I read Stand on Zanzibar as a pre-teen. It made a huge impression on me, to the point that, when I reread it all these years later, I remembered even the minor characters and their fates. I emphatically disagree with the claim made by a character in the book that “war, like the weather, just happens.” In my opinion, this is entirely wrong.
Here’s the statement on the subject by the character Chad Mulligan:
“What Richardson demonstrated in essence (and what has been reinforced by the small handful of people who’ve followed up his work over the past half-century) was that war follows a stochastic distribution: that’s to say, it’s neither absolutely random, nor yet is it definable in a systematic pattern, but something between the two. The pattern is there, but we cannot attribute one-for-one a causal relationship that would account for every specific case.
“In other words, the incidence of war is independent of the volitional element. It makes no odds whatever whether a rational decision has been taken—war, like the weather, just happens.
Consider the similar claim that murders are not absolutely random (that is, they don’t occur at the same rate in every population at all times), but we cannot attribute one-for-one a causal relationship that would account for every specific case, and therefore murder, like the weather, just happens.
That is manifestly absurd.
Contrary to Mulligan’s claim, war, like murder, occurs precisely because of the volitional element. Even with the First World War, where no one really wanted the war but it happened anyway, you can still see the various decisions, generally rational in themselves, that led to it.
For instance, Germany attacked France because Russia was mobilizing. Why attack France, then? Because the Germans feared being attacked from both sides, so they had a very intricate war plan (the Schlieffen Plan), perfected over decades, to take France out of the war before Russia was fully mobilized. That way, they could concentrate on defending against Russia. That plan would be hopelessly disrupted if they, for instance, tried to defend against Russia with only a blocking force on the French side, trusting French and British assurances (such as they were) that France would not attack. There were a whole lot of decisions that led to the war, but that was one of them, and it was not irrational.
The character of Chad Mulligan goes on to say:
Much earlier than Richardson, before World War I, in fact, Norman Angell had shown that the idea of fighting a war for profit was obsolete. The victors would pay a heavier cost than the losers. He was right, and that First World War proved the fact. The second one hammered it home with everything up to and including nuclear weapons. In an individual one would regard it as evidence of insanity to see someone repeatedly undertaking enterprises that resulted in his losing precisely what he claimed he was trying to achieve; it is not less lunatic to do it on the international scale, but if you’ve been catching the news lately you’ll have noticed it’s being done more than ever.
“The idea of fighting a war for profit was obsolete” — And the house always wins in gambling. But that doesn’t stop gamblers from trying their luck, and the fact that victors generally pay a heavier cost than the losers doesn’t stop aggressors.
Consider the current war between Russia and Ukraine. Putin thought he could conquer Ukraine with ease. It appears (from the viewpoint of an American civilian) that he made three mistakes:
- Putin believed his troops could capture, kill, or drive into exile President Zelenskyy, decapitating the Ukrainian government. To, I think, everyone’s shock, this comedian-turned-politician refused to flee (“I need ammunition, not a ride”) and proved to be the Twenty-First Century’s Churchill.
- He believed the Ukrainians would either welcome the Russian invaders or at least not fight back very long or very hard. And maybe they wouldn’t have fought so hard without Zelenskyy’s leadership.
- He believed the hype that the Russian army is the second best in the world. Decades of theft and lack of maintenance had rendered many tanks and other equipment useless, leading to breakdowns that stalled the intended blitzkrieg.
If Putin’s beliefs had been correct, his gamble would have paid off. Gambles do sometimes pay off. And from Putin’s point of view, if a million or two or twenty Russians and Ukrainians die to give him Ukraine, he wins. This is evil, but it isn’t “lunatic” as Mulligan contends.
And it certainly didn’t “just happen” like the weather.