Countries can threaten and/or act against other countries {aggression, politics}.
cause
Aggression tries to gain resources or establish safe borders. Aggression against another country depends on citizen feelings about their country, knowledge of other country, and approval from country. Fear of retaliation or punishment inhibits aggression.
purposes
Aggression can settle status, dominance, and possession. Aggressive behavior is also for defense and self-protection.
People or non-government groups opposed to society's politics can make physical or psychological attacks on society's people or equipment {terrorism}|.
causes
People can perceive previous society or government actions as being unjust, showing disrespect, causing suffering, or arousing opposition. Outside control, desecration, exploitation, immorality, corruption, and/or political tricks can cause frustration, aggression, and terrorism.
Current terrorism has grown from frustrations, perceived desecrations, actual corruption, and Western political machinations, including Israel creation, propping up corrupt and immoral leaders, and profiting from oil, that have wrenched Middle East.
purposes
Terrorism intends to inflict pain and suffering as punishments for perceived crimes. Terrorism intends to disrupt and lessen government power and show opposition power. Terrorism can be politics. Terrorism can be revenge on societies for past actions. Terrorism hopes to cause reactions and thus further polarization and emotion, leading to more power, money, and participation on terrorist's side.
nature: war
Terror acts are war acts against societies by non-governmental entities. As non-governmental entities, terrorist tactics are like guerilla war. Like war, terrorism feeds on success to gather more power, money, and participation. Unlike war, terrorism does not significantly reduce population, decrease resources, capture territory, threaten government overthrow, or subjugate people. Unlike war, terrorism originates from within society or society subcultures, not from other geographic regions. Unlike war, terrorism has few resources compared to society.
nature: occurrence
Because they originate within society, terrorist attacks can happen at all locations and times, by many means. Terrorist preparations vary little from everyday activities.
nature: attitudes
Attitudes toward death are also different than in war. To terrorists, death can be victory.
nature: attack types
War rules do not constrain terrorism, which can involve toxins, poisons, and radioactive agents dispersed in air or water.
tactics against
Countries cannot defeat terrorism in same ways as in wars. Because opponents are unknown and have no location, armies cannot face them directly or surround them. Unlike war, states cannot impose defeat or surrender but only encourage it. Before defeat, terrorists can move to locations outside society's jurisdiction.
tactics against: money and time
Societies must spend money and time for offense. This accomplishes terrorist goals.
tactics against: reduce individual rights
Defense against terrorism can require monitoring all activities and individuals. Defense can require that society's interest be above individual rights. Defense reduces privacy and freedom. This accomplishes terrorist goals.
tactics against: force
Offense against terrorism can require ability to strike with strong force at all locations and times. Police and army must be everywhere and obvious. Societies are more like police states. This accomplishes terrorist goals.
tactics against: courage
Alternative responses to terrorist attacks can be courage against fear, stoicism about loss, rationality about decisions, resolution to rebuild and replace, determination to return society to normal, slowness to revenge, and readiness to correct economic, political, and social injustices. Societies can have no fear and no appeal to lower emotions. The best strategy is to minimize number of people, groups, and nations with grievances and to minimize opportunities through economic, financial, legal, political, and social means. Military means are for commensurate defense only. Such responses do not accomplish terrorist goals and cause no increase in violence.
Nations can overtly aggress on other states {war}|.
causes
Wars can result from competition for scarce resources, usually when aggressive leaders want neighboring-country resources. War can result when countries want to reverse or punish another government's illegal action or unjust legal action.
factors
War decisions consider objectives, means, strategy, tactics, morals, war rules, defeat or victory probability, defeat or victory consequences, third-party effects, and negotiations. War has high risk of defeat or resource exhaustion.
strategy
Strategy requires using knowledge of enemy to neutralize weapons and resources in short and long term.
alternatives
States engage in international relations, diplomacy, negotiations, and war to try to achieve goals. War is adjunct to, or extension of, aggressive international relations and diplomacy. Negotiations precede and follow all wars and often accompany wars. Both war and negotiation are trials of strength between countries.
winning
Countries with larger size, higher technology, more wealth, more freedom, more emotion, and stronger economic systems tend to win at war and negotiations. To reach victory in war, countries must diminish opponent physical and moral force sufficiently so it will surrender or negotiate.
time
War cannot last indefinitely, because resources become exhausted and people grow weary of constant fear, emotion, aggressive impulses, and death. War length depends on overt aggressive behavior, available resources, and people's will. War can lead to negotiation when both countries' physical and moral force diminishes sufficiently.
effects
War is costly in resources and people, polarizes people and groups, causes less rule of law, reduces liberties, increases authoritarianism, adds grievances and injustices, increases hatred and anger, adds uncertainty and risk to all activities, increases alliances with corrupt and authoritarian regimes, strains relations between partners, reduces ideas and cultural diversity, disrupts markets, and neglects education, social services, and crime-fighting. Politics typically takes major turn as peace replaces war. Society takes time to recover old habits and ideas and typically takes several years to return to normalcy. During those years, there is less employment, more crime, more stress on people and families, and low basic resources.
At war end, both sides have exhaustion and low resources. Tight economic conditions harm many people.
War encourages less rule of law. Civil liberties decrease and due process decreases. Authoritarianism increases. War causes more grievances and injustices.
War removes the high moral ground from a country, bringing it to same level as adversary. War thus erodes moral authority, and this can affect ability to lead.
War always causes secondary effects, typically bad, since many people have relations to people affected by war.
War focuses people's concentration against identified enemy. People neglect intellectual pursuits, at cost to culture.
People can use the name of religion to broaden conflict.
effects: polarization
War is polarizing. Polarization tends to lead to future conflict and aggravates current conflicts.
effects: hate
After war, many soldiers and fallen-warrior relatives remain. Hatred for enemy, and anger at suffering, linger long after war, posing danger of new uprising, sabotage, terrorism, and mental-health problems. War makes more people, groups, and nations angry and vengeful. War sows seeds of more war. War cannot eliminate all warriors.
justifications
Ethicists allow justified war {just war}. In just war, military makes defense commensurate with offense. Just war has support from majority of citizens. Just war can reduce human suffering, conserve resources, and reduce costs in the future. War can recover justice, equal opportunity, rule of law, and freedom.
6-Political Science-International Relations-Power
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Date Modified: 2022.0225