Psychology of Modern Conflict Kenneth Payne

The Psychology of Modern Conflict
This page intentionally left blank

The Psychology of Modern
Conflict
Evolutionary Theory, Human Nature and
a Liberal Approach to War
Kenneth Payne
King’s College London, UK
© Kenneth Payne 2015
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2015 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978–1–137–42858–5
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Payne, Kenneth, 1974–
The psychology of modern conflict : evolutionary theory, human nature
and a liberal approach to war / Kenneth Payne, Lecturer in
International Relations, King’s College London, UK.
pages cm
ISBN 978–1–137–42858–5
1. War (Philosophy) 2. War—Psychological aspects.
3. Liberalism. I. Title.
U21.2.P336 2015
355.001 9—dc23 2015003822
For my father
Of all the passions that inspire man in battle, none, we have to admit,
is so powerful and so constant as the longing for honour and renown.
Carl von Clausewitz, On War
Contents
List of Tables viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction 1
Part I
2 Violence and Human Nature 19
3 Classical Realists on Honour 38
Part II
4 Reciprocal Altruism 59
5 Honour 80
Part III
6 Liberal Society and War 101
7 Liberal Warriors 121
8 Liberal War Stories 151
9 Conclusion: Heroic Warfare 170
Notes 176
Bibliography 183
Index 193
vii
Tables
4.1 The four possible outcomes of the prisoner’s dilemma 62
viii
Acknowledgements
I developed the ideas for this book largely while teaching my MA class
on psychology and war at the UK’s Joint Services Command and Staff
College. The students on that course, among the most able of their peers,
proved to be an excellent and challenging sounding board. At the same
time I was rowing with my Oxford college, Green Templeton. If you
haven’t experienced the small, intense world of competitive rowing,
you probably don’t know how consuming it can be. Sport is certainly
not war, but I suspect that the small group dynamics that I describe here
are similar. My thanks, then, to the men’s squad, particularly its cap-
tain, Jamie Manuel, and president, Kareem Ayoub, for their comradeship
during some intense times.
I’m grateful to my King’s College London colleagues for their con-
tribution to my thinking, in particular David Houghton and Jon Hill,
and also to my friends for putting up with my fixation with evolution-
ary psychology with good humour. I’d like especially to thank Natalie
McDaid, and not just for her excellent coxing. Thanks also to Stephen
Hare and Stephanie Jones, two friends who are always buzzing with
ideas.
Lastly, during the writing of this book my father became ill, and soon
afterwards he died. A lifelong RAF serviceman, he was, I am sure, largely
responsible for my interest in conflict. Happily spared the horror of close
combat, he was, nonetheless, a thoroughly military man, with an under-
stated sense of patriotism and duty hiding, in that British way, beneath
a thick layer of humour and irony. This book is dedicated to him.
ix
1
Introduction
This book explores the relationship between our evolved psychology

and the character of modern conflict as fought by Western, liberal
democracies. Honour, I conclude, is central to both types of society
even though they differ in a great many respects. Moreover, liberal con-
ceptions of honour are the sort of thing that a hunter-gatherer from
prehistory might easily recognise: we are describing the same funda-
mental impulse. The honour that motivates the liberal actor shares
much with the desire for esteem that was sought by earlier humans.
Specifically, this is honour as a form of public sacrifice for the group.
So I argue that there is a connection between the two worlds, no mat-
ter how dissimilar they ostensibly seem. The essential puzzle for me
is to reconcile a static, or very slowly evolving, human nature with
the profound and rapid shifts in the manifestation of warfare that we
have experienced in the decades since the Second World War. I want to
explore whether, despite the manifestly huge differences between the
modern world and that of the early human hunter-gatherer, there are
still connections in the way in which we fight, and the reasons we do so.
Second, the book says something about the relationship between soci-
ety and those who fight on its behalf. I end up concluding that there is
a tension between liberal values and those that are extolled on the bat-
tlefield. Liberal values and liberal warfare are not always in harmony.
But paradoxically, perhaps, I find that it is the liberals and not the war-
riors who are nearer to the conception of evolutionary honour. The
way in which Western and other armies fight is in some respects con-
trary to our evolved human nature. Their warfare demands discipline
and obedience to hierarchy and it entails the veneration of tradition.
These are cultural manifestations of war that have often paid off. As we
shall see, they were not necessarily manifestations of war as fought by
1
2 The Psychology of Modern Conflict
hunter-gatherers. Liberal armies and liberal society do agree, however,

about the need to sacrifice for the group.
To preview the argument to follow, I argue in the opening part of
the book that evolution produces a repertoire of possible behaviours
in which violence within and between groups is only one possibility.
Cooperation and altruism are also adaptive behaviours in many cir-
cumstances, and I explore the implications of this via Robert Trivers’
powerful notion of reciprocal, or non-kin, altruism (Trivers 1971). I then
argue that modern liberal societies place a premium on cooperative,
non-violent behaviours, in which empathy is an important trait. I con-
clude with the thought that liberal war is postmodern, in the sense that
it involves a subjective storytelling element, including one about hero-
ism and sacrifice. But I shall argue too that this ‘postmodernity’ itself is
fundamentally premodern. Human society, I argue, invariably rests on
stories about identity. These collective narratives provide meaning and
establish standards of behaviour, including in war.
While abjuring any rigorous definition, I see liberal societies as those
that endorse and, broadly, practise the notion that others should be free
to do as they wish, provided that they do not in so doing hurt anyone
else. This is John Stuart Mill’s conception of liberty, which is distilled in
his remark that ‘The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of
pursuing our own good in our own way.’1 The philosopher John Rawls
also comes close to the essence when he argues that as a basic principle
of justice, ‘each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive
basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others’.2
There is a second Rawlsian idea that is relevant here – that of the ‘veil
of ignorance’: to agree that a societal arrangement is fair we must be
prepared to accept it without knowing our place in that society. In such
circumstances, we might be assumed to set aside all partial interests and
really opt for the fairest solution, lest we find ourselves unfairly treated
when the veil is lifted. Liberalism seen in this way challenges the idea of
a vested interest in ourselves or our group.
Of course, ‘liberal’ societies in the real world fall far short of this
abstract ideal-type. There are many real-world injustices, even in the
socially liberal, ostensibly egalitarian societies of Northern Europe.
As Reinhold Niebuhr, to whom I return later, succinctly argued, the
ethics of a society often reflect the interests of power (Niebuhr 2003).
We demand fairness for ourselves, or our group, and we attain it where
we have the ability to enforce an unjust settlement. Idealised liberal-
ism falls short in the real world on another important issue too – we
might fancy that we know what we will want in life, but there is plenty
Introduction 3
of evidence from psychology to cast doubt on that, as well as on our

ability to exercise free will in choosing it. When I return to describe real-
world liberal societies, we will see the effect of these issues in producing
an imperfect sort of liberalism.
Nonetheless, I maintain, it makes sense to talk of a group of liberal
states that, to varying degrees, embody Mill’s notion of liberalism, with
its core idea of not impeding the freedom of others to pursue their
individual goals in life. The states in question are for the most part
synonymous with the group of Western democracies in Europe, North
America and the Antipodes. Readers will almost certainly have particu-
lar objections to the inclusion of one or another of these – for example,
capital punishment in the USA, the marginalisation of aboriginals in
Australia or gender bias in most of them. In my analysis I draw in par-
ticular on literature about the USA and the UK, further blunting any
claim to generalisability. But my point is more abstract – liberal soci-
eties often fall short in the particulars of liberalism, but in aspiring to
be liberal they nevertheless both create a logic of altruism and foster the
attendant empathy that altruism requires.
This brings me to altruism, perhaps the central theme of the book
and the concept which, as I explore in Chapter 3, seems prima facie to
jar with the dog-eat-dog worlds of international politics and war. Lib-
eralism venerates the individual over the power of the group. And yet,
in an apparent paradox, it is the ultimate expression of a group, the
force that binds it together. Altruism, potentially costly behaviour that
directly benefits others but not ourselves, is central to liberalism because
without it we would be acting in our own interests at the expense of oth-
ers, and so be behaving illiberally. The sanctity of the individual human
is the leitmotif of liberalism and the core of the collective identity in
those societies that identify as such. Altruism is also central to military
identity, since, as we shall see, combat is largely shaped by the ability
of the participating soldiers to stand their ground amid carnage, risking
their lives on behalf of their small group of peers. And altruism was the
very basis of hunter-gatherer society – eventually allowing the extension
of the group far beyond the small band of kinsfolk.
Honour is closely related to altruism. As with liberalism, I am similarly
undogmatic in arriving at a definition of honour. But since this book
argues that honour is the thread that best ties liberal society to human
evolution, I will offer some broad thoughts here. I see honour as a pub-
lic virtue, entailing self-sacrifice. It also involves adherence to existing
codes of behaviour that are expected in society. And, lastly, it affords
the honourable actor status, or at least some measure of esteem from
peers. The particulars of honour, like the particulars of much other social
behaviour, vary widely between societies, but all share those common
themes.
The honourable warrior is one who commands public acclaim for his
acts in war, a display of skill, a bold act conducted at personal risk or,
as I argue later in a discussion of close-quarters combat, the strength
of character to stand alongside one’s peers amid great danger. Honour
is also a characteristics of states, and I suggest, as does Ned Lebow, that
honour, or esteem, is one of the principal motivations that explains why
states fight wars (Lebow 2010). Honour might also explain why liberal
states engage in military interventions overseas, in defence of a burgeon-
ing international norm that sometimes privileges the human rights of
individuals and groups over the sovereignty of states (MacFarlane 2005).
To be an ‘honourable’ liberal is not to fight tenaciously what is right for
yourself, or even for your own group, but to recognise the demands and
rights of others beyond it. In a logical sense, the entirety of humanity
becomes the liberal’s referent group, deserving of even-handedness. That
is not how the world works, of course. Our interests and our passions
remain more often parochial and self-centred. We may have imagined
into being vast national communities of complete strangers, conjur-
ing up sufficient emotional attachment between them so as to produce
extreme altruism in combat, yet many liberal warriors will tell you that
they fight and die not for those grand ideas but for the small group of
comrades alongside them.
An evolved human nature
Parts I and II of the book concentrate on our evolutionary legacy. I out-

line two themes from that literature. First is the idea of conflict as
somehow being inevitable – a part of our innate human nature. Sec-
ond comes the notion that there is a cooperative and altruistic side to
our nature that makes us distinctively human. Animals, especially social
animals, cooperate too, but not with the degree of depth and flexibility
that humans manage, even among other primates (Burkart et al. 2014).
Among other things, our evolved capacity for cooperation, especially via
the development of language and conscious reflection, has unleashed
culture.
In Part I, I link the hard-edged, violent evolutionary picture to the
political philosophy of ‘realism’ as it has developed in thinking about
relations between social groups. The notion of an evolved human nature
resonates with much realist literature on strategic studies, not least
Introduction 5
in its view of the importance of power in an anarchical setting that

