Realism and The Causes and Prevention of Conflict (Essay Sample)

REALISM AND THE CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF CONFLICT
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Realism and the causes and prevention of Conflict
Predictions on the risk of war and prescriptions on how best to prevent war should be based on general theories on the causes of war and peace. Decision-makers have to make rational decisions on best protecting the state as their primary duty is safeguarding national interests. Nonetheless, states tend to follow the same old patterns of behavior that have gained power and status on the global or regional scale despite the consequences on peace. Realism is, therefore, the most suitable international relations theory for analysis of the causes of war and how best to prevent it.
Offensive Realism
Offensive realism is a structural theory from the neorealist school of thought propagated by the anarchic nature of international systems. The absence of one in charge results in the pursuit of power, driven by ego and power maximization. Offensive realism, therefore, builds on the maximization of power in a nation's uncertain international relations where they assume the worst from each other and strive to gain the upper hand. In his article, "Offense, defense and the causes of war," Evera (1995)argues that there is a need for offense-defense balance without which war risk is increased. Offense dominance implies strengthened aggressors who put other nations in a less secure position leading to a cascade of effects that could lead to war, among them defensive expansion, violent responses to expansionism, increased risk of preemptive war, increased dangers of preventive war, adoption of fait accompli diplomatic tactics, poor negotiations, and conflict resolution, increased secrecy in negotiations, arms racing and adoption of hostile doctrines (Evera 1995). Offensive dominance may be a strategy for nations to put their foot forward as powerful players. Still, it leads to an increased risk of war and a lack of collaboration between states unless they reap the same benefits.
Defensive Realism
Defense dominant nations are regarded to be more difficult to conquer. The perceived strength can be derived from past victories or a relationship with strong allies who would defend their interests with the defense in case of an attack. Defense realism thus largely aims to balance threats in the pursuits of security while recognizing that the pursuit of power should be limited. Interactions of the defense-offense balance lead to the concept of offense-defense dominance, be it perceived or real.
The offense-defense theory
As earlier mentioned, interactions between defensive and offensive players lead to a shift in the balance, increasing the risk of war. The offense-defense balance and its predictions on war is a collection of military, geographic, diplomatic arrangements, and social structures (Evera 1998). The prime predictions of this theory claim that war is more common when conquest is perceived to be easy, states with larger offensive opportunities or defensive vulnerabilities have a higher incidence of war, and thirdly, states initiate more wars when they have more offensive opportunities and defensive capabilities. In his writing, Evera (1998) tests the theory's premise, reporting it true from examples such as the incidence of war engagement in the United States since 1789. Similar illustrations of the offense-defense theory are the Korean and Vietnam War, where nations that deemed themselves to have strong offense opportunities and defense capabilities readily initiated the war against nations that were perceived to be weak to exploit their resources and to gain power. Therefore, offensive and defensive realism is a sufficient theory in the analysis of the causes and prevention of war.
Structured realism
The structural theory builds on the traditional paradigm of international relations, realpolitik. Structural realism is based on system-level theory driven by the four key assumptions, namely; that the greatest players in world politics are organized as per their territories, actions of the state are rational and transitive, states analyze their security from their power in relation to others in the international system and lastly that the international system is anarchic in nature (James 1995). James (1995) urges parties to look into the influence of national capabilities on the prevalence of war in addition to the general perception that war will occur in an international system driven by competition and self-interest. Structured realism hereby provides the elements for analyzing war in the pursuit of power maximization.
Structural realism presents power maximization as a key driver for system polarity, the development of capabilities, alliances, and polarization between completion blocs. In his review of the structural realism theory, James (1995) claims that st