values.
• The HMI can not only demonstrable evidence of the shared values of the international community like peace, prosperity, human rights, or political democracy but as well it can give guidelines for the way in which state authority has to treat its citizens within the framework of the so-called „responsible sovereignty“.

However, the focal arguments against the HMI are:

• The HMI is, in fact, an action against international law, as international law only clearly gives the authorization for the intervention in the case of self-defense. This authorization is founded on the assumption that respect for the state’s independence is the basis for the international order and IR. Even if the HMI is formally allowed by international law to some degree for humanitarian purposes, the international law, in this case, is confused and founded on the weakened rules of the order of global politics, foreign affairs, and IR.
• Behind the HMI is, in fact, national interest but not real interest for the protection of international humanitarian norms. States are all the time primarily motivated by concerns of national self-interest, and, therefore, their formal claim that the HMI is allegedly motivated by humanitarian considerations is an example of political deception. Nevertheless, if the HMIs are really humanitarian, the state in question is putting its citizens at risk for the sake to save strangers, violating its national interest.
• In the practice of the HMI or the R2P we can find many examples of double standards. It is the practice of pressing humanitarian emergencies somewhere in which the HMI is either ruled out or never taken into consideration. It happens for several reasons: no national interest is on stage; an absence of media coverage; intervention is politically impossible, etc. Such a situation is, in fact, confusing the HMI in both political and moral terms.
• The HMI is, in the majority of practical cases, founded on a politicized image of political conflict between „good and bad guys“. Usually, it has been a consequence of the exaggeration of war crimes on the ground. It at the same time  ignores the moral complexities which are part of all international and domestic conflicts. In reality, the attempt to simplify any humanitarian crisis helps explain the tendency towards the so-called „mission drift“ and for interventions to go wrong.
• The HMI is seen in many cases as cultural imperialism, based on essentially Western values of human rights, which are not applicable in some other parts of the globe. Religious, historical, cultural, social, and political differences make it impossible to create universal guidelines for the behavior of the state’s authorities. Consequently, the task of establishing a „just cause“ threshold for the HMI within the framework of the R2P is  unachievable.

War and capabilities

The destiny of warfare depends very much on actors’ relative capabilities. By definition, different capabilities are the means of the actor in international relations (IR) to achieve certain goals. Some of those capabilities can be tangible and, in principle, easy to measure, but others (such as morale or leadership) can be very intangible and, therefore, can only be estimated in practice.

Concerning global politics, IR, and warfare, there are at least five tangible capabilities of the actor (in principle, of the nation-state) that can be measured and consequently be known:

• The capability of the military power. It is directly connected with the questions of the size and capability of the actor’s armed forces and the quantity and quality of weapons possessed. Logically, the greater the military capability of an actor on these dimensions, there is and greater the accumulated power and, therefore, the real chances to win the war. Nevertheless, in practice, usually, it is not common for one actor is rank high on all of these dimensions of military capability, as, for instance, the state can possess more advanced weaponry and, therefore, reduce the size of its army regarding manpower.
• Resources of economic power. In this respect, several issues are important to be known, like the actor’s GDP/GNP, how much the state is industrialized, the level of technological development, or what is the structure of the actor’s economy.
• Resources of natural wealth. In this respect, the focal question is: Does the actor have enough natural resources to support its military and economic capabilities and designs in IR?
• Demographic development. Here, the most important issue is how large the population of the actor as a large population is usually contributes to a larger military and labor force. However, at the same time, it is of extreme importance to take into consideration the structure of the population’s age, sex, health, or education. It is significant to know is there enough labor force and people to serve the army. Another important question is can the people of the actor  use modern technology. Finally, the interrelations between the people and state authority are of extreme importance, as it is very important to know are the citizens politically supporting the government or do some social, confessional, or is there interethnic strife threatening internal homogeneity and political unity.
• Importance of geography. It is valuable to know what size of territory the actor has, does the actor have access to the sea and how long is the coast, does the actor’s state have a landscape like high mountains or wide and long rivers which can provide natural defense, or is the landscape and geography and climate permitting agriculture or strengthening defense.

