Some Disjointed Thoughts on War

Think About What Is Worth Fighting For

Some Disjointed Thoughts on War

During the war in Vietnam an idea was often floated around in what could pass for the predecessor of the blogosphere. It went like this: “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” The implicit assumption is that of course wars only occur because people are forced into it by the powerful, so if everyone just wouldn't participate world peace would reign. (And of course at the time it was an admonition toward anyone who might be against the good-hearted Communists who were busily saving the world from freedom.)

Unfortunately it seems likely that the answer to the question “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” is, “Then the war would come to you.”

War is obviously as old as human history. Everything from history books to the Bible shows that it's a constant throughout history, but periods of relative peace could be found in a stable culture with a good but strong government. One living in the Roman empire would have relative peace, although the empire itself was always at war.

The Roman empire example brings up some mathematics. It would seem that ones chances of being called to participate in battle would depend on the ratio of the perimeter of his country to it's area. (For a circle of radius R, that ratio is 2 divided by the radius, or 2/R. ) As countries grew larger the area, and hence population, would grow faster than the perimeter. If the fifty states of the United States were each individual countries there would be conflicts between them. Indeed, it is explained in The Federalist Papers that a major concern in writing the U.S Constitution was that possibility. For instance, if each state was allowed to make it's own trade agreements with foreign nations, goods would naturally be shipped into states with low tariffs, then smuggled into those with higher. Soon there would be border guards, fences, checkpoints and the U.S. would devolve into a large number of small countries, irrespective of the Constitution. Large ratio. But I digress.

Suppose the extreme anarchists (real ones, not the Communists calling themselves that) got their wish, and all government disappeared. Rather than Utopia I think you would have hundreds of warlords duking it out, and over time you would have fewer warlords, each with a greater area. When Mao was young that was the problem with China, the real government was hundreds of warlords who paid no heed to the needs of the people at large. As a solution, Mao wanted Communism, and got busy paving the road to Hell with his good intentions.

The problem would seem not to be any particular policy or political belief, those have an affect, but don't stop wars. The smaller perimeter to area ratios of modern states are probably due to modern travel and communication. (I have read, but cannot verify it, that during World War 2 the per capita rate of deaths in combat was lower than that in peacetime medieval Europe. The perimeter to area ratio was very high back then.) Mankind itself must be the problem, if it weren't history would not be as it is. The instincts that allow us to survive against wild animals do not make us pacifists. (Pacifism is the privilege of the protected.)

A country’s chance for peace, as well as freedom, probably depends somewhat on what fraction of the people desire freedom more than power versus desiring power more than freedom. For those interested, I wrote a short substack essay on the power versus freedom issue;

It has been noted that countries usually experience major wars on an 80 year cycle. Possibly due to the absence of those remembering the previous one, and maybe influenced by the fourth turning, if that is real. We see it now in Washington D.C. where members of Congress and the deep state, way to young to remember WW2, or even Vietnam, and who mostly never served, seem to take lightly the thought of World War 3.

Robert Heinlein in his science fiction novel Starship Troopers (I recommend the book, not the movie) posited a future society wherein military service was all volunteer, but only those who had served had full citizenship and could vote, run for office, or be in various positions of public service, including police officer. The idea was to select out those who would put their live on the line for the people, and prevent those who had no idea what they were dealing with from making decisions. Heinlein obviously thought it was a good idea, but opinions vary. (For what it's worth, I've notice that people without military experience tend not to recognize techniques of control when confronted with them, though of course individuals differ.)

Counter culture singer Leslie Fish wrote and sang a song called The Sun is Also a Warrior, the lyrics of which provide a sort of thought experiment on war. In it a man summons an old style small g god, (it's a little hazy on just how one would do that.) The man asks the god why people make war, and the god gives him five answers:

For wealth.

For land.

For life.

For freedom.

For some king's lies.

The man doesn't believe that those reasons are adequate, so he asks the god to prevent further war. The god reluctantly agrees, saying that he was once a god of war, and that the man has forgotten some relevant points. After a long but indeterminate period of imposed peace the man again contacts the god and explains that, although they have world peace, the world is a now totalitarian nightmare, and he, and presumably the rest of the population, would prefer things the way they were. The god explains that this is the inevitable result of imposing peace and “only thus is your wish fulfilled.” The god agrees to undue the proscription on war, and immediately war erupts all over the world. When it's over there are no remaining overlords, and the god says, “ feed the hungry, bury the dead, and think about what is worth fighting for.”

This is a depressing thought because if Ms. Fish is correct, war is inevitable. The issue isn't policies but rather the nature of Man. There are and may always be those who will try to impose their wills on others and will go to extreme lengths to do so, and if they are not stopped horrific things occur.

What can be done? When the United States were formed every healthy male of appropriate age was in his local militia. This was seen as a powerful force preventing such tyranny, though these days it is fashionable to poo poo the idea. In the Federalist Papers it is explained that you estimate the size of a militia by dividing the population by four. One half are male and one half of those are in the right age bracket, healthy enough, and not away at sea. (A traveling salesman would just join up wherever he happens to be during a crisis.) This would compose a military force far larger than any conceivable army, at the present time, that would be between 80 and 90 million men in the U.S. (And despite Joe Biden to the contrary, individuals could, and did, own cannon back then.) The entrenched powerful don't like that idea. Although the militias were amateurs, a major justification for the founding of the military academies was that, after their period of service, the graduates would form much of the officer corps of the militia.

The Boy Scouts were founded in America at the time of President Theodore Roosevelt who wanted to make participation therein mandatory. No doubt he thought that a nation full of ex boy scouts, who were also riflemen, would be safe from such depredations, i.e. a nation of riflemen cannot be tyrannized. The relatively uncivilized Germans, who were just a collection of tribes at the time and not a regular army, threw the Romans out of Germania by wiping out three Roman legions at the battle of the Teutoburg forest in 9 A.D.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-the-Teutoburg-Forest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest

We are presently in a world war, an information war, attempting to create a world wide tyranny. Powerful forces are trying to strip us of our civil rights and constantly increase the control over our lives. They seek to eliminate the nation states and put themselves in power. An excellent book on the topic was written by General Michael Flynn and Boone Cutler.

https://www.amazon.com/Citizens-Guide-Fifth-Generation-Warfare/dp/B0BN79NWZF/ref=sr_1_1?crid=29VLZJJ0PQUKR&keywords=michael+flynn+book&qid=1689446726&sprefix=michael+flynn%2Caps%2C200&sr=8-1

In ending, I wish to reiterate the warning of Leslie Fish's fictional god; “Think about what is worth fighting for.”

Stay brave, stay free