Why do world leaders want war?

Or at least seem to want war? It is a great question that any lover of liberty, and any soldier (or Marine or airman or sailor or Guardian) would love to know the answers for.

Seldom are the rulers and leaders of various nations honest about desiring war. Indeed, they are constantly babbling on about seeking peace and preserving peace.

Yet we see that their actions often do not match their rhetoric.

No, this isn’t about nations having arms to defend themselves. Generally, disarmament does not keep or lead to peace. Theoretically, if all nations disarmed themselves, there would peace – or at least a lack of war. But then, theoretically, Communism works. And theoretically spending more money on education produces a better education for all those students. But the real world isn’t like that.

Why? There are no doubt several reasons government leaders want war. Let us look at a few.

First, as Randolph Bourne wrote way back during the First World War, “War is the health of the state.” From the War of 1812 and the many Indian Wars, through the War between the States, Spanish-American War, Great War, Second World War right up to the undeclared wars going on in the past few decades. War lets – encourages – government to grow and grow. And convinces the people to let it do so – in many people’s minds, “security” trumps “liberty.” AND “prosperity.”

Second, war is profitable – especially if all the fighting and destruction and most of the death is in distant lands. Whether that is Texas and the Southwest and Mexico (1845-1848). Or Virginia and Tennessee and Missouri (well, except that nasty little invasion of Pennsylvania in ’63) (1861-1865). Or France in 1917-18, Europe and the Pacific in 1941-45)… remember Hawai’i was just a territory then… Profitable to industry, to government employees and contractors, and to Beltway Bandits and all those lovely folks outside the gates of the airbase or fort. Which means that they feed the politicians!

Third, in war there are always losers. Indeed, sometimes despite one side or the other being declared the “winner” both sides lose. But politicians, like many criminals, are irredeemably optimists. Their side is going to win. Definitely. Look past the blubbering whinging of Ukrainian leaders today – they are confident that they will win against Russia. No matter what unbiased, objective, and knowledgeable observers have been pointing out since the start. (Vlad Putin is also confident of victory, even though that is tempered by his strong belief that Russia must win – or it will die. Similar to what Bibi believes in Israel.)

Fourth, and related to the first point, war is a distraction. Today consider both the People’s Republic of [North] Korea, and Venezuela (beating the war drums against Guyana and of course, the FedGov). And it is not unreasonable to attribute China’s apparent campaign ramping up against the regime on Taiwan to the need to prevent, if not suppress, growing unrest of their massive masses. War is both a distraction from such nasty things (in their opinion) as secession movements and tax rebellions, and an opportunity to strengthen the existing powers-that-be to deal with the internal unrest. History is filled with examples of how external threats (even if imaginary) were used by leaders to calm and unify their own people.

Fifth, despite the claims that “violence solves nothing” and that “war is futile,” we know that war does change things. It is claimed that war changes things for the better, sometimes. Even if all it does is clean up a mess caused by one (or more) governments to begin with. An example of that is the Korean Conflict, a clear act of aggression by the North with Chinese and Soviet support but triggered by weasel words of the politicians in DC and by poor policies in DC regarding Korea and much of the Far East.

And of course, war ensures that large numbers of people have no chance to have descendants. Which changes the course of history far more than people are willing to think about. A little-known example is the State of Arkansas, and its relatively huge losses during both the War between the States and the Great War (World War I): a once vibrant State with great natural resources and opportunities has been and is a backwater to this day, as all too many of their best and brightest believed the propaganda and died “gloriously” leaving future generations without their genetic heritage.

For politicians – “world leaders” – this is even better than massive migration away from their nation. Not only do they get rid of the aggressive, often more stubborn and resistant, people that are a thorn in their flesh, war is a win-win-win for world leaders: unless, of course, they are the losers. As Gaddafi, Saddam, Mussolini, and a few others found out.

But they are optomists: “We’ll do it right this time!”

Right.

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