International Sources of Interstate and Intrastate War, Essay Example

One of the conflicts highlighted in this text is the war between Iraq and the United States. This war was mainly sparked by the urgency of the then president of the United States, George Bush, to eradicate the reign of Saddam Hussein. The war was started by President Bush authorizing military operations against Iraqi forces. One of the events that triggered this war was Kuwaiti sovereignty, in which case; the Iraq government had invaded and subdued the sovereignty of Kuwait; however, The United States government intervened and restored its independence (Levy 2007). United States’ interest in the war was to protect the Iraqi people by eliminating the repressive regime of Saddam Hussein, which was suspected to be in collaboration with the al Qaeda terrorist network.

The other form of conflict discussed in the text is the war between great European powers; this war was mainly brought about by the international security system, superior military power, and their global political economy Levy, 2007). These wars were primarily structured to help individuals control and leadership over the system. The interest of these European countries was to gain more ground and expand their territory; therefore, in this effort, they fought the lesser states to expand their borders and were involved in colonial wars to maintain and expand their worldwide empires.

Conflict can also be seen between rebel groups and the state government, whereby the rebel groups look to continue with their illegal activities while the state government fights them. One of the issues that bring about conflict between the two is that these groups fight the state government through its citizens, and this causes the state government to retaliate and attack them at their source. The root cause of this conflict is that these rebel groups look forward to causing harm to innocent civilians while practicing illegal activities.

The main reason for such wars is to gain political mileage; moreover, they are only considered conflicts when both sides are involved in the fighting. For instance, the Soviet Union attacked Hungary and Czechoslovakia whereby Hungary fought back while the Czech did not; therefore, the conflict was between Russia and Hungary.

The final form of conflict is the ethnic wars or the identity wars, which pit different religious groups against each other. These wars mostly take place outside the transnational boundaries with the sole purpose of establishing their dominance around the world. Most grievances that arise from the clash of these two groups are that they want the right to present their goals. In conclusion, the root cause of the wars described above is to gain power over the other party and assert their dominance in a particular area.

Reference

Levy, J. S. (2007). International sources of interstate and intrastate war. Leashing the dogs of war: Conflict management in a divided world, 17.