remote controlled 9-11 planes

From: Cambridge University Press
Is War Between Humans Always Inevitable?
Joshua S. Goldstein

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION | From long before Homer wrote the Iliad right into the twenty-first century, war appears to have been an ever-present feature of the human landscape. Some have theorized that the natural human instinct leans towards peaceful coexistence, and that the prevailing state of affairs is the byproduct of male aggression. In this extract from his book War and Gender, Joshua Goldstein holds that there is no empirical evidence to support the idea that war is a latter day phenomenon.

Marxist (and other) scholarship has long portrayed both sexism and war as products of a certain stage in human history--that of private property and the state system following the invention of agriculture over 10,000 years ago. Originally, it is claimed, humans lived in matriarchal societies (women held political power) which did not have war. Evidence comes from the supposedly peaceful and gender-equal character of modern-day gathering-hunting societies. Thus, both patriarchy and war are products of economic class relations which changed with the rise of the state, in this view.

Marx's collaborator Friedrich Engels links the beginning of war to the rise of the state--and thus the end of war to the anticipated post-state era of communism. Engels argues that societies before the invention of agriculture were matriarchies and that when, with agriculture, private property came into being, gender relations were transformed and men seized power. The rise of the state and the beginning of war were products of that same transformation. Gender and war are here linked, but only indirectly, both being effects of the transformation of economic class relations after property came into being. The solution to war, therefore, is to move beyond private property to a classless society, by means of a revolution against the current phase of private property, namely capitalism.

Several decades ago, the evidence seemed to imply that early humans were peaceful and egalitarian. Modern gatherer-hunters were reputedly peaceful, and the fossil record contained no compelling evidence of war. Thus, war appeared to be characteristic of a phase in human history, a mere 1 percent of the time we have been around as a species (and thus decoupled from any biological basis). In the event of a future transformation of the state system, or of the class divisions first sparked by agriculture (which made surplus possible), war itself might end as abruptly as it began. The end of war would be natural since we would need only to fall back on our deep human nature--3 million years of peaceful prehistory--to rediscover ourselves as creatures of peace. The idea that human beings are naturally peaceful and war is an aberration makes this story appealing. (A related myth held that humans are the only animal that kills its own species, again showing social violence as a deviation from nature. In fact, however, over a hundred other species kill their own kind.)

Thus, this perspective urges us to fall back on our true selves, go back to nature, change oppressive class relations, and/or do away with the state system, in order to achieve real peace. Incidentally, gender relations are not very important in this story. (Many Marxists see class relations as more important than gender relations.)

Present-day gathering-hunting societies
The story does not hold up, however. The evidence from modern-day gathering-hunting societies, whose supposed peaceful nature was assumed to reflect peaceful human origins, in fact shows the opposite: modern gathering-hunting societies are not generally peaceful. Of 31 gathering-hunting societies surveyed in one study, 20 typically had warfare more than once every two years, and only three had "no or rare warfare." I will get to those "rare" cases, but the point for now is that if typical gathering-hunting societies found today represent the typical societies found before the rise of the state--as advocates of peaceful origins have claimed--then those original societies were warlike

In theory, the absence of war altogether among gatherer-hunters is not essential for the idea of peaceful human origins. As a fall-back position, one could argue that gathering-hunting societies were relatively more peaceful than the chiefdom and state societies which followed. Even that argument, however, fails in light of empirical evidence. According to cross-cultural anthropological studies, nonstate societies have as much warfare as states do. Furthermore, overall per capita levels of violence (i.e., among individuals) may actually be higher in simpler gathering-hunting societies than in complex agrarian or industrialized societies, although this is hard to measure.

Clearly, cross-cultural anthropological data do not support the idea that humans started out more peaceful in simple societies and became more warlike in complex societies, culminating in modern states. Admittedly, the evidence is not conclusive regarding human origins, because generalizations about today's gathering-hunting societies--most of which have been altered in both subtle and obvious ways by contact with the industrialized world--may not tell us much about the gathering-hunting societies that existed before the invention of agriculture. Usually, by the time the first anthropologists arrived on a scene the culture was far from "pristine." Even if the society itself had no regular contact with European colonizers, the process of colonization had often pushed it into a fraction of its former territory and severely reduced its population, as appears to have happened with some Canadian Eskimo peoples. In the case of Australian desert Aborigines, metal knives and tools had filtered in from surrounding areas that had contact with Europeans long before any white person arrived to meet or observe the Aborigines. In these contexts, it is quite plausible that depopulation and territorial contraction could have caused an upswing in conflict and war due to resource scarcity. Alternatively, the encroachments of Western colonizers could have caused a warlike society to cut off warring, and band together for survival. Furthermore, as colonizers actually overran and took control of local cultures, they often engaged in "pacification" of local conflicts.

