POLS 102 International Relations

Week 9 – International conflict and

military forces

Assist. Prof. Idlir Lika

 Types of War
Wars are distinguished from lower-level episodes of violence (such
as violent strikes or riots) by the large casualty rate (a minimum
of a thousand battle deaths per year)
1. World/Systemic/Hegemonic War is a war over control of the
entire world order
Ex: The last hegemonic war was the Second World War (1939-
1945)
2. Total War is warfare by one state waged to conquer and
occupy another. The goal is to reach the capital city and force the
surrender of the government (Ex: This was Russia’s initial aim when
it invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022)
 Total war began with the massively destructive Napoleonic
Wars (1804-1815) which introduced large-scale conscription
and geared the entire French national economy toward the war
effort.
3. Limited War includes military actions carried out to gain some
objective short of the surrender and occupation of the enemy
 Ex: First Gulf War - the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1991 to
 Types of War
4. Civil War refers to war between factions within a state trying to
create, or prevent, a new government for the entire state or some
territorial part of it.
 Civil Wars may be secessionist (like the U.S. Civil War (1861-65);
Bangladesh’s secession from Pakistan in 1971; 1990s Bosnian
and Kosovo wars in former Yugoslavia)
 Civil Wars may also be non-secessionist (like the Syrian Civil War
or the Civil War in Libya after the overthrow of Qaddafi in 2011)
5. Guerrilla War is a type of warfare without front lines and with
irregular forces (rebels) operating in the midst of, and often hidden
or protected by, civilian populations; hit-and-run tactic
 Rebels in most civil wars use guerrilla warfare to
confront conventional state armies
 Guerrilla warfare needs a suitable geographical landscape where
rebels can hide (mountainous territory, forests, desert)
 U.S. in Vietnam in 1960s, Soviet Union in Afghanistan (1979 –
1991), U.S. in Afghanistan (2001 – 2021)
Figure 5.1: Wars in Progress, May 2018
 Theories of the causes of wars

1. Individual level of analysis

 Focuses on the rationality of leaders’ decision-making
process
 a. War is the rational decision of national leaders
 Ex: States achieve more by going to war than by
remaining at peace
 b. Wars occur because of deviations from rationality in the
individual decision-making processes of national leaders
 Leaders of military background are generally more war-
prone than other leaders
2. Domestic level of analysis
 Focus on characteristics of states or societies that may
make them prone to use violence in resolving conflicts
 Marxists said aggressive and greedy capitalist states were
prone to using violence; while Western leaders claimed that
the expansionist, ideological, and totalitarian nature of
communist states made them especially prone to using
violence
 Rich industrialized states and poor agrarian ones use war
 According to anthropologists, preagricultural hunter-gatherer
societies were more prone to using violence than today’s
societies
 Both democracies and authoritarian states fight wars
 Few useful generalizations can tell us which societies are more
prone or less prone to war
 Theories of the causes of wars
3. Systemic level of analysis
 Explains wars in terms of power relations among great
powers in the international system
 bipolar & unipolar international systems are more
peace-prone (Ex: Cold War period and post-Cold War
period from 1991 up to 2016
 the (unbalanced) multipolar system is the most
war-prone; when power is relatively equally distributed
and a rising power is threatening to overtake a declining
hegemon in the international system (ex: like Germany
tried to do before the First World War)
 If great powers possess nuclear weapons, the
international system is more stable and peace-prone
because nuclear weapons have a deterrent effect
WHY WAR? Political scientists do not agree on a theory of why great wars like World War II
occur and cannot predict whether they could happen again. The city of Stalingrad (Volgograd)
was decimated during Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, 1943.
 Types of international conflicts
Conflicts of ideas

1. Ethno-nationalist conflict
 Conflict aiming to make state and ethnic boundaries congruent
 rulers and the ruled should be of same nation / ethnic group
 Ethnic groups aspire to have a nation-state of their own (ex: war in
Bosnia (1992 – 95) & the war in Kosovo (1999)

2. Religious & ideological conflicts

 Ethno-nationalist conflicts may also acquire a religious dimension if
the fighting ethnic groups are of different religions (ex: Orthodox
Serbs versus Muslim Albanians & Muslim Bosniaks)
 Ex: the clashes between Muslims and Hindus in Kashmir
 Samuel Huntington in his «Clash of Civilizations» claimed that
the principal fault-line in the world in the post-Cold War era would
be the clash between different world religions / civilizations
 Types of international conflicts
Conflicts of interests
3. Territorial disputes
 Ex: irredentism - the goal of regaining territory lost to another
state
 Ex: secession - efforts by a province or region to secede from
an existing state and form a state of its own
 Ex: Kosovo; Armenia-Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh; Crimea
 Territorial conflicts are closely linked with ethnic & religious
conflicts (Ex: Israeli – Palestinian conflict)
 Conflicts over territorial waters; Turkey’s dispute with Greece
in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean (Mavi Vatan)

