15 ms·

If you want peace, study war

208 points by ascertain 6y ago

liquidify 6y ago
I think the author's point could be broadened to just say, if you want peace, study the historical reasons for conflicts and how to avoid them. Or even more broadly, if you want peace, study history and make it an important part of your decision making process.
- chmod600 6y ago
  > if you want peace, study the historical reasons for conflicts and how to avoid them I've always heard: if you want peace, prepare for war
  - skinkestek 6y ago
    My father would drill that into me as a kid. That and the fact that war is not like in books or movies: it is ugly and best avoided.
    - Uberphallus 6y ago
      Also interesting how that's the approach of Krav Maga as martial art. The 1st rule is, run if you can. The 2nd rule is, finish the fight ASAP and run. The rest derives from those two rules.
      - im3w1l 6y ago
        With such a motto, you'd expect them to practice sprinting a lot, but curiously, I've never seen that happen!
        Uberphallus 6y ago
        Well, you can see the first rule as "try not to use what you learn". Can't speak for all instructors, but mine went directly to technique for those who ran/cycled to the gym and stretched before the class, letting the rest warm up in the meantime... running. Also most demonstrations you can see on the Internet always end with running and most comments make fun of that, so it's certainly included in the practice.
        im3w1l 6y ago
        I stand corrected
      - drummojg 6y ago
        I was taught the same through Shotokan Karate. The credo spoken at every training (called "Dojo Kun") starts with "Seek perfection of character" and ends with "Refrain from violent behavior."
  - tomalpha 6y ago
    From the classic Latin “Si vis pacem para bellum” [0] I’d always interpreted this to imply that deterrence was good - appear strong to prevent others picking a fight with you, rather than studying. I always wondered if the 9mm Parabellum cartridge was named after the saying too, but no such enlightenment is available on the Wikipedia page at least [1] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9×19mm_Parabellum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9×19mm_Parabellum
    - heja2009 6y ago
      Yes, it is derived from the saying. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabellumpistole https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabellumpistole
    - cosmodisk 6y ago
      While it's true even today,I think at the time it was heavily related to the fact that most countries usually had to raise money and hire majority of soldiers when facing/declaring war rather then keeping them on payroll permanently. So if an enemy is banging at the gate, it's a bit too late to start sending message around 'we are hiring'.
  - stareatgoats 6y ago
    > I've always heard: if you want peace, prepare for war Yes, this is conventional wisdom. But it's time to give it up and try something new before someone accidentally annihilates the world as we know it. Studying history is not a bad start.
chmod600 6y ago
> However, part of the shift away from war studies owes to the quest for “social justice” ... > history overall is worryingly in decline as an academic subject There might be a connection there. People who want to think about social justice will go to the political science department. Nothing wrong with that. But people who are passionate about history want professors who are also passionate about history. History and social justice can go together, of course, but the passion really goes behind one or the other.
- watwut 6y ago
  I think that bigger effect is that economy is not that great, college expensive and students are choosing major they perceive as practical.
- QuesnayJr 6y ago
  The people who work on "social history", which is the social justice-y branch of history, are passionate about history. Just different history. I'm not uncritical of social history (I think they're not good at economic history), but I don't think you can say that they don't care about history. No one who lacks passion for history is going to spend years reading papers in dusty archives.
chmod600 6y ago
I have a theory that offensive weaponry advancements produce peace, while defensive advancements produce war. If you're in a castle, it's easier to send armies around, knowing that you'll be safe. But if there are nukes and ICBMs, just stick with the status quo. Any validity to this theory?
- mettamage 6y ago
  Armchair general here, I've never been in any war. The biggest highlight of my general career was tower defence rushing unsuspecting human players in Warcraft 3 with orcs. With that said: I think that whenever a human or organization has a stable situation with their current affairs, they can afford to take more risk. Attacking weapons don't necessarily make a situation stable, they simply give an edge when you have them. However, when you're the only one that has them and are stable enough, then you might be able to annihilate entire civilizations (e.g. the Aztecs versus a few hundred Spanish people). But when more people have them, then they can point them at you, making your own situation more unstable if you provoke those people.
  - vagrantJin 6y ago
    But this assumes the enemy is not knowledgable/simple, which is no longer the case.
- watwut 6y ago
