The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

  95. Habsburgs: Black lamb and grey falcon (1941), quoted in Mueller, 1995, p. 177.

  96. Biology and dynasties: Betzig, 1996a, 1996b, 2002.

  97. Killing people who worshipped the wrong God: Luard, 1986, pp. 42–43.

  98. Religion preempts diplomacy: Mattingly, 1958, p. 154, quoted in Luard, 1986, p. 287.

  99. Declining number of political units in Europe: Wright, 1942, p. 215; Gat, 2006, p. 456.

  100. Military revolution: Gat, 2006; Levy & Thompson, 2010; Levy et al., 2001; Mueller, 2004a.

  101. Soldiers and outlaws: Tilly, 1985, p. 173.

  102. Take the money and run: Mueller, 2004a, p. 17.

  103. Military evolution: Gat, 2006, pp. 456–80.

  104. Napoleon and total war: Bell, 2007a.

  105. Relatively pacific 18th century: Brecke, 1999; Luard, 1986, p. 52; Bell, 2007a, p. 5. Bell’s “performing poodles” quote is from Michael Howard.

  106. Ideology, nationalism, and Enlightenment: Howard, 2001.

  107. Fervid Napoleonic France: Bell, 2007a.

  108. Disfigurement of Enlightenment: Bell, 2007a, p. 77.

  109. Dialectic between Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment: Howard, 2001, p. 38.

  110. Concert of Europe as product of Enlightenment: Howard, 2001, p. 41; see also Schroeder, 1994.

  111. Nations must fight their way into existence: Howard, 2001, p. 45.

  112. Conservatives and nationalists merged: Howard, 2001, p. 54.

  113. Hegelian nationalism: Luard, 1986, p. 355.

  114. Marxism and nationalism: Glover, 1999.

  115. Self-determination as dynamite: Quoted in Moynihan, 1993, p. 83.

  116. War is good: Quotes are from Mueller, 1989, pp. 38–51.

  117. Wallowing in materialism: Quoted in Mueller, 1995, p. 187.

  118. Peace is bad: Quotes are from Mueller, 1989, pp. 38–51.

  119. Moral equivalent of war: James, 1906/1971.

  120. Belloc wanted war: Mueller, 1989, p. 43.

  121. Valéry wanted war: Bell, 2007a, p. 311.

  122. Sherlock Holmes wanted war: Gopnik, 2004.

  123. Why the Great War happened: Ferguson, 1998; Gopnik, 2004; Lebow, 2007; Stevenson, 2004.

  124. 8.5 million: Correlates of War Inter-State War Dataset, Sarkees, 2000; 15 million: White, in press.

  125. Anti-Enlightenment ideologies in Germany, Italy, and Japan: Chirot, 1995; Chirot & McCauley, 2006.

  126. Cold War as containment of communist expansionism: Mueller, 1989, 2004a.

  127. 19th-century peace movements: Howard, 2001; Kurlansky, 2006; Mueller, 1989, 2004a; Payne, 2004.

  128. Ridiculing pacifists: Mueller, 1989, p. 30.

  129. Shavian accompaniment: Quoted in Wearing, 2010, p. viii.

  130. What Angell really wrote: Ferguson, 1998; Gardner, 2010; Mueller, 1989.

  131. War no longer justified: Luard, 1986, p. 365.

  132. All Quiet on the Western Front: Remarque, 1929/1987, pp. 222–25.

  133. A mountain . . . cannot offend a mountain: Remarque, 1929/1987, p. 204.

  134. War aversion among most Germans in the 1930s: Mueller, 1989, 2004a.

  135. Alternatives to Hitler would not have started World War II: Turner, 1996.

  136. Hitler’s demonic genius: Mueller, 1989, p. 65. Hitler manipulating the world: Mueller, 1989, p 64.

  137. We’re doomed: See Mueller, 1989, p. 271, notes 2 and 4, and p. 98.

  138. Morgenthau on World War III: Quoted in Mueller, 1995, p. 192.

  139. Cold War superpowers stayed out of each other’s way: This included Korea, where the Soviet Union provided only limited air support to its North Korean ally, and never closer than sixty miles from the battlefront.

