Why Do States Go to War?

Question: Why do states go to war?

School 1: States that want to achieve more power, use war as the means to gain more power or maintain power in Anarchical world.

Evera, S. V. (1998). Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War. International Security, 4(22), 5-43. Retrieved from http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci211z/2.1/Van%20Evera%20IS%201998.pdf

According Evera, a state is more likely to engage in war if they will have the upper hand between the states if they engage in warfare. ( Evera 5) There are several reasons why a state would consider going to war according to Evera, they look at the decision making of the state. The state will go to war if they are able to gain the upper advantage in a war. According to Evera Offensive and Defensive balance have their own advantages when they are used in the right situation. ( Evera p16-18) If a shift between offense and defense balance has occurred between the states, than there is a high risk of war according to Evera. ( Evera p6). The problem that might be overlooked is realism in this case only looks the state as a unitary actor. It’s hard to see the state as a whole to determine what a state is thinking when it goes to war, because it doesn’t look at the different levels of analysis within the government. It only sees the state in wanting a few things only which is power and security. Realism is the main idea behind the article, because it views the state as a rational actor and it looked at states only looking to engage in war and the reasoning why they do go to war.

Glaser , C. L. (1997). The Security Dilemma Revisited. Cambridge University press, 50(1), 171-201. Retrieved from http://www.gwu.edu/~iscs/assets/docs/cg-docs/SecurityDilemma-WP-1997.pdf

Glasser sees a dist...

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...h going to war. Leaders have do not look at the costs of going to war. They tend to look at the risk of war, and try to find some benefit of going to war. (Fearon 379-380). Fearon makes emphasized that leaders could bargain and avoid war overall, but leaders tend to overlook the cost of the lives of the people at war. (Fearon 381). Fearon argues that bluffing for leaders helps a state hide their weakness and show their strength in front of different states. ( Fearon 397). Rational choice is clearly the way Fearon went in the article, because he showed how leaders would make choices that would decide on if their state went to war or not over several factors. The one thing that rational actors always assume, but cannot prove is trying to show that all actors are rational thinkers. Leaders going to war might not think rationally when deciding to settle or go to war .