New Model of War APSA05

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APSA Version Jonathan Berohn

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Passion and War:

Reincorporating the First Image

by Jonathan Berohn


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Political thinkers have been studying war for well over 2,000 years. Yet in all

that time, nothing like a consensus has emerged about the causes, conduct, and

termination of wars. Two broad schools of thought dominate much of current

international relations scholarship about war: realism and rational choice. For all the

advances these theories have made, they have thus far generally omitted any first level, or

human nature factors from their works. Ignoring the first image has allowed these

schools to produce some elegant and parsimonious theories, but these advances have

come at the expense of the significant explanatory power that first image factors can add

to the understanding of war.

Certainly, there are far too many potential first image factors to do them all justice

in one paper. Furthermore, attempting to add in every potential first level influence on

policy would quickly end up in a theory of everything that would explain nothing.

Instead, I focus on the irrational or passion element of war. This is not to say I am

developing a theory of irrational actorsfar from it. By definition you cannot predict

what irrational actors will do. Instead, I am developing a theory of how actors

attempting to act rationally respond toand more importantlyare constrained by the

irrational passions naturally present in every individual and any society. While in many

ways this line of reasoning flies in the face of existing international relations theory, it is

certainly not new to political theory. Political thinkers from Thucydides onward have

noted and stressed the importance of the irrational to understanding politics and

international affairs. What this paper attempts to do is bring this longtime understanding


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of the importance of passion back into the contemporary study of international relations

in general and war in particular.

Specifically, I intend to address two puzzles that the dominant theories of

warrealism and rational choicecannot address. The first puzzle is realisms

(specifically neorealisms) inability to address causes and conduct of specific wars.

Neorealism offers great insight into necessary conditions for war based on systemic

factors, but it purposely ignores individual policy decisions. To maximize its explanatory

power, any theory of war ought to be able to go beyond this limitation and address the

specific as well as the general. As for rational choice, the puzzle lies in rational choices

failure to explain why wars last longer than the theory predicts. The source of the puzzle,

I will argue, lies with rational choices attempt to make sense of a phenomenon that is

driven as much by passion as it is by rationality. Adding passion to the mix allows for far

greater understanding of and explanatory power about war than a model based solely on

the presumption of rational actors.

As mentioned above, both realism and rational choice have made significant

contributions to our understanding of war. I certainly do not intend to suggest that

neither has anything to contribute. I wish rather to build on the advances these theories

have made by integrating first-image factors into the analysis of warfare. Such an

undertaking is far from unprecedented. Neoclassical realist scholars, for instance, have

made important strides in their attempt to add second image domestic level factors to

neorealisms system-centric approach. The neoclassical realists, too, however, also fail


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to address first image factors. In some sense, this paper picks up where neoclassical

realists leave off.

In another sense, this paper also represents a return to the pastat least in terms

of inspiration. In On War, Carl von Clausewitz famously defined the trinity of war as a

union of rationality, creativity, and passion.2 Despite its age, this maxim can still help

define the mechanism for filling the passion gap the study of war. In other words,

Clausewitzs trinity of war offers an insight into to how to add these first level factors

into the study of war in a parsimonious manner that significantly increases explanatory

power.

What Is Passion?

I define passion as simply the irrational support (or lack thereof) for war. By

irrational I mean, of course, not inexplicable but irrational in the classic rational choice

sense. In other words, passion is support or opposition to a policy independent of

cost/benefit calculations. The sources of passion can range from religion and ideology to

emotions such as fear and hatred, but the thing they all have in common is their irrational

foundation.

The expression of passion, on the other hand, occurs on two levels: individual and

societal. As passion is, by its nature, a psychological phenomenon, it is essentially an

individual response to a stimulus, war in this case. A societal expression of passion is the

2 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 89.


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repeatedly point to the Thucydides as the great-grandfather of realist thought. What this

assessment misses, though, is the importance that Thucydides places on the irrational

forces that help guide the course of the war. Spartan fear of rising Athenian power

certainly gets at the idea of self-help in an anarchic system and policy decision-making in

response to material calculations, but it is not coincidental that Thucydides uses the word

fear. Sparta and Athens had fought together as allies in the past, but something about

Athens rise during the period Thucydides writes about leads to fear in Sparta. This fear

is part of the universal human nature that Thucydides sees as the reason his work will

endure.