  All wanna be conquerors build and used offensive weaponry and produced war. Including Hitler. Plus practically, it is more off weaponry in general used for both offensive and defensive purposes based on strategic goals. > If you're in a castle, it's easier to send armies around, knowing that you'll be safe. I do not think that is how it worked historically.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > Any validity to this theory? If by defensive you mean isolationist, both WW1 and WW2 were started because of US isolationism, and ended when the US became offensive and occupied Europe and Japan. (In fact, both German and Japanese officials who previously travelled to the US thought of us as uncultured and decadent.) Post-WW2 with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, rational nuclear powers don't attack each other. However, the CCP and Islam are ideologies that believe they can win against the West. Xi is doubling their nuclear weapon count from 200 to 400, and nuclear technology is proliferating throughout the Islamic world. Both have deep-rooted insecurities over being behind the West, but at the same time show remarkable aggression. That's a very volatile combination, and both are ok with huge "acceptable losses." Mao started a cold war against the US in the 1950s, which the US never took seriously until now, "Hide our strength, bide our time." And Xi is using Mao's playbook. Instead of large kinetic wars, the CCP has adopted numerous alternative strategies: - BRI debt traps to build ports, or buying existing ports - Thousand Talents program - academic donations to buy influence - cataloging and spying on Western officials from city to federal levels (ie. FengFeng) - "corona vaccine" diplomacy - world's largest naval fleet - diverting Himalayan headland water from India, Pakistan and other countries in the region to China.
watwut 6y ago
"If You Want Peace, Study War" the groups I heard about that adopted that or similar motto were all aggressive and originators of the violence.
- reshie 6y ago
  The Genius of the Crowd.
- Fellshard 6y ago
  Can you elaborate which such groups?
  - rriepe 6y ago
    They only say the name of the group when they have a comfortable majority.
  - watwut 6y ago
    A mafia/crime organization had it tattooed. They were violent. Also, I read about military group having that logo, it was written about due to crossing the lines.
jdxcode 6y ago
Reminds me of my favorite quote from Mad Men: > Roger: As my mother used to say, your options were dishonor or war. You chose dishonor, you might still get war. > Don: That was Churchill.
watwut 6y ago
Interesting article. > Do we ever want another president asking, as Donald Trump did during a visit to the Pearl Harbor memorial: “What’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Yeah, but Donald Trump is old and studied before decline of military history. And I dont think it was failure of his school, someone who dont care and insists on not caring, wont remember.
Tomte 6y ago
If you're near the Lüneburg Heath, take a trip to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Tank_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Tank_Museum Slightly related, because they have "He who wants peace shall speak of war" at their entrance: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Benjamin-Zitat_052016.jpg/1920px-Benjamin-Zitat_052016.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Be...
roenxi 6y ago
The scary thing for me about wars is that the soldiers aren't the ones making the decisions. Some group of people in comfortable offices look at a map, says "yeah, I think this option is more favourable to us than peace". Then a war happens. It is all about incentives and capabilities. One of the lessons from being a Stallman watcher for many years - people are profoundly evidence based. If there hasn't been a war in 30 years, then they assume there will not be a war next year no matter how the background is changing. The fading of WWII in the public memory could be argued as the biggest single risk that society faces. There are too many people who just won't understand how bad and how possible total war is. There is a huge background risk that the age of abundance ends and then things get dicey.
- watwut 6y ago
  On average, military tends to be more pro-war then civilians. Partly it is self-selection, partly it is values taught in training (values taught because they make you more effective soldier). > The fading of WWII in the public memory could be argued as the biggest single risk that society faces. There are too many people who just won't understand how bad and how possible total war is. People who started WWII were WWI veterans - that is who Nazi leadership were. Starting from Hitler, through Goebbels, down the rank. Not being veteran was seen as weakness. For that matter, Stalin was veteran too.
  - dctoedt 6y ago
    > On average, military tends to be more pro-war then civilians. A lot of veterans would disagree about your "on average" thought. Sure, there are belligerent vets out there, but most have a better idea about the not-so-good stuff that happens in a war.
- jakubp 6y ago
  Oh boy. In my country, memories of war (World War II in particular), tragedies, sacrifices, "heroes" etc. are continually fueled by the ruling party. They built hundreds of new monuments in the past 10 years, gave thousands of streets names related to their selection of war and post-war heroes, etc. Let me tell you, this is the main way to drive nationalistic divide, because the other half of the people in the country recognize for what it is -- evil manipulation of people's emotions for political gain (through conflict, much like Trump was doing in US).
sudhirj 6y ago
There are notes in Sapiens proposing that war (the violent kind) is no longer useful / does not produce outcomes because the global economy has shifted from one of physical resources to knowledge based. That it no longer makes sense to fight over things that aren't worth as much these days, like land, oil or gold, when you can just trade. Most of money comes from peace time commerce. This seems accurate, but time will tell.
- Scramblejams 6y ago
  when you can just trade Peacetime commerce requires free waterways. Everyone can "just trade" because the U.S. Navy has guaranteed free navigation of the seas since Bretton Woods[1]. When America withdraws from its security obligations, others will fill the vacuum, with all the uncertainty that implies. A national leader who fears being cut off from essential resources will very logically view war as an option. Edit: [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_Conference
  - vagrantJin 6y ago
    Pardon my colorful language and preaching. > the U.S. Navy has guaranteed free navigation The sea has never belonged to anyone but this statement implies that the US has ownership rights with regards to ocean usage that they now let others use at their whim. The only word I can use to describe that is hubris
    - barry-cotter 6y ago
      Before the US the sea belonged to Great Britain. Now it belongs to the US.
      - vagrantJin 6y ago
