Most of the best reading on logic (and illogic) of war in English is in my opinion written by James F. Dunnigan. I believe he has a book called 'How to Avoid War' in which he discusses the reasons small and large nations go to war in frank detail. I think it should be required reading if you want to understand the diplomacy of making peace.
Most of the reasons why a nation goes to war have to do with its belief that it can avoid the war, or at least win the war so quickly that it won't be much of a war at all.
I hate to go political, but leaving aside 'rightness' or 'wrongness', just examine the current situation historically as a case study in why nations go to war. The actual physical reasons for the war have become secondary causes. All three major players in Iraq war question are playing as if war either will not happen or else will be insignificant if it occurs, and this is the reason the war will occur. No one is playing the game like they want to avoid war - not even Europe until yesterday and that was clearly too late.
Iraq clearly believes that it can avoid the war by prolonging debate until it developes 'security measures' which would make war so costly that its opponents will not wish to fight it. America believes that it can win the war so quickly that it won't be much of a war, and is leaving aside discussion of winning the peace. Europe believes that it can avoid the war by making it so politically costly for its proponents that they will decide not to go forward with it.
But of course, the combined strategies are gauranteeing the war. Iraq sees in Europe the means to prolong debate. It therefore concludes that its strategy is viable. America sees in Europe the destruction of its 'bluff' - in other words, had it hoped to force Iraq into concessions to avoid a war, it certainly can't now. Moreover, the European decision to make war politically costly, in turn makes backing down an even costlier political choice for those that want war. In effect, by accussing the US of being unilateralist, the US is backed into a corner in which it sees no choice but to go it alone. Europe sees in America a dangerous unwillingness to engage in debate, which simply kills any chance for debate. America sees in Europe a dangerous willingness to stall, and governments engaged in rancorous political posturing for home consumption. America sees in Iraq a country that is stalling for time, which increases US feelings that time is running out. Iraq sees America as soft and decadent whose weakness is the instability of its political system (read 4 year terms of Presidents) and its reluctance to sustain causalties (Hussein is trying to take lessons from Viet Nam) and therefore assumes that it is unwilling to prosecute any war ruthlessly and to its conclusion.
Now for the $.02 opinion, just because I can't help myself. Up until yesterday, it was my opinion that the US strategy had the best chance of avoiding war. Yesterday, I thought the US made its first critical diplomatic mistake, in not giving sufficient breathing room to the Franco-German plan. I personally think that the Franco-German plan would have been utterly rejected by Iraq, because in fact the Franco-German plan is a plan for Iraq to concede the war without fighting it. Iraq clearly isn't sure that the war is going to happen in the first place, and is even less clear that whatever it decides will have any bearing on whether the war occurs or not. By rejecting the even the possibility of a conditional surrender, even one that Iraq wouldn't have accepted, the US forces Iraq into a war is inevitable mode. By rejecting unity with the US, Europe forces Bush into a war is inevitable mode. Bush no longer has the option to bluff for continued concessions. By rejecting a major concession from the French (they are essentially calling for the destrucion of Iraq as a soveriegn state through military occupation - a defacto war, and notably one that they are assuming is so bloodless as to not be a real war), the US puts Europe into a war is inevitable mode.
And that's why nations go to war.
