The causes of War

Ukraine is entering winter with Kyiv and Kharkiv now in mean average negative temperatures. If Russia chooses to accelerate its likely plans the country will be defactor in diesel generator mode placing the population at high risk. Now, before the customary Russian winter offensive is the time to act and save the Ukrainian people from cold and hunger in the best case or the being under direct fire and the beginning of the partitioning of the Ukrainian state between The East and The West in the worst. Let's get to an uneasy ceasefire in the now irreversible territorial realities before it's too late!

Purely on logical grounds it's becoming clear to me that despite the common belief Russia is not under an existential threat because the two remaining European power centers share the North Atlantic which has largely closed loop circulation if the Canary route is properly managed. Russia has long been in possession of a long range (and I assume still undetectable and unpreventable or at least numerous enough for that to not matter) nuclear warhead torpedoes that can checkmate NATO and any time without surface irradiation or placing the world at large into the nuclear winter even with just one central denotation. NATO in turn has no symmetrical response because Russia is a land power. Thus, I assume that Russia finally committed to the role of security guarantor for East Europe a year before the invasion (with final power center coordination sign off in mid-June of 2021). My. assumptions are that NATOs efforts of arming Ukraine did succeed in showing utter incompetence of degenerate, feudal military leadership of the Russian Federation but strategically they were misinformed and misguided. It appears that is in the interests of the two ultimate world security guarantors to limit (largely unsovereign and monetarily colonized) Europe to its Western half and the dream of Unified Europe is not possible under the East-West scenario (nor is it entirely possible in the North-South scenario with Russia being the necessary gateway under both, with hard Eural partition being highly unlikely). Some luft is certainly present and as always we the humans are in charge of our own destiny, but it's in no one's best interests to have an immediate land confrontation between the East and the West. Hence, I must assume that no direction of "the thin bridge" laid in this such scenario would be acceptable to the true powers - being on the verge of nuclear fusion power we have no right to an escalation of direct hostilities - in cosmic terms we are but one fledgling civilization in a 3 dimensional higher risks world but may God forbid a demise of the small and primitive hearth of humanity.

With that being stated the likely outcomes of this war are either slow conversion of Ukraine into a no-mans land with steady absorption into the neo-feudal Russian state (with Lviv seeded to Poland) or an uneasy peace with Ukraine being committed to a true neutral state, with no hint of EU (and thus implied eventual NATO) membership. I must also reiterate that I'm a former Soviet citizen who (having a historical perspective) considers the war in Ukraine (among other things) a civil war between two peoples of common culture and origin. It is this conflict that motivated me to really start thinking about how to end human losses in War. Over the course of this series of articles I will examine the historical, geo-political and economic causes of this war and will attempt to come up with a logical explanation for why this war should end at the earliest possible moment. To start with I'm proposing a general vision of how conflicts can be solved in the future, without (intended) loss of life and limb:

It is highly likely that for at least tens of thousands of years (certainly ever since humans organized into groups large enough and had weapons) humanity experienced war on some level. And certainly for tens of millions of years mammal males (due to their general advantage in physical size, strength and stamina) have been protectors of their family groups. There is a saying that "war is part of the human condition". Perhaps it's based on the fact that male aggression must have an outlet and channeling it into armed conflicts is a natural expression of competing economic (and certainly geo-political) systems. My argument is that War can be controlled to virtually eliminate loss of life and limb and that its current deadly state "is part of the still Primitive and Uncivilized human condition".

Limiting war

It is known that for at least thousands of years we have been thinking of how to reduce the human losses caused by war. A little while ago I was talking to a veteran about this problem and he brought up an interesting fact. In ancient Greece the Olympic Games (2,800 years ago) were (at least in part) instituted to reduce armed conflict. And even before that there was a practice of champion duels to decide the outcome of conflicts without risking the life and limb of all able men.

So, if we've been thinking about how to reduce the human losses of war for that long, why haven't we yet come up with a system that would accomplish minimal losses or no losses at all?  Why is deadly war continuing into modernity?  Well the severity of the wars in the modern world depends on their scale and the civilizational advancement of the parties involved.  For example, for a while now (as I have recently confirmed when talking to a guy from Nepal) the two of the three oldest continuous civilizations or Earth (China and India) have been involved in border conflicts (with regular armed forces) where the fighting is done with bare knuckles.  Certainly this isn't warfare for total domination but if these culturally advanced civilizations are able to minimize the level of violence in their conflicts, can't we all do better as well?

An immediate response is that to a certain degree we (all) already have. Nuclear warfare is taboo in the modern world simply because of assured mutual destruction - while still under-civilized we are reasonable enough to realize that there is no point in resolving our conflicts in a deadly way if there is no-one left to enjoy a victory. But complete annihilation of civilization isn't the only reason why we don't use certain weapons. Since the end of World War I we've also outlawed usage of chemical weapons on the battlefield and certainly haven't used them in the currently ongoing Ukrainian war or the other regional conflicts it led to. Biological weapons haven't been used in any war (that I'm aware of) and I'm full of hope that the same will go for genetics based weapons.

