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SECTION
6
Substitutes for the Functions of War
By
now it should be clear that the most detailed and comprehensive master plan
for a transition to world peace will remain academic if it fails to deal
forthrightly with the problem of the critical
nonmilitary functions of war.
The
social needs they serve are essential; if the war system no
longer exists to
meet them, substitute institutions will have to be established for the
purpose.
These
surrogates must be "realistic," which is to say of a scope and
nature that can be conceived and implemented in the context of present-day
social capabilities. This is not the truism it may appear to be; the
requirements of radical social change often reveal the distinction between a
most conservative projection and a wildly utopian scheme to be fine indeed.
In this section we will consider some possible substitutes for these
functions. Only in rare instances have they been put forth for the purposes
which concern us here, but we see no reason to limit ourselves to proposals
that address themselves explicitly to the problem as we have outlined it. We
will disregard the ostensible, or military, functions of war; it is a premise
of this study that the transition to peace implies absolutely that they will
no longer exist in any relevant sense.
We
will also disregard the noncritical functions exemplified at the end of the
preceding section.
Economic
Economic
surrogates for war must meet two principal criteria.
They
must be "wasteful," in the common sense of the word, and they must
operate outside the normal supply-demand system. A corollary that should be
obvious is that the magnitude of the waste must be sufficient to meet the
needs of a particular society. An economy as advanced and complex as our own
requires the planned average annual destruction of not less than 10 percent
of gross national product [29] if it is effectively to fulfill its
stabilizing function.
When
the mass of a balance wheel is inadequate to the power it is intended to
control, its effect can be self-defeating, as with a runaway locomotive. The
analogy, though crude, [30] is especially apt for the American economy, as
our record of cyclical depressions shows. All have taken place during periods
of grossly inadequate military spending.
Those few economic conversion programs which by implication acknowledge the
nonmilitary economic function of war (at least to some extent) tend to assume
that so-called social-welfare expenditures will fill the vacuum created by
the disappearance of military spending. When one considers the backlog of
unfinished business - proposed but still unexecuted - in this field, the
assumption seems plausible.
Let
us examine briefly the following list, which is more or less typical of
general social welfare programs. [31]
· Health. Drastic expansion of medical research,
education, and training facilities; hospital and clinic construction; the
general objective of complete government-guaranteed health care for all, at a
level consistent with current developments in medical technology.
· Education. The equivalent of the foregoing in teacher
training; schools and libraries; the drastic upgrading of standards, with the
general objective of making available for all an attainable educational goal
equivalent to what is now considered a professional degree.
· Housing. Clean, comfortable, safe, and spacious
living space for all, at the level now enjoyed by about 15 percent of the
population in this country (less in most others).
· Transportation. The
establishment of a system of mass public transportation making it possible
for all to travel to and from areas of work and recreation quickly,
comfortably, and conveniently, and to travel privately for pleasure rather
than necessity.
· Physical environment. The
development and protection of water supplies, forests, parks, and other
natural resources; the elimination of chemical and bacterial contaminants
from air, water, and soil.
· Poverty. The genuine elimination of poverty, defined
by a standard consistent with current economic productivity, by means of
guaranteed annual income or whatever system of distribution will best assure
its achievement.
This
is only a sampler of the more obvious domestic social welfare items, and we
have listed it in a deliberately broad, perhaps extravagant, manner.
In
the past, such a vague and ambitious-sounding "program" would have
been dismissed out of hand, without serious consideration; it would clearly
have been, prima facie, far too costly, quite apart from its political
implications. [32] Our objection to it, on the other hand, could hardly be
more contradictory. As an economic substitute for war, it is inadequate
because it would be far too cheap.
If this seems paradoxical, it must be remembered that up to now all proposed
social-welfare expenditures have had to be measured within the war economy,
not as a replacement for it. The old slogan about a battleship or an ICBM
costing as much as x hospitals or y schools or z homes takes on a very different
meaning if there are to be no more battleships or ICBM’s.
Since the list is general, we have elected to forestall the tangential
controversy that surrounds arbitrary cost projections by offering no
individual cost estimates. But the maximum program that could be physically
effected along the lines indicated could approach the established level of
military spending only for a limited time - in our opinion, subject to a
detailed cost-and-feasibility analysis, less than ten years. In this short
period, at this rate, the major goals of the program would have been
achieved. Its capital-investment phase would have been completed, and it
would have established a permanent comparatively modest level of annual
operating cost - within the framework of the general economy.
