LAWRENCE FREEDMAN
We tend to look for explanations for decisions to go to war as stemming from a rational cost/benefit analysis, a calculation that the gains from the resort to armed force can be set against the costs of the fighting. As war always comes with high costs then it can only be justified if there is some confidence in the likely gains. When it comes to a defensive war the issue is whether the costs prevented will be greater than those incurred.
Yet even those trying to take these decisions as rationally as possible will face great uncertainties when trying to assess how a war will turn out. They might hope that when it is over a dispute will be resolved, land will have been grabbed, people better protected, long-term security ensured. But they often cannot be sure, and doubts may then hold them back.
Sometimes, however, the doubts, even if well-founded, have little influence. States go to war even when they know that the odds are against them. They do so in a mood of defiance or perhaps of fatalism. They are caught in a historic moment that leaves little choice. They have a sense of a conflict so deep, such a Manichean struggle between good and evil, that a final reckoning is bound to come so that even a promised path to peace still ends up with war. There can be no concessions for the sake of peace, for there is no true peace to be had. Every conciliatory gesture risks emboldening the enemy just as every truce provides them with an opportunity to regroup. The only choice is to accept the inevitable and then hope that through will and skill they can defy the odds.
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