What Causes Wars?

Hasan A. Yahya, Ph.Ds

What social aspects are parts of a war system and what aspects contribute to peace?  Four concepts are the answers for these questions, they are: the idea of nationalism and patriotism, the military-industrial complex,  the idea of domination (feeling of superiority) and cultural promotion in isolation. 

Nationalism and Patriotism: In the past few centuries, the idea of nationalism was growing rapidly, Accompanied by popular feeling of patriotism. Being an Arab, or American, or Russian gives many people a sense of identity and meaning in human life. Many men become having intense  feeling of being alive, important, and connected to others by becoming worriers to kill and die for their country. With advance technologies and weapon industry, wars became more destructive of civilian life since the 17th century. It became imperative for  politicians (the elite)to persuade the public to participate in mass war and to endure  the causalities  and economic hardships of war mobilization. In his study titled: A Study of War, Quincy Wright"(1964,:pp. 51-52), concludes: "Since popular support  became more necessary with the new technologies, the management of opinion became increasingly important. Development of the sentiment for war ….. National sovereignty defined by the new international  law, became the prevailing value,  the dominant sentiment, the political objective and the leading cause of war in the modern period."Therefore, since the French revolution, the struggle of the merchant class, workers, and peasants was against the feudal aristocracy. The revolution created the French identity, the nation as a whole, as opposed to a high privileged elite.  The struggle for "Liberty, equality, and justice" was connected to a sense of belonging to a national community, as opposed to international community. (WE and they). National pride emerged in almost all European nations but transformed into a sense of national superiority in relation to other countries and peoples. This sense of superiority was legitimized as doctrine to colonize other nations around the world. Nationalism became the rhetoric of imperialism, as a major theme justifying the struggle of one imperial state against another, manipulating nationalism and patriotism to divert people's attention away from inequalities and injustices at home. Colonized people in return, using the slogan of nationalism and patriotism revolving against the colonization powers as a foreign domination. For example, American revolution against Britain, and post World War II   independence movements  and revolutionary wars in the Third World nations.  By nature, nationalism as a belief system needs "enemy". Unfortunately nation-states (Chinese, Egyptians, American, Russians, Japanese, British, German, etc.,) mirror each other in this respect which makes peace very difficult to achieve. Lack of love and mutual respect contribute to hatred and possibly war. Further more, nationalism is promoted in schools, with the morning pledge of allegiance, and with history books glorify the national and military heroes. Pop-cultures , movies, plays, songs, media and the press all follow steps and strengthen that feeling of nationalism. The slogan "our country" became inferior with Other countries, and should rank ahead of other countries.  To cure this disease of nationalism, internationalism, one world, people of the earth, themes should be promoted.      

The Military-Industrial Complex: This factor also is important in promoting wars, promoting science to produce military and industrial complex was supported and funded in almost all advanced nations to use and to market weapons to other countries as well. Making war became the goal of these military industries, because peace, destroy these industries, increase unemployment, and reduce enjoyment of life. The United States alone spent $2001 billion dollars on defense from 1946  to 1981,  and $2089 billion from 1981 to 1988. The corporations that manufacture weapons, the university researchers who provide the scientific knowledge needed to make them, and the millions of workers who work for military contractors have strong reasons to support a foreign policy that emphasizes military force. Would these people work for military industrial complex be trained to do something else of civilian and social advantage? And how, the process may be managed and redirected. A new task and measurement for modern world to begin planning for it and implementing it, and evaluating its outcomes for the cause of humanity all over the planet.

