HITLER

1. Political scientists study conflicts promoted by states through models pertaining to the aspects of ‘how’ and ‘why’ wars occur, while historians are the true guardians of the records of past wars. Books are written about strategies that often take positions where certain rash decisions may tilt battles one way or another, potentially causing the course of history to change entirely. But what if the factors studied in conflicts were misrepresented to such an extent that even historians might have been mistaken about the actual conditions attributed to cause and effect? This research will investigate the use of drugs as a weapon of war by state actors and the armies they command. We will examine drug abuse on such a large scale that the actual drugs may not only have fueled parts of the conflict but, at times, may even be linked to possible causation in some of the most brutal human rights abuses on record.
 
2. In Just War Theory, we speak of military ethics as something humanistic regarding why and how we fight. When states enter into conflict, rules of engagement are defined through tactics designed by actors within the states, for rational reasons. This research will focus less on the “why” we fight and more on the “how”—with the hidden element of chemical dependence and how the mind of a soldier reacts to the expected effects of the drug, as well as the unwanted side effects of drug addiction and everything that comes with it.
 
3. In political science, we often refer to states governed by rational actors, with armies formed by ordinary people. In times of war, these ordinary people sometimes commit horrendous crimes against humanity as well as violations of human rights against civilians. While we may assert that war is irrational, logic dictates that planning to fight for territory and carrying out such plans are strategic moves by rational actors for rational reasons. But what if wars were conceived and carried out by irrational actors with the purpose of stealing property, looting, killing people, or simply creating chaos? And how would we determine the conditions that could reclassify a once-rational actor as irrational?