Why the "fear, honour and interest" trinity harms our understanding of war

Warning

This publication doesn't include Faculty of Economics and Administration. It includes Faculty of Social Studies. Official publication website can be found on muni.cz.

Authors	ŽILINČÍK Samuel
Year of publication	2021
Type	Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source	The RUSI Journal
MU Faculty or unit	Faculty of Social Studies
Citation
Web	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03071847.2021.1939771
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2021.1939771
Keywords	Fear; Honour; Interest; Thucydides; Emotion
Attached files	Zilincik_RUSI_Journal.pdf
Description	While the ‘fear, honour and interest’ trinity is immensely popular, it is also fallacious. Samuel Zilincik discusses how the trinity is not a neutral analytical tool but rather a rhetorical instrument to advocate foreign aggression. It conveys an incomplete picture of war causation by focusing on the aggressor’s motivation while ignoring that of the defender. It also insufficiently explains motivations for hostile behaviour by omitting salient stimuli and the variance of emotional motives across cultures. Through its popularity, the trinity also detracts attention from truly insightful observations that Thucydides made in his work. Zilincik suggests that going beyond the trinity is essential to enhancing knowledge of strategic affairs.
Related projects:	Aktuální problémy politologického výzkumu VII.