is shaped largely by fear and insecurity. This is the picture of con-
flict as an inevitable aspect of human relations that comes to us from
a selective reading of the canonical realists Thucydides and Thomas
Hobbes. Later ‘classical’ realists such as Reinhold Niebuhr and Hans
Morgenthau also adopted this view of power and insecurity shaping
international behaviour, urging statesmen to prioritise a narrow, prag-
matic conception of the ‘national interest’ over more ethically informed
ones (Morgenthau 1949; Niebuhr 2003). In more sinister guise, evolu-
tion and conflict mix in the seductive but flawed theorising of social
Darwinists, such as Herbert Spencer, who coined the term ‘survival of
the fittest’ and wrote about the extension of Darwin’s theory into the
social domain. No one could lightly accuse Morgenthau, the Jewish
refugee from Nazi racism, of being a social Darwinist, but the view of the
realist does bear a passing resemblance to it, with groups under anarchy
keenly focused on the power of their rivals, and trapped in a ‘secu-
rity dilemma’ where increases in the power of potential rivals directly
challenge one’s own power.
There is an important point to make in Part I, which describes the
uncompromising and sometimes bleak realist worldview, which is that
evolution is not deterministic. Unease over the implications of evo-
lutionary theory as applied to human behaviour shaped the strong
reactions to the sociobiology of the 1970s and 1980s. Uncomfortable
ideas included the notion that there were distinct, evolved differences
between men and women, or between different races of humans. Were
men more predisposed to violence than women? Were some races clev-
erer than others? This was controversial territory, particularly amid a
prevailing academic orthodoxy that highlighted the role of societies in
constructing behaviours, especially by instilling them in the early years
of childhood.
The revival of mainstream writing about natural selection and human
society in recent years has been less divisive, armed with findings
from the archaeological record, from the study of surviving modern
hunter-gatherer communities, and with a growing body of evidence
from experimental psychology and neuroscience. The new evolution-
ary psychology has ameliorated the determinist edge of sociobiology.
Genes are, in very many instances, not our destiny. Most of our traits
are shaped by complex combinations of genes, rather than owing to
the expression of a single gene. Moreover, there is almost invariably
considerable interaction between our genetic inheritance and our envi-
ronment, such that the expression of the genes can be modified by
environmental factors. In modern evolutionary psychology, there is no

longer a nature–nurture debate, with both being recognised as funda-
mental to the way we are. It remains true that certain human traits,
such as adult height (uncontroversially) and intelligence (much more
so), are highly heritable – meaning that we can predict the variation
in the trait with some confidence on the basis of genetic inheritance.3
But for a great many human characteristics, including those involved
in war, it is hard to separate the genetic from the environmental. The
environment, particularly during our childhood development, has such
an impact on the expression of our genes – that is, passed along to the
next generation.
In any case the search for simple genetic inheritance often oversim-
plifies our understanding of human character with its rich and subtle
shades. As the poet Walt Whitman reminds us, ‘I am large, I contain
multitudes.’ We might, for example, find that someone more disposed to
anger and even violence in response to life’s challenges is also someone
with a warm and generous spirit.
Rather it makes more sense, I hold, to see our evolutionary inheritance
as being responsible for generating a repertoire of possible behaviours or
strategies, the adoption of which will be contingent on the range of
environmental circumstances in which we find ourselves, and on the
balance of our own proclivities. Sometimes this can be maladaptive, as
with our modern overconsumption of sugar and salt – evolutionarily
scarce resources that are suddenly available in great abundance in mod-
ern societies. Similarly, in the area with which we are concerned here –
fighting – we might suppose that men are possessed of some innate
instinct that drives them towards violence. Perhaps they feel anger and
display aggression in the face of challenges to their esteem more read-
ily than women do. More on that shortly. But these are inclinations, or
behavioural scripts. Even if we take a somewhat minimalist view of free
will, there is plenty of scope for the environment to alter the expression
of these inherited traits.
A second important issue is the question of pace. How fast does evo-
lutionary change happen? A large part of the writing on evolutionary
psychology rests on the idea that humans have lived for some 90%
or more of their evolutionary history in a particular lifestyle, and have
evolved traits that are well suited to that context. Specifically, this is the
era of the palaeolithic hunter-gatherer band, each of which might num-
ber some several dozen individuals who come together in an overnight
camp, many of whom are related to one another. Modern life, which we
might, albeit somewhat arbitrarily, date from the agricultural revolution
Introduction 7
some 10,000 years ago, presents a break with this earlier period in which
most evolution happened – sometimes referred to as the human ‘state
of nature’, or the ‘ancestral’ environment. Evolutionary psychology is
then able to offer some rationale for why we behave in the way that we
do, despite strong environmental imperatives to act differently – to a
certain extent, scholars have focused on maladaptive behaviours, ideal
for hunter-gatherers but less suited to different environments. And yet
we know that dramatic change to species can happen rapidly, even over
a period of generations, whether in response to changes in the environ-
ment, as with fish introduced to new streams with different predators,
or in response to artificial selection – deliberate breeding of traits in ani-
mals by humans. The Soviet biologists Dmitri Belyaev and Lyudmila
Trut, for example, managed to domesticate foxes in only a few genera-
tions by breeding together those with the shortest startle responses (Trut
1999). The physical change in the foxes were dramatic as they came to
resemble in appearance domestic dogs – hardly surprising given that
dogs are essentially domesticated wolves.
We might, if we were so minded, reverse the trend and produce wilder
and more aggressive animals through selective breeding. Indeed, this is
done with certain dog breeds, and in a matter of generations. When it
comes to mankind, I argue that a similar process of domestication has
long been under way, with important implications for violence and war.
We might date that domestication to some 10,000–20,000 years ago: not
long in the evolutionary scale of things.
Genes and violence
Where does this subtle approach to genes and natural selection leave
us when it comes to violence? Many men, and their societies, live out
lives of peace with little or no exposure to intraspecies violence. I would
venture that this demonstrates the effect of the environment on the
expression of violent behaviour. There are still violent humans, even in
the most peaceful societies, and in the right circumstances many of us
would be capable of physical violence.
Part of my argument here, borrowing from Azar Gat and Steven Pinker
in particular, is that modern liberal societies have sufficiently altered
the payoffs from violence so as to render it a poor option – although,
as with gorging on sugary snacks, even poor options can be hard to
resist if we are genetically disposed to choose them (Gat 2006; Pinker
2011). In such circumstances our innate tendency towards cooperation,
and even altruism, is an inclination that has greater promise. Has the
modern world had sufficient time to produce less violent men who are
better able to prosper by non-violent strategies? The answer, which must
be tentative, is that violence remains a viable strategy in the modern
world. However, the ‘modern’ world, if we take a long enough view to
start with the emergence of culture, language and larger social groups,
has certainly had long enough to work on ‘domesticating’ humans, like
those foxes in the Soviet Union. It is this domestication, I venture, that
has driven the decline in violence over the last 10,000 years or so – a
point to which I return in Chapter 2.
Evolutionary pressures selected for certain traits, including violence
against outsiders with whom one is in direct competition for scarce
resources. We have evolved to fight, and there is compelling evidence,
which I address in more detail in the next chapter, to show that there
was a great deal of intraspecies violence between many hunter-gatherer
societies. For all that, there is little direct evidence regarding the genetic
component of prowess in combat. Some evidence on violence more
broadly is, however, available. Criminal violence in particular provides
some evidence for tendencies towards violence more broadly, although,
of course, it differs markedly from violence in war, not least since it is
not sanctioned by the community at large.
Studying a large dataset of all convictions for violent crime in Sweden
between 1973 and 2004, Thomas Frisell and his colleagues revealed vio-
lent crime clusters in families (Frisell et al. 2011). This finding does
not, of course, distinguish between genetic and environmental reasons
for the violence since both are implicated. In a later large-n study,
Frisell reviewed data that attempt to do that by considering variation
in the convictions of twins and siblings who were raised in differ-
ent environments (Frisell et al. 2012). Here, he and his colleagues
found a far greater risk of conviction for violent crime among men
than women; and, moreover, that many of these convictions were
for violent assault. This result resonates with the evolutionary logic
that I explore later that suggests that men are more disposed to fight.
On genetic disposition for violence, Frisell found what they called ‘mod-
erate’ heritability – so that 55% of the variation in aggressive criminal
behaviour of those in the dataset might be accounted for by genes, with
some 13% being down to the environment within the family. By com-
parison, the heritability of height in a population has been variously
assessed as some 70–80% – in other words, there appears to be a very
strong genetic influence on height (Visscher 2008). Optimism, in con-
trast, was found in another twin study, this time in Australia, to be only
36% heritable (Mosing et al. 2009). There is clearly plenty of scope for
one’s outlook on life to be informed by environmental factors, especially
Introduction 9
during early development, but genes are also important. Another recent
study, this time of prisoners in Finland, implicated two particular geno-
types in extreme violent criminality (including homicide and battery) –
the authors argued that 5–10% of all severe violent crime in Finland
could be attributed to just these two genotypes (Tiihonen et al. 2014).
Of course, that still leaves 90% of the violent crime determined by
other genetic combinations or the environment – or, most likely, a mix
of both.
There is much that we do not know about genes and violence, and
we should accordingly be modest about drawing firm conclusions, par-
ticularly about the relationship between particular genes, and violent
and impulsive behaviour. The expression of violence is probably not the
result of simple genetic differences – more than one gene is almost cer-
tainly involved in prompting a range of behaviours, and that is even
before we get to the effects of the environment on our development,
and then to their interaction with our genes. The authors of the Finnish
study were at pains to note that the sensitivity of their genotype find-
ings were much too low to permit any sort of screening to anticipate
violent crime.
Moreover, we know from the very rapid changes in societal expres-
sions of violent behaviour that there must be a large environmental
contribution to aggressive behaviours, both in our development as
juveniles and later in establishing the context in which we act. The
anthropologist Jared Diamond’s discussion of the rapid and widespread
transformation of Papua New Guinean society during the period of his
own anthropological career makes this point abundantly clear, as does
the widespread and sustained phenomenon of falling crime rates in
many Western societies (Diamond 2012).4
Culture supplants evolution in shaping war
The great evolutionary leap for humans came with the ability to coordi-
nate their behaviour and shape the environment about them. Now they
could thrive in a range of incredibly diverse environmental niches, from
the Arctic tundra to the Congo basin. The development of language
and learning, and the increasing sophistication of cooperative projects,
allowed humans to act on their environment, rather than simply experi-
ence their environment acting on them, as do all other animals. Natural
selection continued to act on humans, but now they had the capacity
to shape the bounds within which it did so.
The period during which humans have possessed this capability is
relatively short. For the sake of brevity, and as with ‘liberalism’, I shall
again avoid the rather lengthy debates about the definition of culture
and find myself in broad sympathy with the anthropologist Clifford
Geertz’s view that it is a shared web of understanding between peo-
ples (Geertz 1973). This implies communication, via language, and
a degree of intentionality – a capacity to mentalise what others are
thinking. Culture is a product of our advanced sociability. Once the
social/cultural revolution had happened – a matter of just tens of thou-
sands of years ago – the relationship between evolution and human
behaviours became vastly richer and more complex.5
The aim of Part III is to examine one such cultural manifestation
in the light of what I have said earlier about evolution. I argue that
an understanding of evolution is essential to fathom some of the
behaviours that we see, even in a context as far removed from that of the
hunter-gatherer as seems humanly possible: the modern liberal societies
of Western Europe and North America.
Specifically, I argue that the logic of reciprocal altruism is essential
to an understanding of our extended form of modern empathy, and
our social identities that can extend far beyond our small, largely kin
groups to include people that we may never meet or have very much
knowledge of. In essence, I argue that in liberal societies our evolved
ability to cooperate with non-kin members has moderated our long-
standing tendency to be suspicious of and hostile to strangers from
outside our small kin group. These parochial tendencies clearly haven’t
gone away, and the direction of travel towards ever greater liberalism is
not inevitable. We have a fragile and contingent capacity to empathise
with total strangers, and we continue to favour those most similar to us.
We may even unconsciously choose our friends based on shared DNA – a
recent study found that genetic similarity of friends relative to strangers
was at the level of fourth cousins (Christakis and Fowler 2014). We are
not, in short, too far removed from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, at
least in an evolutionary sense.
This view of liberalism as transformative of established patterns of
human behaviour is hardly new – liberals themselves have been arguing
for centuries that improved communications, increased trade interac-
tions, and shared collected identities beyond the nation (professional,
confessional and ideological) can ameliorate the chauvinism that is
more typical of human interaction with strangers (Howard 2000). Some
liberals go further than this, seeing an almost inevitable progression
of human relations from barbaric prehistory towards an enlightened
future. This is overdone – there is no compelling evidence for a
teleological direction to history, or History, in the sense implied by
Introduction 11
Francis Fukuyama (Fukuyama 1992). The modern world of state failure,

