Preventing Military Conflicts - Case Study Example

I. Causes of War Four of the most evident primary causes of wars as humanity have witnessed them to have emerged in history are ‘religious, dynastic, political and economic’ (World Conference for International Peace Through Religion 1932, 1). It is apparent that these four causes could be, and frequently have been, mixed. As the origin of a particular war there could be a network of religious, dynastic, political and economic activities. The pertinent significance of these causes, as well as the magnitudes within which they merge to create a dangerous fusion, vary significantly at various stages of the history of the world and various parts of the globe. For societies of a Western civilization, clashes in religion, for several centuries the primary cause of destructive wars, have stopped to be a peril which we have to take into account. In societies of the Orient there remain circumstances in which religious conflicts could intimidate peace (World Conference for International Peace Through Religion 1932). In general, it could reasonably be assumed that, at this historical period, the usual function of the religious forces is to facilitate peace cause, not to endanger it. Dynastic causes, on the other hand, could be momentarily discounted. However, the political causes apparently cannot be equally discarded. The outbursts that occur from suspected insults to national pride and integrity, the accusations of Irredentist minorities, national movements are situated under this category (Suganami 1996). It is probably accurate that at this time causes of this type demonstrate the most evident, direct, and urgent peril to diplomatic relations. The economic and the political intentions are interlocked beyond the possibility of separating. In current situations in Europe a society is improbable to instigate or threaten war to obtain an economic outcome, but a continuing presence of economic unrest could agitate a wide-ranging national resistance to the point of potential danger. It is quite simple, but incredibly foolish, to ignore the more entrenched and continuing grounds for the one which, particularly when there is imminent danger, is the more evident (Spanier 1987). Political forces are probably more central than economic factors. In the threats to a breaking of the peace, hence, political forces are at this point most important, and are possible to be so for several years to come. Prospective peace relies not merely upon the nature of the preventive mechanisms, but as well as upon whether the common existence of humanity is, or is not, in itself as to generate profound and strongly felt discrepancies of policy and motive (Robbins 1939). Given that the preventive mechanism, facilitated by war recollections and war lethargy, can put a stop to the current political grievances from generating another war for a significant length of time, the particularly political factors which create for threats and danger should be likely to weaken. On any realistically extended perspective of the future, the preventive mechanism against conflict or war is expected to avert absolutely political causes from resulting into war unless they are strengthened by conflicts in economic policy and interest. The distinctive form of the current and plausible economic clashes is not to be located in efforts to get hold of new territory. Instead, it is to be located in the government use of power to sidetrack the trade route between one country and another (Dickinson 1928). The main divisions of cases within which national governments arbitrate or could intervene in economic contest, and hence generate the threats to international relations are (World Conference for International Peace Through Religion 1932): (1) Commercial Policy; (2) Population Problems; (3) Credit, Currency and Capital Problems; (4) Transportation Problems; (5) Raw Material Problems; (6) Diplomacy in Relation to Competition; (7) Internal Social Trouble and its Political Reactions (ibid, xvi). Nation-states do not usually consider themselves as possessing a natural privilege to enter freely other’s markets. Nevertheless, it is quite a different case if they are dispossessed, specifically all of a sudden, of a right formerly benefitted from for a long time; if big and major industries which have matured in response to a requirement in trade facilitated by free entry or reduced tariffs are all of a sudden displaced or devastated by new duties (Goemans 2000). On the contrary with tariffs, dumping that is supported by the State generates conflict altogether disproportionately to its economic impacts. It is the fusion of State intervention and dumping that is crucial (Goemans 2000). If outbursts are to be thwarted, the peoples of the globe should work confidently and collaboratively at locating a channel for the unstable forces, and not only in a self-protective manner at national policies intended to reroute the outburst elsewhere. The most threatening type of loan is that which is considered initially as an absolutely private business, discussed and settled by private individuals with the government that is borrowing, without consideration to political concerns, but which later on, when failure to pay transpire, shows to entail such interests as to lead into governmental response (Wright et al. 1962). When the unprocessed materials are available and accessible on fair terms to all countries, the jurisdiction in the territory wherein they are produced is evidently of significantly less relevance to international relations that when it were utilized to grant a competitive leverage to the business of a specific country. Threats originating from this force are not crucial currently, since more materials, of nearly all kinds, are being generated than the demands of the industry; and for the reason that, mainly for this motive, contest in their sale facilitate fair and easy circumstances for every importing country (Wright et al. 1962). It is relevant that this is a specifically favorable stage within which to attempt to ascertain agreement as to the standards which must enduringly administer the supply of unprocessed materials to other countries compared to those which require them; for the reason that it is much simpler to avoid than to end aggressive and favored practices. A slightly acknowledged, but critical, source of conflict in international relations emerges from the manipulation of the diplomatic mechanism to support States in economic contests (Ehrenreich 2003). Therefore, what is most desired is successful international agreement as to the standards which must direct national governments in the action they decide to take influencing the economic motives of other countries, and thus international relations. It is possible that no global war was ever caused by a single force. Great wars are instead the outcome of a combination of causes, the most evident of which are not consistently the most primary. The deep-seated war causes are normally to be located in the sluggish development of trends and policies which could start to evolve for years, or