The Study of War: A Realistic Perspective

Philosophy and Culture 31 (4):5-23 (2004)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Wars continue to occur in human history of the phenomenon, the whole of human history is almost a turn of the existence of war and peace record. Occurrence of war always brings untold suffering for the affected people, and affects the post-war political and economic development, therefore, the study of war is necessary. This paper from a realistic point of view, to explore the causes of war and its prevention. Realism that is part of the anarchy of international politics, and countries are self-interested actors, in order to protect themselves and the conflict is the inevitable result. In anarchy, in order to prevent the occurrence of war, the balance of power between countries only with the means to curb the aggressive ambitions of other countries, the incidence of war is often the result of an imbalance of power. But the other tribes of realism, hegemonic stability theorists argue that the existence of hegemonic powers, rather than the balance of power, is the maintenance of international peace security. Or whether the balance of power theory of hegemonic stability theory, realism, power too much emphasis on the pursuit and use of power often leads to excessive expansion and lead to conflict or acts of aggression. Thus, with liberalism, and constructivist approach, in order to compensate for the shortcomings of realism, in order to prevent war. "War" is a recurrent event throughout history, and the human history is a record of alternations between war and peace. The occurrence of war always brings abysmal pains to its victims and makes impact on the post-war political and economic development; therefore, the study of war is necessary. In this paper, we try to look at the causes of war and its preventions from the realistic perspective. It is the belief of realism that inter-state politics is anarchic, as all the sates are actors driven by self-interest, for whom conflict is an inevitable means to self-protection. In anarchy, states can only resort to the balance of power to stop the invasive ambitions of other states in order to prevent the occurrence of war, which is usually the result of the imbalance of power. But another sect of realists, the theorists of hegemonic stability, argues that the assurance of inter-state peace relies on the existence of hegemonic states rather than the balance of power. No matter for the balance of power or the hegemonic stability, realism overly stresses the pursuit and manipulation of power, which usually leads to the undue extension and of power and results in conflicts and invasions. Therefore, to prevent war from happening, realism has to be employed along with liberalism and constructivism

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,846

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-02-07

Downloads
0

6 months
0

Historical graph of downloads

Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references