Richard Lebow takes the classical liberal and realist lines on why nations go to war (interest and security, mostly), convincingly refutes their deeply entrenched hypotheses and posits his own strong thesis that nations primarily go to war due to their need for standing, or honor. He bases his hypothesis on an original data set in which he codes nation’s motives for going to war (rather than goals and interests, as most studies on why nations go to war do). He concludes that nations go to war for four essential motives, all based on the Greek philosophy of fundamental drives: security, interest, revenge and standing. Some wars are coded into two motives, while the category of ‘other’ is left for those wars that simply cannot be placed squarely in one category. His approach to international relations theory based on thumos, or spirit, is a novel one.
Each historic nation is ranked based upon a raw power calculation that considers population and gross domestic product (GDP). He draws on this data set that he and other colleagues created during previous research. Five ranks are recognized: dominant, great, rising, declining and weak. Lebow then chooses ninety-four wars based on two simple criteria: they must occur after 1648 (the accepted date that modern nations began to arise) and each much produce a minimum of 1000 deaths. In each of the wars the role of ‘initiator’ is assigned to one combatant, as is a ‘power ranking’ (great, dominant, etc.) and motive for going to war. Lebow displays extensive historical knowledge, but admits it is often difficult to determine motive simply not enough primary source material is available. When unable to determine from either primary or secondary sources the motive, Lebow defers to other experts for his conclusion. All of Lebow’s data is easily referenced and visualized in his numerous pie charts. The appendix consists of a chart that lists all the wars being analyzed, the powers involved, the motives for going to war, the initiator and the results of the war. The appendix itself is a handy, stand-alone reference tool and the culmination of decades of reading and study.
Once Lebow has determined the initiator, power ranking and motive, he derives six propositions about why nations go to war. First, “The most aggressive states are rising powers seeking recognition from great powers and dominant great powers seeking hegemony.” Second, “Rising powers and dominant powers rarely make war against one another (but) when they do, rising powers are allied with at least one great power.” Third, “The preferred targets of dominant and rising powers are declining powers and weaker third parties. They also prey on great powers who are perceived as temporarily weak, preferably in alliance with other great powers.” Fourth, “So-called hegemonic wars (i.e., those involving most, if not all, great powers) are almost all accidental and the result of unintended escalation.” Fifth, “Unintended escalation and miscalculation of the balance of power have deeper causes than incomplete information.” Lastly, “Weak and declining powers not infrequently initiate wars against great powers.” From these six propositions Lebow supports his thesis that nations go to war primarily to achieve standing. Lebow boldly posits that nations no longer initiate wars as a means of gaining standing. Because of the near cataclysmic nature of modern war (as illustrated by World War I and II, for example), the attainment of standing through war is too costly, in blood, treasure and prestige. Nations now seek other means of gaining standing, for example, through philanthropy and international institutional cooperation.
Lebow’s thesis, though, does provide ample ground for criticism, as many grand theories, no matter how brilliant and original, often do. Some of the difficulty lies with how he assigns motives to each initiator. Lebow is forced to code more than one motive to some initiators, but with most he chooses only one. It seems that most nations have more complex motives than merely standing, security, or interest. For example, Lebow assigns ‘standing’ to American motivations for invading Iraq. Until archives are opened (and it is difficult to imagine that they ever will be), we simply will not know the full story about why the Bush administration chose to invade. It could very well be a matter of revenge or it could be that the United States initiated a long-term energy security strategy that allows it to have a presence in the Middle East when petroleum reserves begin to dwindle in the future. A new motive very well could have been introduced in the Iraq War: powerful American business interests working closely with government officials sought an opportunity for profit, which has nothing to do with the national interest, standing or security. In short, it is difficult to truly know why nations go to war unless we have complete access to strategy sessions, personal diaries, correspondence or other first-hand accounts that has been lost (or even left unrecorded in the first place). Nevertheless, Lebow does seem to have made thoughtful calculations based on the information he had at hand. If a second edition of Why Nations Fight ever hits the shelf, perhaps Lebow will consider polling historians to determine nation’s motives for going to war.
Lebow states that nations will no longer go to war in the future as frequently because the cost of attaining standing this way is too high. He correlates this tendency to the experience of World War II and the destruction it caused. The period after World War II, though, also corresponds to an increasingly interconnected planet. More specifically, national companies that once held tremendous sway in determining individual nation’s foreign policy (think of the example that German and British heavy industry played in committing both nations to arming themselves before World War I) are now international companies that have interests, not even in several different nations, but on several different continents. Powerful international concerns have no interest in another world war that disrupts trade, but at the same time, many international companies profit from war. It seems more likely that quick, limited incursions will be the best compromise for nations to achieve standing and for corporations to profit. In other words, war is just as likely in the future. After all, of the thirty-one wars since 1900, thirteen percent were motivated by standing (and this does not include World War II, the big one that Lebow was unable to code) and of all the wars since 1945, fifty-seven[i] percent were motivated by standing. The frequency and motivations for going to war, then, do not seem to change, but, rather, the nature of war does.
Lebow’s study on why nations go to war adds a new perspective to the already extensive literature in international relations theory. For those disenchanted with realist or classical paradigms, Lebow’s theory offers a ‘psychological’ dimension to how nations behave. It is a fascinating read that is original, well-researched and steeped in a lifetime of reading and research. Lebow’s conclusion that nations will go to war less in the future is a compelling one rooted as it is in optimism. The difficulty, though, with Lebow’s thesis is that it is easier to understand motives in hindsight. Predicting which nations will go to war and what will motivate them to go to war is much more difficult. In the future, it might not even be nations that initiate war, but international criminal or terrorist organizations that have much different motivations. It could be that a nuclear-armed nation initiates nuclear war unintentionally due to computer error. Lebow writes about nations as if they are one integrated entity with unified goals, but has little to say about nations that are fractured and dysfunctional, yet still possess impressive martial capacities. Complicating the picture even more is the nature of the concept ‘nation-state.’ Business and government are so tightly interwoven that the contemporary nature of a nation is much different than an early twentieth-century nation, let alone an eighteenth-century nation. In sum, Lebow’s motives are easily defined and applied to his particular set of data, but they may have no relevance to modern nations, and therefore, are not useful for predicting the frequency or nature of the motives of future war.