As the war in Ukraine intensifies, rather than prepare for future wars, we should talk about ending war once and for all
I recently asked my first-year humanities classes: Will war ever end? I specified that I had in mind the end of all wars—like the one currently ravaging Ukraine—and even the threat of war between nations. I primed my students by assigning “Warfare Is Only an Invention—Not a Biological Necessity,” by anthropologist Margaret Mead, and “A History of Violence,” by psychologist Steven Pinker.
My students’ reactions don’t surprise me. I started asking if war will ever end almost 20 years ago, during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Since then I’ve polled thousands of people of all ages and political persuasions in the U.S. and elsewhere. About nine out of 10 people say war is inevitable. This fatalism is wrong in two ways. First, it is wrong empirically. Research confirms Mead’s claim that war, far from having deep evolutionary roots, is a relatively recent cultural invention. And as Pinker has pointed out, casualties from interstate wars and even civil conflicts have declined sharply since World War II, in spite of recent deadly clashes in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere.
The late military historian John Keegan cast doubt on the peace-through-strength thesis. In his 1993 magnum opus A History of Warfare, Keegan argued that war stems primarily neither from “human nature” nor competition for resources—another popular theory—but from the “institution of war itself.” Preparing for war makes it more rather than less likely, according to Keegan’s analysis.
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