The point is that a society in the midst of such a radical transformation may not reflect the nature of early human societies. Consider one prominent example of this problem. The extremely warlike Yanomami Indians of Brazil and Venezuela were studied intensively by anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, who wrote them up as "the Fierce People." Among the Yanomami, all female babies are killed until the first son is born. This creates a shortage of women for wives, and competition for this scarce resource is a major object of wars. The Yanomami say their wars have the purpose of capturing women, although some anthropologists propose other underlying reasons. Non-anthropologists often refer to the Yanomami when discussing gathering-hunting societies, or even call them "pristine." In fact, however, decades before anthropologists first arrived, the Yanomami had already acquired steel tools (machetes, metal cooking pots, and axes) from the outside, allowing more efficient production of bananas and plantains, as well as axe fights. Thus, "pristine is passe." Overall, however, colonial effects mainly suppress war and thus do not explain the presence of war in simple societies.

Hundreds of cultures, both preagricultural and agrarian, are documented in the Human Resources Area Files (HRAF)--"the only worldwide, systematic collection of information concerning societies." Anthropologists Melvin and Carol Ember, who run HRAF, analyze a sample of 90 societies. They note that "we cannot compare societies with and without war" because "the vast majority... had at least occasional wars when they were first described, unless they had been pacified." The Embers find only eight societies where wars occur less frequently than once in ten years on average. Over half of the 90 societies were in a constant state of war or readiness for war, and half of the remaining cases fought every year during a particular season. They conclude that "war is almost ubiquitous in the ethnographic record, in the absence of external powers that imposed pacification, and the frequency distribution is skewed sharply toward the high end" (M. Ember and C.R. Ember, "Cross-cultural studies of war and peace," in S.P Reyna and R.E. Downes (eds), Studying War, 1994).

Prehistoric evidence
In theory, the best evidence about whether humans were peaceful before the invention of agriculture would be the direct record of those times as studied by archaeologists and paleontologists. This record is very spotty, however, and not compelling for either war or peace. To summarize, the evidence is consistent with (but not proof of) the presence of warfare at least sporadically throughout all periods of prehistory. It is doubtful that war followed along after (and hence possibly as a result of) the Neolithic Revolution (the beginning of agriculture, herding, and proto-urban settlements about 10,000 years ago), since strong evidence points to war's presence early in the Neolithic era. It is even possible that war played a central role in creating the Neolithic Revolution. A new and growing, though still limited, body of tangible evidence--ranging from discernible fortifications around settlements to remnants of weapons and the residue of injuries on bodies--suggests the presence of war before agriculture. One paleontologist writes that only after many years of excavating "skeletons with embedded projectile points" did he question his "acceptance of the traditional view that the native peoples of California had been exceptionally peaceful."

The rise of states
>No one disputes that war played a central role in the rise of states and civilizations after the Neolithic Revolution. In 12,000 to 8000 BC "there was a revolution in weapons technology... Four staggeringly powerful new weapons make their first appearance...: the bow, the sling, the dagger... and the mace, [and]...produced true warfare." The bow and arrow were inexpensive and reached 100 yards versus 50 for spears, and an individual could carry more arrows than spears. It "spread rapidly around the Mediterranean. Neolithic cave paintings clearly reveal their use against men as well as animals." The sling had double the range of the bow and arrow (200 yards), and was also extensively used in Neolithic times. Along with the new weapons came the invention of military tactics, especially the organization of soldiers in columns and lines. With these changes in the offensive power of armies, the fortification of settlements began, which then spread around the eastern Mediterranean from 8000 to 4000 BC. Jericho--one of the earliest fortified sites with 13-foot-high stone walls and a tower--may have started as a hunting site (around an oasis), with the walls coming next as defense against armed enemies (thereby committing the inhabitants to a sedentary life), and agriculture following. Evidence from the earliest historical societies shows warfare well ensconced. War played a central role in the rise of the early Middle Eastern civilizations, and was already strongly gendered.

