Inflection Points of War Cycles
In the judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal, war of aggression is the supreme crime, and there is hardly any other issue that is more relevant to the social sciences than the study of the decision-making process when a person or a group of persons decides that another group of people must face death. Historians speculated about this decision-making process for centuries without reaching consensus, as wars are complex phenomena with multiple determinants. The decision to initiate a war marks an inflection point of the war-peace cycle, and the decision to cease hostilities marks the end of a particular cycle. Comparative studies of war cycles can contribute to explication of facets of this decision-making process. Most relevant of these facets are those that help us to identify the preventable factors influencing the decision to initiate (and to terminate) a war.
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