Islamist extremism and the ongoing difficulties facing capitalist soci-
eties suggest that we are a long way from an ‘end’ to history, and that
the recent gains of liberalism are fragile and can be rapidly undone.
In short, I see a distinct relationship between liberal society and our
evolutionary heritage, but not one that is overly deterministic. We are
liberal in the context of our human evolution. At times this liberalism
jars with some of our evolved traits, as I shall argue – for example, in the
role afforded women in combat. At other times it is entirely consistent
with it – as with our capacity for extended empathy.
Evolution and liberalism
Liberal society is essentially a cultural phenomenon. There is a cord con-

necting the hunter-gatherer community, in a permanent state of war, as
I argue in the next chapter, and the liberal society that lives, for the most
part, in contented peace.
Evolution, as I have suggested, can happen over a relatively short
timeframe, but the case has not been remotely established that liberal, or
Western, civilisations have produced a distinctive type of human being.
We are on far safer ground arguing that liberal society may favour a
certain repertoire of behaviours from the broader suite that we have
evolved to deal with a variety of social situations. This flexibility is the
great strength of human evolution, enabling the dazzling variety of cul-
tural settings in which humans have lived, to say nothing of the incredi-
bly diverse ecological niches in which they have survived and prospered.
In a highly speculative and deeply controversial recent book, Nicholas
Wade argues that the different cultural niches within which humans
live have acted to shape their evolution (Wade 2014). The effects are
demonstrated, according to his argument, across a range of areas, shap-
ing individual cultures variably, including in their capacity to cooperate,
as reflected in their development of different societal institutions. More
than 100 of the researchers whose work was cited in his book co-
authored a letter to the New York Review of Books to refute the claims
that Wade made.6 The controversy centres on the racial implications of
his idea: it suggests that some societies are more suited to modernity.
This, though, is highly dubious, not least since the tremendous variety
of cultural norms operating within broadly the same ethnic groups sug-
gests that there is a huge cultural dimension to our social structures.
Moreover, the pace and scale of cultural change is such that, even if
we allowed for the possibility that cultures might create a niche within
which evolution can happen, there is simply not enough time – cultures,
like other groups, are in a constant state of flux.
The view I adopt here, by contrast, is that culture itself has been catal-
ysed by a process of ‘domestication’ which is relatively recent in the
history of humans – gathering pace some 20,000 years ago, as the palae-
olithic era began to give way to the neolithic. Human evolution has
proceeded sufficiently slowly that there is a common thread connecting
us moderns with earlier humans – that main contention of evolutionary
psychology. But modern humans are nonetheless different from their
ancestors, not least in their capacity to live in larger groups than the
small, mostly kinship bands of the hunter-gatherer, palaeolithic man.
Thus, my argument is that evolution created the potential for culture,
and not, à la Wade, that culture shapes evolution. Though I would not
disavow the potential for human ‘niche’ selection, in which humans
change their environment and in so doing shape the parameters within
which they will subsequently evolve, I am not convinced that this has
produced pronounced, culturally distinct traits.
Liberal culture, I argue, is the logical apotheosis of this enhanced
human sociability, or domestication. In the first instance, domesticated
humans learned to cooperate together more effectively with unrelated,
or at least more distantly related, humans. Culture served, among its
many other advantages, as a marker of who might be deserving of the
bonds of trust, and even altruism, that bound a large group together.
My argument is that such groups would have had a comparative advan-
tage over others that were less social. If competition between groups
turned violent, as it assuredly did, non-cooperative humans would have
had less sophisticated weapons, fewer numbers and cruder tactics.
But within these larger groups of extended clans, tribes and regional
confederations, the payoffs from violence were likely to differ from
those of the small hunter-gatherer group. There would have been a
larger in-group with whom to cooperate. Such groups would have had
more scope for comparative advantage in peaceful intracommunity
social exchanges, to the benefit of both parties; and there would also
have been a hierarchy to compel adherence to group norms. In such
societies there would have been a premium on understanding others;
working out who best to trust, and in portraying oneself as a trustwor-
thy person. Raw aggression in response to provocation or as a strategy
to earn a fierce reputation may often have been a less viable approach
in such groups.
Does this widening and deepening of social cooperation mean that
we are becoming progressively more pacifistic? I argue that we are, in
Introduction 13
contrast with undomesticated humans. And that process may well still
be in train. At its extreme, though, has liberalism created a niche within
which more peaceful types might evolve as a different sort of human?
I am sceptical. First, there has not been long enough in liberal societies
for such changes to feed through into later generations: only a mat-
ter of a few hundred years. Second, violence remains a part of liberal
societies. While liberal societies may well reward cooperative, pacifistic
strategies and allow for mutual gains in esteem, they do not punish
those who are less adept in such an environment with anywhere near
the same severity as did the harsh, resource-scarce and violent world of
the hunter-gatherer. The violent criminals in the large Swedish survey
were testament to that – violence clustered in families, and was to a con-
siderable degree hereditary. The response of the liberal society was not
to annihilate the criminals, or prevent them from breeding, but rather
to punish them within the confines of liberal justice – incarceration for
a spell in a materially comfortable prison.
In short, liberalism is the apotheosis of domesticated man. If liberal
societies were perfect, ideal-types, there really would be no fighting, as
empathetic and caring souls everywhere would seek to maximise the
common collective good. But liberal societies are not like that, and prob-
ably never will be. While in many circumstances violence does not pay,
it remains part of our evolved repertoire of possible behaviours. We are
physically and mentally equipped to fight hard. Moreover, in our rela-
tionship with outsiders, liberals, like their über-socialised, domesticated
ancestors, remain capable of great violence. Indeed, it seems very pos-
sible that their superior capacity to instrumentalise violence was key to
their success – providing the motive force for the process of evolving
ever greater cooperation, and a richer culture.
Liberal warriors
In a society where violence has become less prevalent, the capacity of

the soldier to inflict and experience violence marks him out as somehow
different from the rest of his compatriots. In Chapter 7 I explore some
of the core themes of what Christopher Coker terms ‘the warrior ethos’,
asking what it means to be a warrior and, in particular, what it means to
be a liberal warrior (Coker 2007).
The idea that soldiers are somehow more capable of violence is
something that I encounter often when telling people about my job,
which involves lecturing to senior army officers. This, however, misses
a vital element in the soldiering life. Soldiers are not, for the most part,
psychopaths with a signal aptitude for inflicting violence, owing to an

uncaring disposition. Soldiering, as I discuss in more detail in later chap-
ters, is an intensely social activity. War, after all, is a collective enterprise,
that collectivity being one of its defining features – one that legitimises,
at least to many of us, the violence that is entailed in fighting justified
wars on behalf of our societies. Like all of us, soldiers exist in groups,
and these groups place a premium on cooperation and altruism. Acts
of courage in war are not, in the main, acts of isolation: heroism and
honour are social virtues, the basis of the ‘band of brothers’ mythology
that is central to the ideal of the warrior. There is certainly an existential
element to the violence of the warrior, who in his purest incarnation
fights for the pure vocation of it, as with the mythical Achilles. But for
the vast majority of warriors, war is a collective endeavour in which
the mutual support and sacrifice of a close group of colleagues provides
motivation and resilience, and can prompt courage. Adhering to the
dictates of that small group is the essence of honour for the warrior.
And so I come to two interesting conclusions about liberal warriors
and liberal societies. First, they differ profoundly as a matter of ethics
over the justice of killing other people. The foundation of liberal phi-
losophy is the notion of doing no harm to others – a deontological
philosophy. For warriors, liberal and otherwise, killing enemies is their
raison d’etre: they do so, ostensibly, in the interests of their referent
group – they must risk their own life for the greater good: a consequen-
tialist philosophy. And yet, despite this fundamental distinction, liberals
need warriors, the world being what it is. The second, perhaps more
intriguing, conclusion I drive towards is that the warriors and their soci-
ety alike are motivated by the same altruistic instinct – to cooperate with
non-kin members, often with complete strangers. The warriors will even
sacrifice their lives for total strangers, and they can even behave altruis-
tically towards enemies with whom they identify as fellow warriors. This
extraordinary behaviour shares with liberal society a common root – the
willingness to extend help to others even at considerable personal cost.
That seems at first blush to fly in the face of evolutionary logic – the
survival of the fittest gene – but, as I will show, it is entirely consistent
with it.
Conclusion
The central theme of this book is that warfare as manifest by liberal

