Why war?

[Vastatosaurus Rex]

Why do human nations resolve conflicts over territory or resources by killing each other? It seems a needlessly violent way to resolve a conflict. I can think of a more peaceful way nations can resolve conflict without spilling any blood. Perhaps, for instance, rival nations could hold some kind of competition (e.g. sports, multiplayer computer games, etc.), and whoever wins the competition gets the resources or territory. People would therefore be able to resolve disputes peacefully while still exercising their competitive nature.

[spaceviking]

Because your plan involves people sticking to agreements, if you lose the table tennis match for Siberia you still can have an army. If you lose the war for Siberia you lose the ability to take it.

War is not because of competiveness it reflects the real power balance among nations.

[speaker-to-trolls]

^I had a long winded reply with an analogy about volleyball vs stabbing people with javelins as a means of resolving disputes, but basically; what he said.

Both diplomacy and war are attempts to resolve a dispute in a way that actually effects both nations. In diplomacy you agree to take differing amounts of whatever each of you wants in a way that you find reasonable, in war you try to force the other party to accept your diplomatic terms (be they 'recognise the rights of our nationals in this province' or 'die and may your culture be expunged from the Earth'). If you play a volleyball game to get your terms recognised, well, so what? they've still got some of what you want and they've still got an army to defend it.

Also this should probably be in SLAM, Off Topic or maybe History.

[Feil]

Escalation. They bring a chess board, you bring a knife. They bring a knife, you bring a gun. They bring a gun, you bring infantry. They bring infantry, you bring combined arms. They bring combined arms, you bring more and better. They bring more and better, you bring nukes. If everybody had nukes, we'd go back to the chessboard, but then some idiot would flip out when he got checkmated and trigger thermonuclear Armageddon, so we prefer to stick to war in stead, which doesn't suck nearly as much as annihilating 90% of the human species.

Competitions without escalation usually exist to settle a non-material point (like local pride), where nobody cares enough to escalate. You might be interested in researching the Korean 'sport' of village stone-fights between neighboring towns.

[Serafina]

Because we can afford it.

See, it's quite simple:
You want something. Normally, you are willing to invest something into it. The more you have, the more you will be willing and capable to invest.
Modern societies (or rather, anything more advanced than hunter-gatherers) can afford to spare time, people, materials etc. on aquiring other peoples stuff by means of violence.

That's why we see more willinng to war if we are not struggling for survival, and why hunter-gatherers who do just that settle conflicts without violence - they can not afford to loose the life of their members.

Of course, morality is also an issue.
Morality is the behaviour of individuals within a society - so if you do not see the enemy as part of your society, your morality does not apply to him.
Human rights are a fairly new invention, and assosciating yourself with a nation is relatively "new", too.

And, of course, there is no punishment for waging war - there is a risk that others will leap on you if you are too weak, and the enemy will strike back, but there is no way stronger entity that punishes you (as a society does with an individual).

[General Zod]

Why do human nations resolve conflicts over territory or resources by killing each other? It seems a needlessly violent way to resolve a conflict. I can think of a more peaceful way nations can resolve conflict without spilling any blood. Perhaps, for instance, rival nations could hold some kind of competition (e.g. sports, multiplayer computer games, etc.), and whoever wins the competition gets the resources or territory. People would therefore be able to resolve disputes peacefully while still exercising their competitive nature.

Because there's always going to be some greedy douchebag that wants to set himself up as the next Pol Pot and get a bigger piece of the pie, or some delusional nutter who wants to start the next crusades because his magic sky pixie said so. Short of reprogramming human nature or magically eliminating material needs you'll never be able to successfully get rid of war.

[speaker-to-trolls]

Of course, morality is also an issue.
Morality is the behaviour of individuals within a society - so if you do not see the enemy as part of your society, your morality does not apply to him.

I don't think it's quite as cut and dried as that, otherwise rules of honourable conduct and the like wouldn't arise. A balance tends to be struck between the antagonists being able to achieve their aims by force and limiting the force so the antagonists are not in undue danger. I say tends to be, society, economics, technology and all sorts of other things sometimes outstrip traditions and reason and the antagonists all suffer for it.

