Search Results

This chapter asks: why have states stopped issuing formal declarations of war in interstate war? The chapter begins with an historical overview of the use of declarations of war, then moves to an empirical analysis based on original quantitative data and primary qualitative data. The main hypothesis of the chapter, which is supported by the data, is that states avoid declaring war because they want to avoid the legal liability of complying with the laws of war as those laws have proliferated over time.

Over the period March 20–April 2, 1917, Wilson did not reveal publicly his decision regarding war. On March 21, the US merchant ship Healdton was sunk off the Netherlands with 21 deaths, including 15 Americans. At the time, it was assumed that it had been sunk by a German submarine, but further research has shown that it struck one or two British mines; the details of that research are discussed in an Appendix of the book. The issue of whether the Healdton loss precipitated Wilson's final decision is discussed. Secretary of State Robert Lansing prepared a long list of hostile German actions, some of which had already been addressed by diplomatic notes, and provided that list to Wilson for use in his speech to Congress; Lansing also met with key members of Congress and provided them with the same list.

Prior to the final decision of Congress, three more ships were sunk by German submarines: the Aztec, the Missourian, and the Marguerite. Word of the sinking of the first two reached Congress before their final decision. Wilson's address to Congress is discussed, showing the reasons why he focused on idealistic issues of democracy and morality, rather than on the precipitating actions that constituted a casus belli. The speeches of Congressmen are evaluated to show the extent to which they were aware of the specifics of the ship losses; several speeches showed that key members of Congress used the Lansing memorandum for their information.

China declared war on Japan only after Pearl Harbor, while Japan never followed suit. Tsuchido Akio demonstrates that contrary to generally held opinion, China did not decline to declare war on Japan after 1937 because it feared triggering the provisions of the USA’s neutrality laws. Domestic political factors were far more important. By discussing the debates about this contentious issue within Chinese politics, ‘Declaring War’ provides important insight into the making of Nationalist foreign policy, demonstrating that Chiang Kaishek regularly listened and accepted the advice of his foreign policy advisors and Chinese diplomats.

The United States has not issued a formal declaration of war since the Second World War. According to Bob Woodward's account of the Bush administration's response to the September 11 attacks, in a meeting with congressional leaders on September 12, 2001, that “he did not want a declaration of war from the Congress but would be interested in a resolution endorsing the use of force.” Yet in Woodward's book, as in the Western media at large, a certain “declaration” nonetheless declares itself. The declaration of war on terror is undecidably and incalculably performative and constative, real and fictional, literal and rhetorical, consequent and nugatory, radically singular and endlessly iterable and generalizable. It can seem “in a peculiar way hollow or void.”

After German U-boats sank several unarmed American ships as well as other neutral and belligerent vessels in March 1917, Wilson realized that it was Germany's intention to destroy all commerce and human life that ventured into its proclaimed war zones. In a meeting with his cabinet, he found that every member felt that war was inevitable, although they differed in their view over the appropriate degree of American participation. Many observers and the American press believed that Wilson would soon assert the existence of a state of war and that the only remaining question was whether the country should wage war against Germany independently or alongside the Allies. Realizing that his policy of armed neutrality was not working, Wilson, during a joint session of Congress on April 2, delivered his call for war, promising that the US would fight “for democracy, for the rights of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Governments, for the rights and liberation of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.” On April 6, following several days of deliberation in Congress, he signed the resolution that declared the US at war.

The Duke of Exeter, who served as a representative and an ambassador for the King to French court, delivered an ultimatum to the King of France — which concerned Henry V's inheritance and right to the crown of France, how the law of nations and the law of nature presented the legal basis for such a claim, and the possible war that would be brought about if the French royal court does not comply with such a request — that by-and-by led to what Shakespeare dramatically portrayed as a declaration of war. During the Middle Ages, the prerequisite for the declaration of war involved either a formal declaration or letters of defiance since both served the same purpose. This medieval system also entailed internal measures such as deliberations and consultations and external procedures such as an ultimatum, the latter of which was needed when ideas for peaceful solutions been exhausted.

The merchant ship Vigilancia was sunk without warning on March 16, 1917, while bound for Britain with a cargo containing contraband of war. Most of the seamen escaped with their lives, but fifteen drowned, including six American citizens. Although this was not the first ship sunk under the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, it was the first which clearly violated the American view of international law, and the first under that policy in which American citizens had been killed. Although the loss of life was light, the cumulative effect of three ship losses on the same weekend convinced Wilson's cabinet to recommend war. The failure of historians to focus on these precipitating events was partly due to Wilson's own decision to choose more idealistic grounds when asking Congress to declare war.

When Chamberlain signed the Munich agreement in September 1938, he signalled Britain’s disinterest in the fate of the states of Central and Eastern Europe. This chapter explains why just a year later he announced that Britain had declared war on Nazi Germany. It shows that in the winter and spring of 1938–9 there was a seismic shift in British policy. Most policy-makers, even those who had supported Chamberlain’s efforts to secure a negotiated settlement of the Czechoslovak crisis, came to recognize that appeasement had failed and that the right policy was to do what Eden had suggested in November 1937, to accelerate rearmament and work with other powers to try to contain Hitler’s ambitions. It also demonstrates that Chamberlain did not accept this consensus and worked behind the backs of his own ministers to continue to try to appease Hitler.