Western societies is intimately related to our human evolution, no mat-
ter how far different the modern liberal setting is from the evolutionary
Introduction 15
landscape of small bands of hunter-gatherers. Indeed, liberal society

itself has been made possible by human evolution – it is not somehow
in opposition to our human nature.
The picture that emerges from my account is in some respects similar
to that advanced by Azar Gat and Bradley Thayer, in two recent anal-
yses of the relationship between evolutionary psychology and modern
warfare (Thayer 2004; Gat 2006). Their writing is broadly supportive
of the realist tradition in international relations theory: as Gat notes,
there is a lot of Hobbes’ ‘state of nature’ in palaeolithic hunter-gatherer
society, and, I argue, the legacy of that remains today. But the account
I present here swings the pendulum back somewhat – whereas those
authors emphasise the intense competition in the evolutionary environ-
ment, and the potential for conflict, I focus instead on the cooperative
element in our evolutionary repertoire.
Central to my argument is the view that honour has been an impor-
tant staple of conflict, from primitive times to ours. The attainment
or defence of honour is an important cause of war, in part because its
possession in the intensely social world of humans confers an evolution-
ary advantage in terms of access to scarce resources. I suggest that this
longing for honour provides a striking departure from narrowly real-
ist accounts of conflict that emphasise insecurity, or anarchy and the
attendant need to monitor and garner power for self-preservation.
An evolutionarily informed account of realism would hold that power
and dominance are important in providing not just security but also
access to scarce resources that enhance reproductive potential. Adding
honour to the mix need not negate these key tenets of realism, but it
certainly allows for a richer account, and it explains some important
features of international relations that are otherwise puzzling.
And so I argue that reciprocal altruism, status and esteem are linked
in social relations, and that this linkage can do much to explain the
emergence of a distinctively liberal way of war. This pattern of warfare
is not inevitable but it is the logical outgrowth of an evolved tendency
to cooperate, to have a developed sense of empathy and a wholly flex-
ible concept of in-group and out-group. Once we allow that others
are rationally within our liberal grouping, and once we develop the
empathetic response that enables us to feel that, a liberal mode of war
becomes embedded in state practice. There is a constructivist flavour to
my argument, explored in Chapter 8, where I suggest that the capacity
for storytelling plays an important part in establishing the group and
shaping its approach to war.
Part I
2
Violence and Human Nature
I begin my account of evolution and liberal war by outlining a view of

evolutionary psychology that would at first blush be strikingly familiar
to a realist scholar in international relations. The central contention of
evolutionary psychology is that our brains evolved primarily in the con-
text of hunter-gatherer communities in which humans lived prior to the
onset of the agricultural revolution some 10,000 years ago. That envi-
ronment produced, as two leading evolutionary psychologists argue,
adaptations that would have been suitable for the ‘ancestral environ-
ment’ that faced these people, but that might not be best suited to the
modern world in which we live today (Cosmides and Tooby 2013).
In fact, as argued earlier, the hunter-gatherer mind was continuing
to evolve, and some tens of thousands of years ago something began
to change. We can observe the effects: larger groups, more evidence
of cultural artefacts, trading networks, the development of written lan-
guage, urban settlements and agriculture. But there is much we don’t
know about what prompted the development. Later I argue that war
itself may have played an important role. In a relatively short space of
time, our human ancestors developed a capacity for abstract thought,
mutual empathy and cooperative instincts that allowed human culture
to move decisively beyond the more primitive world of the palaeolithic
human. Insofar as these changes fostered an intense sociability and a
flexible conception of the group to which that sociability might apply,
we might allow that they laid the foundation for the liberalism that we
experience today.
Meanwhile, however, conflict remained a feature of the ‘primitive’
landscape, the product of a struggle between small groups of humans
that were competing for scarce resources – principally food and sex. This
is the basic driving force in evolutionary psychology – the sometimes
19
fierce pressures of environmental competition that select those who do

best at reproducing, or at least having kin who do so.
Access to food and sex are important for the survival of the group or –
more accurately, from an evolutionary perspective, for the onward selec-
tion of genes that belong to individuals within the group. Since humans,
even palaeolithic ones, live in groups, the survival of individuals is inti-
mately bound up with that of their group. But natural selection, which
a reasonably solid consensus of evolutionary theorists aver, operates at
the level of the individual gene, not the individual human, and still less
their group.
If one group gains access to resources, the other loses – conflict is
zero sum. To secure themselves and these resources, groups must be on
their guard, prepared for the worst. Uncertainty about the intentions
of others makes them suspicious of strangers. The offensive capabili-
ties of a group of humans that have evolved the ability to manufacture
weapons and tools heightens the threat, and this can lead to a spiralling
‘security dilemma’, whereby any increased security for one group is a
relative loss for another. The hallmark of this world is an overriding
concern about relative power in ‘anarchical’ conditions – that is, in a
world without a clear hierarchical power to compel the peaceful settle-
ment of disputes. In these somewhat undifferentiated small societies, in
which everyone engages in hunter-gathering and the group is relatively
egalitarian, everyone, or more likely every man, is a warrior. Standing,
esteem and some extra resources might, however, be obtained by those
leaders, or ‘big men’ who can demonstrate prowess in battle or some
other valuable leadership trait. Thus, the attainment of status becomes
an important goal in life – an intermediate goal, whose achievement
may enhance an individual’s reproductive chances.
The evolution of warriors
The evolutionary landscape seems to be a harsh environment for early

man. We know from the available archaeological record, and from
anthropological fieldwork that studies modern-day humans who are liv-
ing in hunter-gatherer societies, that the life of a young man had a
strong probability of exposure to violence and an early death. In his
War Before Civilisation, Lawrence Keeley marshals this evidence into a
compelling narrative of warrior violence in ‘primitive’ societies (Keeley
1995). By ‘primitive’ he, and I, mean to suggest societies that are pre-
state, mostly small, and that may lack a stable hierarchy, often made
up of interrelated kinsfolk, and that are typically engaged in hunting
Violence and Human Nature 21
and gathering. A less pejorative term might be ‘traditional’ societies, so

I shall use the terms interchangeably. These are the societies in which
mankind lived out the majority of their evolutionary history, down to
some 10,000 years ago, with the gradual onset of agriculture and larger,
more settled communities after that time.
In meticulous detail, Keeley describes finds from archaeological sites
that were occupied by anatomically modern humans and that include
mass graves and indications that many people met unnatural, violent
deaths. He concludes:
Peaceful prestate societies were very rare; warfare between them was
very frequent, and most adult men in such groups saw combat repeat-
edly in a lifetime . . . In fact, primitive warfare was much more deadly
than that conducted between civilised states because of the greater
frequency of combat and the more merciless way it was conducted.1
The evidence compiled by Keeley from the archaeological record sug-

gests that primitive warfare could be ‘total war’ – whole societies were
involved in the fighting – with communities themselves being the
targets of raids and ambushes. Keeley adopts the term ‘total war’, argu-
ing that ‘primitive warfare is simply total war conducted with limited
means’.2 Modern states are able to conduct sustained campaigns, and to
bring to bear more specialised weapons and tactics than could primitive
warriors. But despite this increased martial power, those living in larger
societies of humans would be less exposed to war.
Azar Gat, reviewing the archaeological and anthropological evidence,
argues similarly that the creation of the state, understood as a larger,
settled and hierarchical society, diminished violence. Not only could
authorities in proto- and actual states impose peace on citizens, but
also they provided some insulation from persistent intergroup conflict:
states, even proto-states, only required a proportion of the citizenry
to serve in combat (Gat 2006, 2013). As a spectacle, a pitched battle
between rival states’ armed forces might look hugely destructive, but
proportionately the toll on society over time would be less severe than
the constant attrition of a cycle of raid and ambush.
All of this warfare contrasts starkly with an enduring notion that
man led a more peaceful life before the advent of civilisation brought
the invention of war. We owe that picture in part to the writings
of the French philosopher Jean Jaques Rousseau, with his conception
that men in a purported ‘state of nature’ lived essentially peaceful and
harmonious lives, and that trouble started when these humans came
together to agree a ‘social contract’, presaging modern states with their

inequality, injustice and warfare (Rousseau 2002). A similarly benevo-
lent view of primitive life was, as Keeley outlines, a dominant position
in academic anthropology in the later twentieth century, along with
the notion that encounters with Western colonialists had led to the
doom of hitherto pacific modes of existence. Very often indeed, such
encounters did spell the end for traditional ways of life, and some-
times they involved an upsurge in violence too, either because the
colonialists exploited their advanced weaponry and tactics to obliterate
hostile indigenous populations, or because the locals themselves bor-
rowed the techniques of colonial warfare to seek an advantage against
their existing enemies.
In fact, as Steven Pinker persuasively argues in his book The Better
Angels of Our Nature, the growth of larger social groups, rather than
increasing levels of violence between and within groups, seems to have
diminished them (Pinker 2011). Pinker, with Gat and Keeley, is the third
author in recent years to present a major account of a violent human
prehistory, again drawing on archaeological and ethnographic evidence,
including that used by the other two.
Their argument is by no means universally accepted. The alterna-
tive view that war is a modern and cultural institution is advanced,
among others, by Douglas Fry, who holds that ‘warfare is not ancient’,
or by R. Brian Ferguson, who systematically challenges Pinker’s data and
claims that ‘we are not hard-wired for war. We learn it.’3 Frans de Waal,
the renowned primatologist, is inclined to agree, noting man’s marked
reluctance to kill and arguing that ‘if warfare were truly in our DNA, we
should happily engage in it’.4
As the literature suggests, there is plenty of scope for debate, not least
because the archaeological record is so patchy. There are only a few
dozen known sites, and the evidence of violent death is largely limited
to the study of bones that remain. Ethnographic work regarding mod-
ern hunter-gatherer communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea
add to the data available and lend support to Keeley and Pinker’s view.
Hunter-gatherers who are observed in the modern era experience rou-
tine warfare with casualty rates that are similar to those that Pinker
finds in the archaeological record. Pinker includes some examples in
his data, finding that some 14% of all deaths result from war in the
eight ‘modern’ hunter-gatherer societies that he has surveyed – a figure
broadly similar to the one that he arrives at from the archaeological
record. By contrast, he finds that only 0.7% of worldwide deaths in the
twentieth century occurred during battle, a figure that he increases to
3% by including deaths from war-related famine, disease, genocide and

