« War and international relations » : différence entre les versions

De Baripedia
Aucun résumé des modifications
 
(9 versions intermédiaires par le même utilisateur non affichées)
Ligne 1 : Ligne 1 :
{{Infobox Lecture
| image =
| image_caption =
| faculté = [[Faculté des sciences de la société]]
| département = [[Département de science politique et relations internationales]]
| professeurs =
* [[Stephan Davidshofer]]<ref>[http://unige.academia.edu/StephanDavidshofer Page de Stephan Davidshofer sur Academia.edu]</ref><ref>[https://www.gcsp.ch/News-Knowledge/Experts/Guest-Experts/Davidshofer-Dr-Stephan-Davidshofer Page personnelle de Stephan Davidshofer sur le site du Geneva Centre for Security Policy]</ref><ref>[https://twitter.com/stedavids Compte Twitter de Stephan Davidshofer]</ref>
* [[Xavier Guillaume]]<ref>[http://edinburgh.academia.edu/XavierGuillaume Page de Xavier Guillaume sur Academia.edu]</ref><ref>[http://www.pol.ed.ac.uk/people/academic_staff/xavier_guillaume Page personnelle de Xavier Guillaume sur le site de l'Université de Édimbourg]</ref><ref>[http://www.sciencespo.fr/psia/users/xavierguillaume Page personnelle de Xavier Guillaume sur le site de Science Po Paris PSIA]</ref><ref>[http://edinburgh.academia.edu/XavierGuillaume Page de Xavier Guillaume sur Academia.edu]</ref><ref>[https://www.rug.nl/staff/x.guillaume/research Page personnelle de Xavier Guillaume sur le site de l'Université de Groningen]</ref> 
| enregistrement =
| assistants =
| cours = [[Critical approaches to international relations]]
| lectures =
*[[Introduction to critical approaches to international relations]]
*[[Sociology of the discipline of international relations]]
*[[Norms in international relations]]
*[[Globalizations: definition and situation]]
*[[Globalization: circulation between imperialism and cosmopolitan strategies]]
*[[Otherness in international relations]]
*[[The concept of domination in international relations]]
*[[Humanitarian action: between action and intervention]]
*[[The concept of development in international relations]]
*[[Security and international relations]]
*[[Surveillance and international relations]]
*[[War and international relations]]
*[[War, peace and politics in Africa since the end of the Cold War]]
*[[Borders in international politics]]
*[[The borders of Europe]]   
*[[Mobility and international relations]]
*[[To conclude the course of critical approaches to international relations]]
}}
This is a fairly broad issue, being an important phenomenon in the field of international relations and security. For the past thirty years, there has been a questioning of war as a form of organized political violence.  
This is a fairly broad issue, being an important phenomenon in the field of international relations and security. For the past thirty years, there has been a questioning of war as a form of organized political violence.  
{{Translations
| es = Guerra y relaciones internacionales
| fr = Guerre
| it = Guerra e relazioni internazionali
}}


= The classic conception of war =  
= The classic conception of war =  


[[Image:Clausewitz.jpg|thumb|right|185px|Carl von Clausewitz]]The classical conception of war refers to Carl von Clausewitz [1780 - 1832] who was a Prussian officer during the Napoleonic wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He published his book De la guerre en 1832, which remains the main reference among war practitioners, but also in political science and international relations.
[[Image:Clausewitz.jpg|thumb|right|185px|Carl von Clausewitz]]The classical conception of war refers to Carl von Clausewitz [1780 - 1832] who was a Prussian officer during the Napoleonic wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He published his book De la Guerre en 1832, which remains the main reference among war practitioners, but also in political science and international relations.


Clausewitz's definition of war is "an act of violence intended to compel the adversary to carry out our will" as "the continuation of politics by other means". These notions represent common sense when talking about war as a political enterprise to defend its interests. It is a rational and national practice that amounts to the use of organized violence for a political purpose. We are on a continuum from politics to war. War is a time when you get out of politics to get something.
Clausewitz's definition of war is "an act of violence intended to compel the adversary to carry out our will" as "the continuation of politics by other means". These notions represent common sense when talking about war as a political enterprise to defend its interests. It is a rational and national practice that amounts to the use of organized violence for a political purpose. We are on a continuum from politics to war. War is a time when you get out of politics to get something.
Ligne 20 : Ligne 57 :


