International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

Comment on this article   For a very long time, the study of war limited itself to the study of the causes of war initiation. Political scientists paid very little attention to the actual conduct of war, less still to the consequences of war, and least of all to the causes and consequences of war termination. From a modern perspective, these lacunae strike us as puzzling, since the horrors of war are simply not explained by the mere initiation of conflict ( Gartner 1998 ). To understand the costs of war, we need to understand both the conduct of war and why wars keep going, and why they end. Take the example of World War I; while a great many books have been written about the July crisis of 1914, a thorough understanding of the events of the summer of 1914 does little to explain the millions of deaths and the collapse of three empires, nor why the war lasted for four grueling years. Surely, an understanding of war requires more than an explanation of the first shots and days of fighting. Moreover, as has recently become generally accepted ( Wagner 2000 ), the consequences of the potential conduct and termination of war could very well inform decisions whether to initiate a war in the first place. In other words, the anticipated ex post consequences of the potential outcomes of war should influence the decision makers’ ex ante calculus of war. It is especially this latter point ... log in or subscribe to read full text