The United Convention And The Geneva Convention

Diverse personal encounters with non-state armed actors animate my research agenda, and I seek to discern the meaning of a picture formed by pieces of a puzzle collected during my years of military service. As a peacekeeper in Kosovo, I witnessed how a random rifle shot could spark a series of reprisals across invisible lines that separated villages. My soldiers and I were almost powerless to stop them. On one hand, our legal mandate prevented our ability to take direct action. One the other, we understood so little about our adversaries we did not fully know which action to take. Subsequent experiences leading soldiers during counterinsurgency efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan immersed me again in the turmoil created by overlapping networks of non-state armed groups competing for economic, social, and political power. Each incident revealed another piece of the puzzle, but the picture it formed remained unclear. I started to wonder if the pieces actually fit, or if I was putting them together incorrectly.

The Geneva Convention was the place where a list of rules was made to save and protect the lives of those that were involved in the war.

War is a tool to enforce core values such as ideologies and policies, therefore it is  the continuation of politics through other means (Clausewitz and Maude, 1962). Throughout history the art of war has been extremely political, nation’s rage wars to further their political interest. In the past until world war II, most wars were  for conquest in order to  create empires. The country or empire that attacked first would be the victor because defense was more expensive than offense. This changed after the second world war and dawn the cold war. The two superpowers of the world the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Moseley also comments that a war need to happens between states not nomadic group, displace, and declared; the fight between the non-state and state are not mentioned (para.5). Even though, Jill Long (2012) has express the redefined meanings of war by a strategic leader’s concept of war which is more encompass and more complex: “War is the coherent execution of all means to bring about sufficient adherence to a nation’s will in the international (global) arena; resulting in armed conflict only when all other means fail.” (What is War? A New Point of View, para.1). Long has summarized his article that war isn’t an armed conflict but is the thing that being to limit the displeasure between nations, any phenomenon that occurred by a military force, or other national influences, even it is a fight between a nation-states and non-states (para.16); which is argued with Moseley given definition. However, the definition of war that Long has described are incoherent and didn’t have enough evidence such Moseley.

One of the perennial realities of human existence is war. From the earliest recorded events of human history all the way through to modern times, human communities have engaged in armed conflict as a method of dispute resolution. While war has been a constant part of the human experience, there has also been a tendency within virtually all human civilisations to limit the extent of war and the methods by which warfare may be conducted.(1) In Western civilisation, this limitation on warfare has taken shape as an effort to limit both the determination of when war is appropriate and the means used in battle.(2) Within the Western moral, legal, and political arena, the connected

There have been varying views as to the definition of war, while others have a broader definition to include even conflicts at home, between family circle, within and out of the immediate family; others limit the concept of war to social phenomenon which occurs only between political communities or within intellectuals. In all war according to Encarta English dictionary is “a period of hostile relations between countries, states, or factions that leads to fighting between armed forces, especially in land, air or sea battles.” While many have questioned the justification of war because it elicit tremendous cruelty and suffering, others have held high that war is “a peculiar human activity, in that it can bring out some of our best traits, such as courage and self-sacrifice.” (David – 2000) The big questions are: Is there anything like just war? Or can war ever be morally justifiable? What is the relationship between human nature and war? Or is war part of human nature that is inevitable? These and many other ethical issues and questions raised by war and what some define as just war will be considered in my paper.

This claim made by Carl Von Clausewitz in 1873 reflects a traditionalist perspective of war as an act of state sovereignty for political attainment (Debrix, Barder, 2012 : 39). It has been argued that a definition of war, as an act of inter-state power play, no longer reflects contemporary geopolitics (Reed, 2013: 130). Instead, the distinction between internal and external politics is no longer clearly defined: contemporary warfare involves a combination of state and non-state actors, organized crime networks and a resurgence of identity politics (Kaldor, 2002: 1946 – 1948).

Since the end of the Cold War, new international challenges have arisen. States face threats to their security and well being, such as terrorism and intrastate conflict. While international conflict once consisted of major global wars that pitted the world’s most powerful nations against each other, now we see states attempting to resolve conflict before the situation escalates. War is costly in many ways and can leave a country in ruin and its people physically and psychologically wounded. States use different conflict management and resolution techniques to bring an end to deadly combat or prevent combat from occurring.

