Chap 6

• By belonging to the same alliances, democratic states are more effective at practicing balance- of- power politics, decreasing the probability of war
• Democracy on War/conflict

  One study has con f irmed the hypothesis that democracies do not go to war against each other: since 1789, no wars have been fought strictly between independent states with democratically elected governments. Another study has found that wars involving democracies have tended to be less bloody but more protracted, although between 1816 and 1965 democratic governments were not noticeably more peaceable or passive.
• DoW

  the data for war would be dif ferent if wars with fewer than 1,000 deaths were included, as they are in some studies. And other studies of the democratic peace examine different time periods. Such differences in research protocols might well lead to different research findings. Yet even with these qualifications, the basic finding from the research is that democracies do not engage in militarized disputes against each other. That finding is statistically significant— that is, it does not occur by random chance.
• globalization


  the growing integration of the world in terms of politics, economics, and culture.
• globalization on IR


  This integration process crosses state borders, challenging traditional ideas of state sovereignty. In political terms, states are confronted by transnational issues such as environmental degradation, diseases, and migration that governments cannot manage alone. Increasingly, cooperative actions to address these issues require states to compromise their sovereignty.
• An outgrowth of globalization has been both increasing democratization and the emerging power of transnational movements
• Transnational movements

  particularly religious and ideological movements, have become political forces in their own right.
• transnational religious and ideological movement 


  What has changed is that increasing democratization has emerged as a by- product of globalization, providing an opening for members of the same reli gion to organize transnationally and therefore increase their political influence. Now that groups can communicate with their adherents and compete for political power both within states and transnationally, some of them, Anti-secular and anti-modern, pose stark challenges to state and international authorities.
• political scientist Samuel Huntington


  predicted that the next great international conflict would be a “clash of civilizations” arising from underlying differences between Western liberal democracy and Islamic funda mentalism.
• Extremist Islamic fundamentalism


  poses such a dual threat, they are united in their belief that political and social authority should be based in the Koran. This movement presents a critique of many secular states and a solution that calls for radical state transformation. Islamic extremists see a long- standing discrepancy between the political and economic aspirations of states and the actual conditions of uneven economic dis tribution and rule by corrupt elites. Extremist groups advocate violence as the means to overthrow these corrupt rulers and install religious authority in their place.
• mujahideen 


  Islamic holy warriors
• When they returned to their homelands in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other parts of the Middle East, they were imbued with a mission— to wage jihad (holy war) against what they viewed as illegitimate regimes.
• When the Taliban assumed power in Afghanistan in 1996, bin Laden and what remained of the mujahideen formed Al Qaeda.
• Timothy McVeigh


  who was responsible for the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing in 1995, and ultra- Orthodox Jewish extremist individuals and groups in Israel and the West Bank.
• Narendra Modi to the position of prime minister

  His party runs on a religious nationalist platform, arguing that the country’s identity and culture are inherently Hindu in character. Since his election in 2014, Hindu extremist violence against both Muslims and Christians has increased significantly. Both Modi and his ruling party have been accused of ignoring, if not outright condoning, the extremist violence.
• The Muslim Rohingya


  have been the vic tims of violence from extremist Buddhists, and the government is thought to be condoning— and even actually supporting— the violence.
• Myanmar’s military crackdown on Rohingya has killed hundreds, and by 2017 tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees were trapped on the border into Bangladesh without basic food and medicine. In 2017, the Muslim Rohingya were considered by some to be the most persecuted people in the world.
• ethnonational movements


  The end of the Cold War witnessed the demise of multiethnic states, such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, followed by the rise of democratic states in their stead. This political change, coupled with the communications revolution of cell phones and the Internet, has led to increasing demands by ethnonational move ments. While the demands differ in degree and kind, each poses a threat to the viability and sovereignty of established states.
• Political scientist Jack Snyder

  has identified the causal mechanism whereby ethnic nationalists challenge the state based on the legitimacy of their language, culture, or religion. Particularly when countervailing state institutions are weak, elites within these ethnonational movements may be able to incite the masses to war
• A panel convened by the Inter- American Commission on Human Rights accused the government (Mexico) of hiding the presence of police and army in the area at the time. There are clearly questions about the government’s complicity, either by commission or by omission.
• Fragile states have several characteristics:

  • they have an inability to exercise a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within their territory
  • to make collective decisions because of the erosion of legitimate authority
  • to interact with other states in the international system, and/or to provide public services.
• a state entered the political lexicon in 1992 under the rubric of a failed state - Fragile State
• The Fund for Peace, in conjunction with Foreign Policy, publishes the Fragile States Index annually, based on 12 social, economic, and political indicators. Whatever the term used— fragile, failed, weak, dysfunctional— the implications are the same.
• Fragile states 


  it poses an internal threat to the people residing within them. They fail to perform one of the state’s vital functions— protection of its people from violence and crime. Political, civil, and economic rights of a fragile state’s population are in continuous jeopardy. Such states are unable to serve their citizenry, one of the requisites of sovereignty.
• Fragile states also pose an international threat, serving as hideaways for transnational terrorists and pirates. Because of their weakened or nonfunctioning infrastructure, fragile states can also become a breeding ground for diseases. Fragile states, with their weakened security infrastructure, can also serve as havens for transnational criminals, affecting the security of other states in significant ways.
• national security


  the ability of a state to protect its interests, secrets, and citizens from threats— both external and internal— that endanger it.
• national security components:

  • The first is a focus on threat: the fact that there is some actor, object, or potential action that can endanger a nation’s interests, secrets, or citizens. This threat could stem from outside or inside the state.
  • The second is a focus on protection: the need of the nation to ensure the safety of the state’s interests, secrets, and citizens from harm by those threats.
  • The third is a focus on capability: the actual ability of the state to provide that protection.
• In the past, national security focused on military threats to the state and a state’s ability to stave off those threats. Today, the definition of national security covers a variety of factors, including economic and environmental threats as well as nonphysical threats arising in cyberspace. National security has even expanded to include the idea that threats to individuals themselves endanger the security of the state— that human security is an important component of national security.
• Of all human values, physical security— security from violence, starvation, and the elements— comes first.

  All other human values that are crucially important to the quality of our lives— good government, economic development, a healthy environment— presuppose a minimal level of physical security.
• how to constitute a war?

  • First, a war involves organized, deliberate violence by an identifiable political authority.
  • Second, wars are relatively more lethal than other forms of organized violence. - at least 1,000 deaths in a calendar year are needed in order for an event to count as a war.
  • Third, and finally, for an event to count as a war, both sides must have some real capacity to harm each other, although that capacity need not be equal on both sides.
• war


  is an organized and deliberate political act by an established political authority that causes 1,000 or more deaths in a 12-month period and involves at least two actors capable of harming each other.
• interstate war


  wars that take place between sovereign states
• intrastate war


  wars that take place within states
• Theorists are interested in wars between states, in particular, for two reasons.

  1. First, by definition, states have recognizable leaders and locations.
  2. Second, states have formal militaries— some tiny and not much more than police forces, others vast and capable of projecting force across the surface of the globe and even into outer space. These militaries, and the state’s capacity to marshal resources in support of them, make states formidable adversar ies. Thus, interstate wars are often characterized by relatively rapid loss of life and destruction of property
• interstate war ex.

  • faction and a government fighting over control of territory
  • rival groups fighting to establish a government to control a failed or fragile state
  • ethnic, clan, or religious groups fighting for control of the state
  • ethnonationalist movements fighting for greater autonomy or secession
• Intrastate/Civil War charac.


  1. They often last a long time, even decades, with periods of fighting punctuated by periods of relative calm.
  2. the rivalry between incumbent governments and rebels, the stakes are often very high— including secession, group autonomy, and control of the state.
  3. The human costs are therefore often substantial. Both combatants and civilians are killed and maimed, food supplies are interrupted, diseases spread as health systems suffer, money is diverted from constructive economic development to purchasing armaments, and generations of people grow up knowing only war.
• Unconventional warfare


  is distinguished by a willingness to flout restrictions on legitimate targets of violence or refuse to accept the traditional outcomes of battles— say, the destruction of a regular army, loss of a capital, or capture of a national leader— as an indicator of victory or defeat.
• guerrilla warfare


  the term comes from a Spanish word meaning “small war”
• Mao Zedong’s strategy was first called “revolutionary guerrilla warfare.”


  It was specifically designed to counter a technologically advanced and well- equipped industrial adversary by effectively reversing the conventional relationship between soldiers and civilians. In guerrilla warfare, civilians risk their lives to protect the guerrillas, who hide among them and who cannot easily be distinguished from ordinary civilians when not actually fighting.
• Asymmetric conflict


  Revolutionary guerrilla warfare is often used when one party in a conflict is significantly more powerful than the other. This type of conflict between a more powerful party and a significantly weaker party is referred to as asymmetric conflict. It is conducted between parties of very unequal strength. The weaker party attempts to exploit the opponent’s weaknesses.