War and Peace

September 20th, 2026

With apologies to Mr Tolstoy, the proper title probably ought to be simply “War.”

I was talking to one of my very smart friends and he brought up the sometimes heard comment that there has only been 217 years of peace in the last 6,000 years. We both noted that that number is a matter of definition. Truth is, if you expand the “aperture” just a tiny bit beyond the major civilizations of the day, that number quickly goes to zero. If you want to take a look at this issue, you might look at this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_wars 

It’s readily shown that, globally, there has not been a year - I would suspect that there has not been a day - where there hasn't been some sort of war going on somewhere on the planet, at least for several centuries. To an absolute certainty there has been a war being fought someplace every day on this planet since the late 1800s - but that was as far back as I bothered to look.

Perhaps we have Gibbon to blame, who spoke of more than 200 years of Pax Romana, from 27BC to 180AD. But, of course, there were a host of small wars that Rome fought during that period, and nearly continuous skirmishes along several borders of the empire, and there were other wars, fought by other peoples, in Africa, South Asia, East Asia on the Asia Steppes, etc. Many of these wars have no names. And there is archeological evidence (large graves sites) of tribal wars along what is now the Egypt - Sudan border, that lasted for millennia, long before recorded history. 

And by the time you get to the late 1800s and much more accurate recording of dates and places and people, you find wars - small and large - taking place all over the globe. And some of them, despite being stridently ignored by most of the world, can be quite bloody.

The war in the Congo, which may have finally stopped - has been grinding on since 1960 - and may have meant as many as 6 million dead since the mid 1990s.

The Somali Civil War - since 1978 - has meant a total killed in excess of 1 million.

What about the Tigray Civil War, November 2020 - November 2022? Estimates of total killed run from 100,000 to over 600,000.

And, the wars of the Middle East… Can we count that high?

So?

So, given all that, and as we have just six weeks and a few days until election day, here are some possible thoughts and guidance for the next Congress.

First, people, and nations, are violent. They will resort to war if they think they can get away with it. And they will think they can get away with just the merest hint.

Second, people will tolerate low levels of violence - prolonged wars - for decades. Even fairly bloody wars can last years and years. Looking at casualties from the outside is far different than looking at them from the inside. From the outside, 10,000 killed might be a reason to stop the war; from the inside 10,000, or 100,000 killed is a reason to double down and attack the enemy that much harder.

Third, Clausewitz’s dictum that nothing is really final is important. Just because someone “loses” doesn't mean they won't try again in 1, 5, 10 or 20 years. And revenge is a great motivator for most people.

Fourth, technology changes, people don’t. Expecting that because everyone has better jobs, healthcare, air conditioning and video games, there will be end of war is laughable.

Which means what to us?

First, Deterrence is job 1 of the federal government. Everything else is a distant second. 

Two, we must be tactically and operationally ready to defend our interests. There are people out there right now plotting against us. And some of them we consider to be friends. All of that means we need a well thought out budget for the Pentagon and the Intelligence Agencies.

Third, countries don’t have friends, they have interests. And every country is looking after its interests, no one else’s. If the Prime Minister of the Grand Duchy of Fenwick tells you differently, he is telling a lie. 

Fourth, the international forums - like the League of Nations and the United Nations, and various arms control treaties and the like - really have done nothing to bring about “Peace in our time.” They certainly did nothing to end the Cold War, and they have not solved any of the enduring problems such as the Mid East, Pakistan-India, Korea, etc. Perhaps it’s time to close down the UN and all its various expensive - and mostly meddlesome - offices and simply start again.

Fifth, “Save your ammo.” Don’t get involved in a war unless you really need to, and then end it as quickly and definitively as possible.

Finally, until someone can un-invent nuclear weapons and they all just disappear in a wink, nuclear weapons will be the cornerstone of deterrence. New weapons and technologies (cyber, energy weapons, drones, etc.) will come along, but nuclear weapons will remain. We need to maintain a full spectrum of modernized nuclear weapons - tactical and strategic, deployed, in ample numbers to make it clear that no one can threaten us and survive, and we need to make sure the rest of the world knows it.