= War and international relations =  
= War and international relations =  
L’idée est d’inscrire la guerre comme un meilleur entendement des enjeux d’une discipline. Dans la discipline des relations internationales, il y a une « division du travail » entre le réalisme libéralisme. La guerre reste un moyen de communication comme un moyen de recherche évident pour ces approches. Le réalisme et le néoréalisme vont s’intéresser à la guerre et le libéralisme va s’intéresse au pendant de la guerre qui est la paix. L’un ne va pas sans l’autre. Ils s’accommodent de cette division du travail en fonction de leurs conceptions de l’homme et du système international.
The idea is to inscribe war as a better understanding of the issues of a discipline. In the discipline of international relations, there is a "division of labour" between liberal realism. War remains a means of communication as an obvious means of research for these approaches. Realism and neo-realism will be interested in war and liberalism will be interested in the counterpart of war, which is peace. One cannot go without the other. They adapt to this division of labour according to their conceptions of man and the international system.
 
== Les réalistes et néoréalistes ==
Les réalistes s’intéressent à la guerre dans le cadre d’approche anhistorique comme relevant de l’instinct avec des auteurs comme Carr ou encore Morgenthau. Pour les néoréalistes, la cause principale de la guerre n’est pas la nature de l’homme, mais la nature du système international lui-même. Les États sont en compétition pour la puissance, le système international va générer de la guerre comme Kenneth Waltz qui parle de la guerre comme quelque chose d’essentiellement lié au système international étant un équilibre de puissance dans un système anarchiste. Dès lors qu’on atteint un certain ordre d’équilibre, on ne va pas se battre. Pour les réalistes et les néoréalistes, la fin de la guerre n’est pas un objectif en soi. Selon cette logique, la paix ne s’atteint uniquement que par la neutralisation des adversaires. La dissuasion nucléaire été un système efficace pour ne pas être en guerre parce qu’on avait peur d‘une assurance de destruction mutuelle qui est la théorie du MAD. L’approche néoréaliste est occidentalo-centré parce que le reste du monde a souffert des guerres « proxy ».


== Les approches libérales ==  
== The Realists and Neo-Realists ==
Il y a un accord avec les réalistes sur le fait que le système international est essentiellement anarchique, mais il y a la croyance qu’à travers la coopération, on peut améliorer le système en développant la coopération entre les différents acteurs du système international. Il y a deux arguments pour arriver à la fin de la guerre :
Realists are interested in war within the framework of an anhistorical approach as a matter of instinct with authors such as Carr or Morgenthau. For neo-realists, the main cause of war is not the nature of man, but the nature of the international system itself. States are in competition for power, the international system will generate war like Kenneth Waltz who talks about war as something essentially related to the international system being a balance of power in an anarchist system. As soon as we reach a certain order of balance, we will not fight. For realists and neo-realists, the end of the war is not an objective in itself. According to this logic, peace can only be achieved by neutralizing opponents. Nuclear deterrence was an effective system for not being at war because we were afraid of an insurance of mutual destruction, which is the theory of the MAD. The neo-realistic approach is Westernized-centric because the rest of the world has suffered from proxy wars.
*'''la paix par le commerce''' : le développement de relations commerciales poussées n’est pas dans l’intérêt puisqu’il y a trop à perdre économiquement. Cet argument a fortement influencé le libéralisme institutionnel comme avec les travaux de Keohane et Dahl.  
*'''théorie de la paix démocratique''' : les démocraties ne se font pas la guerre entre elles. C’est une thèse influente en relations internationales. En principe, jamais deux démocraties ne sont jamais entrées en guerre. Cette théorie se réclame de Kant et de son projet de paix perpétuelle largement repris par les tenants de la paix démocratique, mais encore par les auteurs de l’approche du cosmopolitisme comme David Held avec l’idée de démocratiser le monde pour ne plus avoir de guerre.  


