AC Habbard

Ahabbard@univ-lille.fr

23-24 Sem 1

 

 

 

Theories of War

 

 

 

The course will look at war from a theoretical perspective, and will attempt to answer a series of questions throughout the semester:

-          What distinguishes war from other forms of violence, and what is the relationship between war and politics? What role does war play in the constitution of the various political regimes, and specifically that of the nation-state? The nation-state is probably the most ruthlessly efficient war machine ever invented – is it how we are to understand the observation that war is the ‘health of the state’?

-          What are the causes of war? Can we eradicate the causes of war, and what are the conditions for a “perpetual peace”? Is cosmopolitanism one of them, as some 18^th century theorists thought, or would it on the contrary only unleash even more violence? Can war be a rational move, even though it seems at first sight to be an eminently irrational event?

-          What is the relationship between law and war? What are the (moral, political or other) conditions of possibility of the legality of war? Is war to be understood as outside the framework of any law, or is it simply governed by a different set of rules? This opens the debate of the Just War theory and its contemporary avatars. Can war be outlawed?

-           

-          What is the relationship between war and religion, or more generally between war and the sacred? Why is it that war has very often been assimilated to a form of the sacred, in spite of its massacres, killings and general defilement of humanity?

-          Why has war been an object of predilection of literature and art? We will attempt to analyse why, while poetry or art would seem radically antagonistic to the horrors of war, they might on the contrary be the truest way to remember them. Can war be memorialised in a comic form? Should it? We will here look at the relationship between ethics and aesthetics.

-          What is the conceptual specificity of civil war?

-          Is there a conceptual, political and strategic specificity of contemporary warfare? Do the ‘new wars’ differ in kind or in degree from traditional inter-state wars? Does the famed RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs) really constitute a “revolution”? More generally, why did the 20^th century show such an uncanny creativity in war, with its invention of totalitarianism, genocide, terrorism, and guerrilla warfare, whereas it had precisely decided to outlaw it?

 

 

List of suggested readings (in alphabetical order):

 

Jean Amery, At the Mind’s Limits, Bloomington, Indiana Univ. Press 1980, pp. 1-40

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II, 40, “On War”.

Hannah Arendt,

-         The Origins of Totalitarianism, pp. 119-156

-         On Violence, Harvest 1970, pp.51-55 and 66-87.

Talal Asad,

-         On Suicide Bombing, pp. 58-64

-         “Thinking about Terrorism and Just War” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 23, No 1, March 2010, pp. 3-24.

Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, Basic Books, NY 1984, pp. 73-87 (Ch. 4).

Geoffrey Best, War and Law since 1945, chap 7 “Humanitarian Practice and the Laws of War” and chap. 8 “Methods and Means”

Richard Betts, The Delusion of Impartial Intervention, Foreign Affairs, November/December 1994.

Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History, London: Allen Lane, 2002.

Judith Butler,

-         Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?, Verso Books, 2010

-         Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, Verso Books, 2020

Greg Cashman, What Causes War? An Introduction to Theories of International Conflict, chap. 7 “International Interaction: Game Theory and Deterrence Theory”, pp 193-223 and chap. 10: Conclusion, pp. 279-288.

Carl von Clausewitz, On War, transl. J.J. Graham, Book I, chap. 1-2.

Mark Danner, “Torture and the Forever War”, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, April 2010.

Alfred Einstein and Sigmund Freud, Correspondence 1931-32: “Why War?”

Daniel Gilbert, “He Who Cast the First Stone Probably Didn’t”, International Herald Tribune 24 July 2006.

Dave Grossman, On Killing, Back Bay Books 1995, Section I, “Killing and the Existence of Resistance”, and Section II, chap I, pp. 5-50.

Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, transl. A.C. Campbell, Book I, Chap. 1-3.

G.W.F. Hegel,

- Phenomenology of Mind, transl. J.B. Baillie, “Self-Consciousness”, parag. 178-190.

 

-         Philosophy of Right, transl. S.W. Dyde, parag. 321-329.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chap. XIII, XVIII.

David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Section 3

Ernst Junger, Storm of Steel (1920), Penguin 1978, pp. 86-93.

Stathis Kalyvas, “’New’ and ‘Old’ Civil wars – A Valid Distinction?”, in World Politics, 54, October 2011, 99-118.

Immanuel Kant, 

-         Science of Right, Section II. The Rights of Nations and International Law

-         Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch.

-         Critique of Judgment, “Analytical of the Sublime”

Andrew Kydd and Barbara Walter, “The Strategies of Terrorism”, in International Security, vol. 31, No 1 (summer 2006), pp. 49-80.

Niccolo Macchiavelli, The Prince, Chap. VI, X, XIV, XVII, XXIV-XXV.

Avishai Margalit, “Indecent Compromise, Decent Peace”, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, May 2005.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Chap. 2.

Thomas Nagel, “War and Massacre”, in Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter, 1972), pp. 123-144.

Mark Neoclous, “Off the Map, On Violence and Cartography”, European Journal of Social Theory, 6(4), 2003, pp. 409-425.

