Warmongering

The “psychological dislocation” which occurs as a result of what is none other than the very basic nature of today’s globalized economy can occur in as simple of a case as a small-town American man who is engaged to a girl from his community and out of economic necessity applies to work for the government or the military, only to be sent to South Korea where he becomes infatuated with the local women there. Nationalism, on the other hand, is quite racist, whereby the “purity” of the race or ethnicity is to be kept above all else. 

To borrow from Morgenthau: “The intellectual and political excesses of nationalism and of its degenerate offspring, racism, have shocked and repelled the non-nationalistic mind to a much greater degree than have the excesses of geopolitics.” The “national character” which distinguishes one nation from another according to nationalist ideology is seen by the non-nationalistic mind as a “myth” and is also “a political fabrication without any basis in fact.” But to deny the reality and power of nationalism would also be an error, as recent experience and modern history has shown us. 

Even warmongering and belligerence is justified in many cases, as long as the pretext for war is the “national interest,” despite the fact that war is unacceptable in an age where weaponry has become more lethal and deadly than ever before. World public opinion is in many cases opposed to “warmongers” who justify their warmongering and belligerence based on “national interest.” But what is seen as a “threat to world peace” by one side is seen as “the pursuit of the national interest” by the other side. The roles can also change in international society. The West was the main warmonger in the international community up until recently, only to be replaced by Russia and Israel in recent years or months. 

The decision to engage in warmongering or not is actually “determined by their conceptions of the national interest.” When there is no interest involved, there is no participation in the warmongering which breaks out on the international scene as a result of growing nationalistic fervor. In some cases, warmongering is in the interest of a particular nation, and in other cases, war undermines the interests of a particular nation. War is opposed “by the public opinions of those nations whose interests are threatened by that war.” But public opinion does not contain or restrain the warmongers of our day and age. With warmongers on one side and those whose interests are undermined by war on the other side, there is no consensus that can arise which in turn can form the basis of a stable international scene or international society. The national interest trumps everything. To borrow from Morgenthau:

“Between the elemental aspiration for life, freedom, and power, which unite mankind and which could provide the roots for a world society and universal morality, and the political philosophies, ethics, and objectives actually held by the members of the human race, there intervenes the nation. The nation fills the minds and hearts of men everywhere with particular experiences and, derived from them, with particular concepts of political philosophy, particular standards of political morality, and particular goals of political action. Inevitably, then, the members of the human race live and act politically, not as members of one world society applying standards of universal ethics, but as members of their respective national societies, guided by their national standards of morality. In politics the nation and not humanity is the ultimate fact.” 

World public opinion which seeks to constrain or restrain warmongering on the international scene “appeals to nothing real.” In fact, world public opinion “only yields to the general tendency…to raise a particular national conception of morality to the dignity of universal laws binding upon all mankind.” There is an “irrationality to the appeal” of world public opinion, as Morgenthau argued. And to compound the problem of warmongering for the sake of the national interest even further, all groups believe “God” is on their side and only on their side, thus diminishing the prospects of both consensus and the efficacy of world public opinion to constrain and restrain warmongers even further.