Compare realist, neorealist and liberal explanations of war. Using examples assess which explanations seem to you to be the most valid.

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Compare realist, neorealist and liberal explanations of war. Using examples assess

which explanations seem to you to be the most valid.

War has drastic consequences, over 125 million deaths have been accounted for since 1900 and many being innocent civilians.

Over the years wars have been fought for a variety of reasons, but more recently these reasons have been changing. Looking at recent wars, territorial expansion of the larger states has been replaced by wars fought for ideology (Vietnam), intervention for human needs (Kosovo), protection of allies/resources (Iraq ’91), terrorism (Afghanistan).

All wars between states tend to start from decisions of national leaders, whose choices ultimately determine whether armed conflict will occur. In this case, we must look at the relationship of war towards these individuals.

There are two types of realism. Classical realism (traditional realists) and structural realists (neorealist). I will first look into the classical realists’ perspective of war.

Realists look at war as a drive for power which cannot be eliminated. This is such a traditional perspective as many times in history we have come to know of wars occurring wholly on the purpose on increasing one’s power.

The ‘want for resources’ is a very big incentive for leaders to go to war according to realists. Many countries go to war on the basis that the country they are going to war with are not giving up any of their resources, and, therefore, are putting the other country in such a predicament that they are forced to go to war to acquire the resources.

Many psychologists have come to know that a human aspect of aggression, with a drive for power is one of human nature. It is a characteristic of a human being that cannot be eliminated. Psychologists such as Freud, Piaget have suggested this and if we look at ourselves we can see that majority of us have a similar characteristic but not exactly in the same context as national leaders. This is where classical realists look to. They focus primarily on the characteristics of national leaders when they are in search of an answer towards a conflict of war. For example, if there was to be a World War 3, realists would look towards leaders such as George W. Bush to find any criticism towards his reason and create an argument against it.

The thought is that states are the principal actors in world politics, and they dominate and shape international politics. They also cause the world’s deadliest wars known to mankind. I have already emphasized that realists see war an inevitable, I would also like to quote Carl Von Clausewitz, who was a military strategist, who said war is a continuation of politics by other means. This shows that war is just another stage in politics when trying to reach an objective (i.e. acquiring power), because all great powers act in the same manner regardless of their culture, political system or whoever runs the government. It is therefore difficult to discriminate any states, which is why realists tend not to draw any sharp distinctions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ states, as to them, they all have the same aim, which is to have power.

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Realists like to look upon national leaders for causing war between states. Looking at September 11, realists and many ordinary people thought that the US should not have gone to war. From a realists perspective you would look towards Bush as the cause. In this situation there are many reasons to have Bush’s head. The fact that he was advised not to go to war was well-documented and also the fact he never discussed the response of Mullah Omen, the Taliban leader with Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Council or any other advisors show why realists have this perspective on ...

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