By: Ronald F. White, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, Mount St. Joseph University
Part I. Introduction to the Philosophy of Culture and Human Warfare
Part II. War Leadership: Vladimir Putin's Leadership in the Context of Russia's Bombing of Ukraine. Part III. The Nature and Nurture of Human Warfare: An Evolutionary Account
1. Walk Don't Run (Am)
2. Surf Rider Am)
3. Telstar (A)
4. Diamondhead (Am)
5. Tequila (E)
6. Penetration (F#m)
7. Apache (Am)
8. Sleepwalk (C)
9. Rockin and Surfin (E)
10. Wild Weekend (G)
11. The Last Date (C)
12. Miserlou (E)
13. Secret Agent Man
14. War of the Satellites (Am)
15. Ace of Spades (A)
16. Jack the Ripper
17. Rumble (E)
18. Out of Limits (E)
19. Pipeline (Em)
20. Wipeout (C)
By Ronald F. White, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Mount St. Joseph University
In light of the ongoing war in Ukraine, I thought it would be useful to explore the larger questions of how human leadership and human warfare are related; and. whether they are natural behaviors passed on to subsequent generations through our genetic inheritance (biology); or whether those behaviors are learned and therefore passed on over time via teaching and learning (culture). And, in light of those findings, I will speculate whether the quest for localized and/or global peace are realistic sociopolitical goals. But first, let's fill in some of the conceptual framework associated with evolution and warfare.
Darwinian evolution has two interrelated mechanisms: variation and selection. Systemic Variation is the product of a replicative mechanism that generates individuals that exhibit different qualities/attributes over time. Selection refers to the processes that determine which variations thrive, survive and/or suffer reduction in the number of replicants and/or ultimate extinction. I like to refer to the evolutionary process as "trial and error." In any given environment (biological or cultural) strong individuals/groups residing in a given environment, tend to survive and weak individuals/groups devolve, unless they adapt to that new environment, or relocate to another environment. Over time, organisms evolve/devolve genetically, in collective biological systems; and beliefs (ideas) evolve/devolve intellectually, within individual minds and/or collective belief systems. Western philosophers agree that "Human Warfare" is a collective and cooperative activity, involving large groups of human beings. The minds of those individuals are shaped by those collectives. Some collectives are intergenerational and therefore pass on genetic and/or cultural information (misinformation and disinformation) across past, present, and future generations, including account of their feelings, thoughts, and behavior. Cooperative collectives, invariably, entail leadership and followership. There are no leaders without followers and no followers without leaders. Throughout most of human history, leadership/followership has been hierarchical (top-to-bottom) whereby followers submit to the authority of leaders, which (over time) often gets locked into tradition. Followership can be either: voluntary (free will), involuntary (coerced), or nonvoluntary. In the United States, business and politics are still monopolized by white males, although women and racial minorities have recently penetrated that monopoly. Men have always been the primary movers and shakers of human warfare. Why? Some argue that human males are biologically and/or culturally programmed collectivize in pursuit of common goals, compete with other groups of males, and forge lifelong friendships... For example, male participation in violent sports such as football, soccer, and hockey. Males who serve in the military and engage in lethal warfare with high casualties, are especially prone to forge these lifelong friendships, hence the term "band of brothers." This raises recent questions concerning the status of female soldiers, "band of sisters?" and whether women ought to serve alongside men on the front lines? Or whether they should be limited to non-violent support positions. Similarly, should strong, athletic women be able compete for positions in male sports, or must they compete only against other women? Why? Some scholars question whether it is possible for followers to exercise free will, when leaders effectively manipulate information and/or threaten those who are non-compliant. Others argue that sustained leader-follower relationships require a degree of information manipulation and/or coercion, especially political leadership. The forging of multi-national alliances via treaties is an important element of modern warfare. Alliances can be either public (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) or private (secret). Secret alliances between nations (Iran, Korea, Chins?) have always been problematic.
