Reasons for War I

Why War?

Monday January 10 2011

Lecture 2: Reasons for War I

PS 2BB3: Introduction to the Study of War

Dr Colin Salter, Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University

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 Outline

• Recap
• Remembering war
• Assessment overview

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 Recap

• What is war?
• Remembering War

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I think it’s important for us to sit back and think not just
about the Gulf War, not just about the Vietnam War ,
not just this or that war, but to think about the problem
of war, of just and unjust war.
Howard Zinn (2002)

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One does not make wars less likely by formulating rules
of warfare. War cannot be humanized. It can only be
abolished.

Albert Einstein, in Howard Zinn (2002)

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 Gallipoli

• Peter Weir (1981)

• Perceptions of war

• Some of the reasons why

young men joined

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We're getting ready to make an all-out assault on Johnny
Turk...

and we know we're gonna give a good account of

ourselves and our country.

Everyone is terribly excited.

There's a feeling that we're all involved in an adventure...

that's somehow larger than life.

Archy Hamilton, Gallipoli

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The United States, I think, still sees war as a necessary
part of its existence. It’s impossible to maintain the
military on that scale, a Pentagon on that scale, without
turning it over. You’ve got to have officers who are
experienced in command and control. You’ve got to have
troops who have been bloodied.

David Cornwell (aka John Le Carré)

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 Summary

• Personal reasons why • Roots

people go to war
• Perceptions

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 Citations & further reading
David Cornwell, aka John l)e Carré (2010), interviewed by Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan on
Democracy Now, October 11.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/11/exclusive_british_novelist_john_le_carr

Howard Zinn (2002) Failure to Quit: Reflections on an Optimistic Historian, Cambridge: South End Press.
pp. 99-115 ( Just and Unjust Wars).

Peter Weir (1981), Gallipoli, Australian Film Commission.

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 Image sources
Pablo Picasso (1937) Guernica. Oil on canvas.
Unknown soldier in Iraq. Date unknown. sourced from http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/06/09/some-
interior-situational-sources-war-–-part-v/
Carlos Latuff (2003) War 2. Sourced from http://latuff2.deviantart.com/art/War-2-27832944
Crimethinc (undated) War on Terror/Drugs. http://www.crimethinc.com/tools/downloads/

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