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5

The Causes of WarTheories about War

Conflicts of InterestTerritorial Disputes • Control of Governments •Economic Conflict

Conflicts of IdeasEthnic Conflict • Religious Conflict • IdeologicalConflict

Means of LeverageTypes of War • Terrorism

■ Israeli security wall under construction, 2002.

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InternationalConflict

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The Causes of WarThe Roman writer Seneca said nearly 2,000 years ago: “Of war men ask the outcome, notthe cause.”1 This is not true of political scientists. They ask two fundamental questions:Why do international actors (states and nonstate actors alike) come into conflict witheach other? And why do those conflicts sometimes lead to violence and war? This chapteraddresses both questions.

Conflict among states is not an unusual condition but an ordinary one. Conflict maybe defined as a difference in preferred outcomes in a bargaining situation. Internationalconflicts will always exist. In such conflict bargaining, states develop capabilities that givethem leverage to obtain more favorable outcomes than they otherwise would achieve.Whether fair or unfair, the ultimate outcome of the bargaining process is a settlement ofthe particular conflict.

Violence is an effective form of leverage in some bargaining situations (see p. 62). Sostates develop capabilities for using violence in international conflicts (these militarycapabilities are discussed in Chapter 6). But these capabilities only sometimes come intoplay in international conflicts. In fact, the great majority of international conflicts do notlead to war, but are resolved in other ways. The study of the causes of war, then, is really aneffort to understand the outbreak of war—the resort to violence as a means of leverage ininternational conflicts. But understanding the outbreak of war requires studying theunderlying conflicts as well.

The question of why war breaks out can be approached in different ways. More de-scriptive approaches, favored by historians, tend to focus narrowly on specific direct causesof the outbreak of war, which vary from one war to another.2 For example, one could saythat the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 “caused” World War I. Moregeneral, theoretical approaches, favored by many political scientists, tend to focus on thesearch for general explanations, applicable to a variety of contexts, about why wars break

1 Seneca, Hercules Furens. In Seneca’s Tragedies. vol. 1. Translated by Frank Justus Miller. London:Heinemann, 1917.2 Howard, Michael. The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and the International Order. Yale, 2001. Rotberg,Robert I., and Theodore K. Rabb, eds. The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars. Cambridge, 1989. Blainey,Geoffrey. Causes of War. 3rd ed. NY: Free Press, 1988.

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IndividualLevel

3 Vasquez, John A., ed. What Do We Know About War? Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield, 2000. Maoz, Zeev,and Azar Gat, eds. War in a Changing World. Michigan, 2001. Copeland, Dale C. The Origins of Major War.Cornell, 2001. Schneider, Gerald, Katherine Barbieri, and Nils Petter Gleditsch, eds. Globalization and ArmedConflict. Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield, 2003. Van Evera, Stephen. Causes of War: Power and the Roots ofConflict. Cornell, 1999. Brown, Michael E., Owen R. Coté Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds.Theories of War and Peace. MIT, 1998. Suganami, Hidemi. On the Causes of War. Oxford, 1996. Holsti, KaleviJ. Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order. Cambridge, 1991.4 Most, Benjamin A., and Harvey Starr. Inquiry, Logic and International Politics. South Carolina, 1989.5 Levy, Jack S. The Causes of War: A Review of Theories and Evidence. In Tetlock, P. E. et al., eds. Behavior,Society, and Nuclear War. vol. 1. Oxford, 1989, pp. 209–333. Waltz, Kenneth N. Man, the State, and War: ATheoretical Analysis. Columbia, 1959.6 Howard, Michael. The Causes of Wars, and Other Essays. Harvard, 1983, p. 22. Emphasis in original. For a re-lated argument see, Fearon, James, Rationalist Explanations for War, International Organization 49 (3), 1995:379–414.

out.3 For example, one can see World War I as caused by shifts in the balance of poweramong European states, with the assassination being only a catalyst.

Theories about WarBroad generalizations about the causes of war have been elusive. Wars do not have a sin-gle or simple cause. Some scholars distinguish necessary causes (conditions that must ex-ist for a war to occur, but might not trigger one) from sufficient causes (conditions thatwill trigger war but are responsible for only some wars).4 Many theories about war havebeen put forward, but few have universal validity. Levels of analysis can help us organizethese theories.5 Wars have been viewed as resulting from forces and processes operatingon all the levels.

The Individual Level On the individual level of analysis, the question of why conflicts turnviolent revolves around the familiar issue of rationality. One theory, consistent with real-ism, holds that the use of war and other violent means of leverage in international conflictsis normal and reflects rational decisions of national leaders: that “wars begin with consciousand reasoned decisions based on the calculation, made by both parties, that they canachieve more by going to war than by remaining at peace.”6

An opposite theory holds that conflicts often escalate to war because of deviations fromrationality in the individual decision-making processes of national leaders. These poten-tials were discussed in Chapter 4—information screens, cognitive biases, groupthink, andso forth. A related theory holds that the education and mentality of whole populations ofindividuals determine whether conflicts become violent. In this view, public nationalismor ethnic hatred—or even an innate tendency toward violence in human nature—maypressure leaders to solve conflicts violently. Some IR researchers and activists alike believethat the reeducation of populations can result in fewer conflicts turning violent.

Neither of these theories holds up very well. Some wars clearly reflect rational calcu-lations of national leaders, whereas others clearly were mistakes and cannot be consideredrational. Certainly some individual leaders seem prone to turn to military force to try tosettle conflicts on favorable terms. But no reliable guide has been discovered that yet pre-dicts who will be a more warlike or more peaceful leader. A man of war can become a manof peace, as did Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, for example. Individuals of many cultural back-grounds and religions lead their states into war, as do both male and female leaders.

The Domestic Level The domestic level of analysis draws attention to the characteristicsof states or societies that may make them more or less prone to use violence in resolving

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The Causes of War 171

7 Keeley, Lawrence H. War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage. Oxford, 1996. O’Connell,Robert L. Ride of the Second Horseman: The Birth and Death of War. Oxford, 1995. Ehrenreich, Barbara. BloodRites: Origins and History of the Passions of War. NY: Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 1997. Ember, Carol R., andMelvin Ember. Resource Unpredictability, Mistrust, and War: A Cross-Cultural Study. Journal of ConflictResolution 36 (2), 1992: 242–62.8 Shultz, Kenneth. Domestic Opposition and Signaling in International Crises. American Political ScienceReview 92 (4), 1998: 829–44. Fearon, James. Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of InternationalDisputes, American Political Science Review 88 (3), 1994: 577–92.9 Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Irenaus. The Biology of Peace and War: Men, Animals, and Aggression. NY: Viking, 1979.10 Wright, Quincy. A Study of War. Chicago, 1965 [1942]. Richardson, Lewis F. Arms and Insecurity.Pittsburgh: Boxwood, 1960. Geller, Daniel S., and J. David Singer. Nations at War: A Scientific Study ofInternational Conflict. Cambridge, 1998. Midlarsky, Manus I., ed. Handbook of War Studies II. Michigan, 2000.Diehl, Paul F., ed. The Scourge of War: New Extensions of an Old Problem. Michigan, 2004.

conflicts. During the Cold War, Marxists frequently said that the aggressive and greedycapitalist states were prone to use violence in international conflicts, whereas Westernleaders claimed that the expansionist, ideological, and totalitarian nature of communiststates made them especially prone to using violence. In truth, both types of society haveused violence regularly in international conflicts.

Likewise, rich industrialized states and poor agrarian ones both use war at times. Infact, anthropologists have found that a wide range of preagricultural hunter-gatherer soci-eties were prone to warfare under certain circumstances.7 Thus the potential for warfareseems to be universal across cultures, types of society, and time periods—although the im-portance and frequency of war vary greatly from case to case.

Some argue that domestic political factors shape a state’s outlook on war and peace.For example, the democratic peace suggests that democracies almost never fight otherdemocracies (see Chapter 4), although both democracies and authoritarian states fightwars. Others claim that domestic political parties, interest groups, and legislatures play animportant role in whether international conflicts become international wars.8

Few useful generalizations can be made about which societies are more prone or lessprone to war (given that all are war-prone to some extent). The same society may changegreatly over time. For example, Japan was prone to using violence in international conflictsbefore World War II, but averse to such violence since then. The !Kung bush people inAngola and Namibia—a hunter-gatherer society—were observed by anthropologists in the1960s to be extremely peaceful. Yet anthropologists in the 1920s had observed them en-gaging in murderous intergroup violence.9 If there are general principles to explain whysome societies at some times are more peaceful than others and why they change, politicalscientists have not yet identified them.

The Interstate Level The theories at the interstate level explain wars in terms of powerrelations among major actors in the international system. Some of these theories are dis-cussed in Chapter 2. For example, power transition theory holds that conflicts generatelarge wars at times when power is relatively equally distributed and a rising power is threat-ening to overtake a declining hegemon in overall position. At this level, too, there arecompeting theories that seem incompatible. Deterrence, as we have seen, is supposed tostop wars by building up power and threatening its use. But the theory of arms races holdsthat wars are caused, not prevented, by such actions. As is noted in Chapter 2, no generalformula has been discovered to tell us in what circumstances each of these principlesholds true.

Lacking a reliable method for predicting what power configurations among states willlead to war, some political scientists have tried to estimate statistically the probabilitiesthat one or another type of interstate relationship might lead to war.10 Current research

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focuses on the effects of democracy,government structure, trade, inter-national organizations, and relatedfactors in explaining the escalationor settlement of “militarized inter-state disputes.”11

Scholars use quantitative andstatistical methods to test variousideas about international conflict,such as analyzing data about wars,weapons, and arms races. The qualityof data, however, is a major problemfor statistical studies of infrequentoccurrences such as wars.

The Global Level At the global levelof analysis, a number of theories ofwar have been proposed. Of the sev-eral variations on the idea that majorwarfare in the international system iscyclical, one approach links largewars with long economic waves (alsocalled Kondratieff cycles) in the worldeconomy, of about 50 years’ dura-tion. Another approach links thelargest wars with a 100-year cyclebased on the creation and decay ofworld orders (see “Hegemony” on pp.82–84). These cycle theories at best

can explain only general tendencies toward war in the international system over time.12

An opposite approach in some ways is the theory of linear long-term change—thatwar as an outcome of conflict is becoming less likely over time due to the worldwide de-velopment of both technology and international norms. Some IR scholars argue that warand military force are becoming obsolete as leverage in international conflicts becausethese means of influence are not very effective in today’s highly complex, interdependentworld. A parallel line of argument holds that today’s military technology is too powerful touse in most conflicts; this is especially applicable to nuclear weapons.

A possibly complementary theory traces the obsolescence of war to the evolution ofinternational norms against the use of force. War once was seen as a normal way to resolvedisputes but now is considered distasteful. An analogy has been drawn to the practices ofslavery and dueling—once considered normal but now obsolete.13 However, all these ar-guments about the linear evolution of warfare in the international system rest on mixedempirical evidence. In truth, although major wars have become shorter and less frequent,

WHY WAR?

Political scientists do not agree on a theory of why great wars like World War IIoccur and cannot predict whether they could happen again. The city of Stalingrad(Volgograd) was decimated during Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, 1943.

11 Bremer, Stuart A., and Thomas R. Cusack. The Process of War: Advancing the Scientific Study of War. Newark,NJ: Gordon & Breach, 1995. Singer, J. David, and Paul F. Diehl, eds. Measuring the Correlates of War.Michigan, 1990. Ghosn, Faten, Glenn Palmer, and Stuart Bremer. The Militarized Interstate Dispute 3 DataSet, 1993–2001: Procedures, Coding Rules, and Description. Conflict Management and Peace Science 21 (2),2004: 133–154.12 Goldstein, Joshua S. Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in the Modern Age. Yale, 1988. Modelski, George. LongCycles in World Politics. Washington, 1987.13 Mueller, John. Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War. NY: Basic, 1989.

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Conflicts of Interest 173

14 Brogan, Patrick. The Fighting Never Stopped: A Comprehensive Guide to World Conflict Since 1945. NY:Random/Vintage, 1991. Delmas, Phillipe. The Rosy Future of War. Translated by C. Atamian and C. Hewitt.NY: Free Press, 1997.

they are now more destructive than ever. And even in the absence of major wars, smallerwars around the world have not yet evolved out of existence. War may be obsolete, but itstill occurs with great frequency.14

Thus, although the levels of analysis suggest many explanations for why conflicts leadto war, few such generalizations hold up. On all the levels of analysis, competing theoriesoffer very different explanations for why some conflicts become violent and others donot. For these reasons, political scientists cannot yet predict with any confidence which ofthe world’s many international conflicts will lead to war. Still, thinking about conflictsthrough the levels of analysis approach is helpful since it reminds us that the simpleexplanations we give to wars are probably incomplete.

We can gain insight, however, by studying various types of conflicts to understand bet-ter what it is that states are fighting about. We can also examine some of the alternativeforms of leverage, violent and nonviolent, that states use in conflicts.

Conflicts of InterestOne way of looking at international conflicts is to assume that all states want maximumpower relative to other states. Conflict then becomes a universal condition among states,and they fight about power, status, and alliances in the international system. This realistapproach offers insights into power rivalries that sometimes become detached from under-lying conflicts over territory, religion, or other specific causes. China attacked Vietnam in1979 to “teach Vietnam a lesson” after Vietnam invaded Cambodia and overthrew theChinese-aligned Khmer Rouge government there. (China perhaps learned the greater les-son—its military was less effective than expected, and China has not fought a battle in the25 years since.) In this case, China did not want Vietnamese territory; it just wanted to ad-minister punishment for an act it disapproved of. In such cases the struggle for power in anabstract sense takes on its own logic.

But why do states want power? Power gives states specific benefits—the ability to gainbetter outcomes in bargaining over particular issues that matter to their well-being. Mostinternational conflicts—including those behind the dozens of wars going on at present—are disputes about concrete grievances and demands. They are about territorial borders,ethnic hatreds, revolutions, and so forth. To understand the nature of international con-flicts, including their potential for becoming violent, one must study the underlying inter-ests and goals of the actors involved.

The following sections discuss six types of international conflict. Three are conflictsover tangible material interests:

1. Territorial border disputes, including secession attempts2. Conflicts over who controls national governments3. Economic conflicts over trade, money, natural resources, drug trafficking, and other

economic transactions

The other three types of conflict concern less-tangible clashes of ideas:

4. Ethnic conflicts5. Religious conflicts6. Ideological conflicts

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15 Diehl, Paul F., ed. A Road Map to War: Territorial Dimensions of International Conflict. Vanderbilt, 1999.Diehl, Paul F., and Gary Goertz. Territorial Changes and International Conflict. NY: Routledge, 1992. Kacowicz,Arie Marcelo. Peaceful Territorial Change. South Carolina, 1994. Ambrosio, Thomas. Irredentism: EthnicConflict and International Politics. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001.