As an example of the relations between war and national capabilities, we can compare, for instance, China and Japan from several points:

• China has a larger population and a larger economic market compared to Japan.
• Japan has a higher level of technology than China.
• China has a twice as large a GDP than Japan.
• China has several times larger military forces than Japan.
• China has nuclear weapons, while many of Japan’s advanced technologies, if necessary, could be converted to military weapons, including nuclear ones.
• Japan has a military alliance with the USA, but in the case of war between China and the USA, it is assumed that Russia will actively support China.

However, specific capabilities do not produce generalized power but are useful only in particular contexts. For instance, Japan’s technology is focal to China’s policy of modernization, while at the same time, China’s market is crucial for Japan’s exports. In the presented case, practically each of them is enjoying leverage over the other. We have to keep in mind that a second reason why an actor’s advantage in the tangible resources is not sufficient to judge its relative power is the role and influence of several intangible resources, which determine how effectively one political actor (state) can realize its tangible capabilities.

The focal intangible factors of power and success in war

Four focal intangible factors of power have a direct impact on the success in war:

• Resolve: As a matter of historical fact, all potential and real economic and military resources which a state possesses, in fact, have little value if a government lacks the will to use them or is unable to do that due to the lack of knowledge or technical possibilities. The question, however, arises: Is an actor determined to use capabilities for the sake of fulfilling its ultimate foreign policy goals, including the use of war as an instrument? Here, the example of the Vietnam War in 1965−1975 can be given when the US administration wearied of the prolonged warfare before the US forces did and were less willing to accept high casualties than were the Vietnamese.
• Leadership and skill: The questions are: Are political leaders of the actor able to rally citizens in support of their foreign policies? Can they effectively mobilize resources for the purpose to pursue their foreign policy? For instance, the US policy in Vietnam became ultimately undermined by the inability of US President Johnson to mobilize public support for the war.
• Intelligence: In this respect, we can ask two fundamental questions: Do decision-makers understand the foreign policy interests and political, economic, and military capabilities of potential enemies? Do they possess reliable information about enemies’ intentions and capabilities to realize their policy goals? For example, the absence of such information was a crucial obstacle to Western efforts to fight global terrorism.
• Diplomacy: From this perspective, we can ask the question: How effectively does a country’s diplomats represent its interests abroad? Effective diplomats can communicate and promulgate the foreign policy goals of their respective countries, gauge the interests and foreign policy goals of other states and actors, anticipate others’ actions, or negotiate compromises.

Explaining the war between states

The causes of interstate warfare historically have long been a focal objective of political philosophers and modern social scientists. Genesis records two thousand years of history from biblical creation to the time of the first war. Never again would two thousand years pass or even two hundred without war.

It can be said that war is a concept that, among ordinary people, refers to different types of activities. Nevertheless, conflicts understood as wars (however, concerning political sciences, only military conflicts between states can be defined as real wars) are widely different in their scope as they can range from internal violence among subnational groups (i.e., the so-called civil wars) to confrontations between neighboring states, or even world wars – wars between many states on different continents. Wars vary in in intensity. They can range from a few hundred deaths to tens of millions. Finally, there are different criteria concerning the duration like from the 1967 Six-Day War up to the Hundred Years’ War (1337−1453).

From a very methodological standpoint, the first step in the complex process of analyzing war has to be to define and categorize the concept of war for the reason to ensure that everyone is studying the same research phenomenon. For instance, in practice, it means to make difference between interstate wars (between states) and intrastate wars (within a state). From the point of view of scholars of IR there are many explanations of war between states. For instance, one widely accepted definition of interstate war is that it is a military conflict waged between or among national entities, at least one of which is a state, which results in at least 1000 battle deaths of military personnel. This definition of interstate war is, on one hand, surely arbitrary, but on the other hand, it allows for the systematic collection and analysis of war data by researchers who share an identical definition of the phenomenon of war.

