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1.
Violent Crime
2.
Emigration ("non violent colonization")
3.
Rebellion or putsch
4.
Civil war and/or revolution
5.
Genocide (to take over the positions of the slaughtered)
6.
Conquest (violent colonization, frequently including genocide abroad).
Religions and ideologies are seen as secondary factors that are being used to
legitimate violence, but will not lead to violence by themselves if no youth
bulge is present. Consequently, youth bulge theorists see both past "Christianist"
European colonialism and imperialism and today's "Islamist" civil unrest and
terrorism as results of high birth rates producing youth bulges. While during
the period of european colonialism, european countries had high birthrates and
huge youth bulges that fueled colonialist expansion, today Afghanistan, which
has a total fertility rate of 6 children per woman and an estimated unemployment
rate of 40%, would represent a typical youth bulge country. The Gaza Strip can
be seen as another example of youth-bulge-driven violence, especially if
compared to Lebanon which is geographically close, yet remarkably more peaceful.
Among prominent historical events that have been linked to the existence of
youth bulges is the role played by the historically large youth cohorts in the
rebellion and revolution waves of early modern europe, including French
Revolution of 1789, and the importance of economic depression hitting the
largest German youth cohorts ever in explaining the rise of Nazism in Germany in
the 1930s. The 1994 Rwandan Genocide has also been analyzed as following a
massive youth bulge.
While the security implications of rapid population growth have been well known
since the completion of the National Security Study Memorandum 200 in 1974,
neither the U.S. nor the WHO have effectively implemented the recommended
preventive measures to control population growth to avert the terror threat they
are now facing. Prominent demographer Stephen D. Mumford attributes this to the
influence of the Catholic Church.
Youth Bulge theory has been subjected to statistical analysis by the World Bank,
Population Action International, and the Berlin Institute for Population and
Development. Detailed demographic data for most countries is available at the
international database of the United States Census Bureau.
Youth bulge theories have been criticized as leading to racial, gender and age
discrimination
Evolutionary psychology theories
The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.(December 2007)
Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.
Wars are seen as the result of evolved psychological traits that are turned on
by either being attacked or by a population perception of a bleak future. The
theory accounts for the IRA going out of business, but leads to a dire view of
current wars. Studies of endemic violence and tribal warfare in the Highlands of
Papua New Guinea demonstrate that intertribal warfare is highest in those parts
of the country where population densities are greatest and pressure on land and
other resources is thereby maximized. Similarly, evidence of organized warfare
in the Ancient World, in pre-dynastic Mesopotamia and in Ancient Egypt, suggests
that organized systematic warfare only appeared after population densities had
increased, and there was increased pressure upon limited ecological resources.
(These ideas above are actually old International Relations ideas and are not
based on Evolutionary Psychology at all, in fact they are not consistent with
the Theory of Evolution and so cannot be Evolutionary Psychology theories. A
central tenet of the Theory of Evolution is that populations quickly fill their
ecological niches, creating selective pressure for the most fit. In effect, a
"bleak future" is a given over evolutionary time, in fact this insight of
Malthus's lead Darwin to the Theory of Evolution, and it is maladaptive to wait
until you perceive it coming, when your attack will be anticipated. It is also
maladaptive to not take the opportunity to gain habitat and women by attacking
your neighbor when they are weak. When the bleak future arrives they may be
strong or have new allies. Maladaptive behaviors cannot be selected for. So the
ideas above do not mesh with the theory which is central to Evolutionary
Psychology. Nor do they fit with the anthropological record which Evolutionary
Psychology always seeks to corroborate its ideas with.)
The book "The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War" by
David Livingstone Smith is much more relevant for those seeking a view generated
by the Evolutionary Psychology methodology.
The paper "Altruism and War" which can be found here is a work written for an
academic audience which takes an Evolutionary Psychology viewpoint on war as
well, attempting to describe for the first time the entire psychological process
from commitment to group to willingness to kill members of another group on
one's groups behalf.
A critical aspect of all true EP based theories of war is the understanding that
most or all of the proximate causes of war are little more than excuses that our
minds need to fabricate to justify their actions. These justifications take
universal forms at every level of human group conflict. They can include: 1)The
assertion that the other group presents a threat which must be defended against,
2)The assertion that the other group has provoked the conflict, 3)The assertion
that the other group has committed acts which violate morality (such as stealing
from your group, raping women, taking premature babies out of incubators),
4)Descriptions of the other group as being threat animals or pathogens (snakes,
bears, jackals, cancers, rats, and so on), 5)Asserting that the other is
inherently evil, 6)Asserting that the other group are insane or lead by the
insane. The other inherent pattern is that positive group definitional
attributes are seen as being the opposite of the enemy or rival group.
Evolutionary Psychology hypothesis on war also importantly show that the
decision making process is rarely rational, that in fact human belief and
decision making processes are often not rational on the whole.
Of course, one side sometimes is simply defending itself. But more often both
sides go through a similar and linked psychological process of justification, as
above, and an escalating cycle of verbal and then violent action. Such
escalation takes place as an effect of our evolved program to punitively punish
the other for their transgression through acts which attempt to dissuade them
from further transgression, by going well beyond simple tit-for-tat.
Looking for rational causes, as is common in most hypothesis and even in the
above mentioned notions of perceived bleak futures, is not the path to
understanding war.
Rationalist theories
Rationalist theories of war assume that both sides to a potential war are
rational, which is to say that each side wants to get the best possible outcome
for itself for the least possible loss of life and property to its own side.
Given this assumption, if both countries knew in advance how the war would turn
out, it would be better for both of them to just accept the post-war outcome
without having to actually pay the costs of fighting the war. This is based on
the notion, generally agreed to by almost all scholars of war since Carl von
Clausewitz, that wars are reciprocal, that all wars require both a decision to
attack and also a decision to resist attack. Rationalist theory offers three
reasons why some countries cannot find a bargain and instead resort to war:
issue indivisibility, information asymmetry with incentive to deceive, and the
inability to make credible commitments.
Issue indivisibility occurs when the two parties cannot avoid war by bargaining
because the thing over which they are fighting cannot be shared between them,
only owned entirely by one side or the other. Religious issues, such as control
over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, are more likely to be indivisible than
economic issues.
A bigger branch of the theory, advanced by scholars of international relations
such as Geoffrey Blainey, is the problem of information asymmetry with
incentives to misrepresent. The two countries may not agree on who would win a
war between them, or whether victory would be overwhelming or merely eked out,
because each side has military secrets about its own capabilities. They will not
avoid the bargaining failure by sharing their secrets, since they cannot trust
each other not to lie and exaggerate their strength to extract more concessions.
For example, Sweden made efforts to deceive Nazi Germany that it would resist an
attack fiercely, partly by playing on the myth of Aryan superiority and by
making sure that Hermann Göring only saw elite troops in action, often dressed
up as regular soldiers, when he came to visit.
Intelligence gathering may sometimes, but not always, mitigate this problem. For
example, the Argentinian dictatorship knew that the United Kingdom had the
ability to defeat them, but their intelligence failed them on the question of
whether the British would use their power to resist the annexation of the
Falkland Islands. The American decision to enter the Vietnam War was made with
the full knowledge that the communist forces would resist them, but did not
believe that the guerrillas had the capability to long oppose American forces.
Thirdly, bargaining may fail due to the states' inability to make credible
commitments. In this scenario, the two countries might be able to come to a
bargain that would avert war if they could stick to it, but the benefits of the
bargain will make one side more powerful and lead it to demand even more in the
future, so that the weaker side has an incentive to make a stand now.
Rationalist explanations of war can be critiqued on a number of grounds. The
assumptions of cost-benefit calculations become dubious in the most extreme
genocidal cases of World War II, where the only bargain offered in some cases
was infinitely bad. Rationalist theories typically assume that the state acts as
a unitary individual, doing what is best for the state as a whole; this is
problematic when, for example, the country's leader is beholden to a very small
number of people, as in a personalistic dictatorship. Rationalist theory also
assumes that the actors are rational, able to accurately assess their likelihood
of success or failure, but the proponents of the psychological theories above
would disagree.
Rationalist theories are usually explicated with game theory, for example, the
Peace War Game, not a wargame as such, rather a simulation of economic decisions
underlying war.
Economic theories
Another school of thought argues that war can be seen as an outgrowth of
economic competition in a chaotic and competitive international system. In this
view wars begin as a pursuit of new markets, of natural resources, and of
wealth. Unquestionably a cause of some wars, from the empire building of Britain
to the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in pursuit of oil, this theory has
been applied to many other conflicts. It is most often advocated by those to the
left of the political spectrum, who argue such wars serve the interests of the
wealthy but are fought by the poor. Some to the right of the political spectrum
may counter that poverty is relative and one poor in one country can be
relatively wealthy in another. Such counter arguments become less valid as the
increasing mobility of capital and information level the distributions of wealth
worldwide, or when considering that it is relative, not absolute, wealth
differences that may fuel wars. There are those on the extreme right of the
political spectrum who provide support, fascists in particular, by asserting a
natural right of the strong to whatever the weak cannot hold by force. Some
centrist, [capitalism][capitalist], world leaders, including Presidents of the
United States and US Generals, expressed support for an economic view of war.
"Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here that does not
know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial
rivalry?" - Woodrow Wilson, September 11, 1919, St. Louis.
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that
period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for
Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for
capitalism." - simultaneously highest ranking and most decorated United States
Marine (including two Medals of Honor) Major General Smedley Butler (and a
Republican Party primary candidate for the United States Senate) 1935.
"For the corporation executives, the military metaphysic often coincides with
their interest in a stable and planned flow of profit; it enables them to have
their risk underwritten by public money; it enables them reasonably to expect
that they can exploit for private profit now and later, the risky research
developments paid for by public money. It is, in brief, a mask of the subsidized
capitalism from which they extract profit and upon which their power is based."
C. Wright Mills, Causes of world war 3,1960
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial
complex. The potential for disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will
persist." - Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address, Jan. 17, 1961.
Marxist theories
The Marxist theory of war argues that all war grows out of the class war. It
sees wars as imperial ventures to enhance the power of the ruling class and
divide the proletariat of the world by pitting them against each other for
contrived ideals such as nationalism or religion. Wars are a natural outgrowth
of the free market and class system, and will not disappear until a world
revolution occurs.
Political science theories
The statistical analysis of war was pioneered by Lewis Fry Richardson following
World War I. More recent databases of wars and armed conflict have been
assembled by the Correlates of War Project, Peter Brecke and the Uppsala
Department of Peace and Conflict Research.
There are several different international relations theory schools. Supporters
of realism in international relations argue that the motivation of states is the
quest for security, to ensure survival. One position, sometimes argued to
contradict the realist view, is that there is much empirical evidence to support
the claim that states that are democracies do not go to war with each other, an
idea known as the democratic peace theory. Other factors included are difference
in moral and religious beliefs, economical and trade disagreements, declaring
independence, and others.
Another major theory relating to power in international relations and
machtpolitik is the Power Transition theory, which distributes the world into a
hierarchy and explains major wars as part of a cycle of hegemons being
destabilized by a great power which does not support the hegemons control.
Types of war and warfare
By cause
Marxism, succeeded by the Soviet ideology, distinguished the just and unjust
war. Just war was considered to be slave rebellions, or national liberation
movements, while an unjust war carried the imperialistic character. Smaller
armed conflicts are often called riots, rebellions, coups, etc.
When one country sends armed forces to another, allegedly to restore order or
prevent genocide, or other crimes against humanity, or to support a legally
recognized government against insurgency, that country sometimes refers to it as
a police action. This usage is not always recognized as valid, however,
particularly by those who do not accept the connotations of the term.
A Fault Line War is a war that is fought between two or more civilizations. The
issue at stake in a fault line war is very symbolic for at least one of the
groups involved.
Types of warfare
Conventional warfare is an attempt to reduce an opponent's military capability.
It is a war between nation-states and nuclear or biological weapons are not
usually used.
Unconventional warfare is an attempt to achieve military victory through
acquiescence, capitulation, or clandestine support for one side of an existing
conflict.
Nuclear warfare is a war in which nuclear weapons are used.
Civil war is a war where the forces in conflict belong to the same country or
empire or other political entity.
Asymmetric warfare, is a conflict between two populations of drastically
different levels of military mechanisation. This type of war often results in
guerrilla tactics. Military action produces a very small percentage of air
pollution emissions. Intentional air pollution in combat is one of a collection
of techniques collectively called chemical warfare. Poison gas as a chemical
weapons was principally used during World War I, and resulted in an estimated
91,198 deaths and 1,205,655 injuries. Various treaties have sought to ban its
further use. Non-lethal chemical weapons, such as tear gas and pepper spray, are
widely used, sometimes with deadly effect.
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