The Future of Conflict: Will Wars Ever Truly End?

Understanding War

Is war an inevitable part of human nature, or can we envision a future where conflicts are resolved peacefully? It is difficult to understand the logic of any war from a civilisational point of view. Whenever a war erupts, the existential doubt arises and haunts us with greater intensity: is war not a self-defeating trait of human civilization? The answer is yes, and no. Many scholars have studied the connection between war, peace, and basic human nature with varying degrees of success. All of them beat their brains out trying to figure out the root causes of war and where its dateline begins in human history. The resulting theories cast light on many nuanced aspects of war, peace, and human nature. The scientific approaches of evolution, psychological theories, game theory, and much more have been used to expound the meaning of war. Kinship, hostility, group bonding, identity, altruism, cooperation, and many more similar and contrasting concepts went into this churning process.

Compared to other species, humans have achieved quite another level of interspecies aggression. Agustin Fuentes said, “Groups of monkeys may fight over food sources, ant colonies fight over space, and many other types of animal groups engage in conflicts, but none of them are planned, organised, and lethal with regularity.” (Fuentes, (Ed. Douglas P Fry), Chapter 5, War, Peace and Human Nature, 2015); planned and organised are the keywords here.

How Old is War?

A recent book edited by Douglas P Fry (2015) argues that “warfare is not ancient”. His and his co-authors’ argument is this- from available evidence, one can conclude that war is only 10000 years old, and human societies can choose to be peaceful.

Fry points to evidence from before the 10,000-year history of settled agricultural societies, specifically from foraging and nomadic societies. Come on, he reprimands the pessimists on the other end of the academic spectrum, human history is 2 million years old and an evil innovation such as war, dated only 10000 years, cannot be termed as human nature!

He goes on to expound on nomadic forager societies to prove his point: these people existed on earth for 1.9 million years; only later did an agricultural society develop, again that is, in the last 10000 years. Did these nomads wage wars? No, according to Fry. However, when we try to go back to such a distant history of humanity, there is no preserved evidence to look for except what can be gathered from ethnographic studies.

Steven Pinker is a celebrated scholar who probed this mystery. He reckons the reverse when he asserts that human prehistory was chequered with wars.

In his book, ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity’, Pinker reasons in just another direction- pointing towards data and suggesting that as humanity progressed, violence declined. He begins his book on the very premise that our past has been a violent one. However, Pinker begins his inquiry much later in the timeline than Fry, that is, exactly at the beginning of those 10000 years.

A scientific study conducted in 2015 by Anthony Lopez, in a paper published in International Theory, suggests that even before the advent of agriculture, humans were waging wars, which means that as back as 12000 BC, human groups fought with each other in war mode. Lopez believes that aggression to outside groups and cooperation within one’s group has always been the norm. He also observes that this might have helped the survival and reproduction of the human species long-term. Even as such studies continue to emerge, it is highly contestable that early human history had wars.

The question boils down to this- were there wars before the advent of agriculture in human societies? Fry contends that there is only one example available in the entire documented history to prove it. The evidence from the archaeological site, Jebel Sahaba. However, he questions that evidence by reminding us that the date of this specific archaeological site is not determined conclusively. He also cautions us to differentiate between homicide and war, noting that homicide has an ancient history but war does not have such a long past.

Proof for Lack of War in Nomadic Forager Societies

According to Fry,

1. The Batek people of Malaysia, the Mardu people of Australia, the Hadza people of Tanzania, and the South Indian forager societies never waged wars or undertook feuding.

2. There is no reported homicide among the Batek and the South Indian foragers.

3. All the above nomadic tribes did not put any value on aggression.

4. The only disputes among all these tribes were based on sexual jealousy and access to resources but most of these fights were personal, and not organised or planned.

In other words, the nomadic forager societies did not undertake raids on other groups for women or resources. Such conflicts were there in the pre-agricultural history of human societies but were mostly limited to the scale of individual levels.

Alex J Bellamy gives us some more positive examples- the Minoans who lived in Crete, a Greek island between 3000 BCE and 1500 BCE, and the people of Indus Valley Civilisation (3000 BCE - 1700 BCE) were two peaceful societies. The Indus Valley people did not even have weapons suitable for war and fortifications surrounding their habitations. The Phoenicians also were mostly traders rather than warriors.

How Did the Psychology of Own Group vs Other Group Strengthen?

Once the idea of war was adopted, there was no end to it. Scientists say that sacred symbols have been instrumental in promoting solidarity within a given group and hostility towards the groups outside it. Shared secret symbols and values associated with them strengthened social bonds within a group all the same, making the other group alien and hostile, just because they do not find value in those sacred symbols. Thus, these symbols and values become the identity of a particular group. Isn't it surprising that symbols such as a flag, a specific local God, a symbolic spot worn on the forehead, or a particular kind of attire lead to such hostilities between groups? Tragically, this is so, even in modern societies.

Will Wars End?

In an article published on the Washington State University website on the species-specific reasons for human wars, the author says that the US Department of Defence has started pioneering research with neuroscientists to understand the intentions and psychology of the country’s enemies. The article also says that now the US Defence sources have started acknowledging that enemy behaviour is not irrational but understandable from a human psychological and behavioural point of view. What this type of research will lead to is still unpredictable. Will it lead to attempts to manipulate the behaviour of hostile groups through morally problematic means or it will lead to a deeper understanding of the point of view of enemies and thereby better resolution of conflicts in a more democratic way? This is a question that the future alone can answer.

As Alex J Bellamy pointed out rightly, wars are getting “costlier to fight, and less rewarding to win” (p.9). International laws, agreements, and agencies make it far easier to negotiate and settle disputes rather than to wage wars.

Citing the examples of Baboons to Moriori tribesmen, and summarising the views of the authors in his book, Douglas P Fry concluded that “peace and war are not static states and people can choose peace over war.” Let us hope the world will exercise that choice, sometime in the future at least.

References

Douglas P Fry (Ed.), 2015, War, Peace and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views, Oxford University Press.

Anthony Lopez, 2015, The Evolution of War: Theory and Controversy, International Theory.

Why We Wage War?, College of Arts and Sciences Connect, Washington State University.

The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity, Steven Pinker, 2011, Penguin Books Limited.

World Peace: (And How We Can Achieve It), Alex J Bellamy, 2019, OUP Oxford.