La conception clausewitzienne reste déterminante pour ce type d’approche où même si on veut transformer la rationalité de la guerre, les États font la guerre pour assouvir des intérêts politiques.
== Liberal approaches ==
There is agreement with the realists that the international system is essentially anarchic, but there is the belief that through cooperation, the system can be improved by developing cooperation between the different actors in the international system. There are two arguments for reaching the end of the war:
*'''peace through trade''': the development of advanced trade relations is not in the interest since there is too much to lose economically. This argument has strongly influenced institutional liberalism as with the work of Keohane and Dahl.
*'''democratic peace theory''': democracies do not wage war against each other. It is an influential thesis in international relations. In principle, no two democracies have ever been at war. This theory claims to be based on Kant and his project of perpetual peace, which is widely taken up by supporters of democratic peace, but also by the authors of the cosmopolitan approach such as David Held with the idea of democratizing the world so that there is no more war.


= Les transformations de la guerre =
The Clausewitz conception remains decisive for this type of approach where, even if one wants to transform the rationality of war, States wage war to satisfy political interests.
Une série d’approches remettent en cause le canon de Clausewitz et s’interrogent de savoir si la guerre se transforme et de savoir si elle n’est pas conceptualisable comme en dehors d’une rationalité politique. Depuis maintenant plusieurs décennies, la guerre est avant tout une affaire intra-étatique alors que l’approche classique est que la guerre est interétatique. Depuis les années 1970, l’écrasante majorité des guerres sont des guerres civiles. Il y a une remise en question des pratiques de la guerre qui dépasse le cadre du ad bellum et du jus in bellum avec l’émergence de nouveaux acteurs qui mènent des guerres de guérillas, mais aussi avec de nouveaux acteurs comme les mercenaires.  


La conception classique se réclame de Clausewitz qui a une conception avant tout politique de la guerre. La guerre est quelque chose de rationnel se passant entre acteurs politiques qui jouent le même jeu. Au sein de la discipline de l’étude de la guerre, il y a des remises en question de ce paradigme. L’avènement d’un nouvel ordre mondial représente souvent un moment clef dans cette remise en question. À la fin des années 1970, il y a une remise en question de ce paradigme est en particulier de la question de la « trinité qui est l’État, l’armée et le peuple. On va se mettre à parler de nouvelles guerres dans le contexte d’un détachement progressif de la logique politique de la guerre. L’approche des nouvelles guerres défendues avant tout par Eric Holder. Il y a un avènement d’une guerre post-moderne.
= The transformations of war =
A series of approaches challenge Clausewitz's canon and question whether war is changing and whether it is not conceptualisable as outside of political rationality. For several decades now, war has been above all an intra-state affair, whereas the classic approach is that war is inter-state. Since the 1970s, the overwhelming majority of wars have been civil wars. There is a questioning of war practices that goes beyond the framework of ad bellum and jus in bellum with the emergence of new actors waging guerrilla wars, but also with new actors such as mercenaries.


= Guerre, technologie et sécurité =
The classical conception is based on Clausewitz, who has a primarily political conception of war. War is something rational that happens between political actors who play the same game. Within the discipline of war studies, there are challenges to this paradigm. The advent of a new world order is often a key moment in this challenge. In the late 1970s, there was a questioning of this paradigm and in particular the question of the "trinity" which is the State, the army and the people. We will start talking about new wars in the context of a progressive detachment from the political logic of war. The approach of the new wars defended above all by Eric Holder. There is an advent of a post-modern war.
La technologie a un impact sur la façon de mener la guerre et de la conception de la sécurité. Le constat est que même si les démocraties ne se font plus la guerre entre elles, elles continuent de la faire ailleurs. Du moment que l’on part de ce constat, il est intéressant de s’interroger sur comment la guerre en occident s’est transformée ou pas ces dernières années.  


La guerre postmoderne est ce qu’on qualifie de Western Way of War avec une révolution dans les affaires militaires [RAM] avec une le concept de « guerre zéro mort ». Dans cette remise en question survient l’idée de guerre comme spectacle sportif avec une virtualisation de la guerre et la création d’un discours techno-stratégique avec des effets concrets sur l’organisation de la violence politique dans le monde d’aujourd’hui. Ces différentes approches et différentes idées remettent en question la guerre comme étant avant tout un phénomène politique. La question est de savoir si nous avons affaire à une évolution ou à une révolution avec la guerre qui a changée de nature. Colin Gray a publié en 1999 un article provocateur intitulé Clausewitz rules, OK? The future is past-with GPS<ref>Gray, Colin. "Clausewitz Rules, OK? The Future Is the Past—with GPS." Review of International Studies 25.5 (1999): 161-82.</ref> qui postule que la guerre n’a pas changée faisant des guerres pour les mêmes raisons.
= War, technology and security =
Technology has an impact on how war is fought and how security is designed. The observation is that even if democracies no longer wage war against each other, they continue to do so elsewhere. As long as we start from this observation, it is interesting to ask ourselves how the war in the West has changed or not in recent years.


