Alliance Aggression Theory: Why Do Wars Break Out?

When wars break out, people often do not think of the reasons for why they break out, instead they either strongly support the war or are strongly against the war. The usual source of information to the public is by the use of media. The media never have a constant view or opinion of the war causes, or anything war related as they are either aligned with the far right, or aligned with the far left. With that said, the purpose of this research paper is to investigate and delve into the reasons of what causes war to erupt. Specifically, for this paper, it is going to look at two theoretical reasons as to why North Korea attacked South Korea. In the beginning of the paper, the two theories that will be used to explain why North Korea attacked …show more content…
Lastly, the last part of the paper will connect the historical evidence to the theories to prove whether or not the theories are supported.
The first theory that is going to be discussed is the alliance aggression theory. The main question that the alliance aggression theory looks to answer is how great of an impact do alliances have on the probability of wars or attacks being carried out. In the alliance aggression theory, the impacts of alliances with potential attackers are investigated as well as the impacts of alliances with potential countries that are at risk of getting attacked. Within the alliance aggression theory, there are three different hypotheses that explain the probability of war or peace with the help of alliances (leeds 428). The first hypothesis states that countries that are contemplating attacking another country are less likely to do so if the attacking country has absolute knowledge that the target country has one or …show more content…
The misperception theory is a theory that usually involves the misperception of something thus being called the misperception theory. The misperception theory seeks to answer whether or not misperception is a legitimate cause of war. The purpose of the explanation of this theory will delve into examples of misperception and will be used in explaining why the North Koreans attacked the South Koreans in 1950. There are three different types of misperception. The first type of misperception is the cognitive error misperception, or in other words, the psychology misperception. This is where people attempt to be rational, but often fails to be rational due to having a limited cognitive capacity. It was also explained in lecture that this is the type of misperception where people see what they expect to see (Lecture 15). The second type of misperception is motivated misperception. This is where people see what they want to see. In addition, the dangers that come to an important decision are ignored by their desire to carry out something that they want to have happen. The third and final type of misperception is personality misperception. This is where an individual makes decisions for a whole based on the influences of his or her personal beliefs (Jervis 677). The type of misperception that will be empathized in the latter part of the paper will be motivated