
Why Young Men Go to War - 67726e
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/sebastian-junger-knows-why-young-men-go-to-war-f163804cbf6
======
scrrr
I forgot who said it, but it went like this: "If people recognise the banality
of war, there will be no more wars."

Of course its not that simple, but we, I suppose especially us techie boys (us
because I am one), think that an M1 Abrams tank, a F-15 airplane or a Sig
Sauer rifle are, well, cool. We also think uniforms look good. And we dream of
being heroes, especially when we are young.

It is, of course, nonsense. All these machines, while technologically
interesting, are basically just ugly tools to end lives of other humans. I
suppose the glamour and pride only work as long as you believe it does. And so
forth.

Of course we need some weapons to defend ourselves, (one might argue our
nuclear weapons are more than enough already), because who knows may come and
attack, sure. But, yea, I think I just want to say, stop glorifying all this
stuff.

It gives me hope that one of the most popular computer games ever, Minecraft,
is not a war game. :)

~~~
cmdkeen
No we need weapons to defend others. The USA and UK are in part two of the
richest nations in the world because they are physically isolated from
threats, we grew, and continue to grow, rich of trade with the rest of the
world.

The West has the capacity to be heroic and for a brief period at the turn of
the millennium was actually doing that. Kosovo and Sierra Leone were examples
of successful military intervention followed up by nation building. Before
that the first Gulf War was again a successful intervention.

The cause of peace allows Rwanda, Bosnia and a hundred other regional
conflicts and genocide to claims the lives of millions and blight regions. We
should not let Afghanistan and Iraq - and really the root problem is Iraq
detract from the potential to affect positive change in the world.

Finally it's worth saying that military capability gives humanitarian
capability. The recent Philippines disaster saw HMS Illustrious deliver all
the spare rice in Singapore in a short space of time along with a number of
helicopters as well as fit, motivated, organised and well led teams to assist
in disaster relief.

~~~
lostlogin
I'm not sure that 1 or 2 successful interventions make a heroic period. And
the First Gulf War was a farce. What has occurred in Iraq since is directly
related and the stationing of troops in Saudi during the conflict had a
profound influence on many, including Bin Laden. Intervention is always
complex but this was a disaster.

~~~
cmdkeen
I'd hardly call over a decade of regional stability a farce. It checked any
expansionist tendencies of other regional powers. It helped make a very
powerful point to Iran who didn't cause any problems with the Straits of
Hormuz for a long while after, to Libya who had been invaded Chad only years
before etc.

It was the 2003 invasion of Iraq that kicked off the nightmare and heightened
regional and global instability. It was that massive miscalculation which
hugely multiplied the number of jihadists and gave victories to radical
Islamists.

Remember Iran had been chanting death America for years by that point,
religious zealots already hated America and the West.

~~~
lostlogin
Regional stability didn't make for a very good time in Iraq if you were a
Kurd, had supported the U.S. in any way or if you wanted to eat. Infant
mortality went through the roof and the death toll from coalition bombing
civilians was also a problem. Regional stability is a phrase that gets used to
justify support for vicious dictatorships that suit foreign powers.

------
AYBABTME
I went in the army because at the time, I had big dreams and no clear path to
them. I thought joining the army and doing a hard training would teach me
something about achieving goals.

I went to war because I was in the army and wondered what was the point of
being in the army if you don't go to war. After doing my training, deploying
in Afghanistan was the logical follow up. Why train so hard just to stay home.

After the mission, I left the army. Partly because life back into garrison was
boring as hell, partly because I felt I had lived all that was to live in the
army and it was time for the next phase in my life.

At least my original goal is sort of achieved. The army and all the things I
lived at that time have equipped me with a confidence that has since helped me
achieve milestones toward my life goals. In retrospect, the three decisions I
enumerated were sound and being my young self again, I would do the same.

~~~
yequalsx
Your second paragraph seems callous to me. Going to war for the sake of not
wasting one's hard training, so to speak, is not moral. At least as I look at
it.

War is horrible and should be avoided at all costs. Sometimes it is
justifiable and necessary. War should be a last resort. I wish society had
alternate means of accomplishing your first paragraph without resort to the
second.

~~~
AYBABTME
Why is it callous? Why get in the army in the first place, if not to do the
work of the army? I'd be hypocritical to join the army with the desire to then
avoid operations.

I can understand that people be against war. I don't like violence. I don't
encourage violence and certainly do not enjoy wars. But wars exist and as a
citizen, you can decide to wish that war magically weren't a thing, or do
something about their existence. I did not encourage the concept of war by
taking part in it, no more than I encourage system outages when I take part in
building or fixing them.

War is not just war. It's not "just going somewhere to kill people". I didn't
decide "Oh all that sweat wasted, better kill foreigners to make up for it". I
volunteered because I thought I could make a positive influence, if any, by
being a reasonable person doing their job in the most humane way I could. Not
every soldier is an angry, bloodthirsty, moronic killer. Most of them aren't.

I don't wish to kill an innocent person anymore than you do. I don't wish to
kill a guilty person either. But sometimes, participating in a war, or killing
a person, is the only way to make the war less harmful, or prevent that person
from killing many more.

Avoiding wars at all cost is not a magic bullet against wars. That's my take
on it, I might be wrong.

~~~
lukifer
As Sun Tzu said, the greatest warrior is the one who need never fight. While
this can be interpreted as a pacifist/moral sentiment, it is really deeply
practical: fighting incurs risks and resources, even if victorious. The most
effective victories come from a credible deterrent which is never actually
used. So I don't think your training would have been wasted by not seeing
combat, any more than a policeman's weapon is wasted even if it is never
fired.

~~~
pluma
If only US policemen listened more closely to Sun Tzu.

