Rena Ju

International Relations
Outline-Chap. 5: International Conflict
1. Types of warfare
a. Hegemonic war: war over control of the entire world, the
structural power
b. Total war: one state waging a war against another
i. Evolved with industrialization, a total participation
of the society
c. Limited war: targeted for a specific gain of objective
short of the surrender or occupation of the enemy
i. Raids: may or may not evolve into a large scale
conflict
d. Civil war: war between factions within a state over the
control over the state
e. Guerilla war: warfare without front lines, involve
irregular forces
2. Causes of war
a. Individual level
i. Reflects rational choices and decision-making
processes
ii. Deviation of rationality
iii. Education or mentality of (the whole population
of) the individuals affects the decision-making
b. Domestic level
i. Domestic factors, such as the structure of society,
affect how the state looks as peace and war
c. Interstate level
i. Power transition theory proposed one cause of war
ii. Deterrence sometimes creates war, such as in
cases of arms races
d. Global level
i. Wars are linked to economic conditions
ii. Wars are linked to creation or decay of world
orders
3. Nationalism
a. Devotion to ones own nations interest
b. Nations (a group with similar identities) desire to obtain
sovereignty over their own affairs thus create states
c. Sometimes nationalism contributed to the disintegration
of large multinational states
d. Before or during WWI, nationalism was proved to be
stronger than socialism
4. Ethnic conflicts (ideas)
a. Conflicts resulted from the intangible factor of hatred
between ethnic groups (individuals sharing ancestral,
linguistic, religious ties)
b. Often in the form of rescuing ensuing discrimination

c. Sometimes involve large scale elimination of the entire

groups, called ethnic cleansing
d. Causes for ethnic hostility
i. Ethnocentrism: in-group-biases, tendency for a
member of an ethnic groups to see others in the
same groups in a more favorable term and see
members of the other groups in unfavorable terms
1) Dehumanization: Sometimes the outgroups are considered not as human, rather
as animals
2) No minimum criterion for a group
identity
e. Genocide
i. Systematic extermination of an ethnic group
ii. Sometimes does not stem from mere ethnic
hatred, but provoked by politicians who seek to
strengthen their own power
5. Religious conflicts (ideas)
a. Fundamentalists:
i. Extremely devoted, base the lives of the members
on principles of religious beliefs
ii. Challenge the secular political practices and
values
6. Ideology conflicts (ideas)
a. Ideology has a weaker hold on the core values and
absolute truth than religions do on the population
b. In the long run, actors who seek for ideologies tend to
lose their ideological fervor
c. Sometimes conflict over ideologies are pretexts for
conflicts over power gains
d. In the short term, revolutions motivated by the cause of
ideologies not necessarily change the ideology, rather,
shift the balance of power by changing alliances
7. Conflict over interest
a. Territorial disputes:
i. Two main types
1) Disputes over how borders are drawn
2) Conflict over control of the entire state
ii. Intractable: states tend not to forget about affairs
concerning territory
iii. Irredentism: gaining back lost territory
iv. Secession: efforts by a province or region to
secede from an existing state
1) Can easily draw in other states or other
actors and spill over state borders
2) New borders formed when states break
apart into small states can be vulnerable

3) International norms against forcefully

redrawing of borders do not apply to cases
of decolonization
v. Interstate borders
1) Has not occurred for 50 years
2) If concerning a small portion of land the
conflict can be resolved peacefully
3) Driving cause for many of the international
conflict today
vi. Territorial waters
1) Definition of territorial waters has not been
agreed upon
2) Because of exclusive economic zones,
small islands become very valuable
Ex. Mexican Drug War (land areas for drug
lords)
vii. Airspace
1) Airspace above the territory of state, flying
over it requires a permission from the state
2) Outer space is considered international
territory
b. Control of governments
i. In practice, states often intervene with the affairs
in other states despite the interests in national
sovereignty
ii. Sometimes states even invade another to change
its government
c. Economic conflict
i. All economic activities between states involve
conflict of interest
ii. Such conflict also contain an element of mutual
economic gain
iii. Seldom leads to violence now because the use of
force is perceived as not useful in such conflicts
iv. Some connect economic policies to violent conflict
because states used to be influenced by
mercantilism, accumulating wealth to build up
military
v. Lateral pressure connect economic competition
with security concerns, as states expand, violence
is likely to occur
vi. Military industry state that capacity to produce
high-technology military equipment affect
international security
vii. Distribution of wealth also drives conflicts
Marxism
viii. Drug trafficking

1) Viewed as a security threat because of its

ability to undermine a states morale and
efficiency
2) Generally involve both state and non-state
actors