Somit and Peterson argued that there are two polar organizational forms of government Totalitarianism and Democracy and that worldwide, totalitarian regimes vastly outnumber democratic regimes. And that democracy requires a highly educated populace that know the issues at hand and actually vote. Of course, voting can be manipulated by prevailing power structures and ruling parties by limiting the number of polling places, especially in minority neighborhoods, and by requiring multiple forms of identification proving age, residence, and political party. The longer it takes to vote at a polling place, fewer voters can show up, without missing work. And of course, there is always the question of how voters vote, who collects, and counts those votes. Ballot stuffing is often a problem (real or imagined) in democratic elections. Voting technology has evolved significantly from paper ballots to voting machines, to voting machines that produce paper ballots. In recent years, those who win the election, tend to trust the process, while those who lose tend to doubt those results.
Like all human institutions, the history of human warfare reveals varying degrees of cultural evolution, devolution, and/or stability over time. We know that periods of both warlike and peaceful behavior are evident throughout much of human history. Scholars debate over whether warfare and peace are biologically and/or culturally determined. Some anthropologists argue that there is artifactual evidence indicating that groups of Hunters and Gatherers rarely (if ever) engaged in competitive warfare over resources, land, power, or ideology. There was (no doubt) plenty of food for groups of 50 wandering genetically related humans. Similarly, there was no rational reason to engage in internal "civil wars" over leadership. Leadership was contextual: that is to say that hunter-gatherer groups simply followed the hunting advice of the best hunters (usually men) and the gathering advice by best gatherers (usually women). Older men and women were most likely to accrue more experience and therefore were more-or-less respected by the rest of the group. Ineffective leaders were routinely replaced without violence.
Those same scholars agree that warfare emerged about 10,000 years ago, with the advent of the Agricultural Revolution, when humans stopped hunting and gathering and began to live together, collectively, in one geographical location, where they fenced the land and invented private land ownership, agriculture, and animal husbandry. As these stationary communities began to grow in population, more arable land, water, and food was needed. As public property was gradually transformed into private property, many groups were left with no means to feed their populations. Out of sheer necessity, (or perhaps laziness) some small agricultural communities, eventually, began to raid their agrarian neighbors and confiscate their food supply. This inspired the collateral cultural evolution of both offensive and defensive warfare. Henceforth, sustained political leadership required effective/efficient offensive and defensive warfare, which collaterally led to the cultural evolution of both increasingly lethal weapon-based technologies and increasingly global communication-based technologies.
The earliest weapons, no doubt, consisted of stockpiles of sticks and stones, which gradually evolved into more increasingly efficient killing technologies, from bows and arrows, to guns, aircraft, and ballistic missiles. Co-laterally, communication technology evolved from "word of mouth" (face-to-face) to written word, and most recently, to communication via technologies from radios and telephones, to cell phones, television, and computers. The Vietnam War was the first widely televised war in the United States. Evening media outlets included daily updates, and eventually, 24 hours a day coverage evolved from CNN and later other full-time outlets. Of course, the US government provided war statistics, which invariably suggested that the US was winning that war. Eventually, skepticism arose among those media outlets and the public at large. In the early years of the Vietnam War, would-be soldiers voluntarily enlisted in the "armed forces," lured by a sense of "honor," a reliable paycheck, and an assortment of other benefits including health insurance and college tuition. Many healthcare professionals, engineers and security experts were trained by and later employed by the military. Young men sought long-term military careers and or specialized training, especially in the Air Force. But as the Vietnam War dragged on, casualties mounted, and voluntary enlistment declined. Consequently, the US government revived involuntary conscription (the draft) which alienated middle- and upper-class males and their families. This was accompanied by to deferments for various classes of middle/upper class of males. Conscription was eventually replaced by a lottery system, which determined who was subject to the draft. When I was in