Assuming That States Are Rational Actors, Explain the Outbreak of War?

Assuming that states are rational actors, explain the outbreak of war?
Part 1 Assuming that states are rational actors, why do states fight over valued possessions rather than negotiating peaceful terms, which would avoid the costs of war? For the most part, it is widely agreed that one of the most fundamental causes of war is having anarchy in the international system. The lack of a united international government system can be very problematic because each state believes itself to be sovereign and will act according to their interests. Since there is no international government to regulate states, competition between states will most likely occur, often leading to conflict over desired possessions. This leads to a struggle for power between states, each state seeking to achieve the ultimate goal of becoming the international hegemon. States in the international system act according to national interest, seeking to obtain possessions that will grant them more power over other competing states. Since there is no supreme ruling authority in the international system, states are encouraged to maximize their power via other states to become the hegemon. States often hold possessions that are praised and highly coveted by their rivals. These possessions can include territory, natural resources or other valuable items that could increase the power of rival states. A state that has highly desired possessions is not always willing to give up or compromise their valued possessions to other states, which can in turn cause tensions between states for control over the assets. Tensions for commonly desired assets frequently lead to war, and since all states follow the logic that taking advantage of others will secure that others do not take advantage of them. With logic like this, war will sometimes seem like a rational choice to make when confronted with the idea that otherwise others will take advantage of them. The unequal amount of power held by each state in the international system allows the stronger states to dominate the weaker ones, since the weaker ones do not have the military capability to deter the stronger ones from doing so.
Hans J. Morgenthau’s is another author who shares a similar perspective to Mearsheimer, in that he also credits the outbreak of war due to states seeking to expand their own power. Power in the international system is measured according to the amount of armaments that a nation has at its disposal. The states that posses superior armaments are better able to exert their power on to other states, for this reason states with more power tend to have more incentives to go to war and conquer other states. The ability of stronger states to conquer weaker states promotes an overall imbalance of power, which causes fear among the weaker states due to their inability to compete with the stronger states in a war. The reason why war would be disadvantageous to weaker states is because losing a war would mean that the weaker state would have to submit to the winner. This type of imperialistic behavior is often employed by stronger states to take advantage of the weaker states without their consent. Imperialism can also be used by stronger states for the purpose of keeping defeated nations weak and incapable of competing. This is due to the stronger state continually extracting valuable resources from a weak nation that would otherwise use its own resources to strengthen itself. For this reason, war is used as a tool by the strong in order to avoid being weakened by others; this is because their loss of power would mean the gain of others, leading to inferiority for themselves. Despite war bringing benefits to the victor, it is still very costly to execute and maintain for the states that are involved in the war. If alternative solutions to fighting can be negotiated between states, then why do states continue to choose war? James D. Fearon offers various arguments to answer this question. In one of Fearon’s arguments, he blames the outbreak of war on the inability of states to create peaceful bargains that both sides would prefer rather than war. Fearon’s perspective differentiates from Measheimer and Morgenthau because Fearon does not simply blame the occurrence of war on anarchy; instead he argues that war occurs because of the inability of states to commit to agreements. Commitment problems occur in a situation where one state is unsatisfied at the conditions of an agreement and decides to renege on the terms. Since the international system is anarchic, there is no supreme government to regulate the actions of each individual state, which allows states to pursue their interest regardless of any agreements. Breaking an agreement is essentially breaking a promise between states, which can be problematic because conflict can arise if one of the states is harmed by the decisions of the other. The lack of an international government to enforce violation agreements is what ultimately drives each state to find resolutions for themselves. When diplomatic bargaining fails to resolve disputes, states will often rely on military strength to forcefully take what they want. Military intervention will seem like a more convenient approach to stronger nations because of the obvious advantage they have when it comes to exerting their power. While military intervention it is costly to carry out for all of the involved states, war nevertheless retains its rewards for the victor, which include determining what the terms of a bargain are.
As Thomas C. Schelling suggests, bargaining does not always have to come through peaceful negotiations between states. Schelling’s perspective on bargaining differs to Fearon’s perspective because Schelling believes that bargaining can become more favorable to the victor of a war once the conflict concludes. Fearon on the other hand, believes that war is costly to carry out and that it should be avoided at all costs through more or less equal bargaining. Schelling contrasts this claim by arguing that states with a stronger military force do not always need to bargain equally with others. Instead, the states with a stronger military do not have to settle for equal bargaining because a stronger state can take what it wants from others through sheer strength. Schelling argues that stronger states often have more incentives to choose war because success in war would grant them the power to exclusively determine the aspects of a bargain. The loser of the war on the other hand, would have to comply with the negotiations even if they are unfavorable to them. The threat of further violence by the stronger state is what would make the weaker state comply, because otherwise if the weaker state disobeys it could potentially face more harm. Exploitative bargaining, therefore, is the main argument that Schelling offers as to why states pursue to go to war with other states.