Pour les autres, on est dans une transformation fondamentale dans la manière de faire la guerre à cause d’un certain développement technologique dans le cadre de la révolution de l’information transformant la façon de mener la guerre et même la rationalité des acteurs dans la façon de mener la guerre.  
Postmodern warfare is what we call the Western Way of War with a revolution in military affairs[RAM] with a concept of "zero death warfare". In this questioning comes the idea of war as a sports spectacle with a virtualization of war and the creation of a techno-strategic discourse with concrete effects on the organization of political violence in today's world. These different approaches and ideas challenge war as a political phenomenon above all. The question is whether we are dealing with an evolution or a revolution with the war that has changed in nature. Colin Gray published a provocative article in 1999 entitled Clausewitz rules, OK? The future is past-with GPS<ref>Gray, Colin. "Clausewitz Rules, OK? The Future Is the Past—with GPS." Review of International Studies 25.5 (1999): 161-82.</ref> who postulates that war has not changed making wars for the same reasons.


Le Western Way of War est le fait d’avoir une transformation avec le passage d’une armée de conscription à une armée professionnelle donc avec beaucoup moins de soldat. Le modèle patriotique de faire la guerre est abandonné. L’autre aspect consiste à dire que la guerre s’appuie de plus en plus sur la technologie. D’autre part, on est face à des populations de moins en moins prêtes à accepter les coûts d’une guerre est d’élargir le risque.  
For others, we are in a fundamental transformation in the way war is fought because of a certain technological development in the context of the information revolution that is transforming the way war is fought and even the rationality of the actors in the way war is fought.


[[File:Predator and Hellfire.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Predator launching a Hellfire missile]]
The Western Way of War is the fact of having a transformation with the passage from a conscription army to a professional army, so with far fewer soldiers. The patriotic model of warfare is abandoned. The other aspect is that war is increasingly based on technology. On the other hand, we are facing populations that are less and less willing to accept the costs of war and to increase the risk.[[File:Predator and Hellfire.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Predator launching a Hellfire missile]]


La technologie a un impact à travers l’idée de la révolution des affaires militaires. C’est un terme développé avant tout par les militaires eux-mêmes et particulièrement par des militaires américains à la fin de la Guerre froide avec l’idée d’utiliser une logistique civile et militaire pour contrôler le terrain et limiter les pertes humaines. C’est par exemple l’utilisation des drones qui permettent de mener la guerre en préservant la vie d’un pilote. Ce sont aussi les munitions intelligentes, les technologies furtives, les armes électromagnétiques ou encore les GPS. La guerre pour être gagnée doit fonctionner avec des réseaux d’informations dans lesquels les informations circulent extrêmement rapidement afin d’échanger des informations de façon instantanée, c’est le Network centric warfare afin de gagner en efficacité.  
Technology has an impact through the idea of the revolution in military affairs. It is a term developed first and foremost by the military itself and particularly by the American military at the end of the Cold War with the idea of using civilian and military logistics to control the terrain and limit human losses. For example, it is the use of drones that make it possible to conduct warfare while preserving a pilot's life. They are also intelligent ammunition, stealth technologies, electromagnetic weapons and GPS. The war to be won must work with information networks in which information flows extremely quickly in order to exchange information instantly, it is the Network centric warfare in order to gain efficiency.  


Colin McInnes se pose la question de savoir si la guerre est-elle devenue un spectacle sportif. Du moment où l’enjeu de la guerre n’est plus la survie, il est beaucoup plus compliqué de devoir mener une guerre. Surtout, cela veut dire que du moment que les populations qui sont détachées de la guerre, l’idée est que comme un supporter, on sympathise, mais on ne souffre pas, on a de l’empathie, mais on ne l’expérimente pas. Cela dématérialise la guerre soulevant la question de l’absence de réalité de la guerre.  
Colin McInnes wondered whether war had become a sporting spectacle. When the issue of war is no longer survival, it is much more complicated to have to fight a war. Above all, it means that as long as the populations who are detached from the war, the idea is that like a supporter, we sympathize, but we do not suffer, we have empathy, but we do not experience it. This dematerializes war, raising the question of the lack of reality of war.


