In this course, historical wars meet with classical and current theories of international conflict. Exploring “modern wars” (19th -- 21st century), we will specially focus on their final settlements. Mostly interested in the post-war period and cultural memory of war, we will explore the relations between the character of the war settlement, politics of memory, revanchism, and the conception of the new war. We will review historical cases of the post-war settlement such as the Congress of Vienna of 1815, the Treaty of Paris of 1856, the Peking Treaty of 1860, the Treaty of Portsmouth of 1905, and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-1920. We will discuss how “just and unjust wars” (Michael Walzer 1977) articulated the experience of the Vietnam War; how “new wars” (Mary Kaldor 2005) were anchored in the Balkan wars; and how “petroaggression” (Jeff Colgan 2013, 2020) explained and predicted the Iraqi and Russian wars. Looking at the issues of military power, historical justice, and cultural memory , we will draw lessons that could be applicable (or not) to the new wars of our era. Combining theoretical discussions with historical contextualizations, we will read selected chapters from Carl von Clausewitz and study their re-interpretation by Rene Girard; explore the outcomes of the Paris Peace Conference (1919) and study John Maynard Keynes’s The Economic Consequences of Peace (1922); dig in Henry Kissinger’s doctoral dissertation on the Congress of Vienna (1954) and speculate about its relevance for his later political decisions; review Tony Judt’s conceptualization of the postwar period; and discuss the models for, and repercussions of, the possible settlements of two current wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
- Instructor: Alexander Etkind