Causes of War
| Author | Raimo Väyrynen |
| Published date | 01 March 1970 |
| Date | 01 March 1970 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/001083677000500104 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
65
BOOK
NOTES
CAUSES
OF
WAR
Pruitt,
Dean
&
Snyder,
Richard
(eds.).
Theory
and
Research
on
the
Causes
of
War.
Prentice-Hall
Inc.,
Englewood
Cliffs
N. J.
I969,
xvi
+ 3I4
pp.
-
In
the
period
1820-1949
there
were
115
5
deadly
quarrels
whose
magnitude
was
greater
than
three,
or
3167
deaths
(Lewis
Richardson).
- There
were
in
1815-1945
forty-one
international
wars
with
at
least
one
thousand
battle
deaths
(David
J.
Singer).
- There
have been
164
internationally
significant
outbreaks
of
violence
in
the
previous
eight
years
(Robert
McNamara
in
his
Montreal
speech
in
1966).
These
facts
of
human
history
make
comprehensible
that
’war
is
one
of the
most
studied
themes
in
the
field
of
interna-
tional
relations’,
but
for
all
that
’it
is
one
of
the
least
understood
of
international
problems’.
This
seems
to
have
been
at
least
implicitly
the
motto
of
Pruitt
and
Snyder
when
they
began
to
edit
a
book
about
various
aspects
of
war.
It
is
true
that
lots
of
books
and
articles
have
been
written
about
this
topic,
but
no
coherent
body
of
theory
and
data
has
emerged.
The
purpose
of
the
book
under
consideration
is,
according
to
the
editors,
to
make
one
further
step
towards
the
accumulation
of
knowledge
and
the
prevention
of
war.
Unfortunately
nice
words
and
sad
expres-
sions
do
not
contribute
very
much
to
these
ends.
In
order
to
get
a
tolerably
clear
picture
about
our
topic,
it is
perhaps
reasonable
to
review
some
main
approaches
to
the
study
of
war.
The
most
common
method
in
this
field
without
doubt
has
been
the
case
study
method
which
has
been
used
by
both
historians
and
political
scientists.
There
are
broadly
taking
two
branches
in
this
approach:
(i)
descriptive
and
often
very
detailed
studies
of
single
violent
conflicts,
and
(2)
more
methodologically
oriented
studies,
such
as
numerous
content-
analytical
investigations
about
the
outbreak
of
the
First
World
War
by
the
Stanford
Group
(North,
Holsti,
Brody,
et
al.)
and
studies
of
the
United
States
decision
to
enter
the
Korean
War
using
the
decision-
making
approach.
The
usefulness of
the
case
study
method
is
a
bit
difficult
to
evaluate
because
of
the
apparent
heterogeneity
of
studies
included
in
this
category.
Historians
or
other
histori-
cally
oriented
scholars
have
collected
much
material
which
may
enrich
the
field,
but
these
studies
lack
comparability.
Historians
s
seldom
aim
at
generalizations,
but
in
studies
using
the
other
approach,
groundless
generalizations
seem
to
be
a
problem.
The
results
are
reached
by
quite
refined
techniques
-
especially
in
the
case
of
the
Stanford
Group -
and
they
may
seem
to
be
quite
general
in
the
eyes
of
an
occasional
reader
(or
even
in
the
case
of
a
more
experienced
scholar).
Unfortunately
we
cannot
generalize
from
a
single
case,
not
even
the
1914
crisis.
The
second
approach
to
the
study
of
war
can
perhaps
be
called
the
statistical
approach.
Good
examples
of
this
approach
are
Quincy
Wright’s
A
Study
of
War
(I942,
2
vols.),
Lewis
F.
Richardson’s
Statistics
of
Deadly
Quarrels
(ig6o)
and
Pitirim
Sorokin’s
Social
and
Cultural
Dynamics,
vol.
III
(1937).
The
most
recent
example
of
this
approach
is
David
J.
Singer’s
International
War,
1815-1965,
A
Statistical
Handbook.
The
work
of
these
scholars
has
really
been
pioneering
in
this
field,
and
the
indebtedness
of
the
editors
is
at
least
implicitly
admitted
in
the
volume
edited
by
Pruitt
and
Snyder,
because
it
is
dedicated
to
Wright
and
Richardson.
The
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