other atrocities.5 Modern hunter-gatherer societies can be, the record
suggests, incredibly violent places.
But even here there is scope for debate. Are these societies rep-
resentative of earlier communities? Have they not been affected by
their encounter with the modern world – squeezed to the margins
of modernity, as it were? The debate will surely continue, but the
view of war as endemic in traditional societies is becoming broadly
accepted. Jared Diamond, who spent his early career studying the mod-
ern hunter-gatherer societies in New Guinea, concedes that he was
initially ‘astonished’ by the evidence of a huge discrepancy in death
rates from war between modern state society and traditional society.
Nonetheless, he falls in squarely with the Gat/Pinker/Keeley consensus,
arguing that the episodic, specialised nature of modern war is propor-
tionately far less costly to the societies that fight it than the constant
attrition of raid and ambush in feuds between small hunter-gatherer
communities (Diamond 2012).
For me the major challenge to the pacifistic view of early Homo sapiens
comes from the notion of self-domestication, akin to the transformation
of wolves into dogs. This process has, I suggest, transformed the way
in which humans interrelate, allowing larger social groups and, con-
currently, diminishing the proportionate level of violence, even as the
destructive potential of such societies increased with more sophisticated
weapons and tactics.
After the end of the last ice age, as the palaeolithic period gave way
to the neolithic some 10,000 years ago, the population of anatomically
modern humans grew rapidly (Zheng et al. 2012). That is one, albeit
speculative, argument to account for domestication, the idea being that
pressures of space and resources prompted humans to evolve to become
more cooperative and less martial. Another related idea, to which I will
return, is that war drove the domestication process, because larger, more
cooperative groups were more effective at waging it (Bowles 2009).
In consequence, there was pressure to agglomerate and cooperate within
bigger groups, and selection would have favoured those humans who
were more able to do so. The two pressures could be complimentary, of
course: resource pressure from larger populations might be expected to
prompt conflict; but if larger, more cooperative groups are better able to
prevail in these tough times, those that domesticated fastest would do
best. Victory goes to the big battalions, more often than not.
Living in closer proximity and in larger groups, humans evolved
a more intense form of cooperation. We can see the agricultural
revolution as but one manifestation of that. As Bruce Hood relates, we

can also track it by observing the smaller brain sizes of modern humans,
which are probably the result of lower levels of testosterone – a feature
of domestication in animals (Hood 2014). Domestication did not hap-
pen overnight, and likely its origins lie far back in the palaeolithic as
groups began to develop culturally. But it would have happened at a
decent clip, in evolutionary terms, and accelerated only fairly recently
in human prehistory. What’s more, it challenges that central notion of
evolutionary psychology that we have largely evolved in a static, hunter-
gatherer environment that has shaped our cognitive processes across a
range of issue areas. Instead we are left with the notion that human
evolution is a continuous process, but at an uneven pace. The soci-
eties in Pinker’s dataset are all at some point along a spectrum, from
early man in small, isolated groups that may look somewhat similar to
a chimpanzee troop, with undifferentiated social structure and limited
culture – art, weapons and language – down to larger bands of hunter-
gatherers and pastoralists who were living in more settled communities,
some of them proto-states.
Domestication also provides a ready solution to this apparent dis-
crepancy between prevalent war and reluctant warriors that de Waal
observed, which I develop in the analysis to come. In essence, our aver-
sion stems from our domesticated über-sociability, a trait that separates
Homo sapiens from its remaining primate cousins and from its recent
human ancestors. We can be both empathetic and cooperative with our
own community yet incredibly violent to outsiders. And, moreover, we
possess in evolutionary psychology a logic to account for both of these
behaviours. The advocates of an innately peaceful man do not have
as compelling a theory to explain why small groups of early humans
who lived in resource-scarce environments and sought to enhance their
reproductive prospects should respond pacifistically towards competing
groups and individuals. The theory of domestication provides an expla-
nation that has physically observable traits, and that can be explored
experimentally in studies of our cooperative tendencies, not least in
comparison with other primates.
So why the enduring perception that ‘war’ is a modern phenomenon?
Larger groups and the invention of ever more destructive weaponry,
including weapons that increased the killing distance between belliger-
ents, may have contributed to a perception that violence was becoming
more pervasive and destructive. Moreover, the development of lan-
guage, and then literature, created narratives of war – myths at first
but later, as with Thucydides, attempting historical objectivity – that
collectively fostered a greater awareness of conflict. With great armies,

large destructive set-piece battles and sieges, it should perhaps be unsur-
prising that there has been a perception of violence increasing relative
to the low-level skirmishes that seem to typify primitive warfare among
illiterate peoples. The reason that Pinker’s analysis has been so striking
to many modern audiences is a fairly widespread perception that we are
living in more dangerous, unstable times than before, amid state fail-
ure, famine, mass migration, extreme religious ideologies and – looming
over it all – the existence of hugely destructive nuclear weapons. All
of this is vividly brought to mind by a pervasive media, which is
increasingly accessible online anywhere. That this perception might be
overinflated is a consequence of some powerful cognitive biases that dis-
tort our perspective on reality, including a ‘confirmation bias’ that has
us seeking and incorporating into our worldviews only evidence that
broadly accords with it, and a tendency to exaggerate the prevalence
of low-probability events that have highly vivid, emotionally engaging
consequences, such as war.
Male warriors – Why men fight
An evolutionary psychologist would account for the violence between

groups of hunter-gathers as goal-oriented, with the goal being the
onward selection of the victors’ genes. The combatants need not know
anything about genetic selection, of course – they are motivated to
adopt strategies that maximise their reproductive potential precisely
because such motivations have hitherto proved to be adaptive: they
need not know why this is so. We are motivated to have sex, after all,
not by the dutiful thought of siring progeny but simply because it is
fun. And so, if we consider the reproductive side to the equation for a
moment, leaving aside the somatic issue of food (and territory in which
to find it), we can intuit a logic that has men fighting in the pursuit
of several goals. These include the annihilation of rival groups of fertile
men, the acquisition of their females, and – this last is key to the analy-
sis to come – the acquisition of status through which to secure access to
women.
‘Primitive’ warriors themselves might predominantly be men – a
theme we find running through history down to the present-day discus-
sion of women who serve in liberal armies. But we need to be careful:
women and children were certainly caught up in the fighting too,
and sometimes as active participants. Indeed, in some societies, many
women would, as Adrienne Mayor demonstrates, have been warriors
themselves, particularly in cultures that used the horse in warfare

(Mayor 2014). Mayor notes that in some archaeological digs in Eurasia,
as many as 37% of excavated graves contain the bones and weapons of
horsewomen.
Nonetheless, an evolutionary argument can be advanced for the pre-
ponderance of male warriors and the role afforded to them in many
societies, traditional and modern alike. Perhaps the best argument
comes via Robin Dunbar who concludes that men act as a ‘hired gun’ to
protect their offspring against predation, including from other males
within the group (Dunbar 2012). The long period of infanthood in
humans, and correspondingly the limited number of children that can
be successfully reared to adulthood, makes that a viable strategy, along
with a pattern of pair bonding. Unlike chimpanzee males, who engage
in a sexual free for all, have no idea who the father of individual chimps
is and so invest comparatively little parental care, human males need
to be sure that their partner’s child is actually their own and, having
satisfied themselves of that, must work hard to protect it.
This evolutionary imperative does not settle the matter. Just as there
is a compelling argument for diligent pair bonding, there are also
viable male strategies in deception – in an illicit affair in which some
other male naively takes responsibility for rearing your child; and in
polygamy, wherein a powerful male has resources to provide for off-
spring from more than one woman, and to fend off the attentions of
other men. Recent research on DNA samples from around the world
suggests that there are typically more mothers than fathers among our
forebears, suggesting that a few successful males were able, on average,
to dominate reproduction in essentially polygynous societies (Lippold
et al. 2014). If some men were obtaining partners at the expense of oth-
ers, we have a theory that can plausibly account for the evolution of
acute male sexual jealousy, and perhaps also the grim finding that many
murders are still committed by men on spouses who are suspected of
infidelity.
The ‘hired gun’ thesis might also account for the larger and more
muscled male physique and greater levels of testosterone. In fights that
involve close-quarters combat, we would expect a male advantage over
females, on average. And we would have a model where women chose
partners on the basis of their physical fitness and levels of testosterone.
Indeed, two entertaining studies find precisely that via the correlation
between strength, testosterone and dancing ability (Fink et al. 2007;
Hugill et al. 2009). Women in the study preferred otherwise anonymised
male dancers who turned out to have higher levels of testosterone.
So men are ideally suited, and motivated, to fight in pursuit of

reproductive success. And women have evolved to favour men who
embody those characteristics. To preface an argument that comes later,
however, that is not the end of the matter – genes are not fate, and
culture can radically modify what evolution has shaped. Thus, in the
case of the Amazons, the horse and the development of effective
stand-off weaponry would create the possibility of effective women
warriors.
Traditional society and honour
The anthropologist Jared Diamond paints a bleak picture of war in

traditional societies (Diamond 2012). Like Keeley, he finds that war
between hunter-gatherer communities is often endemic. Some groups
know extended periods without war, but frequently a state of extended
hostilities exists between two or more groups. Alliances shift, and the
causes of conflict reach back into the distant past. A modern paral-
lel struck me while watching Ian Palmer’s fascinating documentary
(Knuckle, 2011) about bare-knuckle boxing within Irish traveller com-
munities: the families could recount long lists of wrongs that had been
done by the opposing faction for which revenge must now be sought via
the staging of a fight. One reason for the endemic conflict is the inability
of such societies to arrive at enforceable settlements, imposing peace –
one perceived slight, even by just one member of a group, and conflict
can resume. Another, related, reason is that oral history is slippery – who
did what to whom and when is open to constant revision and selective
interpretation: like all history it can be readily instrumentalised to serve
a biased perspective, but unlike history from written sources there is less
reliable evidence to go on.
In ‘primitive’ societies where reputation is an important predictor of
life success, honour can become an important motivation for conflict,
and slights can result from a variety of provocations, often involving
the equitable distribution of ‘resources’ such as livestock and women.
For example, in patrilocal societies where women move to live with their
husband’s group, away from their birth group, failure to pay instalments
of a bride price, adultery or even the wife’s poor domestic skills might be
sufficient to start a quarrel with bloody consequences. Certainly, mate-
rial causes of conflict, such as access to resources, including food and
territory, can be a casus belli in primitive societies, just as it is in mod-
ern ones – in both it is linked to environmental scarcity and population
pressures. But these questions of honour, esteem and identity, which I go
on to explore in the remainder of the book, are undoubtedly important

