Philosophy of War

According to Lawrence Keeley, "90-95% of known societies engage in war". Why? What compels Homo sapiens to kill each other en masse? Why do we as nations fight? These are a few of the hypotheses that have been developed throughout history to explain the phenomena of war;

War as Rational:

Sun Tzu argued that political struggles would eventually lead to armed conflict. Clausewitz took this one step further by saying that "war is a mere continuation of (political) policy by other means". Machiavelli completed this entire line of thought by saying that war was the most efficient means of attaining any political goal.

War as Inevitable:

Hobbes argued that humans are inherently violent. Raymond Dart and Robert Ardrey found a scientific basis for this by claiming that homo sapiens became the dominant humanoid through their martial prowess (and we have kept this prowess ever since). Another group of philosophers believe that war can be attributed to the reckless aggression caused by testosterone in males.

War as Logical:

Using Darwin's logic, mankind continues to fight wars because it is the means through which our species survives. Thomas Malthus adapted this into a population argument, stating that humans fight wars in order to keep populations small and manageable. Samuel Huntington took this one step further by saying that war negates massive youth bulges. Lastly, John Nash (the economist) proved, through game theory, that war is a more logical choice than peace.

War as Accidental:

AJP Taylor argued that all wars are unintended and unhappy escalations of smaller conflicts. Warmongering is neither inherent nor unavoidable. Taylor's ideas link closely to the pacifistic ideas of Tolstoy and Gandhi.

 

Perhaps we just enjoy it too much