G. Lowes Dickinson, Causes of International War (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1984).
“In discussing war it is important to distinguish clearly what we mean by it…We mean the deliberate use of organized physical force by groups of men against other groups” (7).
“It is necessary…to distinguish international war from civil. In some periods of h8istory, the distinction is not easy to draw in practice. But it becomes clear as soon as sovereign states have appeared. International war is, then, war between such states; while civil war is war between groups included in one of them” (8).
The book begins by positioning international war as a strange thing. Yes, people will fight, but that is because they are mad at each other. War, on the other hand, does not require that any of the participants actually dislike one another.
One necessary condition for the occurrence of international conflict is that humans tend to be “social animals”, and that without this sense of community, the drive for war would be less likely.
“We have seen that the community-sense is a condition of the possibility of war. But it is not enough to account for war” (15).
“There is no evidence for the statement, sometimes hastily made, that whenever and wherever there have been men there has been war” (16).
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