I just don’t get it (War -- Huh! What is it good for?!)

[capri0mni]

I know the arguments (I’ve heard them ever since Elementary School, when History Class was called “Social Studies”): that armed forces and war are unfortunate but necessary evils for a stable and functioning State, and therefore, Society.

But lately, as I wake up to news of yet another airstrike against a hospital, or a terrorist bombing of a school, or kidnappings or torture, or the burning down of villages, I only come away more baffled and more sad.

I mean, even if it were true that War is an ugly but necessary Means to a better End, I’m left asking:

A Means to What End?

Some killing, I understand.

• Killing another living thing for food, or shelter -- I get that (And there’s a growing realization that plants have some form of sentience, so vegans aren’t off the hook on that point, either).
  
• I understand using antibiotics to kill off microbes that make us sick.
  
• And I understand the rationale behind herbicides and insecticides -- even though I think they’re used too much and that the rationale is often misguided -- I can still see the logic behind them.
  
• Or killing lab animals so we can better understand disease and help find treatments for things like cancer; I understand that, too.
  
• I understand when a person decides to have an abortion.
  
I even understand the death penalty for certain crimes (though I don’t often agree with it).

So I understand that killing is often a necessary means to better ends. I get that bit.

But War? The systematic creation and maintaining of entire sections of society dedicated to the purpose of being cannon fodder?

Killing citizens (whether soldier or civilian) because you don’t like the policies of their leaders? Or killing people because you don’t like how they pray? Or, for whatever reason, you’re squicked whenever you think about the place where their ancestors came from? Or they speak the “wrong” language? Or they have the “wrong” skin color?

I just don’t get it...

Because whatever ends the means of war is meant to achieve, I’ve never seen any of the wars in my lifetime (since the invention of the telephone, radio, and television) actually work (If wars did work for solving problems, we wouldn’t have to keep trying them over and over, and over, and over, and over...).

Comments

[lilysea]

There's only one use of war I agree with: self-defense.

Eg. When country A invades country or countries, B, C, D and is then forced out again.

See, Germany invading in World War II and being forced to leave, Indonesia invading East Timor and being forced to leave, etc.

Actually, I'm also okay with the US Civil War, because it ended slavery in the US. But it would have been better if there had been another way, the Civil War was a string of atrocities and wasted lives.

[capri0mni]

Well, that's why I specified "in my lifetime" at the end... Because, yeah: Maybe the American Civil War was necessary (though the Constitutional Amendment that ended slavery [the 14th] makes an exception for prisoners. And the majority of American prisoners are Black, so there's a fairly convincing argument that racial slavery hasn't really ended as decisively as we tell ourselves).

As for WW2 -- Germany invaded other countries to gain an End (for some purpose) and it didn't work. From what I understand of the history I learned, Hitler's desire for German purity was so deep that he couldn't abide the idea of trade with other nations, or of negotiation, or compromise, So if he wanted Germany to have resources it needed, he need to invade other countries and make them "German," too.

And it didn't work. War did not make Germany stronger.

On the small scale, on a case-by-case basis, I can see how joining a war for self-defense may be necessary.

But I don't get the "Institution of War" as a whole.

Also, I'm writing this as the citizen of a country where the leaders of the political party now in power are planning to put lifetime caps on medical insurance for the poor, and sending agents of the government, armed as if for battle, into hospitals to arrest parents for being illegal immigrants while their children are in surgery.

And our "Commander in Chief" wants to undo nuclear disarmament, and create whole new classes of nuclear weapons.

And I just don't get it.

[lilysea]

Oh, no, I didn't mean Germany invading everyone was a good idea:

I meant everyone else *fighting back in self defense* when Germany tried to invade them was a good idea.

[capri0mni]

I realize that.

I'm just wondering how and why anyone continues to insist wars are necessary -- as a concept -- to such an extent that the existence of military social classes are taken for granted. And anyone who's a soldier is automatically considered a "hero" and "inspiring," regardless of how they conduct themselves or whether they enjoy killing other people or are repulsed by it.