To summarize in reverse chronological order, war played a central role in the rise of the first states and civilizations (and thereafter). It may have driven rather than resulted from the Neolithic Revolution. Evidence indicates war in the period just before the start of recorded history. Although the earlier prehistoric period does not provide adequate evidence for or against the presence of war, we do know that those societies had both the social organization and the weapons necessary for organized intergroup violence. War may plausibly have played a role in the rapid expansion of modern humans starting 150,000 years ago, which led to the extinction of other early humans including the Neanderthals--although we have no hard evidence of this. We cannot say whether early humans, dating back several million years, engaged in lethal intergroup violence, but at least one other primate species (chimpanzees) does so in its natural habitats. Finally, present-day gathering-hunting societies worldwide virtually all have war, and violence in these simple societies appears to be at least as prevalent as in agrarian and industrialized societies.

Thus, the myth of peaceful origins finds no empirical support. Again, this does not mean that any group of people at a particular time and place are forced to have war. It does mean that war, like gender, has deep roots. It is not overlaid on our "true" selves, but runs deep in us.

Relevant link
War and Gender (www.warandgender.com)

This is an extract from pp. 23-27 of War and Gender by Joshua S. Goldstein,
published by Cambridge University Press, copyright Joshua S. Goldstein, 2001.

Challenge of terrorism must be faced squarely
Islamabad | By Husain Haqqani

The terrorist attack on the United States consulate in Karachi leaves no doubt that Pakistan is now a major target of groups linked to Al Qaida. It is not the first time that extremists have targeted the interests of the U.S. or its allies in Pakistan.

Officials may well say that the current wave of terrorism, beginning with the church attack in Islamabad and including the car bombing that killed 11 French naval engineers in Karachi, is the price Pakistan is having to pay for supporting the U.S. since September 11. But the price Pakistan is paying may be for allowing militants from all over the Muslim world to transit to and from Afghanistan since 1979.

Officials have mentioned the possibility of Indian complicity in the Karachi bombing. But playing the traditional South Asian blame game without substantive evidence serves no purpose except to divert attention from Al Qaida linked groups.

The recent India-Pakistan crisis has been defused as a result of international, notably U.S., intercession. Neither side needs to go back to the brink by invoking old allegations that are not relevant in the new situation. It is time to prepare Pakistani public opinion for the hard truth about terrorism, whether home-grown (as in the case of the sectarian groups) or imported from elsewhere.

Instead of facing the challenge squarely, officials have been somewhat shy about admitting the presence of Al Qaida in Pakistan. During the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance, militants from all over the Muslim world transited through Pakistan to participate in the Afghan Jihad. Some of them created covert networks within Pakistan, taking advantage of poor law enforcement and the state's ambiguity towards Pan-Islamic militancy.

Bases disrupted

Now that Al Qaida and Taliban bases in Afghanistan have been disrupted, they are using their former transit station as a temporary staging ground. Pakistan's law enforcement and intelligence machinery may, by official reckoning, be doing everything within its means to identify and arrest terrorists. But the best of Pakistani law enforcement is often hardly good enough. In any case, terrorism is never an easy enemy to defeat, and every victory against it is followed by an unpredictable new attack.

If General Pervez Musharraf's commitment to opposing terrorist groups is irreversible (as it appears to be), there is no reason for government spokesmen to deny the existence of terrorist groups within the country. Recognising and meeting the challenges posed by these terrorists to Pakistan and the world must become the first priority of Musharraf's regime.

Terrorist attacks in Pakistan did not start merely because of Musharraf's recent avowed policies, although the post-September 11 shift in the country's stance has increased their frequency and intensity. Al Qaida's ally, Egyptian Jihad, bombed and destroyed the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad on November 19, 1995. A few months earlier, on March 8, 1995, two employees of the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Gary Durell and Jacqueline Van Landingham, were killed in a terrorist attack on a consulate van. On April 22, 1996 explosive devices were hurled at the U.S. Information Service building in Lahore. Four Americans and two Pakistanis working with the Union Texas Oil Company were killed on November 12, 1997, again in Karachi. On November 12, 1999 co-ordinated rocket attacks targeted offices of the U.S. government as well as the UN in Islamabad.

