What Really Causes War?

I rolled out of bed at 5:30 this morning to finish a homework assignment I was too lazy to finish last night. Had to write a report on the ethnic migration patterns of people groups in the former Soviet Union after the collapse of the USSR. Don’t I lead the exciting life.

The implications of the report were interesting though. Most of the migration was the result of regional conflicts and civil war. The textbooks blame “political instability” for the subsequent bloodshed, but isn’t that a bit of a cop out? Of course war stems from political instability! But it’s not like political instability just appears overnight as a strange phenomenon in no way attached to the people. "Political instability" is just the outward expression of something deeper.  

Do you ever wonder why wars break out? Not the typical “Country X rolled tanks into Country Y today, citing Country Y’s refusal to eliminate the military base by the southwest border of the two countries as a threat to its own people too large to be ignored” explanation, but really, at the heart of it all — what causes war? What happens between individuals that allows a mental transition justifying picking up a gun or flying a fighter jet or dropping an atomic bomb, all in the name of saving humanity?

The only answer I’ve ever been able to reach is that we, as individuals, are so amazingly capable of hating each other and holding infinite grudges that we can justify almost anything in an attempt to “bring about justice.” Mass destruction, forcing thousands or millions of people from their homes, the killing or maiming of men, women and children…it’s all okay, right, because there’s a principle to be learned and we need to make sure the world learns it!

Who are we kidding?

Maybe the cause of warfare isn’t political. Peel back the jargon and get real. Maybe the cause is personal. Just like everything else in life. And maybe our refusal to recognize that fact and take any sort of personal responsibility is why the effects of war have been more tragic in the last century than at any other time in history.