Why Nations Fight: Past and Future Motives for War

About this book

Four generic motives have historically led states to initiate war: fear interest standing and revenge. Using an original dataset Richard Ned Lebow examines the distribution of wars across three and a half centuries and argues that contrary to conventional wisdom only a minority of these were motivated by security or material interest. Instead the majority are the result of a quest for standing and for revenge an attempt to get even with states who had previously made successful territorial grabs. Lebow maintains that today none of these motives are effectively served by war it is increasingly counterproductive and that there is growing recognition of this political reality. His analysis allows for more fine-grained and persuasive forecasts about the future of war as well as highlighting areas of uncertainty.