AT THE HEART
of the Ukraine crisis lies a fundamental question about the nature of
history and the nature of humanity: is change possible? Can humans
change the way they behave, or does history repeat itself endlessly,
with humans forever condemned to re-enact past tragedies without
changing anything except the décor?
One
school of thought firmly denies the possibility of change. It argues
that the world is a jungle, that the strong prey upon the weak and that
the only thing preventing one country from wolfing down another is
military force. This is how it always was, and this is how it always
will be. Those who don’t believe in the law of the jungle are not just
deluding themselves, but are putting their very existence at risk. They
will not survive long.
Another
school of thought argues that the so-called law of the jungle isn’t a
natural law at all. Humans made it, and humans can change it. Contrary
to popular misconceptions, the first clear evidence for organised
warfare appears in the archaeological record only 13,000 years ago. Even
after that date there have been many periods devoid of archaeological
evidence for war. Unlike gravity, war isn’t a fundamental force of
nature. Its intensity and existence depend on underlying technological,
economic and cultural factors. As these factors change, so does war.
Evidence
of such change is all around us. Over the past few generations, nuclear
weapons have turned war between superpowers into a mad act of
collective suicide, forcing the most powerful nations on Earth to find
less violent ways to resolve conflict. Whereas great-power wars, such as
the second Punic war or the second world war, have been a salient
feature for much of history, in the past seven decades there has been no
direct war between superpowers.
During
the same period, the global economy has been transformed from one based
on materials to one based on knowledge. Where once the main sources of
wealth were material assets such as gold mines, wheat fields and oil
wells, today the main source of wealth is knowledge. And whereas you can
seize oil fields by force, you cannot acquire knowledge that way. The
profitability of conquest has declined as a result.
Finally,
a tectonic shift has taken place in global culture. Many elites in
history—Hun chieftains, Viking jarls and Roman patricians, for
example—viewed war positively. Rulers from Sargon the Great to Benito
Mussolini sought to immortalise themselves by conquest (and artists such
as Homer and Shakespeare happily obliged such fancies). Other elites,
such as the Christian church, viewed war as evil but inevitable.
In
the past few generations, however, for the first time in history the
world became dominated by elites who see war as both evil and avoidable.
Even the likes of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, not to mention the
Merkels and Arderns of the world, are very different types of
politicians than Attila the Hun or Alaric the Goth. They usually come to
power with dreams of domestic reforms rather than foreign conquests.
While in the realm of art and thought, most of the leading lights —from
Pablo Picasso to Stanley Kubrick—are better known for depicting the
senseless horrors of combat than for glorifying its architects.
As
a result of all these changes, most governments stopped seeing wars of
aggression as an acceptable tool to advance their interests, and most
nations stopped fantasising about conquering and annexing their
neighbours. It is simply not true that military force alone prevents
Brazil from conquering Uruguay or prevents Spain from invading Morocco.
The parameters of peace
The
decline of war is evident in numerous statistics. Since 1945, it has
become relatively rare for international borders to be redrawn by
foreign invasion, and not a single internationally recognised country
has been completely wiped off the map by external conquest. There has
been no shortage of other types of conflicts, such as civil wars and
insurgencies. But even when taking all types of conflict into account,
in the first two decades of the 21st century human violence has killed
fewer people than suicide, car accidents or obesity-related diseases.
Gunpowder has become less lethal than sugar.
Scholars
argue back and forth about the exact statistics, but it is important to
look beyond the maths. The decline of war has been a psychological as
well as statistical phenomenon. Its most important feature has been a
major change in the very meaning of the term “peace”. For most of
history peace meant only “the temporary absence of war”. When people in
1913 said that there was peace between France and Germany, they meant
that the French and German armies were not clashing directly, but
everybody knew that a war between them might nevertheless erupt at any
moment.
In recent decades “peace” has
come to mean “the implausibility of war”. For many countries, being
invaded and conquered by the neighbours has become almost inconceivable.
I live in the Middle East, so I know perfectly well that there are
exceptions to these trends. But recognising the trends is at least as
important as being able to point out the exceptions.