Here is the basic weakness of the social-welfare surrogate. On the
short-term basis, a maximum program of this sort could replace a normal
military spending program, provided it was designed, like the military model,
to be subject to arbitrary control. Public housing starts, for example, or
the development of modern medical centers might be accelerated or halted from
time to time, as the requirements of a stable economy might dictate.
But
on the long-term basis, social-welfare spending, no matter how often
redefined, would necessarily become an integral, accepted part of the
economy, of no more value as a stabilizer than the automobile industry or old
age and survivors’ insurance. Apart from whatever merit social-welfare
programs are deemed to have for their own sake, their function as a
substitute for war in the economy would thus be self-liquidating. They might
serve, however, as expedients pending the development of more durable
substitute measures.
Another economic surrogate that has been proposed is a series of giant "space
research" programs. These have already
demonstrated their utility in more modest scale within the military economy.
What has been implied, although not yet expressly put forth, is the
development of a long-range sequence of space-research projects with largely
unattainable goals.
This
kind of program offers several advantages lacking in the social welfare
model. First, it is unlikely to phase itself out, regardless of the
predictable "surprises" science has in store for us: the universe
is too big. In the event some individual project unexpectedly succeeds there
would be no dearth of substitute problems. For example, if colonization of
the moon proceeds on schedule, it could then become "necessary" to
establish a beachhead on Mars or Jupiter, and so on. Second, it need be no
more dependent on the general supply-demand economy than its military
prototype. Third, it lends itself extraordinarily well to arbitrary control.
Space research can be viewed as the nearest modern equivalent yet devised to
the pyramid-building, and similar ritualistic enterprises, of ancient
societies. It is true that the scientific value of the space program, even of
what has already been accomplished, is substantial on its own terms. But
current programs are absurdly and obviously disproportionate, in the
relationship of the knowledge sought to the expenditures committed.
All
but a small fraction of the space budget, measured by the standards of
comparable scientific objectives, must be charged de facto to the military
economy. Future space research, projected as a war surrogate, would further
reduce the the "scientific" rationale of its budget to a minuscule
percentage indeed. As a purely economic substitute for war, therefore, extension
of the space program warrants serious consideration.
In Section 3 we pointed out that certain disarmament models, which we called
conservative, postulated extremely expensive and elaborate inspection
systems. Would it be possible to extend and institutionalize such systems to
the point where they might serve as economic surrogates for war spending? The
organization of failsafe inspection machinery could well be ritualized in a
manner similar to that of established military processes. "Inspection
teams" might be very like armies, and their technical equipment
might be very like weapons. Inflating the inspection budget to military scale
presents no difficulty. The appeal of this kind of scheme lies in the
comparative ease of transition between two parallel systems.
The "elaborate inspection" surrogate is
fundamentally fallacious, however. Although it might be economically useful,
as well as politically necessary, during the disarmament transition, it would
fail as a substitute for the economic function of war for one simple reason. Peacekeeping
inspection is part of a war system, not of a peace system. It
implies the possibility of weapons maintenance or manufacture, which could
not exist in a world at peace as here defined. Massive inspection also
implies sanctions, and thus war-readiness.
The same fallacy is more obvious in plans to create a patently useless
"defense conversion" apparatus. The long-discredited proposal to
build "total" civil defense facilities is one example; another is
the plan to establish a giant antimissile missile complex (Nike-X, et al.).
These programs, of course, are economic rather than strategic. Nevertheless,
they are not substitutes for military spending but merely different forms of
it.
A more sophisticated variant is the proposal to establish the "Unarmed
Forces" of the United States. [33] This would conveniently
maintain the entire institutional military structure, redirecting it
essentially toward social-welfare activities on a global scale. It would be,
in effect, a giant military Peace Corps. There is nothing
inherently unworkable about this plan, and using the existing military system
to effectuate its own demise is both ingenious and convenient. But even on a
greatly magnified world basis, social-welfare expenditures must sooner or
later reenter the atmosphere of the normal economy.
