By Mauricio Diagama Durán
Everything seems to indicate that important leaders of today’s world think that by resorting to systematic violence, the use of excessive force and the violation of agreements in national or international relations, or by using weapons without major political, ethical and human considerations, they can obtain immediate results and thus achieve greater political gains.
It was also stated that this is generating a great global problem, because what is being said to humanity is that what is important are the objectives and not the means, that the results go beyond the instruments, that particular interests are above the collective ones and that the other actors do not matter as long as the goals of those who have or seek to have power are achieved. In this scenario, attacking, attacking, killing, lying, cheating, failing to comply or stealing is perfectly valid.
Only this vision carries another implicit message, which is that democratic institutions and/or international organizations are only tools of the established power and not the scenarios to resolve the differences that arise among its members, so that war is the best instrument to exercise it or to acquire it.
Therefore, we are seeing the rebirth of large-scale warfare, but now using thousands of technological elements developed for different purposes, which makes it more lethal and dangerous.
In addition, and as if the above were not enough, this type of thinking is becoming dominant in many powerful countries, which have arsenals, facilities and nuclear bombs accumulated or to be developed. Therefore, the world, once again, begins to think that a war of global dimensions or effects is possible, which in this context implies a very high risk for millions of human lives. And in that case, the whole of humanity, as a whole, is in danger.
For all these reasons and many more, it is necessary to reconsider the study of war, but this time based on new research that seeks to give new meanings to this set of social facts, associated with the risks, threats and dangers that threaten the existence, integrity and security of human beings, countries and life itself on earth.
Studies based on the idea of asking again about its nature and foundations, before continuing to talk about objectives, tactics, strategies, capabilities, movements, enemies or resources, almost always referring to precise and specific conflicts. In other words, it would be a question, for example, of asking: What is war, what defines it, why does it exist, what is its raison d’être, what distinguishes it from politics, what types of war are there, and what makes some people resort to it? And what makes some people resort to it so easily? And many more questions.
In these circumstances, this text seeks to return to these same questions, but without covering them all, much less including all the analysts of the social and human sciences, or all the military and political thinkers and strategists, who have raised them.
In fact, it only seeks to recall some of the ideas already put forward by some of them and which could lead to a revision of the questions about their nature.
In passing, it seeks to stimulate the current debate that should be held on the essence of war in today’s world and on the formulas that make possible a change towards a more civilized position that allows avoiding the use of weapons in the solution of conflicts, when this is possible. A debate that should lead to questioning its conceptual bases from its primary sources, and that now encompasses the hundreds of thinkers who have dealt with it, starting with the classics, passing through all the European, Asian, Latin American and North American analysts of different periods, until reaching, for example, the French sociologist Gaston Bouthoul, (La Guerre, 1971) who invented the term polemology to define it as a field of objective and scientific study.
In such a case, it should cover many centuries and all kinds of approaches. And in that same debate, one should study the hundreds of people and institutions that have sought to explain the reality of armed events in the history of the earth.
An Idea and a Reality
Well, in order to recall the basic questions, it will be necessary to start from the fundamental, that is, from the origin of war and how it is linked to the idea that it is inevitable.
In the first place, it will be necessary to indicate that the history of humanity, organized by families, clans, tribes, colonies, empires, countries and other forms of social order, is older than traditionally thought.
Today it is known, for example, that more than fifty centuries ago, the first villages had already appeared on earth, and that, since they did so at different times and in different continents, some advanced to become great civilizations without knowing each other and others were only able to meet after many centuries, as happened between Europe and America.
In such a case, the isolated development of many peoples of present-day Asia, Africa, Oceania and America, allowed the formation of large autonomous social organizations, long before the zero point used in the West to mark the beginning of civilization.
On the other hand, the thousands of recent investigations, the new archaeological discoveries and the scientific studies of the last two centuries have made it possible to demonstrate that the Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Persian, Japanese, Mayan, Aztec or Inca peoples, among many others, were already organized long before the so-called modern age of Europe.