Wilfred Owen, Poems 1914-18

Barry Posen, “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict”, in Survival, vol. 35, no 1, Spring 1993, pp. 27-47.

J.J. Rousseau, Considerations on the Government of Poland, Chap. I-V, XII, XV.

Bertrand Russell, “War and Non-Resistance”, Atlantic Monthly Vol. 116, No. 2 (August 1915). 266–274.

Siegfried Sassoon, Poems, 1914-1918

Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain, chap. 1 “The Structure of Torture” and chap 2 “The Structure of War”, pp. 81- 97 “ War is a Contest”.

Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, Part III, chap 1, “The Jus Publicum Europaeum”, pp. 140-152; Part IV “The Question of a New Nomos of the Earth”, chap. 4 -5, pp. 240-280.

Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, Picador, New York, 2003.

John G. Stoessinger, Why Nations Go to War, chap. 10, pp. 396-422

Sun Tzu, The Art of War, transl. Lionel Giles, chap I-XIII.

Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, “Pericles Funeral Oration”, Book 2, 2.34 - 2.46

Titus Livius (Livy), Roman History, transl. John Henry Freese, Alfred John Church, and William Jackson Brodribb, book I, parag. 12-26

Martin van Creveld, Technology and War, chap. 3 “The Infrastructure of War”, chap. 5 “Irrational Technology”, chap. 10 “The Rise of Professionalism”

Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State and War, Introduction.

Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, part IV, chap. 15, pp. 233-250; chap. 16, pp. 251-268; chap. 18, pp. 287-303; afterword 329-336.

Simone Weil, The Iliad, or The Poem of Force, transl. Mary McCarthy, Marseilles: Cahiers du Sud, 1940-1941.

James Wurtz, “Representing the Great War: Violence, Memory, and Comic Form”, Pacific Coast Philology, vol. 14, No 2, 2009, pp. 205-215.

 

Legal documents (available on avalon.law.yale.edu)

-         1928 Briand Kellogg Pact on the Renunciation of War

-         1948 UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

-         Geneva Conventions on the Laws of War 1864-1975, especially the 1949 Conventions

-         Code of Hammurabi 1780 BC

-         The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal.

-         Second Lateran Council, Canon 29, 1139 A.D., banning the use of crossbows.

 

Iconography:

Otto Dix, The Match Seller

                        Flanders

Goya, El Tres de Mayo

            Disasters of War (Series of Etchings)

Picasso, Guernica

John Singer Sargent, Gassed

Naram Sin Victory Stele

Emperor Akbar’s Mahabharata, or the Razmnama

Equestrian portrait of Aurangzeb Mughal

Mughal Army Elephants

 

Movies:

-         The Thin Red Line, dir.Terrence Malick, 1998

-         The Deer Hunter, dir. Michael Cimino, 1978.

-         La Vita è Bella (Life is Beautiful), dir. Roberto Benigni, 1997.

-         All Quiet on the Western Front, dir. Lewis Milestone, 1930.

-         Tin Drum, dir. Volker Schlöndorff, 1979

-         The Battle of Algiers, dir. Gilles Pontecorvo, 1966.

-         Apocalypse Now, dir. Francis Coppola, 1979.

-         The Bridge over the River Kwai, dir. David Lean, 1957.

-         Lawrence of Arabia, dir. David Lean, 1962.

-         Kingdom of Heaven, dir. Ridley Scott, 2005.

-         Platoon, dir. Oliver Stone, 1986.

-         Full Metal Jacket, dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1987.

-         The Paths of Glory, dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1957.

-         Gallipoli, dir. Peter Weir, 1981.

-         Enemy at the Gates, dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud, 2001.

-         Das Boot, dir. Wolfgang Petersen, 1981.

-         Waterloo, dir. Sergey Bondarchuk, 1970.

-         Downfall, dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004.

-         Tora! Tora! Tora!, dir. Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, 1970.

 

Documentaries:

-         The World at War, BBC

-         The Fog of War, Errol Morris and Robert McNamara, 2003.

 

 

 

Course Outline:

 

Weeks 1: What is War?

What is the difference between war and collective violence in general? Is there any specificity of war, understood as inter-state conflict? War as game and contest.

 

Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, chap. 1.

Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind, “Self-Consciousness”, parag. 178-190.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chap. XIII, XVIII.

Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain, chap 2, pp. 81- 97 “War is a Contest”.

Titus Livius (Livy), Roman History, from p. 5 “Upon the death of Numa…” (middle of parag 20) till end of parag. 22 “… met him before the gate Capena”, p. 8.

 

 

Week 2: What Causes War? 

What are the causes of war? Is it attributable to human nature? Or rather, to international relations, and/or to dysfunctional relationships within the polity itself? Security dilemmas.

 

Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, Basic Books, NY 1984, pp. 73-87 (Ch. 4).

Greg Cashman, What Causes War? An Introduction to Theories of International Conflict

chap. 7 “International Interaction: Game Theory and Deterrence Theory”, pp 193-223 and

chap. 10: Conclusion, pp. 279-288.

