by Gabor Mascarpone

24th February 2023

 

“An aggressive war is the great crime against everything good in the world. A defensive war, which must necessarily turn to aggressive at the earliest moment, is the necessary great counter-crime. But never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.”

Ernest Hemingway (in Raeburn, 1946)

The crime of war

The term “war crime” appears to be a tautology. Every war is a horrible crime against humanity. Every war sacrifices too much of what is most precious to us – human life. Sadly, during the past year we have witnessed yet another cruel and vicious war, taking place on European soil – the Russian invasion of Ukraine triggered by Vladimir Putin and his government. The war has been raging for a year now with no end in sight and although it has been broadly condemned by most of the world, who is really to blame? How did Ukraine and Russia end up here?

Clearly, the nations, the populace of either country had very little say in the events that led to the war. And I would argue that this is always the case in wars. While there is something to be said about the collective burden and the partial complacency of the public, arguably the main responsibility for countless examples of war, genocide and terror inflicted on civilian populations sits with the respective governments who have planned, orchestrated and initiated these crimes. One may object. The respective governments or warring nations are often those elected in (more-or-less) free elections, i.e. they have enjoyed a certain level of popular support. But here sits an important detail – were the political candidate to disclose an intention to trigger a war before the respective election, it is highly doubtful that they would be ever elected. In general, people strongly oppose wars. Especially in dubious circumstances, as is the case with the invasion of Ukraine. Of course, public opinions are malleable. Given enough time, the propaganda machine of any half-competent government can “manage” the public opinion of its people in the direction it needs to. But no one can dispute the fact that in the absence of any propaganda intervention, people oppose wars.

Interestingly, the war in Ukraine has caused a lot of friction – and even fractures – within the left of the political space in general, and specifically amongst anarchists. The main points of debate that have emerged are:

a) is it morally justified to actively support the military response of the defending nation (Ukraine)?

and

b) whose fault is it: Russia or “the West”?

I believe that the persistent bickering in the public space over the latter question – whether Russia (with its poorly-concealed renewed imperial ambitions) or Ukraine (as a proxy to the power aspirations of the US and NATO) are to blame for the ignition of this conflict distracts from the bigger question:

Is there something inherently wrong with our current social and political organization that allows for wars to happen over and over again, despite the general aversion to violence of the public and the self-proclaimed devotion to peace by most politicians worldwide?

In her “Reflections on War” (1933) the French anarchist Simone Weil wrote:

“The great error of nearly all studies of war, an error into which all socialists have fallen, has been to consider war as an episode in foreign politics when it is especially an act of internal politics and the most atrocious act of all … Since the directing apparatus has no other way of fighting the enemy than by sending its own soldiers, under compulsion, to their death – the war of one state against another state resolves itself into a war of the state and the military apparatus against its own people.”

This powerful statement written more than 80 years ago may actually provide an important pivot point for our collective understanding of the forces shaping deadly interstate conflict. More importantly, by enabling us to see beyond the geopolitical chessboard, it may allow us to unite, focus on the root cause and believe in our ability to make a change and take control of these forces, leaving the less significant (and distracting) points of contention behind us.

The (grotesque) stereotype that our society has subscribed to typically attributes warmongering to evil dictators. The record, however, clearly shows otherwise. We see that in every past decade both dictatorial regimes and (supposedly) democratic governments carry out war after war after war (albeit the term “war” is rarely used in public). So what is then the least common denominator? I would like to suggest that the fundamental condition enabling a given government to trigger a war is the nearly universal authoritarianism and autocracy that plague the world today.

