Major world conflicts such as the First World War, the Second
World War, the Russian Civil War and the Cold War emerged as a result of
several events coming together to trigger these conflicts. Some of these
conflicts went from local to global while the others predominantly occurred on a
massive scale. At the same time, there were armed struggles which were mostly
limited.
Every conflict had its own set of origins
and causes. These causes are not only specific to a war but they also have a
particular analysis attached to them. While one theory on the causes of war may
propose that the commencement of a conflict is usually an outcome of the
leaders’ rational decisions, others may hint solely at their irrationality. At
the same time, some theories illustrate conflicts as a product of the states'
misunderstanding of each other's objectives or the dominance of one state over
another. On the global level, some wars took years to take their actual form
and reach their climax while others did not take much time to culminate.
There may be several reasons that
contribute to the initiation of a conflict and several theories devoted to them
nevertheless, I think that the fundamental cause of the major conflicts in the
past was primarily the misinterpretation by the states of each other's
intentions. The Cold War justifies this. During the Cold War, USA used polices
against USSR such as that of 'rolling back' because they assumed that USSR was
trying to extend its dominance and spheres of influence beyond the 'Iron
Curtain'. Similarly, USSR believed that USA was rigorously promoting capitalism
because it was intent on attaining triumph over communism. This resulted in a
series of actions and reactions that intensified the war.
1 comment:
I agree. One of the major reasons for the causes of war is mis interepration or irrational fears. This was especially true during the Cold war, every action of the super power was mis interpreted as aggressive which led to decades of war. For example, the building of a sphere of influence by the Soviet Union because of a legitimate security threat was seen as expansionism and spreading of communist ideology by the USA which led to policies like containment, roll back and even push back. Prolonging the war for decades.
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