(Of course, I'm looking at this as an American, with a culture that seems to celebrate its military more than any other democracy, and that's contributing to my bafflement.

[siliconshaman]

If you're looking for the rationale for war, you're looking in the wrong direction. War is almost always about the domestic audience, rather the external one.

A war is distraction for a bad domestic situation, a way of seeming strong for a shaky government, it's a way of redistributing wealth from the public to the private via government expenditure on arms contracts.

If it was all about politics, then a single bullet could settle the argument between leaders.

[capri0mni]

Okay. You make a fair point.

But even when it comes to strengthening a government's position in the eyes of its own citizens, it still seems to only accomplish that end in the short term and undermine it in the long term (and even medium term).

I dunno, Man...

Intellectually, I know that a lot of brain power and logical calculations and study and statistical analysis goes into the maintaining and deploying of the world's military forces.

But over the last couple of months, at least, when I wake up and hear: "And now, for the latest news bulletin..." I've just been overcome by the bleak absurdity of it all.

Ya know?

[siliconshaman]

I know.. and you're not wrong. The point is, a lot of logic and brain power goes into maintaining and deploying the worlds military.. but to paraphrase, they spend so much time thinking about whether they could, that they forgot to think about whether they should.

It has become so trivialised, so accepted as part of society.. that no question is raised as to the purpose of war nowadays. It just is. It has become a means to it's own end. We go to war, in order to be in a state of war.. for no other reason than because we can.

Anything else is ancillary to it's true purpose... to exist for it's own sake.

[capri0mni]

*Nod*

Just so. I'd originally written this as a post on Tumblr, and this line, I put in a Headline font, with bold and italic, like so:

A Means to What End?

Because that's the question nobody seems to care about.

Basically, I'm not really looking for answers in this post. I just need a place (or three) to lay down my Feels.

[davidgillon]

Neither of the World Wars raally fit that model.

For WWI, the Austrian Dual Monarchy had its internal issues, but wasn't shaky. What really kicked it off were fanatical Serb nationalists wanting all Southern Slav territories (basically ex-Yugoslavia+Bulgraia) united in a Greater Serbia, working against their own government,no matter their leader was the head of Serbian military intelligence, and killing Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian heir to the throne. Austria demanded Serbia acquiese to its demands, Serbia refused on one point (Austrian participation in the investigation) and called in big-brother Russia, and at that point the Triple Entente and Triple Alliance dragged the whole of Europe into war (though Italy ducked out of its Triple Alliance commitment to attack France, and later switched to the Entente. Arguably both sides were fighting defensive wars.

WWII is very similar, but without the unofficial element of the Black Hand, making it a pure war of agression. Hitler and the Nazis were firmly in power, but fanatically locked onto the idea of a Greater Germany uniting all German speaking peoples, which put Austria, Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland), Poland (particularly Danzig) and France (Alsace-Lorraine) firmly in their sights. They got away with the Anschluss, siezed the Sudetenland, were stalled by the Munich Agreement because the UK and France were playing catch-up on rearmament and needed another year to be ready (which unfortunately meant selling out the Czechs), and when the Germans attacked Poland, France and the UK activated their mutual defence treaty with Poland. And lurking behind that was Hitler's plans for a war against Soviet Russia, for 'Lebensraum' and the old dreams of a Germanic Empire stretching into Russia, and because of his backgrount in the politics of the immediately Post WWWI ultra-rightist and anti-communist Freikorps streetgangs and their successors.

That's not to say that the desire for a 'short, victorious war' to take people's minds off domestic politics doesn't happen,the Falklands was a classic example.

[siliconshaman]

I was thinking more of the period after the World Wars, when the pattern for industrialised warfare came to fruition. Although elements of what I was described can be found during WW2 and maybe at stretch WW1, it is tenuous at best as you say, and hardly a primary reason.