The
practical transitional virtues of such a scheme would thus be eventually
negated by its inadequacy as a permanent economic stabilizer.
Political
The
war
system makes the stable government of societies possible. It does
this essentially by providing an external necessity for a society to accept
political rule.
In
so doing, it establishes the basis for nationhood and the authority of
government to control its constituents. What other institution or combination
of programs might serve these functions in its place?
We have already pointed out that the end of war means the end of national
sovereignty, and thus the end of nationhood as we know it today. But this
does not necessarily mean the end of nations in the administrative sense, and
internal political power will remain essential to a stable society. The
emerging "nations" of the peace epoch must continue to draw
political authority from some source.
A number of proposals have been made governing the relations between nations
after total disarmament; all are basically juridical in nature. They
contemplate institutions more or less like a World Court, or a United
Nations, but vested with real authority. They may or may not serve their
ostensible postmilitary purpose of settling international disputes, but we
need not discuss that here.
None
would offer effective external pressure on a peace-world nation to organize
itself politically.
It might be argued that a well-armed international police force, operating
under the authority of such a supranational "court," could well
serve the function of external enemy. This, however, would constitute a
military operation, like the inspection schemes mentioned, and, like them,
would be inconsistent with the premise of an end to the war system. It is
possible that a variant of the "Unarmed Forces" idea might be
developed in such a way that its "constructive" (i.e., social
welfare) activities could be combined with an economic "threat" of
sufficient size and credibility to warrant political organization.
Would
this kind of threat also be contradictory to our central premise? - that is,
would it be inevitably military? Not necessarily, in our view, but we are
skeptical of its capacity to evoke credibility. Also, the obvious
destabilizing effect of any global social welfare surrogate on politically
necessary class relationships would create an entirely new set of transition
problems at least equal in magnitude.
Credibility, in fact, lies at the heart of the problem of developing a
political substitute for war. This is where the space-race proposals, in many
ways so well suited as economic substitutes for war, fall short. The most
ambitious and unrealistic space project cannot of itself generate a believable
external menace. It has been hotly argued [34] that such a menace would offer
the "last, best hope of peace," etc., by uniting mankind against
the danger of destruction by "creatures" from other planets or from
outer space.
Experiments
have been proposed to test the credibility of an out-of-our-world invasion
threat; it is possible that a few of the more difficult-to-explain
"flying saucer" incidents of recent years were in fact early
experiments of this kind. If so, they could hardly have been judged encouraging.
We anticipate no difficulties in making a "need" for a giant super
space program credible for economic purposes, even were there not ample
precedent; extending it, for political purposes, to include features
unfortunately associated with science fiction would obviously be a more
dubious undertaking.
Nevertheless, an effective political substitute for war would require
"alternate enemies," some of which might seem equally farfetched in
the context of the current war system. It may be, for instance, that gross
pollution of the environment can eventually replace the possibility of mass
destruction by nuclear weapons as the principal apparent threat to the
survival of the species.
Poisoning
of the air, and of the principal sources of food and water supply, is already
well advanced, and at first glance would seem promising in this respect; it
constitutes a threat that can be dealt with only through social organization
and political power. But from present indications it will be a generation to
a generation and a half before environmental pollution, however severe, will
be sufficiently menacing, on a global scale, to offer a possible basis for a
solution.
It is true that the rate of pollution could be increased selectively for this
purpose; in fact, the mere modifying of existing programs for the deterrence
of pollution could speed up the process enough to make the threat credible
much sooner. But the pollution problem has been so widely publicized in
recent years that it seems highly improbable that a program of deliberate
environmental poisoning could be implemented in a politically acceptable
manner.
However unlikely some of the possible alternate enemies we have mentioned may
seem, we must emphasize that one must be found, of credible quality and magnitude,
if a transition to peace is ever to come about without social disintegration.
It is more probable, in our judgment, that such a threat will have to be
invented, rather than developed from unknown conditions. For this reason, we
believe further speculation about its putative nature ill-advised in this
context.
Since
there is considerable doubt, in our minds, that any viable political
surrogate can be devised, we are reluctant to compromise, by premature
discussion, any possible option that may eventually lie open to our
government.
Sociological
Of
the many functions of war we have found convenient to group together in this
classification, two are critical. In a world of peace, the continuing
stability of society will require:
1) an effective
substitute for military institutions that can neutralize
destabilizing social elements and
2) a credible
motivational surrogate for war that can insure social cohesiveness.
