Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Were the American military campaigns after 9/11 (Afghanistan, Iraq) acts of revenge for the harm inflicted by the terrorists of al Qaeda? Was the North (or at least some states in it) taking revenge on Southern states due to the outrage of 9/11 and the difficulty in punishing al Qaeda directly? This paper seeks to conceptualize the notion of revenge in international politics, explore the vengeful elements in the War on Terror, and account for historical changes in the revenge motive in international politics.Revenge ? ?the attempt, at some cost or risk to oneself, to impose suffering upon those who have made one suffer, because they have made one suffer? (Elster, 1990:862) ? was an explicit and recurrent motivation for war during much of human history. Furthermore, revenge was a legitimate motivation for war and rulers actually prided themselves in taking revenge on their enemies. Ancient historians such as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Polybius highlight these aspects of revenge in motivating wars. Revenge motivated war in the Middle Ages too, within Christendom and between Christians and Muslims. In fact, revenge was an important motive for war well into the 20th century. Yet despite the persistence of the revenge motive in international politics, we wish to highlight four points or tendencies in the evolution of this motive, and account for the variance in these dimensions across historical periods and cases. First, as time went by, states stopped openly professing that they seek revenge for previous harms or injustices. Moreover, states even deny that they were motivated by revenge. Second, the ferocity of interstate revenge diminished: in most current instances in international politics that could be said to entail revengeful elements, states at least try to distinguish between innocents and combatants and they argue that their forceful response was proportional to the harm they suffered. Such distinctions and restraints barely existed until late in the eighteenth century, when states openly declared that they inflict greater harms on aggressors because they deserve to be severely punished. Third, it also seems that the range of harms and insults that provoke the desire for revenge shrank. And finally, the willingness to exact revenge and harbor designs for revenge over long periods diminished considerably in modern interstate relations. In a sense, states are much more forgiving than they were in the past.We account for the transformation and change in the revenge motive through demonstrating the centrality of practicing revenge in ?cultures of honor?. Such cultures often lack strong institutionalization of violence. In a culture of honor revenge serves a functional need of establishing a reputation for credible deterrence. But it also acquires a life of its own that actors feel a strong emotional need to satisfy. On the other hand, the more the international system moved away from patterns that characterize cultures of honor and became more institutionalized in terms of norms of conduct in the sphere of organized violence and basic state rights (e.g., the right to sovereignty), revenge turned less functional and was morally delegitimized. This delegitimization of revenge influences the four dimensions of revenge we discuss here: admission in taking revenge, revenge?s intensity, reasons that warrant revenge, and the duration of revenge campaigns.