Theory and Definitions
What is Clausewitz's shorthand explanation for what war is?
War is a mere continuation of policy by other means - not just a political act, but a political instrument; politics itself
Brown University's Watson School provides four broad categories of "costs" of war. What are these categories?
The Human Costs;
Economics Costs;
Environmental Costs;
Social and Political CostsThis is a principle of both legitimate use of force and armed conflict means commensurate force relating to objectives.
Proportionality
What tactical advantages might higher ground, greater cover, and ranged weapons provide, respectively?
Among many benefits, better vision of opponents; protection from impacts; the ability to harm at range, whilst keeping personnel further from harm.
Twenty years of progress for women and girls erased essentially overnight. A return of which group marks the implementation of gender apartheid?
A cost of decades of war so egregious a violation to be considered a crime against humanity; a harm against everyone.
The Taliban, who previously controlled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, and now 2021-present.
What are two formulations of the Clausewitzian Trinity? Provide both the institutional form, and the emotional form, please.
People :: Military :: Government;
Hatred/Animosity :: Probabilities/Chance :: Political Motivations of War
Why might a classical- and a neo-realist claim war occurs?
List the two legitimate uses of force in the modern international system.
Self-Defense purposes; authorization by the UNSC.
What is soft power? Provide 7 examples, from any source, please.
Soft power is the power of symbolism, taste, appeal, or culture.
Machiavelli spoke about two animals that represented an ideal ruler. The qualities exhibited by these animals could also be applied to a tactical commander. What are these animals?
The Lion - who represents strength, courage, and force
The Fox - who represents cunning, guile, and intellect
David Keen (2000) argues that war and peace are not so easy to distinguish from one another. What bits of evidence does he provide to make this case?
Expressions of violence, though in different forms;
accumulation of resources by powerful actors;
limiting (eliminating) opposing forces;
divisions involving "us" and "them"
What does Aloyo (2015) argue regarding just war and last resort? What are your groups' views on this argument?
Last resort is inherently flawed, in that it implies non-violence is morally superior in all cases, when in reality non-violence may result in greater numbers of innocents being harmed.
Aloyo believes just war is that which is guided by proportionality, and is likely to harm severely the smallest number of innocent individuals. To him, some violent options are preferable to non-violent ones when the latter will result in the harm of great numbers of innocents, when limited violence can cause less.
How do Jochnick and Normand (1994) make their argument that the laws of war have legitimized state violence? What are your groups' views on this claim?
The authors believe that military necessity as a principle of international humanitarian law, in both theory and practice, outweighs the other principles to such a degree that a state can dismiss the others by claiming targets are those of a military necessity in the name of national security.
This is a controversial claim; many legal scholars disagree, and some agree or modify the argument slightly.
Explain O'Brien's (2025) argument relating to historical treatment of Great Powers, and why the world collectively misunderstood what was to happen in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
O'Brien contends "Great Power" frameworks are outdated, and were perhaps never accurate. Russia's "Great Power" military, in terms of quantity and technological capability, belied it's drastic inexperience and ineptitude to organize its society of a full-scale spectrum of conflict. In other words, "Great Power" paradigms oversimplify what should be a nuanced analysis of a state's ability to mobilize multiple facets of society, not solely the military as measured by number and model of tanks.
None have yet to ratify. All 196 countries have done so.
What are Sun Tzu's five pillars of war? What does he mean by each of them?
Moral Law - harmony between the ruler and the people; unified by law and vision
Heaven - external conditions relating to the atmosphere; weather and clime
Earth - external conditions relating to the ground; distance and terrain
The Commander - leadership of the military and virtues implied by this, such as wisdom, courage, and strictness
Method and Discipline - marshaling of personnel in the military and the proper maintenance of both the army and necessary logistic support for this institution
Describe the logic behind Fearon's rationalist explanations for war, and provide an example of each that is occurring right now.