Domination and Feeling of Superiority: Domination as opposed to democracy is the third factor that distinguishes peace system from war system. Our position support the idea that if people dominate other people and disrespect their self determination, war will be inevitable. The age of slavery has gone, and people in modern age should build new relations on the grounds of understanding, and mutual appreciation to live in peace. Domination versus democracy is an aspect of all social and political relations between individuals and groups. The concepts overlaps with other two concepts, "oppression vs. liberation" and " authoritarianism."  In relations with domination, members of one group or nation mobilize  resources and power, and regard themselves as intellectually and morally superior, and attempt to impose  their will and their ideas on the subordinate  group or nations. Views   In the extreme, the dominant group views subordinates as dehumanized objects and has no understanding or empathy or responsibility toward them. In addition, victims of subordinate groups are considered collateral damage while killed with no mercy or regret. In short, struggle for domination among and between nations  clearly contribute s to modern warfare. History is our teacher about many colonial or imperialist wars in the past two  centuries. Anti-colonial struggles walks side by side with the domination colonized powers in every nation was under attack and occupation. Examples can be found in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Hungary, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq and Palestine. We believe that also, domestic inequality based on social class, ethnicity and gender is one of the causes as social foundation of modern war.  Domination by a ruling class or oligarchy in many countries  promote war because the elite have much to gain and little to lose. Greediness of political power for keeping their own interests, creates suppression and continuous conflict. Public awareness is needed in this regard to reduce possibilities of local and regional wars. Education might be the vehicle for transforming societies toward international understanding, and appreciation of each other in order to live in peace.  This conference may be marching in this direction.    

Cultural Promotion of Isolation: The application of theory C., or Crescentology for the author. Theory C. of conflict management was an idea developed in the last ten years to be finally a science of Crescentology. More specifically, when I constructed research among Muslim students reside in Michigan, Lansing area. A  typology of Muslims in the United States was developed. Later became a theory of classifications in terms of Merton's deviation and adaptation theory.  Even though the research was about satisfaction and participation in the community activities, it was developed through a test of measurement of hypothetical classification of Minority group members of a relatively small community. This development led to a theory of neutrality or theory C. of conflict management. In 1995, the idea was developed further to constitute a new science of Crescentology. A new branch of social sciences, not applied sociology, but similar to psychotherapy, under the name of socio-therapy or Crescentology. If classified it would be under the science of criminal Justice and related areas of mental health. It is assumed, however, that conflict has its roots in cultural mental health problems (on a large scale measure)  through relation normalization, assimilation and acculturation of the generations in any society. And science means propositions, hypotheses, theories,  and laws.

The need for policy active players in the society with understanding of human nature and social environment of human beings is a serious one. For a long time, sociologists were problem watchers rather than problem solvers. Some might disagree with this statement. Others may consider the new idea as a new role for sociologists may be close to the notion of political science. But what it meant is that qualified crescentologists have to achieve certain interdisciplinary-qualifications in comparative social-psychology, political science, and education. Such qualifications are necessary tools for crescentologists to be more active in the decision and policy making in the field of social order, stability and normalization as opposites of disorder, instability, and conflict.  If the ideas introduced in this book were taken seriously and applied for social conflict situations, then the theory will find its way to the reconstruction process of new image of reality of normalization shared by different groups, nations, and cultures. Only in that case, the purpose of the author of Crescentology will be realized and fulfilled. The concept "Crescentology" is a combination of two words, crescent which means the changing shapes of the moon, and logo which means word. As a term, it means: A word about changing parts. Applying the phenomenon of crescent transformation to culture and society by talking about its transformation (or change) from one stage to another is Crescentology. In other words, it is the scientific study of the cultural perceptions including behavior of small and  large organizations. It is the combination © of psychology (as A or B) and sociology (as A or B) sciences in studying social behavior. According to this definition, Crescentology covers both macro and micro levels. Cultures as we know have different perceptions on themselves and others. These perceptions influence the individual and the group social behavior. To illustrate, the ingredients of culture from Individuals to whole nations are brought up to perceive "we" as good, and "they" as bad. Social behavior differs among people according to these perceptions.  Crescentology is the study of this phenomenon, "we" as A, and "they" as B. Both perceptions interchangeably are the same. Because "We" for us is "they" for others. And "They" for  others is "we" for themselves.(1618) www.hasanyahya.com

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**The article is part of a paper will be presented at the International Conference on the Impact of World War II on the Arab countries especially, on Palestine at Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, May 13th, 2010.