Advanced Essay #4: The Inevitability of Conflict

“I am by nature warlike. To attack is among my instincts,” Said Friedrich Nietzsche. Combat has been a staple throughout human history in many different forms. From the earliest raids between groups of hunter-gatherers, to modern occupation, conflict, and everything in between. Whether we are playing football with friends, or piloting drones gunning down foreigners, does warlike nature apply only to Nietzsche? Or are we all composed of the same aggressive building blocks?

In ancient hunter-gatherer societies, humans lived in groups or tribes. Communities were very closely knit, prompting a very us-vs.-them mentality to rise through evolution. Those ancient people looked after their own. However, some groups would attack others for resources, as sometimes it was the easier way to find food. These raids were very different from the wars of today: Small groups of warriors would attack when they were unsuspected, killing other communities and taking what they needed. For a long time, this was the primary form of conflict.

However, as time went on, raids grew more elaborate, and tribes, based in raiding began to excel. Some even speculate that agriculture began, in part, due to the dangers of raids. One of the best defenses against a raid is to gather people together in a group. Along with the resource benefits of agricultural settlements, this brought in a new age of living.

Fast forward thousands of years. Politics have evolved with the human race, and oligarchic societies have become the norm. Democratic or otherwise, a small group sets laws to be followed by the populace, and countries gained individual power. This means war. War evolved, becoming increasingly politically driven, and so politics became the second reason for war.

The era of colonialism is a poster child for resource wars. Small countries, such as England and Portugal, who possessed advanced technologies, especially concerning weaponry, began to reach outward, conquering surrounding countries, and draining them of resources. Whether food, materials, or even humans, colonialism was a resource war on a massive scale.

On the other hand, looking at a revolution, such as the American Revolution, which came about primarily due to the idea of ‘taxation without representation,’ it is clear that most revolutions are almost entirely politically driven. As people rise against a political regime, conflict becomes inevitable. Force is inevitable. Politics rose from disagreement, as did conflict. While politics were most likely introduced as an alternative to fighting, they have not only coexisted, but have become intertwined.

Scilla Elworthy, founder of the Oxford Research Group whose goal was to avoid conflict through dialogue in the case of nuclear warfare, did her best to create a conflict-free world. Elworthy realized that at the base of all political warfare is anger. In her words, “Wherever there is injustice, there is anger. But anger is like gasoline, and if you spray it around, and someone lights a match, you’ve got an inferno.” Citizens often find themselves becoming frustrated with an oligarchy. Frustration leads to anger, and all it takes is a match to set ablaze the flame of war.