(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Nils Petter Gleditsch:
Towards a more peaceful world?
Pax Publishers, 2016
In the new book Towards a more peaceful world? peace scientist Nils Petter Gleditsch makes a settlement with three theories that are central to many that deal with studies of peace issues and international politics: the Marxist analysis that the contradictions in capitalism lead to war, the realistic school's analysis that the normal state between states consists of conflict , and the traditional peace research assumptions that key developments in modern society lead to an increased degree of conflict. Against these analyzes, Gleditsch puts forward the theory of liberal and democratic peace, which argues that states with free markets and parliamentary elections participating in international organizations are more peaceful than others, both in their internal and relative states. Gleditsch justifies the thesis by pointing to a comprehensive set of statistics showing that the world has become a more peaceful place in recent years, especially after the Cold War. The goal of the book is to help make peace research more truthful, so that we can learn what actually works to create more peace in the world.
Realism vs. liberalism. The main thesis presented in the book is that democratic countries rarely or never go to war with each other, that democratic countries have less chance of civil war and genocide, that states that trade together based on free markets have less chance of going to war, and that integration in the UN and other multi-state organizations, the chance of war is reduced. The latter is easy to agree on; the other I perceive as more controversial.
Gleditsch is aware that the liberal idea of spreading democracy and the market economy through war is failing and damaging, and that the development over the past few years seems to contradict the trend towards a more peaceful world. He still maintains that the Liberal Democrat peace seems to be gaining momentum in the long run. The most important objection from the realistic school, which Gleditsch disagrees with without doing much to refute it, is that democratic peace should be regarded as something temporary rather than constant. It was based on a tactical alliance against the communist-controlled powers in the Warsaw Pact and China, and after the Cold War on the US's dominant position as superpower, which is now increasingly being challenged by Russia and China.
In the era of nuclear weapons, one should be cautious in claiming that the likelihood of being killed in war has diminished.
It is more compelling when the author opposes Samuel Huntington's thesis on clashes between civilizations. Gleditsch acknowledges that the proportion of conflicts involving Muslim states and rebel groups is increasing, but shows that this is due to a decline in conflicts elsewhere, that it is more a "civil war within Islam" than a war between different religions, and that three of the four largest Muslim states (Indonesia, India and Bangladesh) have no such kind of civil war. He also delivers soothing (technology and civilization optimistic) counterpoints that increased resource scarcity must necessarily lead to more armed conflicts.
A marked decline in the number of people killed. Gleditsch provides compelling figures that the number of people killed in war and conflict has been declining for a long time, both in relative and absolute terms: He points out that in the first five years after World War II, around 450 people were killed each year, while in the five-year period that ended in 000 was killed around 2014 every year. While it was considered normal and legal state practice to conquer foreign territory through war in the 50th century, such conquests are today rejected by the international community through the UN. The number of conflicts has long been declining, and of the armed conflicts that exist today, many date back to the 000s and 1800s. The number of people killed in genocide and as a result of crime has also been declining. At the same time, the world has experienced great strides in the decline of the use of capital punishment, slavery and torture.
It becomes even more problematic when the author writes that "the likelihood of being killed in war, the world as a whole, is ever lower and was about 200 times higher in 1916 than in 2014". It is certainly true that the proportion of people killed was 200 times higher in 1916. But in the era of nuclear weapons, one should be careful to transfer this directly to the likelihood of being killed. One possible explanation for the decline in the number of wars that Gleditsch does not devote much space to discuss is that technological developments have provided opportunities for mutual destruction that are much greater than before. For example, if the Cuba crisis had ended in nuclear war, which must have been said to have been a real possibility, these statistics would have been blown into bits and pieces. Isn't it also wrong to say that the probability of being killed in war was less in 1962 than in 1926?
Another objection, which the author also admits, is that the decline in the number of deaths is mainly due to a decline in the level of conflict in East Asia. The leading states there are not democracies, and although in some sense capitalist, they are also characterized by strong state regulation of the economy.
Marxist theory of imperialism. Gleditsch spends little time discussing the Marxist analysis that the capitalist countries' competition for markets, raw materials, and spheres of interest leads to war, even though he begins the book by rejecting the theory. The rationale seems both easy and ahistorical: that the Second World War was started by two states that "both in the name professed to socialism", namely the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. That the Soviet Union can be regarded as an accomplice in the outbreak of war I perceive as a particularly controversial claim, especially considering that Stalin had for years failed to form an alliance with France and the United Kingdom to stave off Germany. That the Nazis professed a form of "socialism" is purely word-clogging; the fascist states were all built on the principle of private ownership of the means of production and production for a capitalist market.
In his defense of capitalism as a peacemaker, Gleditch attaches great importance to the fact that two states that are integrated into a common market also have more to lose in going to war with each other. The classic example is the economic integration between France and West Germany after World War II. There may be something in common markets that reduces the risk of war internally, but in my opinion it can also lead to increased contradictions and the danger of war externally. For example, the armed conflict in Ukraine is largely due to the competition between two different common markets, the European Union on the one hand and the Eurasian Union on the other. Although the risk of war internally in these markets may be reduced, the danger of war may increase in states where mutually exclusive common markets both seek to establish influence, as in Ukraine.
Common markets may lessen the danger of war internally, but also lead to increased contradictions and the danger of war externally.
Nonsense with numbers. A very interesting issue addressed in the book is that the number of people killed in wars is often uncertain and that they can be used politically to legitimize support for various parties to a conflict. Prior to the war against Yugoslavia in 1999, it was reported that up to 225 Kosovo Albanians had been killed in ethnic cleansing, while the War Criminal Tribunal subsequently came to a figure of 000. Gleditsch also mentions that the numbers of people killed in the Congo civil war have become estimated at anywhere from 2788 to 200 million, and that the excess mortality following the US invasion of Iraq up to 000 has been estimated at as high as 3,9 to as low as 2006. Overall, the book comes with wise admonitions against to be overly confident in one's confidence in both experts and statistics.
Despite my earlier objections, it is only to be noted that Nils Petter Gleditsch has provided a carefully worked out, thought provoking and provocative defense of the theory of liberal peace that is well worth spending time on.