Le lien entre le citoyen et l’action militaire est désormais virtuel dans les pays occidentaux se démarquant d’une conception plus traditionnelle de la guerre. Du moment où s’est imposée l’idée de « guerre zéro mort », la guerre se virtualise de plus en plus du point de vue occidental. C’est une approche beaucoup plus postmoderne des relations internationales. C’est une approche critique.  
The link between the citizen and military action is now virtual in Western countries that differ from a more traditional conception of war. From the moment the idea of "zero death war" came into being, war is becoming more and more virtual from the Western point of view. It is a much more postmodern approach to international relations. It is a critical approach.


Depuis une vingtaine d’années, James Der Darian postule que ces nouvelles guerres créent de nouvelles réalités non pas seulement pour les populations, mais pour les opérateurs eux-mêmes pouvant transformer le rapport à la mort. La Première Guerre où on a commencé à en parler était autour de la Guerre du golf en 1991. Le décalage entre la réalité sur le terrain et le fait que les pays qui ont envoyé ces troupes n’ont pas conscience de ce qui se passe dû au « brouillard de guerre » peut changer le rapport que l’on a à la guerre. En 1991, Jean Baudrillard a écrit que la Guerre du golf n’a pas eu lieu, l’idée étant de montrer le décalage dans la perception.  
For the past twenty years, James Der Darian has postulated that these new wars create new realities not only for the populations, but for the operators themselves who can transform the relationship to death. The First World War where we started talking about it was around the Gulf War in 1991. The discrepancy between the reality on the ground and the fact that the countries that sent these troops are not aware of what is happening due to the "fog of war" can change the relationship we have to war. In 1991, Jean Baudrillard wrote that the Gulf War did not take place, the idea being to show the discrepancy in perception.


Du moment qu’on entre dans cette logique virtuelle, on est face à plusieurs conséquences :
As long as we enter into this virtual logic, we are faced with several consequences:
*'''on est dans une logique de simulation''' : on va être moins prêt à gérer de l’imprévu ou quelque chose qui sort de ce scénario. La simulation déshumanise la guerre puisqu’elle décide de ce qui va se passer.  
*'''we are in a simulation logic''': we will be less ready to deal with the unexpected or something that comes out of this scenario. Simulation dehumanizes war by deciding what will happen.
*'''il devient beaucoup plus facile de tuer''' : la virtualisation à une tendance à déshumaniser la logique de duel. Même s’il y a de la violence, il y a l’idée qu’on est dans une forme de contrat. Avec la virtualisation, le risque de la mort est disproportionné.  
*'''it becomes much easier to kill''': virtualization has a tendency to dehumanize the logic of duelling. Even if there is violence, there is the idea that we are in a form of contract. With virtualization, the risk of death is disproportionate.


C’est la mise en place d’un discours techno-stratégique mettant l’accent sur le fait que la technologie est la meilleure façon de mener la guerre en ayant le moins de perte possible. Il y a une véritable fascination pour la technologie à travers l’esthétisation avec une banalisation de la violence. Une franche féministe des relations internationales avec des auteurs comme Cohn, a produit des études sur le rapport genré à la violence lié à la technologie. Ces féministes iront même jusqu’à critiquer Der Darian montrant comment ces auteurs contribuent à la fascination de ces analyses, en d’autres termes que la fascination pour la technologie au travers une esthétisation banalise la violence. La technologie est utilisée de plus en plus dans la manière occidentale de faire la guerre, de plus, la guerre est de plus en plus distanciée du terrain à travers la virtualisation déshumanisation la guerre et remettant en question l’approche classique de la guerre.
It is the implementation of a techno-strategic discourse emphasizing that technology is the best way to wage war with the least possible loss. There is a real fascination for technology through aestheticization with a trivialization of violence. A strong feminist in international relations with authors like Cohn has produced studies on the gendered relationship to technology-related violence. These feminists will even go so far as to criticize Der Darian showing how these authors contribute to the fascination of these analyses, in other words that the fascination for technology through an aesthetization trivializes violence. Technology is being used more and more in the Western way of waging war, more and more war is being distanced from the field through virtualization dehumanizing war and challenging the traditional approach to war.