The
first is an essential element of social control; the second is the basic
mechanism for adapting individual human drives to the needs of society.
Most
proposals that address themselves, explicitly or otherwise, to the postwar
problem of controlling the socially alienated turn to some variant of the Peace
Corps or the so-called Job Corps for a solution.
The
socially disaffected, the economically unprepared, the psychologically
unconformable, the hard-core "delinquents,"
the incorrigible "subversives,"
and the rest of the unemployable are seen as somehow transformed by the
disciplines of a service modeled on military precedent into more or less
dedicated social service workers. This presumption also informs the otherwise
hardheaded ratiocination of the "Unarmed Forces" plan.
The problem has been addressed, in the language of popular sociology, by
Secretary McNamara.
"Even
in our abundant societies, we have reason enough to worry over the tensions
that coil and tighten among underprivileged young people, and finally flail
out in delinquency and crime. What are we to expect ... where mounting
frustrations are likely to fester into eruptions of violence and
extremism?"
In
a seemingly unrelated passage, he continues:
"It
seems to me that we could move toward remedying that inequity [of the
Selective Service System] by asking every young person in the United States
to give two years of service to his country - whether in one of the military
services, in the Peace Corps, or in some other volunteer developmental work
at home or abroad. We could encourage other countries to do the same."
[35]
Here,
as elsewhere throughout this significant speech, Mr. McNamara has focused,
indirectly but unmistakably, on one of the key issues bearing on a possible
transition to peace, and has later indicated, also indirectly, a rough
approach to its resolution, again phrased in the language of the current war
system.
It seems clear that Mr. McNamara and other proponents of the peace-corps
surrogate for this war function lean heavily on the success of the
paramilitary Depression programs mentioned in the last section.
We
find the precedent wholly inadequate in degree. Neither the lack of relevant
precedent, however, nor the dubious social-welfare sentimentality
characterizing this approach warrant its rejection without careful study. It
may be viable - provided, first, that the military origin of the Corps format
be effectively rendered out of its operational activity, and second, that the
transition from paramilitary activities to "developmental work" can
be effected without regard to the attitudes of the Corps personnel or to the
"value" of the work it is expected to perform.
Another possible surrogate for the control of potential enemies of society is
the reintroduction, in some form consistent with modern technology and
political processes, of slavery. Up to now, this has been suggested only in
fiction, notably in the works of Wells, Huxley, Orwell, and others engaged in
the imaginative anticipation of the sociology of the future. But the
fantasies projected in Brave New World and 1984 have seemed less and less
implausible over the years since their publication.
The
traditional association of slavery with ancient preindustrial cultures should
not blind us to its adaptability to advanced forms of social organization,
nor should its equally traditional incompatibility with Western moral and
economic values. It is entirely possible that the development of a
sophisticated form of slavery may be an absolute prerequisite for social
control in a world at peace. As a practical matter, conversion of the code of
military discipline to a euphemized form of enslavement would entail
surprisingly little revision; the logical first step would be the adoption of
some form of "universal" military service.
When it comes to postulating a credible substitute for war capable of
directing human behavior patterns in behalf of social organization, few
options suggest themselves. Like its political function, the motivational
function of war requires the existence of a genuinely menacing social enemy.
The principal difference is that for purposes of motivating basic allegiance,
as distinct from accepting political authority, the "alternate
enemy" must imply a more immediate, tangible, and directly felt threat
of destruction. It must justify the need for taking and paying a "blood
price" in wide areas of human concern.
In this respect, the possible substitute enemies noted earlier would be
insufficient. One exception might be the environmental-pollution model, if
the danger to society it posed was genuinely imminent. The fictive models
would have to carry the weight of extraordinary conviction, underscored with
a not inconsiderable actual sacrifice of life; the construction of an
up-to-date mythological or religious structure for this purpose would present
difficulties in our era, but must certainly be considered.
Games theorists have suggested, in other contexts, the development of
"blood games" for the effective control of individual aggressive
impulses. It is an ironic commentary on the current state of war and peace
studies that it was left not to scientists but to the makers of a commercial
film [36] to develop a model for this notion, on the implausible level of
popular melodrama, as a ritualized manhunt.
