> War happens when one party thinks that the other party is weak enough to be attacked.
Citation needed. Besides what does it even mean? Is weakness on one part a necessary or a sufficient condition for war, or is it meant in some other sense?
Citation needed. Besides what does it even mean? Is weakness on one part a necessary or a sufficient condition for war, or is it meant in some other sense?
That one side believes they can win.
It’s a bit tautological. In order for you to prevail you must be stronger than your opponent in one or more critical areas. If you think you can win then you believe to know the weakness of your opponent.
Depending on your morals the causation here could easily be turned: once you see what you believe to be a weak opponent, you go for the win.
If continuing the war means staying in power at home, then the war continues.
Like, you might say Hamas isn't fighting because of perceived weakness, and in a sense they know they will lose. You can explain this in the perceived weakness framework only if the real war is a PR war where you hope to get allies for the shooting war.
It's true of course. We don't even need to look at the world to know that it's true. There's a word for that, tautology.
It's just not an effective description of the real world. It's a very useful idea for selling guns though.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170830024001/http://ssi.armywa...
My take is that it comes from nations avoiding war if they don’t think they can win anything from it. Weakness simply means you cannot stop the enemy from accomplishing their goals. Weakness is definitely not sufficient or necessary. Instead it is the perception of weakness from one party (accurate or not) that may incite violence. A better one liner would be “weakness is provocative”.
[1]https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/17/us-miliitary-strategy-g...
You need to actually spell out what in history supports your view point.