Daniel Gilbert, “He Who Cast the First Stone Probably Didn’t”, International Herald Tribune 24 July 2006.

Alfred Einstein and Sigmund Freud, Correspondence 1931-32: “Why War?”

Barry Posen, “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict”, in Survival, vol. 35, no 1, Spring 1993, pp. 27-47.

John G. Stoessinger, Why Nations Go to War, chap. 10, pp. 396-422

Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State and War, Introduction.

 

 

Week 3: War and the Nation-State. Theatres of War.

The nation-state as the most ruthless war machine ever invented.

 

Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History, London: Allen Lane, 2002: chap. 8 “From State-Nations to Nation-States 1776-1914”, pp. 150-178 till “...other parts of Europe”.

Niccolo Macchiavelli, The Prince, Chap. VI, X, XIV, XVII, XXIV-XXV.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Chap. 2

Mark Neoclous, “Off the Map, On Violence and Cartography”, European Journal of Social Theory, 6(4), 2003, pp. 409-425.

J.J. Rousseau, Considerations on the Government of Poland, Chap. I-V, XII, XV.

 

 

Week 4: War and Technology; War and Cartography

The impact of technology on warfare. How military maps played a decisive role in the way we visualise not just conflict, but nation-states themselves.

 

Martin van Creveld, Technology and War, chap. 3 “The Infrastructure of War” and chap. 10 “The Rise of Professionalism”

 

 

Weeks 5-6: Law and War.

The issue of Just War Theory. Its origins, debates, contemporary avatars. Jus in Bello, Jus ad Bellum. Humanitarian Interventions. Can war be morally justifiable? Are there some intrinsically evil or unjustifiable weapons?

 

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II, 40, “On War”.

Geoffrey Best, War and Law since 1945, chap 7 “Humanitarian Practice and the Laws of War” and chap. 8 “Methods and Means”.

Richard Betts, The Delusion of Impartial Intervention, Foreign Affairs, November/December 1994.

Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, transl. A.C. Campbell, Book I, Chap. 1-3.

David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Section 3.

Immanuel Kant, Science of Right, Section II. The Rights of Nations and International Law.

Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, Part III, chap 1, “the Jus Publicum Europaeum”, pp. 140-152; Part IV “The Question of a New Nomos of the Earth”, chap. 4 -5, pp. 240-280.

Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, part IV, chap. 15, pp. 233-250; chap. 16, pp. 251-268; chap. 18, pp. 287-303; afterword 329-336.

 

 

Week 7: The Psychology of Warfare

Killing does not come naturally: how does one become a killer? What are the effects on the constitution of the self? How does one survive war, how does one survive torture?

 

Jean Amery, At the Mind’s Limits, pp. 1-40.

Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain, chap. 1 “The Structure of Torture”

Simone Weil, The Iliad, or The Poem of Force, transl. Mary McCarthy, Marseilles: Cahiers du Sud, 1940-1941.

 

 

Weeks 8-9: War and the Sacred; War and Art

Why has war so often been assimilated to a form of the sacred? Why has it fascinated so many philosophers? War and religion. War and literature, war and art. What is the specificity of artistic, literary approaches to war? What do they say about war which neither philosophy nor political science can say? Is the aestheticisation of war ethically neutral?

 

 

G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, transl. S.W. Dyde, parag. 321-329.

Kant, Critique of Judgment, “Analytic of the Sublime”.

Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, “Pericles Funeral Oration”, Book 2, 2.34 - 2.46

Ernst Junger, Storm of Steel (1920), Penguin 1978, pp. 86-93.

Wilfred Owen, Poems 1914-18

Siegfried Sassoon, Poems, 1914-1918

Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, Picador, New York, 2003.

James Wurtz, “Representing the Great War: Violence, Memory, and Comic Form”, Pacific Coast Philology, vol. 14, No 2, 2009, pp. 205-215.

 

 

Week 10: The Specificity of Civil War

 

Stathis Kalyvas, “’New’ and ‘Old’ Civil wars – A Valid Distinction?”, in World Politics, 54, October 2011, 99-118.

 

Week 11: Peace, Resistance

Is peace only the absence of war? What would be the conditions of possibility of perpetual peace?

 

Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch.

Avishai Margalit, “Indecent Compromise, Decent Peace”, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, May 2005.

Bertrand Russell, “War and Non-Resistance”, Atlantic Monthly Vol. 116, No. 2 (August 1915). 266–274.

 

Week 13: New Wars: Genocide, Totalitarianism, Guerrilla Warfare, Terrorism

 

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, pp. 119-156

Talal Asad,

-         On Suicide Bombing, pp. 58-64

-         “Thinking about Terrorism and Just War” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 23, No 1, March 2010, pp. 3-24.

Mark Danner, “Torture and the Forever War”, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, April 2010.

Andrew Kydd and Barbara Walter, “The Strategies of Terrorism”, in International Security, vol. 31, No 1 (summer 2006), pp. 49-80