= La fin de la guerre ? =
= The end of the war? =
Foucault propose une inversion de la maxime de Clausewitz proposant que la politique est la continuation de la guerre par d’autres moyens<ref>Entretien avec Lévy, B.-H. L’imprévu, n° 1, 27 janvier, p. 16. Correspondance Dits et Ecrits : tome II, texte n° 148.</ref>. Selon cette logique, va s’établir dans les pratiques de la guerre une connexion entre la logique de sécurité et la logique de surveillance. Afin de mener la guerre contre le terrorisme, les populations vont être surveillées de plus en plus. Frédéric Gros pousse l’idée foucaldienne encore plus loin partant du principe que plutôt que de penser comment la guerre se transforme, n’assisterions-nous pas plutôt à la fin de la guerre puisque la guerre fonctionnait jusqu’alors dans un cadre que l’on reconnaissait. Du moment où ces logiques sont brisées, nous ne sommes plus dans une logique de guerre ou de paix, mais dans un état de violence.  
Foucault proposes an inversion of Clausewitz's maxim that politics is the continuation of war by other means. According to this logic, a connection between security logic and surveillance logic will be established in warfare practices. In order to wage the war against terrorism, populations will be increasingly monitored. Frédéric Gros pushes the Foucauldian idea even further, starting from the principle that rather than thinking about how war is transformed, would we not rather witness the end of the war since war used to operate within a framework that was recognized? As soon as these logics are broken, we are no longer in a logic of war or peace, but in a state of violence.


La nouvelle distribution de la violence ne se réfléchit plus en fonction de la guerre et de la paix, mais en fonction de l’intervention et de la sécurité. Dans un monde globalisé, ce qui est important est que les flux circulent, les distances se sont rétrécies, les marchandises, les capitaux et les personnes doivent circuler librement. Cependant, la mondialisation a une face obscure avec ceux qui peuvent circuler librement et ceux qui la remettent en danger. L’enjeu aujourd’hui est la régulation de la globalisation. Il va y avoir des interventions afin d’augmenter la sécurité de la communauté des vivants afin de permettre une circulation plus efficace des différents flux qui constituent la globalisation et que les flux qui menacent sont les personnes en dehors de ce système. La guerre est une rupture, l’intervention est un retour à la normale.
The new distribution of violence is no longer reflected in terms of war and peace, but in terms of intervention and security. In a globalised world, what is important is that flows move, distances have narrowed, goods, capital and people must move freely. However, globalization has a dark side with those who can move freely and those who put it at risk. The challenge today is to regulate globalization. There will be interventions to increase the security of the community of the living in order to allow a more efficient circulation of the different flows that constitute globalization and that the flows that threaten are people outside this system. War is a rupture, intervention is a return to normal.


= Annexes =
= Annexes =

Version actuelle datée du 18 juin 2021 à 12:24


This is a fairly broad issue, being an important phenomenon in the field of international relations and security. For the past thirty years, there has been a questioning of war as a form of organized political violence.

The classic conception of war[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

Carl von Clausewitz

The classical conception of war refers to Carl von Clausewitz [1780 - 1832] who was a Prussian officer during the Napoleonic wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He published his book De la Guerre en 1832, which remains the main reference among war practitioners, but also in political science and international relations.

Clausewitz's definition of war is "an act of violence intended to compel the adversary to carry out our will" as "the continuation of politics by other means". These notions represent common sense when talking about war as a political enterprise to defend its interests. It is a rational and national practice that amounts to the use of organized violence for a political purpose. We are on a continuum from politics to war. War is a time when you get out of politics to get something.

There are other conceptions such as legal, cultural, eschatological or cataclysmic:

  • legal: one of the conceptions of war explains that war is a political conflict between two armed units. In reality and practice, this is not a very useful definition. States can declare war on each other without being in open conflict. Just because you are legally at war does not mean you are at war. It is also possible to achieve a state of generalized violence without declaring war.
  • cultural: the same practice in the same context can lead to war. It is to be interested in when certain practices become part of war.
  • eschatological - cataclysmic: compared to Clausewitz who has a political and rational vision of war, the eschatological vision is that war has the vocation to completely destroy humanity like the two world wars with total wars. This could be, for example, the danger of a nuclear war.

Today, the Clausewitz concept largely dominates debates in political science, international relations and political philosophy. War is also a concept related to the process of state building.