even centuries, before the real outburst transpire. II. Preventing Military Conflicts The growing awareness of the terrible repercussions of modern military technology has roused extensive deliberation and discussion regarding how to mitigate to a minimum the threats intrinsic in modern weapons. In current deliberations, several academics emphasize the unilateral and some the bilateral strategies; a few places emphasis on arms control, whereas some accentuates disarmament as an end in itself (Friedlander 1979). Unilateral strategy is “action that can be taken by either side, with or without the agreement or cooperation of the other side” (Wright et al. 1962, 15). Hence, the probability of conflict or war would weaken if either party were to implement adequate control or regulation over its military forces in order to reduce the likelihoods that destructive weapons, such as nuclear ones, would be utilized as a consequence of mishap, lunacy, tomfoolery, or dispute. Likewise, the possibilities of a nuclear disaster would decrease if either party were capable in making its military forces somewhat impenetrable in order that the other party would not be motivated to instigate a bombshell attack. Impenetrability would also reduce the necessity for rushed decisions to make use of one’s military technology before they were obliterated by the other party. Attempts to attain enhanced control over one’s military forces and to boost their impenetrability are frequently referred to as ‘stabilizing the deterrent’ (Spanier 1987, 222). The concept of ‘deterrent’ is made use by several authors as shorthand to convey the debatable idea that war can be prevented by making a probable attacker fearful of the likelihood of a destructive nuclear retribution (Wright et al. 1962). Most experts are uncertain that the nuclear deterrents can be soothed by exclusive unilateral strategies. Agreements with the other party seem to be indispensable to terminate the arms race and to thwart unforeseen technological progress from unsteadying the ‘stable deterrent’ (Wright et al. 1962, 16). For the past decades, the West and East have endeavored fruitlessly to settle agreements on arms control and disarmament (ibid). The term ‘arms control’ is occasionally employed mostly to refer to any form of agreement to restrict or get rid of the threats inbuilt in the control of military technology, such as weaponry. In this treatment, disarmament could be considered as one of the several possible forms of arms-control agreements. A more limited treatment differentiates between the concepts of ‘arms control’ and ‘disarmament’ (Spanier 1987, 223). In this particular usage, ‘arms control’, which several authorities perceive as a step on the direction to full disarmament and others perceive as a decisive end, implies those agreements which would let each party to sustain an adequate amount of impenetrable nuclear technologies to discourage the other part from taking advantage. A number of scholars perceive arms control, in this latter argument, as a decisive end since they believe that the pull to deceive and build up nuclear weapons behind closed doors in a disarmed world would be extremely grand. Others perceive arms control as a prelude to full disarmament for the reason that, understanding that disarmament cannot be immediate, they think that there should be vigilantly definite agreements on arms control during the disarmament process (Wright et al. 1962). III. Conclusions Long before peoples of the world will have been exterminated by natural causes numerous countries will have a lot more weapons of mass destruction such as thermonuclear explosives; and chemical, biological, and most probably still other machineries for the mass annihilation of humanity will come within the power of insignificant dictators and even of activists, entrepreneurs, criminals, and commonplace lunatics. The dilemma is to structure our activities that our kind can endure its technology. This could entail attempts not merely to avert war, but as well as to lessen the weapon stores available to governments at present, and the more self-effacing but most probably still more threatening inventions of scientific endeavor accessible to peoples of the future. It has come to look like to several experts who have struggled with this dilemma that there is a decisive hindrance to its solution. As weapons stores and as new types of weapons become increasingly effortless to produce, there has seemed to be no sufficient means of identifying who could have concealed them, and who could be manufacturing them, and from where an emerging threat could terrorize. For instance, if international agreement may be achieved to lessen or remove national nuclear supplies there has appeared to be unsatisfactory way of monitoring whether all national governments or all individuals are complying with its prohibition. There is no scientific equipment available or obviously even plausible that can check or detect concealed nuclear weapons, deadly chemicals, biological agents or even huge rockets. Science seems to have forced humanity into a problem from which science provides no solution. The challenge of eliminating the causes of war is, to a great extent, the dilemma of discovering ways of recruiting men’s ardors not merely against war but in the service of an emerging ideology of dynamic human society from which war “as an instrument of national policy” (Friedlander 1979, 33) should have been outlawed as imprudent, savage and worthless. Seeing that war as a means of national policy has been rejected and, by rejection, detested; seeing that weaponries cannot legitimately be used unless in self-preservation or in collaborative action against a criminal, their legitimate task is not other than a law enforcement task, individually or cooperatively fulfilled, in the service of a worldwide commandment which the illegality of war has transformed. The claim of global peace is that the commandment must be, and must be recognized to be, firm and stoutly advocated by public sentiment. Once this claim has been realized, the political causes of war will wane, and the course of humanity will sprint towards the greatest and most difficult duty mankind have ever deliberated, the formation and preservation of peace. References Dickinson, G. Lowes. Causes of International War. London: The Swarthmore Press Ltd., 1928. Ehrenreich, Barbara. "The Roots of War." The Progressive (2003): 14+. Fallows, James. "Councils of War: Matching Confusing New Realities to Historical Experience." The Atlantic Monthly (2001): 42-5. Friendlander, Robert. Terrorism: documents of international and local control . Oceana Publications, 1979. Goemans, H.E. War and Punishment: The Causes of War Termination and the First World War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Mcelwee, Timothy. "Instead of War: The Urgency and Promise of a Global Peace System." Cross Currents (2003): 148+. Mills, C. Wright. The Causes of World War Three. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1958. Peachey, Urbane. 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