contributory factors too.
Esteem might usefully be thought of as a proximate variable – from
an evolutionary perspective, similar but distinct from power. If we
allow that the ultimate goal of evolutionary selection is the onward
propagation of one’s genes to the next generation, then in the highly
social world within which man evolved, achieving status and garner-
ing power are two possible strategies through which to accomplish that
goal. Again, note that the attainment of these goals might not be con-
sciously sought by individuals but that they might nonetheless shape
their behaviours and attitudes. In fact, as we shall see later on, many
of our decisions are shaped beyond our conscious mind, away from our
self-awareness. We might crave status and esteem from peers and yet still
think of ourselves as independently minded iconoclasts. Consciousness
itself must have proved to be evolutionarily adaptive for humans, but it
need not be considered as essential to the pursuit of the ultimate goals
in life since many species of primate do not possess it, at least in the
same degree as humans.
For now it’s sufficient to note that early hunter-gatherer man was
engaged in a struggle for survival, lived in small bands of mostly related
humans and fought against other such small bands. The environment
was one of resource scarcity – including of food and genetic diversity –
and fighting would follow from competition over these scarce resources,
possession of which would be a zero-sum matter, with one group’s gain
representing a loss to all others. Preservation of the individual and the
group might be enhanced in each case by the accumulation of power
and prestige, making both into goals over which fighting would occur.
Diamond offers an additional conjecture on primitive warfare versus
modern: the idea that primitive warriors are conditioned from an ear-
lier age to kill, and so find it less psychologically difficult than their
modern peers, for whom war is an aberration and killing goes against
many years of indoctrination that it is ethically wrong to kill. Vio-
lence for the primitive warrior is the norm, and killing enemies can be
something to take pride in. There is no peacetime to which to return
and civilian life with which to seek to reconcile one’s wartime experi-
ences. Diamond recalls that none of the Papua New Guinean fighters
among whom he lived seemed to be traumatised by their experiences in
the way of modern combat soldiers who are scarred by post-traumatic
stress disorder. This finding might be surprising, given the short killing
distance that is associated with primitive warfare. Stand-off weapons
are used, including spear, arrow, dart and sling, and pitched battles
do happen – sometimes by mutual arrangement. However, the tactics

of raid and ambush with overwhelming odds, and the prevalence of
stabbing and clubbing weaponry, often entail killing at very close quar-
ters. By contrast, modern warfare routinely involves killing at extreme
distance. Moreover, while primitive warriors are essentially undifferen-
tiated, many soldiers in modern armies are not actually employed in
‘teeth arms’ but provide logistical and other support. Even those who
are involved in actually targeting and destroying the enemy might not
get particularly close to them. A relatively small number of soldiers in
Western armies do retain expertise in close-quarters combat, and it to
these that I return later when considering honour and modern war-
riors. So what can explain the lack of psychological discomfort that
Diamond observes? Perhaps it is simply that violence is so much more
prevalent in these hunter-gatherer societies that the warriors are some-
what habituated to it. Perhaps Diamond is mistaken and the warriors
just won’t confess to feeling disturbed? For now it remains an intriguing
observation.
Dishonourable outsiders
There are some important respects in which primitive warfare is similar

to modern, despite the manifest great cultural differences. For exam-
ple, it’s commonplace in both that enemies are dehumanised. As the
Vietnam veteran Karl Marlantes wrote,
Psychologically I had become identified with the threatened group,

and the advancing enemy was no longer human. I didn’t kill peo-
ple, sons, brothers, fathers. I killed ‘Crispy Critters’ . . . You make a
false species out of the other human, and therefore make it easier
to kill him.6
Later he notes that, with the exception of one occasion, his ‘kills were
made when I was in the frame of find that I was killing someone from
another species. It was more like killing animals, bad enough, but not
horribly guilt provoking’.7 Jared Diamond describes a similar state of
affairs among the warriors whom he studied in Papua New Guinea:
‘Those people are our enemies,’ one tribesman declares. ‘Why shouldn’t
we kill them? – they’re not human.’8
Psychologists suspect that this process of dehumanising makes it far
easier to inflict violence on someone, and it is the extreme manifesta-
tion of a commonplace tendency to value the members of one’s own
group over those of another (Sémelin 2007). Dehumanising others in

primitive war jars somewhat with Diamond’s contention that primi-
tive warriors find killing more straightforward: if so, why the need for
insults? Added to that is the distinct possibility in primitive warfare that
we find on the opposing side people whom we know intimately: our in-
laws, sometimes even our kinsfolk. Denigrating their humanity might
make it easier to inflict violence at close range upon them.
A related feature of primitive war is the taking of trophies – ‘head
hunting’ is a widespread practice across many different hunter-gatherer
cultures (Keeley 1995). At the extreme, captured enemies are some-
times sacrificed and even eaten. There may, speculatively, be an element
of protein supplementing involved in cannibalism (protein is often in
short supply since hunting produces limited and intermittent successes
relative to gathering; and chimpanzees are known to indulge in canni-
balism too). But there is also likely to be a degree of symbolism – the
absolute, bodily destruction of one’s enemies that is of a piece with
the broader denigration of the out-group. Modern soldiers also collect
trophies from their enemies – including mutilating their bodies – for
example, for ears and gold teeth, as US Marines did with their Japanese
adversaries in the Pacific theatre of the Second World War (Dower 1986).
Philip Caputo, one of my key sources for my discussion of modern, lib-
eral warriors later in this book, also describes two incidents of mutilation
in his memoir of the Vietnam War, both of which involved the severing
of ears from dead Viet Cong (Caputo 1999).
Diamond offers another conjecture that jars with the analysis to fol-
low, but that I offer readers here as a point of comparison. He holds that
self-sacrifice is a feature of modern war but not primitive. Modern wars
are replete with stories of soldiers exposing themselves to great risk or
even certain death in order to benefit comrades and, on some occasions,
total strangers. There is, as I will demonstrate, a sound evolutionary
logic to such behaviour which is not remotely aberrant. However, Dia-
mond notes that in all of his years of interacting with New Guineans,
he never heard comparable tales. Indeed, on occasions on which com-
rades might be expected to come to the aid of wounded or isolated
comrades, they chose instead the path of self-preservation and fled the
scene. While not disputing that finding, I would note two caveats. First,
if such behaviour is relatively rare, and the absolute numbers that are
involved in primitive conflicts are comparatively low, this may simply
be a question of sampling. Second, it may be that culture – and, in
particular, training – plays an important part in reinforcing and pro-
moting this seemingly ‘unnatural’ response. As we shall see later, we
certainly feel a sense of obligation to those in our group, and reciprocity
has a compelling evolutionary logic. Nonetheless, the instinct of self-

preservation is also fundamental, and – in the absence of societal norms
that reinforce the sentiment of self-sacrifice – without formal hierar-
chy that can compel obedience even in life-threatening situations, we
might not be too surprised that there are limits to suicidal altruism
in war.
The picture that emerges from the accumulated studies of primitive
warfare, like those in Keeley and Diamond’s work, is somewhat bleak.
Life is insecure both within and between societies – violent death is com-
monplace, certainly more so than in modern Western societies, though
it is by no means an everyday occurrence. Individuals must take sen-
sible precautions to avoid being attacked by those whom they have
dishonoured. People cluster together in overnight camps for security
from predation, by both animals and other humans. But defences are
rudimentary, and it is difficult to be on one’s guard the whole time.
Treachery, ambush and raiding are ever-present dangers. Young men
must be prepared to expose themselves to violent combat, or be scorned
as weak. Without medical knowledge, injuries that would not even hos-
pitalise a modern soldier are likely to prove fatal, not least because of
the likelihood of infection.
Chimpanzee war versus human war
Keeley describes a world in which fighting is commonplace, casualty

rates are extremely high, and groups are sometimes completely anni-
hilated in a continuous struggle over critical resources, food and sex.
We can intuit a similar logic behind the strategic machinations within
and between chimpanzee troops, which also engage in long-range raid-
ing and ambushes against rival groups (Mitani et al. 2010). Chimpanzees
have the ability to cooperate in groups to achieve quite complicated
tasks, including hunting and fighting rival groups. Some vivid footage
captured by BBC film-makers describes a fairly sophisticated chimpanzee
ambush of some colobus monkeys – the patrol travelling silently and
warily, before startling their prey into a progressively tightening fun-
nel of lookout chimps.9 Chimps might sometimes cooperate to hunt
but they don’t always share the booty. The pioneering primatologist
Jane Goodall found that the group of chimpanzees that she was observ-
ing would on occasion coordinate their actions, thereby cornering prey,
but that, once a kill had been made, the chimp in possession would
tenaciously hold onto the kill and warn away rivals, even those that
ranked above it in the dominance hierarchy that is an integral facet of
chimpanzee life (Goodall and Lawick 1989).
Goodall was also struck by the distinctly non-human approach that

chimps seemed to take when it came to sex and love, there being little
parental investment by male chimps, and nothing like the pair bond-
ing of human relationships, which tend under many cultural settings
towards sequential monogamy. This was, by contrast, a world in which
each chimp was on the lookout for itself. The chimpanzees squabbled
endlessly and, of course, the males in particular engaged in intimidating
displays of machismo in order to attain and demonstrate status against
rivals. And yet the chimpanzees were capable of some degree of coor-
dination when it came to tackling threats from rival bands of males on
neighbouring territories.
Chimps are seemingly capable of less intentionality than humans –
they have a more limited ‘theory of mind’, by which I mean their
capacity to intuit what other chimps might be thinking (Hood 2012).
We know that chimpanzees, like some other social animals, including
crows, do have some capacity to recognise intent in others. Chim-
panzees, for example, have been shown to be able to modify their
intentional communications in order to coordinate with a naive human
in retrieving hidden food, demonstrating that they can adopt their per-
spective (Roberts et al. 2014). But this is a more limited capacity than
that of humans, with their ability to generate fourth and even higher
orders of intentionality (I know that you know that she thinks, . . . and
so on). This ‘mentalising’ capacity, which I explore in depth below, is
the basis of extended human society.
Nonetheless, chimpanzees are worth studying by those who are inter-
ested in the evolutionary origins of human warfare despite these sub-
stantial differences. Chimps are our closest remaining primate ‘cousin’,
with a common ancestor some 7 million years ago. And they might
offer a useful comparison with predomesticated man – that palaeolithic
hunter-gatherer in his small band. As a recent symposium of evolution-
ary scientists put it, chimps are to man as wolves are to dogs – that is, as
a species, Homo sapiens has undergone a process of self-domestication,
as outlined above, in which we become capable of progressively more
complicated social interactions based on our capacity for empathy and
altruism.10 Being ‘domesticated’ does not necessarily imply being non-
violent, but it does suggest that alternative strategies may be more
adaptive in a range of circumstances – certainly within the intensely
social group, cooperation may pay off.
When it comes to warfare, data from six chimpanzee communities
demonstrate that the rate of violent deaths among chimpanzees caused
by intraspecies fighting is similar to that observed in hunter-gatherer
communities (at 276 deaths per 100,000 population per year, 69 of

