{"id":26991,"date":"2017-01-31T05:45:18","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T10:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=26991"},"modified":"2017-01-30T21:03:38","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T02:03:38","slug":"the-three-causes-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/01\/the-three-causes-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The three causes of war"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"512px-Thucydides_pushkin02\"<\/a>The great Athenian historian Thucydides said that there are\u00a0three causes of war: \u00a0(1) honor \u00a0(2) fear \u00a0(3) \u00a0national interest.<\/p>\n

Jonah Goldberg discusses those factors and cites modern historian Donald Kagan, who says that honor comes first as the reason why a nation goes to war. \u00a0That motive is far more common, he says, than national interest.<\/p>\n

World War I was surely caused by many nations\u2019 sense of honor. \u00a0World War II was caused by Germany and Japan\u2019s radical sense of\u00a0national pride and the honor (and territory) to which they felt entitled. \u00a0Other countries fought them out of the rational fear that leads to self-defense. \u00a0The Cold War conflicts were sparked by ideology\u2013should that modern concept be added to Thucydides\u2019 causes?\u2013but our national honor, if not our national interests, were at stake in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

\n

More recently, the Iraq War had as its official reason our fear of weapons of mass destruction, but we were also humiliated and outraged at the 9\/11 attacks and our sense of honor required us to strike back at somebody. \u00a0It is said that Muslims have felt humiliated by the West for centuries, and this is a major motive for Islamic terrorism.<\/p>\n

Goldberg applies Thucydides to the Mexicans and the wall. \u00a0He says that having a wall on the border may well be a good idea. \u00a0But if it is worth building, we should pay for it. \u00a0There is no need, he says, to humiliate Mexico by somehow forcing them to pay for it. \u00a0 Not that Mexico would start a war, but that foreign policy should avoid needless insults to the honor of a country.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump is building up American honor in the course of \u201cmaking America great again.\u201d \u00a0Does that mean that an America conscious of its greatness would be more likely to start a war\u00a0if another country insults us? \u00a0But Trump is saying that the driving force of his government will be the national interest. \u00a0Ironically, attention to\u00a0the national interest is the least<\/em> likely cause of war, and it can keep us out of conflicts based merely on honor or fear.<\/p>\n

From Jonah Goldberg,\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s Border Wall Shouldn\u2019t Cost Mexico Money & Honor | National Review<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

The Greek historian Thucydides argued that countries go to war for three reasons: honor, fear, and interest. He put honor first, and yet that is probably the least appreciated aspect of foreign policy today. Historian Donald Kagan, in his essay \u201cHonor, Interest, Nation-State,\u201d recounts how since antiquity, nations have put honor ahead of interest. \u201cFor the last 2,500 years, at least, states have usually conducted their affairs and have often gone to war for reasons that would not pass the test of \u2018vital national interests\u2019 posed by modern students of politics.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cOn countless occasions,\u201d he continues, \u201cstates have acted to defend or foster a collection of beliefs and feelings that ran counter to their practical interests and have placed their security at risk, persisting in their course even when the costs were high and the danger was evident.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Americans instinctively understand this when our own honor is at stake. The rallying cry during the Barbary Wars, \u201cMillions for defense, but not one cent for tribute,\u201d has almost become part of the national creed. I am no fan of Karl Marx, but he was surely right when he observed that \u201cshame is a kind of anger turned in on itself. And if a whole nation were to feel ashamed it would be like a lion recoiling in order to spring.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Both the first and second world wars cannot be properly understood without taking seriously the role national honor plays in foreign affairs. Similarly, Vladimir Putin\u2019s constant testing of the West only makes sense when you take into account the despot\u2019s core conviction that the fall of the Soviet Union was a blow to Russian prestige and honor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I don\u2019t think a war with Mexico is in the cards, even if the Trump administration were to figure out a way to get Mexico to foot the bill for a border wall. But forcing them to pay for it would be a punitive and gratuitous act of humiliation.<\/p>\n

[Keep reading. . .]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bust of Thucydides, a Roman copy (c. 100 CE) of an early 4th Century BCE Greek original, located in Holkham Hall in Norfolk, UK. \u00a0Photo by user:shakko (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The great Athenian historian Thucydides said that there are\u00a0three causes of war: \u00a0(1) honor \u00a0(2) fear \u00a0(3) \u00a0national interest. Jonah Goldberg discusses those factors and cites modern historian Donald Kagan, who says that honor comes first as the reason why a nation goes to war. \u00a0That motive is far more common, he says, than national […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,49],"tags":[5171,1040,5172,1434,4923,5170],"class_list":["post-26991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-war-2","tag-causes-of-war","tag-honor","tag-mexican-immigration","tag-mexico","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-thucydides"],"yoast_head":"\nThe three causes of war<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The great Athenian historian Thucydides said that there are three causes of war: (1) honor (2) fear (3) national interest.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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