And, when the stakes are high we limit the scale of the fighting as well. The Ukrainian war is a battlefield of many levels - it's an old European unification conflict, a conflict between "America the Empire" and "China the Empire", a national identity conflict between the former Soviet people and an East vs West conflict. Yet Russia isn't going "all in" (at least at this point) with another mass mobilization for a total victory and Ukraine isn't involved in any large scale attacks on the territory of the Russian Federation. This war is dominated by (often long range) artillery exchanges and not divisions of infantry making sacrificial territorial gains. And neither are China or the United States sending troops or cutting edge or strategic weapons and the war hasn't spread to the oceans. Even in the Black Sea there haven't been any incidents between NATO and Russian navy ships.

So, if we are capable of limiting war, what prevents us from reducing conflicts to non-lethal exchanges only (which are already taking place in cyber and other dimensions)? To understand this I'm going to examine the underlying reasons for warfare that haven't changed since it started and go back in history to see how the dynamics of these reasons evolved overtime, in order to attempt a projection of desirable conditions into the future.

There are many causes why that is the case but these 3 dominate - governance, resources and ideology. And while the level and complexity of our governance structures has changed, the types and quantities of resources have too and so have the ideologies - these three factors always overwide everything else when it comes to the causes of war  No given war (certainly no modern war) would start if the decision to start it wasn't made, if there was nothing to fight over and if the fighting parties were in perfect harmony.

The beginning

We don't know exactly how war started but there is archeological evidence of a possible battle taking place over 13,000 years ago at Jebel Sahaba in Sudan. It is impossible to determine what would cause a battle at that time but given the 3 dominating factors it is possible to hypothesise on what led to it. Certainly the two warring groups weren't governed by a strong and unified group of elders or a dominating chief and neither was there enough diplomacy to prevent a war. And life was much more harsh and violent then so tensions could flare up in a clan or a group. Yet, kin might kick and scream but usually won't fight to the death, thus these were likely two separate groups of peoples. This most probably wouldn't be their first encounter but a result of long term encroachment on each other's persons or resources that first led to isolated acts of violence and finally would flare up into a war. So it's impossible to determine if the leading cause (besides lack of governance advanced enough to prevent war) was resource competition or an ideological problem. But I tend to think such a war would start due to a general lack of high moral standards (biblical for the cultures where that applies or advanced cultural or just plain humane) at that point in human history - physical violence against individuals of foreign groups was likely much more common then and the main problem was probably the general ideology of violence.

The first battle in written history took place in Mesopotamia 4,700 years ago between the forces of neighboring Sumer and Elam. The world of these nations was much different than before. Agriculture caused people to settle down and lead much larger populations. Towns and cities appeared, each city with its own God and ideology. Frequent border warfare caused rapid technological advancement in the implements of war with various weapons and warrior specialization. First small groups of professional soldiers appeared and we began to use metal (in small quantities af first) to equip them. There was more to fight over, there was no more common naturalistic ideology and much stronger competing governments lead their societies with widely differing goals and beliefs. These were still very early days of our (collective) civilization with isolated pockets of higher density settlements in places with the best natural conditions for cultures to flourish, thousands of years passed since the first attempts at agriculture and settlements but society was still very much surrounded by wilderness and that was still the driving force behind their beliefs but the days of theocratic rule have passed and complex polytheistic mythologies have evolved. But everyone was sent to dark underground caverns after death, irrespective of how they behaved in life. The two warring states were no longer in primitive socio-economic conditions but the kingships were still very primitive with slavery used for debtors, criminals and enemies. War likely became a constant state of affairs between the surrounding city states at that point. As they have been for thousands of years before then, large settlements were already walled but the armies were (and would be for most states) seasonal, tied to crop cultivation for the bulk of the year.

The first battle to be recorded in detail took place 4,500 years ago in Egypt, which being focused on monument construction (possibly by a demonstration of control and order by a higher protectorate to insure no interference in independent development of geographically well balanced Mesopotamia that continued the clean path laid in Anatolia) the geographically isolated Egypt was always backwards in military technology and limited in its range (as it also was to the potential invaders). Its navy was focused on management of the main internal waterway and effectively achieved all of the pax functions of the modern US fleets. This the frontier for expansion was reached effectively and early enough for a relatively peaceful agrarian society to develop. Central governance and management of resources ensued thus largely reducing armed conflict to rebellions and common defence efforts (with ideology likely being fixed on a commonly impressed upon and naturally misunderstood path to direct solar fusion on a massive scale).

