MCDP – Marine Corps Doctrinal Publishing

Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian military theorist, has made many discussions on
strategy and military doctrine which are still considered to be very important and
relevant even in the information age.

He discussed the remarkable trinity: the military, the government, and the people. He
defined the components of the trinity as the people, the army and the government. He
further suggested that these components are actually the following;

a. Primordial violence, hatred and enmity

b. The play of chance and probability
c. War’s element of subordination to rational policy

Clausewitz’s theory on the interplay between the three factors is simply explained in this
manner: the government established the political purpose; the military/army provides
the means for achieving the political end; and the people provide the will, the “engines
of war.”

1776 – American Revolution against British rule

1861 – American Civil War

1945 – end of WW2, beginning of the Cold War, policy of containment, extending
military and financial aid to countries with anti-Soviet policies or are threatened by
communism; Truman Doctrine became the foundation of US foreign policy which placed
it in the role of global policeman

1962 – Vietnam War and other proxy wars; the Cuban missile crisis

2001 – War on Global Terrorism

USA Patriot Act – Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools
Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001

Preemptive War – Bush Doctrine which called for the US to exercise the right to secure
itself against countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups, which was used also to
justify the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001

The World is a Battlefield simply states that the US can pursue its targets and thus
wage war against them and has thus shaped a new paradigm of American foreign
policy

The map is taken from the book, “The World According to Tom Barnett”
Waltz's three images of international relations

Waltz's initial contribution to the field of international relations was his 1959 book, Man,
the State, and War, which classified theories of the causes of war into three categories,
or levels of analysis. Waltz refers to these levels of analysis as "images," and uses the
writings of one or more classic political philosophers to outline the major points of each
image. Each image is given two chapters: the first mainly uses the classical
philosopher's writings to describe what that image says about the cause of war; the
second usually consists of Waltz analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of that
image.

First image: Individuals

The first image argues that wars are often caused by the nature of particular statesmen
and political leaders such as state leaders -- examples like Napoleon or Saddam
Hussein-- or by human nature more generally. This is basically consistent with Classical
Realism, which dominated the International Relations discipline at the time of Man, the
State, and War but which Waltz would contest more fully in his next book, Theory of
International Politics.

Second image: States

Theories of war that fall under the rubric of Waltz's second image contend that wars are
caused by the domestic makeup of states. A prime example that Waltz refers to is
Lenin's theory of imperialism, which posits that the main cause of war is rooted in the
need for capitalist states to continue opening up new markets in order to perpetuate
their economic system at home. A more familiar example in the Western world today is
the notion that non-democratic states, because of their internal composition, start wars.

Third image: International system

Waltz next assesses the first two images as being less influential in general than the
third image, yet ultimately necessary in understanding the causes of War. Waltz
concludes his 1959 book Man, the State, and War with a final explanation of the three
images. The third image describing the framework of world politics and the first and
second, determining the forces that create the policies of a state. The third image posits
that the cause of war is found at the systemic level; namely, that the anarchic structure
of the international system is the root cause of war. In this context, "anarchy" is not
defined as a condition of chaos or disorder but rather one in which there is no sovereign
body that governs the interactions between autonomous nation-states. Put differently,
unlike in domestic society where citizens can theoretically rely on law enforcement
agencies to protect their persons and property, if a state is invaded and calls "911" it
can't be sure anyone will answer. Similarly, whereas when two citizens have a dispute
they can appeal to the courts to render a verdict and, more importantly, the law
enforcement agencies to enforce the court's ruling, there is no body above nation-states
that is capable of: establishing rules or laws for all the states, deciding how these apply
in specific cases, and compelling the states to honor the court's ruling. As a result, if an
issue at stake is important enough to a state, it can achieve a satisfactory outcome only
by using its power to impose its will on another state(s). The realization that, at any
point in time any state can resort to armed force, forces each state always be prepared
for that contingency. These themes are fleshed out more fully in Theory of International
Politics which, as the title suggests, lays out a theory for international politics as a whole
rather than the narrower focus on what causes.