The Badme region in
the Horn of Africa is claimed by both Ethiopia and Eritrea. It contains few
natural resources, and neither state considers it to have strategic value. As
one local merchant put it, however, “It’s territory, you know. We’ll die for
our country.”
1
Throughout history, humans have shown themselves willing to ªght and
die to seize or defend territory. For example, Chechnya’s long history of
ªghting off intruders—from the Iranian Alars (800–900), to the Golden Horde
(1241), to the Turks and Persians (after 1300), and ªnally to the Russian empire
(around 1800, and again in recent years)—imbued Chechen identity and cul
-
ture with a folklore of fallen heroes who had died “for Chechnya” over the
past millennium.
2
Territory is central to some of the most vexing cases of conºict, especially
where different groups lay claim to the same ground. Jerusalem, for example,
has momentous signiªcance for Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. Each
group is equally unwilling to yield control. The mere presence of Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Temple Mount in 2000 sparked the second
intifada. Abkhaz and Georgians both view Abkhazia as their homeland, just as
Serbs and Albanians see parts of Kosovo as theirs.
3
In Northern Ireland’s pubs,
discussions of the 1690 Battle of Boyne can still be heard “like it was last week’s
hurling match,” with ºags representing each side continuing to decorate and
demarcate the differ ent neighborhoods.
4
Robert Pape has argued that the princi
-
Grounds for War
Grounds for War
Dominic D.P. Johnson
and
Monica Duffy Toft
The Evolution of Territorial Conºict
Dominic D.P. Johnson is Alistair Buchan Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford.
Monica Duffy Toft is Professor of Government and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at
the University of Oxford.
The authors are grateful for comments, criticisms, and help from Ivan Arreguín-Toft, Daniel
Blumstein, Lee Cronk, Oliver Curry, Agustín Fuentes, Herbert Gintis, Anthony Lopez, David Mac
-
donald, Steven Pinker, Andrew Radford, Rafe Sagarin, Sabina Sequeira, Richard Sosis, Adrienne
Tecza, Bradley Thayer, Dominic Tierney, John Vasquez, and Richard Wrangham.
1. Quoted in Ian Fisher, “Behind Eritrea-Ethiopia War, a ‘Knack for Stubbornness,’” New York
Times, February 14, 1999.
2. Monica Duffy Toft, The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Ter
-
ritory (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003).
3. Ibid.
4. Dennis Pringle, “Separation and Integration: The Case of Ireland,” in Michael Chisholm and
David M. Smith, eds., Shared Space, Divided Space: Essays on Conºict and Territorial Organization
(London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), p. xxv.
International Security, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Winter 2013/14), pp. 7–38, doi:10.1162/ISEC_a_00149
© 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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