Introduction: International Relations Theory of War 9
The current study’s extensive occupation with the war institution con-
tinues an existing trend.^21 Historians have tended to present the causes
of war as unique to each individual case. Thus, for example, it has been
argued that countries joined the First World War out of concern that the
other countries in the unstable European continent of those years would
attack first; others argued that the Nazi ideology and the personality of
Germany’s leader were what caused the Second World War.^22 In the same
manner, historians tend to present the causes of the results or outcomes
of wars as unique and limited to each case. According to some research-
ers, the United States had to withdraw its forces from Vietnam because
of domestic pressures.^23 In the same manner, it has been argued that
the United States abstained from occupying Iraq in the Gulf War (1991)
because of the objections of its fellow coalition members. The current book
has no intent of rejecting the unique explanations of these and other cases.
Alternatively, the book presents a transhistoric systemic explanation of the
phenomena that it examines, through the international relations theory of
war that is developed in it.
The international relations theory of war presents a number of significant
innovations. The argument that there is a unipolar system represents a
kind of innovation relative to other systemic theories—such as Kenneth
Waltz’s Theory of International Politics^24 or John Mearsheimer’s Theory of
Great Power Politics^25 —which both argue that a system of that kind is not
possible. The argument that unipolar systems will be less stable than bipo-
lar systems and more stable than multipolar system provides new insights
relative to other theories that argue that unipolar systems are the most
stable ones, such as A. F. K. Organski’s and Robert Gilpin’s Hegemonic Sta-
bility Theory^26 or William Wohlforth’s study.^27
The theory presents another innovation, namely that in international
politics, behavior options are given and the key outcomes are known. That is to
say, according to the theory, there is a clear distinction between the behav-
ior of countries and the outcomes of their behaviors, and moreover, there
is no direct relationship between them.
According to the theory, different international systems cause different
international results or outcomes, whose dependence on the aspirations of
the country (the aspiration for sufficient security according to Waltz or the
aspiration for maximum security according to Mearsheimer) or the manner
of conduct of countries (Waltz’s status quo or aggressiveness according to
Mearsheimer) is misled. The latest innovation is the argument that polar
powers have the ability to choose among various behavior patterns—such
as balancing, bandwagoning, buck-passing, or catching the buck. In other
words, the polar powers can choose to behave in a manner that opposes
the systemic dictate, but this will have two main possible results. One is
penalization of the country. Germany, for example, was punished after
the First and the Second World Wars, two cases in which Berlin failed to