These six types of conflict are not mutually exclusive, and they overlap considerably inpractice. For example, the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine after the 1991 Sovietbreakup were complex. The two new states had a territorial dispute over the Crimeanpeninsula, which Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had transferred to Ukraine in the1950s. In addition, ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, and ethnic Ukrainians in Russia, ex-perienced ethnic conflict. There are religious differences between Ukrainian and Russianforms of Christianity. The two states also had economic conflicts over trade and money af-ter the Soviet breakup, which created new borders and currencies. These multiple conflictsdid not lead to the use of military force, however. In 2005, the opposition took control ofUkraine’s government (after a flawed election was rerun in response to weeks of massstreet protests). Russian President Putin, who had campaigned for the incumbent party inUkraine, protested vigorously but did not seriously consider military force. Thus, conflictsof interest lie at the heart of all international bargaining, from trade negotiations to armscontrol, but only sometimes do they turn violent.

Territorial DisputesAmong the international conflicts that concern tangible “goods,” those about territoryhave special importance because of the territorial nature of the state (see “Anarchy andSovereignty” on pp. 73–76). Conflicts over control of territory are really of two varieties:territorial disputes (about where borders are drawn) and conflicts over control of entirestates within existing borders (discussed next under “Control of Governments”). Considerfirst differences over where borders between two states should be drawn—that is, who con-trols a disputed piece of land.

Because states value home territory with an almost fanatical devotion, border disputestend to be among the most intractable in IR. States will seldom yield territory in ex-change for money or any other positive reward. Nor do states quickly forget territory thatthey lose involuntarily. For example, in 2002, Bolivian public opinion opposed a gas exportpipeline through Chile to the sea because Chile had seized the coastline from Bolivia in1879. The goal of regaining territory lost to another state is called irredentism. This formof nationalism often leads directly to serious interstate conflicts.15

Because of their association with the integrity of states, territories are valued far beyondany inherent economic or strategic value they hold. For example, after Israel and Egyptmade peace in 1978, it took them a decade to settle a border dispute at Taba, a tiny plot ofbeachfront on which Israeli developers had built a hotel just slightly across the old border.The two states finally submitted the issue for binding arbitration, and Egypt ended up in pos-session. For Egypt, regaining every inch of territory was a matter of national honor and a sym-bol of the sovereignty and territorial integrity that defined Egyptian statehood.

The value states place on home territory seems undiminished despite the apparent re-duction in the inherent value of territory as technology has developed. Historically, territorywas the basis of economic production—agriculture and the extraction of raw materials.Even in Sun Tzu’s time, it was said that “land is the foundation of the state.” It was in theseagrarian societies that the international system developed. Winning and losing wars meantgaining or losing territory, which meant increasing wealth and hence long-term power.Today, however, much more wealth derives from trade and technology than from agricul-ture. The costs of most territorial disputes appear to outweigh any economic benefits that

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the territory in question could provide. There are exceptions, however, such as the captureof diamond-mining areas in several African countries by rebels who use the diamond rev-enues to finance war. (In 2002, 40 states created a program of UN certification for legiti-mate diamonds, trying to keep the “conflict diamonds” off the international market.)

Means of Controlling Territory Historically, military means have been the most effectiveleverage for controlling territory, and wars have often redrawn the borders of states.Military forces can seize control on the ground in a way that is hard to contest by anymeans except other military forces. For example, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait,his opponents found no better means to dislodge him (economic sanctions, diplomatic iso-lation, negotiations, and so on) than to use military force themselves. Nor was his regimetoppled except by military force in 2003.

Since World War II, however, there has been a strong norm in the international sys-tem against trying to alter borders by force. Such attempts are considered grave matters bythe international community. Thus, when Iraq annexed Kuwait and erased its borders,most states treated the act as not merely distasteful but intolerable. By contrast, it is con-sidered a lesser offense for one state merely to topple another’s government and install apuppet regime, even if done violently. The principle is: Governments come and go; bordersremain.

Secession Efforts by a province or region to secede from an existing state are a specialtype of conflict over borders—not the borders of two existing states but the efforts by a sub-state area to draw international borders around itself as a new state. Dozens of secessionmovements exist around the world, of varying sizes and political effectiveness, but they suc-ceed in seceding only rarely. The existing state almost always tries to hold onto the area inquestion. For instance, the mainly Muslim republic of Chechnya, one of the republics ofRussia (the Russian Federation), tried to split away from Russia in the early 1990s after theSoviet Union collapsed. In 1994–1995, Russia sent in a huge military force that destroyedthe Chechen capital, but faced fierce resistance from Chechen nationalist guerrillas, andwithdrew in defeat. In 1999–2000, another destructive Russian campaign won a tentativegrip on power in the province. Today, Chechen guerrillas continue to fight Russian controland have taken their fight to Russian territory, including airline hijackings, hostage taking,and suicide bombings. In 2004, hundreds of children died after Chechen terrorists tookover a school and held them hostage. In 2005, Russian forces killed the Chechen separatistleader they held responsible. Russian leaders portray the Chechen war as parallel to, andallied with, the U.S. war on terrorism.

As this example suggests, wars of secession can be large and deadly, and they can eas-ily spill over international borders or draw in other countries. This spillover is particularlylikely if members of an ethnic or a religious group span two sides of a border, constitutingthe majority group in one state and a majority in a nearby region of another state, but aminority in the other state as a whole. This pattern occurs in Bosnia-Serbia, Moldova-Russia, Iraq-Iran, and India-Pakistan. In some cases, secessionists want to merge their ter-ritories with the neighboring state (as in the effort to carve out a “greater Serbia”), whichamounts to redrawing the international border. International norms frown on such an out-come. (Ethnic and religious conflict are discussed later in this chapter.)

The strong international norms of sovereignty and territorial integrity treat secessionmovements as domestic problems that are of little concern to other states. In the case ofChechnya, the Western governments objected not to Russia’s goal of maintaining control ofthe republic, but only to Russia’s methods of waging the war—which included indiscrimi-nate bombing and shelling of civilian areas. These actions violated standards of humanrights, which are a weaker set of norms than those promoting state sovereignty. Ironically,

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as Chechen rebels have begun theirown indiscriminate acts of violenceagainst Russian civilians and in the af-termath of the September 2001 terror-ist attacks, Western objections havelessened. Even at their loudest, how-ever, these objections did not disruptpolitical relations with Russia.

Even when secession conflicts oc-casionally spill over international bor-ders, as with Turkey’s incursions intoIraq since 1995, the internationalcommunity tends to treat the matterlightly as long as the cross-border in-cursion is temporary. The general prin-ciple seems to be: “We existing statesall have our own domestic problemsand disaffected groups or regions, so wemust stick together behind sovereigntyand territorial integrity.” Moreover, asthe Russia-Chechnya case shows, thissolidarity only increased after the 2001terrorist attacks, which threatened theterritorial integrity of existing states innew ways.

Messy border problems can becreated when multinational statesbreak up into pieces. In such cases,borders that had been internal be-come international; since these bor-ders are new they may be more vul-

nerable to challenge. This was the case in the former Yugoslavia, where ethnic groups hadintermingled and intermarried, leaving mixed populations in most of the Yugoslav re-publics. When Yugoslavia broke up in 1991–1992, several republics declared their inde-pendence as separate states. Two of these, Croatia and Bosnia, contained minority popu-lations of ethnic Serbs. Serbia seized effective control of significant areas of Croatia andBosnia that contained Serbian communities or linked such populations geographically.Non-Serbian populations in these areas were driven out or massacred—ethnic cleansing.Then, when Croatia reconquered most of its territory in 1995, Serbian populations in turnfled from Croatia. Ethnic nationalism proved stronger than multiethnic tolerance inboth Serbia and Croatia.

The breakup of a state need not lead to violence, however. Czechoslovakia split intothe Czech Republic and Slovakia in a cooperative and civil manner. And the breakup ofthe Soviet Union did not lead to violent territorial disputes between republics in mostcases, even where ethnic groups were split across new international borders (such asUkraine-Russia).

The norm against forceful redrawing of borders does not apply to cases of decoloniza-tion. Only the territorial integrity of existing, recognized states is protected by interna-tional norms. Colonies and other territorial possessions historically were valued only asproperty to be won, lost, sold, or traded in political deals and wars. For example, when

TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY

Efforts by a region to secede from a state are a frequent source of internationalconflict, but international norms generally treat such conflicts as internal mattersunless they spill over borders. Russia’s 1995 assault on its mainly Muslim republicof Chechnya, which had declared independence from the Russian Federation,was repelled, but in 1999–2000 Russia regained control over most of the territoryin an even fiercer offensive. Despite human rights violations, the internationalcommunity tacitly accepted Russia’s actions. Here, the Russian Army takes con-trol of the capital, Grozny, which was totally destroyed in the attack (2000).

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Portugal’s empire crumbled in 1975, its colony of East Timor was brutally invaded andannexed by neighboring Indonesia. Because East Timor was not a UN member state (moststates did not recognize its independence), and because the United States saw Indonesiabut not East Timor as strategically important, Indonesia got away with this move. As withChechnya, the problem was treated mainly as one of human rights. However, severaldecades later, East Timor achieved independence, joining the UN in 2003.

The transfer of Hong Kong from British to Chinese control in 1997 also illustrateshow colonial territory is dispensable (Britain’s perspective) while home territory is nearlysacred (China’s perspective). From neither perspective do the views of the inhabitants of aterritory carry much weight. The peaceful transfer of Hong Kong is one of the few recentcases in which territory has changed hands in the international system.

Interstate Borders Border disputes between existing states are taken more seriously by theinternational community, but are less common than secessionist conflicts. Because of thenorm of territorial integrity, few important border conflicts remain among long-estab-lished states. At one time, huge chunks of territory were passed between states at thestroke of a pen (on a peace treaty or marriage contract). However, this kind of wholesaleredrawing of borders has not occurred among established states for 50 years. Since the endof World War II, only a minuscule amount of territory has changed hands between estab-lished states through force (this does not apply to the formation of new states and the frag-menting of old ones). Such efforts have been made, but have failed. For instance, whenIraq attacked Iran in 1980, one objective was to control the Shatt-al-Arab waterway (withaccess to the Persian Gulf) because of its commercial and strategic value. But ten years anda million deaths later, the Iran-Iraq border was back where it started

Furthermore, when territorial disputes do occur between established states, they cansometimes be settled peacefully, especially when the involved territory is small comparedwith the states disputing it. The Soviet Union simply agreed to China’s boundary preferencesin 1986 after the two states had disputed ownership of some minor river islands for years (in-cluding military skirmishes in 1969). El Salvador and Honduras got the World Court to ad-judicate their border disputes in 1992. And in 1994 a panel of Latin American judges settleda century-long border dispute between Argentina and Chile over some mountainous terrainthat both claimed. The 3 to 2 ruling, after the countries submitted the dispute for judicial ar-bitration, awarded the territory to Argentina and provoked howls of protest from Chile—even a hair-pulling fight between the Chilean and Argentine contestants in the Miss Worldbeauty contest two months later. But despite the strong feelings evoked by the loss of terri-tory, Argentina and Chile settled 22 of 24 remaining border disputes peacefully over the pre-vious ten years (after nearly going to war in 1978 over disputed islands).

At the end of 2003, Nigeria transferred sovereignty over 33 villages to Cameroon un-der terms of a World Court ruling. A joint delegation of officials, with UN experts and ob-servers, traveled by dirt road and canoe to oversee the flag lowering and raising in each vil-lage. Why would Nigeria—a country with nine times Cameroon’s population, more thantriple its GDP, and a much stronger military—voluntarily cede territory? Doing so wouldseem to run counter to the predictions of realism. Rather, as neoliberals might emphasize,Nigeria acted in its own self-interest since turning the dispute over to the World Court andbringing in the UN to assist with implementation brought the kind of stability needed forforeign investment to develop the area’s resources, primarily oil. Nigeria cares more abouteconomic development than about a few remote villages in contested territory. A hardertest came in 2004 when, under the same ruling, Nigeria was to hand over the Bakassipeninsula on the coast, thought to be rich in oil. As of early 2005, Nigeria had delayed theturnover but stated that it intended to soon relinquish the territory.

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Lingering Disputes Today, only a few of the world’s interstate borders are disputed.Nonetheless, those that persist are important sources of international conflict. Among themost difficult are the borders of Israel, which have never been firmly defined and recog-nized by its neighbors. The 1948 cease-fire lines resulting from Israel’s war of independenceexpanded in the 1967 war, then contracted again on the Egyptian border with the CampDavid peace treaty of 1978. The remaining territories occupied in 1967—the West Banknear Jordan, the Gaza Strip near Egypt, and the Golan Heights of Syria—are central to theArab-Israeli conflict. Israeli-Palestinian agreements since 1993 tried to move towardPalestinian autonomy in parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and negotiations seemedheaded toward creation of a state of Palestine in all or most of the occupied territories.However, the U.S. effort to craft a final settlement at the 2000 “Camp David II” summitfailed—over how to divide Jerusalem, and other emotional issues—and a new phase ofviolence and hate began, with each side blaming the other for failing to make peace.

Another major border dispute is in the Kashmir area where India, Pakistan, and Chinaintersect. The Indian-held part of Kashmir is predominantly inhabited by Muslims, agroup that is the majority in Pakistan but a minority in India. A Line of Control divides thedisputed province. Pakistan accuses India of oppressing Kashmiris and thwarting an inter-national agreement to decide Kashmir’s future by a popular referendum. India accusesPakistan of aiding and infiltrating Islamic radicals who carry out attacks in Indian-occupiedKashmir. The two countries went to war twice before over the issue, and nearly did soagain in 2002—but that time with both sides holding dozens of nuclear-armed missiles thatsome experts estimated would kill more than 10 million people in an India-Pakistan war.Perhaps chastened by this experience, the two countries improved relations in 2003 andbegan a cease-fire that stopped the incessant low-level fighting along the Line of Control,although not the fighting between Indian authorities and insurgents. In 2004, India agreedto begin a slow withdrawal of troops from the region, and in 2005 buses began crossing thedisputed border, allowing families to reunite.

Peru and Ecuador fought border skirmishes in 1995 over a nearly inaccessible stretchof mountainous terrain, part of a sizable area signed over to Peru following its victory in abrief war with Ecuador in 1941. The conflict, which involved no tangible assets worthfighting over, illustrated once again the almost mystical power of territory as a symbol ofnational honor, and the continuing usefulness of nationalism in generating political sup-port for state leaders (the popularity of both presidents increased as the conflict heated up).International mediation cooled off the dispute after a month of fighting.

Many of the world’s other remaining interstate territorial disputes—and often themost serious ones—concern the control of small islands, which often provide strategic ad-vantages, natural resources (such as offshore oil), or fishing rights. China asserts a right tothe tiny disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The islands and the surroundingwaters, which may hold substantial oil reserves, are closer to Vietnam, the Philippines,Malaysia, and Brunei than to China, and are claimed in part or in full by all those countriesand by Taiwan (see Figure 5.1). All of those states except Brunei have resorted to militaryoccupation at times to stake their claims, but in 2002 the countries agreed to avoid con-flicts over the islands, and they remain calm. The Spratly Islands conflict has importancebeyond the immediate dispute since it may signal China’s intentions as a rising greatpower. In the 1990s, nearly half of the world’s merchant ships passed through the areasaround the Spratly Islands, making this a vital area for international trade.

