ACCIDENTAL WAR IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

In the large literature on the causes of war, there is a stark contrast in the ways in which political scientists and historians view the concept of "accidental war" or "inadvertent war."  The possibility that a war might occur "by accident" -- produced by the inadvertent dynamics of military organizations or systems, rather than by incompatible political intentions -- has played a central role in the way political scientists think about the causes of war in general and especially the risks of nuclear war.   In the major works by historians on the causes of war, however, the whole idea of accidental war is either conspicuous by its absence or explicitly dismissed as conceptually confused and historically irrelevant.

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