These three factors are associated with the people, the military, and the government and it is the interaction of these three factors that come to define the nature of war. Clausewitz believes that all wars are the same in nature as a tool of politics, their internal composition rarely being the same; “Wars vary with the nature of their political motives and situations which give rise to them” (p.88). War understood as an extension of politics suggests that the nature of war will be reflective of the political context and its given objectives. It is for this reason that it is so important that military leaders and political leaders have a solid understanding about how wars about to be fought may differ from previous wars. If this understanding is not developed, the likelihood that poor predictions will be made is high and this will contribute to inadequate strategies that are unlikely to be effective in the waging of actual

There has never been one distinct and concrete definition of war that captures its essence; most definitions are very complex and varies from one another. Nonetheless, the Correlates of War Projects provides a general accepted explanation delineating that war is “an organized and deliberate political act by an established political authority, which must cause a thousand or more deaths in a 12-month period, and require at least two actors capable of harming each other.” The key phrase – political act by a political authority – should be underscored. Based on numerous case studies and this particular simulation of the Vietnam War, the concept of war soundly reflects that of Carl Von Clausewitz’s. Clausewitz best categorized the causes of war based on a paradoxical trinity composed of passion, probability, and rationality. The trinity corresponds to the people, military, and government respectively, and examines how each level perceives and makes judgements during wartime. By merging these three factors, we are able to dictate the character of a specific war. Clausewitz mainly argues for the notion that war is a continuation of politics, and if we examine the Vietnam War based on the aforementioned categories, it is undeniable that it was a war saturated by politics. Furthermore, when we integrate Hans Morgenthau’s principles of political realism with Clausewitz’s arguments, we are able to identify that all facets of the Vietnam War were strongly rooted in politics.

Category of ‘necessary’ and ‘sufficient’ do not cover all the possible causes of war. There are unpredictable causes of war that do not fall into these two categories such as a desire of a statesman to annex territory belonging to neighboring states. As the theory of the war varies among the leaders,

One of America’s most inspiring and influential presidents, John F. Kennedy, once said, “Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” War is defined as a “state of open and usually declared armed conflict between political entities” (Mark). Since the beginning of time, war has been an integral part of human civilization. From the Mongol Conquests of the 13th century to the World Wars, humans have fought with each other to gain territory, acquire resources, force ideas upon one another, and for defense. Some may even consider war an essential part of human development and evolution. However, war is never acceptable or necessary for the reasons that it is often instigated for immoral reasons, leads to radicalism and societal

When exploring the question of how has war changed and how has it remained the same, it makes sense to know what governs the definition of war. Policymaker characterized it as the “organized, deliberate political action that hungers for thousands of deaths and eats for twelve months in a table where two, capable of harming each other, sit.” This offers a certain type of criteria to meet the requirements and therefore takes genocides, protests, and even riots out of the picture. Genocides have the capabilities to cause an inflated mass murder of a thousand or more people in a time period of twelve months. It can be organized and deliberate, but they do not hold two actors capable of harming each other. In some instances organized riots have gained the trait to claim a thousand or more life’s in a short period, but neither do riots hold the actors capable of harming each other. We can take a look at today’s international conflicts and what may escalate from them to acquire a deeper understanding of war. Today we face an entity labeled Isis in the middle east. This conflict rose from many variables. The book Essentials for international relations give us some explanations to as why some state may go to war, and the security dilemma explains our conflict with Isis laconically but efficiently. The security dilemma claims that in a states own efforts to protect

The first debate area is covered in articles by Stuart A. Bremer and William Reed. Particularly, Bremer claims that assumptions of idealism about pacifying effects of collective security alliances; democratization, economic development and reduced level of weaponry are more accurate than realism’s tenets. In contrary to Waltz’s (1988, 627) argument that “wars, hot and cold, originate in the structure of the international political system”, Reed contributes to this debate by further emphasizing the effects of domestic factors on the conflict onset and

Few forces in the world can change, create, and destroy history and nations. However, war continues to be one of the strongest proponents of these changes. The study of the international system is comprised of many differing theories. These theories hypothesize the origin of international structure, events, and how states interact. Specifically, the varying theories present in international relations disagree on the causes of war. Political Realism has been the most dominant paradigm in the past 70 years of International Relations (Class Notes, August 31). This paradigm stresses the anarchic structure of world politics, how this structure affects interaction and how it can cause war. Kenneth Waltz, an American political scientist on the forefront of structural realism, highlights the international system’s decentralized and anarchic tendencies. He states, international politics due to anarchy has been called “politics in the absence of government” (PAGE NUMBER?). Additionally, Waltz stresses the component of the self-help mindset of anarchy. As anarchy endures, states will continue to act as selfish units. This mentality often leads to war as anarchy is taken to mean not just the absence of government, but also the presence of disorder and chaos (Waltz, The Anarchic Structure of World Politics). In general, realist theories present that states are the principal actors, every state partakes in rational egoism which is essential to survival, and anarchy is the dominant