Causes of War

Catalog description

Prerequisite: Completion of the Core Curriculum Research & Professional Writing requirement and must have at least sophomore standing to be eligible for this course. Course examines the causes and prevention of war in both historical and theoretical perspective. While focusing on mainly the causes of large-scale interstate wars, several contemporary issues of relevance such as nuclear proliferation, ethnic conflict, and terrorism will be discussed in the later weeks of the semester. The course is structured in a way that surveys various causal claims about the origin of war at different levels of analysis. The course will also investigate several historical cases such as World War I, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.