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Spencer's avatar

Edit needed:

“Within academia, there is, I have argued, a longrunning conflict in the U.S. between between a radical illberal left (ascendant in academia)...”

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Joe Keysor's avatar

Many wars have been ended not by any sort of a “peace process,” but only when one side is so badly beaten that they literally have no other option than to say “We give up, we lost, further resistance is impossible.”

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Mike Hind's avatar

This is a compelling argument - thanks. Now signed up for more.

Just one quibble about characterising the Northern Ireland peace process as US-led. It was initiated by the British government with highly secret discussions with paramilitary groups. America provided great diplomatic and other skills support in later stages, but it seems to me better categorised as an example of weariness over the conflict (which was very miserable to live with for all of us in Britain), rather than international intervention.

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Lee Jussim's avatar

Fair point. I did not mean to imply it was led by the U.S. Only that international intervention was part of the process. But yeah, mutual exhaustion/frustration was probably the main thing that drove the sides to the negotiating table.

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Paul Kearslake's avatar

Intractable conflicts are essentially ongoing cycles of revenge.

Revenge is an instinctive behaviour and it will take millenia to outbreed if at all.

I know if someone harmed my loved ones I would be quite happy to serve prison time if need be for putting my revenge instinct into practice.

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Alexander Scipio's avatar

Conflicts end one way: Carthage. Hiroshima. It’s why pre-modern man annihilated villages - not interested in the women birthing new warriors or todays children growing into tomorrow’ attackers, or for the consumption of resources by non-tribe. International intervention may put a conflict on hold. It will resume once the intervention removes itself - weeks, years or centuries. See: Islam. One side may tire and leave; the opposing side will be back, not having been defeated earlier.

The problem nearly all those evaluating the issues have is that they are unable to step outside their cultural biases. In the example of this article, Western measures and assumptions prevail rather than pre-modern, non-Western; I had hoped for the latter from the title.

Tribes go to war for resources: land, food, water, women. They do so because of lack, or out of the desire to prohibit the rise of another tribe which soon will need these resources. Women are needed as they die at high rates in childbirth among pre-modern tribes. Children are needed because half die before age 5.

As these tribes progress, the above, earlier issues are handed down as mythology, oral history, heroic stories to become part of the culture long after the pre-modern needs have evolved-away. Simply, irrational needs today were rational in the past that informs today's ideology.

Does any rational reason exist to explain Islamist terror against non-Islamic people? No.

So looking to rationality, or to expect reason - a Western reason - to inform a non-Western solution is, itself, irrational. Which is why only Carthage or Hiroshima can end a war.

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Green Valley's avatar

Western powers destroyed German cities and Japanese cities, so I don’t think it is fair to call the ‘solution’ you are referring to non-western.

Breaking the will to resist is a simpler way of explaining it. Though historians disagree over if the extreme levels of destruction were required to pacify the opponents in these examples.

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Garry Dale Kelly's avatar

But, but its different this time.

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holly.m.hart's avatar

Not just pre-modern man annihilated villages and committed genocide of ethnic groups. The Nazis did that and Islamists like Hamas seek to do that, as you point out. Now, with very high birth and child survival rates, instead of enslaving women, groups like Hamas rape, murder, take hostage and torture Jewish women and children for the purpose of humiliating Israeli/Jewish men and, to be blunt, because they enjoy making Jewish people suffer. Meanwhile, Israel really does try to be "exceptional" by warning civilians ahead of time to evacuate areas like Northern Gaza where Israel has no choice but to conduct ground and air operations to find and destory Hamas's military infrastructure. Hamas instead uses its own people as human shields to protect its military installations.

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Secret Squirrel's avatar

Yes, important point. Western reason is incapable of understanding this enemy. Currently. I hope that changes.

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Ulysses Outis's avatar

Extremely interesting study. Thank you for pointing it out.

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Matt Osborne's avatar

Polemology has always understood the "intractable conflict" this way and it's one reason why the woke campus doesn't like us very much. I must read this paper.

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Ulysses Outis's avatar

Polemology is a way of using Greek in order to diminish the repulsion of the well-meaning populace towards the idea of studying war. I think we should just be less euphemistic. I am familiar with the Department of War Studies at KCL, for my late father was a career officer and a contributor.

It is not just the woke campus and it long predates woke: there is a certain moralistic resistance, in the Left but far from exclusively, against considering war a subject that can be treated objectively and studied for the discovery of mechanisms that work irrespective of ethical judgement.

It is I fear a consequence of the perception that war is bad. Historically most Western cultures have seen war as bad only in theory, while embracing it in pursue of a vast range of goals and regretting it only when it ended with them on the losing side. In that context, the study of war has been mostly a study of how to understand wars in order to win them.

This is what triggers the aversion of the average well meaning, principled, peace-loving man to War Studies -- it is mistaken in large measure for war mongering.

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Matt Osborne's avatar

I just like the way"polemology" comes off my tongue TBH. Say it three times fast: polemology polemology polemology. See? Also branding. No one else was using the word, at least not well, in order to brand their web content. "Huzzah! I shall build my kingdom here, go forth, and conquer," I cried.

"Now for the long uphill battle against public opinion."

I mention the "woke campus" because the resistance to understanding war honestly has lately redoubled. I know professors of military history who will not teach conflict biology or speak on sex differences in war. "Gender" is instead always a discussional gateway to "resistance" and then "queerness." Pacifism is the OG SJW movement, indeed, so the average American campus was a torture experience long ago. Still: I use the word as my own form of resistance.

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holly.m.hart's avatar

Thanks for introducing me to the word "polemology".

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holly.m.hart's avatar

I know what SJW means, but what does OG signify in your comment?

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Matt Osborne's avatar

"Original gangsta."

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