A typology of war was expanded to include, in addition to interstate war, extra-state wars between a state and a non-state actor outside its borders and intrastate wars between or among two groups within the borders of the same state (in fact, civil wars). In further analyses of war, it is necessary to introduce the factors that contribute to the outbreak of interstate war and consider how actors try to manage these factors to reduce the likelihood of war.

The state as an abstract collective and does not make decisions about peace and war, but real people, with certain passions, ambitions, and physical and psychological limitations, in fact, make decisions. Consequently, at the individual level of analysis, explanations for war can be found in the nature and behavior of individuals (i.e., statesmen and politicians). In any case, if factors that trigger war cannot be changed, then policies cannot be fashioned to prevent its outbreak, and, therefore, it can be expected that sooner or later war will again erupt.

The desire for more power is one of the crucial classic realist arguments about the sources of war that looks to human nature and, in particular, the lust for power. As a matter of fact, this desire to dominate applies to states and to individuals, too. It can be said that it is a sin that drives humans to acquire more power. Humans are egoists with an innate desire to amass power and to dominate others. Consequently, the balance of power can be the only workable mechanism that can suppress human malevolence and malignant power.

A scientific variation of the desire for power finds the causes of war in human nature, understanding war as a product of inherent aggressiveness. In fact, aggression is an instinct necessary for the preservation of the individual and humanity. Individual decision-makers also play a crucial role in decisions to go to war.

Explaining intrastate wars

It is already a general approach in political sciences and IR that the end of the Cold War in 1990 marked a shift in the nature of war: a substantial increase in the number of intrastate (civil) wars. The world saw, after 1990, a proliferation of ethnic, nationalist, religious, and other conflicts among subnational groups. Intrastate wars are much more prevalent today in global politics than interstate wars.

Understanding the real causes of intrastate wars is imperative in order to manage and prevent them. The civil wars destroy national economies, leaving civilian populations to live in poverty. However, intrastate wars can spill over into neighboring states and, therefore, become regional problems, especially in cases when transnational ethnic communities become involved. We have to bear in mind that, in general, intrastate wars are of a complex nature, and, therefore, several factors must be considered to explain the outbreak of any particular intrastate war.

In principle, there are several possible sources for intrastate wars at the general level. In political sciences and sociology, dominant explanations emphasize deep, historical animosities, conflicts over scarce resources, redressing past and present injustices, and security dilemmas arising from domestic anarchy. The most important of them are:

• Interethnic animosities: Interethnic animosities are, in many cases a genuine cause of civil wars, even those that appear to be identity wars. There are explanations for interethnic warfare that stress ancient, or primordial, hates. Therefore, some ethnic groups have deep grievances that reach far back into history. In such cases, it is suggested that the only way to achieve peace (but not necessarily justice) is by a strong centralized authority (even dictatorship) and when such authority disappears, the conflict is reborn. This theory, for instance, explains inter-ethnic conflicts in the 1990s in the territory of ex-Yugoslavia. However, for many researchers, this theory is both controversial and unsatisfactory. In other words, if ancient hostility is the main factor in contemporary interethnic conflicts, then the long periods of peace among such groups are difficult to explain. Additionally, the theory suggests that it will be virtually impossible to prevent future conflict, and, consequently, the future is looking bleak for many regions characterized by religious and ethnic heterogeneity. In reality, many ethnic and national groups are living together peacefully by solving interethnic disputes without war (like Slovaks and Czechs at the time of „Velvet Divorce“, which was finalized on January 1st, 1993). Therefore, according to some authors (like Paul Collier), conflicts in ethnically diverse countries can be ethnically patterned without being ethnically caused.
• Economic background: In some cases, historical animosities can be an excuse for ambitious leaders but economic incentives and opportunities provide more persuasive explanations for inter-ethnic conflicts and civil wars. Many research results suggest that there is a higher possibility of interethnic warfare in low-income countries with weak governing structures that depend heavily on natural resources for their export earnings (like in Nigeria). Therefore, one rational-choice economic explanation is a loot-seeking war for private riches. Valuable natural resources as petroleum (Nigeria), diamonds (Sierra Leone), coal (Kosovo), or timber (Cambodia) offer reasons for conflict as they provide rebels with means to fund and equip their groups, or if they win the war, to grow from corruption. However, the mere presence of natural resources is not sufficient for interethnic conflict or any kind of civil war. In many cases, civil war is more likely to erupt if rebels have workers to take advantage of the resource and if a government is too weak to defend its natural resources. In principle, the loot-seeking argument focuses on the gain from the war itself. Leaders on all sides of the civil war create infrastructure in government and society to wage war and invest heavily in weapons and the training of soldiers. They profit personally from these investments and so have little incentive to stop fighting.
• Justice seeking: Another theory of interethnic wars suggests that civil wars may be a product of groups seeking revenge and justice for past and contemporary wrongs. In essence, such wars are likely to start when there is important social stratification, with large numbers of unemployed young people, political repression, or social fragmentation. Some theoreticians claim that people rebel when they receive less than they believe that they deserve and, therefore, seek to right economic and political injustice. Such groups claim that they are deprived of wealth that is given to other groups or that they are being denied a voice in the political system. However, it is not just recognizing deprivation that causes the civil wars. Rather, the incentives to rebel include a group’s perception that the deprivation is unfair, that others receive what they are denied, and that the state is unwilling to remedy the injustice. Nevertheless, this theory also tries to explain why both relatively privileged and deprived groups may mobilize.
• Security issues: Security issues can be a source of both interstate conflict and intrastate conflict, too. In other words, security issues can be the source of conflict within states when the state authorities disintegrate and create a condition of domestic anarchy in which each group‘s efforts to defend itself appear threatening to others. The security issue is intensified by the inability to distinguish adequately between offensive and defensive weapons and the tendency of each party’s rhetoric to signal offensive intentions. Domestic security issues can be particularly severe because it is likely to be coupled with predatory goals, given the economic dimension to many civil conflicts.

Terrorism and war

 Terrorism involves the threat or use of violence against noncombatants by either states or militant groups. It is a weapon of the weak to influence the strong that aims to demoralize and intimidate adversaries. The term “terrorist” is pejorative and is rarely used to describe friends. Nevertheless, terrorism as a special kind of warfare and politics is defined by the means used rather than the causes being pursued.

Terrorism is not a new phenomenon, but several aspects of contemporary terrorist activity are, nevertheless, new:

• The level of fanaticism and devotion of contemporary terrorists to their cause is greater than their predecessors.
• Their willingness to kill large numbers of innocent people indiscriminately contrasts with their predecessors’ violence against specific individuals of symbolic importance.
• Many of the new terrorists are prepared to give up their own lives in suicidal attacks.
• Many of the new terrorist groups are transnational, linked globally to similar groups.
• Such terrorist groups make use of modern technologies like the internet, and some seek to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

The crucial question is  how should we respond to the threat of new-style terrorism? Yet despite some successes against new-style terrorism through conventional warfare, many critics are surely right to argue that in many cases, the levels of violence, aims, and organizational structure of new-style terrorist groups differentiate them from conventional enemies like hostile states. Such a situation has led many researchers to question the concept of a “war on terrorism” launched by US President George W. Bush, Jr. However, the debate about whether terrorism can be tackled through conventional warfare raises further questions regarding the relationship between terrorism and the nation-state, like, for instance, Taliban Afghanistan, that have supported it.

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović

Ex-University Professor

Vilnius, Lithuania

Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies

Belgrade, Serbia

www.geostrategy.rs

sotirovic1967@gmail.com

© Vladislav B. Sotirović 2025