Human nature and the nature of war
by Michael Benazon
Twenty years ago, Canadian military historian and journalist Gwynne Dyer fascinated the public in 45 countries with his award-winning television series on the nature of war. He followed up that success with an equally remarkable book that grew out of the research that went into the television series. Now Dr. Dyer has published, in his words, "a completely rewritten and updated new edition" of War.
People who have never read the book should certainly do so, but should people who read it back in the 1980s reread it? Yes. It cannot be said too often that modern warfare threatens the very existence of human life on this planet.
Dr. Dyer argues that, with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, there is every reason to suppose that sooner or later a country made desperate by its fear of defeat in a conventional war will resort to the ultimate weapon. In so doing, that country has the potential to destroy or contaminate much of the rest of the world. Every adult needs to understand the nature of war, its evolution into an all-engulfing process, why it is so difficult to stop once it has begun, and what our best hopes are for ending war or at least limiting its dangers.
Several important developments have taken place since Dr. Dyer published the first edition. The Cold War has ended, and the United States is now the world's only superpower. However, the author notes that it won't be long before China and India develop into superpowers, and the danger of an all-out war is bound to increase when some powers are in decline while others, hitherto excluded from the inner circle, are coming to the fore. Nuclear proliferation, the development of chemical and bacterial weapons and the spread of ballistic missile technology means that poor nations or even guerrilla groups can now be a threat to world peace. Finally, the U.S. government decision to adopt unilateral measures, bypassing the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, has jeopardized the slow, tentative process of creating a world body that can prevent war or limit its destructiveness.
New social developments also played a role in Dr. Dyer's decision to write a new edition of War. Recently published findings on primates and the nature of early man, especially the behaviour of hunter-gatherer societies, have caused him to change some of his views about the nature of modern man. The new research has overturned previous assumptions that early man was an essentially peaceful fellow who respected his environment, and the prospect of changing our ingrained behaviour patterns now appears more difficult and challenging. But, he writes, we have to understand the nature of that beast, man, if we are to avoid the path to extinction. For the moment, extinction seems to be the route we have chosen.
Several chapters shed light on today's situation. One chapter describes how the U.S. Marine Corps trains young recruits to become killers and willingly offer themselves up as cannon fodder. Even mature men, given the right kind of indoctrination, will put themselves in the forefront of battle.
Despite such pessimistic accounts of how easy it is to train people to do what is irrational, Dr. Dyer argues that human beings do not enjoy the prospect of killing their fellow humans. Humans have a strong egalitarian, democratic streak; if it's allowed expression, we opt for rational solutions to the disputes that inevitably crop up between nations, ethnic groups, religions and clans.
Consequently, Dr. Dyer believes that spreading democracy is one way of checking the tendency to go to war, since democracies generally do not wage war on other democracies. He argues that those who best understand the problem - diplomats and soldiers - are the ones most likely to see the value of strengthening international bodies like the UN and the International Court at the expense of national sovereignty.
The problem is to convince the peoples of the world and the politicians in charge that this is what we must learn to do. The end of the Cold War has given us a temporary reprieve. But if we do not use this opportunity to strengthen the UN, we may not be able to avoid the doom that surely awaits us.
War by Gwynne Dyer, Toronto, 2004, 484 pages, $39.95, cloth.
Dr. Benazon is a retired English professor from Champlain Regional College, Quebec.
