The study of history, at least at the elementary and high school level, is often the study of war – wars are the fenceposts and the wires between the fenceposts – the economic, social, cultural, and political events that happen all the time – are studied only when the focus of a class goes deeper in a particular time period.
I understand why this happens – wars are fairly simple (at least from the outside) and exciting. Things blow up and all. But leaping from war to war to war leaves a student – at any age – with little understanding of why wars happen. Without that, war looks like random killing for the sake of killing, or random killing in pursuit of some vague philosophic principle. It’s hard to make a war make sense.
The graphic at the top of this essay is one that I developed for the history classes I teach for the Osher program. The History Train – my hypothesis about why things happen the way they do – is fairly straightforward.
Economic change is the start of any major societal change. Any change that impacts the combination of the four factors of production – land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship – changes the way the economy works. Think about the railroad, the automobile, the home computer, the cell phone, credit cards – anything.
These economic changes bring about social changes. People change the way they interact – either where they live, how they buy things, how and what they eat, where they work, what groups they join – in response to economic change.
The political system has to play catch-up. Local governments decide on infrastructure projects or zoning laws. State and national governments pass laws to regulate or manage the different ways of doing things.
Wars (or other sub-national violence) happen when the political system doesn’t deal adequately with the new situation. If governments can’t act to reduce the stress of the new circumstances, violence can be the result. Locally, this may reflect an increased crime threat. Nationally and internationally, this can result in wars or threats of wars.
This is fairly straightforward. I imagine you can think about wars you know about – either historically or across the globe today – to see how this works.
Wars are fought, fundamentally, for political reasons derived from changing economic and social conditions. If a war doesn’t resolve the problem, it will recur. Simple.
Military planners always focus (or should focus) on their preferred set of circumstances at the end of any given war. If the preferred status quo post bellum isn’t better than the status quo ante bellum (for the country where the war is being fought as well as for the other nations participating in the war), then the war will recur. It’s as simple as that.
I’m thinking, of course, about Gaza and Ukraine. But we could as easily be thinking about the gang violence in Haiti or the ongoing coups and counter-coups in Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. This is why humanitarian aid to these nations matters – by alleviating some of the economic problems in these nations, donor countries can slow down or even stop the progression to violence.
Or we could think about the southern border of the United States. By working to improve the economic conditions in the Latin American countries from which many migrants come to the United States, the incentive to leave home is reduced and thus the possibility of violence – either along the way, at the border, or in American towns and cities – is diminished.
Violence and wars don’t start themselves. And a war can’t be stopped by just defeating the other side militarily. The United States failed to learn this after the Civil War; by defeating the South military but not fundamentally forcing a change in leadership in the South, the United States did nothing to prevent the same forces that caused the Civil War from re-creating the circumstances that had led to the war in the first place. Thus we see abhorrent racial violence and more class warfare after the Civil War and to this day.
I see this same train applying to the individual who loses his/her job. If they cannot fairly quickly find another job, they're social standing may change--act and interact, as you say. Their thinking on the political level could very well change as they feel ignored, forgotten or left behind. This is why Congress needs to change every 10 years instead of every 20-40 years. Congress needs to keep up with how people are experiencing their lives rather than collecting power and treasure for themselves.
sure wish someone had explained this to me freshman year. I struggled with whatever it was called - World history or western civ or whatever the required freshman history was. Didn't really learn much - just memorized dates. You're a good teacher!