        True but no one cares about Britain. At least not after WW2. Even their colonies were like "can't even protect yourself against one country? F*ck off" They have been US' fluffy poodle ever since.
wintorez 6y ago
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
jack_riminton 6y ago
War Studies has always been a peculiarly conservative field. The War Studies department at Kings College London was the most Tory, privately educated one I’d ever scene (and one of the few feeder schools to the intelligence services outside of Oxbridge) I wonder if any studies have done on military/intelligence/political leaders who were War Studies graduates? I.e were they better at it?
- 3131s 6y ago
  There is occasionally a Peace & Reconciliation department at some small universities in the US.
HPsquared 6y ago
In other words: if you want success, study failure.
mrvenkman 6y ago
Unfortunately, "We learn from history that we do not learn from history." - Georg Hegel https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12801-we-learn-from-history-that-we-do-not-learn-from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12801-we-learn-from-history...
- Bakary 6y ago
  You can learn from history the same way you can learn how to be a mogul from Bill Gates. That is to say, not much other than general principles and that you have to find your generation's big idea on your own. Certainly nothing that will guarantee anything.
Razengan 6y ago
> “War…What is it good for?” the classic song asks. Many universities agree on the answer: “Absolutely nothing.” War culls human populations, and carries out natural selection. So it's "good" for something even if we don't want to admit it or to use the word "good" when bringing up those things.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  Natural selection isn't good. In terms of “bad things to do to humans”, it comes in just behind eugenics, and that's only because we haven't worked out how to do that without horrible horrible crimes against humanity (yet). (Yes, natural selection is legitimately bad enough that “make eugenics less genocidey and then do that instead” is actually on the table – I am so glad the problem can probably keep for another century or two, so I won't have to be responsible if we end up with some dystopia or other.) These aren't good things. I mean, war does accomplish them, but… I'd rather they weren't accomplished.
  - Razengan 6y ago
    Whether humans like it or not and whether we want to admit it or not, wars do end up with mostly the fittest (not just in terms of physical ability, but also intelligence, cunning, etc.) surviving.
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      Wars end up with those best at surviving surviving. The ones best at getting allies to protect them, the ones who keep their children alive even at the cost of thousands of others' lives, the ones who groom an ally to throw themselves on the grenade, the ones who climb the power ladder and then use that power to keep themselves safe from the conflict… War is a terrible selection pressure, if you value the light and good in this world. (Probably) less bad than the ones genocidal dictators apply, given how indiscriminate (and therefore bad at selection) it is, but it's certainly not in the “good” category.
      - 6y ago
hkt 6y ago
Maybe slightly trite of me to reply only to the title, but there's actually a rich and interesting study of peace and peace processes which is more relevant than war, which only signifies their failure.
cosmodisk 6y ago
At least in Europe,while there were appalling conflicts throughout, we already had a couple of generations in most countries that hadn't lived through any war. We never had it so good for so long. War seems such a distant, incomprehensible thing anyone can hardly grasp. We get a little bit excited and shocked when we see reports from Ukraine or Balkans back in the day, but that's it. It's all somewhere out there,not in my neighborhood. And long,pieceful periods bring out all sorts of cretins who, otherwise, would be put in place at the very beginning but instead being given platforms,funds,and other resources to spread division, misinformation,and drive some random agendas. It is also very hard to grasp that a war can start just like that, so people tend to dismiss clues too: 'Nah, they won't do it.'
torcete 6y ago
I have always found interesting the question of why countries go to war? Obviously, if you need to defend yourself you don't have too many options. But why the elite of a nation will start a war will all the consequences and the danger of loosing territory. Of course, this elite believes they will never suffer the consequences of war. That's why nuclear weapons are a terrifying deterrent. However, something I read recently was very illuminating: every time somebody decides to go to war, believes it is going to be short and quick. You don't start a war when you don't believe you have a clear advantage. We can also see that many times this thought was wrong and led to lengthy with a high cost on human lives.
- HPsquared 6y ago
  Sun Tzu: "If ten times the enemy's strength, surround them; if five times, attack them; if double, be able to divide them; if equal, engage them; if fewer, defend against them; if weaker, be able to avoid them."
- mhh__ 6y ago
  To quote Blackadder: It was too difficult not to have a war. I think any idea of the noble war between great nations died in the trenches of the first world war, although it was definitely preempted by the Army Napoleon assembled.
gverrilla 6y ago
On War - Carl von Clausewitz
foxyv 6y ago
"Causes of Civil War are also, that the Wealth of the Nation is in too few mens hands, and that no certain means are provided to keep all men from a necessity either to beg, or steal, or be Souldiers." - William Petty While this is a quote about civil war, it points out a key fact. A country with a strong middle class is much less likely to send its children to war over stupid things. Even the USA barely sent 177,000 troops to Iraq and, despite a jingoistic upswell from 9/11, it was still terribly unpopular. In my opinion, if you want peace, study poverty.