More
realistically, such a ritual might be socialized, in the manner of the
Spanish Inquisition and the less formal witch trials of other periods, for
purposes of "social purification," "state security," or
other rationale both acceptable and credible to postwar societies. The
feasibility of such an updated version of still another ancient institution,
though doubtful, is considerably less fanciful than the wishful notion of
many peace planners that a lasting condition of peace can be brought about
without the most painstaking examination of every possible surrogate for the
essential functions of war. What is involved here, in a sense, is the quest
for William James’s "moral equivalent of war."
It is also possible that the two functions considered under this heading may
be jointly served, in the sense of establishing the antisocial, for whom a
control institution is needed, as the "alternate enemy" needed to
hold society together. The relentless and irreversible advance of
unemployability at all levels of society, and the similar extension of
generalized alienation from accepted values [37] may make some such program
necessary even as an adjunct to the war system.
As
before, we will not speculate on the specific forms this kind of program
might take, except to note that there is again ample precedent, in the
treatment meted out to disfavored, allegedly menacing, ethnic groups in
certain societies during historical periods. [38]
Ecological
Considering
the the shortcomings of war as a mechanism of selective population control,
it might appear that devising substitutes for this function should be
comparatively simple. Schematically this so, but the problem of timing the
transition to a new ecological balancing device makes the feasibility of
substitution less certain.
It must be remembered that the limitation of war in this function is entirely
eugenic. War has not been genetically progressive. But as a system of gross
population control to preserve the species it cannot fairly be faulted. And,
as has been pointed out, the nature of war is itself in transition. Current
trends in warfare - the increased strategic bombing of civilians and the
greater military importance now attached to the destruction of sources of
supply (as opposed to purely "military" bases and personnel) -
strongly suggest that a truly qualitative improvement is in the making.
Assuming the war system is to continue, it is more than probable that the
regressively selective quality of war will have been reversed, as its victims
become more genetically representative of their societies.
There is no question but that a universal requirement that procreation be
limited to the products of artificial insemination would provide a fully
adequate substitute control for population levels. Such a reproductive system
would, of course, have the added advantage of being susceptible of direct
eugenic management. Its predictable further development - conception and
embryonic growth taking place wholly under laboratory conditions - would
extend these controls to their logical conclusion. The ecological function of
war under these circumstances would not only be superseded but surpassed in
effectiveness.
The indicated intermediate step - total control of conception with a variant
of the ubiquitous "pill," via water supplies or certain essential
foodstuffs, offset by a controlled "antidote" - is already under
development. [39] There would appear to be no foreseeable need to revert to
any of the outmoded practices referred to in the previous section
(infanticide, etc.) as there might have been if the possibility of transition
to peace had arisen two generations ago.
The real question here, therefore, does not concern the viability of this war
substitute, but the political problems involved in bringing it about. It
cannot be established while the war system is still in effect. The reason for
this is simple: excess population is war material. As long as any society
must contemplate even a remote possibility of war, it must maintain a maximum
supportable population, even when so doing critically aggravates an economic
liability. This is paradoxical, in view of war’s role in reducing excess
population, but it is readily understood. War controls the general population
level, but the ecological interest of any single society lies in maintaining
its hegemony vis-a-vis other societies.
The
obvious analogy can be seen in any free-enterprise economy. Practices
damaging to the society as a whole - both competitive and monopolistic - are
abetted by the conflicting economic motives of individual capital interests.
The obvious precedent can be found in the seemingly irrational political
difficulties which have blocked universal adoption of simple birth-control
methods. Nations desperately in need of increasing unfavorable
production-consumption ratios are nevertheless unwilling to gamble their possible
military requirements of twenty years hence for this purpose. Unilateral
population control, as practiced in ancient Japan and in other isolated
societies, is out of the question in today’s world.
Since the eugenic solution cannot be achieved until the transition to the
peace system takes place, why not wait? One must qualify the inclination to
agree. As we noted earlier, a real possibility of an unprecedented global
crisis of insufficiency exists today, which the war system may not be able to
forestall. If this should come to pass before an agreed-upon transition to
peace were completed, the result might be irrevocably disastrous. There is
clearly no solution to this dilemma; it is a risk which must be taken. But it
tends to support the view that if a decision is made to eliminate the war
system, it were better done sooner than later.
