The End of War?
What are we dismissing? What are we missing?
In 2013, I wrote the following article on the end of war and the perils of predicting the future. Ten years later, war remains very much in play in world events, notably in Ukraine and Gaza even as I read today of recent U.S. military strikes in Iraq.
More than a few thinkers looked ahead to the 20th century as a time of potential peace through progress and the rule of law. Early in the 21st century, war remains very much in play as the rule of law is allowed to whither. Progress? Rule of law? We now know they are not inevitable. War continues to find a way—its final extinction no longer simply a matter of time.
The Coming End of War (posted originally in November 2013)
One of the occupational hazards of being a historian is reading old books. The one in front of me is John Fiske’s The Destiny of Man (1884). Fiske was an American philosopher and popular writer on Darwinism, Spencerism, and many other representative -isms of his day. Like many thinkers of the late nineteenth century, he believed in inevitable progress as well as the inherent superiority of men like himself.
From the vantage point of 2013, what is perhaps most striking about Fiske was his optimism that war was coming to an end. In his words:
The nineteenth century, which has witnessed an unprecedented development of industrial civilization, with its attendant arts and sciences, has also witnessed an unprecedented diminution of the primeval spirit of militancy. It is not that we have got rid of great wars, but that the relative proportion of human strength which has been employed in warfare has been remarkably less than in any previous age ... In almost every case [of war since the Revolutionary War and Napoleon] the result has been to strengthen the pacific tendencies of modern society ... [War] has now become narrowly confined in time and space, it no longer comes home to everybody’s door, and, in so far as it is still tolerated ... it has become quite ancillary to the paramount needs of industrial civilization ... the final extinction of warfare is only a question of time.
War was coming to an end, to be replaced by the reign of law, Fiske predicted in 1884. Thirty years later, the horrors of World War I came to visit (in one way or another) almost everyone’s door, with World War II proving an even more persistent caller. Today, the United States finds itself in a self-defined, and apparently endless, “war on terror.” What happened to Fiske’s pacific progress?
We all have blind spots. For Fiske one of those was the European imperialism of his day, which he didn’t treat as war since inferior brutes needed civilizing by whites. Another was his belief in inevitable progress and the perfectibility of man, as shown by “the pacific principle of federalism” and the “due process of law,” which he believed would settle future disputes without war.
Rather than bashing Fiske, it’s perhaps more useful to ask what our blind spots might be. American exceptionalism is certainly one. Just as Fiske believed that the white man was inherently superior -- the culmination and fruition of evolution and civilization -- many Americans seem to believe that the United States is the best nation in the world, the most technologically advanced, the most favored by God. This belief that “When America does it, it’s OK; when another country does it, it’s wrong” is one that’s opened many a Pandora’s box. A second blind spot is our belief that more and better technology will solve the most intractable problems. Consider global warming. It’s most definitely happening, driven in part by unbridled consumption of goods and fossil fuels. Our solution? Deny the problem exists, or avoid responsibility even as our country goes whole hog into boosting production of new (and dirtier) sources of fossil fuels via hydraulic fracturing (fracking).
Like Fiske, Americans by nature believe in their own exceptionalism. Like Fiske, Americans by nature are generally optimistic. But Fiske dismissed the horrors of imperialism even as he missed the looming disaster of mass industrialized killing in two world wars.
What are we dismissing? What are we missing? I’ve suggested we’re dismissing the blowback produced by our own exceptionalism even as we’re missing the peril we pose to the health of our planet. I encourage you to add your thoughts below.
Regarding war, I disagree with those who say that if only women were in charge things would change. My latest counter-example is Nikki "FINISH THEM!" Haley, surging in the polls. And of course we had Hillary and then outside of the US, Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir. It's too bad that the myth isn't true because it would be wonderful if war could be ended or even moderated so simply.
I'd like to see it a rule that if you declared war, that is, committed your troops to battle, you would be instantly put on the front line in a private's uniform and would remain there until the war, or you, ended. Biden and Netanyahu would likely be deceased by now.
Many Americans are an incurious lot. So one thing that we are missing is healthy curiosity. How many Americans are curious about what Russia or China are really like? Most Americans prefer their fairytales about boogeymen. They don't want to know, and aren't even a bit curious. How often do most Americans put themselves in other people's shoes and ask themselves how it feels? Part of American exceptionalism is a total lack of interest in other people and other perspectives. Joe Biden is a perfect example. No curiosity, no understanding, no empathy. Just exceptionalism and arrogance.