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  Richer folks also tent to study more and have say more options to expand their mind to various views, cultures and places. Far harder to manipulate/outright brainwash those into some patriotic bullshit about defending your home from those evil bad guys. Unless you force drafts with hard punishments for those avoiding of course, but such an army would have very low morale not only these days.
  - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
    I guess you aren't in the US because we're possibly at the early stages of a civil war led by a brainwashed bourgeoisie.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Both sides have their extremists. The media loves to make them seem worse than they are. That doesn't make them significant. Of course time will tell.
    - FooHentai 6y ago
      Enabled, I would say at a more fundamental level, by an erosion of the middle class. Note the election rhetoric for several iterations now has focused on promising improvements in prosperity for the common man. Nothing new of course, but the subsequent inaction and worsening of the situation by the time the next election cycle rolls around just leads to the rhetoric intensifying and a populace increasingly willing to elect whomever makes the most outlandish promises.
Laarlf 6y ago
History always repeats itself. Strong men create weak times, weak times create strong men. If you look at history, 1917 problems created 1932 solutions. What do we learn from that? Not a lot, apparently.
jariel 6y ago
The Art of War, basically the first textbook ever written (and understandably so) is still relevant today. It's almost oddly metaphysical, and relevant in zero-sum games. Also: "evidence of how you have come to understand the barriers faced by others, evidence of your academic service to advance equitable access to higher education for women, racial minorities, and individuals from other groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education, evidence of your research focusing on underserved populations or related issues of inequality, or evidence of your leadership among such groups.” It's funny how some forms of censorship are evil, but other forms are lauded. They are essentially demanding that research 'be in service to' a specific intersectional perspective, which has to be the opposite of academic freedom.
m0llusk 6y ago
This is a backward way of coming to terms with conflict. In the modern world war is increasingly an outmoded way of handling conflicts. The number of wars, casualties in wars, and so on are a tiny fraction of what they have been historically. The idea that war is the basis of peace is held strongly by those who study wars, but a thorough analysis puts and social inequality and disasters such as famines as being both the current drivers of war and in many cases avoidable. At this time trade wars and competitions like the space race have a bigger effect on society than open conflict.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Don't go too far down that road because you can never be sure when a smart (but insane) person will get enough dissatisfied people and go to war. Thus everyone needs to know enough about war so that society as a whole can deal with war if it comes. How much is left as an open question.
phoinix 6y ago
The truth of the matter is that all wars are the result of economic incentives. As a Greek i can assure you that almost all the wars of Greece to everyone else, and of Romans, were the result of gaining profit. Just like slavery stopped because of education, and educated capitalists with well trained human workers amount to thousand of times more wealth than any amount of slaves, the same holds for wars. We live in a low-war environment because invading in another country and stealing fridges and cars is just unprofitable. With the current technology, computer, genetics, and just the sheer creativity of the human mind, any country can contribute to the world trade, and start making bricks from sand using bacteria, any amount of food if they plant pine trees or palm trees which they both have an edible and highly nutritious bark, poison free too. The bark of these trees diminish the thirst so humans need a lot less water, contrary to, say producing livestock for meat. It is not economically viable any more, to create an educated and highly productive population, just to send them killed in a moments notice. I am all about occasionally suspending the peace for a war, for one philosophical reason. The only truth in the world, is death. Someone can bribe a basketball team to lose, but not an army. No one dies for money. When one male kills another in a fight, we all know the dead gave it all to stay alive. When there is too much unhealthy peace in place, people start believing in lies. That recent covid hysteria, i think it proves me right.
- yaster 6y ago
  This is a pretty reductionist view of war. You can't reasonably deny the importance of economic factors, but attributing all of war to economics is a very opinionated view and I would argue pretty specific to a particular academic school of thought. I'm reminded of Stringer Bell in "The Wire," trying to use his business school lessons to evaluate every part of the drug trade. Avon stops him mid-sentence and says, "String, this ain't about your business class. This ain't that part of it. It's that other thing." Sometimes that's true of war, too.
hyko 6y ago
“War can also speed up advances in science and technology that have benefits in peacetime.” Well that escalated from extolling the benefits of studying war to extolling the benefits of waging them rather quickly. “Although anthropologists and archeologists still wonder why human beings have for so long organized themselves to fight...” Do they? Surely that bit is just an obvious extension of conflict in evolution, i.e. it’s the thinking meat’s equivalent to organisms taking nutrients away from each other instead of from the sun. Not sure there’s really any evidence that teaching military history is going to somehow diffuse future conflicts to be honest. The most likely candidates for our long peace have little to do with us becoming students of military history.
RobRivera 6y ago
"si vis pacem, para bellum"
rodaveli 6y ago
Brings to mind The Judge's position on war from McCarthy's Blood Meridian: "It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."

