Causes Of War

[petrushkagoogol]

What is the ranking of factors contributing to war?

- geographical proximity

- religious differences

- economic inequalities

- political differences

- military build up

- racial differences

- territorial disputes

[engcat]

Id say economic desires.

 

If you are farmer, with 10 acres of land, supporting a family of 10, with 5 male kids, when they are ready to have family that farm will not be big enough. You need to go steal someone's land, hence war.

[CraigD]

What is the ranking of factors contributing to war?

Before addressing a questions about its causes, I think we must define “war”.

Which of these satisfy your intuitive definition of “war”?

• A disagreement between two or more individuals over how to spend jointly held money resulting in threats but not physical violence
• A physical attack by one individual upon another motivated by a perceived personal insult

  An individual or small gang killing one or more business competitors to improve the profitability of their business

• Two or more sovereign states increasing their stock of soldiers and weapons to discourage the other from attacking them, such as during the The 1947-1991 “cold war”
• World War II
• The 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan

My intuitive definition of war is it is between 2 or more states with similar military capabilities. Thus, from this list, I consider only WW II to have been a war.

 

- geographical proximity

- religious differences

- economic inequalities

- political differences

- military build up

- racial differences

- territorial disputes

I think the weight of these and other factors are very different for different wars, so I don’t think you can rank them for war in general, only for specific wars.

 

If you are farmer, with 10 acres of land, supporting a family of 10, with 5 male kids, when they are ready to have family that farm will not be big enough. You need to go steal someone's land, hence war.

While this make sense, can you find historic examples of it actually happening? I doubt that it does more than rarely, and then on such a small scale as not to meet my intuitive definition of war.

 

I think it’s important to consider that people who are both farmers and owners of land are historically unusual. For most of history ancient, modern, and current, landowners, who have sometimes also been political rulers, have employed (or in many time and places, owned), rather than been farm workers, so decisions about claiming territory – “stealing someone’s land”, have been made by those few, rather than by the larger numbers of their employees or serfs.

 

This said, I think you’re on to something with this idea, engcat. The twin factors or limited resource and increasing population are, I think, major, if not the main, driver of conflict, or war by many definitions, armed conflict and more metaphorical.

 

Civilization has, amazingly to me, long provided an answer to the question “we don’t have enough – how do we get it?” that doesn’t involve stealing from our neighbors, even in the face of unabated population growth. I’m struck, however, with the conviction that eventually, something has to give – humankind must gain greatly increased resources, its population or its growth must greatly decrease, or a combination of the two.

[KennHinds]

CraigD I love your response although in my opinion, almost any war/conflict can be broken down to religious factors

[HydrogenBond]

CraigD I love your response although in my opinion, almost any war/conflict can be broken down to religious factors

 

 

The Revolutionary war of 1776 was due to philosophical ideals  grounded in religion; bill of rights. The two world wars did not fit the religion template. World War 1 was due to an assassination by a dark military group; political.  While WW22 was due to the Marco Polo Bridge incident between China and Japan. The Korean war was due to the invasion by the Communists into Korea, which ended up splitting the country. The Viet Nam war was similar. The 1st Iraqi was due to Iraq invading Kuwait for economic reason; sea ports. The terrorist based wars of the current time are due to religion, but is small change compared to secular wars. 

[AnssiH]

You know, when people cite the reasons for a war, they usually just quote the propaganda of their own side. Because most people are not educated enough to understand the real reasons why governments decide to go to war. There is always (and I mean always) a conflict of interest to some degree between the government, and the people whom it governs. Governments must uphold their own power in order to exist, and that requires a hierarchy within the society. There is no such thing as a flat-hierarchy democracy governed by a government, by definition.

So if we want to generalize reasons for wars, couple of things to consider first.

1. No normal person ever wants to threathen their lives to go and invade other countries, just to steal someone esles property. The real reasons always have something to do with the governemnt of a country perceiving some threat to their own power or increase of power. And more often than not I have found those reasons are perceived from a rather narcissistic or politically radical perspective.

2. The normal people are willing to go to war only when they perceive a threat to their own normal way of life. Both populations involved in the conflict must perceive such threat; at least one side (but usually both) must first be lied to, and both sides must believe it is only the other party is being lied to by the propaganda of their own government. Always, and every time, every single war, the mobilization of the population is based on lies, and everyone studying the history of any war can see this clearly after the fact. The more ignorant the population, the easier it is to make them believe lies; that is why the poorest portion of the population is always the easiest to convince to fight for the rights of the richest elite.

