Review: Richard Overy, ‘Why War?’
Review of Richard Overy’s Why War?
(Pelican, 2024) 400 pages
Abstract
Are we a species hardwired to the concept of war, mass violence, and lethal force against one another? Is the persistence of war something irrevocably tied to the human condition, or somehow imposed on us through external factors or perhaps culturally determined? Across human history it would seem that no civilisation has managed to fully distance itself from this grim reality. While many have tried to tackle this question, compelling answers seem stubbornly out of reach, even by the brightest minds of history. Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud both gave considerable thought to the issue, with the title of Richard Ovary’s text, giving an eponymous nod to the short essay Einstein wrote. Nonetheless, in Overy’s, Why War? (2024) The reader is taken on a fascinating journey through a veritable smörgåsbord of historical research, scientific studies, cultural analysis, and pithy observation that explores the casus belli of warfare. Spread across the 316 pages, Overy’s text aims to close an “epistemological gap”, that he claims has arisen through a lack of close historical analysis applied to the study of war.
Reviewed by Henry Powell
Why War? (2024) is divided into two equal sections of analysis. In the first section, Overy examines war as an, ‘evolutionary adaptative or culturally determined […] product of ecological pressure (5). Accordingly, biology, psychology, anthropology, and ecology are treated as subtopics. In the second section, Overy considers ‘human cognition’ (5) as the principal driver, and reviews how ‘resources, belief, power and security’ provides the motivation for war (5).
Overy starts his analysis with ‘Biology’ and examines how naturalists and research biologists over the last two centuries have sought to explain war as an innate feature wedded to our biological make-up. This includes a brief overview of the 19th century biologist Charles Darwin and the thinking that underpinned his musings on the “struggle for survival”. Overy considers neo-Darwinian interpretations that have tried, in his view, to stretch and manipulate Darwin’s original thesis to show how ‘warfare was biologically useful’ because it allowed ‘human communities [to] eliminate the weak and elevate the strong’ (15). The chapter also draws on research that has examined aggression in primates—in particular, chimpanzees and Gorillas. These patterns of behaviour, it is argued, is analogous to our own disposition towards conflict. The ground-breaking research conducted by the British biologist Jane Goodall (between 1960-1990) offers the reader a nicer narrative to survey our current understanding on the links between aggression in primates and our ancestors; but the evidence remains disputed. If we had evolved the capacity to wage war, could the answer be found by looking at the structure of the human skull asks the author? The chapter suggests that with our ancestral Homo Sapiens having an ‘increased brain capacity, the cerebral cortex may have evolved to enhance the human capacity to understand how to survive by selecting “predatory aggression” against either non-human predators or competing humans’ (31).
While the reviewer remains unconvinced by the presuppositions made in the chapter it’s not down to a lack clarity in his writing or quality of research—rather, it’s the tenuous evidence and layers of disagreement that is evident between thinkers in the field. It’s all interesting stuff, but one is left slightly stranded in the thicket of ideas presented. The debate continues.
‘Psychology’ examines thinkers who have tried to locate our inclination towards persistent warfare within the human mind. The chapter begins by charting Edward Glover’s (a leading member of the British Institute of Psychologists) attempts to integrate Sigmund Freud’s theories into a compelling set of arguments, although even this school of thinking is not without its difficulties, as Overy makes clear. ‘Psychoanalysts were focused on medical practice and clinical results for individuals with psychotic conditions, not for whole societies or states’ (45). Thus, extrapolating the inner workings of the individual to explain the mass psychology of warfare was always going to seem ambitious— and from Overy’s commentary, remains unconvincing. Nonetheless, the chapter touches on some interesting ideas. For example, Freud’s ‘Death Drive’: the notion that we all harbour a latent desire to destroy others in a vain attempt to distance ourselves from our finitude. The commentary here is compelling and later, Overy notes that, ‘the capacity to pursue, elevate and endorse warlike violence has a social psychological explanation in the theory of the in-group’(76). This allows the enemy to be viewed as something ‘other’. The feeling that the enemy is not human,' by not using their not proper name, (in the First World War Germans were called 'Huns' by the British or 'Boches' by the French, in the Vietnam war many American soldiers called Vietnamese opponents 'gooks') and this practice also occurs in intra state conflicts (Hitler called his political enemies 'Untermanchen' - 'subhumans,' etc.). Thereby cutting all affective bonds with them.
