It’s difficult not to think about war. The awfulness of what is happening in Ukraine permeates so much of what we hear and how we profess support from wearing blue and yellow ribbons to making a donation to a reputable organization.
Why is it that war is so pervasive among our species? Is there some set of genes, a meshing of DNA that propels us to solve problems by sending our young men and women to shed their blood for often very enigmatic reasons? I’m thinking of the Russian mothers whose sons are dying for the ego of one man and the Ukrainian men and women who have had to become soldiers in a war not of their making.
If you examine any textbook of American History, it is laid out in what we call the war cycle. You study the ramifications of the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, The Civil War, the Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, the Korean War and all the “in-betweens” wars. War becomes the criteria for learning who we are.
Were there not other things going on? Were not inventions being made? Books written. Laws crafted to modify everyday life? Epidemics? Were there not beautiful works of art, plays, poems created? Of course, but they become the less important events, happenings, etc. because war eats up so much of everyday life, modifying economics, geography, the lives of our young men and women, etc. War changes so much because of the way that we spend not only the lives of the combatants, but the consumption of other resources.
Take Ukraine again. As the breadbasket of Europe, as an exporter of wheat, the inability to plant or harvest, to export because of the destruction of port cities and the blockage of ports will have a detrimental effect on not only Ukraine but all of the countries that import that wheat. While young men and women are dying in Ukraine, others will suffer in places like Africa and other countries that are facing multiyear droughts have come to depend on the import of Ukrainian wheat.
Think of the stress on the resources of the countries that have accepted the millions of Ukrainians who have fled their homeland. What adjustments will European countries make that depend on Russian oil and gas? And we know that this war has had a fallout effect on the price of gas here as well as a powerful prod to inflation.
Is there something about homo sapiens that tends to lead us into aggressive rather than thoughtful, diagnostic, problem-solving behavior? Does our focus on adversarial relationships represent just another version of aggression? Even some of our sporting events are surrogates for aggression, for bloodless (although sometimes getting hurt happens) war? Does the rise of bullying among school children or the current creation of “us and them” around political parties say something? The armed insurrection on Jan. 6 says a lot about that. Ask yourself, who has created the division that loom so clearly among us? Who is benefitting from divisiveness . Does the term “divide and conquer” ring any bells?
How have we come to the situation where nations have to commit substantial portions of their budgets to the creation of defensive and offensive weaponry? Why isn’t the truth of international relationships one of trade, commerce and cultural and scientific exchange rather than another form of adversary vs adversary? How far could the people of the world go if the goods and services devoted to war were used for health care, education, environmental change, etc.?
One of the saving qualities of our species, according to anthropologists, is that we have advanced because of cooperation. Groups of people have undertaken efforts that have moved us through time and space to live lives of relative safety and comfort. Yet, as these groups have worked, others have been able to convince us killing “them” as however them is defined, as the means for solving problems.
How do we wage peace? How do we find ways to defuse the power of ego, of nationalism run rampant, of “us vs. them,” of the power of what President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex, here or wherever there is? I wish I knew.
