Dr. Ken Raffa on Richard Overy’s “Why War?”
If you’re in search of a new perspective on the role war plays in our lives, this book review is for you! Lawfire® contributor Dr. Ken Raffa reviews the military historian Richard Overy’s ‘Why War?,’ a new book about the reasons war has consistently dominated history. Ken is a super-smart biologist so I am grateful that he’s sharing his unique perspective on a book by one of my favorite authors.
To tackle this important question, Overy examines the motivations of war as separate factors, drawing on diverse fields including human biology, psychology, and anthropology. He takes readers on an engaging historical journey from Neolithic era conflicts to modern wars in a way that Ken claims “leaves you wanting more.”
As he puts it in his review, the book “dispel[s] readers of the notion that lethal organized conflict is merely an artifact of modern civilization. [Overy] makes a convincing case that war is an ancient and ubiquitous undertaking . . . .”
Here’s Ken’s review:
Why War?, by Richard Overy
Reviewed by Kenneth F. Raffa
In ‘Why War?’, historian Richard Overy takes on one of the most fundamental questions of our existence, namely what are the major reasons why lethal organized conflict is such a defining feature of our species.
He’s quite candid that any attempt to classify various causes necessarily invites some overlap and exceptions, but I think building such categories is necessary to having a workable organizing framework.
Throughout the book he recognizes that each particular cause is often accompanied by other proximate and ultimate causes but avoids getting bogged down in tangents or trying to force round pegs into octagonal holes.
The book is well written and footnoted; it’s relatively short at 230 pages but never feels overly dense. The book’s voice is that of an arm’s length reporter in that any potential use of understanding war’s underlying causes to reduce its harm or costs is beyond the author’s intent.
Overy divides his book into two major subsections, which I’ll roughly label as ‘Who we are’ and ‘What we do.’
The second part deals with four relatively straightforward and readily documented causes.
If I may paraphrase his catchy one-word chapter titles, these are 1) The other guy has what I want, 2) My god is superior to his, 3) Some leaders defy rational understanding and are driven by an unquenchable thirst for power and adulation, and 4) I’m afraid of what the other guy might do. Each of these is told with a historian’s skill of balancing general principles, specific examples and oh-my details.
This section deals mostly with recorded history, so more evidence is available for weighing various competing ideas than in the first section.
For example, his chapter titled ‘Resources’ is intended to address mostly competition for materials that modern societies value such as oil, minerals, and raw materials for manufacturing as opposed to Part One’s ‘Ecology’ which primarily addresses conflict for immediate necessities such as hunting grounds, water holes, and salt.
With ample evidence in hand, he addresses some important socioeconomic theories such as the Marxist – Leninist view that capitalism cannot function without continual growth which in turn cannot be sustained without exploitation.
I personally wish the last chapter, ‘Security,’ were a bit longer. In fairness, this chapter is no shorter than the others which helps maintain structural balance, and it does provide a lot of good ideas and information.
But so much of our military effort post World War II could be classified under this category that I’d welcome additional analysis of the extent to which accumulating arsenals deters or increases the chances of war, the long-term value of pre-emptive strikes, whether trade disincentivizes war as the post-war architects envisioned, whether excessive investment in security can actually incentivize war profiteering as Eisenhower cautioned, etc.
But it’s always a good sign when a book leaves you wanting more.
The first section delves deeper into our evolutionary and pre-recorded past and basically asks if war is a fundamental part of our essence.
Overy examines the evidence from Biology, Psychology, and Anthropology. He finishes this section by discussing how past and future ecological shortages and environmental extremes can be important drivers of armed conflict.
One of his main goals of this section is to dispel readers of the notion that lethal organized conflict is merely an artifact of modern civilization. He makes a convincing case that war is an ancient and ubiquitous undertaking and is particularly critical of Margaret Mead for influencing a generation and beyond to assume otherwise.
In describing the anthropological and archeological evidence for early tribal warfare he avoids the overly romanticized descriptions of indigenous societies that can sometimes arise in contemporary circles.
At the same time, Overy counters evolutionarily simplistic arguments that war emerged from Darwin’s ‘Struggle for Existence’ to somehow select for a superior gene pool in our species. He correctly points out that Darwin used ‘struggle’ in a fully comprehensive sense, which includes the complete set of traits leading to producing a greater number of progeny.
To hopefully provide some helpful background as a biologist, reproductive success is often driven by factors such as better enzymes for digesting food, more efficient locomotory metabolism, a more responsive immune system, a greater ability to care for young, and a heightened ability to broadcast those attributes to mates more than direct combat.
I’d recommend that if time allows to read the first two chapters (Biology, Psychology) in one sitting or closely together because they complement each other quite well.
The “Psychology” chapter tells an interesting tale of how Einstein sought Freud’s advice about the origins of war (and in fairness how Freud’s approach was designed primarily for treating individual patients), but its greatest value is in describing how cultural norms and reward systems can play an important role in reinforcing underlying attributes in social species such as our own.
That harkens back nicely to the potential roles of inclusive fitness and group selection pioneered by W.D. Hamilton and E.O. Wilson that Overy describes in his first chapter. The close connection between these two chapters serves as a vehicle to consider potential heredity and environmental factors underlying war.
Again speaking as a biologist, the gene by environment interactive effect is often stronger than either alone, and that is especially true for complex traits such as behavior. In this context culture is part of our immediate environment but is also responsive to behavioral change.
So in other words, there needn’t be a ‘warlike gene’ per se for armed conflict to be an important part of who we are, but instead certain groups that have devised systems of cooperation, communication, and social reinforcement that can be employed in aggression may reproductively outcompete other groups that have not, even though the risks undertaken may preclude some individuals in the first group from reproducing.
Success in transferring one’s genes via this route increases with the degree of relatedness among members of the group.
A deeper analysis of the actual processes that could either favor (e.g., preadaptations) or constrain (e.g., fitness trade-offs, alternate mating strategies, environmental variability, pleiotropy, gene linkages) the evolution of such processes is beyond the book’s scope.
Overall, I found Overy’s reasoning and abundant examples of warfare from a broad range of geographic regions, time periods, and circumstances to be well-chosen, compelling, and useful for providing relatively smooth navigation through the differing knowledge bases, types of evidence, and challenges arising from the various disciplines upon which he draws.
Overy finishes with a brief Conclusion that highlights his main points.
These are basically that war is longstanding and ubiquitous, its drivers are multi-causal yet can be separated and categorized with reasonable utility, and it arises from both immediate and ultimate causes driven by the coevolution of culture, innate biological attributes, and environmental circumstances.
‘Why War?’ is a worthwhile, informative, enjoyable, and thought-provoking contribution.
About the Reviewer
Dr. Kenneth Raffa is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He researches mechanisms by which trees defend themselves against insects and pathogens, corresponding pest counter-adaptations for overcoming these defenses, and how environmental and genetic factors alter the balance of outcomes. He applies this knowledge to help guide management strategies for protecting our natural resources in a changing environment, and has commonly advised federal, state, international, and private entities toward achieving these objectives.
Before joining the University of Wisconsin he was a Section Research Biologist with the Biochemicals Dept. of E.I. duPont de Nemours & Company, where he investigated approaches to eliciting plant defenses to protect agricultural crops and methods to mitigate evolution of insecticide resistance in pests that threaten the security of our food and fiber systems.
The views expressed by guest authors do not necessarily reflect my views or those of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security, or Duke University. (See also here).
Remember what we like to say on Lawfire®: gather the facts, examine the law, evaluate the arguments – and then decide for yourself!
