War Is an Addiction - Essay Example

War is an Addiction Scar of resources and other human-made factors are considered to be the main reasons behind wars, but there have been enough evidences from available literature that war is more a resultant of addiction. This thesis would study and discuss what are the doctrines and theories that explain war as an addiction. As the world is becoming globalized and entities of each country are coming closer due to extensive use of technology, more and more information is gathered in order to make assumptions about a country’s resources. On top of that, the invention of modern weaponry systems and aggressive war doctrine possessed by armies of different nations in the world, paves way for setting up wars and wining them to capture resources. This can be seen as a scenario, where the big fish is always looking to hunt small fishes, even if the big fishes have their hunger fulfilled. This is because this is in their nature to hunt, thus falling victim to their addiction of hunting small fishes they neglect the outcomes. Similarly, countries of the world engage into war, even knowing that the outcomes of the war would be devastating for both invader and the invaded country. Since the beginning of life on earth, man has been engaged in understanding what are the reasons that manking keeps its luxuries and satisfaction behind, and commit war against each other. A number of researchers, scholars and philosophers has carried out extensive research into the area, so that a century old question can be answered, i.e. Why man is addicted to war? It is the resultant of hard work of researchers and scholars from past, that a number of theories are presented today which helps in understanding the phenomenon of addiction to war. In this manner, mankind today is also able to eliminate war doctrine from their militant activities, so that peace and harmony can be established on earth. Despite of the fact that all theories and research work presents almost similar ideas on addiction to war, every field of study has different perspective in understanding this phenomenon. Followers of social school of thought views addiction to war as an act of social frustration and injustice, whereas economic school perceives addiction to war as a result to unavailability of resources. Business scholars view addiction to war as a result to scarcity of resources and an attempt to keep control of greater competitive advantage over rivals. Despite of the fact that while understanding the causes of addiction to war is different in every discipline of life, political science seems to be the best field which explains the causes of addiction to war. War has been defined as a comprehensive attempt of individuals, group of individuals or state to aggressively outclass their rivals on battlefield or in any field of the life. Theorists also views addiction to war as a resultant to changes in policy structure in order to satisfy the desires of the political organization. But again, theorists argue that to view addiction to war as resultant of policy restructuring, it is important to understand the state of mind of the political leaders, which compels them to engage into war or reflect aggressiveness in their decision making. By stating that, scholars suggests that addiction to bloodshed and destruction leads to the use of force against rivals, which in reverse scenario, can be manipulated peacefully to settle down differences and conflicts. As the focus of this thesis is on understanding why war is an addiction, the author would consider staying limited to understanding the theoretical reasoning and support examples to prove the point. Though, the number of wars committed by states or groups is limited in modern era, but the emergence of technology has provided other ways to leaders to engage into war. The number of proxy wars and psychological breakdown of enemy are now more popular amongst leaders of the world. They use these tactics to fuel their desire for breaking war on other states of the world. At this point, the author would like to draw upon a conceptual framework in order to understand the reasons behind addiction to war. Waltz (1959) viewed addiction to war on three levels. These levels were termed by the scholar as the individual addiction to war, the nation’s addiction to war and the international system’s addiction to war. By categorizing addiction to war in these tree levels, Waltz produced a number of reasons behind addiction to war. The war broken by individuals was seen as an individual’s addiction to show aggression in order to satisfy his/her natural instincts, psychological thought process, emotional scenarios and different attributes of his/her society. On the other hand, addiction to war on national level was described by Waltz (1959) as the resultant of aggressive political setup, the economic structure of the war addicted nation, the policymaking doctrine of the nation, the mutual opinion of public in a nation, perceived benefits from engaging into war shared by groups within the society, the ethnic and national differences, cultural factors and the political scenario of the country. The last level of addiction to crime as defined by Waltz (1959) is international system’s addiction to war. It implies that the anarchic thoughts of the international system, the distribution of resources and militant power, and economic differences and authority leads to aggression amongst international bodies. It empowers wealthy and powerful nations of the world to exploit the rights of the weak nations and control their internal decision making and economic growth. While studying the reasons behind addiction to war, a number of researchers has agreed upon unified perspective towards the phenomenon. These theories are termed as “realists” theories and help scholars and researchers to understand the reasons behind addiction to war on practical grounds. The set of “ realist theories” implies that the wealthy and power nations of the world are insecure, as they can be engaged in to war by weaker nations in order to take over their precious resources. As a result, wealthy