college at Eastern Kentucky University, I drew a high number (190) and therefore I was spared the draft. But many of my university friends drew low numbers and were, immediately sent off to fight the Vietnam War. Given the enormous expenses associated with paying soldiers and providing an assortment of costly, military technologies (tanks, warships, bombers, bombs etc.), the Vietnam war became increasingly unpopular and financially unsustainable. Eventually, under pressure from the media and the public at large, the US unceremoniously withdrew from South Vietnam. The United States, Russia, and China still allocate a major proportion of their national budgets to paying and training soldiers and developing new technologies. Ever-burgeoning military budgets financed the development of larger, faster, more accurate, and more lethal technologies and the resulting threats of deploying various "secret weapons" (real or imagined). Innovative competition between nations and the rise of the private arms industry produced the so-called "arms race," which evolved increasingly more effective and efficient weapons by scientifically savvy nations, most notably the United States, Russia, and China. That competition still exists today. Today, well-armed defensive military forces and armed citizens often resist, if not expel, those would-be occupying forces. Near the end of WW II, the United States invented the ultimate weapon. The atomic bomb, which all nations pursued, in order to keep up with the United States and other nuclear nations. Today, warfare has been shaped primarily by increasingly efficient "missile technologies," especially missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons over long distances. These weapons were stockpiled by nuclear nations, which transformed traditional warfare into "mutually assured destruction" (MAD). Consequently, human warfare became increasingly, impersonal, as hand-to-hand combat and personal weapons were replaced by armed missiles launched from over the horizon. Ironically, atomic weapons became a deterrent to future wars, out of fear of "nuclear holocaust." And nations strategically released information, misinformation, and disinformation concerning their nuclear capacity and their ability to develop and deliver those weapons.
Warfare today has been indelibly shaped by the interwoven, fast-paced, evolution of both weapon technologies and information technologies. The development of these technologies created markets and/or the desire to hide/reveal possession of those technologies from would-be enemies and/or allies. Eventually "rogue nations," including North Korea and Iran, claimed that they possessed "The Bomb" and the requisite missile technology necessary to deliver it longer and longer distances. Possession of the "The Bomb" was also used to threaten their neighbors, and/or protect themselves from the US, Russia, and/or China. Large offensive armies evolved (or devolved?) into occupying forces, that sought to control the flow of refugees, enforce new legalities, and even rebuild cities. Whether occupying troops could effectively serve as "untrained peace-keepers" or policemen, became an issue, as well. The evolution of increasingly portable weapon technologies and communication technologies; created and an ever-growing global market for those technologies; and highly profitable private corporations that manufactured, distributed, and marketed these weapons at home and abroad. Burgeoning national military budgets eventually outpaced all other budgetary concerns and the normalization of deficit spending, especially in the US.
Further Reading
Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, Why War?
Ronald F. White, The Ethics of War Albert Somit and Steven A. Peterson, The Failure of Nation building: The Biological Bases of Authoritarianism, Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence (1997) https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781403978424 Albert Somit and Steven A. Peterson, The Failure of Democratic Nation Building (2005) Albert Somit and Steven A Peterson, Handbook of Biology and Politics (2017) Victor Kumar and Richard Campbell, A Better Ape: The Evolution of the Moral Mind and How it Made Us Human (2022)
By: Ronald F. White, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, Mount St. Joseph University
Introduction
Chapter I. Why War?
Chapter 2. Warfare Among Other Primate Species
Chapter 3. War and Peace Among Hunter-Gatherers
Chapter 4. The Agricultural Revolution and Cultural Evolution
Chapter 5. The Emergence of Private Property and Defensible Borders
Chapter 6. The Rise of the Nation-State
Chapter 7. The Evolving Social Structure of Military Organizations: Men, Women, Children, Gays, Lesbians and Transsexuals
Chapter 8. Economic Competition and the Evolution of War and Peace
Chapter 9. The Evolution of War Technology
Chapter 10. Warfare on Land, on the Sea, in the Air, and on the Internet
Chapter 11. World War and World Peace
Chapter 12. Contemporary Issues
