The Idiocy of War

Ben Wildsmith

As we arrive at the quarter century mark of the new millennium, there is an unnerving sense of events spiralling out of control.

For most of us, brought up in the relative peace of postwar certainties, 9/11 was our first experience of a truly shocking global event. Bad things happen all the time; closer to home the Troubles in Ireland provided a constant supply of harrowing reminders that the world could be a cruel place.

There was, however, a chain of events that could be followed to explain those tragedies, an awful logic to the tit-for-tat sectarian killings that placed them within our understanding.

9/11 happened suddenly and appeared on our screens as a fully developed historical event without any building of tensions, negotiations or demands. It was as if humanity had acquired the force of nature to create the sort of widespread confusion associated with earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

We were stricken in front of those compelling, unnatural, blue-sky images, sensing that something had changed forever. No consensus on the reasons for that event has ever been arrived at.

Most of us agree upon who was directly responsible, but no convincing motive has emerged to explain it.

Accelerating 

Since then, confusing events have overtaken each other so rapidly that it seems we haven’t had time to consider and understand one before we are in the throes of the next. The Iraq war, the global financial crisis, Brexit, Trump, Covid… there is a feeling of life accelerating beyond our capacity to process it.

In reaction to this, we see people falling into differing trauma responses. Some are angered, so consumed with public life that it overwhelms their friendships and family relations. Others are fearful, clinging to totems of the past as if loyalty to them will somehow restore order and predictability in their lives.

Still more are numbed into denial. ‘I don’t watch the news anymore,’ they say, having recognised the horrifying powerlessness of a single human being in all of this.

Traumatised people are easy to bully. The responses I’ve listed boil down to fight, flight, and freeze. Once people are pumping out stress chemicals for prolonged periods, we aren’t capable of questioning and challenging effectively. We’re just trying to get through the day.

We need to be asking some questions now, though, because the rationale on offer for the UK’s positioning in global affairs is contradictory to the point of absurdity.

Moral fibre

I’ve touched on the Ukraine war a couple of times in these columns and been attacked for lacking moral fibre. I am admonished that we mustn’t ‘give in’ to Putin’s aggression.

The mere enquiry as to exactly how we envisage Ukraine achieving their stated aim of total victory is viewed by some as traitorous equivocation. Hovering over this argument is the memory of World War II.

The outcome of that war has had a distorting effect on our collective feelings about conflict. The victory was complete and virtually everyone, including the German state, thinks that the right side won. The danger is that somewhere in the non-rational facets of us that emerge when we are threatened, we have allowed ourselves to suspect that the Allies won because they were in the right.

A morally ordered universe is a seductive idea; something we have used in attempting to transcend nature. It’s a very human dream but not reflective of history.

The uneasy peace of the Cold War was a function of technology. The fine balance required to avoid mutually assured destruction in the nuclear age required clear-eyed diplomacy.

The guiding truth of that era was that military victory could not be achieved over a nuclear power.

Unbalancing

Nobody lost sight of that when fighter planes were facing off over the Berlin Wall every day. If a problem arose, then a solution had to be found. The unbalancing of the world after the fall of the USSR has seen a comfortable fantasy emerge in which American hegemony is accepted as if a law of nature. We are seeing the absurdity of that unfold now.

Russia, Israel, and, most likely, Iran are nuclear powers. No absolute military victory is possible over any of these nations.

For humanity to survive conflict between them will require negotiation. So, why are we pretending otherwise?

The position of the USA and, by extension, the UK is implacable support for Ukraine in its military struggle. We are also committed to supporting Israel not only in its fight against Hamas and Hezbollah, but also in a potential war with Iran.

Catastrophic contradiction

The UK is pushing to allow Ukraine use of our missiles to strike within Russia and the RAF is flying missions on behalf of Israel. I’m not going to make a moral point about this, we all have our beliefs. I would, however, like to point out the catastrophic contradiction inherent to this position.

Israel and Iran could enter into a full-scale war as early as this week. Israel has mooted the possibility of striking Iran’s oil facilities, perhaps as its next move.

Iran’s stated position is that if Israel follows through with this, they will strike every oil field in the Middle East and close the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, despite sanctions from America and Europe, the Russian economy is growing at 4% annually. It has found enthusiastic buyers for its oil and gas in India and China.

So, the result of escalation in the Middle East would be to send oil prices soaring and with them the fortunes of Putin’s regime. How Europe would access fossil fuels under these circumstances has not been explained.

The implications for Ukraine are clearly dire.

The position our country holds is self-defeating. These conflicts can only be resolved by negotiation or mutual annihilation. So, where is the clamour for peace talks?

The woeful leadership on offer in Europe and the USA has seen our standards of living drop year by year, it has become an accepted feature of 21^st century life for us.

Are we so ground down by the events of the past quarter century that we no longer even demand explanations for nonsensical statecraft when it is bringing misery to us all and risking real catastrophe?