War remains a scourge of humanity. Understanding the ways wars start and spread is a moral commitment by academics who believe that creating knowledge of how wars spread can produce informed policy that produces a more peaceful world. Most academic disciplines continue to study war, but collaboration across disciplines is sadly rare. The ConflictSpace project, housed within the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS), brings together geographers, political scientists, historians, and a complexity scientist to further our understanding of how and why wars spread. The project is led by Colin Flint, Geographer and Director of ACDIS, and gains from the insights of political scientists Paul Diehl, John Vasquez, and Jude Hays, renowned historian Paul Schroeder, and ACDIS research scientist Jürgen Scheffran. The project rests on the assumption that wars take place within particular geographic and historical contexts, and the way these contexts shape and are shaped by the decisions of countries to go to war is an essential part of the how and why of war.

When considering war between states a number of geographical and political factors must be taken into consideration. Taking war between India and Pakistan as an example, geographic factors include a disputed shared border, the physical terrain over which any fighting would take place (flat desert in the south and the hills and valleys of disputed Jammu and Kashmir in the north), and the relative proximity of the capitals of Islamabad and New Delhi, plus other cities such as Lahore. Political factors include the persistent rivalry between the two countries, as well as their relationships with the United States and, in the past, the Soviet Union.  

ConflictSpace begins by seeing the political factors as the position of a state within a network of inter-state relations. Social network analysis is a relatively new technique in the study of war, and we develop these techniques to see how countries create networks of alliances and rivalries. We then ask how these relationships provide choices or limitations for countries that may push them towards war or offer ways to avoid it. States must also consider the imperatives posed by their geography. The geographic concepts situate a state within a spatial context of shared borders, physical terrain, and distances between cities that are parts of strategic calculation.   

Recent scientific research on war has advanced understanding of both the role of social position in networks on the one hand, and spatial context on the other. However, currently these two paths of research are separate, and reflect a persistent inability to fully conceptualize and model the complexity of geographic context. Rather than conceptualizing a context of social networks and a separate one of geographic context, the innovative term ConflictSpace will be used to integrate the two. Such an approach requires a new model of the diffusion of war, as well as the integration of social network analysis and spatial analysis.

ConflictSpace refers to the combination of political and geographic context that enables and constrains a state in its decision to enter or avoid an ongoing conflict. The ability of a state to avoid the spread of war is a function of its shared border, the actual geographic location of the ongoing fighting, and the presence or absence of terrain that would hinder or facilitate invasion. In addition, political calculations based on military alliances, persistent rivalries, or a history of political and cultural empathy will play a role in a state’s calculations to declare entry into an ongoing war or not. The advantage of integrating the spatial and political contexts are that the separate but related imperatives may pull states into decisions that are sub-optimal or unexpected when considering just one set of factors. For example, Switzerland’s neutrality in World War I is contrary to the expectations gained when considering only the spatial context, as is Great Britain’s perpetual post-war support of the United States.

ConflictSpace situates the decision of a state to enter an ongoing war within a combination of its political and geographic context. The behavior of a state is a function of its political, economic, and cultural connections to other states, as well as its geographic proximity to warring states, the nature of the intervening terrain, and distance from the actual fighting. This innovative conceptualization of the decision-making environments of states requires the integration of existing datasets and a combination of methodologies that will be new to the scientific study of war. Theoretically, we will combine complex science and network analysis, theories of diffusion, and the logics of the enlargement of wars.

At the moment, the ConflictSpace project is working on a pilot study of World War I. This particular conflict was chosen for a number of reasons. There have been many studies by scholars of various stripes seeking to explain why this war started and spread, and yet debate still rages on. There is a need for a new perspective. However, the prevalence of many existing studies raises the bar high for the ConflictSpace project if it is to make the case for providing new insights. Also, World War I makes an interesting case as there were many preceding crises that did not lead to a massive conflagration. Hence, we can compare the pattern of networks in preceding years to try and identify particular webs of relations that were and were not conducive to spreading isolated conflicts into larger wars. Finally, we are approaching the 100th anniversary of this conflict and expect a new wave of scholarly and public interest into this fascinating war, an event that still shapes global politics.
The ConflictSpace project is in the process of moving beyond the World War I pilot study. Most wars that have been fought post World War II are forms of civil war rather than wars between countries. A study of the Congolese wars, dubbed “Africa’s World War” by Geography doctoral student Steve Radil, will develop the ConflictSpace techniques to analyze this conflict’s mixture of states and guerilla groups. Another project by Geography docoral student Sang-hyun Chi will use ConflictSpace to analyze territorial disputes in North Asia that are potential flashpoints between the two Koreas, China, Japan, and Russia. Sadly, there are many ongoing and potential conflicts that provide empirical fuel for ConflictSpace projects. Hopefully, we will provide useful insight into their causes and consequences that will promote peaceful options.