Nowadays the term “autocratic” is used profusely in media reports, most often to describe dictatorial or semi-dictatorial regimes of government (like that of Vladimir Putin), though one wonders if authoritarianism may perhaps be more widely spread. Autocracy is the unfettered exercise of authority, with no permission for the interference of others in the wielding of power. Let’s think about this. Do we really believe that this description only applies to the dictators or crazed strongmen in today’s world? Well, even the most naïve should realize that, unfortunately, the large majority of the so called “public servants” in the Western democracies are more-often-than-not driven by interests other than those of the public, and more importantly they mostly operate in the absence of continuous and constant public control. The regular election cycles bring some level of control by the public – true – but it is extremely rare for a politician to be recalled during their (typically several years-long) term. In addition, if we take the US as an example of a Western democracy, the nearly perfect correlation of electability to monetary campaign contributions speaks volumes about the path to obtaining (and staying in) a position of power. The way to get elected is to place yourself in the service of big business, where the money is. Even if this is an oversimplification, the reality is that politicians are on a leash and it is not “the people” who have a grip on that leash. The public, in fact, has very limited levers to exercise constant control over politicians and the government. A good example for this lack of control is the decision of the government of Tony Blair to enter the Iraq war of 2003, despite the clear rejection of this decision by the British public, up to 1 million of whom took to the streets to protest on the 15th of February 2003, concurrent with millions of others in more than 600 cities around the world. A lot of these took place in the countries that ended up invading Iraq anyway. The mass protests made no difference: the “coalition of the willing” invaded Iraq only a month later. So much for serving the public.

Responsibility: apparent versus factual

Wars do not occur spontaneously. They are always premeditated, planned (to various degrees) and consciously triggered by one or the other country’s government. Even a superficial historical review of some of the armed conflicts in the twentieth century (including World War I, World War II, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the invasions of Afghanistan by Russia and the US, the two US invasions of Iraq, the current war in Ukraine) will quickly conclude that although in many cases partial responsibility for the crime of war can be assigned to all parties, the main burden lays with the initiator – the country firing the first shot, dropping the first bomb, the invader, the aggressor. What exactly does “responsibility” mean though? Well, one way to define it is answering the question: “could the person or group of people triggering the war have avoided it, without inflicting equal or greater death and destruction to their own country?” Another interesting question that immediately begs an answer is: “Is avoiding death and destruction always the highest goal? Aren’t freedom (no matter how defined), religion, or ideology more important?” But perhaps the answer depends on who is being asked: the government, the different political entities in the country, or “the people”. For example, as a thought experiment, what do you think would have been the prevalent opinion of the people of Russia if they were asked in January 2022 whether they preferred:

a) continuing further the negotiations with Ukraine and The West on the contested topics of Ukraine’s neutrality and the autonomy of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions

or

b) plunging their country into a horrible war with the brotherly nation of Ukraine, bringing immeasurable death and devastation to that country and huge shame, death, pain and isolation to the people of Russia?

We certainly know what the opinion of Vladimir Putin was. As for that of the people of the Russian Federation … well, use your imagination.

So, what is the common denominator? Whereas the reasons for wars are diverse – imperialist ambitions, a (perceived) wounded national pride, ideological or religious differences, territorial disputes, and so on – the commonality is that a limited number of decision-makers thrust entire nations and sometimes the entire world into the horrors of war. How could that be? How can humanity after hundreds of thousands of years be in a position to be at the whims of a few individuals? This question is particularly relevant today, when humans have at their disposal, and literally at their fingertips (to refer to the proverbial nuclear “red button”), the ability to destroy humanity and life as we know it on planet Earth.

It is worth mentioning, that once wars start, they more often than not spiral out of control and, in fact, almost never run the course the initiator expects. Almost 200 years ago Carl von Clausewitz wrote: “In war more than anywhere else things do not turn out as we expect” (1832). This is not surprising, considering the complexity of factors in wars that influence the outcomes. But it follows that upon initiating an armed conflict, a country’s government knowingly and willingly subjects its citizens to enormous risks that include significant uncertainty and potentially highly severe consequences.

In the not-so-distant past, intellectuals (from the eighteenth century liberal philosophers through Marx to Bakunin and others) have assigned the accountability for waging wars to autocratic governments or the oppressive ruling classes. It appears though that during the late-twentieth and early- twenty-first centuries societies have largely stopped asking the question “who is to blame?” It seems like we have arrived at a silent consent with regards to the continuous and relatively frequent interstate conflicts. Powerful propaganda machines have managed to silence the violent opposition to open warfare, and in many cases cruel armed conflicts have met very little resistance within the participating states. How come? How is it possible that not-so-long after WWII – the deadliest armed conflict in human history – and at a time where humanity for the first time in history possesses the ability to wipe out most of the life on our planet, we have a relatively nonchalant attitude to destruction of human life on a mass scale? Clearly, the changes in modern warfare, which has become more distant and less personal to many, have a role to play, but that alone cannot explain our complacency.

