Erstellt am: 29.06.2007 Autor: Daniel Pahl Status: Senior
Restraint in interstate-violence
The number of interstate war has ever decreased since 1946 until today. International armed conflicts have also become less deadly.1 Why is this case? This short essay tries to scratch on a few reasons that could explain this trend.
The interstate use of violence i.e. armed conflicts or war between the regular armed forces of states is formally regulated by international law. The “going to war” by the jus ad bellum (right to war) and the conduct of war by the jus in bello (right in war). Both concept have a long tradition in international relations but were always in flux and regularly filled with new ideas and legal norms.
The jus ad bellum is today dominated by the ban of force in interstate relations. The older just war doctrine was replaced by the ban of force, first in the Covenant of Nations and is today codified in the Charta of the United Nation. Therefore, formally the interstate use of violence is more restrained. However, practically that is not the case. Wars are still fought, measures short of war, and the threat of force are means of international politics. The jus ad bellum is today as it was always used as legitimization for the use of force. Today, legitimacy is of course more difficult to achieve because only self-defense is left as reason to legally go to war.
The interstate use of violence is likely more restrained today due to the fact that the balance of power is so uneven between the United States of America on the one hand and the rest of the world on the other hand. Every state’s government that thinks about the use of force in its relations with its neighbor has to take US interests an reactions into account. If they would be seen as important enough and imperiled by such actions, the US is likely to intervene. A US intervention would most likely prevent the aggressive state from reaching its objectives. If American interests are not endangered interstate war is in principle as likely as ever.
This is also the case despite the United Nations efforts to reduce the propensity for interstate war by its means. These include a wide variety, ranging from sanctions against individuals to economic sanctions and from UN observer missions and UN peace-keeping missions to UN peace-enforcement. But one should not fool oneself about the effectiveness of the UN in this regard, since it is – as any international organization – only as powerful and effective as its most prominent members are positively interested in the issues at hand.
If there is less interstate war it is also the case because the wealthy and powerful nations of the globe do not tend to use war regularly as a political instrument as they used to in their history. However, noteworthy is that the countries which waged the most wars in the past are the three oldest democracies: Great Britain, France and the United States of America. But the economic and social costs modern war entails are even for the most advanced economies very high while the profits are most of the times low and difficult to secure. If this is already the case for advanced nations than it is even more so for less developed nations. These weak states, therefore, usually lack the military power to wage a successful war even against an opponent who is as weak as them. Of course is the pay-off structure of interstate war perceived as unfavorable due to the lack of nationalistic ideologies and leaders in most countries. Where these two things come together or cause one another the propensity for interstate war should be higher.
The use of force in interstate relations is more restrained today, i.e. war occurs less often because the inclination towards it has decreased on all three levels of analysis. On a personal level there are fewer leaders who remorseless resort to war or even want to conquer their neighbors and aggrandize their nations. Economic and domestic political considerations on the state level let war seem as an unattractive option to pursue national interest. Finally, the international system – dominated by the US as final arbiter – makes interstate war less likely.
As far as the conduct of war is concerned, the use of violence is also more restrained than in the past. Within various treaties regulating the jus in belloweapons, particular uses of weapons, and tactics have been declared illegal. However, it is arguably not the deep compliance with international law that led to a restrained employment of the arsenals, but the change in the nature of the wars actually fought, technological progress, and the notion of cui bono.
The wars after the 2nd World War were limited regional conflicts with limited strategic objectives. They were not hegemonic wars with the aim to change the international system. If that is not the case and the struggle does not reach a certain threshold – becoming a total war, there is no strategic reason for a conduct that is as violent and overarching as in the 2nd World War. A culmination of events, leading to the use of nuclear weapons is in such a limited conflict is just less likely. Furthermore, after the 2nd World War no highly developed rich countries fought against each other. The tactics one has to employ to overcome an equally developed opponent are different than for overcoming a less technological and economically developed opponent. For instance the bomber raids on Hanoi had less impact as the bombing campaign against Germany and Japan in reducing the output of the economy and thereby reducing the effectiveness of the adversary’s military forces. Hanoi’s forces were just not as dependent on weapons manufactures in large integrated industrial complexes as the Wehrmacht was on the output of the Ruhrgebiet.
Technological progress of the world’s most advanced militaries made it possible to aim more precisely than ever at enemy forces and positions. This reduces collateral damage, often effectively separating combatants and civilians. Precision Guided Munitions and modern technology enabled the advanced militaries to go after the enemy forces more directly again; following again Clausewitz’ dictum to concentrate on the destruction of the enemy forces to impose ones will on the enemy.
Technology is also important in the question of cui bono. A technologically advanced nation can be more expected to accede to international treaties regulating certain weapons or tactics, their development, procurement and use. An advanced nation can either circumvent such a norm technologically or does not have to rely on it at all. For the less advanced opponent it is much more difficult to employ technology to avoid an impact on its capabilities by such an international provision, thus he is more limited by it than the advanced actor.
As seen ad bellum et in bello the interstate use of force is more restrained today than in the past for a variety of reasons. However, these are not non-reversible. If the mentioned factors seize to exist or loose their leverage, one can expect an increase in the interstate use of violence again. And for intrastate use of force the story is a completely different one.
1 See for example The Human Security Report 2005 of the Human Security Report Project at www.humansecuritycentre.org or the SIPRI Yearbook 2007.