208 points by ascertain 6y ago

I think the author's point could be broadened to just say, if you want peace, study the historical reasons for conflicts and how to avoid them. Or even more broadly, if you want peace, study history and make it an important part of your decision making process.

chmod600 6y ago
> if you want peace, study the historical reasons for conflicts and how to avoid them I've always heard: if you want peace, prepare for war
- skinkestek 6y ago
  My father would drill that into me as a kid. That and the fact that war is not like in books or movies: it is ugly and best avoided.
  - Uberphallus 6y ago
    Also interesting how that's the approach of Krav Maga as martial art. The 1st rule is, run if you can. The 2nd rule is, finish the fight ASAP and run. The rest derives from those two rules.
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      With such a motto, you'd expect them to practice sprinting a lot, but curiously, I've never seen that happen!
      - Uberphallus 6y ago
        Well, you can see the first rule as "try not to use what you learn". Can't speak for all instructors, but mine went directly to technique for those who ran/cycled to the gym and stretched before the class, letting the rest warm up in the meantime... running. Also most demonstrations you can see on the Internet always end with running and most comments make fun of that, so it's certainly included in the practice.
        im3w1l 6y ago
        I stand corrected
    - drummojg 6y ago
      I was taught the same through Shotokan Karate. The credo spoken at every training (called "Dojo Kun") starts with "Seek perfection of character" and ends with "Refrain from violent behavior."
- tomalpha 6y ago
  From the classic Latin “Si vis pacem para bellum” [0] I’d always interpreted this to imply that deterrence was good - appear strong to prevent others picking a fight with you, rather than studying. I always wondered if the 9mm Parabellum cartridge was named after the saying too, but no such enlightenment is available on the Wikipedia page at least [1] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9×19mm_Parabellum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9×19mm_Parabellum
  - heja2009 6y ago
    Yes, it is derived from the saying. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabellumpistole https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabellumpistole
  - cosmodisk 6y ago
    While it's true even today,I think at the time it was heavily related to the fact that most countries usually had to raise money and hire majority of soldiers when facing/declaring war rather then keeping them on payroll permanently. So if an enemy is banging at the gate, it's a bit too late to start sending message around 'we are hiring'.
- stareatgoats 6y ago
  > I've always heard: if you want peace, prepare for war Yes, this is conventional wisdom. But it's time to give it up and try something new before someone accidentally annihilates the world as we know it. Studying history is not a bad start.

chmod600 6y ago

> However, part of the shift away from war studies owes to the quest for “social justice” ... > history overall is worryingly in decline as an academic subject There might be a connection there. People who want to think about social justice will go to the political science department. Nothing wrong with that. But people who are passionate about history want professors who are also passionate about history. History and social justice can go together, of course, but the passion really goes behind one or the other.

watwut 6y ago
I think that bigger effect is that economy is not that great, college expensive and students are choosing major they perceive as practical.
QuesnayJr 6y ago
The people who work on "social history", which is the social justice-y branch of history, are passionate about history. Just different history. I'm not uncritical of social history (I think they're not good at economic history), but I don't think you can say that they don't care about history. No one who lacks passion for history is going to spend years reading papers in dusty archives.

chmod600 6y ago

I have a theory that offensive weaponry advancements produce peace, while defensive advancements produce war. If you're in a castle, it's easier to send armies around, knowing that you'll be safe. But if there are nukes and ICBMs, just stick with the status quo. Any validity to this theory?

mettamage 6y ago
Armchair general here, I've never been in any war. The biggest highlight of my general career was tower defence rushing unsuspecting human players in Warcraft 3 with orcs. With that said: I think that whenever a human or organization has a stable situation with their current affairs, they can afford to take more risk. Attacking weapons don't necessarily make a situation stable, they simply give an edge when you have them. However, when you're the only one that has them and are stable enough, then you might be able to annihilate entire civilizations (e.g. the Aztecs versus a few hundred Spanish people). But when more people have them, then they can point them at you, making your own situation more unstable if you provoke those people.
- vagrantJin 6y ago
  But this assumes the enemy is not knowledgable/simple, which is no longer the case.
watwut 6y ago
All wanna be conquerors build and used offensive weaponry and produced war. Including Hitler. Plus practically, it is more off weaponry in general used for both offensive and defensive purposes based on strategic goals. > If you're in a castle, it's easier to send armies around, knowing that you'll be safe. I do not think that is how it worked historically.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> Any validity to this theory? If by defensive you mean isolationist, both WW1 and WW2 were started because of US isolationism, and ended when the US became offensive and occupied Europe and Japan. (In fact, both German and Japanese officials who previously travelled to the US thought of us as uncultured and decadent.) Post-WW2 with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, rational nuclear powers don't attack each other. However, the CCP and Islam are ideologies that believe they can win against the West. Xi is doubling their nuclear weapon count from 200 to 400, and nuclear technology is proliferating throughout the Islamic world. Both have deep-rooted insecurities over being behind the West, but at the same time show remarkable aggression. That's a very volatile combination, and both are ok with huge "acceptable losses." Mao started a cold war against the US in the 1950s, which the US never took seriously until now, "Hide our strength, bide our time." And Xi is using Mao's playbook. Instead of large kinetic wars, the CCP has adopted numerous alternative strategies: - BRI debt traps to build ports, or buying existing ports - Thousand Talents program - academic donations to buy influence - cataloging and spying on Western officials from city to federal levels (ie. FengFeng) - "corona vaccine" diplomacy - world's largest naval fleet - diverting Himalayan headland water from India, Pakistan and other countries in the region to China.