In his famous book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper suggested we should focus not on individuals, but on institutions – regular elections, representative governments, independent government branches providing checks and balances.

Alas, since 1945 when Popper made his recommendation, the world consistently failed to deliver. In the recent past an increasing number of media reports point to powerful shadow groups and think tanks meddling into the democratic process. A highly concerning fact is that even extreme examples of political interference like the Cambridge Analytica scandal, whereby public opinion was “managed” in order to steer both the Brexit vote in the UK and the Trump vote in the US, were more or less ignored by the public. These revelations should have ignited popular outrage. Such events cannot be ignored – the reality is that these constitute major breaches in the democratic process and demonstrate how vulnerable the political and social organization of the so-called “democratic societies” actually is. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. If one considers recent events like the flat refusal to accept legitimate election results by prominent political candidates (like Trump in the US and Bolsonaro in Brazil) and the preponderance of intentional misinformation campaigns and baseless conspiracy claims used for political gain, one arrives at a very grim picture.

Blame the illegitimate governments of the world

“Illegitimate” governments are those which do not represent the interests of the general public, but instead the interests of small, privileged minorities. The typical examples that we commonly jump to are the governments of the numerous autocratic rulers around the world – some barely concealed behind “managed” elections and severe suppression of free speech (such as Vladimir Putin), others exercising absolute power over their populations without any attempt to simulate popular control (like the Saudi regime, for example). It is perhaps even more important to look at a few prominent examples of governments that consider themselves as beacons of democracy (and in fact, I would argue there is no state government that is really democratic): the supranational government of the European Union with its complex and obscure election mechanisms, opaque governance processes and powerful unelected officials; the government of the USA with its legalized corruption (see the Supreme Court’s Citizens United versus FEC ruling, 2010) and highly influential lobbyist industry. Let’s face it – democracy today, even when defined in the flimsiest terms as “rule of the majority”, is practically non-existent. The key point here is that this lack of democracy means a tiny group of rich individuals and corporations owns the world’s means of production, technologies and a vast accumulation of capital, and control the ability to wage wars.

Who stands behind the curtain?

The next questions to ask are: “Whose interests do the ruling elites protect? Who is running the illegitimate governments?” I submit: the oligarchy (big business, the rich, the few), wielding the enormous power of huge personal and corporate wealth to their own benefit alone and, more-often-than-not, against the interests of “the people”. After all, money is power and the rich possess it in overwhelming excess. It is perhaps useful to remind the reader that, as of 2014, in the US 0.1% of the population possessed more household wealth than the bottom 90% combined. Such enormous wealth can buy very large amounts of political influence and media support. In a time when the richest person in the world owns more capital than the GDP of a developed country like Portugal, for example, perhaps we need to stop and seriously think about whether (and how) we should control the undue influence that the very rich can exert. These questions are important to ask particularly because such immense riches are never created singlehandedly by their possessor, but are the result of the hard labor of millions of workers, who typically have zero say in how the fruits of their labor are used to influence the course of history.

The fact that corporations and the powerful rich have had and continue to have huge influence on political decision-making is hardly a revelation. Let’s remember the warning Dwight Eisenhower issued to the US nation in his farewell presidential speech in 1962 about the “disastrous rise of misplaced power”. Eisenhower warned about the large arms industry endangering liberties and the democratic process. Unfortunately his warning seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Today we witness the consequences of US failure to follow Eisenhower’s advice to guard against the “unwarranted influence … by the military-industrial complex”.

Let me be clear though – I am not suggesting that global business interests are always the main culprit behind wars. I am merely pointing out that the democratic processes in our societies are severely compromised. This in turn allows individuals in power to start and lead wars practically unconstrained and, most importantly, against the public interest.

Concentration of power + limited accountability = WAR

Let’s juxtapose two recent examples: the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, launched in 2022. At first glance there is not much in common between the two, but if we follow the let’s compare the narratives put forward in each case. The mainstream Western media portrayed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as a noble effort of the democratic world to overthrow a vile dictator who was using chemical weapons on his people and who was preparing to wage a war of mass destruction on the world (in short – a noble cause). Now, Russian mainstream media denounces American post-colonial imperialist ambitions for control of resources and entire countries, but proclaims the invasion of Ukraine as a “special operation” to remove a nazi regime threatening stability in the region (in short – a noble cause).

