Do Accidental Wars Happen? Evidence from America's Indian Wars

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The question of whether war can ever truly be accidental has been the subject of much academic debate. To provide my own answer to this question, I use an oft-ignored part of US history—the so-called Indian Wars between Native nations and an expanding United States. Specifically, this research innovation makes use of three militarized conflicts of the nineteenth century—the Black Hawk War (1832), the Cayuse War (1847–1855), and the Hualapai War (1865–1870)—to provide evidence that war can indeed occur accidentally. I conclude that IR scholars should be less confident in asserting that accidental war does not happen and that this possibility counsels restraint for policy-makers, especially in emerging domains of conflict.</jats:p>

The problem with accidental war

“…Recently, Szarejko (2021) argued that accidental wars do indeed happen because a series of three nineteenth-century American Indian Wars were started by accident. The three cases that Szarejko examines are the Black Hawk War (1832), the Cayuse War (1847–1855), and the Hualapai War (1865–1870).…”

“…However, none of these cases qualify as wars according to typical standards, as they all fall well short of the threshold of war (Sarkees and Wayman, 2010). Szarejko (2021: 3) recognizes this, but argues that it does not matter because the two sides “thought of the conflicts as wars.” Of course, participants have referred to the War on Drugs, the Global War on Terror, and the Korean Police Action, all examples of why the way that things are commonly labeled is not part of a useful definition of war. But more importantly, in each case, Szarejko (2021) discusses how leaders chose to go to “war” following some inadvertent event, indicating that, even if we accept these cases as wars, they still did not occur accidentally.…”

“…This process adds a step between the inadvertent event and war: the leader's choice to go to war. For example, in each of the three American Indian Wars that he identifies as accidental, Szarejko (2021) describes how leaders chose to fight following some inadvertent action. Similarly, concerns about launch on warning nuclear command and control systems are centered on the idea that false warnings might lead to a decision to launch a nuclear strike against the enemy, which in turn would lead to war.…”

“…Of course, participants have referred to the War on Drugs, the Global War on Terror, and the Korean Police Action, all examples of why the way that things are commonly labeled is not part of a useful definition of war. But more importantly, in each case, Szarejko (2021) discusses how leaders chose to go to "war" following some inadvertent event, indicating that, even if we accept these cases as wars, they still did not occur accidentally. This is a point to which we will return.…”

Bringing (inter)national history into ‘Introduction to International Relations’

“…Second, studying this period offers instructors the chance to bring historically marginalised groups and under-studied topics into IR. Such topics -especially Native dispossession and resistance (Szarejko 2021;Wadsworth 2014) and Black liberation struggles (Anievas et al 2015; Koomen 2019) -can t provide students with historical context and new ways of thinking about the current questions of race, identity and social justice that students so often want to discuss (Bunte 2019;Towler et al 2020). In other words, a seemingly familiar history can be used to expose students to a broader range of actors than they might expect to encounter in an IR class and to challenge biases in the discipline (Cook 2019).…”