Review: On the Causes of War
| Author | Knud Eric Jorgensen |
| Published date | 01 March 1997 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209705200118 |
| Date | 01 March 1997 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS/INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
177
larly
at
the
international
level,
to
restrict
migration
to
those
flows
that
can
be
monitored.
Second, the
regional
confinement
of
displaced
peo-
ple
initiated
during
the
Gulf
War
should
be
encouraged,
with
humani-
tarian
intervention
in
the
war-torn
regions.
This
is
intimately
related
to
the
third
aspect
of
the
strategy, namely working
on the
legitimacy
of
a
restrictive
immigration
system
in
TC member
countries
by
emphasizing
the
'right
of
individuals
to
stay
where
they
are.'
H61dne
Pellerin/University
of
Amsterdam
ON
THE
CAUSES OF
WAR
Hidemi
Suganami
Oxford:
Clarendon
Press,
1996,
Vii,
235
pp,
US$
9 4 .5o
This
is
a
wise
and
very
welcome
book
about
one
of
the
hard-core
issues
in
international
relations:
the
causes
of
war.
The
book
has
a
single
struc-
ture
consisting
ofjust
five
chapters
plus
an
introduction
and
conclusion.
Suganami
starts
out
courageously
by
stating
that
two
major
works
on
the
causes
of
war
share
serious
shortcomings.
In
his
Man.,
the
State,
and
War
(1959)
Kenneth
Waltz
identifies
causes
of
war
on
different
levels
of
analysis,
and
in
their
Why
War?
(1979)
Keith
Nelson
and
Spencer
Olin
identify
causes
of
war
in
different
ideologies. 'Not
good
enough,'
says
Suganami.
For
a
proper
understanding
of
the
causes
of
war
it
is
much
better
to ask
the
following
questions:
a)
what
are
the
conditions
which
must
be
present
for
wars
to occur?
b)
under
what
sorts
of
circumstances
have
wars
occurred
more
frequently?
and
c)
how
did
this
particular
war
come
about?
Chapter
one
is
devoted
to
a
comparison
between,
on
the
one
hand,
the
Waltz
and
Nelson/Olin
approaches,
and,
on
the
other,
Suganami's
three
key
questions. In
the
following
chapters
each question
is
discussed
thoroughly and
competently.
In
chapter four,
Suganami
pre-
sents
a
philosophical
interlude on
'causation'
because,
as
he
asks
rhetor-
ically:
how
can
empiricists
keep
on
looking
for
various
causes
of
war
when
they
appear
to
be
unaware
of
different
meanings
of
causation?
I
find
it
a
fair
and
relevant
question,
yet
for
the
empiricists
Suganami
has
in
mind the question
will
most
likely
be
merely
a
source
of
irritation.
Suganami's
blend of
conceptual
analysis,
philosophy,
and
history
is
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