4. Control of governments
 conflict over which government will control the state
 Ex: Proxy wars during the Cold War (Vietnam; Afghanistan)
Control of Governments
 Most struggles to control territory are conflicts over which
governments will control entire states
 States have interests in governments of other states
 Some conflicts are mild and some severe
 Some deeply entwined with third parties
 Some more or less bilateral
 State may exert subtle influences on another’s elections
 State may support rebels to overthrow another’s government
 State may invade another in order to change its government
 International conflicts over the control of governments—along with
territorial disputes—are likely to lead to the use of violence
 Just as there are many possible outcomes of conflict, many types
of war, and varied propensities for violence among different
states, so too is there great diversity in how force is used if
conflict leads to violence.
 States develop a wide array of military forces, which vary
tremendously in their purposes and capabilities.
Figure 6.1: Military and Nonmilitary Means of
Leverage

Conventional armed force is the most commonly used military form of leverage.
 Military means of leverage
 Most states still devote vast resources to military capabilities
compared to other means of influence
 U.S. has about 20,000 diplomatic personnel
 BUT U.S. has about 1.4 million active-duty soldiers
 The U.S. spends about $50 billion a year on foreign aid but about
$600 billion on military forces and war
 The sheer fact that most states devote most of their resources
to military capabilities strongly supports the realist assumptions
in IR
 Because of the anarchy of the international system, states
believe they must devote large resources to military capabilities
for survival and security
 States’ purposes for developing military capabilities: defend
one’s territory; deter attack from other states; compel; repress
domestic dissent (authoritarian regimes)
 Great powers continue to dominate the makeup of world
military forces
Table 6.1: Estimated Great Power Military Capabilities, 2017

Heavy
Blank Blank
Blank Blank Blank Blank Blank
Weaponsb

Military Active Tanks Carriers/ Combat Nuclear Arms

Expenditur Duty Warships/ Airplanes Weapons Exported
es Soldiers Submarine / (Billions
Blank (Billions (Millions) s Heavy of US $)
of US $) Drones

United States 610 1.3 2,800 10 / 93 / 14 3,500 / 6,600 10

640

Russia 70 1.0 2,950 1 / 32 / 13 1,050 / 0 6,800 6

China 215 2.2 6,700 1 / 78 / 4 1,900 / 4 270 2

France 55 0.2 200 1 / 23 / 4 275 / 7 300 2

Britain 50 0.2 225 0 / 19 / 4 200 / 10 215 2

Germany 40 0.2 400 0 / 15 / 0 120 / 0 0 3

Japan 50 0.2 700 0 / 47 / 0 400 / 0 0 0

Approximate 65% 30% 70% 93 / 70 / 40 / 90% 97% 90%

% of world 50%
total
 1. Conventional armed forces
 1.a. Land forces: controlling territory
 The most fundamental purpose of conventional forces is to take,
hold, or defend territory
 A state’s conventional land forces is its army; Foot soldiers are
called the infantry. They use assault rifles and other light
weapons (such as mines and machine guns) as well as heavy
artillery of various types.
 Land forces / armies are most suitable for fighting in open
conventional warfare, such as in the Kuwaiti desert
 In jungles, mountains, or urban areas, however - as in
Afghan mountains and Iraqi cities – conventional land forces are
NOT very suitable for fighting; in jungles, mountains, and urban
areas, guerrillas may ultimately prevail over an expensive
conventional army
 Conventional land forces are not very suitable for guerrilla
warfare & counterinsurgency operations
 Counterinsurgency
 counterinsurgency – a state / central government’s operations to fight
guerrilla / insurgent armed groups
 Counterinsurgency warfare often includes programs to try to “win the
hearts and minds” of civilian populations so that they stop sheltering
the guerrillas, and stop providing food and intelligence to the guerrillas
 Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong described as follows the
guerrilla warfare: «The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a
fish swims in the sea»
 While battling guerrillas, a government must essentially conduct a public
relations campaign to persuade the civilian population to abandon the
movement while providing public services (such as education and welfare
programs) to show a government’s responsiveness to the population
 U.S. military forces conducted counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and
Afghanistan for years. The campaigns included the use of lethal
military force, payments to key tribal leaders to support
American efforts, assisting the formation of local government
 Counterinsurgency campaigns are costly and labor-intensive. For
example, the U.S. Army’s counterinsurgency manual suggests deploying
20 troops for every 1,000 citizens to be protected from guerrillas
 1.b. Naval forces: controlling the seas
 Navies are adapted primarily to control passage through the seas
and to attack land near coastlines
 Controlling the seas in wartime allows states to move their
own goods and military forces by sea while preventing
enemies from doing so
 Ex: Britain & France attacking Ottoman Empire at Çanakkale in
1915 to control the Straits (Boğaz); Britain blockading France from
the sea during the Napoleonic Wars (1804 – 1815) and blockading
Germany from the sea during both World Wars
 Aircraft carriers are instruments of power projection that can
attack almost any state in the world
 Merely sending an aircraft carrier sailing to the vicinity of an
international conflict implies a threat to use force
 Ex: France sending its aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean in
2020 during the peak of Greek – Turkish tensions
 Aircraft carriers are extremely expensive; only 10 countries in the
world have aircraft carriers: United States, China, France, Russia, UK,
India, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Thailand.
USS Gerald R. Ford – World’s largest
aircraft carrier
 1.c. Air forces: controlling the skies
 Air forces serve several purposes—strategic bombing of land or sea
targets; “close air support” (battlefield bombing); interception of
other aircraft; reconnaissance; and airlift of supplies, weapons, and
troops.
 Air superiority is the key to success of ground operations,
especially in open terrain
 Ex: Russian air support was the main factor that saved the Assad
regime in the Syrian civil war until 2024
 Air superiority reduces casualties / eliminate boots on the ground,
thus a war only from the air is very suitable for many political
leaders
 Ex: the U.S. Bombings of Iraq (1991 and 2003) and Afghanistan
(2001)
 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) drone revolution
 Turkey’s «Spring Shield» (Bahar Kalkanı) Operation in Idlib
(February-March 2020)
 Is high military spending good for the economy?

