Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order, 1648–1989

397 Pages·1991·5.43 MB·English

by  Kalevi J. Holsti

CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1 MYLES L. C. ROBERTSON
Soviet policy towards Japan
An analysis of trends in the 1970s and 1980s
2 FRIEDRICH V. KRATOCHWIL
Rules, norms, and decisions
On the conditions of practical and legal reasoning in international relations
and domestic affairs
3 MICHAEL NICHOLSON
Formal theories in international relations
4 MICHAEL C. PUGH
The ANZUS crisis, nuclear visiting and deterrence
5 STEPHEN GILl
American hegemony and the Trilateral Commission
6 HIDEMI SUGANAMI
The domestic analogy and world order proposals
7 IAN CLARK
The hierarchy of states
Reform and resistance in the international order
8 ZEEV MAOZ
National choices and international processes
9 WILLIAM BLOOM
Personal identity, national identity and international relations
10 JAMES MAYALL
Nationalism and international society
11 JAMES BARBER and JOHN BARRATT
South Africa's foreign policy
The search for status and security 1945-1988
12 ROBERT H. JACKSON
Quasi-states: sovereignty, international relations and the Third
World
13 SAKI DOCKRILL
Britain's policy for West German rearmament 1950-1955
14 KALEVI J. HOLSTI
Peace and war: armed conflicts and international order 1648-1989
CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: 14
PEACE AND WAR: ARMED
CONFLICTS AND INTERNATIONAL
ORDER 1648-1989
Editorial Board
STEVE SMITH (Managing editor)
LAWRENCE FREEDMAN FRED HALLIDAY
KALEVI J. HOLSTI ROY JONES ROBERT S. LITWAK
PETER NAILOR WILLIAM OLSON ADAM ROBERTS
JOHN SIMPSON JACK SPENCE ROGER TOOZE
JOHN A. VASQUEZ JOHN VINCENT
Cambridge Studies in International Relations is a joint initiative of Cambridge
University Press and the British International Studies Association (BISA). The
series will include a wide range of material, from undergraduate textbooks and
surveys to research-based monographs and collaborative volumes. The aim of
the series is to publish the best new scholarship in International Studies from
Europe, North America and the rest of the world.

For centuries political theorists, philosophers, and historians have asked why
war occurs. Innumerable books have been published on the question, yet none
has proved authoritative. In this book, Kalevi Holsti approaches the issue from
a new perspective. He asks three interrelated questions that have not previ-
ously received systematic analysis. What issues generate conflict? How have
attitudes toward war changed? And what attempts have been made histori-
cally to create international orders and institutions that can manage, control, or
prevent international conflicts and crises?
Professor Holsti begins by assessing the achievements and shortfalls of the
voluminous literature of war, and outlines the model of international politics
that informs his study. Then, starting with the Treaties of Miinster and Os-
nabriick of 1648, he examines 177 international wars from the European and
global states systems. Through these cases, he identifies a range of conflict-
producing issues and how these, as well as the attitudes of policy-makers to
the use of force, have changed over the last 350 years. He demonstrates how
the great peacemaking efforts of 1648, 1713, 1815, 1919, and 1945 involved
implicit and explicit theories of international relations. The new orders estab-
lished in those watershed peace conferences attempted to solve the issues of
the past, yet few successfully anticipated those of the future. Indeed, some
created the basis of new conflicts.
Peace and war: armed conflicts and international order 1648-1989 is a major study
of the origins of war and the foundations of peace in the last 350 years. It will be
an important text for students of and specialists in diplomatic history, war and
peace studies, international relations, international conflict, and political
studies.
PEACE AND WAR:
ARMED CONFLICTS
AND
INTERNATIONAL
ORDER 1648-1989
KALEVI J. HOLSTI
Professor, Department of Political Science, Unixtersity of British Columbia
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Cambridge University Press 1991
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1991
Reprinted 1992,1994,1995,1998
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-521-39048-6 Hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-39929-6 Paperback
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this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is,
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the accuracy of such information thereafter.
For Marilyn

CONTENTS
List of figures page xii
List of tables xiii
Preface xv
1 ON THE STUDY OF WAR 1
Explanatory configurations 3
The promises and pitfalls of ecological variables 6
The meanings of war 9
What men fight about: issues and international conflict 12
A map of a map 16
Defining issues 17
Data sources: geographical and temporal domains 20
Attitudes toward war 21
Issues, war, and peace: creating international orders 21
2 MUNSTERANDOSNABRUCK, 1648: PEACE BY PIECES 25
The Thirty Years War 26
Planning for peace 29
Negotiations at Miinster and Osnabriick 32
Outcomes 34
A new order for Europe? 37
3 WAR AND PEACE IN THE ERA OF THE HEROIC WARRIORS,
1648-1713 43
Issues that generated wars 46
Attitudes to war 63
4 ACT TWO OF THE HEGEMONY DRAMA: THE UTRECHT
SETTLEMENTS 71
The British "Plan" 73
Outcomes 76
Analysis 79
5 THE LETHAL MINUET: WAR AND PEACE AMONG THE
PRINCES OF CHRISTENDOM, 1715-1814 83
Isssues that generated wars 87
ix
CONTENTS
War in the post-Utrecht international system 102
The meaning of war 105
The problem of peace 111
6 PEACE THROUGH EQUILIBRIUM: THE SETTLEMENTS OF
1814-1815 114
Diagnoses 116
Solutions 119
Forging the settlement 127
Allied unity unraveled: defining threats to peace 130
Assessment 132
7 CONFLICT AND CONSENT, 1815-1914 138
War and intervention in Concert Europe 139
New war-generating issues 145
Old and declining issues 150
The character of war preparation 156
The meaning of war 158
The problem of peace 164
Nation-state creation and system breakdown 169
8 1919: PEACE THROUGH DEMOCRACY AND COVENANT 175
Woodrow Wilson: the moral-political universe 181
Replacing the old with the new: the moral and
political foundations of enduring peace 184
The political foundations of the new international
order: democracy, covenants, and arms control 185
Peace through a preponderance of
power: Clemenceau 189
Peace through conflict resolution mechanisms:
the British contribution 194
Paris 1919: the importance of preliminaries
and procedures 1%
The drama of the League of Nations Commission 199
The German settlement 205
Evaluation 208
9 WAR AS THE AFTERMATH OF PEACE: INTERNATIONAL
CONFLICT, 1918-1941 213
Issues that generated wars, 1918-1941 217
Attitudes toward war 228
10 PEACE BY POLICING 243
Wilson revisited and revised: the United States 245