Japan and China also dispute tiny islands elsewhere, as do Japan and South Korea.These disputes involve low economic stakes, but have become a focus of nationalist senti-ments on both sides, fueled partly by memories of World War II, when Japan occupiedChina and Korea. In 2004, South Korea issued four postage stamps depicting a tiny islandalso claimed by Japan. They sold out within hours.

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Spratly Islands

South China Sea

Philippines

China

Taiwan

Vietnam

BruneiMalaysia

FIGURE 5.1 ■ DisputedIslandsThe Spratly Islands exemplifycontemporary conflicts overterritory and natural resourcesaround islands. All or part of theSpratlys are claimed by China,Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, thePhilippines, and Taiwan.

A number of smaller conflicts exist around the globe. In the Middle East, Iran and theUnited Arab Emirates dispute ownership of small islands near the mouth of the PersianGulf. In 2002, Spain sent soldiers to oust a handful of Moroccan troops from islands offMorocco’s coast. In South America, Argentina and Britain still dispute control of theFalkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), over which they fought a war in 1982. And the majorbone of contention in Russian-Japanese relations is the ownership of the small but strate-gically located Kuril Islands occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945. In 2001, Japan objectedwhen Russia granted South Korea fishing rights near the islands (a provisional settlementwas reached). With islands now bringing control of surrounding economic zones, interna-tional conflicts over islands will undoubtedly continue in the coming years.

Territorial Waters States treat territorial waters near their shores as part of their na-tional territory. Definitions of such waters are not universally agreed upon, but normshave developed in recent years, especially after the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS) (see pp. 000–000). Waters within three miles of shore have traditionallybeen recognized as territorial, but beyond that there are disputes about how far out na-tional sovereignty extends and for what purposes. UNCLOS generally allows a 12-milelimit for shipping, and a 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) covering fishing andmineral rights (but allowing for free navigation by all). The EEZs together cover a thirdof the world’s oceans.

It is because of the EEZs that sovereignty over a single tiny island can now bring withit rights to as much as 100,000 square miles of surrounding ocean. But these zones overlapgreatly, and shorelines do not run in straight lines; thus numerous questions of interpreta-tion arise about how to delineate territorial and economic waters. For example, Libyaclaims ownership of the entire Gulf of Sidra, treating it as a bay; the United States treats itas a curvature in the shoreline and insists that most of it is international waters. In 1986,the United States sent warships into the Gulf of Sidra to make its point. U.S. planes shotdown two Libyan jets that challenged the U.S. maneuvers.

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Control ofGovernments

Canada in 1994–1995 sent its navy to harass Spanish fishing boats just beyond the200-mile zone (but affecting fish stocks within the zone). In the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia’sEEZ includes all but a small “doughnut hole” of international waters in the middle (see p.000). Non-Russian boats have fished intensively in the “hole,” which of course depletesfish stocks in Russia’s EEZ.

Airspace Airspace above a state is considered the territory of the state. Any airplane thatwants to fly over a state’s territory must have the state’s permission. For example, in a 1986raid on Libya, U.S. bombers based in Britain had to fly a long detour over the AtlanticOcean because France (between Britain and Libya) would not grant permission for U.S.planes to use its airspace during the mission.

Outer space, by contrast, is considered international territory like the oceans.International law does not define exactly where airspace ends and outer space begins.However, orbiting satellites fly higher than airplanes, move very fast, and cannot easilychange direction to avoid overflying a country. Also, very few states can shoot down satel-lites, though many can shoot airplanes. Since satellites have become useful to all the greatpowers as intelligence-gathering tools, and since all satellites are extremely vulnerable toattack, a norm of demilitarization of outer space has developed. No state has ever at-tacked the satellite of another, and doing so would be a severe provocation.

Control of GovernmentsDespite the many minor border disputes that continue to plague the world, most of thestruggles to control territory do not involve changing borders. Rather, they are conflictsover which governments will control entire states.

In theory, states do not interfere in each other’s governance, because of the norm ofsovereignty. In practice, states often have strong interests in the governments of otherstates and use a variety of means of leverage to influence who holds power in those states.When one state wants to alter or replace the government of a second state, a conflict al-ways exists between the two governments. In addition, the first state may come into con-flict with other parties that oppose changing the second state’s government. These con-flicts over governments take many forms, some mild and some severe, some deeplyentwined with third parties and some more or less bilateral. Sometimes a state merely ex-erts subtle influences on another state’s elections; at other times, a state supports rebel el-ements seeking to overthrow the second state’s government.

During the Cold War, both superpowers actively promoted changes of government incountries of the global South through covert operations and support of rebel armies. Thecivil wars in Angola, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua are good examples. Both superpowerspoured in weapons, money, military advisers, and so forth—all in hopes of influencing whocontrolled the country’s government.16

In 2004–2005, shadows of these old Cold War rivalries fell over Ukraine, as Russiaand the West backed opposite sides in a disputed election. The election divided the largelyRussian-speaking, Eastern Orthodox part of Ukraine to the east from the Ukrainian-speak-ing, Catholic, western part of the country. The pro-Russian incumbent carried the easternregion and was declared the winner after an election that international monitors declaredunsound. Russian President Putin had personally campaigned with him, and strongly op-posed letting Ukraine—a former part of the Soviet Union—come under the influence of

16 Owen, John M. The Foreign Imposition of Domestic Institutions. International Organization 56 (2). 2002:375–409.

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the West. Meanwhile the pro-Western candidate was poisoned dur-ing the campaign, but survived. Hissupporters took to the streets in late2004 demanding new elections, whichthe top Ukrainian court eventually or-dered and which the opposition won.Russia had to accept this setback ontop of other losses of territory and in-fluence in recent decades.

Occasionally, one state invadesanother in order to change its govern-ment. The Soviet Union did this inCzechoslovakia in 1968; the UnitedStates did so in Iraq in 2003. It issometimes hard for new governmentscreated in this way to gain legitimacyboth domestically and internationally.People generally resent having for-eigners choose their government forthem—even if they did not like theold government—and the interna-tional community frowns on suchovert violations of national sover-eignty. For instance, the governmentinstalled in Afghanistan after theSoviet invasion of 1979 was seen as aSoviet puppet and was finally toppledafter a dozen years of rule marked byconstant war (a war funded largely by the United States).

Even in Cambodia—where the Khmer Rouge government’s atrocities led many peopleinside and outside the country to welcome the Vietnamese invasion that installed a newCambodian government in 1979—the new government could not consolidate its interna-tional position for more than a decade. It did not gain Cambodia’s seat in the UN, and theUnited States and China sent assistance to rebel groups that fought a long and bloody civilwar against the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian government. (In the 1990s, the UN me-diated a cease-fire and implemented a peace plan under which the UN basically ran thegovernment while organizing elections.)

International conflicts over the control of governments—along with territorial dis-putes—are likely to lead to the use of violence. They involve core issues of the status andintegrity of states, the stakes tend to be high, and the interests of involved actors are oftendiametrically opposed. Other types of conflict are both more widespread and less likely tolead to violence. Chief among these is economic conflict among states.

Economic ConflictEconomic competition is the most pervasive form of conflict in international relations be-cause economic transactions are pervasive. Every sale made and every deal reached acrossinternational borders entails a resolution of conflicting interests. Costa Rica wants theprice of coffee, which it exports, to go up; Canada, which imports coffee, wants the price togo down. Angola wants foreign producers of Angolan oil to receive fewer profits from oil

STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL

Conflicts over who controls a national government, especially armed rebellions,can easily become internationalized. In 2003, U.S. and British forces overthrewSaddam Hussein’s government in Iraq by force. Here, a statue of Saddam is top-pled in central Baghdad (with a live worldwide TV audience) after U.S. forcestook the city, April 2003.

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EconomicConflict

17 Howard, Michael. War in European History. Oxford, 1976, p. 47.18 Choucri, Nazli, and Robert C. North. Nations in Conflict: National Growth and International Violence. SanFrancisco: W. H. Freeman, 1975. Ashley, Richard K. The Political Economy of War and Peace: The Sino-Soviet-American Triangle and the Modern Security Problematique. London: Frances Pinter, 1980. Choucri, Nazli, RobertC. North, and Susumu Yamakage. The Challenge of Japan: Before World War II and After. NY: Routledge, 1993.

sales; those companies’ home states want them to take home more profits. In a global cap-italist market, all economic exchanges involve some conflict of interest.

However, such economic transactions also contain a strong element of mutual eco-nomic gain in addition to the element of conflicting interests (see Chapters 3 and 8).These mutual gains provide the most useful leverage in bargaining over economic ex-changes: states and companies enter into economic transactions because they profit fromdoing so. The use of violence would for the most part interrupt and diminish such profit bymore than could be gained as a result of the use of violence. Thus, economic conflicts donot usually lead to military force and war.

Such restraint has not always been the case. In the sixteenth century, England’s SirFrancis Drake intercepted Spanish ships bringing gold and silver from Central Americaand took the loot in the name of queen and country—a practice known as privateering. Inthe seventeenth century, England fought several naval wars against the Netherlands. AnEnglish general, when asked the reason for England’s declaration of war in 1652, replied,“What matters this or that reason? What we want is more of the trade the Dutch nowhave.”17 In 1861, France, Britain, and Spain invaded Mexico when it failed to pay its in-ternational debts.

Economic conflict seldom leads to violence today because military forms of leverageare no longer very effective in economic conflicts. With the tight integration of the worldeconomy and the high cost of military actions, the use of force is seldom justified to solvean economic issue. Even if an agreement is not ideal for one side in an economic conflict,rarely is what can be gained by military force worth the cost of war. Thus, most economicconflicts are not issues in international security; they are discussed in Chapters 8 through13 (international political economy). But economic conflicts do still bear on interna-tional security in some ways.

First, many states’ foreign policies are influenced by mercantilism—a practice of cen-turies past in which trade and foreign economic policies were manipulated to build up amonetary surplus that could be used to finance war (see “Liberalism and Mercantilism” onpp. 000–000). Because a trade surplus confers an advantage in international security affairsover the long run, trade conflicts have implications for international security relations.

Second, the theory of lateral pressure also connects economic competition with se-curity concerns. This theory holds that the economic growth of states leads to geographicexpansion as they seek natural resources beyond their borders (by various means, peacefuland violent). As great powers expand their economic activities outward, their competitionleads to conflicts and sometimes to war. The theory has been used to help explain bothWorld War I and the expansion of Japan prior to World War II.18

Another kind of economic conflict that affects international security concerns militaryindustry—the capacity to produce military equipment, especially high-technology weaponssuch as fighter aircraft or missiles. There is a world trade in such items, but national gov-ernments try (not always successfully) to keep control of such production—to try to ensurethat national interests take priority over those of manufacturers and that the state is mili-tarily self-sufficient in case of war. Economic competition (over who profits from suchsales) is interwoven with security concerns (over who gets access to the weapons). Thetransfer of knowledge about high-tech weaponry and military technologies to potentiallyhostile states is a related concern.

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19 Mansfield, Edward D, and Brian M. Pollins. Economic Interdependence and International Conflict: NewPerspectives on an Enduring Debate. Michigan, 2003.

Economic competition also becomes a security issue when it concerns trade in strategicmaterials needed for military purposes, such as special minerals or alloys for aircraft pro-duction and uranium for atomic weapons. Few countries are self-sufficient in these mate-rials; the United States imports about half the strategic materials it uses. Thus, economiccompetition as a source of international conflict has important implications for interna-tional security. Nonetheless, military force plays a diminishing role in resolving economicconflicts. In fact, increasing economic reliance between states likely lowers the chances offighting over economic and political differences.19

A different kind of economic conflict revolves around the distribution of wealth withinand among states. As discussed in Chapter 12, there are tremendous disparities in wealth inour world, disparities that create a variety of international security problems with the poten-tial for violence—including terrorist attacks on rich countries by groups in poor countries.

Revolutions in poor countries are often fueled by disparities of wealth within thecountry as well as its poverty relative to other countries. These revolutions in turn fre-quently draw in other states as supporters of one side or the other in a civil war. If success-ful, revolutions can abruptly change a state’s foreign policy, leading to new alliances andpower alignments.

Marxist approaches to international relations, discussed in Chapter 12, treat classstruggle between rich and poor people as the basis of interstate relations. According tothese approaches, capitalist states adopt foreign policies that serve the interests of therich owners of companies. Conflicts and wars between the global North and South—richstates versus poor states—are seen as reflections of the domination and exploitation of thepoor by the rich—imperialism in direct or indirect form. For example, most Marxists sawthe Vietnam War as a U.S. effort to suppress revolution in order to secure continued U.S.access to cheap labor and raw materials in Southeast Asia. Many Marxists portray conflictsamong capitalist states as competition over the right to exploit poor areas. Soviet founderV. I. Lenin portrayed World War I as a fight over the imperialists’ division of the world.

Events in Haiti, the poorest country in Latin America, illustrate how disparities ofwealth can create international security conflicts. For decades, the country was ruled by anabsolute dictator, “Papa Doc” Duvalier, backed by a ruthless secret police agency. The dic-tator and his associates became very rich while the population remained very poor, pro-ducing export crops to earn cash for the rich. When the dictator died, his son “Baby Doc”took over. During most of the Cold War, the United States backed the dictatorship be-cause it provided a reliable ally next door to Soviet-allied Cuba (a U.S. enemy after its1959 revolution). Finally, a popular uprising forced Baby Doc to flee in 1986; a Catholicpriest championing the poor, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected president of Haiti. Butwithin a year the military seized power in a coup d’état and began to enrich itself again.This, along with international sanctions against the Haitian economy, led tens of thou-sands of people to flee on rickety boats heading for the prosperous United States. Theseboat people were intercepted by the U.S. Navy, and most were sent back to Haiti becausethey were labeled “economic” refugees (see “Migration and Refugees” on pp. 000–000)—but the issue caused problems in U.S. domestic politics, forcing a response. The UnitedStates sent an invasion force, intimidated the military leaders into leaving, and restoredAristide as president. Then the U.S. military occupation was converted into a UN peace-keeping operation. In 2004, Aristide was overthrown again, leading to widespread violencein Haiti. The United States chose not to support Aristide in this instance, and he fled toexile in Africa. Thus, the disparities of wealth in Haiti had ramifications for global

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20 Tullis, LaMond. Unintended Consequences: Illegal Drugs and Drug Policies in Nine Countries. Boulder, CO:Lynne Rienner, 1995. Toro, Celia. Mexico’s “War” on Drugs: Causes and Consequences. Boulder, CO: LynneRienner, 1995. Kopp, Pierre. Political Economy of Illegal Drugs. London: Routledge, 2004.

alliances (in the Cold War), for regional con-tainment (of Cuba), and for international normsconcerning military intervention.

