War: What is it Good For?

As I lay in bed last night in my stuffy Harlem apartment with the screenless bedroom window set ajar, I began to hear the unmistakable buzzing of a mosquito in my ear. Once the mosquito met a violent and undoubtedly premature death, I returned to bed and began to consider the role of the Mosquito writ large in the grand scheme of things. You know: circle of life, food chain type stuff. While I’m sure that they serve some positive purpose on the planet, I couldn’t think of one. All of I could think of was the spread of malaria, disease and general annoyance around the world. Then I began to think that perhaps the spread of disease was its positive contribution to the planet after all. Given that man has no natural predator, maybe the general spread of disease was designed to thin our numbers and keep nature in balance. Maybe disease does play a significant role in that regard, but it has to be more than that. Lots of people die from mosquito-born diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, but I can’t imagine that enough people die from such diseases to make a significant dent in our booming population.

That’s were man comes in.

There are over 6 billion humans on earth, and I read just yesterday that demographers project a human population of 12 billion by 2050. I think that 6 billion is probably already too many. I can’t imagine the stress that a population twice that size will place on the Earth. As we have seen time and time again in nature, a species in an environment with no natural predator tends to reproduce without impediment. But perhaps we do in fact have a natural predator that no one really considers.

Ourselves.

From the beginning, human history has been riddled with violence. So much so, that the study of history is often tracked by the occurrences of war. War is the primary focus and everything else simply goes to explain what happened after the last war and what lead up to the next one. It is not uncommon for hundreds of thousands of people to be killed over the course of a single war. I can’t think of anything else that even comes close to claiming as many lives over a comparably short period of time. Small fish eat plankton, big fish eat smaller fish, bears eat big fish, and then humans make coats and rugs out of bears. We’re at the top of the food chain. Aside from the occasional shark attack, dog mauling or unfortunate encounter with a cannibal, humans don’t get eaten by anything else, but that doesn’t mean that we ourselves aren’t preyed upon. We’re the product of our own ambition, greed and pride. We wage war for the accumulation of wealth and power, and one could argue that as a result, we provide a valuable service to nature. By taking on the responsibility of reducing our numbers, we have managed to maintain a rough balance with other populations on earth.

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, war is actually good for something.

China is the most populated nation on Earth with over 1.3 billion people. In addition to that, the young adult Chinese population is disproportionately male, as an unfortunate result of a generation of its One Child policy. Given the abundance of young Chinese men and the dearth of young Chinese women for them to marry, some predict that a grand war instigated by China is inevitable. They point to examples and history and argue that the only way to either acquire enough marriage-aged women or significantly reduce the number of sexually frustrated Chinese men would be for the Chinese to wage a war of expansion. If they win, they’ll kill the men and take the women of the territory that they have occupied. If they lose, however, a significant number of young Chinese men will have been killed in the process. Either way: problem solved. I don’t know about the likelihood of any of that, but this does provide an example of how through the use of war, mankind provides a check on its own growth, despite the fact that population control wasn’t the goal.

This trend may be changing, however. As mankind becomes more advanced and integrated across borders, it appears that the need of war as a check on population growth diminishes and other tools are employed. The best example of this is the European Union, a major component of the Security Zone touted by international security analysts. Together with the US and Japan, the EU represents a zone in which war is not only unlikely, but almost unthinkable. The inextricably integrated economies and politics of these countries make war among them virtually impossible. This is especially remarkable when one considers that fact that both Europe and Japan would have very little history to speak of if the discussion of war were taken off the table. Along with the generation of unprecedented peace and prosperity that has swept across Western Europe, the EU has also witnessed declines in population. I believe that all Western European nations, with the possible exception of Ireland and Spain, have seen dwindling birth rates, with Germany and Italy leading the pack. As European families have become more prosperous and men and women alike have careers on which to focus, the emphasis on bearing children has diminished. Couples that would have had 2 or 3 children a generation ago may now decide to only have one child or none at all. The inverse correlation between prosperity and birth rate has global implications. Women in economically depressed parts of Africa and Latin America tend to bear more children then comparably aged women in Western Europe or Japan, both of which are struggling with the short run economic effects of a dwindling population. As the birth rates in Europe and Japan continue to fall, I suspect to see increased migration to these areas from economically depressed regions of the world. Hopefully, this increased global mobility and integration and the resulting increased investment in human capital in the developing world will allow prosperity to spread throughout the world.

