Aht023 International Relations | Understanding Assessment Answers

1. Clausewitz defined war as an extension of politics by other means, rather than a failure of politics. Explain what this definition contributes to our understanding of war.

2. Using examples, fully describe two explanations for the cause of war.

3. Based on the previously assigned articles by Colin Gray and Arthur Cebrowski, how is the nature of war changing?

4. There are a number of levels of analysis for understanding war: individual, nation-state, and systemic. Which level of analysis best describes the outbreak of World War I? Be sure to fully explain your response through the use of appropriate examples.

1.According to Carl Von Clausewitz, “War is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means” (Guzman, Barrionuevo & Guarda, 2018). By this statement Clausewitz describes war to be neither any kind of scientific games nor any form of international sport; instead it is an act of violence that is characterized by the destruction. There are several critics who argue that the concept of war should not be considered as just one of the other routine tolls for politicians but Carl Von Clausewitz would have agree with this argument in true and practical terms as because of the fact that he referred war as a very uncertain and risky instrument.

2.The two explanations for the cause of war are:

Statism- Statism is the primary political cause of war. It refers to any kind of social system that is based on the notion that the states have the right to force the individuals living in it to act against their judgement and regulations for the purpose of some “greater good”, whether the nation (fascism), the race (Nazism), the community (Communism) or “God”. One of the best example to mention is that if the World War II, which was caused by the National Socialist Germans who embraced a social system based on the notion that individuals of an alleged “master race” has the right to kill or to subjugate the individuals belonging from other race for the sake of “good” of the very master race and that the Nazi Germany had the right to conquer other countries for sustaining itself and expanding further.

Collectivism- Collectivism is another political cause of war (Lazar, 2017). It is based on the notion the people’s life is collectives or it belongs to some group and that therefore might force them to think and act accordingly with the dictates of the group. The best example to mention is that of the U.S Civil War which was caused by a group of men who insisted that they have the right to maintain the states which allow the enslavement of the another group of men.

3.The nature of War is changing as because of the advancements inn technologies, concepts of organisations and operations and the military doctrines (Fiott, 2017). These has changes the conduct and the character of the military operations. War us used to be one of the aspect of politics earlier and was also considered to be a means of gaining power. However, with the passage of time, man no longer fight for land. Instead he is fighting for reasons such as protecting themselves from the enemies and protecting the resources.

4.The individual level of analysis best describes the outbreak of World War 1. This analysis locates the cause of an event in the individual leaders within a specific country and focuses on human actors on the stage of world identifying the man characteristics of decision making of man (McCloskey et al., 2015). The cause behind the outbreak of the World War I is the particular leaders who were in power at those times. It might have been his greed for power or might have been his inability to comprehend the statecraft’s intricacies, or might have been his idea regarding monarchy as well as German destiny, the way how Otto Von Bismarck did. All these three possibilities are concluded from the individual level of analysis.

References:

Fiott, D. (2017). A Revolution Too Far? US Defence Innovation, Europe and NATO’s Military-Technological Gap. Journal of Strategic Studies, 40(3), 417-437.

Guzmán, C., Barrionuevo, Ó., & Guarda, T. (2018, April). The Validity and Influence of Clausewitz’s Trinity on the Development of Naval Power. In International Conference of Research Applied to Defense and Security (pp. 222-234). Springer, Cham.

Lazar, S. (2017). Just war theory: Revisionists versus traditionalists. Annual Review of Political Science, 20, 37-54.

McCloskey, E. V., Kanis, J. A., Odén, A., Harvey, N. C., Bauer, D., González-Macias, J., ... & Marin, F. (2015). Predictive ability of heel quantitative ultrasound for incident fractures: an individual-level meta-analysis. Osteoporosis International, 26(7), 1979-1987.