Human rights are a fairly new invention, and assosciating yourself with a nation is relatively "new", too.

Wait, how new? Because there have certainly been large empires commanding the 'patriotic' loyalty of their people for a few thousand years, even if it wasn't quite the same as nationalism it certainly allowed plenty of drive for wars and Imperialism.

[Thanas]

Why do human nations resolve conflicts over territory or resources by killing each other? It seems a needlessly violent way to resolve a conflict

This from the guy who advocated that Egypt conquering Europe would be a good thing.

[Serafina]

Wait, how new? Because there have certainly been large empires commanding the 'patriotic' loyalty of their people for a few thousand years, even if it wasn't quite the same as nationalism it certainly allowed plenty of drive for wars and Imperialism.

Relatively new as in "has often not been the case in human history" - particulary because loyalty towards a nation requires something that inspires it.
Which is kinda hard if you are essentially just a small farmer who has absolutely no influence and next to no rights.

[adam_grif]

Why Peace?

For all people talk about rights, possessions and so on, the actual owner of something is the person who can enforce their ownership, or has somebody capable and willing of enforcing it (i.e. a government). Militaries are the equivelant of police forces for international disputes. The Police dole out the will of the government, with force if necessary, onto the country's citizens. Militaries do it to citizens of other countries.

Pretty simple really. People want stuff. There is only so much stuff to go around. If you can take it by force you have the stuff. Think about game theory. If everybody is agreeing to treaties and resolving conflicts without violence, if somebody decides to just ignore one of them and do whatever they like, they "win" because they get the most and best stuff. Same reason people lie - it's advantageous for them.

[Serafina]

The comparision of military forces to the police is pretty baseless.

Unlike the police, the military normally does not operate within the boundaries of a single society.
Unlike the police, it does not enforce a law, but rather representing the self-interest of one nation.
Unlike the police, the military always follows the direct orders of the goverment.

While, in earlier times, the borders between the police force and the military were less rigid (or nonexistant), and certain exceptions to the above do exist (such as civil wars), that is not the case today.
And even in earlier times, you could distinguish between police and military operations quite well.

At best, you can call some military actions similar to the function of a police force (Afghanistan comes to mind), but those are exceptions rather than the rule.

[Simon_Jester]

Because we can afford it.

See, it's quite simple:
You want something. Normally, you are willing to invest something into it. The more you have, the more you will be willing and capable to invest.
Modern societies (or rather, anything more advanced than hunter-gatherers) can afford to spare time, people, materials etc. on aquiring other peoples stuff by means of violence.

That's why we see more willinng to war if we are not struggling for survival, and why hunter-gatherers who do just that settle conflicts without violence - they can not afford to loose the life of their members.

Though hunter-gatherers do run into violent conflicts sometimes, in environments where their population density goes up and they interact with neighboring bands a lot. One of the problems with hunter-gatherer lifestyle (among many) is the way that it breaks down into "me and my tribe versus the universe;" that's not a recipe for peaceful coexistence when you run into another tribe.

Why do human nations resolve conflicts over territory or resources by killing each other? It seems a needlessly violent way to resolve a conflict

This from the guy who advocated that Egypt conquering Europe would be a good thing.

Wait, how did I miss that? When and where was that?

[adam_grif]

The comparision of military forces to the police is pretty baseless.

Unlike the police, the military normally does not operate within the boundaries of a single society.
Unlike the police, it does not enforce a law, but rather representing the self-interest of one nation.
Unlike the police, the military always follows the direct orders of the goverment.

While, in earlier times, the borders between the police force and the military were less rigid (or nonexistant), and certain exceptions to the above do exist (such as civil wars), that is not the case today.
And even in earlier times, you could distinguish between police and military operations quite well.

At best, you can call some military actions similar to the function of a police force (Afghanistan comes to mind), but those are exceptions rather than the rule.

I'm not saying they do similar missions, I'm saying that their job is the same in principle. To enforce government policy, by force if necessary. They're the international arm, they defend the country from attack or attack other countries as ordered by their superiors. Do you disagree?

