Debating the Role of Religion in War

Abstract

Michael Horowitz’s compelling article deserves praise for pushing the agenda on religion and war beyond two contemporary obsessions: the axation on religion and nonstate violent actors, particularly insurgents and terrorists, and the emphasis on Islam as the primary religious movement associated with violent conoict.1 By examining how religion affected the duration of the Crusades, Horowitz persuasively demonstrates that religion has also shaped the behavior of conventional, Christian military forces. This is a step in the right direction, but it is an all-too-cautious step. Because Horowitz overemphasizes the narrow, causal effects of religion, at the expense of exploring the manifold ways in which religion can pervade and constitute all aspects of warfare, his argument suffers from endogeneity and missing variable bias. As I show below, these difaculties result in an argument that both overstates and obscures the primary effects of religion on war. Historical analyses such as these distract from what should be scholars’ primary concern regarding international security and religion: exploring the role of religion in contemporary interstate war.