But what about the latest research and studies on the psychology of violence and warring? Overy, takes us here too and provides some fascinating insights by delving into child behaviour. For example, one study showed how most childhood play in males ‘was focused on fighting games, wrestling, and defeating enemies’ adding that, ‘70% percent of boys of primary school age took part in games that involve attack, defence, chasing, escape, and capture’ (60). Popular culture has long been replete with representations of war, with ‘toy weapons and soldiers dating back thousands of years’ (60). More recently, Hollywood, for example has found a rich vein in entertaining us with depictions of war and combat ‘suggesting a deeply embedded psychology that the culture both reflects and reinforces’ (61). Is this tantamount to suggesting that human beings are socially inculcated into fighting as a necessary component of our lived existence?
In perhaps one of the most interesting and engaging chapters ‘Anthology’, Overy looks across 30,000 years of anthropological historical evidence and research that suggests our species has always gravitated towards conflict. In particular, the chapter attempts to rebuke the American anthropologist Margret Mead’s claim that war was an ‘invention’-- akin to a learnt cultural practice. As such, over the course of the chapter the author asks, ‘If war was a cultural invention, when was it invented and for what reasons? (my emphasis)’ (79) Understandably surveying mankind’s ancestral past looking for clues is no easy feat—hard evidence is scant, ambiguous, and often difficult to interpret. Remains of skeletal trauma seen across numerous archaeological sites has on first appearance the markers of inter-group warlike violence, but Overy argues this can also be attributed to the result of accidental injuries sustained through occupational or everyday activities.
Arguably, the second half of the text feels more engaging, relevant, and thought provoking. Starting with ‘Resources’, Overy notes how, ‘the quest for resources through violent conflict has an exceptionally long pedigree.’ In medieval warfare for example, it was the promise of material gain in the absence of financial compensation that spurred many soldiers to fight. This includes the seizure of human capital for slavery. The author notes how Julius Caesar claimed to have captured, ‘one million slaves in his conquest of Gaul in the first century’ (169’. A large section of the chapter explores the various wars that have taken place in the pursuit for oil. From the Bolivian oil conflict in 1930, to the fighting in the Gulf states, and the rush to secure new oil reserves in the artic. Given that oil production has already peaked globally and is set to be exhausted by around 2050 the future scramble for these and other resources poses a significant threat of conflict. Russia for example, has already attempted to lay claim to the rich reserves of oil at the North Pole—symbolically laying a Russian flag on the seabed of the continental shelf.
In, ‘Belief’, Overy asks us to consider the impact of religion and the beliefs they inspire as intrinsic motivators for war. The chapter begins by tracing out the historic confrontations between Islam and Christianity. Some nice observations are brought to the fore here. For instance, Overy brings our attention to the way each of these religious texts have been twisted and reinterpreted through the ages to justify various holy wars and campaigns of Jihad. The Christian faith for example, ‘[…] was founded on the pacifist injunction to love your neighbour and renounce violence, but after a few centuries came to endorse warlike defence of the faith’ (197). Perhaps one of the more interesting areas of the chapter is the author’s commentary on cosmology and war. the Aztec Empire of Mesoamerica for example, ‘[…] was shaped by the fear of the end of things. Myths related that there were five ages, four of which had already passed, while the last might end in a cataclysm’ (215) It’s against this belief of impeding Armageddon that the Aztecs engaged in all kinds of violent behaviour and warmongering: captured slaves or members of rival groups, for example, were used as ceremonial human sacrifices to appease the Sun God. Once again, the writing is lively and engaging and is a testament to Overy’s skill in blending academic insight with captivating storytelling.
