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Internal War: Causes and Cures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Steven R. David
Steven R. David
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University
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Abstract

Since the end of the cold war internal conflicts have received unprecedented attention. Of special interest has been the effort of neorealists to employ an approach traditionally used to explain interstate conflict to make internal war understandable. While neorealism has been useful in explaining the behavior of groups in anarchic conditions, it is inadequate in explaining internal wars occurring in states that retain a strong government and that stem from motives other than power and security. Neorealism also does little to explain how anarchy is created in the first place and what can be done to restore central control. Another approach offers “bad leaders” as a proximate cause of internal war. There is much to this explanation, but more work needs to be done in understanding just what makes leaders “bad” and whether leaders have the latitude to be “good.” Finally, the diverse nature of internal wars has frustrated efforts to develop an overall means of settling them. At a point in which armed conflict has become almost exclusively an internal affair, useful generalizations for causes and cures remain elusive.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , July 1997 , pp. 552 - 576
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1997

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References

1 Drawing from the Brown volume, I define “internal war” as a violent dispute whose origins can be traced primarily to domestic rather than to systemic factors, and one in which armed violence occurs primarily within the borders of a single state. The terms internal war, civil war, and domestic conflict are used interchangeably throughout this essay.

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10 For an explicit criticism of the neorealist approach for its failure to take into account social structures (in this case, regarding the amount of military power that can be generated by states from different cultures), see Rosen, Stephen Peter, “Military Effectiveness: Why Society Matters,” International Security 19 (Spring 1996)Google Scholar.

11 The reversal of second and third images is found in the work of several scholars focusing on unstable states. See, for example, Jackson, Robert, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Buzan, Barry, People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Ayoob, Mohammed, “Security in the Third World: The Worm about to Turn,” International Affairs 60 (Winter 1983–1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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23 Barry R. Posen makes the argument that states engender nationalism in order to enhance their ability to defend themselves from external threats; see Posen, , “Nationalism, the Mass Army and Military Power,” International Security 18 (Fall 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Many have made the case that the war in the Balkans stems from Milosevic's desire to remain in power. See Gangon, V. P. Jr., “Ethnic Nationalism and International Conflict: The Case of Serbia,” International Security 19 (Winter 1994–1995)Google Scholar; Djilas, Alex, “A Profile of Slobodan Milosevic,” Foreign Affairs 72 (Summer 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Glenny, Misha, The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War (New York: Penguin, 1992)Google Scholar.

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27 There is a large and growing literature on how to end internal wars, mostly focusing on negotiations. See, for example, Zartman, William, ed., Negotiating Internal Conflicts (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993)Google Scholar; idem, Negotiating an End to Civil Wars (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995)Google Scholar; Pillar, Paul R., Negotiating Peace: War Termination as a Bargaining Process (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Falk, Richard A., The International Law of Civil War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Stedman, Stephen John, Peacemaking in Civil War (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1991)Google Scholar; and Barbara F. Walter, “The Resolution of Civil Wars: Why Incumbents and Insurgents Fail to Negotiate” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1994).

28 Pillar (fn. 27), 25.

29 Licklider (fn. 3), 681.

30 Ibid., 687. The pessimism expressed by many regarding negotiated settlements is not completely unqualified. Stedman and Licklider both acknowledge that under the right conditions (for example, when the outside powers are willing to impose order), negotiated settlements can work. Moreover, there have been too few post-cold war cases to allow for any definitive conclusions regarding the efficacy of negotiations for ending civil conflict.

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38 For an exhaustive treatment of some of the problems the United States has had in attempting to intimidate (or remove) foreign leaders, see U.S. Congress, Senate, Hearings before the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., vol. 7, “Covert Action” (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1975); and AllegedAssassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, November 20,1975, Senate Intelligence Committee, Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Report 94–465, 13098—8. On Saddam Hussein, see Yossi Melman, “Why the Plot to Kill Hussein Failed,” Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1991, 1–2.

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