Instigation Of War

Scope Note

Frequency of war (e.g., common, rare, unknown); participating groups; military preparedness; scale, severity, and duration of wars; small-scale military operations (e.g., raids for slaves or cattle, headhunting, privateering); conception of war (e.g., as glorious, as holy, as wrong but inevitable, as less debilitating than peace); prevalent motives for waging war (e.g., vengeance, self-defense, aggrandizement, prestige); material gains (e.g., booty, trophies, slaves, women, mercantile advantages, territory); predominance of offensive or defensive warfare; decision as to war (e.g., deliberations, negotiations); methods of initiating hostilities (e.g., challenges, declarations of war, attacks without warning); etc.