1 ASSUMPTIONS OF WAR Brandon Stine ECON 4999: Economics, Ethics, and the Environment Professor E.R. Morey “An analysis of the foundations of moral and economic justifications for war; the economic trends and assumptions that force rational states to continue to resort to force; and the application of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq to these criteria, with the likelihood of a war with Iran also to be examined.” “Most historians and political scientists who study war agree that while a few wars may have been unwanted by the leaders who brought them about--World War I is an example--many were simply wanted. The leaders involved viewed war as a costly but worthwhile gamble.”1At the time of this writing, a second U.S. aircraft carrier has arrived off the coast of Iran In this paper I will seek to explain how war is justified morally, legally, and economically. I will analyze the potential for a war with Iran on the basis of these findings as well as on the basis of incorporating ex post facto learnings from a similar war in Iraq. 2 in a dramatic show of force designed to force the nation of Iran to reconsider its nuclear ambitions and seeming diplomatic apathy. In neighboring Iraq, over 150,000 U.S. troops and at least 140,000 more private-citizens contracted by the Pentagon are currently fighting a war that General Richard Myers has referred to as a “totally different kind of conflict,” that requires “all the instruments of national power.”3 Over 3,000 American troops and 800 contractors have been killed,4 with an estimated 650,000 Iraqi civilian deaths since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.5War is a costly, risky business. So why is it, then, that “rational” states continue to “prefer the gamble of war” to “negotiated settlements?” Will American policymakers pursue a course similar to that in Iraq in dealing with Iran’s nuclear infatuation? 6 Perhaps, policymakers, in seeking to increase social welfare to their constituents, disagree about which policies will maximize gains and which policies will minimize losses; perhaps policymakers not only have different views of what ‘bad’ and ‘good’ are, but also different views of what is more important: the end itself, or the means to an end. Or, perhaps a lack of a market for war resulting in a negative externality of imperfect information between opponents7 combined with politicians seeking to maximize political gain8 1 Fearon p. 383 2 MoveOn.org p.1 3 Crawford p. 5 4 “Nearly 800 Contractors Killed in Iraq.” MSNBC.com 5 Burnham p. 13 6 Fearon p. 380 7 Fearon p. 384 8 Hess p. 289 creates an international system skewed towards generating aggressive outcomes. This paper will show that it is a2 combination of differing postures towards war and their interpretations of Just War theory; imperfect information; political aspirations; discounting behavior; differing rationality and preferences for war across individuals; and a tradition of ethnocentricity (stemming from anthropocentricity) that leads to overly-optimistic cost-forecasting and a collective-bargaining market increasingly producing aggressive outcomes. To begin to understand the differing views that may lead to varying assumptions of the potential costs and benefits of war, a survey of the prevailing “postures” toward war must be undertaken.9Divine Command Theory rests on the fundamental religious belief of ‘mandate from above,’ incorporating assumptions that: A) God exists; B) “God commands and forbids specific acts; C) An act is right (or permissible) if and only if God commands it;” and D) “Humans can sometimes ascertain what is that God commands or forbids.” These traditional postures of the Just War theorem have been identified to include Divine Command Theorists, Pacifists, Natural Law Theorists, Rights Theorists, Realists, and Utilitarians. Once the differing postures toward war have been established, their economic and Just War theory interpretations will be analyzed (along with a description of classical Just War theory). 10 Divine intervention in the Old Testament often fuelled “[t]he belief that war is an instrument of divine power and that individuals, groups, or nations apply decisions about violence to coerce or destroy those opposing divine will”--what we may know today as a ‘holy war’ or ‘crusade.’11 Some scholars have attributed American conceptions of Manifest Destiny, the belief that the United States’ providence is to expand and conquer, justified under mandate by God, to Divine Command and separated it wholly from the realm of natural law.12 President George W. Bush admits having received instructions from God by way of revelation to invade Iraq in the spring of 2003.13Pacifists, in turn, subscribe to “[t]he belief that all war is intrinsically evil and can never be justified.” 14While religious fundamentalism and manifest destiny may have some play in the U.S. justification for preventative and pre-emptive war in the Middle East, 15 9 Wester p. 20 10 Pierce p. 4 11 Wester p. 21 12 “Manifest Destiny:” Wikipedia.org. 13 Woodward, p. 317 14 Wester p. 21 15 National Security Strategy approaches Manifest Destiny ideals according to Nussbaum and Pfaff; some U.S. religious leaders openly support a holy war or crusade against the Muslim world (Media Matters). the two postures are not widely thought to influence modern U.S. policy, particularly since Pacifism refuses to justify war on any terms, yet wars perennially occur, and many (particularly defensive) wars (i.e. the Allies in WWII) are almost universally accepted as having been just.3 As consequentalists, Realists believe “that war is essentially a matter of power, self-interest, and necessity, largely making moral analysis irrelevant.”16 The Bush Administration seemed to adopt a Realist theory of war in 2002 with the drafting of the National Security Strategy. The document asserted the United States’ individual right to act pre-emptively in the interest of countering potential threats to the nation, rather than immediate threats as had been the tradition in pre-emptive actions. “The Bush Administration made pre-emption the reason for armed conflict… [T]he principal reason for war stated by the Bush Administration to the nation and the world was the possible use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Disarming Iraq was the desired end, and regime change in Iraq was the only possible way to achieve that end. Pre-emptive