Conflict War

Chapter Summary

* Wars vary greatly in size and character, from guerrilla wars and raids to hegemonic war for leadership of the international system. Currently 13 wars are in progress, mostly small to intermediate size, all pitting a regular state army against local rebels or militias.

* Many theories have been offered as general explanations of the causes of war, but political scientists cannot reliably predict the outbreak of war.

* Ethnic conflicts, especially when linked with territorial disputes, are very difficult to resolve because of psychological biases.

* Fundamentalist religious movements pose a broad challenge to the rules of the international system in general and state sovereignty in particular.

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

* Military spending tends to stimulate economic growth in the short term but reduce growth over the long term. In the 1990s, military forces and expenditures of the great powers—especially Russia—were reduced and restructured. Since then U.S. defense spending has risen back to Cold War–era levels.

* Control of territory is fundamental to state sovereignty and is accomplished primarily with ground forces.

* Air war, using precision-guided bombs against battlefield targets, proved extremely effective in the U.S. campaigns in Iraq in 1991, Serbia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003.

* A “revolution in military affairs” uses new information technologies to enhance the power of small units.

* The 2001 attacks differed from earlier terrorism both in their scale of destruction and in the long reach of the global al Qaeda terrorist network.

* The production of nuclear weapons is technically within the means of many states and some nonstate actors, but the necessary...