War Essay -- essays research papers

The first issue to be considered is what is war and what is its definition. The student of war needs to be careful in examining definitions of war, for like any social phenomena, definitions are varied, and often the proposed definition masks a particular political or philosophical stance paraded by the author. This is as avowedly of dictionary definitions as well as of articles on military or political history. Cicero defines war broadly as "a contention by drive" Hugo Grotius adds that "war is the plead of contending parties, considered as such(prenominal)" Thomas Hobbes nones that war is also an attitude "By war is meant a state of affairs, which may exist level while its operations are not continued" Denis Diderot comments that war is "a convulsive and violent disease of the body politic" for Karl von Clausewitz, "war is the continuation of political science by other means", and so on. Each definition has its strengths and weaknesses , but often is the culmination of the writers broader philosophical positions. For example, the notion that wars only involve states-as Clausewitz implies-belies a hygienic political theory that assumes politics can only involve states and that war is in some worldner or form a reflection of political activity. War defined by Websters Dictionary is a state of open and declared, hostile armed conflict between states or nations, or a period of such conflict. This captures a particularly political-rationalistic account of war and warfare, i.e., that war needs to be explicitly declared and to be between states to be a war. We find Rousseau tilt this position "War is constituted by a relation between things, and not between personsWar then is a relation, not between man and man, but between State and State" (The Social Contract). The military historian, John Keegan offers a useful characterization of the political-rationalist theory of war in his A accounting of War. It is as sumed to be an orderly affair in which states are involved, in which there are declared beginnings and expected ends, easily identifiable combatants, and high levels of obedience by subordinates. The form of rational war is narrowly defined, as distinguished by the expectation of sieges, pitched battles, skirmishes, raids, reconnaissance, patrol and outpost duties, with each possessing their own conventions. As ... ...ine war not just as a conflict between states (i.e., the rationalist position), but also a conflict between non-state peoples, non-declared actions, and highly organized, politically controlled wars as well as culturally evolved, ritualistic wars and guerrilla uprisings, that appear to choose no centrally controlling body and may perhaps be described as emerging spontaneously. The political issue of defining war poses the first philosophical problem, but once that is acknowledged, a definition that captures the clash of arms, the state of mutual tension and threat o f violence between groups, the authorized declaration by a sovereign body, and so on can be drawn upon to distinguish wars from riots and rebellions, collective violence from personal violence, metaphorical clashes of values from actual or threatened clashes of arms. Back to Table of Contents2. What causes war?Various sub-disciplines have grappled with wars etiology, but each in turn, as with definitions of war, often reflects a tacit or explicit acceptance of broader philosophical issues on the nature of determinism and freedom. For example, if it is claimed that man is not free to choose his actions (strong