The Necessity of Violence?
I'm thinking about this because of our newly launched military actions against IS/ISIL/ISIS in Iraq and Syria. This might be an ongoing post, it might not.
If we accept the premise that we want to get to a more peaceful world. And if we accept the notion that violence begets violence, that violence is cyclical, that an eye for an eye for an eye for an eye and so on is a rather standard response to violence (with some exceptions), how do we move to a less violent or violence free world?
If there's person A and person B, and person A hits person B. And person B decides not to hit person A back, what happens? Does that end the cycle? If so - and let's say that it does - what happens next? Is A moved to disengage by B's lack of retaliation? Does A hit B again, knowing there are no consequences? Does A hit B until B responds violently, giving A a reason to escalate violence further? Does A assume dominion over and control of B, because of the lack on consequences, and proceed to enact further violence and manipulation over B? What makes A stop - if B doesn't hit back? Incredulity at the lack of retaliation? Does A just walk way? Does it depend on the context, on why A struck B to begin with?
If it does depend on the context - and I suspect it does, amongst other factors such as the strength of each party, what's at stake, the scale of the violence, the resources needed to carry out such violence, etc. (I guess that all falls under context) - but if it does depend on context, then doesn't that mean that some violence will always be necessary, because there will also be a context where disengagement won't work? Where A will be some violent force that will be happy to come up against Bs that don't strike back and will just strike them all down. What stops them? Are they eventually stopped by the pile of bodies in front of them, bodies of people who chose nonviolence? How many bodies would that take? Who would volunteer?
What I'm trying to get at is, a lot of people I read have jumped to condemn the airstrikes against IS. They were happy we were pulling out of Iraq, now they're mad we're staying involved (some of them were also mad we weren't doing more, and are now mad we're doing something, but I won't get into that). I was happy we we got out of Iraq. I don't know how I feel about the airstrikes. I strongly support President Obama's cautious, multilateral, reasonable approach - but I don't feel like I can say I support or don't support the strikes yet.
But, let's say we agree not to take action. We don't retaliate for action - we end the cycle. Al-Qaeda attacks us on 9/11 and then we use diplomatic and economic efforts to bring them to justice. Would that work? How do you define justice? Would that work in a world where our allies would use violence to retaliate? If we don't retaliate with violence, but our allies do successfully (in that they kill the attackers), how does that change our standing in the world? How does that affect our ability to influence the world? Would that only work if we never veered from the course, and no one else did either? And if we didn't veer, and never retaliated, what would stop violence from being inflicted further upon us?
As I write this, I'm excited about the possibility of a world in which we don't retaliate - we rely on our other strengths to prevent and punish violent behavior. I just don't know how we get there - if we don't all go there at the same time. Can you imagine the reaction by citizens of this country if we didn't retaliate in Afghanistan after 9/11? Maybe that's just a political problem. Maybe people would come around. Maybe, like those that answered Dr. King's calls for nonviolence, people would be brave. Though, Dr. King was taken from this world violently. Is that a microcosm for what would happen to the non-retaliators?
I don't know. I feel like I'm not getting past my initial notions to a deeper point here. I'm stuck. I like the idea of the world I'm imagining, but there's something about this idea that if we didn't all agree to start living in this new world all at once, that it wouldn't work.
I think I agree that sometimes force is necessary - for example, using force against IS now will slow their growth, disorganize them, and restrict them from continuing to take territory and inflict violence on innocent people as quickly.
But that force will only encourage them to strike us back. I do believe that.
So let's say they do - or they at least develop the capacity to - so we strike them again.
Which makes them want to strike us back even further.
So we strike them again. Doesn't this just become mowing the grass, until we've either killed them all or changed the economic and political situation on the ground?
If so, that means violent force is kind of always a temporary measure - as defense, as punishment, etc. - as diplomatic measures are used to end the violence.
But even if IS as a group is destroyed, or diplomatically somehow we get them to stop being violent, won't there still be individuals who fought with IS who carry anger and the desire for violent revenge in them, who will just start or a join a new group and continue the fight?
I just don't see how it ends. I don't see in this situation how we don't use some force to slow and deter IS as we find more sustainable ways to stop them (cutting off funding, disrupting recruitment, etc.) - not even necessarily because they pose a threat to us right now, but because we see if left unchecked they will pose a threat to us in the future (though that gets into the debate about preemptive warfare). I don't see how if we use force we don't harden their resolve to hurt us and only make the situation potentially worse.
I guess that's the nature of hard decisions. There's no way to know if we're going to get it right. We can't predict consequences, and we can't avoid negative consequences no matter what we do. So people want to act in a way that they feel is more noble, or is best in and of itself, hoping for certain outcomes, but knowing we can't always control the outcomes.
I hope, in the end, President Obama is using the show of force as a way of 1) showing IS and the world there are consequences for killing Americans 2) to demonstrate to allies we are serious about our stance against IS as a way to get them to buy in to any necessary but limited military actions but more importantly diplomatic actions 3) to slow IS, degrade them, and disorganize them while the world unifies around finding other ways to stop them - and in the end the campaign will be cautious, limited, restrained, and temporary, and ideally, will be authorized by Congress.
I don't want another war, but I don't think we can write off all future/present conflict in a blanket way as unnecessary only because a significant amount of the conflict we've been entangled in over the past decade has been unnecessary.
-The Oldest Young Man You Know
