Warfare: never justified as a means to an end

The spirit of militarism was supposed to have ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of China to the world. But these days, the world seems to have arrived at the conclusion that there remains a critical need to continue emphasizing and aggrandizing the military spirit, together with a need for constant preparation for war. This leads us to ask ourselves whether war is the inevitable destiny of mankind.

The evidence of the desire to foster the maintenance of a powerful military position is all over the world. Military historians believe that it is war that has shaped world history. Political boundaries are the result of military victories rather than diplomatic relations.

The United States remains united because the North won a bloody Civil War against the Confederacy. The Philippines is a result of a Spanish conquest, then a Spanish-American War and finally, a Philippine-American War.

Many historians also point out that political institutions have been shaped by military pressures. The rise of the nation-state was closely linked to the need for standing armies. The growth of government bureaucracies was inspired largely by the need to raise troops and levy taxes which were needed to maintain fleets and armies.

The close relationship between armies and a central authority underlines the importance of the army within the state Armies provide governments with support against internal enemies who seek their overthrow. Their disciplined structures, reliable communications and specialist equipment also give armies the capability to assist in maintaining essential services in the event of civil disturbance and natural disasters.

The armed forces have always placed heavy reliance on superior technology because the penalty for failing to do so is usually defeat.  Thus the evolution of military technology led to the commercialization of many inventions such as the airplane, radar, wireless communication, nuclear power and the internet. Even systems like operations research and logistics were first used extensively for warfare and not for business.

Is war our biological destiny? Was Plato right that “only the dead have seen the end of war?” Are we born for the battlefield, congenitally and hormonally incapable of putting war behind us?

These were some of the fascinating questions raised in an old New York Times article by Natalie Angier.  According to her, a study by researchers on warfare showed that blood lust and the desire to wage peace are by no means innate. On the contrary, research in the field of game theory shows that human beings readily establish cooperative networks with one another and quickly reach a point of fixation through cooperative strategy. These researchers argue that one can plausibly imagine a future in which war is rare and universally condemned.

On the other hand, archeologists and anthropologists say that they have found evidence of militarism in perhaps 95 percent of the cultures they have unearthed or studied.

This conflicting attitude towards warfare is all too common in all societies. For some people, according to Angier, “Wars are romanticized, subjects of an endless spool of poems, songs, plays, paintings, novels, films. The battlefield is mythologized as the furnace in which character and nobility are forged.”

There are others who regard war as a supreme wastage of lives and resources and bitterly resent the very fact of its existence. There are those who believe that national temperaments are capable of radical change. The Vikings slaughtered and plundered but their descendants in Sweden have not fought a war in nearly 200 years.

My own personal belief is that mankind’s yearning for peace is much, much stronger than its tendency towards violence. It is true that people throughout history have admired military commanders like Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Rommel, Eisenhower and MacArthur.

History, however, has also shown us that the people who have influenced our lives throughout the ages were those who preached peace and harmony, like Aristotle, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad, St. Augustine, Newton, Voltaire and Gandhi. Even Dante Alighieri, the author of The Divine Comedy, wrote: “I am searching for that which every man seeks – peace and rest.”

War must never be an instrument of national policy. Nor can it ever be a substitute for diplomatic negotiations.  Warfare can never be a means to an end, no matter how glorious or sublime the end goal. Warfare goes against the nature of man and violates all the teachings of all the fundamental beliefs – expressed as religion, moral codes or spiritual beliefs – of all men and women.

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Young Writers’ Hangout via Zoom on Feb 26, 2-3 pm., with Jacqui Franquelli, author of newly released title, Anak ng Tinapay.

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