In The Anarchical Society[9] published in 1977, Bull made a proposal for a definition of war: « organized violence carried on by political units against each other. Violence is not war unless it is carried out in the name of a political unit; what distinguishes killing in war from murder is its vicarious and official character, the symbolic responsibility of the unit whose agent is the killer. Equally, violence carried out in the name of a political unit is not war unless it is directed against another political unit; the violence employed by the state in the execution of criminals or the suppression of pirates does not qualify because it is directed against individuals ».

Bull points out that violence is not war unless it is led by a political unit. What distinguishes the murder of a war from its official character is that it is an extraordinary situation. Violence led by one political unit is not a war until it is led against another political unit.

War and international relations[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

The idea is to inscribe war as a better understanding of the issues of a discipline. In the discipline of international relations, there is a "division of labour" between liberal realism. War remains a means of communication as an obvious means of research for these approaches. Realism and neo-realism will be interested in war and liberalism will be interested in the counterpart of war, which is peace. One cannot go without the other. They adapt to this division of labour according to their conceptions of man and the international system.

The Realists and Neo-Realists[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

Realists are interested in war within the framework of an anhistorical approach as a matter of instinct with authors such as Carr or Morgenthau. For neo-realists, the main cause of war is not the nature of man, but the nature of the international system itself. States are in competition for power, the international system will generate war like Kenneth Waltz who talks about war as something essentially related to the international system being a balance of power in an anarchist system. As soon as we reach a certain order of balance, we will not fight. For realists and neo-realists, the end of the war is not an objective in itself. According to this logic, peace can only be achieved by neutralizing opponents. Nuclear deterrence was an effective system for not being at war because we were afraid of an insurance of mutual destruction, which is the theory of the MAD. The neo-realistic approach is Westernized-centric because the rest of the world has suffered from proxy wars.

Liberal approaches[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

There is agreement with the realists that the international system is essentially anarchic, but there is the belief that through cooperation, the system can be improved by developing cooperation between the different actors in the international system. There are two arguments for reaching the end of the war:

  • peace through trade: the development of advanced trade relations is not in the interest since there is too much to lose economically. This argument has strongly influenced institutional liberalism as with the work of Keohane and Dahl.
  • democratic peace theory: democracies do not wage war against each other. It is an influential thesis in international relations. In principle, no two democracies have ever been at war. This theory claims to be based on Kant and his project of perpetual peace, which is widely taken up by supporters of democratic peace, but also by the authors of the cosmopolitan approach such as David Held with the idea of democratizing the world so that there is no more war.

The Clausewitz conception remains decisive for this type of approach where, even if one wants to transform the rationality of war, States wage war to satisfy political interests.

The transformations of war[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

A series of approaches challenge Clausewitz's canon and question whether war is changing and whether it is not conceptualisable as outside of political rationality. For several decades now, war has been above all an intra-state affair, whereas the classic approach is that war is inter-state. Since the 1970s, the overwhelming majority of wars have been civil wars. There is a questioning of war practices that goes beyond the framework of ad bellum and jus in bellum with the emergence of new actors waging guerrilla wars, but also with new actors such as mercenaries.

The classical conception is based on Clausewitz, who has a primarily political conception of war. War is something rational that happens between political actors who play the same game. Within the discipline of war studies, there are challenges to this paradigm. The advent of a new world order is often a key moment in this challenge. In the late 1970s, there was a questioning of this paradigm and in particular the question of the "trinity" which is the State, the army and the people. We will start talking about new wars in the context of a progressive detachment from the political logic of war. The approach of the new wars defended above all by Eric Holder. There is an advent of a post-modern war.

War, technology and security[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

Technology has an impact on how war is fought and how security is designed. The observation is that even if democracies no longer wage war against each other, they continue to do so elsewhere. As long as we start from this observation, it is interesting to ask ourselves how the war in the West has changed or not in recent years.

Postmodern warfare is what we call the Western Way of War with a revolution in military affairs[RAM] with a concept of "zero death warfare". In this questioning comes the idea of war as a sports spectacle with a virtualization of war and the creation of a techno-strategic discourse with concrete effects on the organization of political violence in today's world. These different approaches and ideas challenge war as a political phenomenon above all. The question is whether we are dealing with an evolution or a revolution with the war that has changed in nature. Colin Gray published a provocative article in 1999 entitled Clausewitz rules, OK? The future is past-with GPS[10] who postulates that war has not changed making wars for the same reasons.