The first professional army arrived with the Akkadian empire (also the first known empire) that conquered most of the city states in Mesopotamia about 4,300 years ago. As empires tend to, it used conquest as the means of existence but went into decline after the ruler that created it died. While the dynasties existed by then it was still possible for a commoner to rise up to the very top and build an empire but a pedigree of nobility and rule by divine decree were already desired societal traits. Having attained a high status at times kings were worshiped as gods. Conquest was glorified and it appears that no particular justification was required to subjugate your neighbors as long as you had sufficient force to do so. Subsequent rebellions of the conquered were frequent (signifying that the rule of the conquerors was not desired) and were put down brutally. Entire cities were destroyed and human losses were enormous - it appears that no attempts were made to be humane. Though gods of ancient conquered cities were respected. Building an empire paid off materially with the empire having grown rich off the spoils of war so it is possible that enrichment was openly and admittedly the main reason to start wars. Ideology of exercising power over your neighbors was in its raw, unjustified form - while city states may still have been dominated by priestly orders and agreeable kings the empire was ruled by an iron fist.

At the time of the Bronze age collapse a different war was fought. Likely driven by unfavorable climatic change and the resulting hunger the relatively primitive European mercenaries (reportedly employed in at least Egypt) raided the entire Mediterranean side of the ancient world into complete technological and cultural collapse. With no central governance this was an uncontrollable war for material (resource) survival and only successfully withstood by Egypt with its superior central command, organization and numbers. The raiders were clearly motivated by survival and no ideology was present in their actions.

The Assyrian empire (back in Mesopotamia) was the first lasting empire (meaning a government that persists as long as it conquers) that institutionalized war. Having survived the Bronze Age collapse more or less unscaved the Assyrian warrior kings built an enormous empire starting from about 3,300 years ago for about 600 years. They institutionalized brutal warfare and constantly glorified their brutality against enemies. Already there was an ideology of total global domination - kings were expected to conquer their "inferior" neighbors by almost any means possible until the empire covered the world. Of course in reality there was plenty of diplomacy with near sized rivals until those could be conquered. Assyrians did manage to conquer all of the "civilized world" around them, shortly before collapsing. It was the Assyrians that practiced transplantation of entire nations to other locations in order to subjugate them. They were feared and hated by all of their conquered subject peoples and were happily forgotten after their demise. Certainly there was still an element of conquer or be conquered present in this time period but the core driver was likely the ideology of being superior and prestigious. Of course enrichment through conquest played a role but it no longer the official (natural) ideology. And while the Assyrians would negotiate when they had to, there was no means of stopping their conquest by diplomatic means. As empires do, it kept on conquering until it reached its natural boundaries...

In the next installment I will take a look at the other two (though geographically of limited influence, to differing degrees) starting points of civilization on Earth, though possibly impacted by (the logically and natural in a 3 dimensional multi party setting) concessions to lesser but (and with that assumption, in India's case even infantile thus likely very) closely related "cosmic relatives" - India and China (this is part of genesis myths and is believed in these countries). I will then continue with the evolution of the causes of war to the middle ages before pausing before the European East/West conflict. Update February 7th, 2024 Unfortunately I must postpone the continuation of my historical research until a later time.

Now I take the earliest opportunity to let a wider range of audience know that it is time to prepare a peaceful resolution, before the now disillusioned Russian forces decide to take the next 4 Oblast' and effectively end Ukrainian independence (with already hinted subsequent taking of Kiev if EU persists in its expansionary strategy) - we have some time before the ground is frozen solid for the winter offensive, a month before the Orthodox Christmas and even more before the Winter Holidays are over in the former Soviet Union. We may not be able to cause a cease fire but (despite my Soviet upbringing of merely existing in the System) our independently made choices may cause the true powers to kick off the right chains of events - I urge you to remember that it's human life that matters most to us! Let us remember that the destabilizing Ukraine war spread south through the East - West dividing zone and hit in the now largely ignored birthplace of war - Sudan. The humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan is an order of magnitude larger and will be immediately affected if the open hostilities between the influencing powers cease. And the relaxation in the security climate in the intermediately located middle East will allow the Palestinian people to rebuild with then freely flowing aid. Let's get a ceasefire in Ukraine by mid April 2024!

I would like to end with the oldest known human song and a vision for the non-lethal, non mangling fusion of war to be accomplished in a century (by 2128 to have a specific and measurable goal) that the veteran I was talking to did not correct:

A year and a half ago I was arguing with my best childhood friend that the Ukrainan conflict should be resolved by a street match between Klitchko and Valuev on the streets of Kyiv. Probably because of that such an idea came to me ...

Imagine a field with young men on both sides in boxing gear, honor bound to not make any blows below the belt and to let the fallen opponent be carried away by a caring battle nurse if they didn't stand in 10 seconds. Of course to control the heat of battle sergeants would be leading the young men, equipped with rubberized sticks meant to knock sense into helmets with too much fire in them. And before the possible battle imagine champions on horseback letting the heavens decide who's right in a closely watched dance with blunted lances and swords meant to strike the shining armor. Who said we can't get this done!

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