Why Wars?

 On April 21, 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives finally passed Appropriations for Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific.  Certainly, Americans have been focused on those three places, and while we are not at war, we are assisting in ways we believe to be right.  Even those who disagree cannot fail to recognize the brutal attack by Hamas into Israeli territory to slaughter, rape, and take hostage innocents, even if they disapprove of the Israeli response that in turn has resulted in the deaths of innocents.  Nor can we ignore that Putin's assault on another country is brutally unjustified.  And, while China has not started a war, they have provoked tensions. Has not the world experienced enough wars to realize the savagery, the killing of innocents, the suffering of both sides?

New Hampshire Memorial from WW I

 

Looking to history, we come across attorney and political ethicist Mahatma Gandhi, who described the 7 Blunders of the World that Lead to Violence.  They are:  Wealth without Work, Pleasure without Conscience, Knowledge without Character, Commerce without Morality, Science without Humanity, Worship without Sacrifice, and Politics without Principle.  Those 7 suggestions are worth reflection, because they offer a means for hope.  Most of us agree that the Seven reminders are things to which many aspire.

A search online suggests that wars are fought primarily for economic, religious, and political reasons.  Other reasons are the desire for revenge or retaliatory punishment.  There are those, however, who believe we have certain innate and psychological reasons for starting wars.  For whatever reasons, history tells us there has been no year without armed conflict for centuries.

It is worth reminding that wars are not just fought with other nations.  As proof, today there are internal conflicts within Sudan, Myanmar, and Ethiopia.  Other forms of War are Haiti's Gang Violence and Mexico's struggles with Drug Cartels.   

To counter that bad news, there are actually some countries that have never been at war, among them Iceland and Greenland.  

Geneva Academy, established in 2007 by the Faculty of Law at the University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute of International & Development Studies monitors more than 110 armed conflicts, some of which make headlines and others go ignored.  While there are new conflicts occurring, others have lasted more than 50 years. 

My research led me to a previously unknown but logical source, The Modern War Institute at West Point.  The article by Christopher Blattman, titled "The Five Reasons Wars Happen" begins with the primus that "fighting--at all levels from irregular warfare to large-scale combat operations--is ruinous and so nations do their best to avoid open conflict."  It is easy to forget the averted wars, since authors and reporters are far less likely to write about wars that did not happen than those that were not averted.  Blattman quoted Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung in 1938, when he said, "Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed."

What is needed to avert war is discussion and concession, with leadership on both sides engaging in a strategizing much like players of poker or chess.  As in those games, war happens when something interrupts the normal incentives for compromise, with the result being bargaining through bloodshed.

Things go wrong when leaders are unaccountable, unchecked and unaccountable to their people, pursuing their own agendas.  Or, when leaders are ideological, blinded by Beliefs, Glory, or some nationalist vision.  Being biased by isolation and insulation from truth can also blind leadership.  Uncertainty, about all kinds of things needed for appropriate judgement, can also lead to war.  The caution resulting from unreliable positions in power, caused by transitions in leadership or unreliable advice can also cause things to go wrong during negotiations.

Peace is more likely when the power of autocrats has been checked, when uncertainty and  misconceptions have been avoided through dialogue, and when written constitutions and bodies of law make shifts in power more stable.  With these tools, incentives to fight rather than compromise can be  successful in creating a safer world.    

While we know that history tells us that there has never been a year without conflict for centuries, there are times when the world has seemed relatively calm.  It is encouraging that West Point teaches ways to avoid war, despite the need to be ready if war comes.  Sadly, we are living in troubled times.  It is important to remember that it is not entirely or even primarily up to our military to make America safe.  It is up to us to be informed, to send the right people to our state and national capitals, to remember what the Founding Fathers gave to us that is so special--a nation like no other.  

When I happened upon the "7 Blunders that lead to Violence," it led me to the research for this blog.  I was feeling discouraged, not just by the wars but also by the anger and hatefulness it was causing in our own country.  Instead of choosing between hatefulness and hopelessness, perhaps we should give some attention to the Blunders Gandhi identified.  Sometimes even the little things that we do in our own lives can make a difference.  It seems worth considering.  

 

T  

Politics Hardly Seem to Change

It is disappointing how unaware most of us are of the past, and although I consider myself a history buff, Isaac's Journal led me to more discoveries about the history of my own community, state, and nation than I can count. One of the intriguing discoveries involves the political history of our country in the later quarter of the 1800s, for there are so many similarities to today. As examples: there was a grassroots movement challenging the two established parties, and willing to work within one of the major parties to defeat the other; there were women who became political celebrities, known for their ability to generate great enthusiasm for candidates and issues through their impassioned speeches; and, there was popular opposition among the laboring classes against the power and greed of Wall Street, corporations, and the wealthy.

Isaac's personal experiences as a homesteader on the Kansas prairie first made me want to tell his story, but as I read further in his journal, I realized he had experienced and described a significant period in history that is nearly forgotten. As he struggled to create a successful and beautiful farm, coped with falling prices and rising interest, and raised crops that now barely covered taxes and interest on his loans, he personified the economic crisis of other farmers and laborers in America at that time. When he joined the Farmers' Alliance, he was only one of many farmers, factory workers, and other laborers who saw themselves as the producers of wealth that was going into the pockets of bankers, speculators, monopolists, and corporate and Wall Street tycoons while many of the working classes were literally starving. The wealth of the nation was being disproportionately distributed, and technology was displacing workers in ways they struggled to combat, giving rise to public demonstrations and political activity. When newspapers owned or influenced by the wealthy published biased "news," laborers established newspapers of their own. Does any of this sound familiar to what we see on television, the newspapers, and on the internet today? I certainly thought so.

These two political cartoons appeared in Isaac's local newspaper, the County Capital in the 1890s, and both address issues still being argued in media today. Carl Sagan believed, "You have to know the past to understand the present." I agree with Sagan. It is essential that history is taught in our schools, and remembered and referenced accurately by adults, if we are to progress. Yet, George Bernard Shaw reminded us: "If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience." Forgotten history, or history intentionally distorted, cannot pass the wisdom learned by one generation to generations in the future. Instead, we are condemned to repeat the inevitable struggles without the benefits of knowing history's lessons.

I hope that by telling Isaac's story, I can bring alive the times in which he lived, and in that way offer a context for history's lessons that will make them relevant today. As David McCullough has said, "No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read."

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