war and human nature

A man who does not know where the rain started beating him might not know where to dry his body is an Igbo proverb mainly used by Chinua Achebe in his writings. After writing my first hub “Did Jesus really suffer?” I read a comment that I should write on important issues like a campaign on the destruction of nuclear weapons. This got me to thinking and I asked myself, we are all protesting against the use of nuclear weapons but no one wants to consider why countries want to have nuclear weapons. This thought came to me then I remembered the proverb.

            If we want to deal with the issue of nuclear weapons and/or war we should try to look at how it all starts then I just realized that it begins with human nature itself. In the words of Napoleon Bonaparte, “Men are moved by two levers; fear and self-interest.” If you look at this statement you will find that the countries with nuclear weapons have them due to either one of the reasons, to explain this further I will look at how fear and self-interest could make a country expand her nuclear ambitions.

            Nuclear weapons and other weapons are mainly developed by scientists who most of the times have no intention of fighting or going to war. In fact some of the inventions are for completely different reasons. Politicians on the other hand with their personal, selfish interests use the weapons as a means to an end and therefore ending up to the situation we are in today.

            In the face of danger human beings normally consider at least two possibilities fight or flight, attack or evade; whatever the approach it will either be due to fear and confrontation. The potential outcome has two possible results, but whatever the outcome both sides end up wounded, though one side more than the other. When a person feels attacked, they look for a way of defending themselves. This makes the enemy feel attacked as well and prepares to defend perceiving that they are being attacked. This is same with countries, when country A expands her nuclear ambitions, country B perceives that she is under attack and prepares to defend herself by developing nuclear resources as well. If there is a nuclear war we all lose, and unless the politicians and leaders realize this we will remain in this same situation. The only way to win in this situation is to neither fight nor defend ourselves.

            Concluding it is important to say that unless we all start listening to each other instead of denigrating we will all head to a place that we will never be able to come back from.