Drug Trafficking As a form of illegal trade acrossinternational borders, drug trafficking is smug-gling, which deprives states of revenue and vio-lates states’ legal control of their borders. Butsmuggling in general is an economic issue ratherthan a security one (see “Illicit Trade” on p. 000).Unlike other smuggled goods, however, drug traf-ficking supplies illegal products that are treated asa security threat because of their effect on na-tional (and military) morale and efficiency. Drugtrafficking also has become linked with securityconcerns because military forces participate regu-larly in operations against the heavily armed drugtraffickers.20 Conflicts over drugs generally con-cern states on one side and nonstate actors onthe other. But other states can be drawn in be-cause the activities in question cross national bor-ders and may involve corrupt state officials.

These international ramifications are evi-dent in the efforts of the U.S. government toprevent cocaine cartels based in Colombia fromsupplying cocaine to U.S. cities. Such cocainederives mostly from coca plants grown by peas-ants in mountainous areas of Peru, Bolivia, andColombia itself. Processed in simple laboratories

in the jungle, the cocaine moves from Colombia through other countries such as Panamabefore arriving in the United States. In each of these countries (even the United States),the drug smugglers have bribed some corrupt officials, including military or police officers,to stay clear. But other state officials in each country are working with U.S. law enforce-ment agencies and the U.S. military to crack down on the cocaine trade. The crackdowninevitably brings some negative side effects. In 2001, Peruvian jets working with U.S.radar trackers shot down a small plane over the Andes that turned out to be carrying U.S.missionaries, not cocaine traffickers.

The truth is that segments of the populations in several of these countries, especiallyin cocaine-producing regions, benefit substantially from the drug trade. For poor peasantsin Bolivia or for residents of the Colombian cocaine cartels’ home provinces, the cocainetrade may be their only access to a decent income. This dilemma worsened in 2001–2003as coffee prices dropped to their lowest level in decades. (Similarly, in 2003 manyEthiopian coffee farmers switched to growing the drug khat for export when low coffeeprices left them hungry.) In rural Peru and Colombia, leftist guerrillas have funded theiroperations by controlling peasants’ production of coca. In southern Colombia, for example,the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) movement maintained stronger control thanmilitary forces of the Colombian government.

DRUG WARS

Because drug trafficking crosses national borders and involves lotsof guns and money, it is a source of interstate conflict. The UnitedStates invaded Panama to stop dictator Manuel Noriega’s collusionwith traffickers shipping illegal drugs to the United States. Here, U.S.forces train in Panama near a billboard advertising the UnitedStates’s own drug export to Panama (tobacco), 1989.

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Conflicts of Ideas 185

The cocaine trade thus creates several conflicts between the United States and thestates of the region. Most such interstate conflicts are resolved through positive forms ofleverage such as U.S. financial or military aid. State officials are also often willing to makecommon cause with the United States because they are threatened by the drug traffickers,who control great wealth and power, and who, being outlaws, have few incentives againstusing violence.

Because of the long history of U.S. military intervention in Latin America, state coop-eration with U.S. military forces is a sensitive political issue. Governments in the regionmust respect a delicate balance between the need for U.S. help and the need to upholdnational sovereignty. In some countries, governments have faced popular criticism forallowing the “Yankees” to “invade” in the drug war. In one case, the U.S. military literallyinvaded. In 1989, U.S. forces invaded Panama, arrested its leader, dictator Manuel Noriega,and convicted him in U.S. courts of complicity in drug trafficking through Panama.

The growing world trade in heroin created some similar conflicts in the late 1990s. Mostof the raw material (opium poppies) comes from two poor and conflict-ridden countrieswith authoritarian governments—Afghanistan and Burma—where Western governmentshave little leverage. Afghan production of opium poppies doubled after 1998, making it thesupplier of three-quarters of the world total. The Taliban government that controlled most ofAfghanistan (see pp. 194–195) then abruptly halted production by early 2001, perhaps inhopes of gaining international aid or perhaps to drive up the price of the Taliban’s own largestockpiles. After the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the fall of the Taliban government, opiumproduction reached record levels in 2004, despite the presence of U.S troops and efforts bythe new government to control poppy production. In fact, the United Nations estimates thatopium production in Afghanistan grew nearly 60 percent in 2004 alone.

Like the other sources of international conflict discussed so far, conflicts over drugtrafficking arise from conflicting interests regarding tangible items such as money, territory,or control of governments. More difficult to understand, in some ways, are internationalconflicts rooted in clashes of ideas. Of course, the two overlap—especially around thematerial and intangible aspects of nationalism—but conflicts of ideas also require specialattention in their own right.

Conflicts of IdeasIf all international conflicts were strictly material in nature, it might be easier to settle them.Given enough positive leverage—a payment in some form—any state would agree to an-other state’s terms on a disputed issue. More difficult are the types of conflict in which in-tangible elements such as ethnic hatred, religious fervor, or ideology come into play.

Ethnic ConflictEthnic conflict is quite possibly the most important source of conflict in the numerouswars now occurring throughout the world.21 Ethnic groups are large groups of people whoshare ancestral, language, cultural, or religious ties and a common identity (individuals

21 Gurr, Ted Robert. Peoples Versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century. Washington, DC: U.S.Institute of Peace, 2000. Saideman, Stephen M. The Ties That Divide. Columbia, 2001. Horowitz, Donald L.Ethnic Groups in Conflict. California, 1985. Rothchild, Donald. Managing Ethnic Conflict in Africa: Pressures andIncentives for Cooperation. Washington, DC: Brookings, 1997. Chua, Amy. World on Fire: How Exporting FreeMarket Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Williams, Robin M.The Wars Within: Peoples and States in Conflict. Cornell, 2003.

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identify with the group). Althoughconflicts between ethnic groups oftenhave material aspects—notably overterritory and government control—ethnic conflict itself stems from a dis-like or hatred that members of oneethnic group systematically feel to-ward another ethnic group. Ethnicconflict is thus not based on tangiblecauses (what someone does) but onintangible ones (who someone is).

Ethnic groups often form the ba-sis for nationalist sentiments. Not allethnic groups identify as nations; forinstance, within the United Statesvarious ethnic groups coexist (some-times uneasily) with a commonnational identity as Americans. But inlocations where millions of membersof a single ethnic group live as themajority population in their ances-tors’ land, they usually think of them-selves as a nation. In most such casesthey aspire to have their own statewith its formal international statusand territorial boundaries.22

Territorial control is closely tiedto the aspirations of ethnic groups forstatehood. Any state’s borders willdeviate to some extent (sometimessubstantially) from the actual loca-

tion of ethnic communities. Members of the ethnic group will be left outside its state’s bor-ders, and members of other ethnic groups will be located within the state’s borders. The re-sulting situation can be dangerous, with part of an ethnic group controlling a state andanother part living as a minority within another state controlled by a rival ethnic group.Frequently the minority group suffers discrimination in the other state and the “home”state tries to rescue or avenge them.

For example, in 1974, after a pro-Greek coup in Cyprus, Turkish troops took controlof the Turkish-populated north of that island, leaving the government in control of onlythe Greek-populated south. This division along a cease-fire line patrolled by UN peace-keepers has persisted for 30 years—even now that Cyprus has become an EU member andTurkey is beginning EU membership talks. After decades of conflict and years of new ne-gotiations, a UN peace plan was put to both sides in a referendum in 2004. The Turkishside voted in favor but the Greek side rejected it, and the standoff continues as a testamentto the persistent power of ethnic conflict.

Other ethnic groups lack any home state. Kurds share a culture, and many of them as-pire to create a state of Kurdistan. But Kurds reside in four states—Turkey, Iraq, Iran, andSyria—all of which strongly oppose giving up control of part of their own territory to create

DRIVING OUT THE OUT-GROUP

Ethnic conflicts play a role in many international conflicts. Ethnocentrism based onan in-group bias can promote intolerance and ultimately dehumanization of an out-group, as in Bosnian and Rwandan genocide, South African apartheid, the perse-cution of Jews and other minorities in Nazi Germany, and slavery in the UnitedStates. In early 2005, the slaughter and expulsion of Black farmers in Darfur,Sudan, by government-sponsored Arab militias continued, even after U.S. officialscalled it “genocide”—a term that invokes obligations under international law. ThisDarfur woman returned to her home after fleeing an attack, October 2004.

22 Cederman, Lars-Erik. Emergent Actors in World Politics: How States and Nations Develop and Dissolve.Princeton, 1997.

SIMULATION

You Are aPrime Minister

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Syria

IraqIran

Turkey

Jordan

Kuwait

ArmeniaGeorgia

Saudi Arabia

Azerbaijan

FIGURE 5.2 ■ Kurdish AreaEthnic populations often span international borders.Shaded region shows the approximate area of Kurdishsettlements.

23 Barkey, Henri J., and Graham E. Fuller. Turkey’s Kurdish Question. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,1998.

a Kurdish state (see Figure 5.2). In the 1990s, rival Kurdish guerrilla armies fought bothIraqi and Turkish military forces and each other. Repeatedly in the late 1990s, Turkey sentlarge military forces into northern Iraq to attack Kurdish guerrilla bases. Kurds enjoyed au-tonomy in part of northern Iraq under U.S. protection in the 1990s and maintained aquasi-autonomous status in post-Saddam Iraq. The Kurds’ success in the 2005 Iraqi transi-tional election gave them a strong position to retain this status.23

In ethnic conflicts there are often pressures to redraw borders by force. For example,the former Soviet republic of Moldova is inhabited mostly by ethnic Romanians but also byquite a few ethnic Russians concentrated at the eastern end of Moldova farthest fromRomania. When Moldova became independent in 1991 and began asserting its Romanianidentity—even considering merging into Romania—the Russians living in the east soughtto break away and redraw the international border. Armed conflict ensued, and bothRussia and Romania threatened to intervene. Eventually a cease-fire and a peacekeepingarrangement were implemented, with no formal change in borders.

When ethnic populations are minorities in territories controlled by rival ethnicgroups, they may even be driven from their land or (in rare cases) systematically extermi-nated. By driving out the minority ethnic group, a majority group can assemble a more uni-fied, more contiguous, and larger territory for its nation-state, as ethnic Serbs did through“ethnic cleansing” after the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Outside states often worry about the fate of “their people” living as minorities inneighboring states. For instance, Albania is concerned about ethnic Albanians who are themajority population in the Serbian province of Kosovo. But if Kosovo became independentof Serbia (or merged with Albania), then Serbia would worry about the minority of ethnicSerbs living in Kosovo. Similar problems have fueled wars between Armenia andAzerbaijan (in the former Soviet Union) and between India and Pakistan. Before WorldWar II, Adolf Hitler used the fate of ethnic German communities in Poland andCzechoslovakia to justify German territorial expansion into those neighboring states. It ap-pears likely that the dangerous combination of ethnic conflict and territorial disputes willlead to more wars in the future.

In extreme cases, such as Hitler’s Germany, governments use genocide—systematicextermination of ethnic or religious groups in whole or in part—to try to destroy scape-goated groups or political rivals. In Rwanda, where the Hutu group is the majority and theTutsi group the minority, a Hutu-nationalist government in 1994 slaughtered more thanhalf a million Tutsis (and Hutus opposed to the government) in a matter of weeks. The

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24 Gourevitch, Philip. We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. NY: Farrar,Straus, and Grioux, 1999. Power, Samantha. The Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. NY: BasicBooks, 2002. Barnett, Michael. Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Cornell, 2003.25 Glad, Betty, ed. Psychological Dimensions of War. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990.

weak international response to this atrocity reveals how frail are international norms of hu-man rights compared to norms of noninterference in other states’ internal affairs—at leastwhen no strategic interests are at stake. The Hutu ultranationalists quickly lost powerwhen Tutsi rebels defeated the government militarily, but they regrouped across the borderin Zaire, with hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees. In 1997, a Tutsi-led army with sup-port from Rwanda and other neighboring states swept through Zaire, toppled its govern-ment, and dispersed or killed many of the refugees. The Hutu-Tutsi conflict thus sparkedan intense series of wars that directly affected a half dozen states, brought down severalgovernments, and destroyed or damaged millions of lives.24

Often, in former colonies whose borders were drawn arbitrarily, some ethnic groupsspan two or more states while others find themselves sharing a state with groups that aretraditionally rivals or enemies. For example, Nigeria includes 250 ethnic groups, the largestbeing two Muslim groups in the north and two Christian groups in the south. AlthoughNigeria’s ethnic populations are slowly developing an overarching national identity asNigerians, old tensions continue to disrupt politics. For example, after a northern-domi-nated military government was replaced by an elected president from the south in 1999, asNigeria democratized, ethnic violence killed hundreds of people.

The Cold War, with its tight system of alliances and authoritarian communist gov-ernments, seems to have helped to keep ethnic conflicts in check. In the Soviet Union andYugoslavia—multinational states—the existence of a single strong state (willing to oppresslocal communities) kept the lid on ethnic tensions and enforced peace between neighbor-ing communities. The breakup of these states allowed ethnic and regional conflicts to takecenter stage, sometimes bringing violence and war. These cases may indicate a dilemma inthat freedom comes at the expense of order and vice versa. Of course, not all ethnic groupsget along so poorly together. After the fall of communism, most of the numerous ethnic ri-valries in the former Soviet Union did not lead to warfare, and in Czechoslovakia and else-where ethnic relations were relatively peaceful after the fall of communism.

Causes of Ethnic Hostility Why do ethnic groups frequently dislike each other? Oftenthere are long-standing historical conflicts over specific territories or natural resources, orover one ethnic group’s economic exploitation or political domination of another. Overtime, ethnic conflicts may transcend these concrete historical causes and take on a life oftheir own. They become driven not by tangible grievances (though these may well persistas irritants) but by the kinds of processes described by social psychology that are set in mo-tion when one group of people has a prolonged conflict with another and experiences vi-olence at the hands of the other group.25

The ethnic group is a kind of extended kinship group—a group of related individualssharing some ancestors. Even when kinship relations are not very close, a group identitymakes a person act as though the other members of the ethnic group were family. For in-stance, African American men who call each other “brother” express group identity as kin-ship. Likewise, Jews around the world treat each other as family even though each com-munity has intermarried over time and may have more ancestors in common with localnon-Jews than with distant Jews. Perhaps, as technology allows far-flung groups to con-gregate in cyberspace, there will be less psychological pressure to collect ethnic groupsphysically in a territorial nation-state.

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would also ensure the payment of the international aidpackage.

Granting the Tamils’ demands also brings costs, how-ever. Some of your military leaders are opposed to self-ruleand threaten to resign over such a move. Several key polit-ical figures in your ruling coalition also oppose such a moveand would resign from your cabinet. Many fear such a movewould appear to reward violence against civilians and en-courage future violence when Tamil demands go unmet.

You could begin a new military offensive against theTamils. Before the ceasefire, your military had begun tomake significant progress fighting the rebels, including turn-ing a key Tamil military leader against rebel forces. The bal-ance of power is in your favor, moreover, since Indiastopped providing support and training for the Tamils.

