Pretentions, excuses and causes for war

"Every war has got motives on the face of it and ulterior motives at the base of it"

Picture source - Reuters

Alexander Hamilton, an eighteenth century American statesman, writes, “innumerable wars originate entirely in private passions in attachments, enmities, interests, hopes and fears of leading individuals in the communities of which they are members.” And to support his argument, he cites example of Pericles, one of the lauded statesmen from ancient history, who waged a war on the city of Samos just to avenge the resentment of a woman he was attached to. But, not so surprisingly, the history has presented it differently, ascribing to a more decent motive of preserving the Athenian credibility as a ‘great power.’ That was a piece of history from 440BC, roughly 2462 years down the road, the pretentions, excuses and causes for war remain the same. That much for the civilized evolution of human race all these millenniums.

What remains at core, needs to be understood to evaluate this stagnancy, amidst the modern day technological, ecological and sociological revolution.

Why has the logic for wars not changed? Are there any logics in the first place? Was the world recently, not made to believe the ‘so called’ motives of a free, safer and a democratic world? It rings a bell, doesn’t it? Every war has got motives on the face of it and ulterior motives at the base of it.

Wars have been traditionally waged for territory. In ancient history, war was aimed at creating more space for living or for agriculture to fulfill the food requirements. In modern days, the territorial gains are used for creating buffer zones, between a country’s and its adversary’s territory or perhaps for creating safe economic corridors and zones. These perceived buffer zones may not be the intervening territories between two adversaries, rather can be a third country where these adversaries choose opposing powers suiting them logistically, militarily or economically, to wage a ‘proxy war.’

The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) fought over annexation of Texas by America and Arab Israel War of 1967 from modern history are examples of war fought for territorial gains. It comes as a thumb rule that publicly noblest of declaration, for going into a war, has an economic reason playing at the core, incited by the desire to take control of another country’s wealth. Gold, silver or livestock considered economic asset in bygone eras have now been transformed into oil, minerals and raw materials. The ever increasing population and dwindling planet resources and food security provisions like water are the latest entries to the list to be contested. The Anglo-Indian Wars (1766-1849) fought in different states in India by the East India Company, the Russo-Finnish War (1939-1940) was waged by Stalin’s Soviet Army on Finland to mine for nickel, are few examples of wars fought for economic gains. It doesn’t stop here and more will come on economic gains before conclusion.

Religion is yet another deep-rooted basis for going to war. Interesting to note is that such conflicts have a tendency to blow hot like an inferno and go cold as a dead body, but its trigger can neither be listed nor scheduled. But once unleashed, can cause severe mayhem. It can be interfaith or intra-faith.

The Crusades from 1095-1291 and Yugoslav War of 1991-1995 are examples of religiously-motivated wars, targeting extinction of Islam or Muslims. In addition of above mentioned causes of the war, nationalism is yet another one. Such like war is based on the pretext of superiority of race and creed of a nation. World War I (1914-1918) was an outcome of extreme nationalism. Wars have also been fought to avenge defeats and disgrace of previous war(s). World War II (1939-1945) was a conflict which was triggered by Germany to take revenge of its humiliation meted out by Treaty of Versailles, an instrument terminating WWI, while imposing strict economic and military sanctions.

As of today, the triggers of religion, nationalism and revenge despite being underlying statement of wars are not declared as such. The world shies away from accepting these in the name of lip service to so-called equality and human rights for all.

Regardless of the variance in causes of war, the spoils remain a common denominator. Wars initiated on any pretext culminated on bounty and booty for the victor. There have been times that spoils used to be considered as a by-product of war. As of today, the tables have been turned on wars. They seem to be now rendered as, byproducts instead, spinoffs from search of energy resources, from pursuit for raw materials, and/or, from shifting the weapons’ demand and supply curves in favor of demand, meaning more market.

The rolling stone of war has been gathering layers of moss in the post advent of unipolar world making it a more slippery affair to handle than ever. It started with the first Gulf War and the War on Terror which took the US-led coalition to Iraq and Afghanistan. All in the name of a safer, free and will-be democratic world, with oil and subsurface riches being the real objective. Once done, these powers left the region in utmost turmoil at the mercy of extremist groups, all so good at mopping up.

The reasons for intra-state conflicts after the ‘New World Order’ came into vogue, were no different from those of inter-state wars. Africa was rampaged, again for its trove of underground treasures through non-state actors in countries like Liberia, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leonne and Congo. The expansion of NATO despite reassurances to Moscow, that it won’t be done, was supposedly done to promote peace and stability, whereas it was a proven effort on part of USA to find new markets for its weapon industry, eventually boiling up to be a new war between Russia and Ukraine.

What to say? Is it about spoils of war or war for spoils. The later for sure.