1 17 42 Causes and Prevention of War Stephen Van Evera THE FUTURE OF WAR AND SOLUTIONS TO WAR I TESTING THEORIES OF THE CAUSES OF WAR WITH THE CASES COVERED IN THIS COURSE A Which theories of war perform best when tested against history To test them evaluate their cross time cross space and within case predictions Looking back on cases covered in this class do you think the case method helps us understand the causes of war B Are there missing theories that should be added to our tool kit II WAR S FUTURE THE KAYSEN PUZZLE A The current picture the world is in flames but today s 20 40 wars which kill several hundred thousand people each year are mostly civil B The short term future 1 Some important causes of 20th century wars have abated a Insecurity borne of fear of being attacked and conquered by conventional arms has sharply abated with the nuclear revolution b Militarism has largely faded worldwide with two possible exceptions Pakistan and perhaps someday China c Historical mythmaking has sharply abated among industrialized democracies but not disappeared It continues in the Mideast and among extremist religion driven groups like al Qaeda c Democracy has spread and with it the democratic peace Wars stemming from the absence of democracy have faded 2 Western Europe looks deeply peaceful an amazing change from conditions before 1945 Students of peace should consider how this deep peace in Europe was created and how it might be replicated elsewhere 3 Possible future interstate conflicts on many short lists include a Wars of WMD counter proliferation that reprise the U S vs Afghanistan 2001 and U S vs Iraq 2003 Especially the U S vs other axis of evil states North Korea and Iran and U S vs Al Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan and elsewhere In such wars the U S would seek to de fang rising WMD states and movements before they unleash great horrors on the U S or its allies New developments that raise this specter i The rise of terrorist ambitions to use WMD Before 1990 the axiom among students of terror was that terrorists want a lot a people watching not a lot of people dead It is clear that Aum Shinrikyo and Al Qaeda want a lot of people dead In Al Qaeda s case the sky may be the limit it might annihilate the west if it could The rise of millennarian religious thinking around the world raises the danger that still more groups seeking to end the world for religious reasons will appear ii The rise of highly skilled terrorists capable of acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction Before Sept 11 2001 it was widely assumed that any terrorists crazy enough to want to commit vast murder 2 b c would be too crazy to acquire the skills to pull it off But on 9 11 Al Qaeda displayed a high skill level indicating they are fully up to the task of acquiring and using WMD They embody a once thought impossible blend of competence and nihilism iii The sharply falling cost of WMD Building them is markedly cheaper than it once was iv Since 1991 the west by its lassitude has failed to secure WMD in the former Soviet Union and in research reactors around the world This bizarre failure has opened the door wide to terrorist acquisition and use of WMD WMD is also dangerously vulnerable to theft or sale in Pakistan Wars of nationalism Conflicts fueled by nationalism are especially dangerous i China vs Taiwan Ingredients China s rising nationalism which includes a claim to Taiwan U S underestimation of this Chinese nationalism leading the U S not to accommodate to it Taiwan s lobby in Washington pushes for a U S unconditional guarantee to Taiwan Should the U S acquiesce to this pressure Taiwan could be inspired to take belligerent action that sparks war such as declaring independence This risk has abated since the reckless Taiwanese nationalist Chen Shui bian left Taiwan s presidency in 2008 A desire for a cold war with China in some U S circles Chinese false optimism about U S will to take casualties ii Russia uses force to recover the Russian diaspora in Ukraine Kazakhstan Latvia and Estonia Consider also a more likely variant Russia responds to U S efforts to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO by starting civil wars in both states with the goal of detaching Ukraine s Russian majority areas in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea and non Georgian areas of Georgia and perhaps attaching these areas to Russia Russia views Crimea as essentially Russian won t let NATO control it Much killing could ensue if NATO tries iii Israel Arab Jewish vs Palestinian nationalism This conflict is quiet now but could explode again Wars of religion The demon of hateful or aggressive religion is again loose in the world In recent times we ve seen horrific religion fueled civil wars in Sudan since 1983 and in Algeria since 1991 The 1980 88 Iran Iraq war and the 1991 1995 Serb Croat Bosniak war had large religious dimensions The Israel Palestinian conflict has a growing religious dimension Al Qaeda is a religion based terror movement What conflicts will the future see Some possibilities i Religion based Wars of Civilization as Samuel Huntington fears The biggest current fear a conflict between the West and the Islamic world Bin Laden wants to trigger such a war Will the West be so foolish as to help him start it ii Israel Arab This conflict has a growing religious dimension on top of its nationalist dimension iii Sunni Shi a wars in the Mideast Iraq now divides on these lines iv India Pakistan over Kashmir 3 d C Wars of geopolitics and security i China vs U S Cold War the world s top two states again clash for global power ii China vs India Russia Japan as China rises and they move to contain it The long term future 1 Kaysen vs Factor X Reasons for war are declining but war itself may not be Why is this 2 Will we continue to see WMD technology proliferate The march of technology seems to make this inevitable In one view bioweapons are undergoing a slow motion nuclear revolution that is becoming vastly more lethal than before Defenses against bioweapons are also advancing but more slowly so the forces of destruction are outrunning impediments to them Where will this end Is science inventing a version of Kurt Vonnegut s ice nine a very destructive technology for which we are politically socially and morally unready If so will this ice nine fall into the hands of nihilistic groups and individuals and be used against civilization by them And will our fear of an ice nine and our efforts to contain it spawn endless wars of