K. Cronick
Traditionally
wars have been fought to maintain monarchies and conquerors like Alexander
Magno, Julius Cesar, Genghas Khan or Napoleon Bonaparte. Still today armed
disputes are often optional hostilities that have territorial implications. Even
when national leaders proclaim objectives such as a “war on terror” or a“war
against illegal drug trafficking” their true purposes are often regional control.
Most non-territorial issues can be solved through negotiations.
The great
generals and conquering kings, together with their immediate followers, have
always been able to reap great benefits, but the foot soldiers must be
convinced that their role is appreciated. They, after all, are usually the ones
who pay the biggest price. For the higher military positions there has always been
the possibility of fulfilling political ambitions through military service, but
for the lower ranks, their tangible rewards have only been their salaries and
possible retirement pay, together with a potential for loot and land resulting
from active service. But traditionally they also have fought with a certain
sense of honor, with the idea that the acquisition of new territories for the empire,
and the defense of the existing empire’s borders was praiseworthy.
Plunder is possible
reward, but even for the looters there is a possible moral problem. For that
reason, the generals invented the idea of glory. Military glory is the opposite
of compassionate reactions among individual soldiers when faced with the demand
that they kill other human beings. Glory does not refer to the soldiers’ trade,
but rather to values that go beyond humanism, that bypass it by referring to
patriotism, loyalty and even xenophobia.
Sienkewicz
(n.d.) mentions publications that have put forward the idea that even in
ancient times soldiers may have suffered from their exposure to violent war. He
says, that
“Since the publication, in 1995, of Jonathan
Shay’s Achilles in Vietnam, an increasingly popular view of PTSD [Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder] in soldiers holds that modern day combatants
experience the horrors of warfare in much the same way as did ancient Greek and
Roman soldiers and that PTSD must have been just as prevalent in the classical
world as it is today.“
His own
view is more moderate, but although the idea that empathetic reactions exist
even among military personnel is not new, it is compelling.
Wars of
conquest can be distinguished from those that have the purpose of “liberating”
populations that have been defeated or colonized. The decolonization movement, that
began in the XVIII century with the English colonies, spread throughout Spanish
America during the XIX century. In the colonies that became the United States a
working democracy was established. But “liberty” was not meant for everyone; later
there were many human costs, mostly deriving from slavery and the massacre of
the original, indigenous population. Next, the Spanish-American countries that
obtained their independence from Spain developed -almost universally- dictatorial governments.
In the XX
century many African and Asian countries were able to achieve independence from
European domination. These victories did not always lead to self-rule and
functioning democracies. And they often implied painful losses for the local
populations. For example, Beyer (n.d.) tells us that by the end of the Algerian
war of independence from France, “between 500,000 and a million Algerians had
been killed, out of an estimated population of just three million before the
war. French losses were also high; between 150,000 and 200,000.” After
independence in 1962, Algeria has had many challenges including a civil war.
The country only achieved a multi-party system some 30 years after its
liberation from France, but it has never developed a true democracy.
Wars are
destructive for most people, but for some they are very profitable. By any
ethical standards weapons manufacturers that make combat equipment like guns and
vehicles should sell these wares at cost. The soldiers are expected to
sacrifice themselves, and the armament producers should do the same. But they
almost never do so. War profits refer to the economic gains made by executives
or companies from conflict. These profits come mostly from selling weapons and
supplies like uniforms and gear. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the U.S. president after
WWII warned of the dangers that the military-industrial complex represents, but
it has been a problem ever since the U.S. civil war.
Plans to go
to war usually originate at the higher levels of power structures, and are
often used as political tools to motivate the countries’ populations. People
rally around the idea of the nation’s defense or its need to settle political
quarrels. For this reason political rhetoric tends to be repetitive, and refers
to the need to differentiate “us” from “them”.
In the
United States the Korean and Vietnam Wars were “proxy” wars, motivated by
international conflicts between the United States on one hand, and the Soviet
Union and China on the other. In the United States Communism was feared among
certain sectors, and they felt the need to defend American capitalism. For this
reason, anti-colonial movements around the world were suspect after WWII. The Korean
and Vietnamese wars were basically ideological confrontations reflecting the
fears of the major economic interests of the time. However, by the time the
Vietnam war began there was substantial opposition to the use of U.S. troops
there, especially among the youth that were being drafted to go there and fight.
These were
followed by Ronald Regan’s involvement in the uprisings in Nicaragua and
Guatemala after 1981, and George W. Bush’s invasion of Panama in 1989. Later
came the “wars on terror” in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
None of
these wars has resulted in increased democracy or prosperity. And although the military
veterans continue to pay the price for their involvement in these places, and
claim patriotic honors for their service, we are left with the sensation that
they have been tricked into participating in what has had very little to do
with “glory”.
We can say
the same for Russia’s wars of expansion in Georgia in 2008, Ukrainia (since 2014),
and Syria. In the same way China has been involved in armed conflict on its
borders with Burma and India, and in skirmishes with Taiwan. None of these conflicts
has led to the increased wellbeing of these countries’ populations.
The threats
of war continue. They are manipulative tactics carried out by particular
interest groups to maintain their own power or wealth, and have nothing to do
with glory.
References
Beyer, G.
(s. f.). Algerian War of Independence: Freedom from the French |
TheCollector. TheCollector. https://www.thecollector.com/algerian-war-of-independence/
Sienkewicz, Thomas J.(n.d. ). Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder in the Ancient Greek and Roman Soldier.. Utah Conference on
Undergraduate Research. Humanities. https://camws.org/meeting/2014/abstracts/individual/U267.StressDisorder.pdf
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