Well, as it is clear that human history based on the organization of groups of people with common purposes is broader in geographical terms or more extensive in time than what has been thought and taught for years in the West, it is also clear that it is more culturally diverse.
Therefore, it is more complex, since the mere existence of multiple forms of social and political organization, with very different structures, accompanied by the development of cultural, social, economic and political factors specific to each people, indicates that this same history is associated with multiple variables.
However, in this same history organized by peoples, there is a constant and generalized reality, among these same social groups of all types, which is associated with the use of weapons and systematic and organized violence against others, but with predefined purposes. This reality is possibly explained by the fact that communities, having to obtain more resources to survive, have the urgency to expand their physical spaces as their population and aspirations grow. In this case, war becomes natural.
And this creates an idea, which is that one must grow spatially without any qualms in order to obtain the resources one should have, and therefore imposing one’s own economic, political, cultural and value structures on others. Thus, the great civilizations have sought domination, subjugation and conquest, i.e. the use of force, threats, imposition and finally the use of weapons, to achieve those same resources and objectives. In this way wars have become a constant of power.
So war is an idea and a reality that has been present throughout human history, and has not made any distinction of space, time or social group, so it must be assumed as a tool that people have used to subdue other societies, expand spaces, obtain new resources, increase wealth or impose their culture, values or behaviors to others, in defense of their own interests.
It is also such a decisive phenomenon that many understand human history as a line divided into successive periods of peace inserted between periods of war, in an eternal chain of return of organized violence.
Finally, the fact that some peoples have sought to give priority to long-term relations based on cooperation, friendship and collaboration, derived from mutual trade, but without much success, would seem to be demonstrating this interpretation.
Questions on the Concept of War
In this context, where human history is understood as associated with war, understood as an idea and as a reality, and where it is observed as a constant that encompasses all types of spaces, times and peoples, it is important to review its understanding.
As Bouthoul himself says, this includes approaches ranging from mythology, theology, philosophy, morality, law, sociology and economics, and others, such as military sciences, psychology, political science, international relations and administration. Not to mention the arts and religion.
There have also been many approaches, ranging from realism, positivism, idealism, Marxism and reflectivism, almost always with optimistic approaches that exalt the greatness of peoples, their protagonists and their value, or the pessimists, on their inevitable existence.
In this scenario, there have been hundreds of authors, thinkers, philosophers, novelists, essayists, strategists, intellectuals, military men, statesmen, film directors or actors of thought, who have devoted hours and pages to try to explain, understand or describe this very real and profound phenomenon that has been present throughout human history. And now institutions such as the UN or study or strategy centers have their own visions.
So without having to go to all of them, and just looking at a few sentences one could ask oneself again about their bases or their nature.
In the first place, and from the most basic, there is the case of the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, for whom war is a term that comes from the German language, which is derived from the expression werra – which means fight or discord – and from the Dutch warre – which translates as means. For this source, war is contention, confrontation, conflict, conflagration, struggle, fight, quarrel, fight, fight, battle, combat, clash or scuffle. It is also a struggle, fight or combat.
And a little more in detail it is a disagreement and breach of peace between two or more powers, an armed struggle between two or more nations or between sides of the same nation.
Then, turning to very ancient writings such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, it can be seen that armed encounters and their protagonists have been central themes in world literature. Only there and in many more, only the circumstances are described, but the principles and bases of war are not discussed.
There are also other classic documents such as The Art of War (Sun Tzu – 5th century BC), the Rule of War or the War Scroll – which narrates the history of the war between Greeks and Persians – (Herodotus. 4th or 5th century BC) or the Peloponnesian War, which are also very old written testimonies, but which equally only describe the armed encounters and at the same time create heroes, traitors, enemies or bandits in their towns. And not to mention the Bible, the Koran and the Vedas or the hundreds of Indian, Chinese, Egyptian or other peoples’ texts, which create or describe friends, enemies and their armed struggles.
Next, and looking at some classical European thinkers also shows that the concern about war is as old as man.
In that context, Thucydides considers that war is normal in international relations, while, for Heraclitus, it is the struggle between opposites and the mother of all things.