Such a move, however, would mean a revocation of theaid package and a return to spending more of Sri Lanka’sGDP on the military. More importantly, renewed violencewould no doubt kill thousands of Sri Lankans.

CHOOSE YOUR POLICY Do you grant the Tamils re-gional autonomy? Do you renew the fighting against theTamils? Are there alternatives or compromises that holdpromise? How do you balance your desires to hold SriLanka together as a unified state, please the internationaldonor community, and bring peace and prosperity to yourpeople?

189

President of Sri Lanka, Chandrika Kumaratunga

PROBLEM How to end ethnic violence while

maintaining the unity of the state.

BACKGROUND Imagine you are the president of SriLanka, an island populated by two main ethnic groups—aSinhalese majority and a Tamil minority. For nearly 20 years,the Tamils (who live in the north and east) fought to achievean independent homeland. The conflict was deadly, killingtens of thousands of Sri Lankans in military operationsagainst Tamils plus rebel attacks on Sinhalese, especiallycivilians. The war was also expensive, costing hundreds ofmillions of dollars a year to pay for the deployment of100,000 troops, while the violence ruined a once vibranttourist industry. Your own government is split on the war,with your rival, the prime minister, favoring concessions tobring peace, while you have taken a harder line.

In February 2002, the government and the main rebelgroup (the Tamil Tigers) signed a ceasefire agreement. TheTamils have agreed to give up their quest for a separatestate, but still demand autonomy. Your government hasagreed to end an economic boycott of Tamil-populated ar-eas. Talks to decide the exact details of a long-term peaceagreement faltered, however, since April 2003. Despite thelack of progress in negotiations there has been little vio-lence between Sinhalese and Tamils since the ceasefire.

The international community provides support to thepeace process. A group of international donors recentlyagreed to give billions of dollars in aid, but conditioned themoney on the success of the peace process.

SCENARIO Now the Tamils are pressing their demandsharder at negotiations, threatening to renew their guerrillawar unless more of their demands are met. They now de-mand self-rule (but not a separate country) as a conditionfor not returning to fighting.

You must now respond to the new Tamil demands. Oneoption is to grant the Tamil’s regional autonomy. Such amove would continue the peace, which has brought eco-nomic growth to Sinhalese and Tamils on the island. It

POLICYPERSPECTIVES

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26 Shaw, Paul, and Yuwa Wong. Genetic Seeds of Warfare: Evolution, Nationalism, and Patriotism. Boston: UnwinHyman, 1989. Groebel, J., and R. A. Hinde, eds. Aggression and War: Their Biological and Social Bases.Cambridge, 1989. Somit, Albert. Humans, Chimps, and Bonobos: The Biological Bases of Aggression, War,and Peacemaking [review essay]. Journal of Conflict Resolution 34 (3), 1990: 553–82. McGuinness, Diane, ed.Dominance, Aggression, and War. NY: Paragon, 1987.27 Tajfel, H., and J. C. Turner. The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior. In Worchel, S. and W.Austin, eds. Psychology of Intergroup Relations. 2nd ed. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1986, pp. 7–24.

Ethnocentrism, or in-group bias, is the tendency to see one’s own group in favorableterms and an out-group in unfavorable terms. Some scholars believe that ethnocentrism hasroots in a biological propensity to protect closely related individuals, but this idea is quitecontroversial.26 More often in-group bias is understood in terms of social psychology.

No minimum criterion of similarity or kin relationship is needed to evoke the groupidentity process, including in-group bias. In psychological experiments, even trivial differ-entiations can evoke these processes. If people are assigned to groups based on a known butunimportant characteristic (such as preferring, say, circles to triangles), before long thepeople in each group show in-group bias and find they don’t much care for the othergroup’s members.27

In-group biases are far stronger when the other group looks different, speaks a differentlanguage, or worships in a different way (or all three). All too easily, an out-group can bedehumanized and stripped of all human rights. This dehumanization includes the commonuse of animal names—“pigs,” “dogs,” and so forth—for members of the out-group. U.S.propaganda in World War II depicted Japanese people as apes. Especially in wartime,when people see members of an out-group killing members of their in-group, dehumaniza-tion can be extreme. The restraints on war that have evolved in regular interstate warfare,such as not massacring civilians (see “War Crimes” on pp. 283–286), are easily discarded ininterethnic warfare.

In several countries where long internal wars in the 1990s had led to dehumanizationand atrocities—notably in South Africa—new governments used truth commissions to helpthe society heal and move forward. The commission’s role was to hear honest testimonyfrom the period, to bring to light what really happened during these wars, and in exchangeto offer most of the participants asylum from punishment. Sometimes international NGOshelped facilitate the process. However, human rights groups objected to a settlement inSierra Leone in 1999 that brought into the government a faction that had routinely cut offcivilians’ fingers as a terror tactic. (Hostilities did end, however, in 2001.) Thus, after bru-tal ethnic conflicts give way to complex political settlements, most governments try tobalance the need for justice and truth with the need to keep all groups on board.

Experience in Western Europe shows that education over time can overcome ethnicanimosities between traditionally hostile nations, such as France and Germany. AfterWorld War II, governments rewrote the textbooks a new generation would use to learn itspeoples’ histories. Previously, each state’s textbooks had glorified its own past deeds, playeddown its misdeeds, and portrayed its traditional enemies in unflattering terms. In a conti-nentwide project, new textbooks that gave a more objective and fair rendition were cre-ated. This project helped pave the way for European integration in subsequent decades.

The existence of a threat from an out-group promotes the cohesion of an in-group,thereby creating a somewhat self-reinforcing process of ethnic division. However, ethno-centrism also often causes members of a group to view themselves as disunited (because theysee their own divisions up close) and the out-group as monolithic (because they see it onlyfrom outside). This usually reflects a group’s sense of vulnerability. Furthermore, overstatingthe threat posed by an enemy is a common way for political leaders to bolster their own po-sition within an in-group. In the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israelis tend to see themselves as

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THINKING THEORETICALLY

Explaining Genocide

Ethnic Hutu extremists in the government ofRwanda in 1994 carried out an organized geno-

cide, giving orders throughout the country to killethnic Tutsis and those Hutus who had opposedthe government. In short order, about 500,000men, women, and children were massacred, mostlyby machete, and their bodies dumped into rivers;thousands at a time washed up on lakeshores inneighboring Uganda. What theories could helpexplain this event?Hutu hatred toward Tutsis could reflect concrete

interests and experiences of the two groups, especiallysince the minority Tutsis had earlier held power overthe Hutu, and Belgian colonialism had exploited localrivalries. Realists might try to explain how the inter-ests of Hutu extremists were served by their actions inexterminating rivals for power. This explanation isundermined, however, by the outcome in this case:the Hutu extremists lost power as a result of theepisode.

We might instead view Hutu-Tutsi hatred as partof a pattern of age-old ethnic hatreds that are cropping

up in the post–Cold War era, especially in “backward”areas such as Africa. (This age-old-hatreds theory wasoften articulated by Western politicians in the Bosniacase, portraying the Balkans, like Africa, as “back-ward” and conflict-prone.) However, this theory holdsup even worse than the realist explanation, since oneof the world’s most civilized, “advanced” states,Germany, exterminated its Jews even more efficientlythan Rwanda did its Tutsis—the difference being sim-ply that the “advanced” society could kill with indus-trial chemicals instead of at knifepoint.

Social psychology theories would tend to view theRwandan genocide as pathological—a deviation fromboth rationality and social norms. In-group biasesbased on fairly arbitrary group characteristics becomeamplified by a perceived threat from an out-group, ex-aggerated by history, myth, and propaganda (includingschooling). Such feelings can be whipped up by politi-cians pursuing their own power. A key threshold iscrossed when the out-group is dehumanized; norms ofsocial interaction, such as not slitting children’sthroats, can then be disregarded.

fragmented into dozens of political parties and diverse immigrant communities pulling indifferent directions, while they see Arabs as a monolithic bloc united against them.Meanwhile, Arab Palestinians see themselves as fragmented into factions and weakened bydivisions among the Arab states, while Israelis appear monolithic to them.

Ethnic conflicts are hard to resolve because they are not about “who gets what” butabout “I don’t like you.” To cast the conflict in terms of a bargaining situation, each sideplaces value on the other’s loss of value (making a zero-sum game; see p. 71). A person in-flamed with hatred of an enemy is willing to lose value in absolute terms—to lose money,the support of allies, or even life—to deprive the enemy of value as well. Suicide bombersexemplify this fanatical hatred. Almost all the means of leverage used in such conflicts arenegative, and bargains are very hard to reach. So ethnic conflicts tend to drag on withoutresolution for generations.

Ethnic groups are only one point along a spectrum of kinship relations—from nuclearfamilies through extended families, villages, provinces, and nations, up to the entire humanrace. Loyalties fall at different points along the spectrum. Again there is no minimum cri-terion for in-group identity. For instance, experts said that of all the African countries,Somalia was surely immune from ethnic conflicts because Somalis were all from the sameethnic group and spoke the same language. Then in 1991–1992 a ruinous civil war eruptedbetween members of different clans (based on extended families), leading to mass starva-tion and the intervention of foreign military forces (which by 1995 had to withdraw aftera humiliating failure to tame the violence).

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INFOREV

Nations andStates

CHANGINGWORLDORDER

Religion andWorld Order

28 Krause, Jill, and Neil Renwick, eds. Identities in International Relations. NY: St. Martin’s, 1996.29 Appleby, R. Scott. The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation. Lanham, MD:Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.30 Juergensmeyer, Mark. The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State. California, 1993.

It is unclear why people identify most strongly at one level of group identity.28 InSomalia, loyalties are to clans; in Serbia, they are to the ethnic group; in the UnitedStates and elsewhere, multiethnic states have managed to gain people’s primary loyalty.States reinforce their citizens’ identification with the state through flags, anthems, pledgesof allegiance, patriotic speeches, and so forth. Perhaps someday people will shift loyaltieseven further, developing a global identity as humans first and members of states and ethnicgroups second.

Religious ConflictOne reason ethnic conflicts often transcend material grievances is that they find expressionas religious conflicts. Since religion is the core of a community’s value system in much ofthe world, people whose religious practices differ are easily disdained and treated as un-worthy or even inhuman. When overlaid on ethnic and territorial conflicts, religion oftensurfaces as the central and most visible division between groups. For instance, most Indiansare Hindus and most Pakistanis are Muslims. Most people in Azerbaijan are Muslims;Armenians are Christians. Most Croats are Roman Catholic Christians, whereas mostSerbs are Orthodox Christians and most Bosnians and Albanians are Muslims. This is avery common pattern in ethnic conflicts.

Nothing inherent in religion mandates conflicts—in many places members of differentreligious groups coexist peacefully. But religious differences hold the potential for conflict,and for making existing conflicts more intractable, because religions involve core values,which are held as absolute truth.29 This is increasingly true as fundamentalist movementshave gained strength in recent decades. (The reasons for fundamentalism are disputed, butit is clearly a global-level phenomenon.) Members of these movements organize theirlives and communities around their religious beliefs; many are willing to sacrifice andeven die for those beliefs. Fundamentalist movements have become larger and more pow-erful in recent decades in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and other religions.Such movements challenge the values and practices of secular political organizations—those created apart from religious establishments (the separation of religion and state). Forexample, an Islamic movement in Turkey and a Christian movement in the United Statesboth seek to change long-standing secular traditions by incorporating religious values intothe government.

Among the secular practices threatened by fundamentalist movements are the rules ofthe international system, whereby states are treated as formally equal and sovereignwhether they are “believers” or “infidels.” As transnational belief systems, religions oftenare taken as a higher law than state laws and international treaties. Iranian “revolutionaryguards” train and support Islamic fundamentalists in other states such as Algeria, Egypt,Jordan, and Lebanon. Jewish fundamentalists build settlements in Israeli-occupied territo-ries and vow to cling to the land even if their government evacuates it. Christian funda-mentalists in the United States convince their government to withdraw from the UNPopulation Fund because of that organization’s views on family planning. All these actionsin one way or another run counter to the norms of the international system, and to the as-sumptions of realism.30

Currently, violent conflicts are being prosecuted in the name of all the world’s majorreligions. Islam, the religion practiced by Muslims (or Moslems), has been frequently

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stereotyped in European and North American po-litical discourse, especially at times of conflict suchas the 1973 oil embargo, the 1979 Iranian revolu-tion, the 1991 Gulf War, and the period since the2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Islamis no more conflict-prone than other religions, al-though Christian-Muslim conflicts are takingplace in a dozen locations. Islam is in fact broadand diverse. Its divergent populations includeSunni Muslims, Shi’ite Muslims, and many smallerbranches and sects. The areas of the world thatare predominantly Islamic stretch from Nigeria toIndonesia, centered in the Middle East (see Figure5.3). Most countries with mainly Muslim popula-tions belong to the Islamic Conference, an IGO.Many international conflicts around this zone in-volve Muslims on one side and non-Muslims onthe other, as a result of geographical and historicalcircumstances including colonialism and oil.Former Yugoslavia was the historical intersectionof predominantly Muslim, Orthodox Christian,and Catholic zones, hundreds of years ago.Politicians in the wartorn 1990s there mobilizedpopulations on all sides by playing to these histor-ical roots.

In several countries, Islamic fundamentalistsreject Western-oriented secular states in favor ofgovernments more explicitly oriented to Islamicvalues.31 These movements reflect long-standinganti-Western sentiment in these countries—againstthe old European colonizers who were Christian—and are in some ways nationalist movements ex-pressed through religious channels. In someMiddle Eastern countries with authoritarian gov-ernments, religious institutions (mosques) havebeen the only available avenue for political oppo-sition. Religion has therefore become a means forexpressing opposition to the status quo in bothpolitics and culture. (Similarly political roles have developed for other religions elsewhere,notably the Falun Gong movement in China in the late 1990s.)

In 1979, an Islamic republic was created in Iran. Pakistan and Sudan adopted Islamiclaws without a revolution, as did the mostly Muslim northern provinces of Nigeria. InSudan and Nigeria, however, the adoption of Islamic law in one region heightened ten-sions with other regions that are not predominantly Muslim-populated.

Sudan’s civil war between the mainly Muslim north (including the government) andthe mainly Christian and animist south dragged on for two decades and killed millions.

31 Johnson, James Turner, and John Kelsay. Cross, Crescent, and Sword: The Justification and Limitation of War inWestern and Islamic Tradition. NY: Greenwood, 1990. Piscatori, James. Islam in a World of Nation-States.Cambridge, 1984. Binder, Leonard. Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies. Chicago, 1988.Davidson, Lawrence. Islamic Fundamentalism: An Introduction. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003.

WEB LINK

Islam

FROM FAITH TO FRENZY

Religious intolerance can exacerbate tensions between groups,sometimes crossing the line to violence, with international implica-tions. For example, Hindu-Muslim conflict affects India’s relationswith its Muslim neighbors including Pakistan, Bangladesh, andIndonesia. Here, a Hindu mob destroys a Muslim mosque atAyodhya, India (1992). The incident provoked days of civil violencein India, mostly directed against Muslims, in which thousands died.

