| LEC # | TOPICS | KEY DATES |
|---|---|---|
| I. Introduction | ||
| 1 | The causes of war in perspective. Does international politics follow regular laws of motion? If so, how can we discover them? Can we use methods like those of the physical sciences? | |
| II. 33 Hypotheses on the Causes of War | ||
| 2-3 | Eight hypotheses on military factors as causes of war | |
| 4-7 |
Misperception and war; Religion and war 10 hypotheses on misperception and the causes of war Hypotheses from psychology; militarism; nationalism; spirals and deterrence; religion and war; defects in academe and the press | |
| 8-9 |
14 more causes of war and peace: Culture, gender, language, democracy, social equality and social justice, minority rights and human rights, prosperity, economic interdependence, revolution, capitalism, imperial decline and collapse, cultural learning, emotional factors (revenge, contempt, honor), polarity of the international system Causes of civil war |
Response papers due Quiz 1 |
| III. Cases: Wars and Crises | ||
| 10 | The Seven Years War | Response papers due |
| 11 | The wars of German unification: 1864, 1866, and 1870; and segue to World War I | |
| 12-14 | World War I |
Debate on WWI responsibility Paper 1 due |
| 15 |
Interlude: Hypotheses on escalation and limitation of war Nuclear weapons, nuclear strategy, other weapons of mass destruction and the causes of war | |
| 16-19 | World War II | Debates on WWII responsibility |
| 20-21 | The Cold War, Korea and Indochina | Quiz 2 |
| 22-23 | The Israel-Arab conflict; The 2003 U.S.-Iraq war | |
| 24 | The Peloponnesian war | Paper 2 due |
| IV. The Future of War | ||
| 25-26 | Testing and applying theories of war causation; the future of war, solutions to war | |
| Final exam | ||