Part 2
A particular case study that could be explained from the various perspectives of the authors would be the Vietnam War. The lack of a centralized main government to regulate the actions of the super powers during the cold war is what ultimately led to the Soviet Union and the United States to clash over which nation would control Vietnam. Mearsheimer’s approach to this case study would be relevant because Mearsheimer credited the overall outbreak of war due to states wanting to maximize their power via others. This approach can explain the outbreak of war in Vietnam as a cause of the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to obtain the valuable resources Vietnam had to offer, while also keeping the opponent from obtaining them. Morgenthau would also similarly predict that the outbreak of war was due to the competition between the superpowers to display to each other the superior weapon armaments that they had at their disposal. The United States and Soviet Union both had the necessary weaponry to increase their own strength by going to war, but ultimately a direct war between the nations would lead to the loss of power to both sides. In order to avoid the loss of power directly, they instead sought to gain the advantage over the other by backing their respective Vietnamese allies. The Soviet Union, seeking to fulfill its interests in Vietnam, provided its Northern Vietnamese ally with weapon armaments and other types of support, while the United States on the other hand; backed the Southern Republic of Vietnam with armaments and by eventually joining the war as well. From Fearon’s perspective, he would of most likely have blamed the outbreak of war as a cause of not having mutual bargains to dissuade the war. The lack of mutual bargains is therefore what led each nation to pursue their own solutions to the conflict, and the solutions were based on the interests of each nation. Despite war being costly for all sides to carry out, Schelling would argue that war in Vietnam was used as a gamble between the competing sides to see who is stronger. Incentives to compete in Vietnam arose because the victor of the conflict would subdue the other side, which would grant the victor the exclusive power to decide what the bargains were.
Part 3
Case study: Vietnam War and the Reunification of Vietnam under communism. The civil war between the Northern communists of Vietnam and the Southern Republic of Vietnam grew out of different perspectives as to what interests Vietnam would pursue as a whole. The Northern Vietnamese communist movement wanted to unify North Vietnam together with South Vietnam in order to create a unified Vietnam under communism. South Vietnam on the other hand, was not interested in becoming communist.
The reason why Vietnam was split in the first place was due to the resentment of French colonization in Vietnam. This resentment to French colonization is what ultimately led to the creation of a Northern Vietnamese communist state, which was meant to counter the French colonization with the eventual goal to expel them. The Southern Republic of Vietnam on the other hand, had closer ties with the French. The French considered Vietnam as a colony and did not want to leave Vietnam of the profits they were making by having Vietnam as a colony. Mearsheimer’s theoretical approach could be used to explain French behavior within Vietnam because as Mearsheimer explained, states often seek to maximize their power via other states. This argument applies to the French because it is what the French were trying to do with Vietnam, and that was to gain more power for themselves at the cost of Vietnam being exploited. As the conflict between the French and Northern Vietnamese intensified, it provoked the attention of other states, including the Soviet Union and the United States. At the time of the Vietnam War, the tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States were very intense. Each state seeking gain more power for itself while also trying to keep the other from gaining more power. This logic shared by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War relates to Morgenthau’s perspective, in which he argues that strong states want to avoid losing power because it would mean the gaining of power to the other state. If the United States lost its influence over Vietnam, it would mean that the Soviet Union would benefit from its loss. The fear of the United States losing Vietnam to the Soviet Union is what ultimately drove it to intervene in the conflict.
Diplomatic attempts to negotiate peaceful agreements between the United States and North Vietnam proved to be largely unsuccessful. Despite the willingness of both states to participate in diplomatic bargaining, it did not lead to any successful resolutions. According to the article “We Don’t Want a Munich”: Hanoi’s Diplomatic Strategy, 1965-1968 by Pierre Asselin, Northern Vietnam, “Confident that proletarian internationalism and its own determination would propel it to victory, Hanoi showed no inclination to engage in serious negotiations with its adversaries and even less desire to end the war by means of a compromise agreement.” This means that the Northern Vietnamese had no intentions of committing to any agreements, instead they preferred to pursue their own interests at whatever cost they came. The outbreak of war in Vietnam can therefore be explained according to Fearon’s theoretical approach because North Vietnam chose to gamble the expected outcomes based on war rather than negotiating agreements to avoid the costs of war.
