Question: Why do states go to war?School 1: States that want to gain more power, use war as a means to gain more power or maintain power in the anarchic world.Evera, SV (1998) . Attack, defense and causes of war. International Security, 4(22), 5-43. Retrieved from http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci211z/2.1/Van%20Evera%20IS%201998.pdf According to Evera, a state is more likely to engage in war if it has the upper hand among states whether to engage in a war. (Evera 5) There are several reasons why a state should consider going to war according to Evera, they look at the state's decision-making process. The state will go to war if it can gain the superior advantage in a war. According to Evera, offensive and defensive balance have their advantages when used in the right situation. (Evera p16-18) If a shift between the offensive and defense balance has occurred among states, then according to Evera there is a high risk of war. (Eva page 6). The problem that could be overlooked is that realism in this case looks at the state only as a unitary actor. It is difficult to see the state as a whole to determine what it thinks when it goes to war, because it does not consider the different levels of analysis within the government. He sees the state as only wanting a few things, namely power and security. Realism is the main idea behind the article, because it sees the state as a rational actor and considers states that only seek to engage in war and the reasoning behind why they go to war. Glaser, C. L. (1997). The security dilemma revisited. Cambridge University Press, 50(1), 171-201. Retrieved from http://www.gwu.edu/~iscs/assets/docs/cg-docs/SecurityDilemma-WP-1997.pdfGlasser sees a dist......middle of paper......h going to war. Leaders do not have to consider the costs of war. They tend to consider the risk of war and try to find some advantage in going to war. (Fearon 379-380). Fearon points out that leaders might bargain and avoid war overall, but leaders tend to overlook the cost of people's lives in war. (Fearon 381). Fearon argues that bluffing for leaders helps a state hide its weakness and show its strength in the face of different states. (Fearon 397). Rational choice is clearly how Fearon went about it in the article, because he showed how leaders would make choices that would decide whether their state would go to war or not based on several factors. The one thing that rational actors always assume, but cannot prove, is to try to prove that all actors are rational thinkers. Leaders who go to war may not think rationally when deciding to settle or go to war .