When war is easy

A few weeks ago, Netflix recommended to me a fascinating documentary. It was on the power struggle between Samurai warlords who toiled during the prolonged civil war that gripped Japan in the 15th and 16th centuries. With little else to watch, I obliged. But to my utter shock, it was an appallingly gory and graphic show. Heads rolled (quite literally) in episode after episode. Blood streamed down hillsides in scene after scene. Brothers betrayed each other, wives killed their husbands in their sleep. So, naturally, I was hooked.

Netflix then threw more historical series of intrigue at me: a bloody pirate republic in the Caribbean, a merciless Ottoman Sultan, a power-hungry Roman conqueror.

In truth, a lot of these stories would be fairly familiar to any world history geek, and many of us have read about them all. But to witness them visually, rather than through an academic textbook, still has an impact of its own. How did men trod off into battle so easily, I asked myself, and how did they stab, maim and dismember living people while looking into their sorry eyes unflinchingly? Would the average citizen or President or Prime Minister still be able to do such things today, or have human sensibilities changed?

In some ways, territorial greed has not changed much. As economic prospects evaporate globally, more and more countries are trying to rediscover some form of “past glory” to replace the narrative of economic growth and prosperity. The Turks want their Ottoman Empire back; Russia’s Vladimir Putin talks about reclaiming lost lands in Eastern Europe, as the medieval Czars once did; China claims half of Asia’s oceans, based on the notion that Chinese emperors once ruled over them; and the Hindutva brigade has its Akhand Bharat, except that no single Indian emperor – Hindu or Muslim – ever really ruled over all of Akhand Bharat at any point).

But unlike in the medieval ages, war has also become easier in some sense today — and that should scare us all. In his seminal new book titled Why We Fight, economist Chris Blattman says that leaders often face an incentive to avoid war because of how costly it is. But if leaders are able to pass on those costs to their people and keep only the spoils for themselves, war becomes more likely.

When one says, “war is costly,” most people would probably think about its economic costs — the property lost, the investments devastated, and the industrialisation squandered, etc. But having to personally climb on to a horse and lead your troops into battle is also a cost. Getting into a deadly sword fight with your enemy face-to-face is also a cost.

In modern warfare, however, leaders no longer face this cost of “human empathy” or risk to personal life. War is fought by the poor and the young while the President toasts to vodka in the capital. Swords are replaced by long-range missiles that can go anywhere. Unmanned drones can drop powerful bombs so that commanders don’t even have to face their victims personally.

None of this is to argue that war is likelier or more frequent today than in the dark ages. Globalisation has increased the costs of violence and the modern-day public has more leverage than their ancestors in medieval kingdoms did. But in many ways, Science has also made the declaration of war easy for many decision-makers. And the more insulated those decision-makers are from public accountability, the more able and likely they are to ignore the heavy costs borne by the common folk.

If Putin had to personally ride a horse into Ukraine, would there be a war happening today?

(The author is a student of all things global and, self-confessedly, master of none, notwithstanding his Columbia Master’s, a stint with the UN and with monarchs in the Middle East)