ConflictSpace: Understanding War through Geography, History and Political Science
Published: April 27, 2009
Originally appeared in Illinois International Review
War remains a scourge of humanity. Understanding the ways wars start
and spread is a moral commitment by academics who believe that creating
knowledge of how wars spread can produce informed policy that produces
a more peaceful world. Most academic disciplines continue to study war,
but collaboration across disciplines is sadly rare. The ConflictSpace
project, housed within the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and
International Security (ACDIS), brings together geographers, political
scientists, historians, and a complexity scientist to further our
understanding of how and why wars spread. The project is led by Colin
Flint, Geographer and Director of ACDIS, and gains from the insights of
political scientists Paul Diehl, John Vasquez, and Jude Hays, renowned
historian Paul Schroeder, and ACDIS research scientist Jürgen
Scheffran. The project rests on the assumption that wars take place
within particular geographic and historical contexts, and the way these
contexts shape and are shaped by the decisions of countries to go to
war is an essential part of the how and why of war.
When considering war between states a number of geographical and
political factors must be taken into consideration. Taking war between
India and Pakistan as an example, geographic factors include a disputed
shared border, the physical terrain over which any fighting would take
place (flat desert in the south and the hills and valleys of disputed
Jammu and Kashmir in the north), and the relative proximity of the
capitals of Islamabad and New Delhi, plus other cities such as Lahore.
Political factors include the persistent rivalry between the two
countries, as well as their relationships with the United States and,
in the past, the Soviet Union.
ConflictSpace begins by seeing the political factors as the position of
a state within a network of inter-state relations. Social network
analysis is a relatively new technique in the study of war, and we
develop these techniques to see how countries create networks of
alliances and rivalries. We then ask how these relationships provide
choices or limitations for countries that may push them towards war or
offer ways to avoid it. States must also consider the imperatives posed
by their geography. The geographic concepts situate a state within a
spatial context of shared borders, physical terrain, and distances
between cities that are parts of strategic calculation.
Recent scientific research on war has advanced understanding of both
the role of social position in networks on the one hand, and spatial
context on the other. However, currently these two paths of research
are separate, and reflect a persistent inability to fully conceptualize
and model the complexity of geographic context. Rather than
conceptualizing a context of social networks and a separate one of
geographic context, the innovative term ConflictSpace will be used to
integrate the two. Such an approach requires a new model of the
diffusion of war, as well as the integration of social network analysis
and spatial analysis.
ConflictSpace refers to the combination of political and geographic
context that enables and constrains a state in its decision to enter or
avoid an ongoing conflict. The ability of a state to avoid the spread
of war is a function of its shared border, the actual geographic
location of the ongoing fighting, and the presence or absence of
terrain that would hinder or facilitate invasion. In addition,
political calculations based on military alliances, persistent
rivalries, or a history of political and cultural empathy will play a
role in a state’s calculations to declare entry into an ongoing war or
not. The advantage of integrating the spatial and political contexts
are that the separate but related imperatives may pull states into
decisions that are sub-optimal or unexpected when considering just one
set of factors. For example, Switzerland’s neutrality in World War I is
contrary to the expectations gained when considering only the spatial
context, as is Great Britain’s perpetual post-war support of the United
States.
ConflictSpace situates the decision of a state to enter an ongoing war
within a combination of its political and geographic context. The
behavior of a state is a function of its political, economic, and
cultural connections to other states, as well as its geographic
proximity to warring states, the nature of the intervening terrain, and
distance from the actual fighting. This innovative conceptualization of
the decision-making environments of states requires the integration of
existing datasets and a combination of methodologies that will be new
to the scientific study of war. Theoretically, we will combine complex
science and network analysis, theories of diffusion, and the logics of
the enlargement of wars.
At the moment, the ConflictSpace project is working on a pilot study of
World War I. This particular conflict was chosen for a number of
reasons. There have been many studies by scholars of various stripes
seeking to explain why this war started and spread, and yet debate
still rages on. There is a need for a new perspective. However, the
prevalence of many existing studies raises the bar high for the
ConflictSpace project if it is to make the case for providing new
insights. Also, World War I makes an interesting case as there were
many preceding crises that did not lead to a massive conflagration.
Hence, we can compare the pattern of networks in preceding years to try
and identify particular webs of relations that were and were not
conducive to spreading isolated conflicts into larger wars. Finally, we
are approaching the 100th anniversary of this conflict and expect a new
wave of scholarly and public interest into this fascinating war, an
event that still shapes global politics.
The ConflictSpace project is in the process of moving beyond the World War I pilot study. Most wars that have been fought post World War II are forms of civil war rather than wars between countries. A study of the Congolese wars, dubbed “Africa’s World War” by Geography doctoral student Steve Radil, will develop the ConflictSpace techniques to analyze this conflict’s mixture of states and guerilla groups. Another project by Geography docoral student Sang-hyun Chi will use ConflictSpace to analyze territorial disputes in North Asia that are potential flashpoints between the two Koreas, China, Japan, and Russia. Sadly, there are many ongoing and potential conflicts that provide empirical fuel for ConflictSpace projects. Hopefully, we will provide useful insight into their causes and consequences that will promote peaceful options.