------
niels_olson
Having been in for 20 years now, I definitely agree with Junger, there is an
innate element in young men trying to prove themselves. I think YCombinator
appeals to a similar desire.

I was performing an autopsy yesterday when the med student, the photographer,
and the assistant started talking about guns. Their gusto was impressive. I
felt no need to partake, but I think that was attributable, at least in part,
to the fact that I have far more experience with weapons than any of them. But
I acquired those experiences by satisfying the same desire they, to some
extent, haven't. How do you break that chicken-egg problem?

Alternate rites of passage, I would think. We need more of those. Is there a
way to facilitate young men helping on start-ups earlier in their careers?
Maybe before college?

~~~
67726e
Perhaps, but I really don't know if that would solve it either. I've done
rather well thus far in my career, and continue to do so. Yet something feels
missing, I don't know what, but I still have some recurring desire to enlist.
That the whole software thing - and this is something I've been doing since a
very young age - is not enough. That I should be doing something _more_.

~~~
saiya-jin
Try rock climbing/mountaineering. Being in the wall few hundred meters above
the ground, your mind doesn't care if there is securing rope tying you to last
quickdraw or not. You will be scared. You will be bathing in adrenaline. You
will have to muster all your courage to move forward, to climb higher, to
reach the top. Again and again.

You'll get all the excitement army guys get in deployment, without screwing
you up and becoming permanent mental cripple. In fact, it will make you a
better person in many many ways. Guaranteed.

------
masswerk
I think, going to war has much to do with the construction of the male gender.
(We're talking seldom about the male side in the gender discourse, but we may
be allowed to do so in this context. Please read the following cum grano
salis.)

In most cultures and societies males start life on the female side along their
mothers. They are special, they are beloved, they are cared for – but they are
also objects. When entering adolescence and adulthood, males are essentially
losing their identity. They are no more special or unique, they are disposable
(as in "women and children first") — and they have to accept this insult. They
have to redefine themselves. Moreover, there are some preconditions in most
cultures to becoming eligible as a subject. Some of these are related to
inheritance, but it really goes a bit deeper than that. So, if they are not
born rich or not the eldest son, they are asked to prove they were eligible
for being a valued member of society. One way to do so is founding and
supporting a family, but there are also preconditions here. To most, the final
proof is showing their willingness and to prove being able to "burn
themselves" (sometimes literally as in the trenches of war) for societies
sake, to accept disposability. (Staying up late coding is yet another way of
burning yourself, while not that drastic.) — This may be underpinned by an
institution known in some cultures, the institutions of "sworn virgins", where
women would enter the male side on the precondition of never returning the
realms of female definitions. Ever thereafter they are part of the male side
and accepted as males, but they also have to adhere to the socials contracts
related to this definition. — Following to this, war is a major means of
regaining identity and uniqueness – and becoming an eligible member of
society. Small wonder that this often connected with pride.

In my humble opinion, these patterns are also to be observed in the discussion
of gender diversity in IT and other male dominated environments. Most of the
objections and/or insults against females are rather pretexts or symptoms for
a basic mistrust against members who do not adhere to the laws of
disposability. (Problems often evaporate as the gender-definitions are crossed
by "sworn virgin coders". But this isn't a solution to the problem at all.) In
this context, the presence and acceptance of "real females" is a real threat
to the construction of these environments. This isn't just a show. It's more
about accepting that these are not protected realms of males joined in their
attempt to become eligible to the honors of society, accepting that these
environments are rather part of society themselves. (So, is coding war?
Swallow your pride. Nobody should be forced to burn. Does this align with the
structures of business as we know it? No. – Hint: Businesses are not only
burning money.)

~~~
randcraw
I was with you until you introduced the need for voluntary "disposability" on
the part of males as a requisite to earn a place in society. I don't see self
immolation in any form as being respected or admired, in the USA anyway.

I think all adult males don't inherit a natural place in society simply
because they are males, the way that females do as mothers. Fatherhood just
doesn't fill the bill comparably, perhaps because it's seen as only a part-
time vocation. Thus a man must seek other ways to demonstrate his value.

Making lots of money or attaining power are perhaps the chief means to earning
respect. But becoming a Warrior is widely seen as a good way to demonstrate
the requisite desiderata -- leadership, courage, self sacrifice, inner
strength, outer strength, loyalty, stoicism, a sense of purpose, a sense of
honor, and more. Having more of these makes you more of a constructive
contributor to society. You're a man among men.

Very few jobs or social roles can serve even a few of these components of
character. Historically, going to war has been an established and respected
way to demonstrate you are indeed made of sterner stuff.

Of course, if _your_ war has a dubious justification or muddied purpose, that
will complicate its ability somewhat to define you favorably. Aside from WWII
and perhaps WWI, American wars since 1865 largely have been Faustian bargains.
The fact that young Amercian men continue to enlist in the service of what are
too often Wars of Opportunity indicates that, in our culture, alternative ways
of proving your mettle have proven elusive.

~~~
masswerk
There have been attempts to rewrite world history based on statistics of how
many young man to "burn" there were in a society at a given time – and it
works out greatly. While I do admit that this isn't of that importance in
modern societies, I would still maintain that the patterns are still to be
observed. Also, war has been one of the first means of making a fortune, with
trade becoming another one only in the 18th century or so. Still, we may
observe some inheritance here, by the emphasis on the risks involved to
justify the wins. (Read Jane Austen's "Persuasion" as a sociological study on
the matter and you'll see how the British upper- and middle classes would have
imploded under the pressure of second sons around 1800, if there hadn't been
the Navy and the Army as means of making a fortune and becoming eligible for
marriage. Even more true for the lower classes, but there's no much writing on
this.)

As a sidenote, we may observe that the US has undergone some efforts and
investments in the past decades to decouple its war force from this logic by
the means of technology.

------
morpheous
Not politically correct, but essentially the truth about human nature.

These two statements:

1\. “War is so compelling that you can even get a room full of pacifists to
pay money to be entertained by it.”"

2\. "“My sister is a complete and utter feminist and pacifist,” he explains.
“She doesn’t see the irony. She’s participating in this wonderful festival …
that’s reenacting a battle. Nobody reenacts the Treaty of Ghent. [It] just
isn’t that compelling.”"

I find particularly profound.

Any attempt to "window dress" our base nature, is just that - "Window
dressing".

~~~
Houshalter
I like watching disaster movies, yet do not support actual disasters.

~~~
john_b
Yet presumably you recognize them for the natural, if tragic, events that they
are? One's support for or opposition to a force of nature is rather
irrelevant.

~~~
Houshalter
I'm saying that noting that people enjoy war movies and kids play games about
war, doesn't mean they support war at all. Disaster movies are liked for the
same reason as war movies. There is adrenaline and excitement and suspense.
Thinking about how you would react in those situations and discussion with
friends afterwards. No one wants to watch movies about boring everyday life.

------
thomasjames
They join the military for a variety of reasons, which may or may not have
involved any feelings about any conflict at hand much less the media. The
reason they go to war, however, is because of old men.

~~~
coolsunglasses
>is because of old men.

This is a typical modernist redaction of the will to violence that is common
to young men. Past societies found ways to incorporate, normalize, redirect,
celebrate that will - now we pathologize it. This is because we think we can
mutate the human condition into something better.

~~~
_delirium
I don't think that's accurate, if we're discussing what actually motivates
military deployments. There are exceptions, but in most wars the enlisted men
themselves have not been the ones chomping at the bit to be sent to war.
Rather, they were sent by older men serving in government, who did not
themselves participate in the fighting, often over considerable dissent from
the rank and file. In some cases, such as the U.S.'s participation in Vietnam,
the wars were _exceedingly_ unpopular among the young people actually sent to
fight them.

~~~
67726e
I don't think that's an entirely accurate depiction, given the article. I
believe this is strictly in a modern context, and given that every soldier,
sailor, Marine, and airman is a volunteer, it misses the point. We can point
at Cheney and Rumsfeld and Halliburton, but as the article states, this robs
every service member of his or her agency.

The reason every one of my friends from high school went to war is because
they wanted to. Some wanted to serve their country, defend it's freedoms. Some
wanted to spill blood. I very nearly went down that path myself, and some
nights I wonder why I didn't. Sometimes I think it's not too late. Perhaps
they were hypnotized and lack free will, maybe our NJROTC instructors
indoctrinated them in a way that didn't have an affect on me. Why is it so
pervasive?

I'm young, make a killing writing software - something I've loved doing since
a young age - and yet I can't help but think I should enlist (I simply lack
the desire to complete my degree, so getting a commission is not a reality). I
lust for the thought of besting other young men, I want to win, I want to be
the one standing when the dust settles. Maybe it will sate that appetite,
maybe it will give me some appreciation for the world that I lack. Who is to
say? I don't feel the desire to go out and slay my fellow man, except in that
one specific context.

I shared the article because it rang very close the home, and I suspect it
would for each and every one of my friends.

~~~
_delirium
If someone joins _during_ a war, I agree, they are usually doing that of their
own accord, modulo a few people who maybe felt they had no other economic/etc.
choice. But that's not that many people, which is why the U.S. military
started having recruiting problems after they launched the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars: many people who had previously signed up now regretted it,
and the supply of new volunteers dwindled.

My own experience with classmates is quite different, but it sounds like it's
a few years prior, so it might already be out of date. Around when my friends
and I graduated high school (~1999-2000) the military was seen as a reasonable
career path with a primarily deterrent and strategic role, and a fairly low
chance of offensive deployment. And the reserves were seen as a last-ditch
force that would effectively only be called up if the U.S. or a NATO ally were
invaded. Many of my classmates who entered around then signed on for this
mission, and didn't agree with subsequent decisions made by the political
branches to change their role. The "stop-loss orders" of 2002–03, in which
they were not allowed to discharge at their originally agreed discharge date,
and the calling up of the reserves for something that did not really fit the
prior understanding of how reserves would be used (both done as desperate
measures to make up for volunteer numbers absolutely tanking), were
particularly unpopular, and at that point many no longer felt like they were
still volunteers. I feel myself like I dodged a bullet by not going that path
(I had talked to a recruiter in 1999, who painted a fairly appealing story
about technical careers in the military).

~~~
67726e
We certainly have a time difference, I was born in '93, so we all came of age
throughout the war, and by the time we graduated (2011) and could enlist, the
war had raged and begun to wane. The cards had fallen, and anyone with half a
brain could look at the facts for what had happened. My view of the US, by
that point, had morphed from that of a patriot to that of a dissident. Given
the NSA revelations, I could almost say I have a hatred for our government,
but the military seems to represents something else.

To this day I feel bad for those who fought in Iraq (2003), because I think
many (most?) were duped. Yet that urge remains. Perhaps the years of
recruitment tools disguised as video games and the notion of the "warrior"
were just far too ingrained in my head, but I entered high school (in fact, I
started in middle school in a pre-JROTC program to get a head start over the
others) dove head first into the NJROTC program with the intent to get a head
start on enlistment. I ate that shit up! Ultimately, after a series of
(un)fortunate events, I walked out of high school with a jaded outlook and a
full-ride scholarship, so enlistment wasn't in the cards. I don't quite know
just what it is that keeps enticing me, maybe it's a desire for a fresh start,
maybe I'm a bloodthirsty baby-killer, or maybe it's biological. It's probably
a mix of many things, but I can't help but think there is a desire to prove
oneself as a man. I'm very introspective, but I just cannot put my finger on
what it is.

~~~
_delirium
That makes sense. I think in the '90s there was more of a difference in how
people thought of "the military" overall, vs. the special forces specifically,
which is where you'd get the dropping-in-somewhere-from-a-helicopter-and-
shooting type action. The special forces were definitely a fascination for
many, but I think more of some kind of theoretical fascination. I'm not sure I
know anyone who seriously pursued it, in part because it seemed pretty
unlikely as a career path, like becoming a "black bag" style CIA spy or
something. More of kind of an idle fantasy than a serious source of
indecision. (Obviously _some_ people did, since special forces existed.)

The ones interested in the "regular" military I remember thinking of it as
more like a kind of adult boy scouts: a good place to develop some self-
discipline, physical fitness, ability to work closely with teammates, etc.,
and maybe gain useful skills depending on your specialty. All the while doing
some kind of vaguely patriotic duty deterring China simply by existing and
maintaining/flexing some advanced technology. But going to an actual hot
shooting war wasn't really the goal. The idea was to do your tour of duty, get
honorably discharged, and then either get a job, or go to college on the GI
bill. Either way a military tour probably would look good on the resume. Some
people also had more specific interests, usually having something to do with
technology (but maybe this is because of who my friends were), e.g. if you
want to work on nuclear-powered ships or advanced jets, the military is where
they are. The recruiters really played up the tech angle when visiting my high
school, almost downplaying the "military" aspects. I guess they have probably
changed their pitch in the intervening years...

~~~
67726e
I think that hits the nail pretty well. The handful of older adults I know who
went into the service did it for those exact reasons, wanted to fly, wanted to
go to college on the GI bill, wanted to become a surgeon but couldn't afford
medical school, etc. I think part of this modern situation, is that the armed
services have done an amazing PR job in the past decade and a half. We've gone
from the notion of a _citizen soldier_ to this _warrior_ notion. You're no
longer doing your duty, conscripted and fighting an evil empire. You're
joining up to be a warrior!

Something that just came into my head is that, out of my male friends, all but
a two went Army/Marines with one going Air Force and the other going Navy, and
my male friend who went Navy wanted to be (and is) a dental tech. A cursory
check of Facebook confirms this, and interestingly, of the women I know from
school who went into the service, all but one went Navy (the odd woman out
went Marines). I think that notion of "Adult Scouts" and a stepping stone
still applies to the Navy, Coast Guard, and Air Force to large part, no airmen
or sailor is doing night raids in an Afghan village, you might get someone
aiming for a Corpsman or a forward observer, and of course SEALs or
Pararescue, but those are a small part of those branches.

------
bcg1
I'd say this article is mostly spot on... the assertion that this is male
biological urge is probably true. I believe at its core it is a desire to
identify oneself as a member of a group of "manly" males and to prove one's
worth and garner the respect of the already prestigious members of that group.

This actually plays out in a lot of areas... fraternities, urban gangs,
Github, etc. The dynamic of dividing humanity into "insiders" and "outsiders"
follows closely as well. That dynamic is used to dehumanize all "outsiders" so
that the goals of the group can be placed above morality and ethics.

I believe these things are true because I'm a slow learner and have been
suckered into this dynamic more than once... I tried a college fraternity for
a short while (after being accepted, rejected it and dropped out of college),
fell in with the wrong crowd and did drugs until my eyes rolled so far back
into my head that I swear I was able to see my brain (stopped altogether after
somewhat harrowing experiences) and joined the US Army to shoot artillery
after 9/11 (went to Afghanistan and after I got back became a conscientious
objector before being put out administratively with an "honorable" discharge).

In the US, mass media is the fertilizer for mass murder... we teach young men
that their number 1 goal is to be manly... and that women are just holes to
fuck... and that you need to fuck as many holes as possible to be manly... and
that explosions are cool... and that you need to create and survive explosions
to be manly... and that streetfighting is cool... and that you need to be in a
bunch of streetfights to be manly... I could keep going but I think you all
get the point.

If the culture changes men will stop going to war unless they are forced to...
while the biological urges described above can be exploited to manipulate
peoples' actions, those urges could be channeled to positive actions instead,
and they are certainly not a free pass to commit the atrocities that most
people just pretend don't exist. This is the area where I disagree with the
author if the article... it actually does start and stop with those who pull
the trigger

------
wyager
Well, 66% of the men in WW2 and 38% of those deployed to Vietnam went to war
because the government forced them into the military under threat of
imprisonment.

~~~
pestaa
Well, you can't put millions behind bars.

~~~
expertentipp
But you can threaten an individual and everyone else will just mind their own
business

------
6t6t6
Because young man don't have enough experience to understand the world and
they cannot see that war is a good business made by rich men. Rich men who
would never send their children to war, of course.

------
nitwit005
While I'm sure there is some truth to this, you do run into the problem that
people don't want to admit the mundane reasons they do things sometimes.
People join armies all the time because they need a job, but if you ask I'm
sure many of them will tell you it's due to a more personal reason or
nationalistic pride.

That's not confined to the military of course. It seems almost rude to admit
you do your job to get a pay check in many occupations.

------
IgorPartola
This is pretty interesting. I have always thought of war as a political and
economic phenomenon. Why try to get by with what you currently have when you
can just take what your neighbor has? In some cases it's just cheaper to go
beat someone up and get their lunch money than to earn your own.

Junger is saying that war is really emergent behavior: young men are violent,
so they are not just willing to go to war, but want to. It's certainly a new
perspective to me. I suppose it makes some sense, though it feels to me that
wars today are "not what they used to be". Take WWI and WWII. There was mass
draft and the country was generally behind these. I am sure there was a great
number of people who were unhappy to be drafted, but it seems that here people
actually believed in the existential threat to the US.

Then take the Vietnam war. Hugely unpopular. Look at this widely circulated
picture of a lighter supposedly carried by a US soldier in Vietnam:
[http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/10/article-2171404-14...](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/10/article-2171404-14002534000005DC-124_306x423.jpg).

Now, today our military is volunteer-based and tiny compared to, say, what it
was during WWII. Only a small percentage of the population serves, and are
pre-selected. Is it then fair to say that all or even most young men want to
go to war? It seems to me the answer is no.

So the remaining question is whether war happens because of this emergent
behavior or for other reasons. Basically, if we gave that small percentage of
young men something better than war, would war stop? Or would we continue to
wage war anyways?

~~~
brc
The truth about Vietnam is that it is an unpopular war now, and towards the
end of it, but when American involvement escalated in the beginning, support
was pretty widespread.

When thinking about war, it's better to exclude ww1 and ww2 from the sample as
outliers. Of course they are the default war experience and the worst wars
around, but they aren't typical.

It's emergent behaviour - it has to be, as it is endemic with human history -
I think you're no more likely to stop wars than you are to stop men looking at
women's breasts. You can temper the behaviour with morals and ethics but it's
ready to surface at the slightest slip of those things.

It's not that young men want to go and start a war, but that some men crave
power for powers sake, and it's easy to talk young men into getting involved
once a war is in the offing.

Ironically the best thing you can do to temper the behaviour is to let men
gather wealth and power via peaceful means, such as commerce and trade. Where
this happens they usually don't go into war with their neighbours. Having the
majority of the worlds people not under the sway of religion would be a good
start as well, but I'm of the belief that religion is hard wired in as well -
remove an ancient text and god and people usually start tot replace it with
some other belief system anyway. And it would be those belief systems clashes
that would probably be the 'cause' of wars down the track.

~~~
IgorPartola
Agreed with you re. Vietnam. That is a good point.

Not quite agreed on WWI/II. Lots of modern military and foreign policy is
based on the aftermath of WWII. After all, that was the last war that the US
was involved in. All the ones after that were "operations", and the US never
formally declared war on another country since. They aren't typical, yet they
are always the ones other wars are compared against.

So war is emergent behavior because some percentage of young men is always
available to fight it, and because old men in power are more than willing to
send the young men into war. That's at least two different behaviors we've
identified so far.

Up until reading this article I had the point of view that war was just too
cheap vs alternatives. Want land/power/oil/money/whatever? Just go and take it
rather than building your own. And the solution is the opposite: make war
expensive. Then again, neither our war on terror, nor the terror attacks on
the US and its allies quite fit this paradigm.

~~~
brc
My point with ww1 and ww2 is that, if you graphed wars by people involved,
destruction, whatever, they stick out of the group by a long way. I think your
looking at the picture with too much of a us-centric view. The US is not
involved in the majority of wars, at least not directly with men nondescript
materials. You're right in that the world wars are all part of the same
narrative about destabilisation that leads to other wars - arguably the
majority of conflicts around today have roots in both.

But if you look at some more topical wars/conflicts - say the Arab/Israel
conflict from 1948-present you see that it's not just about gaining territory
but far deeper things (territory is the score, but the purpose is much deeper)
plus the military conflicts during this period have been much more
conventional with the majority of attacks being primarily military. Lately it
has gone more asymmetrical and terrorism v conventional military but initially
it was tanks on battlefields. Again other conflicts in the he second half of
the twentieth century were far make typical wars in that they were relatively
localised, didn't involve things like carpet bombing civilian population and
didn't involve mass troop movements. Even Vietnam and Korea, wars with direct
US involvement, had a fraction of the men deployed as compared with Ww2.

Also, it's a good point about making the cost of a war prohibitive - we have
the means to do this now - but the costs of a war don't usually fall onto the
main aggressors on all sides. Typically it falls onto the soldiers, refugees
and ordinary citizens. If powerful countries were prepared to apply the costs
of war to those who start them, the incidence would go down. But you spiral
into an eye-for-an-eye retaliation which is a worse mess.

------
littletimmy
It is frightening to see some people on this thread saying how they feel an
urge to go to war because they "want to best other men" or "want to win".

One way to counteract that could be actively practicing nullifying one's ego.
Everyday, do one thing you really dislike, and stop doing one thing you really
like and can do. People need to get over this ridiculous idea that all their
desires must be sated.

~~~
67726e
Lacking context, that sure does sound scary, but it isn't thirst for
bloodsport alone, but the added desire to stop those intent on doing the same
to others, especially innocents. The notion of sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs.

~~~
littletimmy
A lot of that desire is basically buying into government propaganda, and that
is even more problematic.

~~~
67726e
I don't buy into government propaganda to a large degree. I'm fiercely
critical of my government. But you clearly have your preconceived notions, so
I'll leave you to it.

------
jusssi
Participating a war means participating murder, torture and rape. If that's
what it takes to be a man, I'll pass.

~~~
thrownaway122
Murder yes that's sort of the point. Torture and rape are not required.

~~~
jusssi
Is there a documented case of a war that didn't result in any torture and
rape?

~~~
thrownaway122
I doubt it.

However, a man (or woman) could go to war to defend their country against an
aggressor and do so effectively without torturing or raping anyone. However,
they pretty much have to be prepared to kill people... Indeed many modern
armies will investigate and eventually punish rapists and torturers whilst
they giving medals for doing lots of killing...

So 'murder' (or killing people) is a necessary condition for fighting a war.
Rape and torture are neither necessary nor sufficient.

~~~
jusssi
Point accepted, I forgot to consider defending against outside invaders.

------
navait
I dislike when people try to say they don't have a political agenda and are
"neutral" observers. All media has a political dimension, and even if you
aren't trying to beat people over the head with it, it would serve you well to
acknowledge your leanings. Even Frederick Wiseman, the creator of the "Film
Truth" school of documentaries happily acknowledges that he could never be
unbiased.

However it seems especially absurd to say he has no political agenda in his
films, and in the next breath criticize two common political narratives.

------
Red_Tarsius
I really enjoyed this article. imho The _quest /test for manhood_ theme is one
of the most dominant in our media, yet it is also kind of a taboo topic.
_Breaking Bad_ and _Fight Club_ come to mind, where "castrated" protagonists
fight back for their manhood... The Big Lebowski is, among many themes, about
how different people prove their masculinity in different ways too. The whole
_damsel in distress_ genre... Also, movie/tv male comic relief is often
portrayed as asexual or incredibly dorky.

------
MrDosu
Because there are army recruiters in american high schools...

This for me was an unbelievable experience as a German, where if the army
would be involved with any kind of school it would be a major scandal. But
while in high school in america it was normal to be propagandaed on during
your lunch hour.

~~~
LanceH
Perhaps there is some historical reason for this.

~~~
MrDosu
What history could a western country have to be the only one to recruit for
the army in schools?

~~~
LanceH
A country formed through revolution which only fights its wars overseas.

------
porter
The day after the Pearl Harbor attack my grandfather literally dropped
everything he was doing and enlisted. Why? A visceral disgust that resulted in
a sense of responsibility, or duty to take action. I know a lot of people who
did the same after 9/11\. War is dumb but a strong military is necessary, and
I'm sure others here can explain the game theory behind it all.

------
pistle
My opinion is probably as invalid as the author's or most anyone else's... but
I can't let a couple things just sit.

Just because some closely related primates display something we can interpret
as war doesn't mean you can then assume there is some related, unavoidable
instinct in homo sapiens. This is a poor argument that highlights the author's
own bastardized interpretation of evolution. It's 2015 and those are chimps,
in 2015. We are not chimps. This line of argument is very weak.

Overall, his self-consciousness is barely containable and I'm having trouble
being objective based on this. It sounds like intelligent people tell him he's
wrong, but he's got the facts and the platform, so he's right. He can't
strongly defend his ideas. He just likes to say everyone on the right and left
is crazy, absurd, and/or wrong - obviously. But there's no follow-through. He
knows. He was there, and he's telling you. He's read something about chimps
and has an opinion about innate differences and their implications for
society. This echoes personalities I've known who self-affirm from exactly the
lack of external affirmation they seek. He seeks to define the boundaries of
the discussion to suit his conclusion, then accuses others of not being able
to have an honest discussion if they wouldn't agree to it since they argue
that it is no space for an insightful discussion. Catch-a 22.

Why is there no mention of the incentives for the 14%+ of women in the US
military? That's a big enough number to do a study to see how many of them are
trying to find "manhood" and compare it to the boys.

They should have a question in the discharge process: "Did you find manhood
during your service?"

As an aside, I'd be interested to see an Ask HN: "How many people have you
killed on the field of battle?"

~~~
vacri
I'm glad you said this; I feel much the same way. There's all sorts of
fallacies and pop culture theories throughout the article, though the author
is a competant writer.

One of the ones that really bothered me was the assertion that we should be
respectful of the decisions that these young men make - despite the decisions
of young adults rarely being taken seriously by society, regardless of the
context.

As for 'men are clearly wired for war', well, no they're not. As a
demographic, they have to be trained hard to take a life (in person at least).
Plenty of men can do that, but to suggest it's an innate wiring is just plain
wrong.

------
jhallenworld
Related question: is there an elite conspiracy to keep the USA at war? "There
has been no decade in which the USA has not been at war."

[http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/12/we-re-at-war-and-we-have-
be...](http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/12/we-re-at-war-and-we-have-been-
since-1776/)

~~~
douche
Was there a Papist plot to keep Europe at war? Between the establishment of
the papacy in Rome and the downfall of Napoleon, there had been no decade that
Europe was not at war.

~~~
saiya-jin
you're probably american, so you're forgiven for this ignorance, but europe
consists of +-50 sovereign states. Even now with EU (that doesn't contain many
states), declaring a war is always matter of a given nation.

Apples to ants...

~~~
throwaway344
The GP said between the establishment of the papacy to Napoleon, so he's
speaking about events well before there were 50 sovereign states in Europe or
an EU.

------
kijin
> _" The male response to war is an evolutionary adaptation that clearly works
> for our species."_

> _" It's a left-wing version of the Christian right rejecting the theory of
> evolution," he says. "I mean the far left is also now rejecting the theory
> of evolution, which is just insane."_

The left wing, whatever it's worth, is certainly not rejecting the theory of
evolution. Just because men are evolutionarily predisposed to go to war
doesn't mean that not wanting them to go to war is rejecting the theory of
evolution. Evolution only shows us _what is_. (In the case of evo-psych, it's
usually more like _what may have been_.) Meanwhile, it's our job to figure out
_what ought to be_ , and to defer to evolution on that point is nothing but
intellectual laziness.

Just because men choose to go to war doesn't mean that they are not also
victims of a social order that glorifies war and gives them a warped idea of
what it means to be male. These can both be true. Politics always takes
advantage of pre-existing psychological propensities, but it also reinforces
them and reshapes them to its advantage over many generations. In fact, most
questions in the form of "did X cause Y or vice versa?" in politics and
sociology can be answered as "duh, it's a feedback loop."

Humans are subject to evolutionary pressures like any other life form. But one
of the major differences between us and other animals is that we can recognize
when our biology predisposes us to participate in evil, and counter it with
our intelligence and strength of will.

If evolution is taking us places where we don't want to go, we have the
intelligence and technology to give the middle finger to evolution and shape
our own destinies. That includes telling young men that they no longer need to
kill other men in order to be acknowledged as upstanding members of our
society.

EDIT: An earlier version of this comment included the following rant, which
was meant as an aside. But too many people seemed to think that it was my main
point, so I'm moving it to the end.

> _" I don’t put any political agenda into my work. I think the right wing
> tends to idolize soldiers—you can't talk about them critically in any way.
> The left wing went from vilifying them in Vietnam to seeing them as victims
> of a military-industrial complex." He laughs over the phone. "Both views of
> soldiers are just absurd."_

It's funny how every time I hear someone say they have no political agenda, or
that they are neutral, they almost always go on to devote the vast majority of
their effort to criticizing the left wing. Maybe they secretly endorse the
right wing, or maybe they think the right wing is not even worth criticizing.
In either case, I find this fascinating.

~~~
blfr
The rejection is not in not wanting men to go to war, or in favouring any
particular social order, but in denying innate sex differences.

 _According to Junger, these theories are strongly rooted in academia, and
particularly the social sciences._

 _“I have friends who are anthropologists and primatologists and evolutionary
psychologists … [who are under] an enormous amount of pressure to generate
data that shows that all gender differences are cultural.”_

~~~
fennecfoxen
> “I have friends who are anthropologists and primatologists and evolutionary
> psychologists … [who are under] an enormous amount of pressure to generate
> data that shows that all gender differences are cultural.”

You would think that, no matter what your goals for the roles of gender (or
sex) in society are, you would achieve these goals best by deliberately
seeking out and investigating the properties of the underlying biology (and
culture) with the utmost of academic and intellectual integrity, and only
afterwards pushing for the policies you prefer to realize that world. Then you
would have the advantage of using a position of Enlightenment, instead of
Ignorance.

Maybe in a few more generations when people look back at us the way we look
back on the Victorian era.

~~~
Crito
> _" You would think that, no matter what your goals for the roles of gender
> (or sex) in society are, you would achieve these goals best by deliberately
> seeking out and investigating the properties of the underlying biology (and
> culture) with the utmost of academic and intellectual integrity, and only
> afterwards pushing for the policies you prefer to realize that world."_

That is how it is supposed to work, but reality is never so clean.

One of the best modern examples of doing it backwards _(starting with a
conclusion, and then working backwards from there)_ , is so called _"
intelligent design"_/ _" creation science"_. Many different groups and
movements are guilty of it, but the ID scene is relatively unique in the
lengths that they went to present themselves as legitimate scientists. See:
_Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District_
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District))
Those nutjobs _insisted_ that they were real scientists, despite the glaring
contradictions with their nonsense and the scientific method.

His comparison was rather apt.

~~~
kijin
ID was nuts because it tried to present itself as a description of the past.

But if you're trying to issue prescriptions for the future (i.e. what kind of
world do you want to create?), there's nothing fundamentally wrong about first
identifying where you want to go and then cherrypicking biological and
psychological traits to manipulate in order to get there. It would be just
like writing a program to get the results you want.

~~~
Crito
Descriptions of the past are not nuts. History, _the legitimate peer-reviewed
study of history_ , does the same. Evolutionary biology tells us much about
the past, as does much of physics. None of that is problematic.

ID was nuts because of their flawed methodology.

> _" But if you're trying to issue prescriptions for the future (i.e. what
> kind of world do you want to create?), there's nothing fundamentally wrong
> about first identifying where you want to go and then cherrypicking
> biological and psychological traits to manipulate in order to get there."_

Do not confuse policy forming / social engineering with science.

~~~
kijin
Actually, I agree with you.

What I meant is that ID used an inappropriate methodology for what it
purported to do, but the same methodology might be appropriate in other
contexts such as social engineering.

------
yawz
Timing of this article is interesting: Yesterday I watched the prescreening of
"The Water Diviner". It is the story of an Australian father looking for his 3
sons killed during the Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey in 1915. As the father of
a young son, his story resonated with me.

Young men might have an excuse, but we, older men, should know better. Even
when we didn't live through a war, we should be smart enough to understand its
realities, its destructive power, its cruelty. We must stop wars before they
start. None of it is worth a young man's life.

We should teach our children how ugly weapons are and how valuable life is.

------
squozzer
I think the central question - what is it to be a man (or human) - is a
question worth trying to answer.

I disagree with the author when he states the West doesn't really have an
answer - sure, the answer isn't in the back of a textbook. One might even
reasonably conclude there exists a multitude of answers - some of which
probably conflict.

Here are some examples -

Pedestrian - acquire a skill, get a real job, marry, have kids. Clearly
serving the profit motives of others - cultivate expensive tastes. Macho -
pursue dangerous hobbies, enter a risky profession - which for some reason
excludes cab drivers and convenience store clerks.

If I had to offer a guess, I might say, "Assume responsibility for yourself."

------
20kleagues
It is funny how the whole argument of masculinity is based on the American
experience. A good control study would be somewhere where male rites of
passage still exist, but men also still go to war (most conservative Asian
societies for example).

~~~
67726e
Perhaps that is mostly because Junger's documentaries are all around American
troops. I also highly recommend Restrepo, and the follow up, Korengal.

~~~
rob_lh
Yeah, the whole article, subject matter, and journey he explores is American.
It's investigative at its best in that it explores why people make these
decisions, and their decisions are strongly rooted in the ever-changing
American society.

Tangentially, I might be alone in this, but I consider great journalism to be
like great science - it's able to discern the fundamental mechanics of an
issue, but they're also notoriously terrible at applying those mechanics in a
constructive way. As a result, when a journalist shares their perspective, I
put a lot of weight on their analysis and little weight on their solutions.