Because of issues related to German submarines, freedom of the seas, and the Zimmermann telegram, Barkley spoke and voted in favor of war with Germany in April 1917. He strongly supported war measures such as the Selective Service Act as well as prohibition that would keep tubers, fruits, and grains as food for US soldiers and destitute Europeans. He joined several colleagues in visiting European battlefields before the war ended. With the Armistice, President Wilson went to Europe to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles, which among other things established the League of Nations. Considering the GOP victory in the 1918 elections, Wilson mishandled the creation of the peace delegation. With the Senate Foreign Relations Committee controlled by the opposing party, he went out across the country to secure popular support for the treaty. He suffered two strokes, and the Senate failed to approve Versailles and the league. Meanwhile, Barkley experienced uncharacteristic failure in a railway bill, in part because for the first time in his congressional career he belonged to the minority party.

This chapter sheds light on the period when King George II declared war on France in 1744. The focus of the campaigns fought elsewhere shifted from the south to the west and the southeast became more complex and more dangerous with Georgia's role overshadowed by that of the far stronger colony of South Carolina. The British had an unstable coalition of Chickasaws, Cherokees, and a few Choctaws. The Lower Creeks enjoyed this position as they were lured by all the imperial powers and received gifts from all of them. In 1738 the British government relieved the Georgia Trustees of the responsibility for military affairs, and Oglethorpe as the British commander in chief, had the main responsibility for maintaining Indian relations. His appointment of Captain William Horton as his successor as chief negotiator and his subsequent relieving by his superior officer lieutenant colonel Alexander Heron are some of the topics looked at in this chapter.

Chapter 3 turns to the Enlightenment and looks at how Christian Wolff and Emer de Vattel—two of its foremost international thinkers—articulated the doctrine of ius ad bellum in the theory of regular war. The chapter shows that they gave legal weight to both sovereign standing and the justice of the cause, but their views on just cause departed radically from scholastic doctrines of just war. They understood the justice of a cause not in analogy to a legal trial but rather in the context of the international practice of publishing “war manifestoes” that offered plausible reasons for waging war. Such reasons had to be framed in the language of the law of nations and show that sovereigns took seriously state rights, but they belonged to a broad understanding of sovereign judgment in which usually all lawful enemies at war could simultaneously offer plausible reasons for war.

The task of creating a national government strong enough to defend the nation and suppress rebellion, but not strong enough to suppress Americans' liberty, created a huge problem for the delegates. Broad nationalists generally sought to broaden national and presidential powers in foreign and military affairs, while narrow nationalists pressed the Convention to leave substantial military power in the hands of the existing militias. State officials had to give permission to the national government to put down domestic rebellion. The delegates' compromises on treaties, declarations of war, and the appointment of ambassadors sought to balance the powers of the president and Congress. These compromises deliberately left some boundaries of national authority obscure while creating additional complexity in American policy-making.

This chapter focuses on the Habsburg forces' successful campaigns in Italy. Less than two weeks before Königgrätz, Vittorio Emanuele had declared war on Austria in accordance with his alliance with Prussia. Unlike in Bohemia, the formalities had been observed and the Italian monarch had dispatched an aide with a formal declaration of war to the Austrian headquarters in Verona where the Archduke Albert had taken up residence. The Southern Army of the Habsburgs was made up of many fine regiments. The Archduke commanded barely 75,000 troops against a foe of 200,000 equipped with more than twice the amount of artillery he could muster. Nonetheless, the Austrians managed to defeat the Italians at Custozza. The Austrian navy also defeated the Italians at Lissa, giving a morale boost to its traditions, which lasted for the rest of its existence.

This chapter shows how Britain's declaration of war against Spain in October 1739 gave Oglethorpe a desired opportunity to mount an offensive against Florida, with the objective of capturing St. Augustine, the principal Spanish base on the east coast 150 miles below Savannah. In reality, St. Augustine was little more than a sleepy garrison town located on a harbor having a northern entrance and a southern entrance thirteen miles apart, providing excellent shelter for Spanish shipping. The town itself, located almost directly opposite the northern entrance, was guarded by an impressive fortification called the Castillo de San Marcos, which had proved its mettle in 1702, when an expedition from South Carolina had tried and failed to take it. But now General Oglethorpe was convinced that he had the resources to deprive the Spaniards of their base at St. Augustine, and early in 1740 began making preparations for a full-scale naval expedition.

The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) has been perceived as a sign of a new East Asian power order, but the legitimacy of the war has yet to be clarified. The Japanese foreign minister Mutsu’s Kenkenroku shows that the reasons claimed by Japan were only pretexts for its ambition to put Korea under its control. The 1885 Convention of Tianjin, which was used to justify the Japanese behaviour, needs to be reinterpreted. The Chinese reaction can be understood by exploration into Confucianism, which opposed wars between equal peers. Meanwhile, the Western powers which invented and developed international law were self-interested and did little to prevent the war. The incident shows that international law, empowered by the strong states, failed to maintain peace efficiently in the late nineteenth century.

This chapter discusses some of the uncertainties that arise in declaring war under the UN Charter. Under the Charter, military operations are justified in the eyes of international law in only two situations: the authorization of the UN Security Council in order to restore collective peace and security and the military action without the permission of the Security Council due to self-defense from an “armed attack”. It also looks at historical accounts of several nations that used military force and how they used, or maybe abused, the term of self-defense as justification of their actions. It cites four examples: the War on Terror, Invasion of Iraq, Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 2006, and the ongoing War in Darfur.