Fearon believes that war occurs because of a failure to reach compromise; the costs of war, by their very existence, implies there is a range of outcomes that could have been negotiated on that would have been preferable to war for both sides. So why do negotiations fail?
Asymmetric Information, Lack of Credible Commitment, Issue Indivisibility
Examples abound.
What kind of rights are Prisoners of War (POWs) entitled to under international humanitarian law (the Geneva Conventions, specifically)
Food, medical supplies, clothing, sanitation items; their release upon the conclusion of the conflict; humane treatment
Describe the tactical advent of the tank in WWI. Why did the British create this new form of weapon, a modern version of cavalry?
The tactics of WWI, trench warfare, prolonged conflict over "no man's land," and technological advancements made traditional, horse-riding cavalry obsolete.
Horses cannot easily advance into gunfire, mustard gas, barbed wire, or bayonets, each of which were embedded behind the trench warfare system.
A heavily armored tank gave British soldiers the ability to advance upon trenches, without their mounts dying beneath them. Eventually contributing to a break in the stalling, agonizingly slow battles of WWI.
Name four of the eleven lessons from the life and career of Robert McNamara as described by the Fog of War documentary.
1. Empathize with your enemy
2. Rationality alone will not save us
3. There’s something beyond one’s self
4. Maximize efficiency
5. Proportionality should be a guideline of war
6. Get the data
7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning
9. In order to do good
10. Never say never
11. You can’t change human nature
Describe how Friedman contends war might resemble a complex storm and explain your groups' views on this claim.
Friedman contends the nature of warfare is both predictable and unpredictable; the nature and character of war exist simultaneously, but not in the same way.
The nature of war never changes, in that it is the expression of politics by violent means; though the character of war, how this is expressed, can change dramatically with technology and tactical shifts.
War itself is disordered and ordered, stormlike in the sense that it retains qualities of complex scientific systems, including traits of non-linearity, self-organizing, chaotic behaviors, adaptive interactions, and emergence.
Describe the ways the people of Afghanistan have experienced costs from decades of wars.
The costs are many. From a human perspective, millions of people have been killed, hurt physically or mentally, or otherwise impacted by decades of conflict.
Economically, the country itself has remained very far behind, and most Afghans are at risk of poverty or famine.
Environmentally, there has been damage to the landscape, and to the life upon it.
Socially and politically, Afghanistan is once again under the repression of the Taliban; decades of progress have been erased, especially for women and girls; there is talk of the country being a cage, and the death of hope.
Beyond this, the failure of intervention in Afghanistan may serve as a deterrent for future humanitarian intervention efforts.
List and define the principles of armed conflict.
Including proportionality, each principle is designed to mitigate human suffering during times of war.
Distinction - to easily identify combatants compared to civilians.
Humanity - to avoid unnecessary suffering, injury, death, destruction of property.
Military Necessity - to prevent indiscriminate violence and limit attacks to absolutely necessary targets.
Describe logistical ability as a form of power. Provide 3 examples of this in the modern world.
Logistics is power through organization, movement, conveyance; it is acquiring and processing information; it is capacity to adapt to uncertainty; logistics facilitates by creating physical or digital routes to project power in other forms
Examples such as trade routes, secure internet communications, geospatial surveying
Explain how the events and aftermath of WWII changed the way violence was perceived, and the legitimacy (and importance) of the laws of war.
WWII resulted in many things. We saw multiple full-scale mobilizations, total war across Europe, North Africa, and the Pacific.
We saw mass atrocities on an unprecedented scale in the modern era. We later saw individuals be held accountable for these crimes.
The codification of IHL via Hague and Geneva conventions encouraged hope for change.
Technology was changing, radio, later television, led to drastic increases in information availability. People became more aware of what was happening on the other side of the world.
The extent of human suffering, from direct violence and indirect impacts, left a deep impression upon many that things must changed, or we will wipe ourselves out. This was particularly relevant in conversations of nuclear weapons.
Examples abound.