Discussion on War in a Sociological Perspective

Discussion on War in a Sociological Perspective

What is War?

As far as we know, war has always been part of human history. War occurred from time to time, in one form or another, even throughout our prehistory. What is war? Sociologically speaking, war is “organized, armed conflict among the peoples of various societies” (Macionis). Differed from gusty conflicts, war is well-planned and well-prepared, referring to the extension of a serious of disputes, if not one. From Sunzi’s The Art of War to Bernard Brodie’s The Absolute Weapon, human’s efforts on the war strategy study never waned. War is also characterized by means of arms. Ever since war’s advent, technology has become its counterpart, pushing each other to the very verge of human annihilation. But most importantly, war is a social construction, which happens among various societies holding different cultural traits, such as languages, norms, values, and beliefs (or specifically, religions).

What Causes War?

Early social Darwinists suggested that war among men was merely a special case of the universal law which guaranteed “the survival of the fittest”. This kind of explanations could lead human to nothing but racism and nationalism, which later became Hitler’s justice of genocide. Close study of animal world revealed that, “struggle for existence” was only carried by members of different species; successful groups were those that could live with cooperation and mutual aid (Bramson & Goethals). Marx, however, saw war as a result of economic causes, particularly imperialism. Durkheim, who appreciated the great power of cohesion in society, implied nationalism highly differentiating modern societies contributes to the outbreak of war (Bramson & Goethals).

A more systematic analyse had been done by Quincy Wright written in his book A Study of War. Based on Wright’s work (1987), Macionis stated, perceived threats, social problems, political objectives, moral objectives and the absence of alternatives, are the five factors that lead men to war (Macionis).

During cold war, perceived threads between USA and USSR were so stressful that human’s doomsday seemed like just “tomorrow”. But after USSR’s dramatic decomposition, threads subsided and the odd of warfare between these two nations highly decreased (Macionis).

After China’s invasion of Vietnam in mid-1979, the relations between these two countries deteriorated seriously despite of the intimate fellowship established for a couple decades. Some analysts suggested the major reasons leading to this war are: social problems and political objective. After China stepped out of Cultural Revolution, this nation was still in deep confusion and unstable situation. Deng Xiaoping retook communist regime but did not gain full control of People's Liberation Army (PLA) from his opponents. The nation was at high risk of social chaos and martial rebellions. In Feb 1979, along with the Vietnamese occupations of some disputed islands in South China Sea, Deng waged this war for the regain of social solidarity and complete control of PLA.

Moral objectives, likely, values of “good or evil”, always give good reasons for the politicians to consider war. For instance, during 1860 to 1865, the Civil War of America, a brutal and bloody conflict, leaving the South defeated at a cost of more than half a million lives, was considered a justice to the evil of slavery.

It may sound absurd that United Nations, peacekeeper of the world, has been perpetually engaged in war to fulfil its function - to prevent war. This embarrassing situation could be contributed to the absence of alternatives due to UN’s incompetence of resolving tensions among self-interested societies (Macionis).

That is, “war is rooted in social dynamics on both national and international levels” (Macionis). To study and analyze war, we must realize that war was not born with human nature but it’s a result of social interactions. To prevent war, we should approach to the solutions by sociological means.

Can war ever be moral?

Throughout history, war has been the source of serious moral questions. Concerns about morality of war have gradually increased.

Pacifists, theologically or philosophically, see war as a negative human activity. According to Richard J. Regan’s statements, “Church leaders either disapproved or looked down on Christian’s serving in the imperial Roman army”; modern pacifists appreciate “human life is an absolute value” and refuse to kill or harm the wrongdoers who practising violence (Regan). Obviously, pacifists regard all wars as immoral events unconditionally.

Unlike pacifists, many people view a specific war either moral or immoral. To determine a war is moral or not is to justify the war is right or wrong guided by principle.

Fighting for glory and royalty, many ancient nations and some modern ones viewed war as noble. However, many religions have appealed to God’s will as the justification of war. Marxists, with another perspective, suggested that “Just” wars are wars by means of which states, nations, national groups or social classes defend themselves against national or class subjection (Kára). Thus, Marxism implies that, in today’s world, just causes of war are to defend Communist regimes and to overturn capitalist ones (Regan).

Criticism of militarism in World War Two, doom of nuclear weapons, increasing belief in value of individual life has highly influenced the view of war in contemporary societies. Today, negative view of war has been held widely around the world, but some still tend to justify war as moral by legitimization. In fact, International Law recognises two cases for a legitimate war: wars of defence and wars sanctioned by the UN Security Council. But criticized by some legalists, the contemporary International Law, without rethinking and reforming, can do little help for resolving humanitarian crisis (Mednicoff). At this point of view, this legal approach can hardly affirm the morality of war.

So, what is the universal principle for justifying war? The answer is: None. Hence, we can not simply determine war is moral or not in a single dimension. But one thing is for sure, a specific war is moral to some people whereas it is immoral to others.