Once we’ve truly achieved global prosperity, instead of creating new people and figuring out a way to kill them off later, maybe we can just start creating fewer people in the first place.

Where Are We Headed?

“The question is whether France should stay in Algeria. If the answer is yes, then we must accept the necessary consequences”

I just finished watching the film The Battle of Algiers, which tells the story of one of the most influential years in the Algerian battle of independence from the French in the late 1950s, early 1960s. It was a very well done film, which, unfortunately, still in many ways parallels the state of the world today.

The above quote from the film comes from Colonel Mathieu, who was charged with leading the French military effort in squashing the Algerian resistance movement in the capital city of Algiers. A reporter asks the colonel whether it is true that French soldiers under his command use torture and whether torture was an acceptable means of accomplishing his mission. In his response the colonel implies that the French people themselves are complicit in the course of action that he deems necessary in Algiers. Given the overwhelming sentiment among the French populous that the French should remain in Algeria, French society had given its tacit approval to use every means necessary to maintain the French occupying presence, even if that extended to torture.

Could the same be said of us Americans?

I personally am appalled at the use of torture by the Bush Administration in its “War on Terror”, and I’ve become even more so incensed after reading the Washington Post series on the Cheney Vice Presidency, in which they lay out how this doctrine of torture became a part of the Administration. Now, however, I’m beginning to wonder whether the use of torture in Guantanamo, Baghdad and elsewhere is merely the fault of the US citizenry. It’s easy to place the blame on those at the top of the pyramid, but perhaps those of us making up the much larger base at the bottom have also played role.

John Locke taught us of the Social Contract, in which each of us relinquishes a bit of our independence and self-determination to the State for the purposes of promoting the common good. Following September 11th, we all renegotiated our contract and handed over a little bit more of our self-determination in an effort to “secure our borders” and keep America free from future terrorist attacks. While some may argue that we are less safe now than we were prior to September 11th, the fact remains that there have been no additional attacks on US soil in the last six years, but my question is, was it worth it? Are we willing to accept the possibility of less effective intelligence – and, by extension, increased vulnerability – in exchange for the maintenance of our shared values? While I’m sure that the Administration has gained valuable information by employing torture – information that may have saved American lives – I’m not certain that it was worth the price we pay in terms of the massive blow it has delivered to American ideals and values.

We torture people.

Robert Mugabe tortures people. Kim Jong Il tortures people. Saddam Hussein tortured people. We’re Americans. We don’t do that. We’re the good guys. Aren't we supposed to be better than that? We’ve lost the moral high ground on this issue and, in essence, every other issue as well. How can we act as the champions of freedom and human rights around the world when we unabashedly sanction inhumane treatment of foreigners?

We torture people.

I’m interested in seeing the US response when one of our diplomats abroad is captured and subjected to torture. What could we possibly say? “It’s ok for Americans to engage in torture, but you terrorists groups and other non-state actors, you’re not allowed to follow suit. We only use torture for noble purposes, whereas you all torture with nefarious intent.”

The question for us is whether the use of torture is truly in the long term interests of the US. Does the preservation of our security today warrant the use of torture and its deleterious effects on the American system of values for years to come? If the answer is yes, then we too must accept the necessary consequences. If not, then perhaps it is time for us to withdraw the tacit support we’ve extended to the Administration over recent years.

But how one goes about doing that, I haven’t quite figured out.