@sarah_the_magpie said in Pet and Vex Man debate WAR:
@pe7erpark3r
ooh, a history debate, i'm game!
uh yes!
sorry, but i'm going to have to take the opposing side. the 20th century alone is littered with examples of highly-politicized wars fought over differing doctrines (WW2/korean war/vietnam war/six-day-war/iraq-iran war etc etc).
I do agree, that doctrines unite people. They form groups.
of course you could claim that some of these wars were also motivated by a desire to gain new resources or assert dominance, but i believe that they were mainly fought over opposing ideologies.
WW2 is a good example, because we have this singular person, Hitler, who pretty much impersonates all of the motivation for the war. What did he want? Did he want his doctrine, his truth, to convince everybody? Or did he want to rule the world?
I'd also even advocate that Hitler wasn't a nationalist. He didn't want the nation of germany to flourish. He wanted to end all nations, and organize the world, according to His ideas of course, and with himself at the top and the germans, his favorite instrument, as the ministers. He wanted power.
And the germans liked him, because he spoke openly about the great (social) injustice that the WW1 reparations were . And because he made the economy run again (by building Autobahnen for the war, which they ofc did not quite realize) (→ resources / riches).
Of course there was also his personal hatred for the jews and anything that wasn't clean in his eyes. He was a maniac and a rasist no doubt. But that is just not enough to start a war, to mobilize a whole people.
i also believe that wars fought over opposing doctrines are infinitely worse than conventional wars of conquest, especially if they become total wars of mutual extermination (like the eastern front of WW2, probably the most gruesome war ever fought)
I don't think WW2 was fought over a doctrine. But I do agree, that the doctrine behind WW2 is a very cruel and evil kind of doctrine, that certainly had evil sprouts during the war.
but not all wars are fought over doctrinal differences, actually most of them are not.
yes, I certainly agree, that for most wars, doctrinal differences play a minor or no role at all. And I concede that in some wars, doctrines are held high, and seem to play a dominant role. There are many things done in the name of doctrines. But by far less actually because of doctrines.
when you look at history, the majority of all pre-modern wars were essentially either dick-measuring competitions between bored & intrigue-happy monarchs (like the hundred-years war, the most pointless war ever lmao), or simple wars of conquest. the only doctrinal wars from the pre-modern times were arguably the religious ones, like for instance the crusades.
The crusades are an interesting example. Because this war especially is IMHO not at all a doctrinal war. Here is why:
[First, I concede, that that which enabled the europeans to mobilize themselves certainly was the doctrine. It wouldn't have been possible without the uniting faith!]
The holy land had become basically completely christian after the jews had been driven out by the romans. In the 7th century the arabs then capture the holy land. So the pope essentially decided it would be good to free the holy land from the islamic regime, because they tend to suppress christians, they block pilgrims, and destroy churches. So the crusades have some important aspects of a defensive war. In a way, europe played the role that America tends to play these days: world police...
However you just need to give the wikipedia article a read, to understand that the actual motivations for the military leaders and the crusaders themselves tend to diverge a lot – and I mean a lot – from the doctrine, or from defending the holy land: "feudal obligations, obtain glory and honour, or to seek economic and political gain", "The French monarchy used the Albigensian Crusade to extend the kingdom to the Mediterranean Sea", to just quote a few instances from the wiki article... The crusades really are an incredibly complex net of causes and effects, in which doctrine does play a role, but certainly not the key role...
in conclusion: although wars fought over opposing doctrines make up a minority of all wars fought in human history, they do exist.
which is why i'm offering a new thesis: "wars are sometimes fought because of doctrines"
It's a good thesis. To back it, we should find a few instances of wars that were fought purely because of opposing doctrines. I'm not entirely sure we would not find a few, but I do suspect there are not many.