  140. Longest great power peace since the Roman Empire: Mueller, 1989, pp. 3–4; Gaddis, 1989.

  141. No army crossing the Rhine: B. DeLong, “Let us give thanks (Wacht am Rhein Department),” Nov. 12, 2004, http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004–2_archives/000536.html.

  142. No interstate wars in Western Europe: Correlates of War Inter-State War Dataset (v3.0), Sarkees, 2000.

  143. No interstate wars in Eastern Europe: Correlates of War Inter-State War Dataset (v3.0), Sarkees, 2000. This follows the CoW definition of interstate war as a conflict with one thousand casualties in a year and members of the interstate system on each side. The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 is not included in the current CoW databases, which end in 1997; the PRIO Dataset counts it as an internationalized intrastate (civil) war, because NATO entered in support of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Note that Levy’s criteria would include it as a war involving a great power.

  144. No interstate wars between developed countries: Mueller, 1989, pp. 4 and 271, note 5.

  145. The decline of conquest since 1948: An exhaustive review by the political scientist Mark Zacher (Zacher, 2001) lists seven: India-Goa (1961), Indonesia–West Irian (1961–62), China–Northeast Frontier (1962), Israel-Jerusalem/West Bank/Gaza/Golan (1967), North Vietnam–South Vietnam (1975), Iran–Strait of Hormuz Islands (1971), and China–Paracel Islands (1974). A few other successful aggressions resulted in minor changes or in the establishment of new political entities.

  146. Greatest transfer of power in history: Sheehan, 2008, pp. 167–71.

  147. No more colonial or imperial wars: Human Security Centre, 2005; Human Security Report Project, 2008.

  148. No states eliminated: Zacher, 2001.

  149. Twenty-two states occupied in first half of 20th century, none in second half: Russett & Oneal, 2001, p. 180.

  150. Danes roaring for a fight: Mueller, 1989, p. 21.

  151. Longest period of great power peace: Levy et al., 2001, p. 18.

  152. Chance of one great power war in sixty-five years: In 1991 Levy had to exclude the Korean War to calculate that the probability of the number of observed great power wars since the end of World War II was just 0.005 (see Levy et al., 2001, note 11). Two decades later we don’t have to make that judgment call to get massive statistical significance.

  153. Improbability of the Long Peace: The rates of onsets per year of wars between great powers, and of onsets per year for wars with a great power on at least one side, between 1495 and 1945, were taken from Levy, 1983, table 4.1, pp. 88–91. The rates of onsets per year for wars between European states from 1815 through 1945 were taken from the Correlates of War Dataset, Sarkees, 2000. These were multiplied by 65 to generate the lambda parameter for a Poisson distribution, and the probability of drawing the number of observed wars or fewer was calculated from that distribution.

  154. Precocious assessments of war decline: Levi, 1981; Gaddis, 1986; Holsti, 1986; Luard, 1988; Mueller, 1989; Fukuyama, 1989; Ray, 1989; Kaysen, 1990.

  155. “Postwar” world: Jervis, 1988, p. 380.

  156. Anxious prediction: Kaysen, 1990, p. 64.

  157. War no longer desirable: Keegan, 1993, p. 59.

  158. War may not recur: Howard, 1991, p. 176.

  159. Striking discontinuity: Luard, 1986, p. 77.

  160. Nothing like it in history: Gat, 2006, p. 609.

  161. Press gangs: Payne, 2004, p. 73.

  162. Shrinking conscription: Sheehan, 2008, p. 217.

  163. Conscription in forty-eight nations: Payne, 2004; International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2010; Central Intelligence Agency, 2010.

  164. Proportion of population in uniform as best indicator of militarism: Payne, 1989.

  165. Average proportion of soldiers: Unweighted average of 63 countries in existence during the entire timespan, from Correlates of War National Material Capabilities Dataset (1816–2001), Sarkees, 2000, http://www.correlatesofwar.org.