Some of WW2, particularly on the german side, was for domestic consumption, but it was more a happy by-product. But it was that realisation, that lead to it being the primary purpose.

The Falklands being a prime example as you say... and one would could argue later middle eastern misadventures also.

Of course, that leads also to the argument, that if one is going to war in order to apply sticking plaster to deep divisions at home.. one needs must manufacture an enemy if none presents itself. You can't have an 'US' without a Them.

[davidgillon]

Of course, that leads also to the argument, that if one is going to war in order to apply sticking plaster to deep divisions at home.. one needs must manufacture an enemy if none presents itself. You can't have an 'US' without a Them.

Or even for better newspaper sales c.f. the Spanish-American War.

[siliconshaman]

Oh, yeah. I forgot that one! "You supply the pictures, I'll supply the war."

Pretty sure Murdoch knows that trick.

[davidgillon]

It's a form of prisoner's dilemma: because the other guy may betray you (by launching a war), you have to be ready to deal with that, which means having a capable military establishment, because it isn't something you can throw together on the spur of the moment.

In practise, most militaries are set up to fight defensive wars (and to take part in peace enforcement). But some have leaderships which are aggressive on a political (Cold war Era Russia) or nationalist agenda (China and Modern Russia),or personal aggrandisment (Saddam Hussein's Iraq).

[capri0mni]

[...] some have leaderships which are aggressive on a political (Cold war Era Russia) or nationalist agenda (China and Modern Russia),or personal aggrandisment (Saddam Hussein's Iraq).

Don't forget Capitalist agendas (such as a group of wealthy businessmen and plantation owners conspired with the U.S. army to overthrow the lawful queen of the nation of Hawaii, Queen Liliuokalani.

(And I'm pretty sure Trump can be seated next to Saddam Hussein at the "Personal aggrandizement" table... You've heard that he's demanding the Pentagon put on a full scale military parade in his honor, right, to march down Pennsylvania Avenue?)

[davidgillon]

I did wonder whether I should have mentioned the US. Hawaii's a good example, there's also the Banana Wars, and a whole lot of CIA stuff.

WRT Trump, if he gets his parade to show off the military as his penis-substitute (has anyone sat him down and explained they can't fit an aircraft carrier on Pennsylvania Avenue?), then we'll be able to summarize his foreign policy as 'Speak loudly and wave a big dick'.

[capri0mni]

'Speak loudly and wave a big dick'.

Okay... So that made me laugh.

Thanks.

[igenlode]

One of the traditional purposes of war is conquest - the acquisition of one's neighbour's territory in order to gain more fertile land, or a more secure border with a third country, or access to a useful sea or river port, or the taxes from lots of wealthy cities, or whatever.
Somewhere around the 1920s it was suddenly decided that this was no longer permissible and that the existing borders should be set in stone and defended by international treaty (although that didn't work out too well in the immediate future) - before that, it was taken for granted that maps shifted around as countries fought one another.

Invasions by people like the Mongols (Huns, Visigoths, Cossacks, whatever) are more akin to animal movements where one population expands its territory at the expense of another; you simply have two peoples competing for the same resources, one settled and the other highly mobile, and neither really recognising the other as an equally valid way of being human...

Another traditional purpose of war is 'the continuation of diplomacy by other means' (i.e. forcing another country to sign up to a treaty or avenging a perceived insult -- when discussions between governments fail, you declare war).

If you have an empire (like the Romans or the Persians or the Zulus) then you have an army to maintain that empire and stop other people nicking bits of it around the edges, or bits of it deciding to revolt and refuse allegiance to you.

The religious wars in Europe were supposedly about saving people's souls by forcing them to worship the right way, although they were also about which rulers were going to allow the Pope to tell them what to do...

The actual killing is not (usually) the aim. The aim is winning, and you win by making it impossible for the enemy to continue fighting back. Unfortunately nobody ever starts a war unless they think they're going to win it - they're often wrong to the tune of large numbers of lives.