[Phantasee]

Why do human nations resolve conflicts over territory or resources by killing each other? It seems a needlessly violent way to resolve a conflict

This from the guy who advocated that Egypt conquering Europe would be a good thing.

Wait, how did I miss that? When and where was that?

Why does it matter? It doesn't have any relevance to the topic of this thread. And he didn't say Egypt conquering Europe would be a good thing, he was proposing a hypothetical: what if? His hypothetical was dumb, but it doesn't mean he's pro-Egypt (or Africa).

[Rye]

Why do human nations resolve conflicts over territory or resources by killing each other? It seems a needlessly violent way to resolve a conflict. I can think of a more peaceful way nations can resolve conflict without spilling any blood. Perhaps, for instance, rival nations could hold some kind of competition (e.g. sports, multiplayer computer games, etc.), and whoever wins the competition gets the resources or territory. People would therefore be able to resolve disputes peacefully while still exercising their competitive nature.

At its most basic level, most war is over material and psychological concerns; get two tribes and only enough fresh water to support 1.5 tribes or less... yeah, war's going to break out. "When the world is overcharged with inhabitants," Hobbes said, "then the last remedy of all is war; which provideth for every man by victory or death." War is the natural response to overpopulation. War is the natural outgrowth of anarchy, where there is no dominant power structure forcing people to behave. Resolving disputes peacefully when your people will die as a result is fucking absurd. If they're going to die, they're usually prepared to kill to live. Survival, especially group survival isn't terribly amenable to laws and rules, there is nothing most people wouldn't do to save their families, including "cheating".

At the psychological end, we get into ideology and the perception of risk/security. Ideological certainty, and the belief that you're doing right by warring over God, your nation, your race or utopia are the big ones. If everything is at stake in your risk perception, you'll do anything to someone else to make you seem really foolish to attack (this is what I understand by "realpolitik").

If you want to see how to make war less desirable, I say you make human life more rare and therefore valuable.

[Surlethe]

I think Serafina nailed it, with one caveat:

Because we can afford it.

You can model every decision as a risk-reward calculation. Why do nations go to war? Because in general, rightly or wrongly, they calculate that they can get more, after subtracting losses, out of the use of force than they can out of negotiation, diplomacy, and trade. There may be some outliers, but I'm fairly certain that this is the general pattern of war.

Caveat:

That's why we see more willinng to war if we are not struggling for survival, and why hunter-gatherers who do just that settle conflicts without violence - they can not afford to loose the life of their members.

Which is why chimpanzee tribes sometimes hunt each other down to expand territory, or there are paleolithic mass graves?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Well, among the other reasons mentioned:

1: The people who make the decision to go to war are seldom much at risk personally.

2: Many people have an irrational faith in the superior efficiency of ruthlessness and violence. We tend to choose force because we think it will work better, even when the evidence says otherwise. We tend to look at nonviolent, fair solutions as self sacrificing even when they are the path of rational self interest.

3: Out of date instincts & culture. What made sense from a ruthless perspective a thousand or ten thousand years ago doesn't make sense now, but our instincts are still the same. Wars these days just aren't very profitable most of the time; more is spent than comes back in return. In the olden days, the more limited infrastructure could more easily be rebuilt, and brute force was more effective at controlling people as well as more tolerated. If your goal was more hunting or farmland or women to rape, war worked because those things generally survived the war; these days, war tends to kill the golden goose. Where's all the oil money that was going to make the Iraqi conquest profitable to America?

4: It only takes one side to start one. Wars are generally stupid and evil; but it only takes one government run by stupid or evil leaders to start a war regardless of how smart and moral their neighbors are.

[Formless]

If you want to see how to make war less desirable, I say you make human life more rare and therefore valuable.

Or, if you are feeling a little less nihilistic, find some way to make resources a non-issue. If there is nothing material to fight over, then psychological motives are all that's left. Of course, this solution is rather difficult as it would require something profoundly game changing like serious space colonization, but in theory it can be done.

[SirNitram]

The fundamental reason why war has several reasons:

The human race has ALOT of retards. I mean you can stack them vertically. They will then beleive things like you gain resources from war instead of peaceful co-existance(Even if no destruction of resources in war.. Laughable.. Both sides expend bunches in the war).