Certainly, an argument can be made that the use of fear is simply a word choice

by Thucydides to describe the calculations Sparta was making about the inevitable

outcome of an increase in Athenian power. Nonetheless, the underlying animus between

the two states that helps bring about this fear cannot be so easily explained away.

Certainly, when Thucydides presents Pericles funeral oration, the impact of passion on

policy is quite clear. Pericles, when rousing his fellow Athenians to war, chooses not to

emphasize rational cost benefit analyses, imperfect information, or enforcement problems

but instead a pure raw appeal to the glory or Athens. Athenians of that time believed in

glory, and Pericles certainly believed in the value of using that belief to build support for

the war.

Another classical theorist who is often mentioned as a forbear of realism is

Machiavelli. Certainly much of Machiavellis thoughts presage many of the principles of

realism. Act out of necessity rather than the way things ought to be; worry primarily


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Why Passion? More Recent Approaches

The fact that passion has slipped out of the cannon of international relations

scholarship does not mean that all political scientists ignore it. As Walker Connor points

out in a study of the literature on identity, political leaders have long been aware of the

powerful pull of emotional appeals. He cites both Bismarck and Mao as just two of an

innumerable list of leaders who have appealed directly to passion to garner support for

their policies.8 In an early speech, Abraham Lincoln also noted that the struggle against

passion was the key to successfully navigating the perils of the 19 th century.9 One

obvious question arises here: if passion is so widely recognized as important by

statesmen, why is it generally unstudied by political scientists? Connor offers two

answers that apply to psychological factors in general and passion in particular:

intellectual discomfort with the non rational; and the search for quantifiable

explanations.10 Whether or not this gets at the true motivations of political scientists is in

many ways not important. What is important, though, is trying close the gap in

knowledge that this inattention to passion has created.

Of course, stating that international relations scholars have neglected first image

factors in no way denigrates the contribution of other first image scholars. The study of

8 Walker Connor. Ethnonationalism. in Understanding Political Development: AnAnalytical Study, eds. M. Weiner and S. P. Huntington (Boston: Brown Little, 1987), pp.

196-220.9 Abraham Lincoln, "Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois,"

27 January 1838, Douglas Archicves, http://douglassarchives.org/linc_a69.htm.10 Connor, p. 205.


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identity, for example, is quite a hot topic in political science of late. In addition to

Connors psychological approach, scholars have looked at identity using everything from

ideology11 to rational choice.12 While the causal mechanisms these authors suggest are

widely in variance with one another, they all point to the importance of trying to

incorporate first image factors into an understanding of politics.

Just as obviously, the political psychology literature attempts to bring an

understanding of first image factors to bear. Political psychology scholars such as,

Margaret Hermann, Charles Hermann, Charles Kegley, Michael Young and Marc

Shafer13 focus on such diverse psychological topics as personalities, leader types, social

identity theory and normative constraints, and cognition. For all the light they shed on

the importance of looking at first image factors in foreign-policy decision-making,

though, they still ignore half the picture. The psychological factors this literature looks at

are those that impact the decision-maker directly. The model that I propose is concerned

both with the psychological factors that impact the decision-maker and those at work in a

11 William Safran, Language, Ideology, and State-Building.International PoliticalScience Review 13:4 (1992 ):397-414.12 David Laitin,Identity in Formation : The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near

Abroad(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).13 Margaret Hermann, Explaining Foreign Policy Characteristics Using the PersonalCharacteristics of Political Leaders,International Studies Quarterly 24:1 (March 1980)

pp. 7-46.; Margaret Hermann and Charles Hermann, Who Makes Foreign Policy

Decisions and How? An Empirical Inquiry,International Studies Quarterly 33:4(December 1989) pp. 361-387.; Margaret Hermann and Charles Kegley, RethinkingDemocracy and International Peace: Perspectives from Political Psychology,

International Studies Quarterly 39:4 (December 1995) pp. 511-533.; Michael D. Young

and Mark Shafer Is There Method in Our Madness? Ways of Assessing Cognition in

International relations,Mershon International Studies Review 42:1 (may 1998) pp. 63-96.


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short, Clausewitzs system is a synergy between all three elements that a nation brings to

bear in a war: statesmanship, military power, and national will. Passion, to Clausewitz, is

nothing more or less than human nature in play. The hatred, affinity, or disinterest a

people has for a potential enemy goes a long way in determining how a nation will wage

war against that enemy.