  166. Skittishness about Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Hunt, 2007, pp. 202–3.

  167. Downgrading the nation-state: V. Havel, “How Europe could fail,” New York Review of Books, Nov. 18, 1993, p. 3.

  168. Territory most important issue in war: Vasquez, 2009, pp. 165–66.
br />   169. Territorial integrity norm: Zacher, 2001.

  170. Cognitive landmarks in positive-sum negotiation: Schelling, 1960.

  171. Higher value on life: Luard, 1986, p. 268.

  172. Khrushchev: Quoted in Mueller, 2004a, p. 74.

  173. Carter’s restraint: “Carter defends handling of hostage crisis,” Boston Globe, Nov. 17, 2009.

  174. Saving face during the Cuban Missile Crisis: Glover, 1999, p. 202.

  175. RFK on Cuban Missile Crisis: Kennedy, 1969/1999, p. 49.

  176. Khrushchev and Kennedy pulling on a knot: Quoted in Glover, 1999, p. 202.

  177. Cold War as ladder versus escalator: Mueller, 1989.

  178. Military aversion to gratuitous killing: Hoban, 2007; Jack Hoban, personal communication, Nov. 14, 2009.

  179. The Ethical Marine Warrior: Hoban, 2007, 2010.

  180. “The Hunting Story”: Humphrey, 1992.

  181. Relatively few battle deaths: According to the PRIO dataset (Lacina & Gleditsch, 2005), there were 14,200 battle deaths in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2008, and 13,500 battle deaths in Iraq. Deaths from intercommunal conflict are higher; they will be discussed in the next chapter.

  182. New anti-insurgency campaign: N. Shachtman, “The end of the air war,” Wired, Jan. 2010, pp. 102–9.

  183. Smart targeting kills fewer civilians: Goldstein, 2011.

  184. Afghanistan civilian deaths: Bohannon, 2011. My estimate of 5,300 for 2004–10 is the sum of the 4,024 civilian deaths reported for 2004–9 (p. 1260) and 1,152 deaths estimated for 2010 (55 percent of the total of 2,537 for 2009 and 2010, p. 1257). Civilian battle deaths in Vietnam estimated at 843,000 by Rummel (1997), table 6.1.A. This jibes with the total battle-death estimate (civilians plus soldiers) of 1.6 million from the PRIO New War Dataset (Gleditsch et al., 2002; Lacina, 2009) combined with the assumption, discussed in chap. 6, that approximately half of all battle deaths represent civilians.

  185. Europeans are from Venus: Kagan, 2002.

  186. “Down with This Sort of Thing”: Sheehan, 2008.

  187. This ain’t the Wehrmacht: E-mail from Kabul, Dec. 11, 2003.

  188. Scared straight by nuclear terror: See Mueller, 1989, p. 271, note 3. For a recent example, see van Creveld, 2008.

  189. Sturdy child of terror: W. Churchill, “Never Despair,” speech to House of Commons, Mar. 1, 1955.

  190. Nobel for the nukes: Quoted in Mueller, 2004a, p. 164.

  191. Long Peace not a nuclear peace: Mueller, 1989, chap. 5; Ray, 1989, pp. 429–31.

  192. Dynamite peace: Quoted in Ray, 1989, p. 429.

  193. Failure of new weapons to implement peace: Ray, 1989, pp. 429–30.

  194. Poison gas from planes: Mueller, 1989.

  195. Nondeterrence by weapons of mass destruction: Luard, 1986, p. 396.

  196. Calling nuclear powers’ bluff: Ray, 1989, p. 430; Huth & Russett, 1984; Kugler, 1984; Gochman & Maoz, 1984, pp. 613–15.