watwut 6y ago

"If You Want Peace, Study War" the groups I heard about that adopted that or similar motto were all aggressive and originators of the violence.

reshie 6y ago
The Genius of the Crowd.
Fellshard 6y ago
Can you elaborate which such groups?
- rriepe 6y ago
  They only say the name of the group when they have a comfortable majority.
- watwut 6y ago
  A mafia/crime organization had it tattooed. They were violent. Also, I read about military group having that logo, it was written about due to crossing the lines.

jdxcode 6y ago

Reminds me of my favorite quote from Mad Men: > Roger: As my mother used to say, your options were dishonor or war. You chose dishonor, you might still get war. > Don: That was Churchill.

watwut 6y ago

Interesting article. > Do we ever want another president asking, as Donald Trump did during a visit to the Pearl Harbor memorial: “What’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Yeah, but Donald Trump is old and studied before decline of military history. And I dont think it was failure of his school, someone who dont care and insists on not caring, wont remember.

Tomte 6y ago

If you're near the Lüneburg Heath, take a trip to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Tank_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Tank_Museum Slightly related, because they have "He who wants peace shall speak of war" at their entrance: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Benjamin-Zitat_052016.jpg/1920px-Benjamin-Zitat_052016.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Be...

roenxi 6y ago

The scary thing for me about wars is that the soldiers aren't the ones making the decisions. Some group of people in comfortable offices look at a map, says "yeah, I think this option is more favourable to us than peace". Then a war happens. It is all about incentives and capabilities. One of the lessons from being a Stallman watcher for many years - people are profoundly evidence based. If there hasn't been a war in 30 years, then they assume there will not be a war next year no matter how the background is changing. The fading of WWII in the public memory could be argued as the biggest single risk that society faces. There are too many people who just won't understand how bad and how possible total war is. There is a huge background risk that the age of abundance ends and then things get dicey.

watwut 6y ago
On average, military tends to be more pro-war then civilians. Partly it is self-selection, partly it is values taught in training (values taught because they make you more effective soldier). > The fading of WWII in the public memory could be argued as the biggest single risk that society faces. There are too many people who just won't understand how bad and how possible total war is. People who started WWII were WWI veterans - that is who Nazi leadership were. Starting from Hitler, through Goebbels, down the rank. Not being veteran was seen as weakness. For that matter, Stalin was veteran too.
- dctoedt 6y ago
  > On average, military tends to be more pro-war then civilians. A lot of veterans would disagree about your "on average" thought. Sure, there are belligerent vets out there, but most have a better idea about the not-so-good stuff that happens in a war.
jakubp 6y ago
Oh boy. In my country, memories of war (World War II in particular), tragedies, sacrifices, "heroes" etc. are continually fueled by the ruling party. They built hundreds of new monuments in the past 10 years, gave thousands of streets names related to their selection of war and post-war heroes, etc. Let me tell you, this is the main way to drive nationalistic divide, because the other half of the people in the country recognize for what it is -- evil manipulation of people's emotions for political gain (through conflict, much like Trump was doing in US).

sudhirj 6y ago

There are notes in Sapiens proposing that war (the violent kind) is no longer useful / does not produce outcomes because the global economy has shifted from one of physical resources to knowledge based. That it no longer makes sense to fight over things that aren't worth as much these days, like land, oil or gold, when you can just trade. Most of money comes from peace time commerce. This seems accurate, but time will tell.

Scramblejams 6y ago
when you can just trade Peacetime commerce requires free waterways. Everyone can "just trade" because the U.S. Navy has guaranteed free navigation of the seas since Bretton Woods[1]. When America withdraws from its security obligations, others will fill the vacuum, with all the uncertainty that implies. A national leader who fears being cut off from essential resources will very logically view war as an option. Edit: [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_Conference
- vagrantJin 6y ago
  Pardon my colorful language and preaching. > the U.S. Navy has guaranteed free navigation The sea has never belonged to anyone but this statement implies that the US has ownership rights with regards to ocean usage that they now let others use at their whim. The only word I can use to describe that is hubris
  - barry-cotter 6y ago
    Before the US the sea belonged to Great Britain. Now it belongs to the US.
    - vagrantJin 6y ago
      True but no one cares about Britain. At least not after WW2. Even their colonies were like "can't even protect yourself against one country? F*ck off" They have been US' fluffy poodle ever since.

wintorez 6y ago

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

jack_riminton 6y ago

War Studies has always been a peculiarly conservative field. The War Studies department at Kings College London was the most Tory, privately educated one I’d ever scene (and one of the few feeder schools to the intelligence services outside of Oxbridge) I wonder if any studies have done on military/intelligence/political leaders who were War Studies graduates? I.e were they better at it?

