This Is War, This is Man

Humans have a long tradition of war. Is it possible that war is so deeply bred into us that we can never outgrow it? This Discover article (via Dennis Mangan) asks a number of anthropologists, archaeologists, and biologists to answer the question.

The anthropologist Richard Wrangham is one of several scientists at Harvard who pre­sent a much darker view of human nature than Fry does. In his 1996 book, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (co­authored with Dale Peterson), Wrangham argues that “chimpanzee-like violence preceded and paved the way for human war, making modern humans the dazed survivors of a continuous, 5-million-year habit of lethal aggression.” Natural selection has favored combative, power-hungry males, he contends, “because with extraordinary power males can achieve extraordinary reproduction.”

...[archaeologist Steven] LeBlanc contends that researchers have unearthed evidence of warfare as far back as they have looked in human prehistory, and ethnographers have observed significant levels of violence among hunter-gatherers such as the !Kung. In his book Constant Battles: Why We Fight (with Katherine E. Register), he espouses a bleak, Malthusian view of human prehistory, in which war keeps breaking out as surging populations outstrip food supplies. Warfare, he writes, “has been the inevitable consequence of our ecological-demographic propensities.”___Discover__via__DennisMangan

One theory of war--the youth bulge theory--looks at societies that possess an excess of young males. Young males possess a surfeit of testosterone, which lends to aggressive behaviour. This aggression can be channeled toward domestic targets, or it can be channeled outwardly toward state-defined "enemies."

Gangland slayings in the Palestinian territories this week have pitted the Islamist gunmen of Hamas against the secular forces of Fatah. The killings defy civilised norms: in December even children were targeted for murder. But the killings also defy political common sense. Ariel Sharon's wall cuts terrorists off from Israeli targets and what happens? The violence – previously justified with the cause of a Palestinian homeland – continues as if nothing had changed, merely finding its outlet in a new set of targets. This makes it appear that Palestinian violence has never really been about a "cause" at all. The violence is, in a strange way, about itself.

Gunnar Heinsohn, a social scientist and genocide researcher at the University of Bremen, has an explanation for why this might be so. Since its publication in 2003, his eccentric and eye-opening Sons and World Power* (not available in English) has become something of a cult book. In Mr Heinsohn's view, when 15 to 29-year-olds make up more than 30 per cent of the population, violence tends to happen; when large percentages are under 15, violence is often imminent. The "causes" in the name of which that violence is committed can be immaterial. There are 67 countries in the world with such "youth bulges" now and 60 of them are undergoing some kind of civil war or mass killing. ___FinancialTimes

While peace-loving bonobos and boskops are close primate relatives of homo sapiens, the closest surviving primate relative of man is the common chimpanzee. And common chimps are familiar with war. And so are we.

Ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu, and 19th century Prussian soldier and military strategist Karl von Clausewitz, are two men who made a study of war in an attempt to advise leaders on more rational war-making. Neither man could be consider a war-monger. Both men assume that there exist barbarism and violence in the world, that would surely force itself upon more civilised peoples if the civilised peoples made no provision for deterrence or counter-violence.

Just the preparation for war can sometimes bankrupt a society and lead to the overthrow of a government. The actual execution of a war is even more likely to lead to financial hardship in the society waging war. War is dangerous to all concerned. More than one ruler has been killed by his own guards--even relatives--for pursuing a war beyond all reason.

Yet not knowing when to prepare for war can be even more lethal--for entire societies. From time to time, societies have arisen that considered themselves evolved above the level of war. Their leading citizens could not justify the expense of the provisioning and training of a full-time or part-time military force. Consequently, we know very little about these societies other than that they were overrun by other groups--presumably more barbaric than themselves. Archaeologists sometimes dig up traces of their vanished way of life.

Modern Europe and Japan may be falling into that particular mindset--the "post-war civilisation" mindset. Europe is being overrun by illiterate and untrained immigrants rushing to fill the vacuum left by the failure of Europeans to procreate. A large portion of these illiterate and unassimilable immigrants are drawn to religious extremism and violence. Europe is not prepared, and has insufficient young males to form a credible defense of any type.

Japan faces a rapidly arming China across the water. A China that is growing rabid for resources and maneuvering room. Hemmed in by the Philippines, Taiwan, and the Japanese islands, China's rapidly growing blue water navy is looking for forward bases of operation. Japan no longer has the population of young males to draw from, in formulating a large defense force.

One theory of warfare promoted by Dennis Mangan, is that prosperity is an obstacle to war-like thinking. If a people grow prosperous, they want to enjoy leisure pursuits and pleasures. They adopt more of a "live and let live" attitude. This is very much what has happened to Europe and Japan, in fact. Certainly Canadian residents largely have adopted that attitude, and a large proportion of US residents likewise. War is expensive, and costs precious lives. Prosperous societies are less likely to produce large numbers of skilled military-capable men who are also considered expendable.

So countries such as the US have begun to invest in robotic instruments of war. Unmanned flying vehicles for reconnaissance and attack, unmanned ground and sea vehicles for attack, defense, reconnaissance, and explosives dismantling/demolition. Such an approach may eventually reduce the direct involvement of human members of advanced societies in actual warfare and peacekeeping.

But until these societies learn to segregate themselves from the violent-natured, often unintelligent perpetrators of religious, ethnic, and ideological warfare and terror, no amount of robotics equipment will make them safe from the other-than-advanced world which is always there, even if sometimes out of sight and mind.

Centuries will pass, and more, before civilised humans no longer need to study war and violence. Civilisation is equally endangered by leaders who ignore nascent threats in their midst as by leaders who go to war much too easily. Given the many problems faced by the western world that refuse to simply go away, facing the threats while reacting in measured and effective ways, will be a continuing challenge to people who would rather not have to deal with it.