  197. Nuclear taboo: Schelling, 2000, 2005; Tannenwald, 2005b.

  198. Neutron bomb compatible with just war: Tannenwald, 2005b, p. 31.

  199. Not quite a taboo: Paul, 2009; Tannenwald, 2005b.

  200. Daisy ad: “Daisy: The Complete History of an Infamous and Iconic Ad,” http://www.conelrad.com/daisy/index.php.

  201. Mark of Cain: Quoted in Tannenwald, 2005b, p. 30.

  202. Sanctification of Hiroshima: Quoted in Schelling, 2005, p. 373.

  203. Gradual emergence of nuclear taboo: Schelling, 2005; Tannenwald, 2005b. Dulles quote from Schelling, 2000, p. 1.

  204. Eisenhower on nukes: Schelling, 2000, p. 2.

  205. Johnson ratifies taboo: Schelling, 2000, p. 3.

  206. Kennedy’s prediction of nuclear proliferation: Mueller, 2010a, p. 90.

  207. Predictions that Germany and Japan would go nuclear: See Mueller, 2010a, p. 92.

  208. Condemned by the civilized world: Quoted in Price, 1997, p. 91.

  209. Churchill on chemical weapons: Quoted in Mueller, 1989, p. 85.

  210. Accidental release of poison gas: Mueller, 1989, p. 85; Price, 1997, p. 112.

  211. Saddam hanged for chemical attack: “Charges facing Saddam Hussein,” BBC News, Jul. 1, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3320293.stm.

  212. Small death toll from gas: Mueller, 1989, p. 84; Mueller, 2004a, p. 43.

  213. Venomous woman: Hallissy, 1987, pp. 5–6, quoted in Price, 1997, p. 23.

  214. “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons”: Perry, Shultz, Kissinger, & Nunn, 2008; Shultz, Perry, Kissinger, & Nunn, 2007.

  215. Three-quarters of former secretaries of defense and state and NSAs: Shultz, 2009, p. 81. Global Zero: www.globalzero.org.

  216. Road map for Global Zero: Global Zero Commission, 2010.

  217. Global Zero skeptics: Schelling, 2009; H. Brown & J. Deutch, “The nuclear disarmament fantasy,” Wall Street Journal, Nov. 19, 2007, p. A19. Global Zero planning: B. Blechman, “Stop at Start,” New York Times, Feb. 19, 2010.

  218. Democracy is obsolete: D. Moynihan, “The American experiment,” Public Interest, Fall 1975, quoted in Mueller, 1995, p. 192. See Gardner, 2010, for other examples.

  219. Democracies and autocracies: Marshall & Cole, 2009.

  220. Democratic Peace debate: Mueller, 1989, 2004a; Ray, 1989; Rosato, 2003; White, 2005b.

  221. Democratic Peace is a Pax Americana: Rosato, 2003.

  222. Democratic Peace strikes back: Russett & Oneal, 2001; White, 2005b.

  223. A statistical Democratic Peace: Russett & Oneal, 2001.

  224. Militarized interstate disputes: Gochman & Maoz, 1984; Jones, Bremer, & Singer, 1996.

  225. Copious militarized interstate disputes: The analysis presented in Russett & Oneal, 2001, was based on the Correlates of War Project’s Militarized Interstate Dispute 2.1 Dataset (Jones et al., 1996), which runs from 1885 to 1992 (see also Gochman & Maoz, 1984). Russett, 2008, has since extended it with data from the 3.0 database (Ghosn, Palmer, & Bremer, 2004), which runs through 2001.

  226. Support for the Democratic Peace: Russett & Oneal, 2001, pp. 108–11; Russett, 2008, 2010.

  227. Democracies more peaceful across the board: Russett & Oneal, 2001, p. 116.

  228. No Autocratic Peace: Russett & Oneal, 2001, p. 115.

  229. Democratic Peace not a Pax Americana: Russett & Oneal, 2001, p. 112.

  230. No Pax Americana or Pax Britannica: Russett & Oneal, 2001, pp. 188–89.

  231. Peace among new democracies: Russett & Oneal, 2001, p. 121.

  232. No Democratic Peace in 19th century: Russett & Oneal, 2001, p. 114.

  233. Liberal Peace: Gleditsch, 2008; Goldstein & Pevehouse, 2009; Schneider & Gleditsch, 2010.

  234. Golden Arches Peace: The idea is usually attributed to the journalist Thomas Friedman. An earlier marginal exception was the U.S. attack on Panama in 1989, but its death count falls short of the minimum required for a war according to the standard definition. The 1999 Kargil War between Pakistan and India may be another exception, depending on whether Pakistani forces are counted as independent guerrillas or government soldiers; see White, 2005b.