For others, we are in a fundamental transformation in the way war is fought because of a certain technological development in the context of the information revolution that is transforming the way war is fought and even the rationality of the actors in the way war is fought.

The Western Way of War is the fact of having a transformation with the passage from a conscription army to a professional army, so with far fewer soldiers. The patriotic model of warfare is abandoned. The other aspect is that war is increasingly based on technology. On the other hand, we are facing populations that are less and less willing to accept the costs of war and to increase the risk.

Predator launching a Hellfire missile

Technology has an impact through the idea of the revolution in military affairs. It is a term developed first and foremost by the military itself and particularly by the American military at the end of the Cold War with the idea of using civilian and military logistics to control the terrain and limit human losses. For example, it is the use of drones that make it possible to conduct warfare while preserving a pilot's life. They are also intelligent ammunition, stealth technologies, electromagnetic weapons and GPS. The war to be won must work with information networks in which information flows extremely quickly in order to exchange information instantly, it is the Network centric warfare in order to gain efficiency.

Colin McInnes wondered whether war had become a sporting spectacle. When the issue of war is no longer survival, it is much more complicated to have to fight a war. Above all, it means that as long as the populations who are detached from the war, the idea is that like a supporter, we sympathize, but we do not suffer, we have empathy, but we do not experience it. This dematerializes war, raising the question of the lack of reality of war.

The link between the citizen and military action is now virtual in Western countries that differ from a more traditional conception of war. From the moment the idea of "zero death war" came into being, war is becoming more and more virtual from the Western point of view. It is a much more postmodern approach to international relations. It is a critical approach.

For the past twenty years, James Der Darian has postulated that these new wars create new realities not only for the populations, but for the operators themselves who can transform the relationship to death. The First World War where we started talking about it was around the Gulf War in 1991. The discrepancy between the reality on the ground and the fact that the countries that sent these troops are not aware of what is happening due to the "fog of war" can change the relationship we have to war. In 1991, Jean Baudrillard wrote that the Gulf War did not take place, the idea being to show the discrepancy in perception.

As long as we enter into this virtual logic, we are faced with several consequences:

  • we are in a simulation logic: we will be less ready to deal with the unexpected or something that comes out of this scenario. Simulation dehumanizes war by deciding what will happen.
  • it becomes much easier to kill: virtualization has a tendency to dehumanize the logic of duelling. Even if there is violence, there is the idea that we are in a form of contract. With virtualization, the risk of death is disproportionate.

It is the implementation of a techno-strategic discourse emphasizing that technology is the best way to wage war with the least possible loss. There is a real fascination for technology through aestheticization with a trivialization of violence. A strong feminist in international relations with authors like Cohn has produced studies on the gendered relationship to technology-related violence. These feminists will even go so far as to criticize Der Darian showing how these authors contribute to the fascination of these analyses, in other words that the fascination for technology through an aesthetization trivializes violence. Technology is being used more and more in the Western way of waging war, more and more war is being distanced from the field through virtualization dehumanizing war and challenging the traditional approach to war.

The end of the war?[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

Foucault proposes an inversion of Clausewitz's maxim that politics is the continuation of war by other means. According to this logic, a connection between security logic and surveillance logic will be established in warfare practices. In order to wage the war against terrorism, populations will be increasingly monitored. Frédéric Gros pushes the Foucauldian idea even further, starting from the principle that rather than thinking about how war is transformed, would we not rather witness the end of the war since war used to operate within a framework that was recognized? As soon as these logics are broken, we are no longer in a logic of war or peace, but in a state of violence.

The new distribution of violence is no longer reflected in terms of war and peace, but in terms of intervention and security. In a globalised world, what is important is that flows move, distances have narrowed, goods, capital and people must move freely. However, globalization has a dark side with those who can move freely and those who put it at risk. The challenge today is to regulate globalization. There will be interventions to increase the security of the community of the living in order to allow a more efficient circulation of the different flows that constitute globalization and that the flows that threaten are people outside this system. War is a rupture, intervention is a return to normal.

Annexes[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

Lecture[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

Bibliography[modifier | modifier le wikicode]

References[modifier | modifier le wikicode]