For millennia, historians, philosophers and statesmen have pondered about war, its nature and the nature of leaders who take their people to war. Iran cannot match Israel’s daring commandos or precision spyware technologies that destroy their military facilities and assassinate their generals and scientists.
But Iran has nuclear capabilities—again incomparable to Israel’s nuclear weapons. People blank out nuclear devastation because it is too dreadful to imagine or they believe leaders aren’t stupid enough to bring it on. Yet mistakes, miscalculation and overconfidence have catastrophically blighted human history. Albert Einstein purportedly said, “I don’t know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
About 2,000 years ago, Roman statesman Cicero introduced the concept of ‘just war’—waged to achieve justice or peace, conducted with moral constraints and under specific ethical conditions. His wisdom underpins modern laws. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a messianic mission to destroy Iran’s nuclear bomb-making capability, decapitate leadership and cripple Iran’s alleged “existential threat” to Israel.
Imaging: Deni Lal
Says Israeli newspaper Haaretz’s Gideon Levy, “Neutralising Iran is Netanyahu’s life-project.” Netanyahu has already reshaped the Middle East by weakening Iran, downgrading Israel’s circle of enemy Muslim nations, degrading Iran’s proxy armies—Hamas and Hezbollah—invading Lebanon and Syria that hosted the proxies. But Cicero warned, even in ‘just wars’ “unnecessary cruelty must be avoided”. Gaza is a devastated graveyard of humanitarian laws, ethics and morality.
Wars are invariably triggered by strong emotions—revenge, fear, pride, egoism, closed-mindedness, wrote Greek historian Herodotus. He chronicled the Greek-Persian wars 2,500 years ago. His enduring theme is that wars often arise from conceit and cultural misunderstanding. He attributed Persian King Xerxes’ disastrous invasion in 480 BC to overconfidence, disdain for Greek resistance, flawed assumptions and arrogant indifference to local complexities—tendencies noticeable in recent US invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Vietnam. Herodotus wrote: “Great empires are most often destroyed by their own excess.”
Education and strength of character in leaders are necessary to avoid wars, historians concur. In The Art of War, Chinese strategist Sun Tzu reveals, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” This is using diplomacy, deception and disruption. Clever minds outmanoeuvre enemies by exploiting their vulnerabilities, achieving goals without waging a costly war. But this strategy works only if leaders focus on self-awareness and understanding the adversary’s motives, capabilities and defiance. These traits are missing in western wars, even in the long-standing tensions between the US and North Korea. Says Sun Tzu, “Know the enemy, know yourself, and you will never be defeated.” China understands President Donald Trump well. Less certain if they understand themselves equally well.
Plato astutely observed that unchecked aggression coarsens language and deforms the character of both citizens and societies. Rational deliberations check leaders who use populism and rhetoric to wage wars for political gain or emotional appeal rather than reasoned necessity. Excuses for war are often flimsy. Says American analyst Jeffrey Sachs, “I have been hearing Netanyahu say Iran is weeks away from nuclear weapon for 25 years.”
In the face of modern wars, authoritarianism and AI, ancient wisdom is ever more relevant. War is perpetual, sometimes avoidable, but never inconsequential. Statesmen urge caution, introspection and a moral compass. Nations are judged on how they prosecute wars—and how they strive to end them. War is as endemic as death and disease. A century ago, Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana wrote, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
Pratap is an author and journalist.