Sociopaths. We have far too many(Meaning: More than zero) sly, smart, likable assholes who think nothing of wasting resources, inflicting suffering, and all sorts of other atrocities for their own personal gain.

Religion. I mean, come on. How long do you think it was after the second priest ever, there was violence between beleivers of the Giant Sky Snake and the Giant Sky Vine?

[Rye]

If you want to see how to make war less desirable, I say you make human life more rare and therefore valuable.

Or, if you are feeling a little less nihilistic, find some way to make resources a non-issue. If there is nothing material to fight over, then psychological motives are all that's left. Of course, this solution is rather difficult as it would require something profoundly game changing like serious space colonization, but in theory it can be done.

It can be done a lot easier with a lot less human suffering and damage to the environment my way. Your way you have millions of babies starving while your pipe dreams are dying from radiation poisoning half way to Mars.

[Formless]

It can be done a lot easier with a lot less human suffering and damage to the environment my way. Your way you have millions of babies starving while your pipe dreams are dying from radiation poisoning half way to Mars.

Explain to me how you expect to lower the population without causing lots of suffering. I could use a good laugh.

[Surlethe]

Raise income, let women into the workforce, make contraceptives widely available, and institute a healthy safety net. Population overgrowth works itself out like magic.

[Formless]

True, but that strategy takes a lot of time, and tends to run right into existing cultural conflicts (see: religion, sexism, general stupidity, etc.). Also, there is the problem that as the rest of the world catches up to the first world (which is part of any good social project like the one you are describing, as well as a goal of its own) it tends to cause other problems such as a temporary but non-trivial population boom and lots of environmental issues. China is perhaps the best existing example. Point is, unless you approach this kind of social engineering very slowly (and perhaps even then), its not going to be a painless process, and the social/cultural barriers make it very difficult indeed.

[Ford Prefect]

While I dislike Realist political theory because Realists tend to be an endless array of smug pricks, there's no denying that the idea of war as a tool of diplomacy is one with a great deal of historical precedent. While a great many wars have been fought for lofty ideals like freedom and justice, I would not expect a majority of these to be sincere motivations (though I am not much of a historian). You can view diplomacy at the level of states as being about greedy sociopaths trying to bargain with each other; while I don't think this is an absolute in the modern day, it does ring true for the past. In this sense, you can view diplomacy as being two or more states trying to convince their contemporaries that supporting their position is the best decision. At that point, one of the most 'profound' arguments is bleeding their populations: on a personal level it's like breaking someone's finger to get them to pay a debt. If you can show, through conflict, that you are more willing and more capable of cracking some poor schmuck over the head to get what you want, then you have the advantage in the diplomatic arena.

This is awfully off the cusp, and really quite simplified, but I'm just trying to convey this idea that human diplomacy sometimes flows naturally from the point of a sword. This is probably more debateable in a modern context, as war between major states isn't nearly as common as it was historically.

[AniThyng]

Why do human nations resolve conflicts over territory or resources by killing each other? It seems a needlessly violent way to resolve a conflict. I can think of a more peaceful way nations can resolve conflict without spilling any blood. Perhaps, for instance, rival nations could hold some kind of competition (e.g. sports, multiplayer computer games, etc.), and whoever wins the competition gets the resources or territory. People would therefore be able to resolve disputes peacefully while still exercising their competitive nature.

This can only work if there was an even higher authority willing to use war to keep any escalations in line. E.g. to use the football example, if the organizer of the Premier league refused to award the trophy to the rightful winner, Her Majesty's Government can step in to enforce a breach of contract persecution or something

Imagine if the US and USSR used this tactic of ritualized dueling:

1) Zangief and Guile face off in Geneva's boxing ring over, i dunno, Iranian oil fields or something. best 3 out of 5

2) Close match, but Guille wins!

3) Gorbachev: FUCK THIS. *launches invasion of western europe*

4) UN Blue Helmets on NATO/WARPAC border: OH SHIT. *scatter and hide*

5) WW3 ensues.

But yeah, manga has thought me that world leaders resolve their differences via Mahjong games on American aircraft carriers.