and powerful nations are on right, if they act in advance against the emerging threats to the security and destroy their enemies and rivals well before these enemies gain the strength to damage. These type of decisions are typically made by insecure leaders of the world, who under the shadow of anarchy in the international system and uncertainty amongst masses, aims at improving the short-term security landscape. While doing so, they also assume the worst outcomes of the war breakout committed by unblessed nations of the world. In order to counter the threat, they are addicted to building powerful militant forces and use their precious resources to arm their military with weapons of mass destruction. Once they have the weaponry strength developed, they will move on to use it in order to satisfy their desire to ensure greater growth and stability inside the national borders. In the crux of this discussion, the readers can observe that addiction to war is actually the resultant of powerful states doing what they are best at, i.e. using power, and the weak nations will do what they are best at doing, i.e. surviving aggression of the powerful. From the discussion above, a conclusion can be drawn about realist theories that it primarily focuses on explaining differences in distribution of power as a basic source of addiction to wars. Power distribution theorists are of the view that uneven and unfair distribution of power and wealth amongst the groups and nations of the world develops a feeling of frustration amongst the deprived nations and groups. Power distribution theorists are of the view that Keeping in view the above discussion, the author of this thesis paper would first focus on different theories that helps in understanding the factors that make a country or leader of the country, addicted to war. Freud (?) is of the view that aggression has its roots in survival against the biased and unfair behavior of others. When an individual or a state commits aggressive behavior towards another individual or state, the suppressed individual or state would react in frustration and would develop feelings of hatred and aggression against the offending nation or individual. In this scenario, if the suppressed individual or state fails to react accordingly against the offenders, they would continue on developing aggressive feelings and would use it as a weapon, as soon as they gather the force to react aggressively. Once the suppressed individual or state succeeds to react accordingly against the offenders, the suppressed would feel confident to break war or act of aggression against other nations or state. This is because, en route to reacting aggressively against the offenders, the suppressed nation or state would inherit aggression and instinct to survive at any cost by committing war, in their thought process. Thus, the suppressed nation would turn into a lethal war force and continue to show aggression against others in order to fulfill its desire for power and authority over others. On the other hand, to ensure survival, the war addict would also commit aggression against it rivals and competitors in order to ensure that no one matches its competitiveness and maintain control. We can take example of Persian Empire, who in order to ensure its authority over other empires and to fulfill the desire of capturing major portion of earth, committed many a wars. The desire to commit war against any growing empire was inhibited in Persian bloods and that is the reason, that Persians invaded a number of Roman and Greek areas. The invasion of Sparta by Persians is a good example. The ruler of Persia faced bitter realities in his life and was a victim of social injustice. He continued to gain strength and lobbied against the ruling King of the empire. As soon as he got to the throne, he considered himself above all and thought that he is God. When Sparta started to gain strength and its warriors became popular for their lethality, the king of Persia decided to hunt Spartans just to ensure that no one in his neighborhood challenges his authority as the God and King of Persia. Carl Jung has a different perspective towards addiction to war. He is of the view the view that every individual on earth possesses a dark inner self, which keeps on growing feelings of hatred and aggression against those, who are better than that person. Once the dark side of that individual overcomes the actual self, the person star to commit act that satisfies him. On way to satisfying his darker personality, the person commit act of aggression and break war on those who oppose him. If that person becomes the leader of a state, tribe, group or nation, his policies would reflect aggression and sense of insecurity from the outer world. Adler (?) theory of inferiority complex also affirms the assertions made by Jung (?). Adler is of the view that the struggle to become better than others causes a constant struggle to achieve, what others have not achieved yet. As a result, the person or state becomes addicted to act aggressively and fight with those who are trying to achieve higher than what that state or person have achieved. Sullivan (?) view addiction to war as a resultant of feelings of anxiety and fear or terror caused by differentiating opinions. When a person believes that others will have a different opinion about a subject in discussion, he would show aggression and make his point practical by wining group support with the help of forced agreements. When a person have feelings of anxiety or fear from differentiating behaviors on constant level, he would develop a darker side of his personality that compels to push back those who are spreading negativity about his views. Erikson (?) also shares similar views as Sullivan. He is of the opinion that confusion about a subject in discussion within the society leads to totalism. People of the society start seeing differentiating opinion as hurting their ego, personal integrity, moral values and unity. As a result, the whole society turns into a war machine against the differentiating sources and designates an aggressive leader to break the war. In this