3. Ruthless narcissistic people exist, and that trait helps them to get further in politics, so we should only expect the leaders of the countries tend to have narcissistic or psychopathic qualities to themselves to some degree. If they did not, I don't believe it would be even possible to cope with the kind of pressure that you get exposed to at highest levels of a government.

4. Politics of fear tends to work; if you make people believe there is a threat and you can protect the people from that threat, you tend to get a lot of support. That is why people in power tend to have somewhat radical views. Those who don't, are perceived as "weak" by ignorant masses. Also consider that John F Kennedy was perceived as weak against "the communistic threat" before he was assassinated, and Vietnam War likely would not have happened, or would have been more diplomatic operation, had he not been murdered. I.e. if you are not somewhat radical in your views, it is far too easy to dismiss you as "weak".

As per above, studying the real reasons for wars tends to reveal rather naive worldviews and unvoiced reasonings. It always reminds me of children arguing over at the sandbox, except the children are the heads of the governments, operating with their idiotic beliefs, and perhaps not fully appreciating the lives of ordinary people as much as their own narcissistic powertrips.

As of religions, I am very anti-theistic, but I would say religions are usually not so much the root cause, but rather just a very common vehicle for lying to the population and convincing them to act. It makes people feel self-righteous over killing other people, because it makes people believe there is "real evil" out there, and it makes them believe that the act of killing is sometimes a good deed. If you can make a person believe that God itself is on their side, why would they not kill? If killing is mandated by the highest order of the universe, then you pretty much have to do it even against your own will.

Anyway, there are many wonderful documentaries exploring the reasons behind killings, and the psychology of governments, and ordinary people, that gives rise to these mechanisms. For the psychology of ordinary people. see for instance "The act of killing";
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2375605/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

For the psychology of governments, and for some glimmer of hope, I whole heartedly recommend "The fog of war: Eleven Lessons from the life of Robert S. McNamara";
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317910/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1a

It plays out like a confession of someone who wised up after all the insanity. As he comments in the film, the entire Vietnam War was based on a misunderstanding. There was no communistic threat from "their side", just like there was no imperialistic threat from "our side". These perceptions were just played out by the world views of the involved governments not really communicating or understanding each others. It's just that sad, like arguing children at the sand-box.

 

It gives me hope that someone so high up in the government like McNamara can come to understand the mechanisms that actually lead to war, even if he understood them only after contributing to those mechanisms himself. On the other hand this documentary is as relevant today as it would have been in the time of 2nd WW. We are seeing our own governments contributing to exactly the same mistakes today, and those who don't understand history are only doomed to repeat it.

 

Sleep tight,
-Anssi

[HydrogenBond]

War appears to be a human extrapolation of two basic animal emotions/instincts. The two key emotions/instincts appear to be connected to desire and fear. Alexander the Great was driven by desire for glory and riches. He and his army had no fear. Whereas, countries who are paranoid and who defensively prepare for war, are driven by fear. Such countries may decide to strike first, to help them appease their fear. The cold war years was driven by deep fear on both sides, due to nuclear weapons. This was compounded by the prospect each would strike first. The cold war was not about desire, since there would be little left, after an all out nuclear war. 

 

In the animal world, desire is connected to mating. With higher animals the males gather and compete for dominance, with the spoils of the mating games/wars, the object of desires; females. The wars of ancient times, would often end in the killing of the men and the rape of the females, on the losing side; breeding. The goal for the king was also his desire for treasures, land, slaves. 

 

Animal fear allows the mother animal to valiantly defend her young. She is not afraid for her own life, but she is very afraid for the life of her offsprings and others in her care. Fear based war can go beyond personal fear, all the way for family and country. There are often defensive wars, based on a perceived threat to oneself and country. This may involve expanding the perimeter of your country to act as a firewall; fear invasion. The Soviet Union of the Cold War, seemed to use this strategy, leading to invasion of the neighboring counties for a firewall.

 

The Muslim Extremist like ISIS appear to be driven by desire. This appeals to young men. The promise of the 62 virgins; one becomes the big dog in heaven, suggests desire. They are not driven by fear, because they are not trying to create a stronger defensible position for security. But they are trying to instill the fear in the foreign women and children, so their competition at the mating war/games is easier. But the opposing team men, who begin to feel the fear of the mother, will gather to fight for her family and country; take the fight to them for a firewall.  

Edited July 27, 2016 by HydrogenBond