John Locke, Civ 3, and Preemptive War

Aside from the fact that it's one of the longest sentences I've ever read, I wanted to open today's post with the following quote from John Locke because in it he expresses (better than I could) the reasons why I disagree with Preemptive War:

"THE state of war is a state of enmity and destruction: and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but a sedate settled design upon another man's life, puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other's power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the commonlaw of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power."

- John Locke, (the philosopher not the LOST character)

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IN 2001, my brother brought home a new edition of the game Civilization, by Sid Meier. We were both entranced by the original Civilization game, and this new one, Civ 3, turned out to be even better than anything that had come before. The basic gist of the game is this:

You start out with a small tribe of people who need to build an entire civilization by establishing cities, trading with other nations, learning about technology, and defending/invading borders.

At the beginning of the game, you get to choose which tribe you'll start out as and how many other tribes are integrated into the game. Each tribe has different abilities and intentions (some are industrious, some are militaristic, some are religious, some are expansionist). As a player, a good strategy is to pick a tribe that matches your mentality and also understand the other tribes who are playing with/against you in the world. For instance, if I'm interested in playing an aggressive game where I take all other nations by force- it's a good idea to play as a militaristic tribe because they will automatically generate more advanced military technology.

I've gotta admit, even though my personal preference is to play as an expansionist tribe- one who explores and settles new areas rather than taking them by force- there are times when I'm playing against a militaristic tribe and I understand that I'm going to have to build up my military pretty quick and either defend my cities by arming them with a vast amount of forces- or I'll need to launch a military campaign and blast an opponent back into the stone age so that I can continue learning and expanding without their forces invading my space all the time.

In other words, when I'm dealing with a military minded opponent- the only way to keep my civilization safe is by scaring the other tribes into submission. And even then, sometimes, they attack me because they're not real people. They're computer programs that are designed to attack and invade.

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One of the advantages of playing in the video game world is that immediately, one can tell what the intentions and actions of an opposing nation will be. After playing the game a few times, I understand that those "militaristic" nations WILL attack me and anyone else on the map if they have an opportunity. It's not a matter of chance or whether or not I get on their good side. If they have a bigger military or if they see a city that's not very well defended they will swarm to it and destroy it. It's in their programming. They're designed to do so by the people who created the game. If they didn't attack and went along with the trading, learning, peaceful tribes, we'd say there was a flaw in the game- that the programmers made some sort of mistake.

In fact, this sense of conquest is so ingrained into the programming of militaristic tribes that sometimes I choose NOT to play against them because I'm not really in the mood to play a defend and invade sort of game. I'd rather play a trade and learn game (OK, I admit that sometimes I still invade these peaceful tribes because I know I can establish dominance... *insert evil laugh here*).

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But let's step back into the real world for a moment. When we think about our recent involvement in the middle east- especially Iraq (and Afghanistan to some degree)- I imagine that the Bush Doctrine of Preventative War is based on the idea that these people in other countries are programmed or born with an intent toward evil, destruction, and military oppression.

How else can you explain an ideology that says, we'll strike you before you have a chance to strike us?

In order to rationalize any sort of unprovoked military campaign against another country, one has to assume that the other country or people group are bent on our destruction and WILL act on their anger against us. That's the only way.

Iraq claims to have WMDs? We'll just blow them to Kingdom Come.

Iran works on a Nuclear Program? We'll threaten to do the same to them  if they don't stop right now.

The truth of the matter is, there were no WMDs in Iraq. We invaded their country and took over under the assumption that they were bent on our destruction and had the capability to do so. We put Saddam Hussein and Iraqis into a dialogue box, reducing them to computer drones programmed toward evil and destruction, with no will of their own save the destruction of others by force.

The reason I began with Locke's quote is that he makes the case than when retaliating against an attack, the innocent party has the right- nay, the obligation- to destroy the one who waged war against him just as one would have the right and obligation to destroy a lion who viciously attacked him. But notice that Locke doesn't say that we have the right to kill all lions because the MIGHT someday attack us.

In doing so, we are the war-wagers and those we attack are the innocent. Whether or not they harbored ill-will toward us in the first place, when we arm ourselves and attack another person or state (unless it's defense or retaliation) we're in the wrong (just as they'd be in the wrong to attack us).

But unlike video games, we don't get to start over if things don't go our way. We're dealing with real human lives here. And we cannot rationalize preemptive war under the theory that they'd strike us first if they had the chance.

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I'll leave you with this frame from a Civ 3 dialogue box. I think it pretty much sums up how most people in the world see American "Preventative War" ideology (otherwise known as the Bush Doctrine):

** Just for fun, I've added two "fake comments" from D.H. Rumsfeld and GW Bush. **