manner, it can be said that the confusion and fear of whole society fuels the war doctrine of that society and the whole political system engages into developing counter attacking and offensive strategies. Now, the author would discuss war and why it is an addiction from social-psychology perspective. During times of crisis, a group or society and its members start to develop feelings of negativity amongst each other, As a result, the group lacks efficiency in decision making and the resultant panic and mind juggling scenario gives birth to generation of moral self-image and self-righteousness. The group starts to lose its ability to judge actions and individuals practically, and in desperation they commit war. Milgram (?) also supports the ideas presented by Janis (?), by stating that a social setup where the members of the society obey the leader’s decisions and authority blindly, they would follow in the footsteps of their leadership and commit war as an act of desperation against the offenders. There are also some theories in the biology literature, which helps the role of human genetics in committing war due to addiction. We can take example of Tartars and Barbarians who were born as a lethal war machine and continued to destroy wherever they go. It was not as a result to the aggression of invaded states or empires, but just to satisfy the addiction of their emperors to destroy infrastructure and spill blood on earth. Wilson (?) and Lorenz (?) believes that aggressions inherited by a person from his/her immediate and forefathers. If the forefathers of a society or individual were involved in acts of aggression, they would give birth to a nation full of warriors. Thus, it can be asserted that aggression to survive against the offenders is in human nature. The arrival of modern weaponry and technological gadgets is just a tool to trigger aggression and hatred which is inherited from forefathers and produce militant enthusiasm amongst humans. We can take example of early humankind, who were considered as prey for beasts and jungle habitants. As soon as the homo-sapiens realized that the beasts are their real enemy and they can also hunt down beasts to satisfy hungers, they started to develop tactics and build enthusiasm to kill beasts. Once they got the power to do so, they started to hunt down beasts and jungle habitants, and still they are doing it as an activity full of fun and bloodshed. Those early humans considered their success against beasts and jungle habitants as a promotion within social structure and urged them to develop more tactics and doctrines to defend against offending forces. After evaluating the thesis statement from biological perspective, the author would now focus on societal reasons behind addiction to committing wars. Mead (?) disagrees with biological inheritance theories of addiction to war and states that: “Warfare is all learned behavior, it is not biologically innate. Warfare was learned, it could be un-learned. Trial by combat was abolished, replaced by trial by jury. Poor practices give way to better practices when people recognize the defects of old ways and invent new ways of relating to each other.” Thus, it can be asserted that addiction to war is not a biological phenomenon, but the performance of a social system to train its members how to act in a particular situation. If the social structure promotes aggression and fight for rights, the members of the society would not hesitate in committing wrongful and desperate actions against others. At this point, the author would like to discuss some political and economic perspectives on addiction to war. Marx (?) view addiction to war as a national struggle to achieve greater competitive advantage over competitors and get hold of best resources available in the world. Marx is the founder of capitalist theories and considers the mother nature as the root cause to addiction to war. This is because everything that Mother Nature has provided to human being is limited and will come to distinction at some point of time in human history. By realizing this limit, human engage into capturing control of resources so that their development and expansion on global scenario does not stop. Once this realization is made, the society, nation or group of people turns into a war machine that fights against any force which is intending to keep them deprived of resources. We can take example of modern war doctrine of United States of America which believes that oil is a precious commodity to ensure economic growth. As the fuel crisis is strengthening with every passing day, USA is trying to get hold of maximum possible sources of oil and gas production. The breakout of war on Iraq is seen by war experts as an adventure to get hold of Iraq’s oil reserves and use them for fueling USA’s economy. Tuchman (?) on the other hand have a different perspective from Karl Marx. Tuchman states while discussing addiction to war that: “Crisis decision-making and deadlines for mobilization are a cause of war because peoples full cognitive functions diminish in times of crisis, only a restricted range of options get considered, and theres a tendency to engage in grandiose thinking and exaggerate the opponents malicious intentions. Inflexibility and weak leadership are also evident in these situations.” Thus, it can be asserted that the weak links in the political setup and the lacking in strategic management of nation’s affairs caused countries of the world to engage in war to open up opportunities for national development and growth. Wellerstein (?) defines addiction to war in his center and periphery theory by stating that the power countries oft world form alliance in order to exploit the rights and resources of weak countries. In terms of current paper, the theory implies that the powerful individuals and states gathers at one platform to invade weak countries or group of people in order to ensure their authority over global decision making and strategic thinking. On the other hand, the invasion also aims at looting precious resources and capabilities of the weak or underprivileged nations of the world. Read More