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Germany, France, Spain1

Bosnia-Herzegovina2

Serbia/Kosovo3

Turkey4

Cyprus5

Georgia6

Southern Russia/Chechnya7

Armenia/Azerbaijan8

Afghanistan9

Tajikistan10

Western China11

Philippines12

East Timor/Indonesia13

India14

Pakistan15

Lebanon16

Israel/Palestine17

Egypt18

Algeria19

Sudan20

Nigeria21

2120

15 14

16

12

13

17

1819

8710

1

2 3

4 5

69

11

FIGURE 5.3 ■ Members of the Islamic Conference and Areas of ConflictShaded countries are members of the conference; numbered regions are areas of conflict be-tween Muslims and non-Muslims or secular authorities.

A 2005 peace agreement ended the war. The south will have autonomy for six years,followed by a referendum on the region’s future, and meanwhile the rebel leaders willjoin the government. However, Sudan’s government recently sponsored brutal attacks inthe west of the country, by Arabs against fellow Muslims who are Black, demonstratingthat religion and ethnicity are equally potent markers of communal identity in civil wars.

An Islamic government was established in Afghanistan in 1992 after a civil war (andfollowing a decade of ill-fated Soviet occupation). Rival Islamic factions then continuedthe war with even greater intensity for several years. By 1997, a faction called Taliban hadtaken control of most of Afghanistan and imposed an extreme interpretation of Islamiclaw. With beatings and executions, the regime forced women to wear head-to-toe cover-ings, girls to stay out of school, and men to grow beards, among other repressive policies.The Afghanistan war became by the late 1990s the world’s most destructive war and

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threatened to fuel conflicts in Russia, China, and other nearby countries where variousforms of Muslim nationalism are at odds with state governments.

The incendiary mixture in Afghanistan in the 1990s—unending war, grindingpoverty, Islamic fundamentalism, and an ideologically driven repressive government—did not spread like wildfire to neighboring countries. It did, however, jump the oceans tohit the United States in September 2001. The Taliban’s allies and counterparts from othercountries used Afghanistan as a base for worldwide terrorist operations, culminating in the2001 attacks. In response, the United States exerted its power to remove the Talibanfrom power in Afghanistan and disrupt the al Qaeda terrorist network headquarteredthere. Despite U.S. efforts in the 2001 war, the Taliban still maintains adherents inAfghanistan, who are attempting to destabilize the country.

In Algeria, an especially brutal war evolved in the mid-1990s between the secular mil-itary government and an Islamic revolutionary movement. Islamic parties were winningdemocratic elections for a new parliament in 1991, when the military intervened to takepower and stop the elections. The Islamic movement went underground, and the ensuingwar between the military and the rebels killed as many as 100,000 people. In a murky andbrutal struggle, both sides eventually turned to seemingly purposeless massacres. In 1999, areformist politician returned from exile was elected president and struck a peace deal withthe main rebel faction—raising hopes for a more durable peace—but intermittent violencecontinues.

In Jordan, Islamic parties won the largest bloc of seats in parliament but violence didnot ensue. Meanwhile, in the 1990s Islamic parties gained ground in Turkey—a fiercelysecular state in which the military has intervened to prevent religious expression in poli-tics. A former Islamist became prime minister in 2003.

The more radical Islamic movements not only threaten some existing governments—especially those tied to the West—they also often undermine norms of state sovereignty(for better or worse). They reject Western political conceptions of the state (based on in-dividual autonomy) in favor of a more traditional Islamic orientation based on community.Some aspire to create a single political state encompassing most of the Middle East, as ex-isted in A.D. 600–1200. Such a development would create a profound challenge to the pres-ent international system—particularly to its current status quo powers—and would there-fore be opposed at every turn by the world’s most powerful states. From the perspective ofsome outsiders, the religious conflicts boiling and simmering at the edges of the Islamicworld look like an expansionist threat to be contained. The view from within looks morelike being surrounded and repressed from several directions—a view reinforced by mas-sacres of Muslims in Bosnia, Chechnya, and India in the 1990s and by the U.S. invasion ofIraq in 2003.

Overall, Islamic activism (and the opposition to it) is more complex than simply a re-ligious conflict; it concerns power, economic relations, ethnic chauvinism, and historicalempires as well.

The same forces contribute to religious fanaticism in non-Muslim countries. In India,Hindu fundamentalists have provoked violent clashes and massacres that have reverber-ated internationally. In 1992, a Hindu mob destroyed a Muslim mosque at Ayodhya. Theincident provoked days of civil violence, mostly directed against Muslims, in which thou-sands died. In 2002, a similar frenzy of burning, torturing, and raping by Hindu nationalistextremists killed nearly a thousand Muslims in India’s Gujarat state, where the Hindu na-tionalist party controls the state government. In Israel, Jewish fundamentalists have usedviolence, including the assassination of Israel’s own prime minister in 1995, to derailArab-Jewish peace negotiations.

Recently it has been suggested that international conflicts in the coming years may begenerated by a clash of civilizations—based on the differences between the world’s major

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32 Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. NY: Simon & Schuster,1996.33 Fearon, James D., and David D. Laitin. Explaining Interethnic Cooperation. American Political Science Review90 (4), 1996: 715–735.

cultural groupings, which overlap quite a bit with religious communities.32 The idea hasbeen criticized for being overly general, and for assuming that cultural differences naturallycreate conflict. In fact, although religious and ethnic conflicts receive tremendous atten-tion in the media, most ethnic and religious groups living in states do not fight or threateneach other.33

Ideological ConflictTo a large extent, ideology is like religion: it symbolizes and intensifies conflicts betweengroups and states more than it causes them. Ideologies have a somewhat weaker hold oncore values and absolute truth than religions do, so they pose somewhat fewer problems forthe international system.

For realists, ideological differences among states do not matter much, because allmembers of the international system pursue their national interests in the context of rela-tively fluid alliances. For example, during the Cold War there was a global ideologicalstruggle between capitalist democracy and communism. But the alliances and militarycompetitions in that struggle were fairly detached from ideological factors. The two com-munist giants—the Soviet Union and China—did not stay together very long. India—ademocracy and capitalist country—chose not to ally with the Unites States. And even thetwo great rival superpowers managed to live within the rules of the international system forthe most part (such as both remaining UN members).

Over the long run, even countries that experience revolutions based on strong ide-ologies tend to lose their ideological fervor—be it Iran’s Islamic fundamentalism in 1979,China’s Maoist communism in 1949, Russia’s Leninist communism in 1917, or even U.S.democracy in 1776. In each case, the revolutionaries expected that their assumption ofpower would dramatically alter their state’s foreign policy, because in each case their ide-ology had profound international implications.

Yet, within a few decades, each of these revolutionary governments turned to the pursuitof national interests above ideological ones. The Soviet Union soon became in many waysjust another great power on the European scene—building up its own armed forces, expand-ing its territory at the expense of Poland, and making alliances with former enemies.Likewise, China’s Chairman Mao wanted to spread a “prairie fire” of revolution through theglobal South to liberate it from U.S. imperialism, but within a few decades Mao was wel-coming the very embodiment of U.S. imperialism, President Nixon, to pursue mutual na-tional interests. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini took power in 1979 determined to revamp foreignpolicy and struggle against Western, non-Islamic influences—especially the “Great Satan”United States. Twenty years later, however, a liberal reformer had been elected president (al-beit with limited powers) and Iranians were expanding contacts with the West.

Sometimes even self-proclaimed ideological struggles are not really ideological. InAngola in the 1980s, the United States backed a rebel army called UNITA against aSoviet-aligned government—supposedly a struggle of democracy against Marxism. Intruth, the ideological differences were quite arbitrary. The government mouthed Marxistrhetoric to get the Soviet Union to give it aid (a policy that was reversed as soon asSoviet aid dried up). The “democratic” rebels meanwhile adopted democratic rhetoric toget U.S. support but practiced nothing of the sort. In fact, they had earlier receivedChinese support and had mouthed Maoist rhetoric. When UN-sponsored elections were

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won by the government, the “democratic” UNITA re-fused to accept the results and resumed fighting. Thisconflict, which finally ended in 2002, really had nothingto do with ideology.

In the short term, revolutions do change interna-tional relations—they make wars more likely—but notbecause of ideology. Rather, the sudden change of gov-ernments can alter alliances and change the balance ofpower. With calculations of power being revised by allparties, it is easy to miscalculate or to exaggerate threatson both sides. Saddam Hussein, for example, miscalcu-lated Iran’s power after its revolution (see “EstimatingPower” on p. 59). But ideology itself plays little role inthis postrevolutionary propensity for wars: revolutions areseldom exported to other states.34

We should not assume, however, that ideology andpolitical philosophies play no role at all in internationalpolitics. Ideologies can help to mobilize national popula-tions to support a state in its international dealings, such aswar. Fascism (the Nazi ideology) inflamed German nation-alism before World War II, legitimizing German aggres-sion by placing it in an ideological framework. And ideol-ogy can sharpen and intensify the conflict between tworivals, as happened to the superpowers during the ColdWar. In some proxy wars of that era—for instance, inVietnam in the 1960s and Nicaragua in the 1980s—therebels and governments had real ideological differencesthat resonated with the Cold War rivalry.

If political democracy is an ideology, it may be the ex-ception to the rule that ideology does not affect IR much.Democracy has become a global-level force in world poli-tics, transcending the interests of particular states. A com-mitment to democracy does not yet outweigh a commit-ment to national interest in states’ foreign policies, andperhaps never will, but global democracy is slowly emergingas a norm that states increasingly are pursuing in their deal-ings with other states (see “Democracy and Foreign Policy”on pp. 160–163). In fact, some states and IGOs now makethe promotion of democracy a centerpiece of their ownforeign policy agendas.35

Democracies and nondemocracies may increasinglyfind themselves in conflict with each other if this trendcontinues. Because democracies almost never fight warswith each other (although they still have conflicts), thespread of democratic ideology may have great implications for future prospects for peace.But recall that the process of becoming a democracy (often referred to as democratization)

IDEOLOGICAL SPLIT

Ideology plays only a limited role in most internationalconflicts. After revolutions, such as China’s in 1949, ide-ologies such as Maoism may affect foreign policy. Butover the following 10 or 20 years, such countries typicallyrevert to a foreign policy based more on national interests(for China, territorial integrity and trade-based prosperity)than ideology (communism). Nonetheless, the clashingcultures of U.S.-style democracy and Chinese-style com-munism still are a source of conflict in U.S.-Chinese rela-tions. Here, students demonstrate for democracy inTiananmen Square, Beijing, 1989. The violent repressionof those demonstrations cast a shadow over U.S.-Chineserelations in the 1990s.

34 Walt, Stephen M. Revolution and War. Cornell, 1996.35 Cox, Michael, G. John Ikenberry, and Takashi Inoguchi. American Democracy Promotion: Impulses, Strategies,and Impacts. Oxford, 2000. Pevehouse, Jon C. Democracy from Above? Regional Organizations andDemocratization. Cambridge, 2005.

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can spur nationalist and ethnic conflicts, as leaders in new democracies attempt to winelections through fear rather than ideas and policies.36

All six types of conflict just discussed can be pursued through peaceful or violentmeans. We can better understand conflict by examining the types of leverage, violent andotherwise, that come into play in international conflicts.

Means of LeverageConflicts are settled when some explicit or implicit bargaining process arrives at an out-come acceptable to both parties (see “Bargaining” on pp. 62–63). Acceptable does notmean that both parties are happy or that the outcome is fair—only that neither partythinks it worth the effort to try to change the outcome. Perhaps both parties are satisfiedthat they have struck a beneficial or fair deal, or one party has been stripped of its leverage(in the extreme case, destroyed altogether) and has no prospect of improving a bad out-come through further bargaining.

War and other violent actions taken in international conflicts are aimed at settlingconflicts on favorable terms by inflicting violence as a negative form of leverage. States canalso have alternative means of leverage and strategies that often work better than war inresolving conflicts (ending them on mutually acceptable terms).

Types of WarWar has been defined in various ways. For present purposes, we may define war as sustainedintergroup violence (deliberately inflicting death and injury) in which state military forcesparticipate on at least one side—on both sides in the case of interstate war and generally ononly one side in the case of civil war. Around this definition are gray areas. A military bat-tle that is not sustained over time may or may not be considered a war. The brief Chinese-Soviet border clashes in March and July 1969, for example, entailed several small battles ata few points along the border, in which some hundreds of people were killed. Similarly am-biguous is a long-term violent struggle involving irregular (substate) forces, such as inNorthern Ireland. There, uniformed British military forces waged a sustained violent strug-gle with a nonstate “army,” the Irish Republican Army (IRA), until a cease-fire that hasheld on and off since 1995.

Gang violence in U.S. inner cities is not considered war by most definitions, unlikethe gang-type violence in the former Yugoslavia. One difference is scale—“only” hundredsof deaths in the case of U.S. gangs versus hundreds of thousands in Yugoslavia. But themain reason the latter case is generally considered war is the involvement of state militaryunits (and quasi-state military forces created from pieces of state armies that disintegrated).

Thus, many different activities are covered by the general term war. Consequently, itis not easy to say how many wars are going on in the world at the moment. Political sci-entists can count the number of militarized disputes or the number of international con-flicts that regularly entail violence. But most lists of wars set some minimum criteria—forinstance, a minimum of a thousand battle deaths—to distinguish the large-scale violenceimplied by war from the more common lower-level violence that occurs in many interna-tional conflicts. Criteria that are not often used include formal declarations of war (nowlargely obsolete) or other legal standards. For example, Japan and the Soviet Union neversigned a treaty ending World War II but are not considered to be at war.

WEB LINK

Means ofLeverage


36 Mansfield, Edward D. and Jack Snyder. Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War. MIT, 2005.

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Means of Leverage 199

Figure 5.4 shows the locations of the 15 wars in progress in 2005. Table 5.1 summarizesthese wars. Of the 15 wars, none is in North America, Western Europe, Japan/Pacific, orChina. All but Chechnya are in the global South—mainly in Africa, South Asia, and theMiddle East.

The largest and most active wars in Spring 2005 were in Iraq, Sudan, and Colombia.Most recent wars have been internal (within a state). The first serious interstate war inyears was the attack on Iraq in 2003. Wars are sputtering on and off in Israel-Palestine, theRwanda-Burundi area (including Uganda), Somalia, Tajikistan/Kyrgyzstan, Nepal,Afghanistan, Burma, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

More importantly, a number of intense wars ended, at least tentatively, in formalpeace settlements in recent years. These wars, each of which inflicted grave damage, in-clude those in Sierra Leone, Angola, East Timor, the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon,Guatemala, and Northern Ireland (following South Africa and Mozambique earlier in the1990s). In 2003, notwithstanding the war in Iraq, a new wave of settlements ended severalmore of the world’s remaining wars of greatest duration and lethality. Liberia, Ivory Coast,and (more tentatively) Democratic Congo all established power-sharing governments andbrought in international peacekeepers—following in the path of Sierra Leone (which in2003 held democratic elections). India and Pakistan began their first cease-fire in a decade,as did Burma’s government and its largest rebel militia. In Sri Lanka, a cease-fire continuedand negotiations inched forward.