It is obvious that terrorism was at work in Pakistan before and is now menacing the country with a vengeance. Musharraf's decision to fight a multi-pronged battle - against domestic political rivals, India and terrorism - could give the terrorists an advantage. They have nothing to protect, only targets to destroy. Musharraf, on the other hand, must safeguard Pakistan's interests in addition to keeping himself in power. It is time for him to face the dilemmas and domestic consequences of the decision to reverse Pakistan's 25-year-old involvement with Jihad and Islamic militancy.

The diminishing of the recent stand-off with India has given Musharraf some breathing space. But despite lessening of tensions, India appears unwilling to withdraw its troops from the border. It wants to use its military mobilisation for the non-military purpose of causing economic hardship for Pakistan in terms of the cost of battle readiness.

The recent reduction in India-Pakistan tension is based on U.S. verification of an end to Pakistani support for Kashmiri militancy. The indigenous Kashmiri groups will most probably keep up their fight, as will those Al Qaida types who are already inside India or in Jammu and Kashmir. But, helped by U.S. intelligence, India is expected to know the extent and nature of Pakistani support for the militants.

Dialogue

The U.S. also seems to have assured Musharraf that it will urge India to resume dialogue with him. But while the U.S. may keep its promise of urging India, it is in no position to coerce compliance from New Delhi. Pakistan could soon find that it is having to clamp down on the militants without necessarily securing a discussion over the future of Jammu and Kashmir. Musharraf has a tough act on his hands, one that requires political skills that he is not known to possess.

He will have to roll back the Jihadi movement, without seeming to do so on American or Indian orders and without getting an immediate quid pro quo over Kashmir. He will probably face defiance from militants and religious parties, as well as from ideologues within Pakistan's establishment. He could pull through if he reached out to mainstream political parties and if India eased pressure on him.

The problem is that Musharraf hates Pakistan's politicians almost as much as he dislikes India. He is loathe to compromise with either. Believing, as he does, in his good luck, he could be tempted to take on the militants and Islamist ideologues without cutting a deal with mainstream politicians at home.

He could also try to keep up his anti-India rhetoric at least in public, which may not go down too well with the BJP and the RSS hardliners on the other side of the border. These hardliners may then seek ways of embarrassing him, which would bring back the confrontational mode. If that happens, the breathing space provided by the Armitage and Rumsfeld missions could evaporate in a very short time.

The world continues to see Kashmir in terms of militancy and terrorism (as India describes it) instead of as an issue of self-determination. The legal, moral and political merit of Pakistan's position continues to be ignored despite considerable focus - call it internationalisation - on the question of Kashmir's future. The reason for this lies in factors that Musharraf, as a military man, may not be able to comprehend or accept. Pakistan has consistently neglected non-military aspects of national power, such as intellectual output, economic growth and diplomatic potential. As a result, it has an effective military but is ineffective in most other realms. The greatest tool in statecraft, political skills, cannot evolve in a country where politics remain suspended for long periods.

General Mohammed Moosa, Chief of Pakistan's army during the 1965 war, went on to become governor of then West Pakistan. After his retirement he was asked why he failed so miserably as governor after such an illustrious career as a soldier. Musharraf would do well to pay heed to Moosa's reply: "In the army," he said, "I was trained to locate the enemy and liquidate the enemy. In politics I discovered that things are more complex. It is not always easy to locate who the enemy is and sometimes you discover that you can't liquidate him even if you locate him."

Inability to compromise

Moosa thought his inability to compromise and to cut deals, so useful in the army, was his single biggest failing in politics. In the days to come, Musharraf will have to demonstrate his ability to embrace a paradigm shift and transform from general to politician.

Challenged by terrorists capable of hit-and-run operations, he will need the support of Pakistan's politicians and the understanding of India's leaders. If he continues to antagonise both his "enemies" he will discover that neither can easily be liquidated.

Husain Haqqani is currently a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. He served as adviser to Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto and as Pakistan's Ambassador to Sri Lanka.