Since the Northern Vietnamese were not willing to negotiate in order to avoid the costs of war, they instead pursued drastic policies that would grant them the power to determine bargains to their advantage through sheer strength and violence. Schelling’s approach would help explain why the Northern Vietnamese decided to pursue radical types of policies because the Northern Vietnamese understood that the winner of the conflict would have the advantage of determining the negotiations after the conflict had concluded. One particular group that strongly advocated for these types of policies were the Vietnamese communist radicals known as the South Firsters. According to the article “Soviet Biscuit Factories and Chinese Financial Grants: North Vietnam’s Economic Diplomacy in 1967 and 1968*” by Harish C. Mehta “The ‘South-firsters’ argued that for the ‘fight and negotiate’ strategy to succeed, the fighting must be sustained so that the DRV improved its position at negotiations.” This means that the Northern Vietnamese radicals were committed to fighting and believed that only victory in war would allow them to fulfill their interests by eliminating opposing states that threaten their interests. The Northern Vietnamese also understood that they would not be able to negotiate a peaceful conversion of South Vietnam to communism. Which in turn led the North Vietnamese to use aggression to achieve that goal, because otherwise neither the Southern Republic of Vietnam, nor the United States would have agreed to such a demand. North Vietnam had greater incentives to pursue war against the Southern Republic of Vietnam because they were supplied with superior armaments by the Soviet Union, as opposed to the military of the Southern Republic of Vietnam that carried obsolete American weaponry. Schelling’s approach would argue that the North Vietnamese were determined to go to war because of their confidence that their cause of uniting Vietnam under communism was correct, and also because they had the weapons to secure themselves a chance for victory. The Southern Republic of Vietnam and the United States both underestimated the military strength of North Vietnam and misconceived that it would be poorly equipped, but as stated in the article “Lessons Learned From Vietnam” by William L. Stearman explains the misconception that “They describe the Viet Cong as ‘poorly equipped guerillas,’ but this was true only in their early operations. Before long, the Viet Cong were in some ways much better equipped than the South Vietnamese they were fighting.” This misconception and underestimation of the Northern Vietnamese strength is what ultimately led to the demise of the Southern Vietnamese Republic and the withdrawal of U.S Forces. With North Vietnam being the victor of the gamble of war, it gained the absolute authority to reunite Vietnam as a communist country.

Conclusion In conclusion, despite that states in the international system are assumed to be rational actors, wars still persist to occur regardless of their cost. There are various approaches that try to explain the outbreak of war but ultimately each outbreak of war is caused for different reasons. The Vietnam conflict is an example of rational states going to war because of rivaling regimes having a common pursuit of power, which eventually led to conflict. Aside from that, foreign interference from the United States and the Soviet Union further intensified the conflict because they wanted to exert their own power as well. As long as the international system remains anarchic, there will always be a lack of a supreme force that regulates war, thus leaving nations at their own will to decide if war is a good risk to pursue or not.

Works cited
ASSELIN, PIERRE. “‘We Don’t Want a Munich’: Hanoi’s Diplomatic Strategy,
1965-1968.” Diplomatic History 36, no. 3 (June 2012): 547-581. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed May 9, 2012).
MEHTA, HARISH C. “Soviet Biscuit Factories and Chinese Financial Grants: North
Vietnam’s Economic Diplomacy in 1967 and 1968*.” Diplomatic History 36, no. 2 (April 2012): 301-335. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. (accessed May 10, 2012).
Mingst, Karen A., Jack L. Snyder,Essential Readings in World Politics. 4th ed. New
York: W.W. Norton, 2011
Stearman, William L. "LESSONS LEARNED FROM VIETNAM." Military Review 90, no.
2 (March 2010): 109-116. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. (Accessed May 10, 2012)

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[ 1 ]. Ibid., 34.
[ 2 ]. Mingst, Karen A., Jack L. Snyder,Essential Readings in World Politics. 4th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 101.
[ 3 ]. Ibid., 104.
[ 4 ]. Mingst, Karen A., Jack L. Snyder,Essential Readings in World Politics. 4th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 353.
[ 5 ]. Ibid., 350.
[ 6 ]. Mingst, Karen A., Jack L. Snyder,Essential Readings in World Politics. 4th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 326.
[ 7 ]. Ibid., 326.
[ 8 ]. Mingst, Karen A., Jack L. Snyder,Essential Readings in World Politics. 4th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011),., 327.
[ 9 ]. Ibid., 31.
[ 10 ]. Ibid., 101.
[ 11 ]. Mingst, Karen A., Jack L. Snyder,Essential Readings in World Politics. 4th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 31.
[ 12 ]. Mingst, Karen A., Jack L. Snyder,Essential Readings in World Politics. 4th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011),., 104.
[ 13 ]. ASSELIN, PIERRE. “‘We Don’t Want a Munich’: Hanoi’s Diplomatic Strategy, 1965-1968.” Diplomatic History 36, no. 3 (June 2012): 547-581. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost.
[ 14 ]. MEHTA, HARISH C. “Soviet Biscuit Factories and Chinese Financial Grants: North Vietnam’s Economic Diplomacy in 1967 and 1968*.” Diplomatic History 36, no. 2 (April 2012): 301-335. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost
[ 15 ]. Stearman, William L. "LESSONS LEARNED FROM VIETNAM." Military Review 90, no. 2 (March 2010): 109-116. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost.