Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • Were the Atomic Bombings Necessary?

    David KriegerOn August 14, 1945, Japan surrendered and World War II was over.  American policy makers have argued that the atomic bombs were the precipitating cause of the surrender.  Historical studies of the Japanese decision, however, reveal that what the Japanese were most concerned with was the Soviet Union’s entry into the war.  Japan surrendered with the understanding that the emperor system would be retained.  The US agreed to do what Truman had been advised to do before the bombings:  it signaled to the Japanese that they would be allowed to retain the emperor.  This has left historians to speculate that the war could have ended without either the use of the two atomic weapons on Japanese cities or an Allied invasion of Japan.


    The US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that, even without the use of the atomic bombs, without the Soviet Union entering the war and without an Allied invasion of Japan, the war would have ended before December 31, 1945 and, in all likelihood, before November 1, 1945.  Prior to the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US was destroying Japanese cities at will with conventional bombs.  The Japanese were offering virtually no resistance.  The US dropped atomic bombs on a nation that had been largely defeated and some of whose leaders were seeking terms of surrender.


    Despite strong evidence that the atomic bombings were not responsible for ending the war with Japan, most Americans, particularly those who lived through World War II, believe that they were.  Many World War II era servicemen who were in the Pacific or anticipated being shipped there believed that the bombs saved them from fighting hard battles on the shores of Japan, as had been fought on the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  What they did not take into account was that the Japanese were trying to surrender, that the US had broken the Japanese codes and knew they were trying to surrender, and that, had the US accepted their offer, the war could have ended without the use of the atomic bombs.


    Most high ranking Allied military leaders were appalled by the use of the atomic bombs.  General Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces Europe, recognized that Japan was ready to surrender and said, “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” General Hap Arnold, commander of the US Army Air Corps pointed out, “Atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”


    Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief of staff, put it this way: “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan.  The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.  In being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to barbarians of the Dark Ages.  Wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”


    What Truman had described as “the greatest thing in history” was actually, according to his own military leaders, an act of unparalleled cowardice, the mass annihilation of men, women and children.  The use of the atomic bombs was the culmination of an air war fought against civilians in Germany and Japan, an air war that showed increasing contempt for the lives of civilians and for the laws of war. 


    The end of the war was a great relief to those who had fought for so long.  There were nuclear scientists, though, who now regretted what they had created and how their creations had been used.  One of these was Leo Szilard, the Hungarian émigré physicist who had warned Einstein of the possibility of the Germans creating an atomic weapon first and of the need for the US to begin a bomb project.  Szilard had convinced Einstein to send a letter of warning to Roosevelt, which led at first to a small project to explore the potential of uranium to sustain a chain reaction and then to the Manhattan Project that resulted in the creation of the first atomic weapons.


    Szilard did his utmost to prevent the bomb from being used against Japanese civilians.  He wanted to meet with President Franklin Roosevelt, but Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.  He next tried to meet with the new president, Harry Truman, but Truman sent him to Spartanburg, South Carolina to talk with his mentor in the Senate, Jimmy Byrnes, who was dismissive of Szilard.  Szilard then tried to organize the scientists in the Manhattan Project to appeal for a demonstration of the bomb rather than immediately using it on a Japanese city.  The appeal was stalled by General Leslie Groves, the head of the Manhattan Project, and did not reach President Truman until after the atomic bombs were used.


    The use of the bomb caused many other scientists to despair as well.  Albert Einstein deeply regretted that he had written to President Roosevelt.  He did not work on the Manhattan Project, but he had used his influence to encourage the start of the American bomb project.  Einstein, like Szilard, believed that the purpose of the U.S. bomb project was to deter the use of a German bomb.  He was shocked that, once created, the bomb was used offensively against the Japanese.  Einstein would spend the remaining ten years of his life speaking out against the bomb and seeking its elimination.  He famously said, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

  • The Folly of Mindless Science

    Alice SlaterIn 2000, I traveled to India, invited to speak at the organizing meeting of the Indian Coalition for Nuclear and Disarmament and Peace. About 600 organizations, including some 80 from Pakistan gathered in New Delhi to strategize for nuclear disarmament. India had quietly acquired the bomb and performed one nuclear test at Pokhran in 1974 but it was in 1998 that all hell broke out, with India exploding five underground tests, swiftly followed by six in Pakistan.


    The trigger for this outbreak of nuclear testing in Asia was the refusal of the US Clinton Administration, under the pressure of the US nuclear weapons scientists, to negotiate a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that precluded laboratory testing and “sub-critical” tests, where plutonium could be blown up underground with chemicals without causing a chain reaction—hence defined as a non-nuclear test by the US and the nuclear club. India warned the nuclear powers at the Commission on Disarmament (CD) where the CTBT was being negotiated, that it opposed the CTBT because it contained discriminatory “loopholes … exploited by some countries to continue their testing activity, using more sophisticated and advanced techniques”, and it would never agree to consensus on the treaty unless the ability to continue high-tech laboratory testing and computer-driven nuclear experiments was foreclosed.


    In an unprecedented move of colonial hubris, Australia, led by Ambassador Richard Butler, brought the treaty to the UN for approval over India’s objections, the first time in the history of that body that the UN General Assembly was asked to endorse a treaty that had not received consensus to go forward in the negotiating body at the CD. I spoke to Ambassador Butler at a UN reception where the wine was flowing a bit liberally. I asked him what he was going to do about India’s objection. He informed me that he had been visiting with Clinton’s National Security Advisor in Washington, Sandy Berger, and Berger said, “We’re going to screw India!” And Butler repeated for emphasis, “We’re going to screw India!” Unsurprisingly, India and Pakistan soon tested overtly, not wanting to be left behind in the technology race for new improved nuclear weapons which was characterized blasphemously by the US in biblical terms, as its “stockpile stewardship” program to protect the ‘safety and reliability” of the arsenal.


    As for the “safety and reliability” of the nuclear arsenal, in the late 1980s, during the heady days of perestroika and glasnost, when there was talk of a nuclear testing moratorium, initially instituted in the Soviet Union after coal miners and other activists marched and protested the enormous health threats from Russian testing in Kazakhstan, a debate in Congress resulted in an annotated Congressional record indicating that since 1950 there were 32 airplane crashes carrying nuclear weapons and not one of them ever went off! Two spewed some plutonium around Palomares, Spain and Thule, Greenland that had to be “cleaned up”, but there was no catastrophic nuclear explosion. There are still some bombs unaccounted for including an airplane still missing which crashed off the coast of Georgia. How much more “safer and reliable” would the weapons have to be? Fortunately, General Lee Butler, taking command of the nuclear arsenal stopped the insanity in 1992 and ruled that the planes carrying nuclear weapons would be grounded instead of being in the air 24/7 keeping us “safe” and “deterring” the Soviet Union. What could they have been thinking? Sadly, there has been no corresponding move to ratchet down the lunacy that endangers our planet at every moment from some 1500 deployed nuclear weapons mounted on missiles poised to fire against Russian missiles, similarly cocked, in minutes.


    US scientists are enabling a new arms race with Russia and China


    Even before “stockpile stewardship”, I remember attending a meeting with the mad scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, home of Dr. Strangelove, and sitting in a circle to discuss the aftermath of nuclear policy in the shadow of the crumbled wall in Berlin. The scientists were earnestly discussing the need for AGEX (Above Ground Experiments), to keep their nuclear mind-muscles alive and limber, which eventually morphed into the diabolically named “stockpile stewardship” program. Today, that misbegotten program is funded to the tune of $84 billion over the next ten years, with another $100 billion budgeted for new “delivery” systems—missiles, submarine, airplanes—as if the Cold War had never ended!


    At the Delhi conference, Dr. Amulya Reddy, a nuclear physicist gave an electrifying talk on the responsibility of science and its moral failures, explaining how shocked he was to find documents describing how the German scientists carefully calculated, with extraordinary accuracy and scientific precision, the amount of poison gas required per person to kill the Jews who were routinely marched to the Nazi “showers” in the concentration camps. And at a workshop on the role of science, there was an extraordinary conversation with Indian and Pakistani scientists who pondered whether scientists have lost their moral compass because the system of higher education produced the growth of the scientific institute, isolating scientists from the arts and humanities. They examined whether these separated tracks of learning, denying scientists the opportunity to intermingle with colleagues engaged in those issues, while narrowly concentrating on their scientific disciplines, had stunted their intellectual and moral growth and led them to forget their humanity.


    Now scientists are pushing whatever boundaries might have existed to open a whole new avenue of terror and danger for the world. In a profound disregard for the consequences of their actions, US scientists are enabling a new arms race with Russia and China as the military-industrial-academic-Congressional complex plants US missiles in Eastern Europe and beefs up military bases in the Pacific. This despite efforts by Russia and China to forestall this new arms race by calling for a treaty to ban weapons in space, supported by every nation in the world except the US which blocks any forward progress for negotiations.


    The US has recently admitted to cyber warfare, targeting uranium enrichment equipment in Iran with a killer virus to set back the Iranian program to build their own bomb in the basement, while at home, we are talking of massive subsidies to the uranium enrichment factory in Paducah, Kentucky. It is hard to believe how screwy this new venture into cyber warfare is in terms of providing security to the “homeland”. After all, cyber terror is not nuclear warfare. Any country, or even scores of various groups of individuals, can master the technology undetected, and wreak catastrophic havoc on the myriads of civilian computer-dependent systems, local, national, and global. Similarly, the recent expansion of drone warfare, assassinating innocent civilians together with suspected “terrorists” in eight countries, at last count, with the President of the US acting as judge, jury and executioner, is the application of misbegotten science in a recipe for endless illegal war. Just as the US was the first to use the atomic bomb, opening the door to the disturbing and uncontrollable nuclear proliferation we witness today, it is again opening the door, taking the lead in a new global arms race in cyber warfare and drone technology. Despite Russia’s suggestion that there be a treaty against cyber war, the US is resisting negotiations, indicating their continued arrogance and disregard of what must be manifestly apparent to any rational thinking person. There can be no reasonable expectation that scientists can keep the dark fruits of their lethal discoveries from proliferating around the world. It is just so 20th century, hierarchical and left-brained to imagine that there will not be others to follow their evil example, or that they can somehow control an outbreak of the same destructive technology to others who may not wish them well.


    Can there be any doubt that scientists driving US policy are out of touch with reality? Officials talk about “risk assessment” as though the dreadful disastrous events at Chernobyl and Fukushima are capable of being weighed on a scale of risks and benefits. Scientists are constantly refining their nuclear weapons and designing new threats to the fate of the Earth. After the horrendous devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, surely everyone with half a brain knows these catastrophic bombs are completely unusable and yet we’re pouring all these billions of dollars into perpetuating the weapons labs, as hunger and homelessness increase in the US and our infrastructure is crumbling. The high priests of Science are not including the Earth in their calculations and the enormous havoc they are wreaking on our air, water, soil, our biosphere. They’re thinking with the wrong half of their brains—without integrating the intuitive part of thinking that would curb their aggressive tendencies which engender such deadly, irreversible possibilities. They are engaged in creating the worst possible inventions with a Pandora’s box of lethal consequences that may plague the earth for eternity. Still, they continue on. Scientists are holding our planet hostage while they tinker in their laboratories without regard to the risks they are creating for the very future of life on Earth.”

  • NATO and U.S. Missile Defense in Europe are a Serious Political Concern

    Steven StarrThe Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently published an article by Pavel Podvig, “Point of Distraction”, which categorizes the ongoing US/NATO deployment of an integrated missile defense system in Western, Eastern and Southeastern Europe as an “overblown distraction” to U.S.-Russian relations. Given that Podvig’s first reference is to recent public threats made by Russia’s most senior military commander to launch military attacks against US/NATO missile defense bases, and that these threats have also been publicly made by Russian President Medvedev, Podvig’s assertions seem very abstracted from current political realities.


    What is striking about Podvig’s analysis is that he omits any reference to the fact that US missile defense is being deployed in Europe via NATO.  In fact, the word NATO does not appear anywhere in the article, and thus the entire issue of NATO is avoided.  This is unfortunate and misleading, because Russia has always viewed the NATO military alliance, which was set up to “keep the Russians out”, as a real threat to Russian security. BMD and its deployment by NATO are inseparable issues from any realistic political point of view.


    Podvig subsequently fails to address a concern that has been voiced by Russian Generals and recognized by their counterparts in America, that is, the Russian fear that the US/NATO European missile defense system night be used as a “mop-up” system against Russian strategic nuclear forces that survived a US disarming first-strike. I note that General Cartwright addressed this fear directly, as reported by Arms Control Today:


    “Gen. Cartwright and his coauthors go after the root cause of the problem: Moscow, they say, is not just concerned that the European missile system might be capable of intercepting a few Russian missiles. Rather, Russian leaders are worried about the U.S. capability to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack and then use strategic missile interceptors planned for deployment in 2020 (the SM-3 IIB) and thereafter to deny a Russian retaliatory strike.”


    While Russian political leaders are thus far reluctant to openly discuss the threat of a US nuclear first strike, it clearly is not taboo for Russian generals to do so. They have some cause to worry, since both nations continue to maintain 1700 strategic nuclear weapons at launch-ready status. But their fears are exacerbated because Russia has also watched NATO and US bases surround their borders, while NATO has become actively involved in many international military conflicts, and presses to add Georgia and Ukraine as member states.


    In this context, missile defense is much more than a “distraction”, it is rather the focal point of Russian discontent. It is the straw that is breaking the Russian camel’s back. US scientists, like Theodore Postol and Yousaf Butt have explained the technological basis of Russian concerns, which unfortunately US political leaders continue to foolishly deny, as if the Russians were not capable of understanding such things.


    The deployment of a highly integrated and layered missile defense system also adds real strength to NATO’s conventional capabilities. Russian war planners certainly fear NATO’s overwhelming conventional military strength – following the NATO intervention in Kosovo, it was such fears that led Russia to develop its military doctrine of “nuclear de-escalation”.


    This is where the danger of military conflict between the US and Russia lies. The expansion of NATO to Russian borders will surely provide opportunities for the clash of NATO and Russian troops. That such a conflict could quickly go nuclear is made even more probable by the forward-based nuclear weapons of NATO and standard Russian operating procedures that plan for the preemptive use of their tactical nuclear weapons against overwhelming NATO conventional force.


    This concern was recently voiced in a letter to David Krieger from Russian Minister Lavrov, in which Lavrov agreed with the suggestions made in the “Open Letter on NATO Missile Defense Plans and the Increased Risk of Nuclear War.” Lavrov states, “One cannot help agreeing to a conclusion that deployment of missile defense system at the very borders of Russia as well as upbuilding system’s capabilities increase the chance of any conventional military confrontation might promptly turn into a nuclear war.”


    The deployment of US/NATO European missile defense is hardly a “distraction” to U.S.-Russian relations and it is a mistake to categorize it as such. Analysts who focus solely on the technical capabilities of missile defense, while ignoring the larger picture of missile defense as an integral part of NATO, are missing the forest for the trees. To continue to dismiss Russian concerns on these issues as trivial is a serious political mistake on the part of both the US and its NATO allies.

  • Declaration of Independence from a War Economy

    When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for a people to dissolve the political and economic bands which have connected them with an industry and a bureaucracy that have held sway over their lives, and to assume an equal station among the peoples of the earth, living free from permanent war in an equal station to people of other nations as the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness living in a state of peace. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Humanity, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.

    Prudence, indeed, will dictate that patterns of Governance long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under an intolerable War Economy, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such improper Governance, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

    Such has been the patient sufferance of the people of these United States during seven long decades under a Permanent War Economy; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Governance. The history of recent decades is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of a highly militarized state functioning as a Tyranny over the citizens of these United States as well as to others in many nations around the world. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

    They have spent exorbitant sums on wars and munitions, undermining our security by leaving programs to care for our people and environment wanting. They have hollowed out our cities, left our schools crying for funding, allowed our infrastructure to decay, and generally disregarded important governmental functions critical to the security of our nation.

    They have even failed to adequately provide for the care of our veterans, so many of whom are suffering from injuries and psychological trauma as a result of their deployments.

    They have incurred unnecessary and odious debt, in order to fund the Military-Industrial Complex, cumulatively adding up to trillions of dollars, which will burden our progeny for decades to come, with no benefit to our populace.

    They have engaged repeatedly in illegal, aggressive war-making and foreign interventions that have had nothing to do with defending our nation. Our government has entered into a state of war repeatedly, without the constitutionally mandated declaration of war.

    They have repeatedly flouted international law that requires that military force be used only defensively or when authorized by the United Nations Security Council. This law, established under a treaty signed by our President and ratified by our Senate, is, under our Constitution, the highest law of the land.

    They have repeatedly violated the Nuremberg Principles which hold that aggressive war-making is a Crime Against Peace, and, as such, is the highest form of war crime.

    They have sent our young men and women off repeatedly to fight in these wars, leading to millions of casualties, including deaths, injuries, chemical poisoning and psychological traumatization of our military personnel.

    They have caused the death, injury, poisoning and traumatization of millions of people in the nations where our government has intervened, doing harm to these people and creating enemies in the process, thus undermining our security.

    They have overthrown, or participated in the overthrow of, democratically elected governments in many countries including Iran, Guatemala, Greece, Chile and Haiti, imposing, in the process, brutal, repressive regimes.

    They have supported, armed and trained the militaries of, and generally aided numerous unpopular and repressive governments. Our government and military have thus allied themselves with ruling elites and made our nation an enemy to the majority of the people of these countries
    in the process.

    They have created, armed, trained and operated proxy armies to conduct aggressive war-making on behalf of the interests of large trans-national corporations and their allies. This has been done in places like Nicaragua, Angola, Afghanistan, Cuba and many other nations.

    They have used the geopolitical power generated through military intervention and force, combined with the economic leverage of the international banking and monetary system, to impose unfair trade regimes on the Global South. In the process, they have hurt not only the people of the developing world, but also American workers millions of whom have lost jobs to outsourcing.

    They have repeatedly used Napalm, White Phosphorus and other incendiary weapons in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq and other countries, causing horrific pain and suffering to combatants and civilians alike.

    They have illegally conducted drone warfare, repeatedly attacking, killing and maiming people, including non-combatants, in countries such as Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan, without legal or moral authority to do so.

    They have created and maintained vast arsenals of weapons of mass destruction that threaten humanity’s survival. They’ve even used nuclear weapons, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. To this day, they refuse to abide by the provisions of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, which require the mutual elimination of such weapons.

    They have produced enormous inventories of long-lived, carcinogenic radioactive waste without any plan as to how to isolate these wastes from the environment for the required hundreds of thousands of years.

    They have dispersed dangerous radionuclides into the atmosphere through nearly two decades of above ground nuclear weapons testing, contaminating military personnel and civilians alike. And they have poisoned underground aquifers through predictable leakage of these long-lived wastes.

    They have used Depleted Uranium weapons in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere leading to the chemical and radiological contamination of combatants, including our own troops, civilians, residential areas, farmland and water supplies.

    They have, through the creation of a Permanent War Economy, moved our nation in a direction dramatically at odds with the intention of our founders. More than two centuries ago, President George Washington warned us of the dangers of large standing armies and permanent military alliances. Over the past seven decades, we have ignored this advice, and have paid dearly.

    The Permanent War Economy has enriched the few and impoverished the majority. It has contributed to the skewing of income and lead to a dangerous concentration of wealth, power and political influence in the hands of a few. We have seen not just war on other nations, but War on the Environment as well, with corporate powers plundering our seas, ravaging our coasts, destroying our environment and laying waste to the natural resources that belong to us all, and future generations.