Cultural and Scientific
Strictly
speaking, the function of war as the determinant of cultural values and as
the prime mover of scientific progress may not be critical in a world without
war.
Our
criterion for the basic nonmilitary functions of war has been: Are they
necessary to the survival and stability of society? The absolute need for
substitute cultural value-determinants and for the continued advance of
scientific knowledge is not established. We believe it important, however, in
behalf of those for whom these functions hold subjective significance, that
it be known what they can reasonably expect in culture and science after a
transition to peace.
So far as the creative arts are concerned, there is no reason to believe they
would disappear, but only that they would change in character and relative
social importance. The elimination of war would in due course deprive them of
their principal conative force, but it would necessarily take some time for
the effect of this withdrawal to be felt. During the transition, and perhaps
for a generation thereafter, themes of sociomoral conflict inspired by
the war system would be increasingly transferred to the idiom of purely
personal sensibility.
At
the same time, a new aesthetic would have to develop. Whatever its name,
form, or rationale, its function would be to express, in language appropriate
to the new period, the once discredited philosophy that art exists for its own
sake. This aesthetic would reject unequivocally the classic requirement of
paramilitary conflict as the substantive content of great art.
The
eventual effect of the peace-world philosophy of art would be democratizing
in the extreme, in the sense that a generally acknowledged subjectivity of
artistic standards would equalize their new, content-free "values."
What may be expected to happen is that art would be reassigned the role it
once played in a few primitive peace-oriented systems. This was the function
of pure decoration, entertainment, or play, entirely free of the burden of
expressing the sociomoral values and conflicts of a war-oriented
society. It is interesting that the groundwork for such a value-free
aesthetic is already being laid today, in growing experimentation in art
without content, perhaps in anticipation of a world without conflict.
A
cult has developed around a new kind of cultural determinism, [40] which
proposes that the technological form of a cultural expression determines its
values rather than does its ostensibly meaningful content. Its clear
implication is that there is no "good" or "bad" art, only
that which is appropriate to its (technological) times and that which is not.
Its cultural effect has been to promote circumstantial constructions and
unplanned expressions; it denies to art the relevance of sequential logic.
Its significance in this context is that it provides a working model of one
kind of value-free culture we might reasonably anticipate in a world at
peace.
So far as science is concerned, it might appear at first glance that a giant
space-research program, the most promising among the proposed economic
surrogates for war, might also serve as the basic stimulator of scientific
research. The lack of fundamental organized social conflict inherent in space
work, however, would rule it out as an adequate motivational substitute for
war when applied to "pure" science. But it could no doubt sustain
the broad range of technological activity that a space budget of military
dimensions would require.
A
similarly scaled social-welfare program could provide a comparable impetus to
low-keyed technological advances, especially in medicine, rationalized
construction methods, educational psychology, etc. The eugenic substitute for
the ecological function of war would also require continuing research in
certain areas of the life sciences.
Apart from these partial substitutes for war, it must be kept in mind that
the momentum given to scientific progress by the great wars of the past
century, and even more by the anticipation of World War III, is
intellectually and materially enormous. It is our finding that if the war
system were to end tomorrow this momentum is so great that the pursuit of
scientific knowledge could reasonably be expected to go forward without
noticeable diminution for perhaps two decades. [41]
It
would then continue, at a progressively decreasing tempo, for at least
another two decades before the "bank account" of today’s unresolved
problems would become exhausted. By the standards of the questions we have
learned to ask today, there would no longer be anything worth knowing still
unknown; we cannot conceive, by definition, of the scientific questions to
ask once those we can not comprehend are answered.
This leads unavoidably to another matter: the intrinsic value of the
unlimited search for knowledge. We of course offer no independent value
judgments here, but it is germane to point out that a substantial minority of
scientific opinion feels that search to be circumscribed in any case. This
opinion is itself a factor in considering the need for a substitute for the
scientific function of war. For the record, we must also take note of the
precedent that during long periods of human history, often covering thousands
of years, in which no intrinsic social value was assigned to scientific
progress, stable societies did survive and flourish.
Although
this could not have been possible in the modern industrial world, we cannot
be certain it may not again be true in a future world at peace.
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