War Essay -- essays research papers

The first issue to be considered is what is fight and what is its definition. The student of war needs to be careful in examining definitions of war, for like any social phenomena, definitions are varied, and often the proposed definition masks a particular political or philosophic stance paraded by the author. This is as true of dictionary definitions as well as of articles on legions or political history. Cicero defines war broadly as "a contender by force" Hugo Grotius adds that "war is the raise of contending parties, considered as such(prenominal)" doubting Thomas Hobbes nones that war is also an attitude "By war is meant a state of intimacys, which may exist even while its operations are non continued" Denis Diderot comments that war is "a convulsive and violent disease of the embody politic" for Karl von Clausewitz, "war is the continuation of politics by other delegacy", and so on. Each definition has its strengths and weakn esses, notwithstanding often is the culmination of the writers broader philosophic positions. For example, the notion that wars only involve states-as Clausewitz implies-belies a strong political conjecture that assumes politics stool only involve states and that war is in many manner or form a reflection of political activity. War delineate by Websters Dictionary is a state of open and declared, hostile gird conflict between states or nations, or a period of such conflict. This captures a particularly political- saneistic account of war and warfare, i.e., that war needs to be explicitly declared and to be between states to be a war. We decide Rousseau arguing this position "War is constituted by a simile between things, and not between personsWar then is a relation, not between man and man, but between State and State" (The loving Contract). The military historian, John Keegan offers a useful characterization of the political-rationalist theory of war in his A His tory of War. It is assumed to be an orderly affair in which states are involved, in which there are declared beginnings and evaluate ends, easily identifiable combatants, and high levels of obedience by subordinates. The form of rational war is narrowly defined, as distinguished by the expectation of sieges, toss battles, skirmishes, raids, reconnaissance, patrol and outpost duties, with each possessing their own conventions. As ... ...ine war not just as a conflict between states (i.e., the rationalist position), but also a conflict between non-state peoples, non-declared actions, and highly organized, politically controlled wars as well as culturally evolved, ritualistic wars and guerrilla uprisings, that appear to stick no centrally controlling body and may perhaps be described as emerging spontaneously. The political issue of defining war poses the first philosophical problem, but once that is acknowledged, a definition that captures the shake up of arms, the state of mutua l tension and threat of violence between groups, the original declaration by a sovereign body, and so on can be drawn upon to distinguish wars from riots and rebellions, collective violence from personal violence, figurative clashes of values from actual or threatened clashes of arms. Back to Table of circumscribe2. What causes war?Various sub-disciplines have grappled with wars etiology, but each in turn, as with definitions of war, often reflects a tacit or explicit acceptance of broader philosophical issues on the nature of determinism and freedom. For example, if it is claimed that man is not free to choose his actions (strong