which were from intergroup aggression) (Wrangham et al. 2006). For
comparison, Wilson observes that this is six times as high as the figure
for Detroit in the 1970s and 1980s, when it was one of the USA’s most
violent cities.11 Chimp and hunter-gatherer communities are thus much
more violent places than is modern liberal society.
At the symposium on domestication, Richard Wrangham argued that
once domestication, with its increasingly intense sociability, got under
way, human societies may have weeded out those individuals with a
tendency towards greater aggression. There is some physical evidence
to support domestication – not just in the diminishing size of human
brains. Robert Cieri and colleagues have found evidence that is sugges-
tive of the physical effects of domestication – notably in the changing
faces of humans relative to their ancestors and chimps, so that they
appear less aggressive (Cieri et al. 2014). But the main evidence is
cognitive: the enhanced capacity for human empathy and altruism.
A capacity for violence clearly remains innate to humans, even if socia-
bility has reduced the payoffs from violence within groups. As the large
Swedish study cited in Chapter 1 shows, clusters of criminal violence
remain, even in peaceful liberal societies. Nonetheless, the statistics that
have been compiled by Gat, Pinker, Keeley and others strongly suggest
that violence declined as man evolved to live in larger groups, resting
on an enhanced capacity for social living.
Among the many differences between chimp and human warfare,
perhaps the most profound relates to this modern human capacity for
sociability. De Waal holds that chimps, despite their cognitive shortfalls,
are still capable of some empathy. After all, they do sometimes work as
a team and share their food. But humans, by contrast, have evolved
a hyper-sociability on a radically different plane, which demands a
very sophisticated understanding of the people with whom we interact.
Experimental findings suggest that these are traits that are not shared
by most primates, and that they are nowhere shared to the same degree
(Burkart et al. 2014). Moreover, there seems to be a strong connec-
tion between the degree of intraspecies altruism and the investment
of parental care in child-rearing. Pair-bonding humans have evolved to
work together to help their vulnerable infants through their extremely
long childhood development. And that long childhood itself is symp-
tomatic of a need to learn the complexities of social life. Chimpanzee
males, in contrast with humans, make a more limited investment. They
may fight to protect their offspring from non-group members, though
they cannot, of course, be sure which youngster is theirs; more plausibly,
they fight to exclude males from access to fertile females and from the
food on their territory.
This business of altruism and sociability matters immensely because
it is a key point of departure from the narrow ‘realist’ worldview of
man in a state of nature, dominated by a fear of predation and acutely
concerned with the accumulation of power through which to protect
himself. That seems closer to the world of the chimpanzee. Instead we
are left with a richer and more complex view of human nature. Security
remains overwhelmingly important, of course, because without it we
cannot realise our evolutionary goals. But we must realise those goals
via our social group. This social group has allowed mankind to adapt to
a huge variety of environmental niches, easily outstripping the capac-
ity of even the more socially adept primates to do comparably. The
path of natural selection down which Homo sapiens has travelled has
favoured cognitive and social solutions to environmental challenges,
placing extensive resources in the development of a large and flexible
brain that is capable of mapping social dynamics, intuiting meaning
and communicating ideas. In short, and contra Rousseau, there never
really was a ‘state of nature’ in which man existed in isolation, before
civilisation came along to corrupt him. Instead, alongside the drives for
security and resources, we must allow for the desires for companion-
ship and esteem, and the search for meaning. The pace with which
this seems to have impacted on human society, moreover, accelerated
rapidly towards the end of the palaeolithic era. After millennia of pro-
ducing the same simple stone tools, human creativity now mushroomed
into something much richer – the capacity for abstract reasoning, lan-
guage and enhanced empathy – all of this in larger groups of humans,
cooperating together.
Chimps are strategic actors in the sense that they are capable of
envisaging sequential steps to achieve a task, and also of coordinating
with others to do so. However, they lack the linguistic sophistication
of humans, and they may also lack the capacity to imagine possible
futures with the degree of rich consciousness that humans do. And
while chimpanzees are their own weapon system (and a heavily mus-
cled, immensely powerful one at that), humans, more slender of build
and far less physically impressive, are nonetheless more deadly because
of their twin capacities for sociability and for culture. So we have the
essential distinction that humans are comparatively sophisticated and
deadly strategists, but that their larger groups and intense sociability
may put the brakes on violence and make it somewhat maladaptive in
many social circumstances.
Out of the state of nature
Why would the evolutionary picture of conflict be relevant to a dis-

cussion of modern warfare? I argue that it is: despite the vast and
multifaceted changes to the way in which human society is organised,
there are still some implications arising from our evolutionary history
that inform the way in which we fight. Liberal warfare may look osten-
sibly very different from that waged by hunter-gatherers, and in many
respects it is very different, but there are some common themes to both.
That is because the powerful legacy of our evolution has shaped us over
a much longer timespan than the modern era. Liberal warfare is a cul-
tural artefact – a particular expression of human social life that is made
possible because our evolutionary legacy entails the capacity for culture
itself.
War as waged by modern liberal society thus includes some elements
of the wars fought by primitive groups. For example, we see raiding and
ambush used in the modern setting, especially in wars against irregular
adversaries, as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Modern soldiers dehumanise
their enemy, and atrocities occur. Warriors derive status and esteem from
participating in combat and displaying courage. And combat arouses
instinctive emotions – fear, anger, hatred and exhilaration.
In terms of casus belli, too, we find a similar array of materialist
rationales. Modern liberal societies do not, on the whole, embark on
conflict in order to secure access to the fertile females of a neighbour-
ing group. But wars are certainly fought to secure resources, including
territory. Fear of other groups is sufficiently powerful to make mod-
ern societies concerned about physical defence and about their relative
power. Wars are also fought to gain prestige, or to defend one party’s
reputation (Mercer 1996). Revenge and punishment are still used to
deter. The modern world, then, contains some powerful echoes of the
evolutionary landscape of prehistory.
There are some profound and obvious differences between primitive
and liberal war. Our modern warfare is often episodic and more sharply
delineated in times of peace. Our wars are typically fought by a small
section of society, members of which specialise in the martial skills and
fight as professionals, as a vocation. We have hierarchy and discipline,
enabling a variety of more sophisticated tactics, including the ability to
knit together tactical actions into a wider campaign, giving play to the
operational art of the commander. We have more powerful and sophisti-
cated weaponry, which creates the capacity for greater destruction, and
also for killing at much greater distance, in an impersonal fashion. And,
though we sometimes flatter ourselves here, we have the capacity to

think abstractly and (ostensibly) rationally about the use of violence,
which we call strategy (Freedman 2013).
And yet, despite the many and varied differences, we can still see,
without looking too hard, the influence of our evolutionary heritage.
In the chapters that follow, I suggest that one key element of our evolu-
tionary heritage that is still prevalent in modern warfare is the notion of
honour, and I tie that honour to the extreme sociability of humans,
owing to their evolutionary heritage. There is honour both in the
motivation to fight wars and in the way in which they are conducted.
Honour is inseparable from war, including primitive wars, though in
looking for explanations for war, analysts are often drawn to materi-
alist accounts that underplay it. Honour, as I shall explain, rests on
our conception of who is in our group, and on our sense of obligation
to the group. Our status often depends on honourable behaviour; on
being seen to do the right thing. Upholding that honour serves ofttimes
to actually define our interests, as well as to shape the repertoire of
behaviours that we might employ to pursue them. This is both a collec-
tive and an individual matter. To stand a chance of reproductive success,
individual humans have always had a stake in the success of their group,
and so individual prestige and that of the group have always been to
some extent intertwined.
The story of warfare is one of constant change and evolution –
societies have found a great variety of ways to pursue their ultimate
collective and individual goals. With the evolution of language, and of
culture, groups found new ways to organise for violence. The groups
themselves changed profoundly, as the excess capacity generated by
agriculture and by urban life allowed for the accumulation of wealth,
hierarchy, and the pursuit and transmission of knowledge. Larger, more
professional bodies of fighting men, skilled and armed with techno-
logically more sophisticated weapons and tactics, greatly transformed
warfare from the primitive. Hierarchy changed war too, with tactics
being set by ‘big men’ who could compel as well as inspire obedience
in battle. And the particulars of what it means to be honourable in
war have also been subject to cultural variation. Today there would be
tremendous dishonour and shame for a liberal force to sack a settlement,
killing all within it. The 1968 massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese civil-
ians at the hamlet of My Lai by a company of American soldiers offers a
compelling example. But siege warfare, and the pillage that would ensue
once a city had fallen to its besiegers, were staples of European war for
centuries. Even in the modern era, we see wide variations in the norms
of appropriate behaviour, including by ostensibly ‘liberal’ states – as

with the widespread use of ‘morale’ bombing by RAF bomber command
during the Second World War, or the deployment of nuclear weapons
against Japan in the final months of the Pacific campaign (Tannenwald
1999; Overy 2013). That these latter examples subsequently attracted
considerable criticism suggests to me a somewhat robust liberal norm
against the indiscriminate use of extreme force, but one that at the
time was subject to the exigencies and passions that were aroused by a
particularly desperate and consuming war on an industrial scale. More-
over, we can see some evidence of these norms becoming more deeply
entrenched in the practice of war by liberal states, perhaps part of a trend
towards progressively more consistent observation of the central tenet
of liberalism – a concern with the sanctity of the individual human.
I return to this point later.
The essential ingredients of honour remain unchanged – it is a public
virtue, albeit one whose precepts may be so internalised by individuals
that they behave honourably even without surveillance. It rests on a
notion of sacrifice – a potentially costly and risky action that prioritises
the interests of the group above those of the individual. Despite that
notion of selflessness, it is entirely congruent with the essence of natu-
ral selection, and thus consistent with evolutionary accounts of human
behaviour. And, lastly, it provides a fundamental challenge to accounts
of group and individual behaviour that are predicated on self-interest,
particularly on the attainment of material well-being, or even security.
3
Classical Realists on Honour
The world of the primitive hunter-gatherer in which much human

behaviour evolved has a large degree of ostensible commonality with
the political philosophy of ‘realism’ – the dominant tradition in interna-
tional relations and strategic studies. Both stress the inherent insecurity
of the social environment. For both there is the attendant need to secure
the resources and alliances through which security might be attained.
Individuals and groups alike must be concerned with their power rela-
tive to that of other groups, and must be always on their guard against
rapacious predation. These are worlds that are dominated by fear and
scarcity. Competition is intense and the stakes are high. Groups must
act prudently and with a narrowly defined set of interests that are geared
towards survival. There is a strong efficiency drive – fight well or face
annihilation. In all of that there is surely little scope for honour. In this
chapter I shall explore realist thought in more detail, arguing contrawise
that the pursuit of honour, collective and individual alike, is an integral
and indispensable part of what it means to be a realist.
We should care what realist tradition says about human nature and
war because it remains, for all of its flaws, the dominant paradigm when
it comes to thinking about strategic studies, and as such it shapes much
conceptual thinking about war – whether in agreement or in reaction
to it. Additionally, classical realists have built their philosophy in part
on an understanding of human nature: and if we accept their view of
international affairs and conflict, we ought to do so while informed by
some understanding of how authentic that view is.
Realists in the modern era often find themselves in conflict with for-
eign policy and the conduct of war as practised by liberal statesmen.
Why, with growing threats all about them, do the states of the European
Union persist in spending such paltry amounts on their own defence?
38
Classical Realists on Honour 39
Why do Western states persist in misguided and costly military expedi-