  235. Skeptics of trade-peace connection: Gaddis, 1986, p. 111; Ray, 1989.

  236. Raiding and trading: Keegan, 1993, e.g., p. 126.

  237. Trade between England and Germany before World War I: Ferguson, 2006.

  238. Trade explains World War I after all: Gat, 2006, pp. 554–57; Weede, 2010.

  239. Trade reduces conflict: Russett & Oneal, 2001, pp. 145–48. Even controlling for economic growth: p. 153.

  240. Trade and development: Hegre, 2000.

  241. Openness to the global economy: Russett & Oneal, 2001, p. 148.

  242. Democracy is only dyadic; commerce is monadic too: McDonald, 2010; Russett, 2010.

  243. Capitalist Peace: Gartzke, 2007; Gartzke & Hewitt, 2010; McDonald, 2010; Mousseau, 2010; Mueller, 1999, 2010b; Rosecrance, 2010; Schneider & Gleditsch, 2010; Weede, 2010.

  244. Pitting democracy and capitalism against each other:
Gartzke & Hewitt, 2010; McDonald, 2010; Mousseau, 2010; but see also Russett, 2010.

  245. “Make money, not war”: Gleditsch, 2008.

  246. Scientists and world government: Mueller, 1989, p. 98.

  247. Bertrand Russell and preemptive nuclear war: Mueller, 1989, pp. 109–10; Sowell, 2010, chap. 8.

  248. European economic communities: Sheehan, 2008, pp. 158–59.

  249. Peace and European IGOs: Sheehan, 2008.

  250. All three variables: Russett, 2008.

  251. International relations and moral norms: Cederman, 2001; Mueller, 1989, 2004a, 2007; Nadelmann, 1990; Payne, 2004; Ray, 1989.

  252. “Realism” in international relations: See Goldstein & Pevehouse, 2009; Ray, 1989; Thayer, 2004.

  253. Ideas and the end of the Cold War: Bennett, 2005; English, 2005; Tannenwald, 2005a; Tannenwald & Wohlforth, 2005; Thomas, 2005.

  254. Glasnost: A. Brown, “When Gorbachev took charge,” New York Times, Mar. 11, 2010.

  255. Kant on nations’ learning from experience: Kant, 1784/1970, p. 47, quoted in Cederman, 2001.

  256. Back to Kant: Cederman, 2001.

  257. Learning from mistakes: See also Dershowitz, 2004a.

  Chapter 6: The New Peace

  1. Expert predictions: Gardner, 2010; Mueller, 1995, 2010a.

  2. “great power rivalries”: Quoted in S. McLemee, “What price Utopia?” (review of J. Gray’s Black mass), New York Times Book Review, Nov. 25, 2007, p. 20.

  3. “blood-soaked course”: S. Tanenhaus, “The end of the journey: From Whittaker Chambers to George W. Bush,” New Republic, Jul. 2, 2007, p. 42.

  4. “nothing but terrorism... and genocides”: Quoted in C. Lambert, “Le Professeur,” Harvard Magazine, Jul.–Aug., 2007, p. 36.

  5. “more dangerous place than ever”: Quoted in C. Lambert, “Reviewing ‘reality,’ ” Harvard Magazine , Mar.–Apr. 2007, p. 45.

  6. “the same damned thing”: M. Kinsley, “The least we can do,” Atlantic, Oct. 2010.

  7. False sense of insecurity: Leif Wenar, quoted in Mueller, 2006, p. 3.

  8. “new wars”: Kaldor, 1999.

  9. Existential threats: For quotations, see Mueller, 2006, pp. 6, 45.

  10. Decline of deaths and displacements in “new wars”: Melander, Oberg, & Hall, 2009; Goldstein, 2011; Human Security Report Project, 2011.