~~~
bootload
_" Yeah, the whole article, subject matter, and journey he explores is
American."_

and yet it's universal. By training Junger is a anthropologist and if you read
_" War"_ you'll see the stories and themes he explains can be applied equally
from Roman to the modern warrior.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/WAR-Sebastian-
Junger/dp/B0085RZFDC](http://www.amazon.com/WAR-Sebastian-
Junger/dp/B0085RZFDC)

~~~
rob_lh
I think there's something to being a soldier and obviously masculinity that is
universal. I would argue the American military experience - especially the
modern American military - is fundamentally different from those that preceded
it though. We don't claim tribute, we're not an honor society (at least not
universally), we are building an empire, and ostensibly the wars of the
country are the will of its citizens. Why Americans fight and American terms
of victory are something different than any historical counterparts.

------
hilgartff
Wars are planned by rich old men and fought by poor young men.

------
moron4hire
There is a saying, I can't remember from where, that old men send young men to
war because the old men know what war is. I think I'm telling it wrong. The
original I heard implied exploitation.

The article is about young men choosing to go to war, in our all-volunteer
military, but there wouldn't be a war to choose to enter if the mostly old,
mostly white, mostly men in Congress didn't choose to have one.

------
exar0815
A very interesting Article. It is basically a further explanation of the
theories of Gunnar Heinsohn about young men and War.

------
DonGateley
I've never needed to wonder why they go but I wonder deeply at why they charge
into opposing fire.

~~~
dmichulke
They only do it in films - to cultivate the heroism that will eventually lead
them to charge into fire in practice.

My best guess is it's an implementation of (social-)darwinist beliefs using
cultural modelling (aka propaganda).

------
sjg007
Perhaps we should encourage young men to join the Peace Core. To find
themselves by helping others.

------
htormey
A great documentary miniseries about this topic is War: A Commentary by Gwynne
Dyer. In particular, the episode anyone's son will do:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_%28miniseries%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_%28miniseries%29)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo)

The episode covers what goes into training young people who enter the marine
core. It features candid interviews with drill sergeants and the recruits
themselves about their motivations. Well worth a watch.

One of the main points the episode makes is that the job of being a soldier is
ultimately about killing and dying, something that doesn’t come naturally to
most people. The method for turning young men into soldiers is basic training.

According to Dyer the secret of basic training is that its not really about
teaching people, its about changing people. He claims that if you want to
change people quickly and radically, you put them in a place where the only
right way to think and behave is the way you want them to. You isolate them
and then apply enormous physical and mental pressure. i.e basic training.
Essentially he claims that basic training is all about brain washing.

In the linked interview Sebastian Junger talks a lot about what it means to be
a man. In particular:

“In that kind of environment,” Junger continues. “If you dare talk about what
it means to be a man, what you’re saying is men are different from women.”

and

“We aren’t asking, ‘What does it mean to be a human being?’” he says. “‘What’s
it mean to be a man?’ Once you have that conversation you offend a lot of
academics.”

and

“Men are clearly wired for [war],” he continues. “The male response to war is
an evolutionary adaptation that clearly works for our species.”

He doesn't quite claim that young mens desire to go to war has its roots
purely in biology but he comes close. Personally I don't buy it.

I think the concept of going to war as a rite of passage, particularly in the
USA, is a social construct that’s largely the result of pervasive propaganda.
The US military has an impressive marketing budget and aggressively recruits
in schools right across the country. In the US, joining the military is not
seen as a weird or embarrassing thing to do. In contrast, in my country
(Ireland), joining the military is seen as a somewhat odd choice.

What’s interesting about Dyer’s documentary is that it interviews recruits
before they go through basic training. Many of them are poor with few job
prospects and no sense of direction. The military gives them a sense of
purpose and is socially acceptable thing to do.

------
garou
And the American culture encourages these young men.

------
michaelochurch
Here's a big part of it, and it ain't pretty.

First, while gender may be "a social construct" it tends to recur in similar
patterns across most societies. That's not to say that gender roles don't
exaggerate the (actually very slight, in biological terms) differences and
aren't a source of much injustice. However, there's a recurrent ranking that
societies create: high-status men > high-status women > low-status women >
low-status men. This is why conversations about gender and "patriarchy" fall
flat, it's why feminists and MRAs both have a point, and it's not how things
necessarily _should_ be, but it's how things are in at least 90% of the
societies that humans create.

High-status men have harems of 10+ wives, in pre-monogamous societies, which
means that some men will have zero. Since women have a rate-limiting
reproductive resource (i.e. a womb) they have a good chance of getting at
least some action. Low-status men don't, because they're the lowest of the
low. No one likes them. And in a non-monogamous society, they're recognized as
an actual danger. Of course, most young men will start out low in status.
When's the last time, in popular culture, you saw a teenage male portrayed in
a positive light? Most of the world fears and hates (most) teenage males.

Eventually, the high-status men recognize the threat. They see men who are
sex-starved and poor and deprived of opportunities for improvement, but young
and fit while they are fading. So they encourage them to raid other tribes,
escalate petty conflicts into moral causes, and even glorify the whole thing
because it brings the male population down and makes a pre-monogamous society
(which would otherwise be unstable and violent) stable for a while.

This pattern is so ingrained in us that we've mythologized it and glorified
something that is actually pretty awful. It's also where we get the need to
"become a man". Because the gap between high-status (or, at least, realized
and mature) men and low-status ones is so severe, we've had to create
narratives around it. We've also had to elevate quixotry to a virtue.

You see this not just in war but when the stakes are smaller. Take startups.
What do we call those (oddly nostalgic, even if things were awful at the time)
narratives about low-status men working 90-hour weeks, debugging others' awful
written-to-deadline code, as 0.02%-owners of a startup whose benefits would
accrue to high-status men (founders and investors)? "War stories."

As a species, we've had to create this narrative to explain something that we
do to each other for Darwinian, reproductive reasons. It continues even in a
mostly monogamous and mostly peaceful society.

