Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 ON THE STUDY OF WAR
- 2 MÜNSTER AND OSNABRÜCK, 1648: PEACE BY PIECES
- 3 WAR AND PEACE IN THE ERA OF THE HEROIC WARRIORS, 1648–1713
- 4 ACT TWO OF THE HEGEMONY DRAMA: THE UTRECHT SETTLEMENTS
- 5 THE LETHAL MINUET: WAR AND PEACE AMONG THE PRINCES OF CHRISTENDOM, 1715–1814
- 6 PEACE THROUGH EQUILIBRIUM: THE SETTLEMENTS OF 1814–1815
- 7 CONFLICT AND CONSENT, 1815–1914
- 8 1919: PEACE THROUGH DEMOCRACY AND COVENANT
- 9 WAR AS THE AFTERMATH OF PEACE: INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT, 1918–1941
- 10 PEACE BY POLICING
- 11 THE DIVERSIFICATION OF WARFARE: ISSUES AND ATTITUDES IN THE CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
- 12 WAR: ISSUES, ATTITUDES, AND EXPLANATIONS
- 13 THE PEACEMAKERS: ISSUES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER
- References
- Additional data sources
- Index
12 - WAR: ISSUES, ATTITUDES, AND EXPLANATIONS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 ON THE STUDY OF WAR
- 2 MÜNSTER AND OSNABRÜCK, 1648: PEACE BY PIECES
- 3 WAR AND PEACE IN THE ERA OF THE HEROIC WARRIORS, 1648–1713
- 4 ACT TWO OF THE HEGEMONY DRAMA: THE UTRECHT SETTLEMENTS
- 5 THE LETHAL MINUET: WAR AND PEACE AMONG THE PRINCES OF CHRISTENDOM, 1715–1814
- 6 PEACE THROUGH EQUILIBRIUM: THE SETTLEMENTS OF 1814–1815
- 7 CONFLICT AND CONSENT, 1815–1914
- 8 1919: PEACE THROUGH DEMOCRACY AND COVENANT
- 9 WAR AS THE AFTERMATH OF PEACE: INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT, 1918–1941
- 10 PEACE BY POLICING
- 11 THE DIVERSIFICATION OF WARFARE: ISSUES AND ATTITUDES IN THE CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
- 12 WAR: ISSUES, ATTITUDES, AND EXPLANATIONS
- 13 THE PEACEMAKERS: ISSUES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER
- References
- Additional data sources
- Index
Summary
You have no idea how much it contributes to the general politeness and pleasantness of diplomacy when you have a little quiet force in the background.
George Kennan, 1946A profile of issues that have generated international conflict chronicles the values, stakes, and purposes for which people have been willing to use force in the states system. Those who made war decisions implicitly or explicitly calculated that the potential costs of men, matériel, property, and the possibility of humiliating defeats and terms of surrender did not outweigh the values and purposes that they sought or that were being challenged or threatened by opponents. A map of the issues that rose, declined, or persisted in the years that separate the Treaties of Westphalia from today also tells us something about the sociology of international relations. Many of the issues reflect critical processes of political, economic, and ideological transformation going on within states and societies. This mapping exercise will remain primarily descriptive, but there are some tantalizing opportunities for causal analyses that would seek to account for the rise and decline of various kinds of issues over time. Finally, the profiles offer some explanations for the successes and failures of the great historical peacemaking efforts. Those efforts have had mixed success. All sought to create some sort of international order and to settle authoritatively those issues that had generated the preceding war or wars.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Peace and WarArmed Conflicts and International Order, 1648–1989, pp. 306 - 334Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991
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