War Occurs Because There Is Nothing to Prevent It Essay

War Occurs Because There Is Nothing to Prevent It - Essay Example According to the realist theory, the international system operates on checks and balances method that is flawed to a certain extent given the ethnic and cultural dissimilarities between the peoples of the world. Samuel Huntington’s â€Å"The Clash of Civilizations† argues that the fault lines between civilizations lead to war. This has proved in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks against the US. Other commentators like Robert Kagan have pointed to the resurgence of Russia and the recent conflict in the Caucasus between Russia and Georgia as an example of how â€Å"history returns† whenever certain nations fall from pre-eminence and then assert themselves to regain the lost glory. In his recent work, â€Å"The Return of History and the End of dreams†, Keegan forcefully makes the point about how the 21st century might look like when it comes to international relations. The realist perspective seems a good prism to look at the complex dynamics shaping war. Thi s can be seen from the fact that in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Collapse of Communism, the then US president George Bush Sr. made a case for a â€Å"New World Order† and proclaimed that â€Å"we are at the threshold of a new era that has been dreamed by generations of men but has always eluded them†. However, the euphoria was short lived as Iraq, under Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait and subsequently this led to American intervention and the first Gulf war. Thus, we have history repeating itself in 2008 when Russia asserted itself in South Ossetia.