In Sudan, the warring sides (largely northern Muslims versus southern Christians)from a decades-long civil war signed a peace agreement in 2003, ending the world’s last ac-tive war that has killed more than a million people. It called for withdrawing governmentforces from the south of the country, establishing a power-sharing transitional governmentand army, and holding a referendum in the rebel areas in six years. Unfortunately, in theimmediate period following this peace agreement, rebels in the western Darfur region be-gan to protest their exclusion from the peace agreement. In response, the governmenthelped militias raid western villages, committing what the United States and other stateshave labeled genocide. In late 2004, the government, the Darfur rebels, and the southernrebels reached a tentative peace agreement to be monitored by the African Union and theUnited Nations, but the war crimes in Darfur continued in 2005. In April 2005, the UNWorld Food Program had to cut rations to a million Darfur refugees because donor stateshad given barely half the money needed to feed them. The international community’s in-effective response to the mass murders in Darfur, like that in Rwanda in 1994, shows thelimited reach of international norms in today’s state-based international system.

Wars are very diverse. Several types of war tend to arise from different situations andplay different sorts of roles in bargaining over conflicts. Starting from the largest wars(which obviously meet the criteria), we may distinguish the following main categories.

Hegemonic war is a war over control of the entire world order—the rules of the inter-national system as a whole, including the role of world hegemony (see “Hegemony” p. 82).This class of wars (with variations in definition and conception) is also known as worldwar, global war, general war, or systemic war.37 The last hegemonic war was World War II.Largely because of the power of modern weaponry, this kind of war probably cannot occurany longer without destroying civilization.

Total war is warfare by one state waged to conquer and occupy another. The goal is toreach the capital city and force the surrender of the government, which can then be replacedwith one of the victor’s choosing (see pp. 180–181). The 2003 Iraq War is a classic case.Total war as we know it began with the massively destructive Napoleonic Wars, which

37 Levy, Jack S. Theories of General War. World Politics 37 (3), 1985: 344–74. Thompson, William R. OnGlobal War: Historical-Structural Approaches to World Politics. South Carolina, 1988.

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introduced large-scale conscription and geared the entire French national economy towardthe war effort. The practice of total war evolved with industrialization, which further inte-grated all of society and economy into the practice of war. The last total war between greatpowers was World War II, which ended with Germany and Japan in ruins, occupied by theWestern alliance.

In total war, with the entire society mobilized for the struggle, the entire society of theenemy is considered a legitimate target. For instance, in World War II Germany attackedBritish civilians with V-2 rockets, while British and U.S. strategic bombing killed 600,000German civilians (and hundreds of thousands more Japanese) in an effort to weaken morale.

Limited war includes military actions carried out to gain some objective short of thesurrender and occupation of the enemy. For instance, the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1991retook the territory of Kuwait but did not go on to Baghdad to topple Saddam Hussein’sgovernment. Many border wars have this character: after occupying the land it wants, astate may stop short and defend its gains.

Raids are limited wars that consist of a single action—a bombing run or a quick in-cursion by land. In 1981, Israeli warplanes bombed an Iraqi nuclear research facility to stopIraq from making progress toward the development of nuclear weapons. (Without this raid,Iraq might have had nuclear weapons when it invaded Kuwait in 1990.) The action had anarrow objective—destruction of the facility—and was over within hours. Raids fall intothe gray area between wars and nonwars because their destruction is limited and they areover quickly. Raiding that is repeated or fuels a cycle of retaliation usually becomes a lim-ited war or what is sometimes called “low-intensity conflict.”

Civil war refers to war between factions within a state trying to create, or prevent, anew government for the entire state or some territorial part of it. (The aim may be tochange the entire system of government, to merely replace the people in it, or to split a re-gion off as a new state.) The U.S. Civil War of the 1860s is a good example of a seces-sionist civil war, as is the war of Eritrea province in Ethiopia (now the internationally rec-ognized state of Eritrea) in the 1980s. The war in El Salvador in the 1980s is an example ofa civil war for control of the entire state (not secessionist). Civil wars seem to be oftenamong the most brutal wars—sometimes brother fighting brother, often with no clearly de-fined front lines. People fighting their fellow citizens act no less cruelly than those fightingpeople from another state. The 50,000 or more deaths in the civil war in El Salvador, in-cluding many from massacres and death squads, were not based on ethnic differences. (Ofcourse, many of today’s civil wars do contain ethnic conflicts as well.)

Guerrilla war, which includes certain kinds of civil wars, is warfare without frontlines. Irregular forces operate in the midst of, and often hidden or protected by, civilianpopulations. The purpose is not to directly confront an enemy army but rather to harass

TABLE 5.1 ■ Wars by Region

Region Most Important Wars, May 2004

Africa Democratic Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Sudan, SomaliaSouth Asia Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Burma, Indonesia, PhilippinesMiddle East Iraq, Israel-PalestineRussia/E. Europe Russia (Chechnya)Latin America Colombia, PeruN. America, W. Europe,

Japan/Pacific, ChinaNone

Note: Bold face indicates reported casualties of more than 100,000.

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WEB LINK

Terrorism


38 Levite, Ariel E., Bruce W. Jentleson, and Larry Berman, eds. Foreign Military Intervention: The Dynamics ofProtracted Conflict. Columbia, 1992. Klare, Michael, and Peter Kornbluh, eds. Low-Intensity Warfare:Counterinsurgency, Proinsurgency, and Antiterrorism in the Eighties. NY: Random/Pantheon, 1991. Walter,Barbara F., and Jack Snyder, eds. Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention. Columbia, 1999.39 Lutz, James M. Global Terrorism. London: Routledge, 2004. Benjamin, Daniel, and Steven Simon. The Age ofSacred Terror. NY: Random, 2002. Kushner, Harvey W. Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Thousand Oaks, CA: SagePublications, 2003.

and punish it so as to gradually limit its operation and effectively liberate territory from itscontrol. Iraqi paramilitary forces used such methods during the Iraq War in 2003–2005.U.S. military forces in South Vietnam fought against Viet Cong guerrillas in the 1960s and1970s, with rising frustration. Efforts to combat such a guerrilla army—counterinsurgency—often include programs to “win the hearts and minds” of rural popu-lations so that they stop sheltering the guerrillas. In guerrilla war, without a fixed front line,there is much territory that neither side controls; both sides exert military leverage over thesame places at the same time. Thus, guerrilla wars are extremely painful for civilians. Thesituation is doubly painful because conventional armies fighting against guerrillas oftencannot distinguish them from civilians and punish both together. In one famous case inSouth Vietnam, a U.S. officer, who had ordered an entire village burned to deny its use asa sanctuary by the Viet Cong, commented, “We had to destroy the village to save it.”

Warfare increasingly is irregular and guerrilla-style; it is less and less often an open con-ventional clash of large state armies.38 But conventional wars such as the 1991 Gulf War dostill occur. On the whole, state and nonstate actors have a range of political goals that leadthem to employ violent forms of leverage, and a range of options for employing force.

TerrorismSince September 2001, governments and ordinary people have paid much more attention toterrorism than ever before. But terrorism itself is not new. Terrorism is basically just anotherstep along the spectrum of violent leverage, from total war to guerrilla war. Indeed terrorismand guerrilla war often occur together. Yet terrorism differs from other kinds of wars.

Terrorism refers to political violence that targets civilians deliberately and indiscrim-inately. Beyond this basic definition other criteria can be applied, but the definitions be-come politically motivated: one person’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist. More thanguerrilla warfare, terrorism is a shadowy world of faceless enemies and irregular tacticsmarked by extreme brutality.39

In the past, most terrorism has occurred in the Middle East, Europe, and South Asia.Although U.S. interests and citizens abroad were repeatedly targeted, little internationalterrorism took place in the United States itself. The 1993 bombing of the World TradeCenter in New York was an exception, but because damage from these attacks was quitelimited, the public quickly forgot the terrorist threat.

But in an interdependent world, the United States can no longer keep global problemssuch as terrorism at a distance. For years before the 2001 attacks, the al Qaeda terrorist or-ganization had thousands of members operating in dozens of countries, including the UnitedStates. The traditional sense of U.S. insularity behind great oceans, along with the relative lullin hijackings and terror actions in the United States in the 1990s, may have created a falsesense of security. Since September 2001, isolationism has retreated and the U.S. govern-ment, supported by public opinion and Congress, has pursued a highly international agenda.

Generally, the purpose of terrorism is to demoralize a civilian population in order to useits discontent as leverage on national governments or other parties to a conflict. Related to

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40 Young, Mitchell, ed. The War on Terrorism. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2003.

this is the aim of creating drama in order to gain media at-tention for a cause. When the IRA planted bombs inLondon, it hoped to make life miserable enough forLondoners that they would insist their government settle theNorthern Ireland issue. The bombing also sought to keep theissue of Northern Ireland in the news, in the hope that theBritish government would then be pressured to concedeterms more favorable to the IRA than would otherwise be thecase. Terrorism is seldom mindless; it is usually a calculateduse of violence as leverage. However, motives and means ofterrorism vary widely, having in common only that some ac-tor is using violence to send a message to other actors.

The primary effect of terrorism is psychological. In partthe effectiveness of terrorism in capturing attention is dueto the dramatic nature of the incidents, especially as shownon television news. Terrorism also gains attention becauseof the randomness of victims. Although only a few dozenpeople may be injured by a bomb left in a market, millionsof people realize “it could have been me,” because they, too,shop in markets. Attacks on airplanes augment this fear be-cause many people already fear flying. Terrorism thus am-plifies a small amount of power by its psychological effect onlarge populations; this is why it is usually a tool of the pow-erless. However, al Qaeda’s attacks follow a somewhat dif-ferent pattern, planned less to create fear than simply tokill as many Americans and their allies as possible—and ultimately to touch off apocalyp-tic violence that al Qaeda’s followers believe will bring about God’s intervention. The psy-chological effect is aimed at Muslim populations worldwide rather than at Americans.

In the shockingly destructive attack on the World Trade Center, tangible damage wasfar greater than in previous terrorist attacks—reaching into thousands of lives and tens ofbillions of dollars. The psychological impact was even stronger than the physical damage—changing the U.S. political and cultural landscape instantly. But in contrast to historicalinstances of terrorism, real costs began to loom large. The same terrorist network was try-ing to obtain nuclear weapons (see pp. 231–233) with which to kill not thousands but hun-dreds of thousands of Americans. Similarly, although the mailed anthrax attacks in Fall2001 killed only a few people, and had far more psychological than physical effect, the doorhad been opened to a new bioterrorism that could kill tens of thousands.40

The classic cases of terrorism—from the 1970s to the 2001 attacks—are those inwhich a nonstate actor uses attacks against civilians by secret nonuniformed forces, operatingacross international borders, as a leverage against state actors. Radical political factions orseparatist groups hijack or blow up airplanes, or plant bombs in cafés, clubs, or othercrowded places. For example, Chechen radicals seized a school in Beslan, a small city in theCaucasus region in 2004. For three days, nearly 1,200 children, parents, and teachers wereheld without food or water. When Russian troops stormed the school, they detonatedmany traps set by the terrorists, setting off explosions. In the end, more than 300 peopledied, including 172 children. Such tactics create spectacular incidents that draw attentionto the terrorists’ cause.

ASYMMETRICAL CONFLICT

Terrorist attacks often reflect the weakness of the perpe-trators and their lack of access to other means of lever-age. Terror can sometimes amplify a small group’s powerand affect outcomes. Al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, at-tacks, staged by a relatively small nonstate actor, ulti-mately led to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from SaudiArabia, drew the United States into a counterinsurgencywar in Iraq, and brought al Qaeda itself a surge of re-cruits for new attacks worldwide.

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41 Laqueur, Walter. A History of Terrorism. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction, 2001. Pilar, Paul R. Terrorism and U.S.Foreign Policy. Washington, DC: Brookings, 2001. Stern, Jessica. The Ultimate Terrorist. Harvard, 2000.O’Kane, Rosemary H. T. Terror, Force, and States: The Path from Modernity. Aldershot, UK: Edward Elgar,1996.

Often terrorism is used by radical factions of movements that have not been able toget attention or develop other effective means of leverage. It is often a tactic of desper-ation, and it almost always reflects weakness in the power position of the attacker. Forinstance, Palestinian radicals in 1972 had seen Arab states defeated by Israel in war andcould not see a way to gain even a hearing for their cause. By capturing media attentionworldwide with dramatic incidents of violence—even at the cost of rallying world pub-lic opinion against their cause—the radicals hoped to make Palestinian aspirations an is-sue that Western governments could not ignore when deciding on policies toward theMiddle East.

Terrorists are more willing than states are to violate the norms of the international sys-tem because, unlike states, they do not have a stake in that system. Conversely, when a po-litical group gains some power or legitimacy, its use of terrorism usually diminishes. Thiswas true of the Palestine Liberation Organization during the peace process in 1993–2000 aswell as the Irish Republican Army starting in 1995.

States themselves carry out acts designed to terrorize their own populations or those ofother states, but scholars tend to avoid the label “terrorism” for such acts, preferring to callit repression or war. Russia’s indiscriminate attacks in Chechnya province in 1995 are anexample. (By contrast, the later bombings of Moscow apartment buildings by Chechen rad-icals were clearly terrorism.) In fact, no violent act taken during a civil or internationalwar—by or toward a warring party—can necessarily fit neatly into the category of terror-ism. Of course, because war itself is hard to define, so is terrorism; warring parties often calleach other terrorists. In the Central American civil wars of the 1980s, both the states andthe guerrillas employed tactics that, if taken in peacetime, would easily qualify as terrorism.

The narrowest definition of terrorism would exclude acts either by or against uniformedmilitary forces rather than civilians. This definition would exclude the killing of 243 U.S.Marines by a car bomb in Lebanon in 1983, and the 2001 attack on the Pentagon, becausethey were directed at military targets. It would also exclude the bombing of German citiesin World War II although the purpose was to terrorize civilians. But in today’s world of un-declared war, guerrilla war, civil war, and ethnic violence, there is a large gray zone aroundclear cases of terrorism. Disagreements about whether terrorism included Palestinian at-tacks on Israel, and Pakistani attacks in Kashmir, scuttled efforts to pass a UN treaty on ter-rorism in late 2001.

State-sponsored terrorism refers to the use of terrorist groups by states—usually undercontrol of the state’s intelligence agency—to achieve political aims.41 In 1988, a bombscattered pieces of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish countryside. Combing the fields fordebris, investigators found fragments of a tape recorder that had contained a sophisticatedplastic-explosive bomb. A tiny strand of wire from the triggering device turned out to be arare variety, through which the investigators traced the origins of the bomb. The U.S. andBritish governments identified two Libyan intelligence agents who had smuggled the taperecorder onto flight 103 in Frankfurt. In 1992, backed by the UN Security Council, theydemanded that Libya turn over the agents for trial. When Libya refused, the UN imposedsanctions including a ban on international flights to or from Libya. In 1999, Libya turnedover the suspects for trial—two received life in prison while a third was acquitted—and theUN suspended its sanctions. In 2003, Libya formally took responsibility for the bombing,

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Thinking Critically 205

struck a multibillion-dollar compensation deal with the victims’ families, and tried toregain a normal place in the international community.

