274 CHAPTER EigHT ■ War and Strife
external suppliers to obtain such resources. So, according to the radical view, cap i tal ist
states inevitably expand, but radical theorists disagree among themselves about pre-
cisely why expansion occurs.
Although radical interpretations may help explain colonialism and imperialism, the
link to war is more tenuous. One pos si ble link is that cap i tal ist states spend not only
on consumer goods but also on the military, leading inevitably to arms races and
eventually war. Another link points to leaders who resort to external conflict to divert
public attention from domestic economic crises, corruption, or scandal. Such a con-
flict is called a diversionary war and is likely to provide internal cohesion, at least in the
short run. For example, considerable evidence supports the notion that the Argentinian
military used the Falkland/Malvinas Islands conflict in 1982 to rally the population
around the flag and draw attention away from the country’s economic contraction. Still
another link suggests that the masses may push a ruling elite toward war. This view is
clearly at odds with the liberal belief that the masses are basically peace loving. Adher-
ents of this view point to the Spanish- American War of 1898 as an example in which
the U.S. public, supported or inflamed by stilted reports in the new mass print media,
pushed a reluctant McKinley administration into aggressive action. And many in the
United States saw a clear three- way link between the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001, the support for the attacks from Af ghan i stan’s ruling Taliban, and Iraq’s Saddam
Hussein. As a result, both the Af ghan i stan and Iraq wars— the first, beginning in
October 2001, named Operation Enduring Freedom; and the second, beginning in
March 2003, named Operation Iraqi Freedom— enjoyed widespread popu lar support
early on.
Those who argue that contests over the nature of a state’s government are a basic
cause of war have identified another explanation for the outbreak of some wars. Many
civil wars have been fought over which groups, ideologies, and leaders should control
a state’s government. The United States’ own civil war (1861–65) between the North
and the South; Rus sia’s civil war (1917–19) between liberal and socialist forces; China’s
civil war (1927–49) between nationalist and communist forces; and the civil wars
in Vietnam, Korea, the Sudan, and Chad— each pitting north against south— are stark
illustrations. In many of these cases, the strug gle among competing economic systems
and among groups vying for scarce resources within a state illustrates further the
proposition that internal state dynamics are responsible for the outbreak of war.
The American Civil War was fought not only over the institution of slavery and the
question of which region should control policy, but also over the Southerners’ belief
that the government inequitably and unfairly allocated economic resources. China’s
civil war pitted a wealthy, landed elite supportive of the nationalist cause against an
exploited peasantry struggling, often unsuccessfully, for survival. The intermittent Suda-
nese civil war pitted an eco nom ically depressed south against a northern government
that poured economic resources into the region of the capital.