Why We Fight Quotes

“The voices counseling peace usually win out for one simple reason: war is ruinous. It massacres soldiers, ravages civilians, starves cities, plunders stores, disrupts trade, demolishes industry, and bankrupts governments. About 2,500 years ago, the Chinese general Sun Tzu put it aptly in The Art of War: “There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.” Even the bitterest of enemies foresee the consequences of fighting. These costs are terrible. That is why adversaries strive for an arrangement that avoids risk and destruction. One-off killings and skirmishes take place in the heat of the moment. Then cooler heads prevail.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“Our nonmaterial motives can also be crude and base. These include rulers who seek glory and a place in history through conquest, a populace that takes pleasure in the eradication of a heretical idea, or a society that is only happy if it dominates supreme.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“In my view, there are no good or bad leaders who will act nobly or not in office. There are only constrained and unconstrained ones. Yes, leaders like George Washington will come along who, despite their voracious appetite for land and fine clothes, will still put God and nation before self-interest and refuse the powers offered him. But a stable and successful society must take a dimmer view of humankind, leaders especially, and build our systems for the worst of them.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“War bias comes about when the people who decide whether or not to launch a conflict have a set of risks and rewards different from the society they supposedly represent. In other words, when the leadership’s private incentives differ from the public interest. This isn’t true everywhere. In some societies, wealth, the means of production, and guns are widely distributed rather than concentrated in a few hands. Some peoples have also grown political rules and social norms that check elites, forcing them to seek the consent of the governed. These institutions and distributions of power help align the ruler’s interests with the public’s.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“As we walk through failure after failure, it will be easy to forget the core message so far: war is the exception, not the rule. Amid all this misery, however, try not to lose sight of the world’s robust constitution, the tools at hand, and the pull of peace.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“Unchecked interests, for instance, recognize the importance of a group’s internal politics, especially that rulers often pursue riches and glory against the interests of their society.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“our misperceptions interfere with compromise. We are overconfident creatures. We also assume others think like us, value the same things we do, and see the world the same way. And we demonize our enemies and attribute to them the worst motives. We hold on to all sorts of mistaken beliefs, even in big groups, and when we do, it hijacks our ability to find a bargain we and our enemies can agree to. Competition and conflict make all”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“Each of the five logics eliminates the incentives for compromise in a distinct way. This first is unchecked interests. The costs of war are the main incentive for peace, but when the people who decide on war aren’t accountable to the others in their group, they can ignore some of the costs and agony of fighting. These leaders will take their group to war too frequently. Sometimes they expect to gain personally from conflict, and so they’re enticed to start fights. Unchecked rulers like these are one of the greatest drivers of conflict in history.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“The voices counseling peace usually win out for one simple reason: war is ruinous. It massacres soldiers, ravages civilians, starves cities, plunders stores, disrupts trade, demolishes industry, and bankrupts governments. About 2,500 years ago, the Chinese general Sun Tzu put it aptly in The Art of War: “There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.” Even the bitterest of enemies foresee the consequences of fighting.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith predicted as much over two and a half centuries ago: “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism,” he wrote in 1755, “but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.”[2] Clearly, if I cared about prosperity, equal rights, and justice, I had to care about war.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“Another economist, Amartya Sen, called this “development as freedom.” It is hard to imagine something more important to be free of than violence. As it happens, fighting also makes us poor. Nothing destroys progress like conflict—crushing economies, destroying infrastructure, or killing, maiming, and setting back an entire generation.[1] War undermines economic growth in indirect ways as well.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“What, I asked myself, was I doing? You see, I was training in a tribe that cared about income and its expansion above all else.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

“There and in the years that followed, I learned a society’s success isn’t just about expanding its wealth. It is about a rebel group not enslaving your eleven-year-old daughter as a wife. It is about sitting in front of your home without the fear of a drive-by shooting and a bullet gone astray. It is about being able to go to a police officer, a court, or a mayor and get some semblance of justice. It is about the government never being allowed to push you off your land and stick you in a concentration camp. Another economist, Amartya Sen, called this “development as freedom.” It is hard to imagine something more important to be free of than violence.”
― Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace