POL 135 International Politics of the Middle East Session #7: War and Peace in the Middle East

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1 POL 135 International Politics of the Middle East Session #7: War and Peace in the Middle East

2 What is a War? Sustained combat between/among military contingents involving substantial casualties (with the criterion being a minimum of 1,000 battle deaths). Meredith Sarkees, Frank Whelon Wayman, and J. David Singer Inter-State, Intra-State, and Extra-State Wars. A Comprehensive Look at their Distribution over Time. International Studies Quarterly, 47(1): War is defined in terms of three characteristics: Sustained fighting: a series of battles, not just one encounter Organized fighting, rather than sporadic violence Severity minimum number of battle-deaths

3 Wars are classified according to the types of participants Interstate Wars: Extra-State Wars: Intra-State wars: Communal Wars

4 Wars are defined in terms of the level of violence: Wars of the first kind Conventional wars among states Wars of the second kind nuclear wars Wars of the third kind guerrilla and civil wars Wars of the fourth kind terrorism and counterterrorism warfare

5 A set of interactions between or among states involving the threat, display, or use of force in short temporal intervals. Each of these interactions must be explicit, overt, non-accidental, governmentsanctioned and government-directed. Charles S. Gochman and Zeev Maoz Militarized Interstate Disputes: Procedures, Patterns, Insights. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 28(4): 587. Note all interstate wars are MIDs, but most MIDs involve short-of-war violence

6 The Study of War The study of war focuses on three principal aspects of war and warfare: The Causes of War The Management of War The Termination and Consequences of War

7 Levels of Analysis in the Study of War Individual. Leadership, psychology, decision making and war National. National attributes and national processes, and war Dyadic. Attributes and relations in dyadic settings and war Systemic. The structure of the international system or regional subsystems and war

8 The Causes of War: General Scheme Underlying Causes of War Individual: Decision Making Personality Factors Rationality/ Irrationality Dyadic Alliance Capability Ratio Joint Democracy Trade Systemic: Number of Major Powers Distribution of Power Alliances Polarity Number of States National: Regime Structure National Attributes Domestic Politics Economic & Social Processes Immediate Causes of War

9 No. of MIDs MIlitarized Interstate Disputes, Year MIDs in the Middle East MIDs with Middle East Participants Non Middle East MIDs

10 Duration in Dyad Day Duration of Middle East Disputes Year Duration of Middle East Disputes

11 Two General (Rival) Approaches Political leaders are rational, utility maximizers who wish to survive politically. There is an inherent element of irrationality in politics; decision making is afflicted by biases, emotions, personality disorders, etc. Two competing hypotheses follow: War is a calculated risk designed to advance leader s goals of political survival. Leaders select their wars carefully War is a result of miscalculation and folly if leaders were rational, they would not start many of the conflicts and wars in history

12 Application: Six Day War Israel and Syria hostilities; frequent artillery clashes; occasional air battles; small war. Syrians and Russians inform Nasser that Israel is concentrating troops near Syrian border Nasser moves two Egyptian divisions to Sinai in broad daylight in order to deter the Israelis Nasser s chief of staff informs him that information about Israeli troop concentration is false Arabs blame Nasser for hiding behind the UN skirt.

13 Nasser demands U-Thant to redeploy UN troops in Sinai; U-Thant withdraws troops Nasser closes Tiran Straits Israeli full mobilization; threats of war Increased volume of threats and growing popular awakening in Arab world Nasser told by military advisers that they are ready for war and expect to win Nasser signs a treaty with Jordan on joint military command and cooperation in event of war. Israelis attack, June 5, Egypt handled a devastating blow

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15 The Kurdish problem and the 1975 Algires Agreement The revolution in Iran and the rise of the fundamentalist Shi ite regime in Iran Threat perception, the spread of the Irani revolution to Shi ite population in Iraq Opportunity perception, the weakening of Iran Wishful thinking: A convenient little war?

16 Wishful thinking costly war, effect of street on Arab leadership Consequences of Iran-Iraq War: Long and costly war Iraqi army about 1 million soldiers, not demobilizied Heavy Iraqi debt due to war cost Oil prices down, reduced revenues Iraq-Kuwait dispute over oil fields Questions of intervention by outside powers The internal cost of withdrawing from Kuwait

17 Three alternative explanations of the decision to attack Iraq 1. Personality and Foreign Policy Saddam Hussein was a thorn in Bush s neck due to the attempt to assassinate Bush senior in Misperception the administration really believed that Iraq possesses WMDs and is a major risk to Middle East stability, as well as to the U.S. (ties with Al Qaeda). Intelligence was ambiguous but the administration bolstered information supporting its prior beliefs and rejected information contradicting them.

18 3. Offensive Liberalism. The 9/11 attack created a problem to the U.S.; it revealed a key weakness of the only global power. The U.S. could not be seen as chasing terrorists all over the world It had to demonstrate its resolve It had to back action by some sort of international legitimacy It had to show a quick and decisive victory It had to show that the postwar structure of Iraq is a far better sight than the prewar structure