Fearing Western war's lethal twist.

• Author: Hanson, Victor Davis
• Position: Worldview

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"... We who created the Western way of war are very reluctant to resort to it clue to post-modern cynicism, while those who did not create it are very eager to apply it clue to pre-modern zealotry--and that is a very lethal combination."

WIS A HUMAN enterprise that always be with us. Unless we submit to genetic engineering or video games somehow have reprogrammed our brains or we fundamentally are changed by eating different nutrients-these are possibilities brought up by so-called peace and conflict resolution theorists--human nature will not change. War's methods or delivery systems--which can be traced through time from clubs to catapults and from flintlocks to nuclear weapons--will, of course, change. In this sense, war is like water: You can pump it at 60 gallons per minute with a small gasoline engine or at 5,000 gallons per minute with a gigantic turbine pump, but water is water--the same today as in 1880 or 500 B.C. Likewise with war, because the essence of war is human nature.

Now, in talking about the Western way of war, what do we mean by the West? Roughly speaking, we refer to the culture that originated in Greece, spread to Rome, permeated Northern Europe, was incorporated by the Anglo-Saxon tradition, spread through British expansionism, and is associated today primarily with Europe, the U.S., and the former commonwealth countries of Britain--as well as, to some extent, nations such as Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, which have incorporated some Western ideas.

What are Western ideas? This question is disputed, but I think we know them when we see them. They include a commitment to constitutional or limited government; freedom of the individual; religious freedom in a sense that precludes religious tyranny; respect for property rights; faith in free markets; and an openness to rationalism or to the explanation of natural phenomena through reason. These ideas were combined in various ways through Western history, and eventually brought us to where we are today. The resultant system creates more prosperity and affluence than any other and, of come, I do not mean to suggest that there was Jeffersonian democracy in 13th-century England or in the Swiss cantons, but the blueprint for free government always existed in the West, in a way that it did not elsewhere.

Just as this system afforded more prosperity in times of peace, it led to a superior fighting and defense capability in limes of war. This is what I call the Western way of war, and there are several factors at play.

First, constitutional government was conducive to civilian input when it came to war. We see this in ancient Athens, where civilians oversaw a board of generals, and we see it in civilian control of the military in the U.S. At crucial times in Western history, civilian overseers have enriched...