The roles of labelling, stereotyping and values of good and evil

…North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror…

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic. (Bush)

In his speech of “2002 State of the Union Address”, George W. Bush put three nations onto a black list – axis of evil, labelling them as an evil group. Three months later, Libya, Syria, and Cuba were added onto this list, making it up to 6 “rogue states”. Later, new term like, outposts of tyranny, was coined to a list of 6 countries deemed most dangerous and anti-American. Since then, “Axis of terror and hate” and “axis of terror” were also applied.

Up to this point, we can see that good guys and bad buys were “clearly” distinguished. To overturn the evil regime and liberate their oppressed citizen sounds justice and necessary. Under this labelling pressure, Libya took policy changes and established intimate relations with western world. But more countries, like Iraq and Iran, rejected these titles showing more hostile attitude. The consequences are: perceived threads among “good and evil” nations were increased; tensions among them were boosted; effects of diplomatic resolution were weakened; risks of war were raised up as well.

Negative labelling not only deteriorates international relationship but also projects stereotype in the future (Kromidas). In Maria Kromidas’s research on the fourth-grades students in the aftermath of September 11^th, a conversion was recorded as (Kromidas):

Sheri: We were talking about who started it first, and if they kill a lot of white

people. . . . I mean a lot of people, we got to go to war right then.

MK: Who are they?

Sheri: The Indians.

MK: The Indians?

Sheri: I don’t know – that’s what I call them.

Jonathan: The Pakistans!

MK: The Pakistans?

Sodiq: The Afghanistans!

MK: The Afghanistans?

Joseph: The terrorists.

Obviously, by applying “Taliban are terrorists”, “Taliban are in Afghanistan”, Joseph generated an asymmetric reversed hypothesis – “Afghanistanis are terrorists.” Unfortunately, he took it as a fact. Further, South Asians (including Indians and Pakistanis) were also added in the scope. Thus, a stereotype “South Asians are terrorists” was formed.

When Kromidas asked the non-Muslim students to describe Muslim people, she got shocking responses like these (Kromidas):

They don’t talk English. They like money. They like to kill people. They own different kind of stores.

I don’t know any thing about the Muslim people. The only thing that I know is that they are poor and they eat out of dirty pot and the Muslim people stink and they got rotting teeth and they take a bath once a year and the ugly people try to bomb the U.S.A.

They like to fight other people. They fight the people in their own country. They drink dirty water. They poor. They don’t get along. They sleep in bushes. If they are mean they go to hell.

Muslims kill people. They are terrorist.

The Muslim like money. They like to kill people. The Muslims is bad. The Muslims like to [go to] war. Muslim people is like bin Ladin. Why do Muslim people stink? Muslim people has long hair.

We see that, the abused generalizations lead people’s view far from the fact. Stereotypes can easily bring people to discriminations. As discriminations go further, contacts of different cultural group go fewer. More misunderstandings will arise and hostility will be aggravated. Stereotypes can cause hostility among different cultural communities even they are closed to each other. Then, for nations thousands miles apart without efficient interactions, it is reasonable that stereotypes can cause severe misunderstandings which may lead them to war.

Abused generalizations like stereotypes can cause trouble, extreme simplifications are also dangerous. Without considering culture’s complexity, people with “values of good and evil” separate different societies into two distinct groups. This can only raise barriers among various societies avoiding them to contact and understand each other. With cumulative misunderstandings and hatred, conflicts become unavoidable. As a further but not ultimate result, war takes place generating deeper enmities.

Arms transfers to developing nations

Once war begins, the only goal for a fighting nation is to win the war. Many factors can affect the result, determining victory or failure. Weapons are among these factors, relatively expectable and controllable.

After World War two, the former wartime allies separated and engaged into a rival for maintaining two distinct ideologies: capitalism and communism. Leading roles of these two groups were United States and Soviet Union. Although these two nations never waged war against to each other, with their allies, they competed on multiple arenas including: defence enhancement, mass destructive weapon (WMD) developing and space race. Despite of the term Cold War meaning “No fights”, regional conflicts did happen during this period, such as Vietnam War, Korea War and Cuban Missile Crisis.

Although Cold War ended with the dissolution of Soviet Union in 1992, arm race effects are still taking place. For example, United States military expenditures accounts for 16% of all federal spending in 2000 (Macionis). This can be contributed to the military-industrial complex, the close association between the federal government, the military, and defence industries (Macionis). In detail, during Cold War, military expense stimulated the growth of defence industries in United States. The defence industries not only provided massive working positions but also became a major component of the U.S. economy system. Hence, even in post-Cold War period, U.S. still has to maintain huge amount of military expenditure. This situation can also apply to other weapon manufacturing countries including: Russia, U.K., China, etc.

Meanwhile, since Soviet Union’s collapse, localized conflicts in Eastern Europe are taking place time after time. Regional conflicts and military tensions are still in high risks in the world.