3131s 6y ago
There is occasionally a Peace & Reconciliation department at some small universities in the US.

HPsquared 6y ago

In other words: if you want success, study failure.

mrvenkman 6y ago

Unfortunately, "We learn from history that we do not learn from history." - Georg Hegel https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12801-we-learn-from-history-that-we-do-not-learn-from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12801-we-learn-from-history...

Bakary 6y ago
You can learn from history the same way you can learn how to be a mogul from Bill Gates. That is to say, not much other than general principles and that you have to find your generation's big idea on your own. Certainly nothing that will guarantee anything.

Razengan 6y ago

> “War…What is it good for?” the classic song asks. Many universities agree on the answer: “Absolutely nothing.” War culls human populations, and carries out natural selection. So it's "good" for something even if we don't want to admit it or to use the word "good" when bringing up those things.

wizzwizz4 6y ago
Natural selection isn't good. In terms of “bad things to do to humans”, it comes in just behind eugenics, and that's only because we haven't worked out how to do that without horrible horrible crimes against humanity (yet). (Yes, natural selection is legitimately bad enough that “make eugenics less genocidey and then do that instead” is actually on the table – I am so glad the problem can probably keep for another century or two, so I won't have to be responsible if we end up with some dystopia or other.) These aren't good things. I mean, war does accomplish them, but… I'd rather they weren't accomplished.
- Razengan 6y ago
  Whether humans like it or not and whether we want to admit it or not, wars do end up with mostly the fittest (not just in terms of physical ability, but also intelligence, cunning, etc.) surviving.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    Wars end up with those best at surviving surviving. The ones best at getting allies to protect them, the ones who keep their children alive even at the cost of thousands of others' lives, the ones who groom an ally to throw themselves on the grenade, the ones who climb the power ladder and then use that power to keep themselves safe from the conflict… War is a terrible selection pressure, if you value the light and good in this world. (Probably) less bad than the ones genocidal dictators apply, given how indiscriminate (and therefore bad at selection) it is, but it's certainly not in the “good” category.
    - 6y ago

hkt 6y ago

Maybe slightly trite of me to reply only to the title, but there's actually a rich and interesting study of peace and peace processes which is more relevant than war, which only signifies their failure.

cosmodisk 6y ago

At least in Europe,while there were appalling conflicts throughout, we already had a couple of generations in most countries that hadn't lived through any war. We never had it so good for so long. War seems such a distant, incomprehensible thing anyone can hardly grasp. We get a little bit excited and shocked when we see reports from Ukraine or Balkans back in the day, but that's it. It's all somewhere out there,not in my neighborhood. And long,pieceful periods bring out all sorts of cretins who, otherwise, would be put in place at the very beginning but instead being given platforms,funds,and other resources to spread division, misinformation,and drive some random agendas. It is also very hard to grasp that a war can start just like that, so people tend to dismiss clues too: 'Nah, they won't do it.'

torcete 6y ago

I have always found interesting the question of why countries go to war? Obviously, if you need to defend yourself you don't have too many options. But why the elite of a nation will start a war will all the consequences and the danger of loosing territory. Of course, this elite believes they will never suffer the consequences of war. That's why nuclear weapons are a terrifying deterrent. However, something I read recently was very illuminating: every time somebody decides to go to war, believes it is going to be short and quick. You don't start a war when you don't believe you have a clear advantage. We can also see that many times this thought was wrong and led to lengthy with a high cost on human lives.

HPsquared 6y ago
Sun Tzu: "If ten times the enemy's strength, surround them; if five times, attack them; if double, be able to divide them; if equal, engage them; if fewer, defend against them; if weaker, be able to avoid them."
mhh__ 6y ago
To quote Blackadder: It was too difficult not to have a war. I think any idea of the noble war between great nations died in the trenches of the first world war, although it was definitely preempted by the Army Napoleon assembled.

gverrilla 6y ago

On War - Carl von Clausewitz

foxyv 6y ago

"Causes of Civil War are also, that the Wealth of the Nation is in too few mens hands, and that no certain means are provided to keep all men from a necessity either to beg, or steal, or be Souldiers." - William Petty While this is a quote about civil war, it points out a key fact. A country with a strong middle class is much less likely to send its children to war over stupid things. Even the USA barely sent 177,000 troops to Iraq and, despite a jingoistic upswell from 9/11, it was still terribly unpopular. In my opinion, if you want peace, study poverty.