The
“new peace” hasn’t been a statistical fluke or hippie fantasy. It has
been reflected most clearly in coldly-calculated budgets. In recent
decades governments around the world have felt safe enough to spend an
average of only about 6.5% of their budgets on their armed forces, while
spending far more on education, health care and welfare.
We
tend to take it for granted, but it is an astonishing novelty in human
history. For thousands of years, military expenditure was by far the
biggest item on the budget of every prince, khan, sultan and emperor.
They hardly spent a penny on education or medical help for the masses.
The
decline of war didn’t result from a divine miracle or from a change in
the laws of nature. It resulted from humans making better choices. It is
arguably the greatest political and moral achievement of modern
civilisation. Unfortunately, the fact that it stems from human choice
also means that it is reversible.
Technology,
economics and culture continue to change. The rise of cyber weapons,
AI-driven economies and newly militaristic cultures could result in a
new era of war, worse than anything we have seen before. To enjoy peace,
we need almost everyone to make good choices. By contrast, a poor
choice by just one side can lead to war.
This
is why the Russian threat to invade Ukraine should concern every person
on Earth. If it again becomes normative for powerful countries to wolf
down their weaker neighbours, it would affect the way people all over
the world feel and behave. The first and most obvious result of a return
to the law of the jungle would be a sharp increase in military spending
at the expense of everything else. The money that should go to
teachers, nurses and social workers would instead go to tanks, missiles
and cyber weapons.
A return to the
jungle would also undermine global co-operation on problems such as
preventing catastrophic climate change or regulating disruptive
technologies such as artificial intelligence and genetic engineering. It
isn’t easy to work alongside countries that are preparing to eliminate
you. And as both climate change and an AI arms race accelerate, the
threat of armed conflict will only increase further, closing a vicious
circle that may well doom our species.
History’s direction
If
you believe that historic change is impossible, and that humanity never
left the jungle and never will, the only choice left is whether to play
the part of predator or prey. Given such a choice, most leaders would
prefer to go down in history as alpha predators, and add their names to
the grim list of conquerors that unfortunate pupils are condemned to
memorize for their history exams.
But
maybe change is possible? Maybe the law of the jungle is a choice rather
than an inevitability? If so, any leader who chooses to conquer a
neighbour will get a special place in humanity’s memory, far worse than
your run-of-the-mill Tamerlane. He will go down in history as the man
who ruined our greatest achievement. Just when we thought we were out of
the jungle, he pulled us back in.
I
don’t know what will happen in Ukraine. But as a historian I do believe
in the possibility of change. I don’t think this is naivety—it’s
realism. The only constant of human history is change. And that’s
something that perhaps we can learn from the Ukrainians. For many
generations, Ukrainians knew little but tyranny and violence. They
endured two centuries of tsarist autocracy (which finally collapsed
amidst the cataclysm of the first world war). A brief attempt at
independence was quickly crushed by the Red Army that re-established
Russian rule. Ukrainians then lived through the terrible man-made famine
of the Holodomor, Stalinist terror, Nazi occupation and decades of
soul-crushing Communist dictatorship. When the Soviet Union collapsed,
history seemed to guarantee that Ukrainians would again go down the path
of brutal tyranny – what else did they know?
But
they chose differently. Despite history, despite grinding poverty and
despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Ukrainians established a
democracy. In Ukraine, unlike in Russia and Belarus, opposition
candidates repeatedly replaced incumbents. When faced with the threat of
autocracy in 2004 and 2013, Ukrainians twice rose in revolt to defend
their freedom. Their democracy is a new thing. So is the “new peace”.
Both are fragile, and may not last long. But both are possible, and may
strike deep roots. Every old thing was once new. It all comes down to
human choices.■
Copyright © Yuval Noah Harari 2022.
_______________
Yuval
Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher and author of “Sapiens” (2014),
“Homo Deus” (2016) and the series “Sapiens: A Graphic History”
(2020-21). He is a lecturer in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s
history department and co-founder of Sapienship, a social-impact
company.
