Solving the War Puzzle: Beyond the Democratic Peace

• Author: Major Richard P. Dimeglio
• Pages: 05

152 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 182

SOLVING THE WAR PUZZLE: BEYOND THE DEMOCRATIC PEACE1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR RICHARD P. DIMEGLIO2

Wars are not simply accidents. Nor, contrary to our ordinary language, are they made by nations. Wars are made by people; more specifically they are decided on by the leaders of nation states . . . . Incentive theory makes the claim that we can predict the occurrence of war more accurately, and intervene to control it more effectively, when we focus our attention squarely on the incentives of the decision makers controlling the decision to use force . . . .3

Solving the War Puzzle: Beyond the Democratic Peace is Professor John Norton Moore's latest effort to provide an "incremental" contribution to the "war/peace puzzle" in the hope of developing a theory as to the cause of conflict and a means to control warfare.4 Although Moore's book fails to achieve the overly ambitious title and does not truly provide a solution, it is worth a considered study by international law practitioners and military strategists. Moore offers readers a new overarching theory incorporating both the widely accepted democratic peace model and the principle of deterrence. By providing this model, he offers a more predictive and comprehensive foreign policy paradigm by which one can analyze the jigsaw world of international relations.

Moore is certainly not a stranger to international law or intellectual debate as to the origins of warfare. As the Walter L. Brown Professor of Law and the Director of the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, and as the former Chairman of the Board of the United States Institute of Peace, he has taught, lectured and

written extensively on the subjects of international law, war, and peace, for over four decades.5 He is eminently qualified to tackle these topics and his personal expertise and past involvement are on display throughout the text and insightful endnotes. Moore diligently supports his arguments with primary and secondary sources throughout the book. He annexes several graphs and charts; unfortunately, they are not well-referenced by the main text and are somewhat confusing.

Moore has long-championed the theory of the democratic peace, which, at its most general level, "posits that major war will occur only rarely, if at all, between well-established democratic nations."6 In Solving the War Puzzle, Moore, however, is forced to concede that by itself the democratic peace "does not provide a satisfactory general theory of the origins of war since democracies have been robustly involved in war with nondemocracies, and nondemocracies have been robustly involved in war with everyone on an equal opportunity basis."7

Moore recognizes that the democratic peace, standing alone, is incomplete as a conflict management theory since "it focuses only on the correlation between democracy and war, and this in turn fails to capture the real strength of the case for democracy, the rule of law, and human freedom across virtually all of the most commonly shared goals of mankind."8 In his introduction, Moore informs the reader that the goal of his book is to incorporate the fundamental concept of the democratic

peace and the recognized principle of deterrence while uncovering "a broader and more predictive and workable theory about the causes of war."9 Moore succeeds with this goal, although at times he focuses more upon the strengths of the former democratic peace model and the principle of deterrence rather than providing deep insight and analysis into his new theory.

Moore introduces the reader to his new paradigm, which he terms "incentive theory," after surveying idealistic and realistic perspectives and analyzing the incentives for and against war at the individual, state and international levels.10 Moore does not assume much knowledge on behalf of the reader and proceeds through each step in his reasoning in a deliberate manner. He develops his theory by incorporating and blending the past ideas and works of other scholars and crossing into other disciplines such as economic theory.11 Pointing to several historical examples, Moore ultimately posits that most major wars arise as a result of the synergy between an absence of democracy and an absence of effective deterrence at the national and international levels against aggressive nondemocratic nations, along with a failure to provide a proper set of incentives to the individual decision makers leading those nondemocratic nations.12 This second half of the equation summarizes Moore's thesis and represents his refinement to the existing democratic peace and deterrence models.13

Moore tests his incentive theory in a brief discussion of the current global war on terrorism. He argues that in contrast to other paradigms in international relations, his incentive theory, while admittedly developed to account for the cause of major interstate war, is adaptable to the war on terror.14 Moore argues "the key to reducing terrorism is to reduce the incentives of terror leaders, and those who support them, below the point where they will continue their actions."15 Yet, while discussing the current war in Iraq, Moore is forced to confess that his theory is best...