As for Aristotle, war is a necessity for the sake of peace and must be just. While for Plato it is a discord that is resolved with the greatest possible evils.
Now, on the sides of Eastern cultures, for Sun Tzu war is a very serious matter for the State, which must be initiated with due considerations.
Then, turning to the Christian thinkers of the European Middle Ages, we find that St. Bernard is the defender of the holy war, while for St. Augustine war is a means to conquer peace. For his part, St. Thomas affirms that it must have a just cause, so it must always be defensive and with the intention of repairing a wrong or injustice, besides being the last resort.
Centuries later, Machiavelli will understand it as inevitable, as natural in its existence, and that it is given by human ambition or needs, so it is reasonable for it to exist. Kant will conceive it as the clearest expression of the state of nature in which States find themselves, while for Hobbes it will be part of the human condition.
Hegel will say that it is a necessary evil because violence defines the civilizing character of peoples. Nietzsche will exalt it, since he affirms that it is the best test for man, it is the only impartial and just resource, and many French philosophers of the eighteenth century will see it as absurd.
On the other hand, according to Joseph de Maistre, war is divine in itself, since it is a law of the world, and nowhere else does the divine hand make itself felt so vividly in man….
Then, in more modern terms, for Clausewitz, war will not be simply a political act, but a true political instrument, a continuation of political relations, a management of them by other means, that is to say that war is politics with other means. But it will also be a duel on a broader scale. An act of force to impose one’s will on the adversary and an act of violence taken to its extreme limits.
In recent times, Hanan Arendt will affirm that war is the destruction of the political and the social, while Foucault will point out that it is infinite, as long as politics, domination and the dominated exist. Rawls will consider war as an extreme but possible resource that requires demanding normative guidelines in order to be classified as just or legitimate. And Simone Weill, who will understand it as a grim incarnation to accumulate useless ruins, as well as lacking a defined objective other than itself.
Finally, a conceptual line will appear that will differentiate it from armed conflict, such as that of Eriksson and Wallensteen (2003), who will say that armed conflict is a contested incompatibility, in relation to a government, and/or a territory, in which two parties, at least one of which is the government of a State, use armed force with the result of at least 25 deaths. And they will affirm that there are armed conflicts of low intensity when the number of deaths in a year or in the course of the conflict is greater than 25 and less than 100, of medium intensity when there are more than 100 deaths, but less than 1000 and that war is an armed conflict of high intensity when there are more than 1000 deaths.
Conclusion
It is clear that the nature of war is very complex to define and given the multiplicity of views, approaches and theories that observe it, there are many existing concepts and definitions throughout the history of thought.
Many currents of thought can be found that seek to explain or at least describe it. For some of them war will be inevitable and for others it will be part of human nature. For some it will be absurd and for others a factor of civility. Others will justify it in certain cases while some will seek to limit it. Some thinkers will see it as the way in which a state becomes strong and others as the proof of its abuses. For some analysts it will be the precise object of study of the military sciences, but for others it must go further, touching on deeper problems.
And many will present it as a set of heroic events or as a description of the strategies employed by the armed and political actors in confrontation. And they will describe it with their deepest justifications from all kinds of states, governments and political and military organizations.
Only that nowadays, and when many thought that after the two world wars, the world would not experience something similar, such ideas and realities reappeared in a wider and more generalized way, and armed struggles between countries or between political groups or between armed organizations confronting national states were reborn among the leaders of this decade of the 21st century, to the point that the beginning of wars with other worlds is already foreshadowed, without having the absolute certainty of the existence of civilizations outside the earth.
So, faced with this panorama, the same fundamental questions about the nature of war will remain in force: What is war, what defines it, why does it exist, what is its raison d’être, what distinguishes it from politics, what types of war are there, and what makes some people resort to war? And what makes some people resort to it so readily?
Mauricio Diagama Durán – Professor at the Escuela Superior de Guerra on geopolitics and Colombian foreign policy. Researcher and professor at several universities in Colombia and abroad. Public administrator, specialist in international business and master in national security and defense.
Image credit: Reuters