Looks Like We Are Spending Our Defense Dollars On The Wrong Type Of Defenses
Instead of spending trillions of dollars preparing for war, should we not be spending that money to find ways and means to defend ourselves when faced with existential threats? Guess our leaders think otherwise. But, underlining the paucity of wisdom among our politicians, leaders of two nations armed even with nuclear weapons were victims of the pandemic. Let alone protecting the population, they could not even protect themselves.
If we had been funding research on vaccines and drugs at a level comparable to the defense budget, vaccines would have been out months earlier saving hundreds of thousands of lives, not to mention the saving of peoples’ livelihoods. If the political answer is that we do not have money to fund research on existental threats of the biological kind and other threats like climate change, at a level similar to the defense budget, isn’t it time that we put an end to warfare?
People Did Not Think Slavery Could Be Ended Either
We can take heart remembering that due to the actions of an enlightened few, and the enslaved themselves, eventually slavery was abolished. At one time, there were markets where humans were bought and sold, can you imagine? But now civilized society would not tolerate such atrocities.
The same is true with colonization, racial segregation, and women’s franchise. Thus there is no doubt that big changes in human conscience can be brought about.
Although politicians couch it in noble motives, war is nothing but the ultimate form of group aggression in the service of dominance, territorial gains, and resource control. We have to realize that we go to war for the same reasons as ant colonies fighting one another for territory, or clans of hyenas who fight pitched battles over carcasses of prey. World War II was a territorial war, whereas Middle-East wars are over oil. Falkland was more of a show of dominance than anything else. Some who think that we cannot change our violent behaviors turn to primatology to justify their stand. Chimpanzees maybe be carrying out gang warfare against outsiders who stray into their territory, but isn’t it insane for us humans to follow the lead of the Chimpanzees. Incredible as it may sound, there are species of ants that enslave other species. Darwin wrote about the behavior of slave-making and slave ant species. Ants of the species Formica sanguinea rear workers of F. rufa species as slaves. The slaves seem to exclusively care for the larvae, and the masters alone go on expeditions to capture slave pupae. When migrating, the masters carry the slaves to the new location. We did not continue with slavery just because there are examples of it in the Animal Kingdom, and we should not carry on with warfare just because some animal species do it too.
Arguments people use now to justify war are very similar to arguments made at the time for the necessity of continuing slavery. Excuses such slavery being part of the natural order, it being an economic necessity, and that it is needed to keep the country united, are very similar to saying that going to war is part of human nature, that the industries that manufacture material needed for war are a big part of the economy, and that it is necessary to further national interest. It is not surprising that just as slavery went on for several thousand years in one form or another, warfare has also been around for several thousand years and continues to do so.
Arming ourselves and killing each other, and destroying each other’s homes is insane and would not be tolerated in any other context. In additions to the countless millions killed in wars, children without parents, parents without their adult children, siblings missing siblings are the fruits of war, even for the winners. Then there are the wounded, the tortured, and those physically and mentally disabled for life.
The fact is that war is against human nature. Most people cannot stomach the carnage caused as borne out by the numbers of war veterans who come back with mental health problems and the high suicide rate among soldiers and veterans compared to the general population.
And, it is questionable if war actually brings any advantage in even in a Survival of the Fittest sense to the population. “Leaders” who wage war claiming they are doing it to advance the vital interests of their nations actually can end up destroying their own people along with the enemy. Not just Vietnam was devastated, considering the plight of the American-Vietnam War veterans, and the toll the war took on the American psyche, it is as if the impact of the bombs that were dropped in Vietnam were felt in the USA too. War leaves behind devastated infrastructure like bridges, water treatment plants, and industry that modern society depends on. For example, in the middle of the last century both Germany and Japan were reduced to rubble by a war they themselves initiated. Only the pragmatic decision by the allies after the War not to further punish the losers allowed them to recover. We came to the brink of nuclear Armageddon during the Cold War. Although we escaped Armageddon, due to the vast resources spent on preparation for war and militarization of their economies on the part both sides, Russia was left impoverished and “winning” the Cold War has not brought any benefits to the average American either.
With the increasing destructive powers of new weapon systems there is the possibility that the next big war will be an extinction-level-event, in which both the winners and the losers will be no more. Given this reality, it is suicidal to continue the current culture of glorifying aggression and violence of war. We have to open our eyes to the possibility that this primitive form of aggression, war, rather than improving our country, religion or race, may actually exterminate our species.
We profess the virtues of peace and cooperation, of living a spiritual life, of loving thy neighbor, but in world affairs, it is confrontations and war the ultimate arbiter. The moral compromises made by early America have current day relevance, as we ourselves are making a great moral compromise. Slave society professed that all men were created equal, but they enslaved millions of fellow humans. Just like the people living in the time of slavery, we too preach one thing but practice another.
However, there were some people, ahead of their times, that realized the inhumanness of slavery. From this realization it was a slow and painstaking process taking generations and the efforts of many brave individuals, including the enslaved themselves, to the abolishment of slavery. Beginning with just a few people, the abolitionist movement grew with groups such as the Women’s Anti-Slavery Society and some clergy arguing that slavery was incompatible with Christ’s teachings, There was an anti-slavery press producing a steady stream of publications ranging from speeches of anti-slavery activists, anti-slavery poems, to memoires of former enslaved people.
There is no reason why warfare has to go on forever either.
For dramatic changes to take hold, there has to be a change in social consciousness like in the case of desegregation and decolonization. In the meantime the few countries that manufacture armaments and export them worldwide can be lobbied not to do so. Social media campaigns can be carried out to show the powers-that-be that people all over the world want an end to war. Educating our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren (basically anyone in the younger generation), on the inhumanity of war, so that at least the conscience of future generations would make war abhorrent and they will take steps to free mankind from the scourge of war.
