Is Total War the Path to Peace?
Bound by the Gordian Knot
In 333 B.C., according to legend, Alexander the Great encountered a perplexing sight when he marched his troops into the Phyrigian capital of Gordium. He was confronted with an ancient oxcart tethered to a beam by an impossibly devilish tangle of a knot. The citizens there informed him that this was no mere mess of rope. They said this cart had been tied there in dedication to Zeus by King Gordius himself, father to “Gold” King Midas, and that the oracle said whoever loosed that knot would become king of all Asia.
Many had tried to pull apart the knot’s myriad strands. All had failed.
Alexander sized up this latest, most curious adversary for a moment before drawing his sword and—WHOOSH—with one decisive swing he cleaved the knot in two, cleverly claiming his divine destiny and solving the infamous riddle of the Gordian Knot in one fell swoop.
The tale of the Gordian Knot—and Alexander’s innovative approach to solving it—has been used for millennia to represent a conundrum so complex it cannot be solved by conventional means.
The tale also wound its way into my mind these past few days as news of the latest developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict weaves its way through all manner of media.
I do not claim to be an expert on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I am not endeavoring to support one side or another, nor to “both sides” this conflict.
I am simply sharing a question—asked myriad ways—that has troubled me these past few days, one that I hope you can help me solve.
Are there knots that are too tangled, too tightly wound to ever be undone? Is the only solution to cleanly cleave such knots in half, like Alexander freeing that fabled oxcart in Gordium? Are there knots that are otherwise bound to each other for eternity?
Are there conflicts where, if one wishes to minimize suffering, one side must be allowed to eradicate the other, as quickly as possible? Conflicts that are otherwise bound to create misery for eternity?
If the mounting decades of tragedy and violence around Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank were inevitably going to lead to one side eradicating the other (as is being—and has been—actively advocated for by individuals on both sides), would it have been a mercy to get it over with decades ago? To tear off the Band-Aid? To bite the bullet, as it were? Would it have saved the years of misery that have since metastasized and spread across the world and across generations?
Are there irreconcilable situations where interminable attempts to drag out negotiations or force peaceable compromises only prolong the agony, however desperately we may wish to believe otherwise? Situations where neither side will ever walk away? Feuds focused on a single object, or person, or title, or territory that—in the end—only one of the combatants can claim? Disputes so drenched in blood, rage, and despair that they tread an inexorable path toward an irrevocable reckoning?
Are there crises in the real world whose terrible resolutions are completely unconcerned with what you like, or what you want, or how you feel? Crises where, cruel as it may be, concerning yourself with what you like, or what you want, or how you feel in the moment will only guarantee you and the world the opposite for as long as you persist in your noble, vainglorious obstinacy? And is it possible to recognize such situations early enough to make the tough call in that moment of horrible clarity?
If yes, what stays the hand—merciful and terrible—that could bring a swift end to this torment?
Is it a blind hope? A naïve optimism that, contrary to all evidence, somehow, someway, things might just work out without one having to act—or allowing others to act—in ways they find repugnant? A beautiful and fragile faith that Cain will see the Light and embrace Abel, the brothers walking together back into Eden?
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”
Is it a childish petulance? A haughty, dainty disdain for the sordid reality of life that causes some to cross their arms with pouty snort and stamped foot, so selfishly unwilling to accept temporary concession to the primal, painful reality of our existence in order to advance to a better future that they would instead damn the world to slowly sink into a gangrenous quagmire of unresolved conflict for all eternity solely on their doomed and puerile excuse for principle?
“Why don’t they just grow up?”
Is it a craven fear of responsibility? A fear of the condemnation of future generations leering down from their ivory towers of smug safety and wagging their corpulent fingers at the one who pulled the proverbial trigger? Future generations who live in the luxury of hypotheticals and counterfactuals?
“How could we do such a thing?”
Or is it, instead, a prudent fear of miscalculation? A fear of our own fallibility, rooted in a sagacious, human humility? A well-founded fear that—as convinced as we mere mortals may be of the futility of peace, the perpetuation of misery, and the inevitability of atrocity—we can never be truly certain the course history will take, can never be truly certain of all the unintended consequences our actions will create in a world of Chaos Theory and incalculable variables? A righteous fear of a Divinity that warns us against a hubristic faith in our own imperfect, human judgment, and against abandoning faith in miraculous intercession? A fear that—for all of our confidence and calculations—we may be catastrophically wrong?
“Were we truly sure that there was no alternative?”
Yet still, could it be something far more sinister? Are the archons of this age allowing some conflicts to continue—even though they know there is no hope of improvement—because it brings them profit and power? Is the very notion of war the symptom of a sick and unnatural society poisoned by the pernicious machinations and manipulations of a monstrous cabal clandestinely subverting us from shadows upon high? Are the archons actively creating, enflaming, and perpetuating these conflicts, alternately propping up both sides as necessary for their own gain?
Like a corrupt referee forcing two proud pugilists, bloody and battered, back into the ring round after round after round when the fight should have been called long ago.
Like a corrupt hospital forcing a patient onto life support to drain them of every last penny, damning them to an interminable, unliving hell of tubes, drugs, and agony when all the patient wants is the release of death. Money in “treatments,” never in cures. And you can’t get blood from a stone.
What is it that stays the hand?
General Curtis LeMay, the bombastic leader who orchestrated the firebombing of Tokyo in World War II, was known for his philosophy of “total war.”
“If you go to war, you go to win it,” LeMay once laconically observed.
His philosophy demanded that once one was in engaged in conflict, they act expeditiously, decisively, and overwhelmingly to achieve victory at all costs, however brutal the measures. To do otherwise in defiance of the harsh reality confronting you would only create greater suffering in the long run. For everyone. LeMay saw it as a mercy.
By LeMay’s own admission, some would view him as a monster, a war criminal. To this day, many still decry his raids on Japan as inhumane, but as even the recent, soporific film Oppenheimer muses: did not those raids—and Oppenheimer’s atomic bomb—save many lives and immeasurable suffering in the long run by avoiding a protracted amphibious invasion of mainland Japan? And as LeMay would go on to note: “Fortunately, we were on the winning side…. All war is immoral, and if you let it bother you, you’re not a good soldier.”
“All war is immoral.”
Those words evoke the pithy observation of another tough-as-nails American military man, General Sherman, who is credited with saying: “War is hell,” though this appears to be a bit of a paraphrase.
And to tie this all together, there is that oft-circulated, though likely apocryphal, quotation from Winston Churchill during World War II: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
“All war is immoral.”
“War is hell.”
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
The obvious takeaway: don’t go to war.
However, if you do—or if war comes to you—then the advice is equally clear: face it and finish it.
Clarity can bring pain, but indecision can breed suffering.
It is trite but true that I wish for peace. For all people.
I am also enamored of riddles, and I am loath to contemplate a puzzle with no solution, a knot that cannot be undone, a cycle of violence with no beginning… and no end.
But what if such a thing exists?
Ask knot what your country can do for you— but what you absolutely WILL KNOT, blindly and unquestioningly, continue to do for your country!
Just as a side note, Stanley Kubrick stated that this was the scariest film he ever saw.