saiya-jin 6y ago
Richer folks also tent to study more and have say more options to expand their mind to various views, cultures and places. Far harder to manipulate/outright brainwash those into some patriotic bullshit about defending your home from those evil bad guys. Unless you force drafts with hard punishments for those avoiding of course, but such an army would have very low morale not only these days.
- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
  I guess you aren't in the US because we're possibly at the early stages of a civil war led by a brainwashed bourgeoisie.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Both sides have their extremists. The media loves to make them seem worse than they are. That doesn't make them significant. Of course time will tell.
  - FooHentai 6y ago
    Enabled, I would say at a more fundamental level, by an erosion of the middle class. Note the election rhetoric for several iterations now has focused on promising improvements in prosperity for the common man. Nothing new of course, but the subsequent inaction and worsening of the situation by the time the next election cycle rolls around just leads to the rhetoric intensifying and a populace increasingly willing to elect whomever makes the most outlandish promises.

Laarlf 6y ago

History always repeats itself. Strong men create weak times, weak times create strong men. If you look at history, 1917 problems created 1932 solutions. What do we learn from that? Not a lot, apparently.

jariel 6y ago

The Art of War, basically the first textbook ever written (and understandably so) is still relevant today. It's almost oddly metaphysical, and relevant in zero-sum games. Also: "evidence of how you have come to understand the barriers faced by others, evidence of your academic service to advance equitable access to higher education for women, racial minorities, and individuals from other groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education, evidence of your research focusing on underserved populations or related issues of inequality, or evidence of your leadership among such groups.” It's funny how some forms of censorship are evil, but other forms are lauded. They are essentially demanding that research 'be in service to' a specific intersectional perspective, which has to be the opposite of academic freedom.

m0llusk 6y ago

This is a backward way of coming to terms with conflict. In the modern world war is increasingly an outmoded way of handling conflicts. The number of wars, casualties in wars, and so on are a tiny fraction of what they have been historically. The idea that war is the basis of peace is held strongly by those who study wars, but a thorough analysis puts and social inequality and disasters such as famines as being both the current drivers of war and in many cases avoidable. At this time trade wars and competitions like the space race have a bigger effect on society than open conflict.

bluGill 6y ago
Don't go too far down that road because you can never be sure when a smart (but insane) person will get enough dissatisfied people and go to war. Thus everyone needs to know enough about war so that society as a whole can deal with war if it comes. How much is left as an open question.

phoinix 6y ago

The truth of the matter is that all wars are the result of economic incentives. As a Greek i can assure you that almost all the wars of Greece to everyone else, and of Romans, were the result of gaining profit. Just like slavery stopped because of education, and educated capitalists with well trained human workers amount to thousand of times more wealth than any amount of slaves, the same holds for wars. We live in a low-war environment because invading in another country and stealing fridges and cars is just unprofitable. With the current technology, computer, genetics, and just the sheer creativity of the human mind, any country can contribute to the world trade, and start making bricks from sand using bacteria, any amount of food if they plant pine trees or palm trees which they both have an edible and highly nutritious bark, poison free too. The bark of these trees diminish the thirst so humans need a lot less water, contrary to, say producing livestock for meat. It is not economically viable any more, to create an educated and highly productive population, just to send them killed in a moments notice. I am all about occasionally suspending the peace for a war, for one philosophical reason. The only truth in the world, is death. Someone can bribe a basketball team to lose, but not an army. No one dies for money. When one male kills another in a fight, we all know the dead gave it all to stay alive. When there is too much unhealthy peace in place, people start believing in lies. That recent covid hysteria, i think it proves me right.

yaster 6y ago
This is a pretty reductionist view of war. You can't reasonably deny the importance of economic factors, but attributing all of war to economics is a very opinionated view and I would argue pretty specific to a particular academic school of thought. I'm reminded of Stringer Bell in "The Wire," trying to use his business school lessons to evaluate every part of the drug trade. Avon stops him mid-sentence and says, "String, this ain't about your business class. This ain't that part of it. It's that other thing." Sometimes that's true of war, too.

hyko 6y ago

“War can also speed up advances in science and technology that have benefits in peacetime.” Well that escalated from extolling the benefits of studying war to extolling the benefits of waging them rather quickly. “Although anthropologists and archeologists still wonder why human beings have for so long organized themselves to fight...” Do they? Surely that bit is just an obvious extension of conflict in evolution, i.e. it’s the thinking meat’s equivalent to organisms taking nutrients away from each other instead of from the sun. Not sure there’s really any evidence that teaching military history is going to somehow diffuse future conflicts to be honest. The most likely candidates for our long peace have little to do with us becoming students of military history.

RobRivera 6y ago

"si vis pacem, para bellum"

rodaveli 6y ago

Brings to mind The Judge's position on war from McCarthy's Blood Meridian: "It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."