The United States in recent years has accused seven states of supporting interna-tional terrorism: North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Cuba. In 1996, theUnited States barred U.S. companies from doing business in those states. However,these kinds of sanctions are of limited effect since most industrialized states do not shareU.S. views of one or more of these target states. Cuba can do business with Canada, Iranwith France, and Libya with Italy. The U.S. position was also undermined when itcarved an exception in its rule to allow a U.S. oil company to bid on a lucrative oilpipeline project in Sudan.

More often, state involvement in terrorism is very difficult to trace. Indeed, had thebomb on flight 103 exploded as scheduled over the Atlantic Ocean, instead of prematurely,the clues would not have been found. Counterterrorism has become a sophisticated oper-ation as well as a big business—a trend that accelerated after September 2001.International agencies, notably the Interpol police agency (and in Europe, Europol), coor-dinate the actions of states in tracking and apprehending suspected terrorists (as well asdrug traffickers and other criminals). National governments have investigative agencies,such as the FBI and CIA in the United States, to try to break through the wall of secrecyaround terrorist operations. Lately, many private companies have expanded the business ofproviding security services, including antiterrorist equipment and forces, to companiesand individuals doing business internationally. These companies are very busy sinceSeptember 2001, as governments, companies, and individuals worldwide adapt to the newsecurity environment that comes from a global terrorist threat.

Just as there are many possible outcomes of conflict, many types of war, and variedpropensities for violence among different states, so too is there great diversity in how forceis used if conflict leads to violence. States develop a wide array of military forces, whichvary tremendously in their purposes and capabilities—having in common only that theyare instruments used to apply violence in some form. It is to these military forces that wenow turn.

THINKING CRITICALLY1. Suppose that you were the mediator in negotiations between two states each claim-

ing the same piece of land. What principles could you follow in developing a mutu-ally acceptable plan for ownership of the territory? What means could you use toconvince the two states to accept your plan?

2. How many of the six types of international conflict discussed in this chapter can youconnect with the phenomenon of nationalism discussed on pp. 32–33? What are theconnections in each case?

3. European textbooks were revised after World War II to reduce ethnic and nationalstereotypes and to give a fairer portrayal of Europe’s various nations. What about thetextbooks you used to learn your country’s history? Did they give an accurate picture,or did they overstate the virtues of your own ethnic group or nation at the expense ofothers? How?

4. The rise of fundamentalism among the world’s major religions challenges traditionalnotions of state sovereignty. How might this trend strengthen, or weaken, theUnited Nations and other attempts to create supranational authority (which alsochallenge state sovereignty)?

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5. Given the definition of war provided on p. 198, name three current international sit-uations that clearly fit the definition of war and three that are ambiguous “quasi-wars” (almost but not quite fitting the definition). Which do you think are more se-rious, the wars or the quasi-wars? Do they involve different types of actors? Differentkinds of conflicts? Different capabilities?

CHAPTER SUMMARY■ War and other forms of international violence are used as leverage to try to improve

the terms of settlement of conflicts.■ Many theories have been offered as general explanations about when such forms of

leverage come into play—the causes of war. Contradictory theories have been pro-posed at each level of analysis and, with two exceptions, none has strong empiricalsupport. Thus, political scientists cannot reliably predict the outbreak of war. The twoexceptions are: (1) that there are virtually no societies in which war and intergroup vi-olence as means of leverage are unknown, and (2) that democratic states almost neverfight wars against other democracies.

■ States come into conflict with each other and with nonstate actors for a variety of rea-sons. Conflicts will always exist among international actors.

■ Territorial disputes are among the most serious international conflicts because statesplace great value on territorial integrity. With a few exceptions, however, almost allthe world’s borders are now firmly fixed and internationally recognized.

■ Conflicts over the control of entire states (through control of governments) are alsoserious and are relatively likely to lead to the use of force.

■ Economic conflicts lead to violence much less often, because positive gains from eco-nomic activities are more important inducements than negative threats of violence.

■ Some particular kinds of economic conflict, however, have special implications for na-tional security.

■ Drug trafficking creates several kinds of conflict that draw in state and nonstate actorsalike.

■ Ethnic conflicts, especially when linked with territorial disputes, are very difficult toresolve because of psychological biases. It is hard to explain why people’s loyalties aresometimes to their ethnic group, sometimes to a multiethnic nation.

■ Fundamentalist religious movements pose a broad challenge to the rules of the inter-national system in general and state sovereignty in particular.

■ Ideologies do not matter very much in international relations, with the possible ex-ception of democracy as an ideology. State leaders can use ideologies to justify what-ever actions are in their interests.

■ When violent means are used as leverage in international conflicts, a variety of typesof war result. These vary greatly in size and character, from guerrilla wars and raids tohegemonic war for leadership of the international system. Along this spectrum ofuses of violence, the exact definition of war is uncertain.

■ Like other violent means of leverage, terrorism is used to gain advantage in interna-tional bargaining situations. Terrorism is effective if it damages morale in a populationand gains media exposure for the cause.

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❑ A❑ B❑ C❑ D

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Key Terms 207

■ The September 2001 attacks differed from earlier terrorism both in their scale of de-struction and in the long reach of the global al Qaeda terrorist network. The attacksforced dramatic changes in U.S. and worldwide security arrangements, and sparkedU.S. military intervention in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime and de-stroy the al Qaeda bases there.

KEY TERMSconflict 169settlement 169cycle theories 172irredentism 174ethnic cleansing 176territorial waters 179airspace 180lateral pressure (theory of)

182

ethnic groups 185ethnocentrism 190dehumanization 190secular (state) 192Islam/Muslims 192hegemonic war 199total war 199limited war 201civil war 201

guerrilla war 201counterinsurgency 202state-sponsored terrorism

204

ONLINE PRACTICE TESTTake an online practice test at www.internationalrelations.net

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The West versus Islamism: The New Cold War?

by Mir Zohair Husain

Overview The Western world viewed al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks asIslamists (Islamic political activists) attacking everything that America and the West repre-sented. Contrary to this belief, Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda (Arabic for “the base”) activists aremisguided Muslim extremists comprising an infinitesimally small revolutionary fringe groupwithin Islamism

Islamism, a comprehensive religiopolitical ideology, has become a powerful force in world af-fairs; however, it is not a monolithic religiopolitical ideology with any one leader or power center,such as the Pope and the Vatican in Rome. Three major types of Islamists are: traditionalist, pro-gressive, and revolutionary. Traditionalist Islamists are often apolitical, scholarly, and conser-vative ulama (Islamic clerics). These ulama get involved in politics when they perceive Islamand/or the ummah (community of believers) to be in imminent danger. Progressive Islamists aredevout Muslims who are rational and analytical, reconcile progressive Islam with modern sci-ence. Revolutionary Islamists are characteristically puritanical and committed to establishing anIslamic state based on the rigorous application of the shariah (Islamic law). Al Qaeda’s extrem-ist and violent strain of revolutionary Islamism is but one tiny aspect of revolutionary Islamism. Infact, most revolutionary Islamists—such as, the Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Brotherhood) inEgypt or Jama ‘at-e-Islami (Islamic Association) in South Asia—most Islamists, and all but a fewMuslims, shun this atypical form of revolutionary Islamism. However, it is this virulent strain ofIslamism that receives overwhelming mass media coverage with little mention that mostIslamists and Muslims repudiate terrorism as inherently irreconcilable with Islam.

In the post-September 11 political climate, Islamophobia (fear of Islamism and Islamists)grew so much that Islamism replaced communism as the alien, monolithic, and dangerous forcethreatening the West. In the Muslim world, anti-Americanism and anti-Western sentiments pro-voked scholars, the mass media, and politicians to question whether this incipient clash betweenthe West and Islamism will evolve into a new Cold War.

Argument 1 The Clash Between the

West and Islamism Is Inevitable

The West-Islamism confrontation is a “clash of civi-lizations.” Historically, power struggles and internationalconflict have revolved around states, but a trend is emerg-ing in which the world is dividing along cultural lines. Infact, many scholars have begun using the term “clash of

civilizations” interchangeably with conflicts between theWest and Islamism.

In the emerging world, the relations between states and groupsfrom different civilizations will not be close and will often beantagonistic. Yet some . . . are more conflict-prone than others.. . . The dangerous clashes of the future are likely to arise fromthe interaction of Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance, andSinic assertiveness.

LET’S DEBATE THE ISSUE

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The West . . . believe[s] that the non-Western peoplesshould commit themselves to the Western values of democ-racy, free markets, . . . individualism, [etc.] Minorities in othercivilizations embrace and promote these values, but the domi-nant attitudes toward them . . . range from widespread skepti-cism to intense opposition. What is univeralism to the West isimperialism to the rest. (Samuel Huntington. The Clash ofCivilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Simon andSchuster, 1996, pp. 183–4.)

Cultural misunderstandings will be devastating. TheWest and Islamism are strongly grounded in their convic-tions. The misperceptions imposed on the public of bothpeoples—specifically the Western mass media, worldwideWahhabi-sponsored madrassahs (Islamic schools) inMuslims communities, and the opportunistic political andreligious leaders of both sides—make this clash of the twocultures inevitable.

Given trends, a clash seems inevitable. On the one hand is anarrogance which sees Muslims as violence-prone, backward-looking, inefficient and irrational beings with rituals and cus-toms totally out of place with the modern times—[and] . . . pre-vents a close look at the root of the problems faced bycontemporary human beings. . . . [Moreover,] there is a grow-ing populace which sees the West as the architect of their un-happy existence; . . . there are individuals who are paranoid[of] the growing number of Muslims at home as well as in theMuslim heartlands; [and] a growing militancy which has givenup all hope of a peaceful process of reconciliation with theWest and has been pushed to take up arms. (Zafar Ishaq Ansariand John L. Esposito. Muslims and the West: Encounter andDialogue. Islamic Research Institute, 2001, pp. 269–70.)

West-Islamism clashes have already begun. The eventsof September 11 initiated new and recurring conflicts.Although terrorist organizations, such as al Qaeda, are notrepresentative of all Islamists or Muslims, the West’s waron terrorism has polarized the West and Muslim worlds.Both sides attempt to gather support for their causesthrough the demonization of the other. Events such as theIraqi prisoner abuse scandal (in which-Iraqi prisoners inAbu Ghraib prison were tortured, photographed nude, andforced to engage in degrading acts), offer further proof thata clash of civilizations is already occurring.

“They’re disgusting,” [said] Senator Dianne Feinstein. “If some-body wanted to plan a clash of civilizations, this is how they’ddo it. These pictures play into every stereotype of America thatArabs have: America as debauched. America as hypocrites.”

After 9/11, America had the support and sympathy of theworld. Now, awash in digital evidence of uncivilized behavior,America has careered into a war of civilizations. The pictureswere clearly meant to use the codebook of Muslim anxieties

about nudity and sexual and gender humiliation to break downthe prisoners. (Maureen Dowd. “Clash of Civilizations.” The NewYork Times, May 13. 2004, p. A25.)

Argument 2 West-Islamism Conflict Is

Not Inevitable

A clash between civilizations is not responsible forterrorist conflicts with the West. Ironically, the realculprit of Islamic terrorists versus the West is U.S. ColdWar strategies, not a clash between civilizations.

In the varied explanations for the 9/11 attacks and the rise interrorism. . . . one is that Islamic culture itself is to blame, lead-ing to a clash of civilizations . . .

. . . Mahmood Mamdani, a Uganda-born political scientistand cultural anthropologist at Columbia University . . . arguesthat terrorism does not necessarily have anything to do withIslamic culture: he also insists that the spread of terror as atactic is largely an outgrowth of American cold war foreignpolicy.

“In practice,” Mr. Mamdani has written. “it translated into aUnited States decision to harness, or even to cultivate, terror-ism in the struggle against regimes it considered pro-Soviet.”The real culprit of 9/11, in other words, is not Islam but rathernon-state violence in general, during the final stages of thestand-off with the Soviet Union

The best-known C.I.A.-trained terrorist, he notes dryly, isOsama bin Laden. (Hugh Eakin. “When U.S. Aided Insurgents, Did ItBreed Future Terrorists?” The New York Times, April 10, 2004, p. B7.)

The West and the Muslim world have common inter-ests. A dialogue between these two civilizations could suc-ceed because both share key common interests. For in-stance, the West wants democracies established in Muslimcountries to broker peace and stability. Contrary to Westernthought, Muslims also want to have legitimate democra-cies. Open dialogues would shed light on such mispercep-tions and provide a better understanding of differences andcommonalities.

Bush suggested early on in [America’s war on terrorism] that[September 11 was] the result of “people who hate our val-ues,” but this analysis was simplistic and self-serving. MostMuslims, . . . want a democratic order, respect for humanrights and the ability to get rid of hated regimes.

Most Muslims casually perceive that [the] war against ter-rorism . . . really is a war against Islam. Nearly all Muslimswould subscribe to the belief that Muslim power is a legitimateand worthwhile goal, but most do not believe that it has to beon a collision course with the West. But as long as Westernpower is seen to dominate the Muslim world, the logic of thisargument will strike sympathetic chords. . . .

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[Hence,] both sides fail to capture the full reality in front ofthem, and the [perception] gap must be bridged. . . . the gap ofperception is massive—for which there is a price to be paid.(Graham E. Fuller. The Future of Political Islam. PalgraveMacmillan, 2003, pp. 86, 151, 162.)

A dialogue between civilizations is possible and desir-able. A clash between Western and Islamic civilizationscan be avoided. An intercivilizational dialogue is the key topeace and stability. For the West, this means understandingthat most Islamists do not condone violence.

Although some [Islamists] advocate violent revolution, oth-ers do not. Islam and most Islamic movements are not nec-essarily anti-Western. . . . Although they challenge the out-dated assumptions of the established order and autocraticregimes, they do not necessarily threaten U.S. interests. Ourchallenge is to better understand the history and realities ofthe Muslim world and to recognize the diversity and the manyfaces of Islam. This approach lessens the risk of creatingself-fulfilling prophecies that augur the battle of the West

against a radical Islam or a clash of civilizations. (John L.Esposito. The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? 3rd ed. NY: Oxford,p. 289.)

Questions1. Is the clash between the West and Islamism

inevitable? Why or why not? What can bedone to prevent this clash from turning intoa new Cold War?

2. What are the major reasons for anti-Americanism in the Muslim world? Whatare the principal reasons for fear ofIslamism in the United States? How canthese two negative sentiments be reduced?

Selected ReadingsMir Zohair Husain. Global Islamic Politics, 2nd ed. NY:

Longman, 2003.Samuel P. Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the

Remaking of World Order. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

WEB LINK

The WestversusIslamism

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