    In every stage of the growth of the War Economy We and our predecessors have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. We have written letters, made phone calls, met with our Representatives and Senators, held peaceful vigils and demonstrations of all sorts: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. The Military-Industrial Complex has seen fit to continue its abuses unabated. Their actions make clear that they are unfit to be rulers of a free people.

    We, therefore, speaking for the peace loving people of our nation and appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name of the good People of this Nation, solemnly publish and declare, That these United States are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent of the control and influence of the War Economy; that we are Absolved from all Allegiance to the Military-Industrial Complex, and that all political connection between the people of this Nation and the perpetrators of the War Economy is and ought to be totally dissolved; And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

  • Why Waltz is Wrong

    David KriegerThe lead article in the July/August 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs is titled “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb.”  The author, Kenneth Waltz, a former president of the American Political Science Association, argues that the world should stop worrying about Iran getting the bomb.  He sums up his basic argument this way: “If Iran goes nuclear, Israel and Iran will deter each other, as nuclear powers always have.  There has never been a full-scale war between two nuclear-armed states.  Once Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, deterrence will apply, even if the Iranian arsenal is relatively small.”


    In essence, Waltz puts his faith in nuclear deterrence and justifies this in historical terms.  But the history is short and there have been many close calls.  During the 67-year period since the dawn of the Nuclear Age there have been numerous accidents, miscalculations and threats to use nuclear weapons.  Fifty years ago, the US and Soviet Union stood at the precipice of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Waltz’s faith in nuclear deterrence reflects a belief in rationality, a belief that all leaders will behave rationally at all times, including under conditions of extreme stress.  This defies our understanding of human behavior and the ever-present potential for human fallibility. 


    Another way to view the historical data from which Waltz finds comfort is by an analogy of a man jumping off a hundred-story building.  As he passes floor after floor, he wonders why people on the ground are showing concern for his well-being.  He ignores the approaching ground and focuses his attention on the fact that nothing bad has happened to him yet.  In Waltz’s theory of nuclear deterrence, there is no hard ground below, nor gravity acting upon the jumper.  He argues that “history has shown that where nuclear capabilities emerge, so, too, does stability.  When it comes to nuclear weapons, now as ever, more may be better.”  While having more may be better, it may also be far worse. 


    Martin Hellman, a professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Stanford University and an expert in risk analysis, argues that a child born today has a ten percent or greater chance of having his or her life cut short by nuclear war.  Unlike Waltz’s analysis, risk analysis takes into account the odds of an event occurring and doesn’t base its analysis of the future simply on what the historical record shows at a given point in time.  Ten coin flips may produce ten straight “heads,” but it would be unwise to assume that the results between heads and tails would not even out over time.  With nuclear weapons, the consequences of being wrong in one’s projections are, of course, far more dire than with coin tosses.


    Another analogy that has been used to describe the standoff between nuclear-armed powers, particularly the US and Soviet Union during the Cold War, was of two men standing up to their waists in the same pool of gasoline and each man being ready to strike an unlit match.  If either man struck the match, both men would be consumed by the fire that would result.  With nuclear weapons, the conflagration would not stop at the two men – it would include their families, their communities, their countries and the world. 


    Waltz makes the bet that no leader of a nuclear weapon state will ever strike the match or allow the match to fall into hands that will strike it.  It is a foolish bet to make.  The two men, and the rest of us, would be far safer if the gasoline were drained from the pool.  In the same way, the world would be much safer if nuclear weapons were abolished, rather than shared in the hope they would enhance security in the Middle East or elsewhere.


    Waltz may believe that it is precisely the threat of conflagration that keeps the men from striking the matches.  For many, even most, men he may be correct, but the fact is that neither Waltz nor anyone else can predict human behavior under all conditions.  There may be some leaders in some circumstances for whom striking the match would seem rational.  In addition, even if neither man were to strike a match, lightning may strike the pool of gasoline or other sparks may ignite the pool from unforeseen causes.  Instances of accidents, madness and human fallibility abound.


    Nuclear weapons have brought humankind to the precipice.  These weapons threaten cities, countries, civilization and complex life on the planet.  It is the responsibility of those of us alive on the planet now to abolish these weapons of mass annihilation, not justify their spread, as Waltz would have us do.

  • Kenneth Waltz is not Crazy, but he is Dangerous: Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East

    Richard FalkIt seems surprising that the ultra-establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, would go to the extreme of publishing a lead article by the noted political scientist, Kenneth Waltz, with the title “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb” in its current issue. It is more the reasoning of the article than the eye-catching title that flies in the face of the anti-proliferation ethos that has been the consensus lynchpin of nuclear weapons states, and especially the United States. At the same time, Waltz takes pain to avoid disavowing his mainstream political identity. He echoes without pausing to reflect upon the evidence undergirding the rather wobbly escalating assumption that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons at this time. Waltz does acknowledge that Iran might be only trying to have a ‘breakout’ capability of the sort long possessed by Japan and several other countries, that is, the technological capacity if facing a national emergency to assemble a few bombs in a matter of months. Nowhere does Waltz allude to the recently publicized agreement among the 14 American intelligence agencies that there is no evidence that Iran has decided to resume its military program that had been reportedly abandoned in 2003. In other ways, as well, Waltz signals his general support for the American approach to Israeli security other than in relation to nuclear weapons, and so, it should be clear, Waltz is not a political dissenter, a policy radical, nor even a critic of Israel’s role in the region.


    Waltz’s Three Options


    Waltz insists that aside from the breakout option, there are two other plausible scenarios worth considering: sanctions and coercive diplomacy to induce Iran “to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons,” which he deems unlikely to overcome a genuine appetite for the bomb, or Iran defies the pressures and acquires nuclear weapons, which he regards as the most desirable of the three options. It seems reasonable to wonder ‘why.’ In essence, Waltz is arguing that experience and logic demonstrate that the relations among states become more stable, less war-prone, when a balance is maintained, and that there is no reason to think that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons it would not behave in accordance with the deterrence regime that has discouraged all uses of nuclear weapons ever since 1945, and especially during the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. In this regard, Waltz is expressing what I regard to be a wildly exaggerated faith in the rationality and prudence of leaders who make decisions on matters of war and peace.


    He does make a contextual argument that I mostly agree with, namely, that Israel alone possessing a regional nuclear monopoly is more dangerous and undesirable than Iran becoming a second nuclear weapons state in the region. In effect, a regional nuclear monopolist is worse than a regional system of balance that incorporates deterrence logic. For Israel to be deterred would contribute to peace and security in the region, and this seems likely to reduce somewhat, although at a level of risk far short of zero, the prospect of any use of nuclear weapons and other forms of aggression in the Middle East. But to say that A (Iran gets the bomb) is better than B (breakout capability but no bomb) and C (sanctions and coercive diplomacy induce Iran to forego bomb) is to forget about D, which is far better than A, B, and C in relation to sustainable stability, but also because it represents an implicit acknowledgement that the very idea of basing security upon the threat to annihilate hundreds of thousand, if not more, innocent persons is a moral abomination that has already implicated the nuclear weapons states in a security policy, which if ever tested by threat and use, would be genocidal, if not omnicidal, and certainly criminal. This anti-nuclear posture was substantially endorsed by a majority of judges in a groundbreaking Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on 8 July 1996, although these strong findings as to international law were, not surprisingly, cast aside and ignored by the nuclear weapons states, most defiantly by the United States.


    The Case for Option D


    What then is Option D? Option D would involve the negotiation and implementation of a nuclear weapons free zone throughout the Middle East (MENFZ), reinforced by non-aggression commitments, normalization of economic and political relations, and ideally accompanied by genuine progress toward a just and sustainable Palestine/Israel peace accord. Significantly, Waltz does not even pause to consider it as in all likelihood he regards such an approach as completely inconsistent with the hard power realities of global diplomacy, making it foolish and irrelevant to take the possibility of a MENFZ seriously. Needless to say, D is also not in the Netanyahu playbook, and quite likely no future Israeli leader will be prepared to give up the nuclear weapons arsenal that Israel has been consistently acquiring and developing over the last four decades. And it seems fair to conjecture that anyone who proposes a MENFZ would be at odds with the realist camp in international relations, and such a piece would almost certainly be rejected by the editors of Foreign Affairs, among the most ardent guardians of the realist status quo.


    Waltz’s preference for A, favoring an Iranian bomb, is an extension of his long-standing belief that proliferation as actually desirable based on a view of global security that depends on sustaining power balances. In my judgment this carries confidence in the logic of deterrence (that is, the rationality of not using the bomb because of a fear of nuclear retaliation) to absurd degrees that go well beyond even the extreme rationality relied upon by the most influential war thinkers during the Cold War era. In this sense, Waltz is correct to equate the Middle East with the rest of the world, and not engage in the widespread practice of ethno-religious profiling: that is, Israel’s bomb is okay because it is a rational and ‘Western,’ while Iran’s bomb would be a world order disaster as it is irrational and governed by Islamic zealots that have declared their implacable hostility to Israel. If such distinctions are to be made, which is doubtful, it should be appreciated that Israel is the antagonist that has been threatening war and pushing for coercive diplomacy, while it is Iran that has so far peacefully tolerated a variety of severe provocations, acts of war, such as the assassination of several of its nuclear scientists, the infecting of its enrichment centrifuges with the Stuxnet virus, and verified violent covert acts designed to destabilize the Tehran regime. Had such incidents been reversed, it is more than 100% likely that Israel would have immediately gone to war against Iran, quite likely setting the entire region on fire.


    Objections to Option A


    My basic objection to the Waltz position is a disagreement with two of his guiding assumptions: first, with respect to the region, that other countries would not follow Iran across the nuclear threshold, an assessment he bases largely on their failure to acquire nuclear weapons in response to Israel’s acquisition of the capability. Surely Saudi Arabia and Turkey would not, for reasons of international status and perceived security, want to be non-nuclear states in a neighborhood in which both Israel and Iran had the bomb. Such an expansion of the regional nuclear club would become more prone to accident, miscalculation, and the sort of social and political pathology that makes nuclear weaponry generally unfit for human use in a conflict, whatever the region or occasion. In this respect, the more governments possess the bomb, the more likely it becomes that one of those horrible scenarios about a nuclear war will become history.


    And secondly, Waltz does not single out nuclear weapons for condemnation on either ethical or prudential grounds. In fact, he seems to hold the view that we can be thankful for the bomb as otherwise the Cold War would likely have resulted in a catastrophic World War III. In my view to have sought the bomb and then used it against the helpless Japanese at the end of World War II was certainly one of the worst instances of Promethean excess in human history, angering not only the gods but exhibiting a scary species death wish. Leaders have acknowledged this moral truth from time to time, most recently by Barack Obama in his 2009 Prague speech calling for a world without nuclear weapons, but politicians, including Obama, seem unable and unwilling to take the heat that following through would certainly entail. In the end, anti-nuclearism for leaders seems mainly an exercise in rhetoric, apparently persuasive in Norway where the Nobel Prize committee annually ponders the credentials of candidates, but without any behavioral consequences relating to the weaponry itself.  To be sure nuclear policies are challenged from time to time by a surge of anti-nuclear populism. In this regard, to favor the acquisition of the bomb by any government or political organization is to embrace the nuclearist fallacy relating to security and the absurd hubris of presupposing an impeccable rationality over long stretches of time, which has never been the case in human affairs.


    The secrecy surrounding policy bearing on nuclear weapons, especially the occasions of their possible use, also injects an absolutist virus into the vital organs of a democratic body politic. There is no participation by the people or even their representatives in relation to this most ultimate of political decisions, vesting in a single person, and perhaps including his most intimate advisors, a demonic capability to unleash such a catastrophic capability. We now know that even beyond the devastation and radiation, the smoke released by the use of as few as 50 nuclear bombs would generate so much smoke as to block sunlight from the earth for as long as a decade, dooming much of the agriculture throughout the world, a dynamic that has been called ‘a nuclear famine.’ As disturbing as such a possibility should be to those responsible for the security of society, there is little evidence that such a realization of the secondary effects of nuclear explosions is even present in political consciousness. And certainly the citizenry is largely ignorant of such a dark eventuality bound up with the retention of nuclear weapons.


    It is for these reasons that I would call Kenneth Waltz dangerous, not crazy. Indeed, it is his extreme kind of instrumental rationality that is dominant in many influential venues, and helps explain the development, possession, and apparent readiness to use nuclear weapons under certain conditions despite the risks and the immorality of the undertaking. If human society is ever to be again relatively safe, secure, and morally coherent, a first step is to renounce nuclear weapons unconditionally and proceed with urgency by way of an agreed, phased, monitored, and verified international agreement to ensure their elimination from the face of the earth. It is not only that deterrence depends on perfect rationality over time and across space, it is also that the doctrine and practices of deterrence amounts to a continuing crime against humanity of unprecedented magnitude and clarity!   

  • Third P5 Conference: Implementing the NPT

    Following is the text of a joint statement issued by China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States of America at the conclusion of the Third P5 Conference: Implementing the NPT June 27-29, 2012 in Washington, DC.

    Begin text:

    The five Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) nuclear-weapon states, or P5, met in Washington on June 27-29, 2012, in the wake of the 2009 London and 2011 Paris P5 conferences to review progress towards fulfilling the commitments made at the 2010 NPT Review Conference, and to continue discussions on issues related to all three pillars of the NPT nonproliferation, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and disarmament, including confidence-building, transparency, and verification experiences.

    The P5 reaffirmed their commitment to the shared goal of nuclear disarmament and emphasized the importance of working together in implementing the 2010 NPT Review Conference Action Plan. The P5 reviewed significant developments in the context of the NPT since the 2011 Paris P5 Conference. In particular, the P5 reviewed the outcome of the 2012 Preparatory Committee for the 2015 NPT Review Conference, continued their discussion of how to report on their relevant activities, and shared views, across all three pillars of the NPT, on objectives for the 2013 Preparatory Committee and the intersessional period. The 2012 PrepCom outcome included issuance of a P5 statement comprehensively addressing issues in all three pillars (NPT/CONF.2015/PC.I/12).

    The P5 continued their previous discussions on the issues of transparency, mutual confidence, and verification, and considered proposals for a standard reporting form. The P5 recognize the importance of establishing a firm foundation for mutual confidence and further disarmament efforts, and the P5 will continue their discussions in multiple ways within the P5, with a view to reporting to the 2014 PrepCom, consistent with their commitments under Actions 5, 20, and 21 of the 2010 RevCon final document.

    Participants received a briefing from the United States on U.S. activities at the Nevada National Security Site. This was offered with a view to demonstrate ideas for additional approaches to transparency.

    Another unilateral measure was a tour of the U.S. Nuclear Risk Reduction Center located at the U.S. Department of State, where the P5 representatives have observed how the United States maintains a communications center to simultaneously implement notification regimes, including under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCOC), and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Vienna Document.

    The P5 agreed on the work plan for a P5 working group led by China, assigned to develop a glossary of definitions for key nuclear terms that will increase P5 mutual understanding and facilitate further P5 discussions on nuclear matters.

    The P5 again shared information on their respective bilateral and multilateral experiences in verification, including information on the P5 expert level meeting hosted by the UK in April, at which the UK shared the outcomes and lessons from the UK-Norway Initiative disarmament verification research project. The P5 heard presentations on lessons learned from New START Treaty implementation, were given an overview of U.S.-UK verification work, and agreed to consider attending a follow-up P5 briefing on this work to be hosted by the United States.

    As a further follow-up to the 2010 NPT Review Conference, the P5 shared their views on how to discourage abuse of the NPT withdrawal provision (Article X), and how to respond to notifications made consistent with the provisions of that article. The discussion included modalities under which NPT States Party could respond collectively and individually to a notification of withdrawal, including through arrangements regarding the disposition of equipment and materials acquired or derived under safeguards during NPT membership. The P5 agreed that states remain responsible under international law for violations of the Treaty committed prior to withdrawal.

    The P5 underlined the fundamental importance of an effective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards system in preventing nuclear proliferation and facilitating cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The P5 discussed concrete proposals for strengthening IAEA safeguards, including through promoting the universal adoption of the Additional Protocol; and the reinforcement of the IAEAs resources and capabilities for effective safeguards implementation, including verification of declarations by States.

    The P5 reiterated their commitment to promote and ensure the swift entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and its universalization. The P5 reviewed progress in developing the CTBTs verification regime in all its aspects and efforts towards entry into force. Ways to enhance the momentum for completing the verification regime, including the on-site inspection component, were explored. The P5 called upon all States to uphold their national moratoria on nuclear weapons-test explosions or any other nuclear explosion, and to refrain from acts that would defeat the object and purpose of the Treaty pending its entry into force. The moratoria, though important, are not substitutes for legally binding obligations under the CTBT.

    The P5 discussed ways to advance a mutual goal of achieving a legally binding, verifiable international ban on the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons. The P5 reiterated their support for the immediate start of negotiations on a treaty encompassing such a ban in the Conference on Disarmament (CD), building on CD/1864, and exchanged perspectives on ways to break the current impasse in the CD, including by continuing their efforts with other relevant partners to promote such negotiations within the CD.

    The P5 remain concerned about serious challenges to the non-proliferation regime and in this connection, recalled their joint statement of May 3 at the Preparatory Committee of the NPT.

    An exchange of views on how to support a successful conference in 2012 on a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction was continued.

    The P5 agreed to continue to meet at all appropriate levels on nuclear issues to further promote dialogue and mutual confidence. The P5 will follow on their discussions and hold a fourth P5 conference in the context of the next NPT Preparatory Committee.

  • The Hunger Games vs. the Reality of War

    This article was re-printed in the following academic journal:

    Chappell, Paul K. (2015). “The Hunger Games Distorts The Reality of War.” In Violence in Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games Trilogy edited by Gary Wiener. Greenhaven Press (Gale/Cengage Learning): pp. 110-117.

    _________________________________________

    Captain Paul K. Chappell, U.S. Army (ret.)This article is also available to download as a PDF here.

    In this essay exploring the reality of war, West Point graduate and Iraq War veteran Paul K. Chappell (author of Will War Ever End?, The End of War, and Peaceful Revolution) critiques the unrealistic depictions of war, violence, and trauma in the best-selling book The Hunger Games.

    Author’s Note: I wrote this because the first book in The Hunger Games series has become required reading in many schools. When students are required to read a book for a class they have a reasonable expectation of being educated, but The Hunger Games portrays serious subjects such as war, violence, and trauma in very unrealistic ways. I hope the following will encourage critical thinking, promote discussion, and help people better understand war.  I dedicate this to the veterans whose psychological wounds are misunderstood because of unrealistic media depictions of war, violence, and trauma.

    DEBUNKING THE MYTHS OF WAR

    Imagine yourself sitting in a doctor’s office. Looking at you remorsefully, the doctor says you have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and there is only a four percent chance you will be alive in two weeks. Even worse, he informs you that your death will be incredibly painful. The illness kills most people by violently rupturing one or more of their internal organs, causing them to bleed to death. As if the situation could not get any worse, he then says you must be quarantined in a government laboratory. You will be prevented from communicating with your friends and family members in any way as you lie on your deathbed. You will be forced to face death alone.

    How do you think most people would react upon hearing this grim news? And how do you think most people would feel while lying on their deathbed alone, afraid, and on the verge of suffering an extremely painful death? Could you imagine some people having panic attacks, nervous breakdowns, and other severe psychological issues?

    The Hunger GamesThe scenario I just described is very similar to the situation twenty-four children must face in the science fiction series The Hunger Games written by Suzanne Collins. In the first book (and film) of the series, twenty-four children from the ages of twelve to eighteen are chosen to compete in a fight to the death called “the hunger games,” where they must kill each other with bows and arrows, swords, knives, and other close-range weapons until one person is left standing. Most of the children are selected at random through a kind of lottery, while a few volunteer. Like the terminal illness scenario, each child has only a four percent chance of surviving (1), dying will be extremely painful, and they will be forbidden from seeing their friends and family members while facing death.

    If twenty-four children from the ages of twelve to eighteen were told they had a terminal illness – giving them a ninety-six percent chance of dying an extremely painful death in the next two weeks – and then prevented from seeing their friends and family members, do you think many of the children would suffer from panic attacks, nervous breakdowns, and other severe psychological issues? If so, isn’t it odd that not a single child in the first book of The Hunger Games series has a mental meltdown when their situation is in fact worse (for reasons I will explain later) than the terminal illness scenario?

    There is a common myth in our society that human beings are naturally violent. In my books I write about the abundant evidence that refutes this myth, and although I cannot offer all the evidence in this short essay, I will share a few examples later on. As a result of this myth, many believe if you simply tell people to kill each other, their natural violent urges will take over and they will massacre each other rather easily. We can see this myth in The Hunger Games, because most of the twenty-four children are given only three days of combat training (a few have been training throughout their lives, which I will discuss later), yet despite this extremely minimal training the children are able to function well in a situation that requires them to kill or be killed. But is a three-day session of combat training enough to prepare people for the trauma of war? During World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, American soldiers who were not children but grown men were given months of combat training (and in some cases years if they were in the regular army). Yet despite this, more American soldiers were pulled off the front lines due to psychological trauma than were killed during the wars.

    Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman is a former West Point professor and Army Ranger who has written extensively about combat. He also trains military and law enforcement personnel throughout the country. Grossman’s in-depth research shows that the human mind, rather than the body, is actually the weakest link in war, because in combat our mind is more vulnerable to collapse than our body. Explaining how this can affect soldiers in war, Grossman tells us: “Richard Gabriel, in his excellent book, No More Heroes, tells us that in the great battles of World War I, World War II and Korea, there were more men pulled off the front lines because of psychiatric wounds than were killed in combat. There was a study written on this phenomenon in World War II entitled, ‘Lost Divisions,’ which concluded that American forces lost 504,000 men from psychiatric collapse. A number sufficient to man 50 combat divisions! … Very few people know about this. While everyone knows about the valiant dead, most people, even professional warriors, do not know about the greater number of individuals who were quietly taken out of the front lines because they were psychiatric casualties. This is another aspect of combat that has been hidden from us, and it is something we must understand.” (2)

     

    Lieutenant Colonel Elspeth Ritchie, an army psychiatrist who is the director of the Army Surgeon General’s office for behavioral health, tells us: “In the first months of the Korean conflict, from June to September 1950, both the physical and psychological travails were overwhelming. Many of the soldiers were initially pulled from easy occupation duty in Japan, with inadequate uniforms (including winter clothes), arms, or training. The rate of psychological casualties was extraordinarily high, 250 per thousand per year.” (3)

    Steve Bentley, Chairman of the Vietnam Veterans of America PTSD and Substance Abuse Committee, describes some of the ways war trauma can affect people’s behavior: “During the siege of Gibraltar in 1727, a soldier who was part of the defense of the city kept a diary. In it, there is mention of incidents in which soldiers killed or wounded themselves. He also describes a state of extreme physical fatigue which had caused soldiers to lose their ability to understand or process even the simplest instructions. In this state, the soldiers would refuse to eat, drink, work, or fight in defense of the city, even though they would be repeatedly whipped for not doing so.” (4)

    All people in combat are vulnerable to psychological collapse, especially if the combat is intense and extended over a long period of time. Roy Swank and Walter Marchand, who both served as medical doctors in the military during World War II, conducted a study during the war that concluded ninety-eight percent of soldiers became psychological casualties after sixty days of sustained day and night combat. According to their study on combat trauma, the two percent who were not driven insane by war seem to have already been insane. Swank and Marchand said, “All normal men eventually suffer combat exhaustion [also known as “post traumatic stress disorder”] in prolonged continuous and severe combat. The exception to this rule are psychotic soldiers, and a number of examples of this have been observed.” (5)

    Of course, the children in The Hunger Games are not being subjected to sixty days and longer of continuous combat, so one might assume they would be less likely to suffer from psychological collapse. But there are many reasons why they would be far more vulnerable to having a mental breakdown than soldiers experiencing prolonged combat in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. There are three protective methods that can fortify the minds of soldiers in combat, making them less likely to suffer from a mental breakdown. But the children in The Hunger Games do not have any of these protective methods to guard their minds against the enormous psychological stress of war.

    THE THREE PROTECTIVE METHODS

    The first protective method that can fortify the minds of soldiers in combat is having reliable comrades. Although soldiers sent to war are taken away from their families, effective military units compensate for this by transforming their soldiers into a tightly bonded family unit. Jonathan Shay, the 2009 Omar Bradley Chair of Strategic Leadership at the U.S. Army War College and a MacArthur Fellow, is a clinical psychiatrist who has dedicated his life to helping traumatized veterans. The author of Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America, from 1999 to 2000 he also performed the Commandant of the Marine Corps Trust Study. In it he says: “Of all groups in America today, military people have the greatest right to, and will benefit most, if they reclaim the word ‘love’ as a part of what they are and what they do… Bluntly put: The result of creating well-trained, well-led, cohesive units is – love. These Marines are ‘tight.’ They regard each other – as explained in Aristotle’s discussion of philía, love – as ‘another myself’ … The importance of mutual love in military units is no sentimental claptrap – it goes to the heart of the indispensible military virtue, courage… As von Clausewitz pointed out almost two centuries ago, fear is the main viscous medium that the Marine must struggle through… the urge to protect comrades directly reduces psychological and physiological fear, which frees the Marine’s cognitive and motivational resources to perform military tasks… The fictional Spartan NCO [non-commissioned officer] named Dienikes, in the acclaimed novel Gates of Fire, puts it very compactly: ‘The opposite of fear… is love.’” (6)

    When you can trust your comrades with your life, the benefits are enormous. Not only do you feel more secure when someone is protecting your back, but the urge to protect comrades can make you less concerned about your personal safety. To better understand this, imagine if a massive vicious dog were running toward you. You would probably have a strong urge to get away as fast as you can by running, climbing a tree, or retreating to a safe place. Now imagine if a massive vicious dog were running toward someone you cared deeply about such as your child, sibling, parent, or close friend. You would probably have a strong urge to run as fast as you can toward the dog and your loved one, disregarding your personal safety to protect the person you care about. As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said in the sixth century BC, “By being loving, we are capable of being brave.” (7) And as the Greek philosopher Onasander said in the first century AD, soldiers fight best when “brother is in rank beside brother, friend beside friend…” (8)

    When soldiers love each other as friends, brothers, and comrades, they often behave courageously. This can be seen when Epaminondas – a Greek soldier from Thebes – fought with the Spartans against the Arcadians. Epaminondas later became a powerful Theban politician and general who defeated the Spartans in two decisive battles after they tried to invade Thebes. The historian Plutarch describes how Epaminondas, as a young soldier fighting with the Spartans, risked his life to save his wounded friend Pelopidas: “Pelopidas, after receiving seven wounds in front, sank down upon a great heap of friends and enemies who lay dead together; but Epaminondas, although he thought him lifeless, stood forth to defend his body… and fought desperately, single-handed against many, determined to die rather than leave Pelopidas lying there. And now he too was in a sorry plight, having been wounded in the breast with a spear and in the arm with a sword, when Agesipolis the Spartan king came to his aid from the other wing, and when all hope was lost, saved them both.” (9)

    Contrary to popular myths, the gladiators in Rome often fought in teams rather than alone (because people fight more courageously with a comrade by their side), and usually did not fight to the death. According to scientist Karl Kruszelnicki, “The [gladiator] bouts were definitely not undisciplined free-for-alls. The gladiators were carefully matched in pairs… taking into account the attack and defense weapons they carried, and the strength and skill of each individual… Like modern Western boxers who observe the Marquis of Queensbury rules, gladiators had their own very brutal and very strict rules, which two referees would enforce… Gladiator bouts were more like a sophisticated entertainment version of martial arts. They were closer to modern, choreographed TV wrestling, than wild melees… There are many references to the gladiators being trained to subdue, not kill, their opponent. The bout had to end in a decisive outcome, but defeat through death was rare. More likely was defeat through injuries or exhaustion.” (10)

    The gravestone of the famous gladiator Flamma (which means “Flame” in Latin) states he had twenty-five victories, nine draws, and four losses. (11) With such a high number of draws and losses, it is obvious the gladiators often did not fight to the death. In The Hunger Games the children have a ninety-six percent chance of being killed, but historical records indicate the gladiators in Rome had a much lower chance of being killed in combat. Stephen Dyson, the former president of the Archaeological Institute of America, explains, “Since gladiators were fairly expensive to maintain and train, economically it doesn’t make much sense for them to have been killed off intentionally on a regular basis.” (12) Nevertheless, fighting in the arena was still dangerous and some gladiators chose to commit suicide instead. Historian Stephen Wisdom tells us, “One Germanic gladiator choked himself to death by ramming the ancient sponge equivalent of toilet paper down his throat. Symmachus, a wealthy pagan politician eager to win votes by [hosting] a games, mentions the 29 Frankish prisoners he purchased, who strangled each other rather than fight in the arena. The last remaining fighter smashed his head against the wall until he died.” (13)

    Unlike many soldiers in war and gladiators fighting in the arena, the children in The Hunger Games do not have reliable comrades they can trust with their lives, making them far more vulnerable to panic and psychological collapse. Near the end of the competition a new rule is passed that allows children from the same district to fight and win as a team, but since most of the children are dead at that point only four are able to take advantage of the opportunity. Some of the children in The Hunger Games form temporary alliances with each other, but since there can be only one survivor, the children realize they must eventually kill their comrades or be killed by them. There is no real trust between them, and military history shows that when soldiers cannot trust their comrades, it actually increases rather than decreases their psychological stress. It’s bad enough having to worry about being killed by the enemy in front of you, but having to also worry about your comrades standing to your left and right killing you can push your mind to the breaking point.

    The second protective method that can fortify the minds of soldiers in combat is having reliable leaders. If you were sent to war, but felt that your military commanders cared more about your safety than their own and would even risk their lives to protect yours, wouldn’t that make you feel more secure? And if your military commanders were brilliant strategists and tacticians who had the skills to keep you alive, this would further reduce psychological stress and the urge to panic.

    The children in The Hunger Games know they only have a four percent chance of surviving since only one out of the twenty-four will be alive at the end. But effective military commanders can convince the soldiers fighting for them that their chances of surviving are very high. In ancient warfare the purpose of a battle was to force the other side to retreat, and the majority of casualties were inflicted when the soldiers on one side turned their backs to flee and were run down by the pursuing army. As long as you did not lose a decisive battle, most of your soldiers would survive in combat.

    Hannibal, a North African commander of a mercenary army, spent fifteen years in Italy terrorizing the Roman Republic during the fourth century BC, but he lost less than fifteen percent of his soldiers in combat while in Italy because he never lost a decisive battle. And Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire while losing less than ten percent of his soldiers in combat because during his early military campaigns he also did not lose a decisive battle. Furthermore, Alexander and Hannibal inspired their soldiers by fighting at the most dangerous point on the battlefield. Alexander was wounded eight times in combat, and the Roman historian Livy tells us that Hannibal was “the first to enter battle [and] the last to leave once battle was joined.” (14) The children in The Hunger Games do not have reliable leaders to inspire, protect, and guide them, making the children far more vulnerable to panic and psychological collapse.

    The third protective method that can fortify the minds of soldiers in combat is having reliable and realistic training. This kind of training relies heavily on repetition, such as shooting a target shaped like a human being over and over again. This not only helps people overcome their aversion to killing another human being by desensitizing them, it also enables them to develop new “automatic reflexes” such as quickly aiming a rifle and pulling the trigger the moment anything shaped like a human appears in the distance. For training to be reliable and realistic, it also has to be challenging and cover a variety of potential scenarios. Most of the children in The Hunger Games are given only three days of combat training, but a person cannot get reliable and realistic training in three days. Around six of the twenty-four children in The Hunger Games have been training for most of their lives, but their training pales in comparison to the Spartans, who were among the most highly trained soldiers in human history.

    Spartan boys left home at age seven to begin military training, and they served in the military from ages twenty to sixty. (15) An average thirty-year-old Spartan soldier had more than a decade of combat training and military experience over the most experienced child in The Hunger Games. Despite their extreme training, however, even the Spartans sometimes panicked in combat. In The Hunger Games some of the children make a calculated decision to retreat into the woods and hide as part of their strategy, and in the film one child screams and seems to freeze in fear before being killed. But unlike the children in The Hunger Games – who always seem to be in complete control of their mental faculties in combat (16) – the Spartans retreated on numerous occasions (even when they outnumbered their opponents) due to uncontrollable terror.

    During the Battle of Thermopylae when three hundred Spartans and their allies defended a narrow pass against an invading Persian army, the Spartans did not retreat and died to the last man. But this is extremely rare and one reason why the Battle of Thermopylae is so greatly admired and celebrated around the world. Less than one percent of battles in history ended with the losing side dying to the last man. Usually the battle ended when one side panicked and retreated. At the height of their military power, the Spartans retreated in three battles against Thebes – a rival Greek city-state. In the Battle of Tegyra in 375 BC, the Greek historian Plutarch tells us that a Spartan army numbering between 1000 and 1800 soldiers attacked a small Theban army of only three hundred. (17) Although the Spartan army greatly outnumbered the Thebans, the Theban soldiers made the Spartans panic and retreat.

    A friend once asked me, “But how were ancient armies able to make their opponents panic?” I replied, “Well… they made their opponents panic by trying to kill them. When you try to stab people to death it tends to freak them out.” The greatest problem of every army in history has been this: when a battle begins, how do you stop soldiers from running away? Where our fight-or-flight response is concerned, the vast majority of people prefer to run when a sword is wielded against them, a spear is thrust in their direction, a bullet flies over their head, or a bomb explodes in their vicinity. People often compare chess to war, but there is a major difference. Imagine playing chess and seeing your pieces run off the board. Imagine your pawns moving backwards and your knights being so filled with fear they refuse to do what you tell them. Then chess would more accurately reflect the reality of war.

    Many mythological stories are metaphorical interpretations of reality, and the reality of war is reflected in the story of Ares – the Greek god of war. According to Greek mythology, Ares was a destroyer of cities who went into battle with his brutal sons Deimos and Phobos standing beside him. (18) Deimos was the god of fear. Phobos was the god of panic and retreat. Deimos and Phobos were ruthless twins who could break the strongest battle formations by causing the bravest soldiers to panic and flee in fear. In the Iliad, Homer says, “Murderous Ares, his good son Panic [Phobos] stalking beside him, tough, fearless, striking terror in even the combat-hardened veteran…  they turn deaf ears to the prayers of both sides at once, handing glory to either side they choose.” (19)

    Ares and his twin sons are metaphors for the reality of war, and the Greek poet Hesiod described these metaphors in vivid detail. According to Hesiod, one of the images engraved on the mythical shield of Hercules was Deimos, the god of fear, who had “eyes that glowed with fire. His mouth was full of teeth in a white row, fearful and daunting…” (20) Other images engraved on the shield of Hercules included “deadly Ares [who] held a spear in his hands and was urging on the footmen: he was red with blood as if he were slaying living men, and he stood in his chariot. Beside him stood [Deimos] and [Phobos], eager to plunge amidst the fighting men…” (21) The ancient Greeks knew that fear and panic are inseparable features of war, just as Deimos (Fear) and Phobos (Panic) are inseparable sons of Ares. Even modern astronomy acknowledges the inseparable link between war, fear, and panic. The god of war Ares played a major role in Roman mythology, but the Romans called him Mars. The planet Mars has two moons, which the American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered in 1877. Following the advice of scientist Henry Madan, he named the moons Deimos and Phobos.

    As mere mortals, not even the Spartans were immune to the power of Deimos and Phobos, succumbing numerous times to the fear and panic these mythological gods represented. After making the Spartans retreat during the Battle of Tegyra, the Thebans also made the Spartans retreat during the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, even though the Spartan army again outnumbered the Thebans. And the Spartans retreated yet again during the Battle of Mantinea in 362 BC, when the Theban politician and general Epaminondas, who was now fifty-six years old, charged the Spartan army with a small group of his best soldiers. The Greek historian Diodorus described what happened: “After the battle had continued long, and none were able to judge who would be the conquerors, Epaminondas … resolved to decide the matter, with the hazard of his own life. To that end taking a choice band of the most able men he had with him, and, drawing them up in close order, he forthwith charged at the head of them, and was the first that cast his javelin, and killed the [Spartan] general, and then broke into the midst of his enemies… The fame of Epaminondas, and the strength of [the soldiers] he then had with him, struck such a terror into the [Spartans], that they turned their backs, and began to make way.” (22)

    What happened next reveals how ferociously people will fight to protect a wounded comrade. As Epaminondas and his soldiers pursued the retreating Spartans, he was seriously wounded when a javelin struck him in the chest. The Spartans tried to capture him, but the Theban soldiers fought furiously to protect him, again forcing the Spartans to retreat. The Thebans pulled Epaminondas to safety, and he died from his chest wound soon after the battle ended. When Epaminondas and his soldiers defeated the Spartans, they demonstrated the power of having reliable comrades willing to die for each other, reliable leaders willing to sacrifice for their subordinates, and reliable and realistic training. Military history shows that sane soldiers are never completely immune to fear, panic, or the mental breakdowns that can result from combat, but the more we can trust our comrades, leaders, and training, the less likely we are to suffer the wrath of Deimos and Phobos.

    It might seem unrealistic for a fifty-six-year-old man such as Epaminondas to fight on the front lines in war, or for the Spartan soldiers to serve in the military until age sixty, but it is far more realistic than twelve and thirteen-year-old children fighting with bladed weapons in The Hunger Games. Tragically, child soldiers have become common during the age of rifles and machine guns, but ancient armies did not use child soldiers because it would have been completely impractical. Children do not have the upper body strength necessary to effectively wield a sword and shield, let alone carry heavy armor. A man in his fifties if he was well trained and in good shape could wield a bladed weapon with the strength necessary to kill an armored opponent. Lack of upper body strength is also a reason women were not recruited to fight in ancient armies, unlike today, when a woman can use a seven-pound rifle to kill a much larger and stronger man. I met countless women in the army who possess a strong warrior spirit. And when we look at the many women serving in modern militaries around the world today, we realize that lack of upper body strength, not lack of a strong warrior spirit, was one reason (23) women did not fight in ancient wars.

    Although the children in The Hunger Games do not have to wear heavy armor, in a sword fight a muscular eighteen-year-old boy weighing over two hundred pounds is going to have a significant advantage over a twelve-year-old boy or girl weighing less than ninety pounds. The Hunger Games character Cato, a very athletic older boy who has been training in combat since his early childhood, would also be much faster than the younger children. So the truth is that some of the children would have much less than a four percent chance of surviving, yet despite the near certainty of a violent death none of them are shown having mental breakdowns. Isn’t that odd?

    In addition to the high probability of dying alone away from loved ones, along with their lack of reliable comrades, lack of reliable leadership, and lack of reliable and realistic training, many of the children in The Hunger Games would have had mental breakdowns because of other reasons. One reason is because close-range fighting with bladed weapons is the most terrifying form of combat. Another reason is because the human brain does not fully develop until we are in our twenties, making children more vulnerable to trauma and psychological stress than adults. The average age of an American soldier in World War II was twenty-six, whereas the children chosen to fight to the death in The Hunger Games are from the ages of twelve to eighteen. Psychiatrist Bruce Perry says, “Unfortunately, the prevailing view of children and trauma … that persists to a large degree to this day – is that ‘children are resilient.’ If anything, children are more vulnerable to trauma than adults.” (24) Another reason is because instead of being naturally violent, we actually have a phobia of human aggression and violence when it is up close and personal.

    THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN PHOBIA

    Although a small percentage of people are afraid of snakes, spiders, and heights, around ninety-eight percent will have a phobic-level reaction to human aggression. Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman calls this the universal human phobia. In fact, this is one reason fear of public speaking is so common: we might say something that evokes an audience’s aggression. What if the worst-case scenario happens and the audience shouts at us angrily or laughs cruelly at our expense?

    The word “phobia” derives from Phobos who I mentioned earlier, the Greek god of panic and retreat, who caused men in combat to flee in terror. In Greek mythology Phobos is a metaphor for the universal human phobia; the ancient Greeks knew that nothing fills us with more panic than an aggressive human being trying desperately to hurt us. Fear of human aggression can be even more terrifying than fear of death. For example, every year hundreds of thousands die from the effects of smoking, but every day millions of people smoke without worrying. Every year tens of thousands die in car accidents, but every day millions of people drive casually to work. But a few murders by a serial killer will cause a city to go on alert, striking terror in many of its citizens. One terrorist attack in America created so much fear that our country has never been the same since.

    What makes terrorism so dangerous is not the terrorist act itself, but our reaction to it. If Osama bin Laden had asked us to betray our democratic ideals by sanctioning torture, spying on U.S. citizens, and infringing on our civil liberties, we would never have agreed. But by attacking us on 9/11, many Americans willingly betrayed our democratic ideals because Osama bin Laden ignited the universal human phobia. Why is the universal human phobia so frightening? Why is our reaction to terrorism often more dangerous than the terrorist act?

    Grossman asks us to consider two scenarios. Imagine that a tornado knocks down your house, destroys everything you own, and causes injuries severe enough to put you and your family in the hospital. Next imagine that a gang breaks into your house, beats you and your family so badly that you all end up in the hospital, and then burns down your house. In both cases the result – your house and possessions being destroyed and your family being in the hospital – is the same, but which scenario is more traumatic?

    Is it more traumatic to fall off a bicycle and break your leg, or for a group of attackers to hold you down and break your leg with a baseball bat? In both cases the result – a broken leg – is the same, but which scenario is more traumatic? Obviously, when people hurt us the trauma is much more severe. But why? In his book On Killing Grossman explains: ‘The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R), the bible of psychology, states that in post-traumatic stress disorders ‘the disorder is apparently more severe and longer lasting when the stressor is of human design.’ We want desperately to be liked, loved, and in control of our lives; and intentional, overt, human hostility and aggression—more than anything else in life—assaults our self-image, our sense of control, our sense of the world as a meaningful and comprehensible place, and ultimately, our mental and physical health. The ultimate fear and horror in most modern lives is to be raped or beaten, to be physically degraded in front of our loved ones, to have our family harmed and the sanctity of our homes invaded by aggressive and hateful intruders. Death and debilitation by disease or accident are statistically far more likely to occur than death and debilitation by malicious action, but the statistics do not calm our basically irrational fears… In rape the psychological harm usually far exceeds the physical injury… far more damaging is the impotence, shock, and horror in being so hated and despised as to be debased and abused by a fellow human being.” (25)

    If human beings are naturally violent, why do so many people have a phobia of human aggression? If we are naturally violent, why is war one of the most traumatizing things a human being can experience, and why does war drive so many people insane? If we were naturally violent, wouldn’t people go to war and become more mentally healthy? If we were naturally violent, why did the U.S. Army implement combat rotations after World War II so that soldiers could recuperate psychologically, and why did the military change combat operations and training in an attempt to reduce psychological trauma? Although human beings are not naturally violent, we can certainly become violent through conditioning. In my books I describe the many ways people can be conditioned to be violent, and the situations that compel people to resort to violence. Just as doctors who promote health must study and understand illness, if we want to promote a safer and more peaceful world we must study and understand violence.

    HEROES NEVER WET THEIR PANTS AND OTHER MYTHS

    Seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes had a negative view of human nature, leading many people to believe we are natural killers. Because of Hobbes, many people assume human beings in the “state of nature” were clubbing each other over the head in a violent free-for-all. Hobbes said that early humans were “in that condition which is called War; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man… where every man is Enemy to every man… and the life of man, solitary [emphasis added], poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” (26) But military history shows that when untrained human beings must face lethal combat alone as solitary individuals they usually fall apart mentally. Consequently, Hobbes’ view of human nature is not only negative but unrealistic, because he did not study military history, human psychology, or anthropology (Douglas Fry’s book Beyond War offers thorough anthropological evidence that early humans rarely killed each other).

    In addition to countering the myth that human beings are naturally violent, I am writing about The Hunger Games and contrasting it with the reality of war for several other reasons. One reason is because a seventh-grade teacher told me her students were reading the first book in The Hunger Games series in class and asked me to provide some thoughts that could sharpen their critical thinking skills. Furthermore, The Hunger Games is now being used as required reading in many middle and high school classes around the country. This got my attention, because when students are required to read a book in school they have a reasonable expectation of being educated. If students are reading a book in school that grossly misrepresents very serious issues such as war, violence, and trauma, it is the responsibility not only of teachers but citizens as a whole to provide the students with accurate information, because the fate and survival of our country and planet depend on an educated and informed population.

    But can inaccurate depictions of war, violence, and trauma really cause any harm, or are these misrepresentations mostly harmless? War, violence, and trauma destroy millions of lives, and whenever serious issues that destroy so many lives are depicted in inaccurate ways that neglect their real psychological harm, the results can be damaging. What if serious issues such as racism, sexism, drug addiction, rape, and slavery were depicted in grossly inaccurate ways that neglected their real psychological harm? And what if these misrepresentations were then brought into a classroom where students have a reasonable expectation of being educated?

    A major problem with inaccurately depicting violence is that these misrepresentations tend to glamorize violence, war, and killing. Lieutenant Colonel Grossman tells us: “The American Soldier, the official study of the performance of U.S. troops in World War II, tells of one survey in which a quarter of all U.S. soldiers in World War II admitted that they had lost control of their bladders, and an eighth of them admitted to defecating in their pants. If we look only at the individuals at the ‘tip of the spear’ and factor out those who did not experience intense combat, we can estimate that approximately 50 percent of those who did see intense combat admitted they had wet their pants and nearly 25 percent admitted they had messed themselves. Those are the ones who admitted it, so the actual number is probably higher, though we cannot know by how much. One veteran told me, ‘Hell, Colonel, all that proves is that three out of four were damned liars!’ That is probably unfair and inaccurate, but the reality is that the humiliation and social stigma associated with ‘crapping yourself’ probably results in many individuals being unwilling to admit the truth. ‘I will go see a war movie,’ said one Vietnam veteran, ‘when the main character is shown shitting his pants in the battle scene.’ Have you ever seen a movie that depicted a soldier defecating in his drawers in combat?” (27)

    Think about it. Have you ever seen an action movie where the hero urinates or defecates in his pants? Ever? The first book in The Hunger Games series also heavily distorts the reality of war trauma – commonly referred to as post traumatic stress disorder. Many people think war trauma only takes effect after combat, not realizing that soldiers can collapse mentally during combat. The main character in The Hunger Games goes through therapy in the later books, but children reading the first book are given the unrealistic impression that our minds are virtually immune to trauma during combat. I have not read the other books, and I am focusing only on the first book because it is the one most commonly used in schools. Too often war trauma is either presented in a shallow way (as it is in the first book of The Hunger Games series), or veterans are stereotyped as being “damaged goods.” Both misrepresentations are inaccurate and dangerous. The most common features of serious war trauma are a chronic sense of meaninglessness, losing the will to live, mental breakdowns, an inability to trust that leads to self-destructive behavior, and going berserk. Jonathan Shay calls going berserk “the most important and distinctive element of combat trauma,” (28) and it can cause people to mutilate corpses and commit other atrocities.

    If teachers do not give their students accurate information about war, violence, and trauma, some of the students reading The Hunger Games in school may think, “None of the children in The Hunger Games have mental breakdowns in combat, so I don’t see why soldiers in war have so many problems.” The situation in The Hunger Games is so extreme that at least some of the children would experience serious war trauma and have mental breakdowns during or even prior to the battle. In the Iliad, composed by Homer around three thousand years ago, the highly trained Greek warrior Achilles suffers from serious war trauma during the war. (29) Jonathan Shay explains: “Profound grief and suicidal longing take hold of Achilles; he feels that he is already dead; he is tortured by guilt and the conviction that he should have died rather than his friend; he renounces all desire to return home alive; he goes berserk and commits atrocities against the living and the dead. This is the story of Achilles in the Iliad.” (30)

    It might seem like the children in The Hunger Games do not break down mentally because they still have a miniscule chance of surviving if they take the right actions, and unlike the terminal illness scenario, this gives them some control over their fate. But military history shows that when soldiers have a miniscule chance of surviving they are more likely to lose the will to live and become suicidal. This is why it is so important for military commanders to encourage their soldiers, give them hope, and maintain high morale. Most human beings want to have a reasonable level of control over their lives, and losing almost complete control can cause some people to believe the only control they have left is the decision to take their own lives.

    When soldiers have almost no chance of surviving and are pushed to the breaking point they can also go berserk. This is why Sun Tzu – who wrote The Art of War over two thousand years ago – advised military commanders to never trap their opponents into a corner, but to always give them an escape route because berserking soldiers are extremely dangerous. There is no indication in the first book of The Hunger Games series that any of the characters go berserk, because they always seem to act rationally. Common characteristics of berserker rage are suicidal behavior (because the person going berserk feels invincible), a severe lack of self-control that resembles intoxication, and the mutilation of corpses. The author makes a vague reference to participants in past events eating each other’s hearts, but it is unclear whether this is a reference to berserker rage.

    When books are used in schools they must be held to a higher standard. To Kill a Mockingbird is taught in schools because it provides an accurate commentary on racism, but what if the book instead grossly misrepresented the harm caused by racism and segregation? Violence has become so normalized and glamorized in our society that depictions of violence are rarely assessed for their accuracy, but when the United States is involved in multiple wars overseas and American soldiers are returning home with physical and psychological wounds, we must seriously question what students are being taught about war, violence, and trauma.

    Several people have suggested to me that the first book does in fact teach students about war, violence, and trauma, because the “hunger games veteran” Haymitch – who won the competition when he was younger and serves as a mentor to the main character – is an alcoholic. But if he really has war trauma, why is his alcoholism always portrayed in a comical and harmless way in the first book? Haymitch seems like the stereotypical “alcoholic war veteran,” except that his drunken antics come across as clownish. My father had severe war trauma from the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and his violent rages were truly terrifying. If Haymitch is supposed to represent the effects of war trauma, students who read the book in school are given the impression that war trauma looks funny, rather than frightening.

    People have also suggested to me that Haymitch is less affected by war trauma because he – like most of the other competitors in The Hunger Games – came from poverty. But do the poor value their lives less than the rich? My father, who was half white and half black, grew up under segregation in the South during the Great Depression. Many of the World War II and Korean War veterans also lived in poverty during the Great Depression. And soldiers throughout history did not have the luxuries we enjoy in the twenty-first century, while many were poor. So military history gives us overwhelming evidence that coming from poverty does not make people immune to war trauma.

    Perhaps The Hunger Games is a blessing in disguise, because it can give students an opportunity to think critically and discuss serious issues such as war, violence, and trauma. The Hunger Games also has several noble themes and offers some useful critiques on society. I am not analyzing the writing quality, character development, or any part of the book other than its depiction of violence – one of its central themes. I don’t think Suzanne Collins, the author of The Hunger Games, had any bad intentions or intentionally misrepresented war, violence, and trauma. There are many reasons to believe she tried to make the book as serious and realistic as possible. For example, she describes injuries in gory detail, and she explains physical adversities such as thirst and hunger with impressive thoroughness. But like many people in our society who have been misled by the myths of war, she has emphasized the physical adversity of war but greatly underestimated the psychological adversity. Inaccurate depictions of violence have been around for a long time, but The Hunger Games is unique because it distorts the psychological reality of war, violence, and trauma more than any book I have ever seen used in school.

    For example, The Lord of the Rings trilogy has been around for over fifty years, and although it glosses over many aspects of war, it portrays war and violence far more realistically than The Hunger Games. In The Lord of the Rings, the ability of soldiers to fight courageously is more believable because they have reliable comrades, reliable leaders, and have had military training. Furthermore, killing monsters that don’t look like us is less psychologically stressful than killing our own species, and this is why war propaganda often portrays the enemy as inhuman monsters. And although the hobbits aren’t highly trained in combat, their ability to fight ferociously is believable because they are trying to protect their friends who are in immediate danger. I am certainly not saying The Lord of the Rings portrays war or trauma accurately. Instead, I am saying The Hunger Games is unique, because it is far more unrealistic than The Lord of the Rings and many other violent depictions in the past.

     

    The Hunger Games is also unique because it is being taught in schools during a critical time in history when the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons makes war a threat to human survival. During this critical time in history it has never been more important for people to understand the reality of war.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Paul K. Chappell graduated from West Point in 2002. He served in the army for seven years, was deployed to Baghdad in 2006, and left active duty in November 2009 as a Captain. He is the author of Will War Ever End?, The End of War, Peaceful Revolution, and The Art of Waging Peace (publication date: March 2014). He lives in Santa Barbara, California, where he is serving as the Peace Leadership Director for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and he speaks throughout the country to colleges, high schools, veterans groups, churches, and activist organizations. His website is www.peacefulrevolution.com.

    ENDNOTES

    1. They actually have a 4.16 percent chance of surviving, but I am rounding the number to the nearest whole percentage.

    2. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman with Loren W. Christensen, On Combat (Milstadt, IL: Warrior Science Publications, 2008), 12.

    3. Lt. Col. Elspeth Ritchie, “Psychiatry in the Korean War: Perils, PIES, and Prisoners of War.” Military Medicine. Vol. 167. November 2002, 898.

    4. Steve Bentley, “A Short History of PTSD.” The VVA Veteran, January 1991.

    5. Roy L. Swank and Walter E. Marchand, “Combat Neuroses: Development of Combat Exhaustion.” American Medical Association: Archives of Nuerology and Psychiatry, 1946, 243.

    6. Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps Trust Study – Final Report, Appendix E: Cohesion Essay, 2000.

    7. Lao Tzu, Tao de Ching.

    8. Victor Hansen, The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 209.

    9. Plutarch, Plutarch Lives, trans. Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library, 1917), 351.

    10. Karl Kruszelnicki, “Gladiator Myths”, ABC Science, http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/09/20/2038358.htm

    11. Stephen Wisdom, Gladiators (Oxford U.K., Osprey Publishing, 2001), 47.

    12. Jennifer Viegas, “Gladiator Truths Counter Movie Myths,” Discovery Channel, http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/06/26/gladiator_arc_02.html?category=animals&guid=20070626100030

    13. Stephen Wisdom, Gladiators (Oxford U.K., Osprey Publishing, 2001), 44.

    14. Livy, Hannibal’s War, trans. J.C. Yardley (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 5.

    15. Thomas F.X. Noble, Western Civilization: Beyond Boundaries, 5th. Ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), 66.

    16. It is eerie how rarely the characters in the first book feel fear. The closest any character comes to losing his or her mental faculties is Clove right before Thresh kills her. At first it seems like her ability to think is being overwhelmed by fear and shock, but she still has enough wits to lie to Thresh by telling him she didn’t kill Rue, and when he doesn’t believe her she does the next logical thing by calling for help. She still seems rational and calculating, unlike soldiers who have mental breakdowns in war. During World War II Swank and Marchand witnessed many soldiers suffering from “combat exhaustion” who “ran around wildly, even toward the enemy’s line or the artillery impact area. Some fell to the ground, clawing the earth, or, finding a slit trench, remained there, crying and trembling, impossible to control.”

    17. Plutarch, “Pelopidas,” trans. John Dryden, The Internet Classics Archive, http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/pelopida.html

    18. Theoi Greek Mythology, “Deimos and Phobos”, http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Deimos.html

    19. Homer, The Iliad, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 351.

    20. Hesiod, The Theogony, Works and Days, and The Shield of Heracles, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Lawrence, KS: Digireads, 2009), 61.

    21. Ibid, 62.

    22.Diodorus, The Fragments of Diodorus, trans. G. Booth (London: W. McDowall, 1814), 68.

    23. The oppression of women also prevented them from serving in the military. Today there are still oppressive societies where women cannot serve in the military.

    24. Bruce Perry, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog (New York: Basic Books, 2007), 38.

    25. Dave Grossman, On Killing (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995), 77.

    26. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Digireads: 1st Touchstone Edition, 2004), 56.

    27. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman with Loren W. Christensen, On Combat (Milstadt, IL: Warrior Science Publications, 2008), 9, 10.

    28. Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 76.

    29. Part of Achilles’ war trauma is the death of his friend Patroclus. When soldiers love their comrades, the downside is that the death of those comrades can cause serious trauma.

    30. Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), xxi.

     

  • Fear of Nuclear Weapons

    David KriegerI was recently asked during an interview whether people fear nuclear weapons too much, causing them unnecessary anxiety.  The implication was that it is not necessary to live in fear of nuclear weapons.


    My response was that fear is a healthy mechanism when one is confronted by something fearful.  It gives rise to a fight or flight response, both of which are means of surviving real danger.


    In the case of nuclear weapons, these are devices to be feared since they are capable of causing terrifying harm to all humanity, including one’s family, city and country.  If one is fearful of nuclear weapons, there will be an impetus to do something about the dangers these weapons pose to humanity.


    But, one might ask, what can be done?  In reality, there is a limited amount that can be done by a single individual, but when individuals band together in groups, their power to bring about change increases.  Individual power is magnified even more when groups join together in coalitions and networks to bring about change.


    Large numbers of individuals banded together to bring about the fall of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of apartheid in South Africa.  The basic building block of all these important changes was the individual willing to stand up, speak out and join with others to achieve a better world.  The forces of change have been set loose again by the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement across the globe.


    When dangers are viewed rationally, there may be good cause for fear, and fear may trigger a response to bring about change.  On the other hand, complacency can never lead to change.  Thus, while fear may be a motivator of change, complacency is an inhibitor of change.  In a dangerous world, widespread complacency should be of great concern. 


    If a person is complacent about the dangers of nuclear weapons, there is little possibility that he will engage in trying to alleviate the danger.  Complacency is the result of a failure of hope to bring about change.  It is a submission to despair.


    After so many years of being confronted by nuclear dangers, there is a tendency to believe that nothing can be done to change the situation.  This may be viewed as “concern fatigue.”  We should remember, though, that any goal worth achieving is worth striving for with hope in our hearts.  A good policy for facing real-world dangers is to never give up hope and never stop trying.


    Nuclear weapons threaten the future of the human species and other forms of complex life on the planet.  Basically, we have three choices: active opposition to nuclear weapons, justification of the weapons, and complacency.  These are three choices that confront us in relation to any great danger. 


    It is always easier to choose, often by default, justification or complacency than it is to mount active opposition to a danger.  But dangers seldom melt away of their own accord and there is no reason to believe that policies of reliance on nuclear weapons will do so.  These policies need to be confronted, and such confrontation requires courage.  Fear can be most useful when it gives rise to the courage and commitment to bring about change for a safer and more decent future for humanity.

  • Letter to President Obama: Veto the National Defense Authorization Act

    2012_06_18_house_ndaa.pdf