Calendar

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