Due to this social situation, proliferation of arms is hard to be avoided. Industrialized countries keep exporting weapons to maintain their high cost defence industries. Less industrialized countries, exposing to military crisis, keep pursuing arms. Table 1 shows the worldwide suppliers’ Arms transfer Agreements in 2005 and the shares with developing countries. The portions of weapons exporting to developing countries are closed to 70%. Clearly, developing countries become major markets for the weapon suppliers. For improving their exporting, these suppliers will put more effort on exploring this market. Consequently, both arms and conflicts proliferation will fall in the accelerating cycles, causing more severe conflicts (Hartung). If this trend can not be corrected in time, we may encounter a new world war.

Table 1

Worldwide Arms Transfer Agreements in 2005 and Suppliers’ Share with Developing Countries (in millions of constant 2005 U.S. dollars)

	Worldwide Agreements	Percentage of Total with Developing Countries	Percentage of World Total with Developing Countries
United States	12,758	48.50	20.48
Russia	7,900	79.70	20.80
France	7,400	94.60	23.17
United Kingdom	2,800	100.00	9.27
China	2,100	100.00	6.96
Germany	1,500	46.70	2.32
Italy	1,400	35.70	1.65
All Other European	5,900	55.90	10.92
All Others	2,400	54.20	4.31
TOTAL	44,158	68.40

Source: Grimmett, Richard F. Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1998-2005. USA: Congressional Research Service, 2006

Cultural lag between WMD possessions and diplomatic ability

Weapons somehow can be a crucial factor that directly leads to victory. Not long after U.S. army dropped their atomic booms on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered unconditionally. Hence, human’s effort on developing new powerful weapons never subsides. Since Industrial Revolution, technology has been developing in a rapid speed. New technologies not only improve human’s living conditions but also give weapon developing great leaps. Chemical weapons, Biological weapons and Nuclear weapons were successively invented. These mass destructive weapons (WMD) changed the world military structure dramatically. Possessing mass destructive weapons, powerful nations can give their enemies fatal destroy. Perceived threads among nations are highly increased. Nations lacking WMD are struggling to obtain relevant technologies despite of resolving domestic social problems, typical examples are North Korea and Iran. On the other hand, owning these absolute weapons, nations like U.S., regard peaceful resolutions are merely inefficient and idealist. Hence, militarism is highly adopted but diplomatic methods are underestimated. This phenomenon is the result of the cultural lag between WMD possession and diplomatic ability – human’s ability of resolving disputes peacefully. Fortunately, we are taking actions to shorten the distance within this lag. Preventing WMD proliferation, disarming nuclear weapons and applying more diplomatic efforts, the world is getting back on the right track.

Is war inevitable?

In Gwynne Dyer’s book War (2004), he gave us an example about war among baboons. After a fatal accident, the aggressive dominant members in a baboon troop died out. Since then, the subordinate members started living in peace. This peace not just lasted in the original generation, but it was also maintained by the offspring (Dyer).

Stories in animal world may not be convincing enough. But according to the common agreement of anthropologies, some known human societies and cultures are totally unfamiliar with war either as practice or as concept (Zahn).

War is a social construction. War happens because societies encounter cultural varieties. These cultural differences were formed by social isolations throughout the long time human history. Today, almost every corner of the world can be connected together. We have more chances to know each other. Many of us are multilingual. We have more understandings on different religions. We have strong wills to live in peace. It is the time we should start to construct a new world as a whole, being sharing and understanding. The day when we can achieve this goal is the end of war.

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References

Bramson, Leon and Goethals, George W. War studies from psychology sociology anthropology. New York, London: Basic Books, 1964

Bush, George W. “2002 State of the Union Address.” Speech. 29 January, 2002. Washington D.C.

Dyer, Gwynne. War: the new edition. Canada: Random House Canada, 2004

Grimmett, Richard F. Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1998-2005. USA: Congressional Research Service, 2006

Hartung, William D. “The New Business of War: Small Arms and the Proliferation of Conflict” Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 15.1 (2001): 79-96

Kára, Karel. “On the Marxist Theory of War and Peace.” Journal of Peace Research Vol. 5 (1968): 1-27

Kromidas, Maria. “Learning War/Learning Race: Fourth-grade Students in Aftermath of September 11^th in New York City.” Critique of Anthropology Vol. 24 (2004): 15-33

Macionis, John J. and Gerber, Linda Marie. Sociology. 5^th Canadian ed. Toronto: Pearson, 2005.

Mednicoff, David M. “Humane wars? International Law, Just War Theory and Contemporary Armed Humanitarian Intervention.” Law, Culture and the Humanities Vol. 2 (2006): 373-398

Regan, Richard J. Just War. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996.

Zahn, Gordon C. “War and Religion in a Sociology Perspective.” Social Compass Vol. 21 (1974): 421-431.