The fact that there is nothing noble about either invasion is relatively transparent to the world today. But why do we just sit and watch? The answer perhaps lies in what Herman and Chomsky call “manufactured consent” (1988) – the careful management of public opinion, the manufactured common sense that shapes the dominant worldviews. Clearly, the severe shortage of independent media around the world today is a major problem and one of the fundamental conditions enabling special interests to shape public opinion with relative ease.

The aggressors of the 2003 and 2022 examples above, the USA and Russia, have ostensibly different types of government (a supposed democracy and a thinly veiled autocracy), but in both cases political power is highly concentrated and accountability is elusive. The consequence of this absence of meaningful democracy is the inability of the public to counter governments repeatedly committing the greatest crime of all – war.

Crime and punishment

In Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, the protagonist Raskolnikov faces the consequences of his crime – the torment of the horror of his deed, as well as the external repercussions. It is difficult to say how much anguish the decision-makers who start wars may feel, but one thing is for sure – they are rarely brought to justice for the devastations, death and immeasurable pain that they ultimately cause. Interestingly, most people do not find this shocking. Most of us (at least those who have been lucky enough not to have witnessed a war first-hand), tend to think about wars as terrible, but unfortunate, almost inevitable occurrences in human history. How can we treat the thousands and sometimes millions of people who are killed and suffer in wars as “collateral damage”? In peace time we clearly expect a murderer to suffer very severe consequences, enforced by our justice systems, so how can we neglect to bring the individuals responsible for the horrors of war to justice? As briefly discussed above, the question “who is responsible?” is a complicated one, but shouldn’t at least the decision-makers initiating the war be tried in a court of justice? A separate question of course is what punishment could possibly fit the crime …?

Can we avert global destruction?

David Graeber and David Wengrow, in their wonderful recent book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021), define three principles for expansion of power in human history: sovereignty, administration, and competitive (charismatic) politics. Whereas Graeber and Wengrow do a great job of exploring the different facets of power expansion from a more general, fundamental viewpoint of the driving forces of social history, one could ask the simple question: what are the practical tools for consolidation of power in today’s world? What can be done to counter the mechanisms used to gain and consolidate political power (such as control and censorship of the media, interference of the electoral process, control of popular dissent, employment of nationalist and populist rhetoric, and so on)? Perhaps it would be enough to ensure tighter control over governments’ actions, for example by implementing mechanisms for immediate recall of publicly elected officials? Perhaps … Ultimately though, the contents of this “abuse of power toolkit” is not as important as the more fundamental question: How can we prevent the consolidation of power in the hands of privileged minorities (oligarchy) by design?

I believe that the answer to this question is in replacing the current capitalist state and its centralized organization with a direct democratic and decentralized local form of self-government. Such future social organization has been imagined (and as Graeber and Wengrow argue, historically practiced) by many, and the associated modern ideology is known by many different names: we might prefer to call it libertarian socialism or anarcho-communism. While there are only a few limited contemporary examples of entire communities organized along anarchistic lines, this does not mean that humanity cannot make change for the better – we only need to be brave enough to try. Of course, before embarking on radical social transformations we need to first answer for ourselves the question: is the survival of the human species and the planet Earth as we know it of highest importance to us?

The answer should be self-evident.

But the first step to making a radical change would be to recognize that the responsibility of igniting the flames of war sits with the global oligarchy, with the world’s ruling elites. We need to remember Simone Weil’s penetrating insight that war is a crime of the state and its military against its people.

 

References

Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010). Available at https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/

Carl von Clausewitz ( 1873 [1832]), On War (trans. Col. James John Graham). London: N. Trübner. Available at https://www.clausewitz.com/readings/OnWar1873/

David Graeber and David Wengrow (2021), The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (1988), Manufacturing Consent. New York: Pantheon Books.

Karl Popper (2020), The Open Society and Its Enemies. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Ben Raeburn (1946), Treasury for the Free World. New York: Arco Publishing Co.

Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman (2014, October), ‘Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data’. National Bureau of Economic Research. Available at https://www.nber.org/papers/w20625

Simone Weil (1945 [1933]), ‘Reflections on War’. LibCom.org. Available at https://libcom.org/article/reflections-war