The General Mechanism of Passion and War

As I mentioned above, I do not seek to supplant the contributions made by either

realism or rational choice. Keeping this in mind, it should come as no surprise that

rational decision-making retains its place in the mechanism I propose for adding passion

to a theory of war. The general causal mechanism I propose is that passion acts as a

second independent variable alongside rational decision-making to determine war

outcomes. In short, here is the causal pathway:

Note that unlike some attempts to go beyond the limits of realism and rational choice, this

model does not specify passion as an intervening variable. For example, Gideon Rose

defines the neoclassical realist addition of second image factors to realism as an

Rational Choice Passion War


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causal variable does just that. Theory that does not incorporate passion and human nature

will inevitably fall short when trying to explain policy decisions without reference to the

underlying human nature at play.

The question of importance has a similar answer. Briefly and most obviously, all

things being equal (and ignoring parsimony for a moment) a theory that explains more is

better than a theory that explains less. With the advent of religiously inspired terrorism,

some accounting for how human nature affects international relations and conflict seems

particularly relevant and crucial. Historically as well, wars that seem to come not from

dispassionate evaluations of interest and material factors argue for the importance of

trying to include human nature into international relations theory. From the Melians

vainly resisting the Athenians and the Crusaders spurred on by religious zealotry to the

Japanese attacking the United States in war they believed they would lose, history is full

of wars were driven by diverse motives such as religion, ideology, and honoraspects of

human nature that current theories about war do not fully address.

Specifically, incorporating human nature by way of passion into a theory of war

should shed light on many of the empirical anomalies that realism and rational choice

cannot explain. Once the passion of the people comes back into play theoretically, we

can attempt to make sense of such empirical puzzles as why the US and Great Britain are

allies, why Germany and Japan have not rearmed, and why Israeli Palestinian conflict is

so hard to solve. In short, incorporating human nature into a passion model of war

greatly expands both the cases the theory can address and its potential relevance for

modern policy-makers.


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The Limitations of Realism

Realism has not always focused on systemic level factors. For example, Hans

Morgenthaus initial formulation of classical realism relied heavily on the insidious

nature of man and his lust for power as the explanation for recurring conflict in the

world.22 It was not until Kenneth Waltz proposed neorealism that the international

system replaced human nature as the driving force behind understanding international

relations. In Waltz, the impetus for replacing the first image with becomes clear. Simply

put, Waltzs perception of political science limited his inquiries into general patterns of

behavior rather than specific policy outcomes. By focusing on this level of analysis, the

natural shift to system level variables was perfectly logical.23

Realism as a permissive cause of war has always been the central focus of Waltzs

argument. Waltz himself agrees that realism only explains why war will occur. It does

not explain why or when a particular war will occur, or why war will not occur. To

Waltz, this level of prediction falls out of international outcomes, and down to foreign

policyand area that Waltz purposely avoids.24 He does, however, acknowledge that

any attempt to explain foreign policy decisions mustof necessityinclude the second

and first level images in order to have any explanatory power.25 That Waltz feels any

22 Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1948).23 Kenneth Waltz,Man, the State, and War (Columbia University Press: New York,

2001), pp. 233-235.24 Waltz, pp. 233-235.25Ibid., p238.


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rational self-interest. A closer examination of the rational choice models proposed by

Fearon and Reiter illuminates the shortcoming in their approaches caused by the omission

of passion as a causal factor.

Both Fearon and Reiter describe issue indivisibility as one of the potential causes

for war in the rational choice framework. While Fearon essentially dismisses the

importance of this idea, Reiter acknowledges that substantive work into this area is

underway.29 Nonetheless, the short shrift both give this issue is telling. If issue

indivisibility is at all common, the rational choice / bargaining approach to war has a

serious problem. Even if issue indivisibility is rare, in those cases where it does occur,

rational choice has very little to say about it using Fearons framework. This is precisely

the kind of case where including passion yields valuable insight. Passion lets us look at

why issues may become indivisible, and how this indivisibility affects and constrains

policy-makers. To be fair, Reiter does point out that several rational choice scholars are

trying to explain these cases using pure rational choice reasoning, but the idea of

indivisibility arising simply over leaders fears of setting compromise precedents30 does

not seem to add much to the explanatory power here. This sort of explanation also fails

to answer the question of why this happens sometimes and not others. Again passion

offers one potential explanation with a much more convincing micro-foundation to build

upon.

Issue indivisibility also points to one of the fundamental problems with rational

choice, in general, and the bargaining model of war in particular. In defining the

29 Fearon pp. 381-382; Reiter, p. 30.30 Reiter p. 30.


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Of course, what this brief outline of possible large n studies ultimately points to is

the importance of case study for assessing the passion model. Truly understanding the

mechanism behind passions impact requires in depth case study of actual decision-

making. Where large n studies are useful in pointing toward interesting cases, the case

studies will offer the best venue for testing the theoretical claims of the passion model.

Specifically, case studies for testing the passion model should focus on identifying three

main things:

1) The presence of and nature of passion (both in leaders and in society)2) Leaders knowledge and understanding of popular passions3) The impact of 1 and 2 on war decisions

Causal Complexity: Parsimony vs. Explanatory Power

Incorporating human nature into a theory of war, I must acknowledge, sacrifices

the parsimony of neoclassical realism and rational choice. To use the standard political

science test of trading parsimony for explanatory power, however, the trade here seems

well worth it. As discussed above, adding passion to the mix significantly improves

explanatory power. The ultimate loss in parsimony, at the same time, is relatively minor

considering the benefits gained. While this pronouncement might at first seem

counterintuitive, another look at the way in which further research will proceed indicates

otherwise. Again, you certainly cannot circulate a questionnaire and measure passion,

but thats where the benefit of case study comes in. In such an approach, attempting to


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approach is not tenable, I will pursue a case study strategy fro the outset. Whatever the

method, the first subjects of empirical study will focus on four main topics:

1) Wars fought where one side has no real chance of winning. Relevant caseswould range form the classic Melos-Athens conflict through the American Indian

Wars to the Japanese attack on the US in World War II and modern terrorism

campaigns.

2) Cases where systemic imperatives suggest that war would be likely yet didnot occur. Relevant cases include the rise of US hegemony at the expense of the

UK, US restrain when confronting a non-nuclear USSR immediately after World

War II, and the lack of conflict in post-war Europe.

3) Wars that did not end when rational choice / bargaining models suggest theyshould have. Relevant cases include the US Civil War, World War II, and the

Iran-Iraq War. Going back in history, the Thirty and Hundred Years wars are also

obvious candidates for study.

4) Wars the militarily stronger side lost. Relevant cases include the Vietnam Warand the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

The conclusions these case studies produce would go along way toward demonstrating

the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of the passion model of war.

Conclusion


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The current US War in Iraq demonstrates quite emphatically that force is not dead

in international relations. It also demonstrates the need to look past systemic imperatives

for the motives behind war and other policy decisions. Neoclassical realism takes a

strong first step in that direction by including unit-level factors in its theories. This step

is incomplete, though, in that it omits the very important first level human nature factors

from consideration. By borrowing from Clausewitzs trinity of war the passion model

begins to close this gap and reincorporate human nature into our understanding of policy

decisions.


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Lincoln, Abraham, "Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois,"27 January 1838, Douglas Archicves, http://douglassarchives.org/linc_a69.htm.

Machiavell, Niccolo, The Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1985).

Morgenthau, Hans, Politics among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1948).

Reiter, Dan, Exploring the Bargaining Model of War, Perspectives on Politics 1:1(March 2003): pp. 27-43.

Rose, Gideon, Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy, World Politics

51:1 (October 1998) pp. 144-172.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Confessions (Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1972).

Safran, William, Language, Ideology, and State-Building.International PoliticalScience Review 13:4 (1992 ):397-414.

Schweller, Randall L.,Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitlers Strategy of WorldConquest(New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).

Smith, Alastair and Alan C. Stamm, Bargaining and the Nature of War, Journal of

Conflict Resolution 48:6 (December 2004), pp. 783-813.

Thucydides,History of the Peloponnesian War (Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1987).

von Clausewitz, Carl, On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1976).

Waltz, Kenneth,Man, the State, and War (Columbia University Press: New York, 2001).

Werner, Suzanne, The Precarious Nature of Peace: Resolving the Issues, enforcing the

Settlement, and Renegotiating the Terms,American Journal of Political Science 43:3

(1999), pp. 913-934.

Young, Michael D. and Mark Shafer Is There Method in Our Madness? Ways ofAssessing Cognition in International relations,Mershon International Studies Review

42:1 (may 1998) pp. 63-96.

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New Model of War APSA05

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