The Cause Of War Chapter Summaries

Usually, wars start for the gain of land, to solve disagreements and conflicts in a country or between many. The book The Road to Chlifa by Michele Marineau, develops the idea that wars do more damage than fixing. This is proven through the characters of Maha, Bechir, and Karim. In the book, Maha loses her family because of a bombing in the area where she lived. Bechir loses his best friend, Karim because he has to emigrate to France with his family in order to survive. Finally, it is proven through Karim, a boy who grew up in a war zone and never knew peace. To summarize, wars cause more problems than the ones they solve.

Why do notions go to war? What is the reasoning behind their actions? John G. Stoessinger analyzes these questions in his book, Why Nations go to War. Stoessinger believes that to understand the war, you must understand the leaders of the war. When you understand the leaders you understand their actions and when you understand their actions, you have the answer to the question, "Why do nations go to war?" In this review paper I am going to review each chapter individually, 1-10. I will then give a brief summary of the book and what I think as a whole based on my reading.

The conflict of war and its effects have been debated throughout history. Some argue that there are other peaceful alternatives besides war that would lead to a better outcome, but in reality this is not the case. War is a natural part of human interactions, and even though it brings death and destruction, war will not cease to exist. Wars are the human way of getting one group to look superior than the other. The idea of a passive approach is ideal, but it is almost nearly impossible and may not always lead to the same outcome as if a war had taken place.

Dating to the beginning of civilization, war continues to be a repeating occurrence in the world whether it be with oneself, society, or the outside influences in the world. In terms of war between countries, there is the growing controversy over its utilization and purpose when a country is predisposed to a situation foreboding unavoidable conflict. War is the only solution to certain situations but cannot be considered a panacea to all the issues prevalent in the world. The reasoning behind this is that war produces consequences some of which that are permanent. War has always spawn more conflict, gives disfigurement to human bodies, death and occasionally affects the state of one’s mind in areas such as mentality, emotions, rationality

Elie Wiesel, an Auschwitz survivor, ends his autobiography, Night, with the lasting statement, "From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me" (115). The importance of this declaration signifies that Elie came to a realization that emotional death that the death camps have created will far outweigh the physical pains experienced through torture. He understands that the physical evidence from the torture will fade, but the psychological trauma will torment and alter the rest of his life. Through Elie 's eyes, the reader is forced to beg the questions: What is the breaking point for a person to experience a disregard for emotion? How does a person heal from what is thought to be obsolete terror? And can a person ever recover to the extent of fitting back into society? However, holocaust survivors are not the only people who suffered from the detrimental effects of death. Veterans of war also become victims to the immunity of death. The mother country will rejoice at the sight of its sons returning from battle; however, the families do not comprehend that the war will always rage inside their battle-scarred relative. Although wars hurt America physically by decreasing the population, wars also impact soldiers emotionally. Emotional death is prevalent in all wars, and it destroys America socially because of the isolationism it creates.

President Franklin Roosevelt did not expect the beautiful island of Oahu to be turned into an ugly battle ground on an ordinary Sunday morning, and he therefore knew that he would not let Japan get away with what they had done, so his next step was to declare a war, and he was determined to fight hard until America has won the war. Finally, people can avoid war if they understand why it started. In his novel, A Separate Peace, John Knowles writes about why he feels war begins, “Because it seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart” (Knowles201). John Knowles explains in his book that wars happen because people cannot undergo the feeling of envy, hate, anger, and stupidity, so instead of trying to make peace within themselves, they take it out into the world and let all feelings explode like bombs in a deadly battle. War should not be an answer to a problem, but without war, no one would want peace.

Lastly, the antagonist must be given the chance to make peace before a war breaks out. In this sense, if there is a war breaking out then the protagonist is not allowed to deny any form of peacemaking before the war

“The Tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s worst” wise words from Henry Fosdick. When it comes down to the time where an individual hits rock bottom, a man either do its best or do its worst. Although, Man can do its best and do its worst at the same time. There are many reasons how man’s best can result to man’s worst. Henry Fosdick statement is both true and false.

He acknowledges the idea that others look at conflict theory as pertaining to specific events in history; however, he insists that it is more than that and that “the perspective is much broader and includes all of what goes on in society” (Collins 1994:47). He stresses upon the fact that it is not about simply having conflicts occur, but rather, how domination happens even when conflict is not outwardly occuring (Collins 1994:47).

‘War’ as defined by Webster’s Dictionary is a state of open and declared, hostile armed conflict between states or nations. Voltaire—the human personification of the Enlightenment period—says the following: “Famine, plague, and war are the three most famous ingredients of this wretched world…All animals are perpetually at war with each other…Air, earth and water are arenas of destruction. Defining war has been a political issue for centuries, and it poses a philosophical problem. Most philosophers will agree on war being a clash of arms, or a state of mutual tension between nations or states, distinguishing it from open rebellions, riots, and personal violence.

I chose this theme mainly because I thought I could stick to this theme throughout the terms as I enjoy action books especially ones that are based on a true story. I also chose this theme because it is fascinating that war has been around since the beginning of human civilisation to WWI, ‘the war to end all wars’, to WWII (deadliest war of all time) and to present time with conflict in the Middle East. It is thought that 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives, leaving only 300 years of peace. From reading this data, I became interested in why people start wars and turn to violence. I thought this theme will help me answer this question.

The purpose of this essay is to inform on the similarities and differences between systemic and domestic causes of war. According to World Politics by Jeffry Frieden, David Lake, and Kenneth Schultz, systemic causes deal with states that are unitary actors and their interactions with one another. It can deal with a state’s position within international organizations and also their relationships with other states. In contract, domestic causes of war pertain specifically to what goes on internally and factors within a state that may lead to war. Wars that occur between two or more states due to systemic and domestic causes are referred to as interstate wars.

Political Violence has been affiliated with governments and nations since the beginning of political history and plays a huge role in the causes of Wars around the world. What causes leaders to declare war? Many philosophers have based their studies and theories on this question; many have different perspectives. One philosopher, John Stoessinger, has expressed his theories on the causes of war through what he calls his “misperception framework.” Stoessinger shows great interests in the personalities of world leaders; he is less impressed with the roles of abstract forces such as nationalism, militarism, economic factors, or alliance systems as the causes of

In this essay I will be giving the definition of war and conflict and I will be describing the causes of war and giving examples of wars that have happened because of the conflicts that I will be mentioning in my essay. The causes of war I will be looking at will be; Politics, Nationalism, Ideology, Land, resources, historical rivalry, ethnic conflict and religion. These are the main causes of war.

By nature the war is considered to be political, fundamentally interactive and most importantly something exceptionally violent. If any of these elements are absent, it might be constituted to something else instead of a war because it has got a certain nature to be called as a war and must meet a certain criteria. While on the other hand, the character of war is something that keeps on changing as per the manifestations and changing phenomena of the real world. The character of war is political that keeps on taking place among various societies. Politics plays a great role and character in shaping the society. While the conduct of war is highly affected by cultural, political, ethical, legal, technological as well as social factors along with the factors associated with the organization of military. However, the place and time keeps on playing great role in deciding the character of wars .