What Are the Five Reasons for War?

6min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Wellmen: In your book, you give five reasons for war. What are they? And andw will work through them. Wellmen: One of the best examples is called a preventative war. The idea is that if people don't know their opponents going to be much stronger in the future, then you could head that off by stopping them from doing that right now.

It's tempting to explain Russia's invasion of Ukraine with Putin's megalomania. Economist Chris Blattman of the University of Chicago talks about his book Why We Fight with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Blattman explains why only a fraction of rivalries ever erupt into violence, the five main reasons adversaries can't arrive at compromise, and the problem with trying to get into Putin's head (and why it's not all about Putin. Really).