Later, the author grapples with the concept of ‘Power’ as a driver of war. This focuses on the use of ‘hard power’ expressed through military capability, where the threat of warfare is used a means of coercion over others. The chapter begins by charting the ascension of the Roman Empire and its near 1000-year domination over ‘almost the whole of the inhabited world’ (236). It was a remarkable feat, and Overy locates a significant portion of its imperial success to its ideas around power. ‘War for power and glory’ notes the author, ‘was integral to Roman society and celebrated as such; it was also central to the way the Roman aristocracy and military leadership enjoyed their domestic power’ (237). In the latter half of the chapter Overy examines ‘hubristic power’ – or put simply, ‘power associated with the personal ambitions and achievements of […] single individual[s]’ (240). The infamous leadership of Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler becoming case studies. The research and writing here is thought provoking, gripping and solidifies why these leaders are collectively referred to by historians and academics as the ‘toxic triangle’ (258). Ultimately, Overy demonstrates how their upbringing and life experiences contributed to their thirst for power and domination.
‘There is a persistent fashion in discussions of war’ notes Overy, in his final chapter, ‘Security’, ‘to regard [Thomas] Hobbes’s view of human nature and the insecurities of human existence as an explanation of war (270). Following this vein of thought, communities or nation states engage in conflict only when their own security is compromised. In what follows is an insightful discussion of ‘security studies’ that explores the methods by which early settlers sought to defend their territories and frontiers from invasion or attack. From the tribes of Neolithic Europe to the ever-expanding territories of Roman Empire and the Chinese Dynasty, the mitigation of war through ‘security’ was accomplished through extensive physical fortifications and ‘buffer zones’.
The chapter closes on the development of nuclear weaponry and the existential dilemmas these technologies pose to our modern world. It’s a sobering read. The heart of the discussion questions the ability of any nuclear power to legitimately secure their safety with the use of such weaponry. The ‘War Games’ conducted by the United States during the Cold War, for example, attempted to understand and define the circumstances that might trigger an all-out nuclear showdown—the findings, as the author states, were chilling; escalation to a strike could result from, ‘poor crisis management- misperception, temporary panic’ or a ‘sudden narrowing of strategic options’ (306).
Vis-a-vie we continue to run perilously close to MAD (mutually assured destruction). Rather than acting as a deterrent, and a form of ‘security’, one questions as the author does, whether we are seeing instead the ascension of a new nuclear arms race in the name of ‘security’? Rouge states such as North Korea already pose a serious threat to world stability and order; and their claims in developing nuclear arms revolve around similar arguments of defence and safety.
Given the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2021 and his own commentary on the unfolding events in Eastern Europe, Overy’s text appears somewhat prescient at attempting to diagnose the often complex and multifaceted reasons why groups, communities, and nation-states embark on campaigns of war. This is a text that does well to balance the often-contradictory evidence and analysis that abounds with on-going debates on this fundamental problem. So where does this leave the state of war today then? Unsurprisingly, Overy is cautious, concluding that, ‘there are scant grounds for thinking that a warless world is about to emerge from the current or future International order’ (316). Be that as it may, Why War? (2024) is a tantalising read that offers students, scholars, or those interested in war studies a fertile ground to consider an eclectic range of anthropological evidence, cultural analysis, and historical research. While we may never truly pinpoint the precise mechanisms that underpin acts of war and destruction in our species, the text provides a powerful and persuasive way of understanding the many motivations that underpin such events.
References
Fromm, Erich. The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, first published in: The New York Times Magazine, New York (27. 2. 1972)
Henry Powell holds a PhD from Kingston University. His research interests include performance studies, visual culture, and contemporary political philosophy. Henry has published book reviews, articles, and blog posts that critique developments in techno-culture, digital representation, and educational discourse.
Email: hpowell98@gmail.com