 Allocating economic resources for military purposes deprives the rest of the
economy and reduces its long-term growth.
 War not only stimulates high military spending, but it also destroys capital
(people, cities, farms, and factories in battle areas) and causes inflation
(reducing the supply of various goods while increasing demand for them).
 Governments must pay for war goods by borrowing money (increasing
government debt), by printing more currency (fueling inflation), or by raising
taxes (reducing spending and investment).
 For instance, world military spending is 2.2 percent of the total goods and
services in the world economy—about $1.7 trillion every year.
 Most is spent by a few big states, about 40 percent by the United States
alone.
 World military spending is a vast flow of money that could, if redirected to
other purposes, change the world profoundly and improve major world
problems.
 The traditional argument of the “guns vs. butter” debate—which has
been ongoing since the 1960s—is that a dollar spent on defense is a dollar
not available for domestic social welfare programs such as education and
poverty abatement.
 Terrorism
 Terrorism refers to political violence that targets civilians deliberately
and indiscriminately
 The purpose of terrorism is to demoralize a civilian population in order to
use its discontent as leverage on national governments or other parties to a
conflict
 Terrorism is a calculated use of violence by nonstate actors to create
leverage against state actors
 Ex: The Irish Republican Army (IRA) planted bombs in London in the
1960s and 1970s, it hoped to make life miserable enough for Londoners that
they would insist their government settle the Northern Ireland issue
 The primary effect of terrorism is psychological; Although only a few dozen
people may be injured by a bomb left in a market, millions of people realize
“It could have been me” because they, too, shop in markets
 Terrorism is a tool of the weak; it almost always reflects weakness in the
power position of the attacker and its lack of access to other means of
leverage
 States often use terrorist organizations to achieve their political aims
against other states
 Ex: As of 2018, the United States has accused four states of supporting
international terrorism - Iran, Syria, Sudan and North Korea
Figure 6.4: Location of Suicide Attacks, 1974–2016

SOURCE: Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST). 2016. Suicide

Attack Database (October 12, 2016 Release). [Data File]. Retrieved from
http://cpostdata.uchicago.edu/.
 Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)
 Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) comprise three general
types: nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons
 WMDs are all distinguished from conventional weapons by their
enormous potential lethality and their relative lack of
discrimination in whom they kill
 Weapons of mass destruction serve different purposes from
conventional weapons (whose main aim is to kill); WMDs main
purpose is to deter attack by giving state leaders the means to
inflict great pain against a would-be conqueror or destroyer.
 The primary reason for possessing nuclear weapons is almost
always to deter another state from a nuclear or conventional
attack by threatening ruinous retaliation.
 9 states in the world possess nuclear weapons (UNSC 5 + India,
Pakistan, Israel & North Korea)
 August 1945 – First and only time an atomic bomb was used in
actual warfare; the uranium & plutonium bomb launched by the
U.S. destroyed Hiroshima & Nagasaki in Japan (100,000 killed in
each)
 In 1999, a U.S. congressman displays a mock-up of the Soviet-built
nuclear “suitcase bomb” that, in the wrong hands, could kill hundreds