Why_War

Why War' Patricia Siekelova Glion Institute of Higher Education October 10, 2010 The word war has a negative connotation in every language. Images associated with this word are often death, nuclear bombs, world war and destruction. Since even the idea of war is so repelling, why war' What are the reasons that drive people into war even though they are aware of the death and suffer it brings' According to the WordIQ website, there is great debate over why wars happen and what are the causes. Representatives of many different academic areas have tried to explain war unfortunately none have come up with a conclusive explanation. This only suggests that the issue is complicated and very hard to predict and generalize. In this paper we will be looking at seven different theories made by different experts about the causes of war. Historical Theory Historians are very reluctant to generalize wars and come up with a pattern that could be predictable and used to analyze the war patterns. A. J. P. Taylor has famously described wars as being like car accidents. There are some conditions and situations that make them more likely but do not make them inevitable or predictable. Many social scientist criticize this approach to generalize war because they argue that at the beginning of every war some leader makes a conscious decision and it cannot be purely accidental where war happens and where it doesn’t. (Wordiq.com) Psychological Theory Psychologists, on the other hand, have a different view on the generalization of war. Psychologists such as E.F.M. Durban and John Bowlby have argues that people, especially males, are naturally violent. (wordiq.com) While this violence is repressed in normal society it needs the occasional outlet provided by war. When it is combined with other factors, such as displacement of emotions such as transfer of their grievances into bias or hatred against other ethnic groups, nations or ideologies. This theory explains why wars happen but lacks the explanation when or how they occur. There are some inconsistencies with these theories because it lacks to explain why sometimes there are long periods of peace and sometimes periods of unending war. Since the psychology of the human mind is unchanging the variations of the causes and patterns of war are inconsistent. A solution was adapted to explain this problem by militarists such as Franz Alexander that peace does not really exists. The times that can be perceived as peace are actually times of preparation for later wars. (Cashman, 155) If war is inherent to humans, then consequently was is inevitable. An alternative to this statement is that war is predominantly a male activity, which means that if a female was in the role of a leader wars could most likely be avoided. Critics, on the other hand, use various examples from the human history of female leaders who had no issues with using military force such as Margaret Thatcher. Another arguments on how wars could be prevented is that many psychologists argue that human temperament allows wars to occur only when mentally unbalanced men or women are in control of a nation. Leaders such as Napolen, Hitler or Stalin were mentally abnormal and therefore if a screening process would be in place, such as elections, these types of individuals could be prevented to gain power and therefore eliminating or at least limiting war. Another branch of psychology argues that humans create wars due to evolutionary reasons. This branch of psychology sees war as an extension of animal behavior, such as competition for territory. This suggests that war is natural but with out technological advancement our power and destructiveness has risen greatly and is overall irrational and damaging to the species. We share instincts with the chimpanzees but our power is much greater. The first person to come up with this theory was Konrad Lorenz but his theory has many critics and scholars such as John G. Kennedy argue that the organized and sustained war of humans are differ more than just with the technological aspect from our closest living relatives and other animals. (Cashman, 16) Anthropological Theories Anthropologists take a different view on war where they see it rather as influenced by culture rather than genetics. In other words, it is learnt rather by nurture than nature. Humans are indulged in various cultural rituals and customs that form the individuals such as religion, ideologies and nationalism. These can play a vital role when deciding if to go to war and are often justifications for the wars. Anthropologists refuse to see connections between different forms of violence and therefore animal fighting, arguments of hunter-gatherers and modern warfare are distinct phenomena with their own causes. Ashley Montagu, a theorist, states the nature of war isn’t pressured by the public or common people but rather by leaders who also try to justify the war rather than do the opposite. Sociological Theories Sociology has been trying to figure out the origins of war for a long time and has come up with numerous theories, many of them contradictory. Some are trying to use detail formulas to predict where and when a war will break out using information like demographic and economic values. After World War I, Lewis Fry Richardson came up with a statistical analysis of war. More recent databases are collected by the Correlates of War Project, Peter Brecke and the Uppsala Department of Peace and Conflict Research. So far none of the formulas were successful in predicting any future wars. A study carried out by Michael Hass has found that no variable has a strong correlation to the occurrence of war therefore this sort of analysis is impossible. Many sociologists are attempting to divide wars into different types to increase the correlations but have received mixed results. A Sociologist R.J. Rummel has found that civil wars and foreign wars are very different in origin but a different sociologist, Jonathan Wilkenfield used different date and found just the opposite. Therefore no valid conclusion has been able to be made. Economic Theories There are many reasons to believe that economics play a very important role in war. People have fought over land, resources and other forms of wealth for centuries and without a doubt this pursuit for wealth continues today. As Mohammad Al ASoomi states in his article “Halliburton is believed to have given strong allegiances to the conservative wing in the US administration. This company has been able to make significant economic gains from the purchase and reconstruction contracts in Iraq. Since the end of the war, Halliburton has won contracts worth $10 billion…” Though the country at war usually suffers greatly especially in the short run, few small businesses related to warfare benefit greatly and make huge amounts of money from these wars. Therefore, these businesses are among the largest supporters of war and try to justify their actions in order to win the public’s support. Other example of fighting for wealth is that for oil. This goes from the empire building of Britain to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in pursuit of oil. Many agree that these types of wars are beneficial to the wealthy but fought by the poor. Conclusion So why war' Why do people feel the need to kill and murder other people for their benefit and most often the benefit of others' It might be due to our genetics, cultural influence or simply due to how well people can sell wars. Whatever the reason lie behind the decisions of powerful, are wars really necessary' Could diplomacy not solve our differences and gain understanding of other cultures and religions' As we learned from the research, scholars do not agree on the reason why people go to war but possibly that doesn’t mean they all wrong. All these different reasons that scholars came up with might play a role in the decision making of a war and since that creates a lot of uncontrollable variables, war cannot be predicted or generalized because each violent conflict is individual and unique. A further research that could be done is find ways to prevent wars rather than exploit the benefits. With the basic understanding of why people go to war, what can be done to prevent the violence from ever happening' To conclude I think this quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower is very appropriate when he said that “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  This world in arms is not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.  This is not a way of life at all in any true sense.  Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. “ (American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1953) References Cashman, G. (2000). What Causes War' an introduction to theories of international conflict. Oxford: Lexington Books. (Original work published 1993) Essential Margaret Thatcher | Margaret Thatcher Foundation. (n.d.). Margaret Thatcher Foundation *. Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://www.margaretthatcher.org/essential/biography.asp Psychological causes of War - National Defense Dept. | Examiner.com. (n.d.). National News, National Information, National Events - Examiner.com | Examiner.com. Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://www.examiner.com/defense-dept-in-national/psychological-causes-of-war War - Definition. (n.d.). Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - WordIQ Dictionary. Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://www.wordiq.com/definition/War#Causes_of_war