Andrew Carr's Reviews > Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

An engaging if diverse account of why wars begin and why some paths to peace have proven successful.

I wanted to like this book more than I did, and I'm still not entirely sure why. I agree with many of Blattman's analysis. Especially his first and most important point: Peace is actually the default within contesting groups, and we err by first and primarily looking at conflicts to understand security. Finally I think there's immense wisdom in his concluding point, advocating 'peacemeal' efforts, taking small steps towards piece, rather than large, centralized social change endeavours.

Perhaps the heart of the difference is philosophical. Blattman, an economist by training, explains war by creating mini models about how the world works, and through very basic assumptions (such as game theory) explains why groups are likely to cooperate or contest. There's a quasi aim at comprehensiveness in explanation, though it's not fully pursued. It's also notable that in the introduction when he explains the extensive research behind the book, the listed fields are 'economists, political scientists, sociologists, psychologists and policymakers have learned' (p.16). Is it petty of me to wonder where the field of Strategy or History (especially military history) are? Even if names such as Schelling and Blainey do pop up (and even Clausewitz, albeit not in a substantive way).

At the same time, Blattman has spent many years living and working in NGO groups seeking development and stability in some pretty war-torn places. And he has a lot of compelling stories about how those places changed, some for the better. Likewise, when he turns to his stronger field, that of causes of peace, there is a broad and rich set of insights and analysis. From why some forms of sanctions and peacekeepers work, to why some of the proposed 'obvious' assumptions (such as more female leaders leading to peace, or the inevitability of wars over water) don't always pan out. So much of the book is thus quite free of models, and quite willing to live in a 'dappled world' (to borrow Nancy Cartwright's term) where we shouldn't expect elegant or consistent theoretical effects.

Perhaps I'm simply not the right audience for this book. It's a very richly researched and thoughtful book, but one aimed at a large public audience. And perhaps scholars who don't think about war nearly as much as they should (almost all the blurbs on the back are economists or physical scientists). As Blattman says, once you get interested in how do we prevent war, it's hard to care about anything else. It is still, the first order question. Especially in a world of thousands of nuclear weapons.

So we need more books like this, we need the question examined from those with a real diversity of backgrounds, and Blattman has both the academic and on-the-ground experience to provide rich insights, in an easy to read fashion.

Hopefully you'll get more out of it, but I remain slightly confused as to just what didn't quite sit right with me for this one.