Are the great powers really as war-prone as the traditional balance of power theorists, like former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger and Chicago professor, John Mearsheimer, argue? I think the evolution of history in all its complexity tells us something else. Even though human beings have made war as far back as we know, this doesn’t predetermine our future, and it doesn’t necessarily prove there will be more of the same.
We should wind the historical clock back to the 15th century. It is then we can take advantage of the late Evan Luard’s fascinating study of war in European societies. He divided up the history of warfare into five periods: The Age of Dynasties (1400 to 1559), the Age of Religions (1559-1648), the Age of Sovereignty (1649-1789), the Age of Nationalism (1789-1917) and the Age of Ideology from 1917 onward.
In the Age of Dynasties, when kings and dukes ruled uncertain fiefdoms, war was often “private”— the cause of some noble or knight, even an independent rabble of disbanded troops, not unlike in Africa today. The Age of Religions brought more intense wars, and more costly too. This was the age of the birth of Protestantism and dissent from Rome. Religion became the most important reason for waging war as religious minorities battled against intolerance from on high.
The third period, the Age of Sovereignty, was the era of state building. War tended to come about as the king or princes sought to extend or consolidate their national territory. In this period wars over faith, with their massive toll on civilians, practically disappeared.
Wars decreased in number and decreased further in the next era, the Age of Nationalism. Despite the Napoleonic wars and World War I, France was involved in international wars in Europe in only 32 out of 128 years. Prussia was at war in only five of those years. There were long periods, 1815-1854 and 1871-1914 when the major European powers did not fight each other at all.
For adherents of the balance of power school this era throws up interesting questions. What had changed to explain the difference between the war years of 1854-71 and the peaceful decades before and after? Nothing. Right through this era there was a rough balance of power between the five or six major powers. Much of the time it succeeded in keeping the peace, but it wasn’t foolproof. Even US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice condemns “balance of power” politics as outmoded and dangerous. “We tried this before; it led to the Great War”, she said not so long ago.
The final era was the Age of Ideology, as the countries of Europe, along with Japan and the US, fought each other, the liberal democracies first against the fascists and then against the communists. Now it appears to some that we are entering a new era of ideological war — against Islamic fundamentalism — and one combined with a new age of nationalism as the US seeks to best any country that might challenge it with weapons of mass destruction.
Looking back over this vast historical panorama, according to Luard’s meticulous arithmetic, wars have become less frequent and the number of years in which an average country has been involved in war has declined noticeably over the centuries. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports that they are still declining, steadily.
Going back through the ages we can see from our perspective that the reasons wars were fought were not issues that would now engage us. The truth is that questions that seemed of paramount importance in one era, a reason for bloody war, are matters of indifference in a subsequent age. What was in one age solved by the brutal application of force is either ignored or solved by quiet diplomacy in another.
Is mankind putting gradually putting war on one side? The trend seems to suggest we are. Wars in the Third World are decreasing. Very few in Europe are inclined to go to war and a bare majority in America. And that only becomes a workable majority if people think it will be a quick one — hence public opinion turning so quickly against the war in Iraq.
Michael Mandlebaum in his book, “The Ideas that Conquered the World” has summed it all up rather well: “The great chess game of international politics is finished, or at least suspended. A pawn is now just a pawn, not a sentry standing guard against an attack on a king.”
