The Economics of Warfare: Joan Robinson’s Challenge

Modern history seems to be characterized by an expansion of militarism. In a series of wars of increasing impact on human society the significance of warfare for human welfare grew to unprecedented dimensions. This is particularly true of the two World Wars, but it also affected the wars of a more regional nature, for instance through the advanced technologies used, sometimes tried out even in the latter type of war. After the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–1 and increasingly after both World Wars, the thought spread that wars had developed into a criminal phenomenon that requires legal regulation. Conflicts between nations should be solved by negotiation or arbitration rather than by the use of violence. Governments should submit their conflicting views to the International Court of Justice and the solution should be formulated by that Court on the basis of international law: Polemology was developed, mainly by scholars with a legal background, as a new branch of science to better understand the emergence of international conflicts.