Sad Necessity of War

War follows humanity as surely as night follows day.

To say that war must never be waged for the sake of truth, for the sake of justice, is to create the impression that there is no truth, that one belief is as good as another, that I should be happy to embrace any way of thinking that is imposed upon me. It is to imply that there is no such a thing as justice, that there are no "rights" or "wrongs", that therefore there are no "wrongs" to be "righted". Indeed, it is to imply that there is no such thing as "rationality" and that chaos and disorder is and should be the rule of the day.

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In fact, war preceded humans. Chimpanzees and wolves carry out wars of extermination against rival groups.

This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen among nonhumans. Until the attack on Godi, scientists treated the remarkable violence of humanity as something uniquely ours. To be sure, everyone knew that many animal species kill; but usually that killing is directed toward other species, toward prey. Individual animals--often males in sexual competition--fight with others of their own species; but that sort of contest typically ends the moment one competitor gives up. Scientists thought that only humans deliberately sought out and killed members of their own species. In our minds, we cloaked our own species' violence in culture and reason, two distinctly human attributes, and wondered what kind of original sin condemned us to this strange habit. And suddenly we found this event in the ape world. The attack on Godi suggested that chimpanzees might be a second species that killed its own kind deliberately. But how strange that the second species should be chimpanzees! After all, no species is more closely related to us than chimpanzees are.

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Forgetting the lessons of history and ethology, nations of the European Union--and even Canada--have largely disarmed themselves, wishfully thinking that there are no more serious enemies in the world that must be fought.

The latest Iranian kidnapping of British sailors came after British promises to leave Iraq, and after the British humiliation of 2004, when eight hostages were begged back. Apparently the Iranians have figured either that London would do little if they captured more British subjects or that the navy of Lord Nelson and Admiral Jellico couldn’t stop them if it wanted to.

....The rationalizations are limitless, but essential, since no one in Europe — again, understandably — wishes a confrontation that might require a cessation of lucrative trade with Iran, or an embarrassing military engagement without sufficient assets, or any overt allegiance with the United States. Pundits talk of a military option, but there really is none, since neither Britain nor Europe at large possesses a military.

What does the future hold if Europe does not rearm and make it clear that attacks on Europeans and threats to the current globalized order have repercussions?

If Europeans recoil from a few Taliban hoodlums or Iranian jihadists, new mega-powers like nuclear India and China will simply ignore European protestations as the ankle-biting of tired moralists. Indeed, they do so already.

....Europe is just one major terrorist operation away from a disgrace that will not merely discredit the EU, but will do so to such a degree as to endanger its citizenry and interests worldwide and their very safety at home. Islamists must assume that an attack on a European icon — Big Ben, the Vatican, or the Eiffel Tower — could be pulled off with relative impunity and ipso facto shatter European confidence and influence. Each day that the Iranians renege on their promises to release the hostages, and then proceed to parade their captives, earning another “unacceptable” from embarrassed British officials, a little bit more of the prestige of the United Kingdom is chipped away.

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As it happens, civilisation did not save Greece, it did not save Rome, it did not save pre-Islamic Egypt. When the barbarians come to call--particularly religious barbarians intent on religious conquest of the world--civilisation will not do. When threatened and repeatedly attacked by violent barbarians, only a brutal and decisive response will yield a period of peace.

But there are no wars that end all wars. Robert Heinlein was soundly booed by a large crowd of young people in the Vietnam era when he reluctantly declared that "there will always be war." Human nature combined with clans, tribes, ideologies, and overgrown ambitions--all these guarantee there will be other wars in other times. Many of them will not be avoidable by the more civilised of the parties involved.


If the civilised cannot reach inside themselves to find the requisite brutality, they and their civilisation may just go extinct.