tions in an attempt to transform far-flung and marginal societies that
are of dubious strategic importance? Why devote so many resources to
tackling a comparatively puny terrorist threat from militant Islam when
there are much more powerful actors challenging the status quo? These
are questions about priorities, but also questions about the appropri-
ate place for values in determining policy. Should we care that an actor
has challenged our sense of esteem, or should we take a more disin-
terested, pragmatic view? And to what extent should our own moral
values inform our decisions about where and how to intervene, includ-
ing with military force? Where realists see values and morality shaping
state behaviour at the expense of the efficient pursuit of security, there is
a puzzle to be explained because, for hard-headed realists, war is an ever-
present risk, necessitating a concern with power, the better to achieve
security (Mearsheimer 2001).
I focus in this chapter on the writings of a handful of landmark
‘classical’ realists who have done much to shape the discipline of inter-
national relations. All touch on those enduring realist themes. In a
later work I shall consider in more detail the relationship between their
philosophies and what we know of human nature from psychology and
neuroscience. Readers who are aware of the broad tenets of realism but
who have not read the classical realists in depth might be surprised on
doing so by a theme that seems to jar with the ostensible tenets of real-
ism as they are commonly understood: many of the key authors made
room in their philosophy for honour. To be sure, they stressed the key
realist themes, particularly the fear and uncertainty that underpinned
much international behaviour. And part of their enduring legacy is the
constant refrain that responsible statesmen should guard against being
overly guided by their own moral code when it cuts against these goals.
But there is also in their writing an acknowledgement that honour –
whether described as glory, the search for status or esteem – could
animate human behaviour. Perhaps they thought it ought not to, on bal-
ance, when the chips were down. Nonetheless, as Niccolò Machiavelli
put it, the task in hand for political theorists was to describe things as
they were, not as one might wish them to be.
Fear, honour and interest
The realist tradition, one of the most influential and enduring in think-
ing about international affairs, has a rather dispiriting message: the
world is a dangerous and uncertain place, and ultimately the only way
of safeguarding one’s interests, and especially one’s life, is through the

threat or use of force. Power is a key variable in realist accounts, and,
in uncertain and potentially dangerous times, the only sensible course
of action is to look out for oneself. It is best to speak softly and carry
a big stick, as Theodore Roosevelt advised, pointing at the relationship
between diplomacy and the threat of force that underpins it (Morris
2002).
Actually, evolutionary psychology suggests that talking softly might
not always be best – chimpanzees on patrol display aggressively when
their numbers are evenly matched with hostile chimps that they
encounter, but they tend to avoid actual violence. And within groups,
male chimpanzees also display, sometimes swinging branches or drum-
ming on tree trunks to enhance the intimidation factor. Power in this
sense is manifest in display – it is a psychological variable, about much
more than material strength itself. Instead it depends on the ability of
an actor to convince onlookers, including rivals and adversaries, that
one has the capacity to dominate. Having the self-esteem to believe
that of oneself is an important part of displaying power and convincing
others. This distinction between the material ontology of some realist
accounts and a world of perception, intuition and meaning is impor-
tant. Realism focuses on key terms such as power, security and anarchy
to outline its worldview. But all of these variables are to a considerable
degree subjective and interpreted via perceptions.
As with the violent and unstable world of primitive man, the pur-
pose of conflict in realist accounts is either defensive, to guard against
predation of others, or offensive, to maximise resources. The two goals
need not be exclusive, since resources that are acquired offensively
can also contribute to defence. And there is evolutionary support for
both motives – resources confer genetic advantage, particularly if they
are reproductive. Ambiguity about intentions, the potential for lethal
surprise and a scarcity of resources all lend further weight to the compar-
ison between the world of international affairs and that of the primitive
human. And so realists typically suggest that society between groups
in international affairs is somewhat thin, in the absence of a powerful
overarching force to compel obedience.
In his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides provides our first
great work of political ‘realism’ in the sense that is meant by scholars
of international relations (Hanson and Strassler 1998). From its opening
explanation of the origins of the war, the work is replete with core real-
ist themes. These include the central concern of key players with power,
and the balance of power between states amid conditions of uncertainty.
Related to this is the notion of a security dilemma, in which a concern

with the capabilities of possible antagonists prompts arms races because
increases in one side’s strength and security come at the relative expense
of the other. Alliances can be crucial to achieving security, as states band-
wagon together to achieve relative security against hostile threats. But
cooperation is often conditional and limited: trust is in short supply,
and there is always the scope for treachery and shifting allegiances, as in
History when Alcibiades, a fiery Athenian leader, switches sides to fight
with the Spartans.
We learn at the beginning of the book that the war started because
of a fear in Sparta about the rising power of Athens and its expanding
alliance of allied city states. Later on, from the famous ‘Melian dialogue’
we learn that justice in international affairs is contingent on balance of
power realities: the small, neutral state of Melos is destroyed because of
its refusal to submit to Athenian demands for tribute. You can rely on no
one but yourself, the episode seems to demonstrate. Dominant states,
‘hegemons’, have the power to enforce their wishes over the weaker
members of the society of Greek city states.
And yet a more nuanced reading of History is possible than this starkly
realist interpretation. For example, rather than an objective, material
threat from Athens’ rising power, one could look to the importance of
perception and emotion in shaping behaviours. It is not, in this view,
the actuality of Athenian power that is the cause of the war but col-
lective expectations in Sparta about what that will mean. Similarly, the
role of the demagogues in Athens in whipping up enthusiasm for their
disastrous excursion to Syracuse points to the role of perception in inter-
preting realities. Social proof, as I discuss later, plays a vital part in
shaping our own individual attitudes, and leaders can be particularly
influential in shifting the collective view of the group, particularly when
it comes to deciding what to do about outsiders. Lastly, the Melians
chose to go down to defeat, arguing that it would be shameful for them
to surrender without a fight. And the Athenians attack because not
doing so would make them look weak before their other tribute states.
The dialogue, often taken as a demonstration of the primacy of power
considerations in international affairs, can also therefore be read as an
insight into the critical role of honour and reputation in motivating
actors.
Allowing that perceptions and reputation are important in shaping
behaviours in international relations makes for a more nuanced under-
standing of realism. If we allow that myth-making and storytelling
are important, as with the role of Alcibiades and other Athenian
demagogues in shaping public discourse, we create space for an alter-

native, ‘constructivist’ interpretation of the Peloponnesian War. What
groups want depends on their shared understanding of identity and
meaning. This idea about storytelling is one that I return to towards
the end of this book in considering modern myths of the hero and of
honour as they relate to liberal states.
Some realist accounts aver that the key features of the international
system create imperatives to behave in certain ways. If you do not
respond to anarchy and uncertainty with a concern for amassing suf-
ficient power to defend or deter potential adversaries, there is a danger
that, like the unfortunate Melians, you can simply go out of business.
There is a powerful metaphor here with the processes of Darwinian
natural selection, which emphasises the ‘survival of the fittest’. The
ostensible lesson is that ‘fittest’ applies to the societies competing for
survival in a cruel, amoral and disinterested international system. This
smacks of social Darwinism and does scant justice to the richness of our
social world, in which how one ought to behave is often established by
our sense of identity rather than the material realities of power.
Nasty, brutish and short
But survival of the fittest is close to the view of primitive man that was
painted by a second key realist thinker, Thomas Hobbes, in his Leviathan
(Hobbes 1968). He described a ‘state of nature’ in which man lived
before the onset of civilisation. Individual men in the state of nature
had no one to rely on for protection but themselves. In direct contrast
with Rousseau, it was the agreement of men to live under the power of
an overarching government that relieved them from this state of war
and predation.
Hobbes might not have intended his description to be a literal exe-
gesis of the life of early man – after all, he was a Christian who was
writing centuries before Darwin developed his theory of evolution, and
well before modern archaeology and anthropology arrived at Lawrence
Keeley’s view of primitive warfare. We should, however, hardly be sur-
prised by the cynical, downbeat take on human nature that is implicit
in Hobbes’ account of men who will be able to form mutually agreeable
society only with the coercive power, or at least the threat of punish-
ment, from an overarching authority. Hobbes was writing in the context
of greatly unsettled political circumstances in Europe and England. The
Thirty Years War had ravaged great parts of the continent, part of a rad-
ical transformation of the political order in which notions of empire
and religious temporal authority were challenged by new ideas about

political and confessional obligations. The English Civil War and the
subsequent Protectorate pointed to the instability of internal political
arrangements, and exemplified the link between robust political author-
ity and a breakdown in order of the sort that vexed Hobbes. He himself
offers civil war as a practical demonstration of the theory that he has
outlined from reason, adding as another illustration the habits of Native
Americans.
Hobbes, Gat avers, had it about right when it came to primitive soci-
ety, or the lack thereof, and the pacifying effects of the state (Gat 2013).
But, perhaps unsurprisingly, Hobbes lacks a way of accounting for this
transformation in the state of affairs. Esteem features as part of his
explanatory framework for endemic war between individuals, but it is
not integrated as part of his theory. Thus, when it comes to solving
the security dilemma at the heart of the state of nature, we are sup-
posed to rely on reason, not emotion, to intuit that a social contract
is the best solution – giving up our right to liberty in exchange for
an obligation under law not to harm others. The weakness of Hobbes’
account of the transition from the state of nature is important for us
because modern realists scale up his view of the primitive world to that
of international affairs: without a comparable ‘social contract’ reasoned
out between constituent states, we shall have anarchy and the atten-
dant threat of war. In contrast, if we allow that the evolution of honour,
altruism and cooperation can explain the transition from primitive to
modern worlds, then we need not see the international domain as being
necessarily immune from those very forces.
Amorality versus honour
In The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli, a third important classical realist,

espoused some deeply radical ideas about the importance of leaders
remaining focused on securing security for the state, even if it required
great human cost (Machiavelli 1961). When we think of Machiavellian
as an adjective, what comes to mind is cunning, complicated and some-
times nefarious scheming. What Machiavelli himself intended was that
a statesman would not be afraid of making difficult and sometimes ter-
rible choices to arrive at his goals – the idea that the ends sought could
justify some unpalatable means, regardless of the suffering of those
affected. As for goals, he was adamant – the duty of the statesman is
that his polity should survive (Bobbitt 2013). The unscrupulous means
were intended not in the service of the prince’s private interest but of
his principality – a constitutional arrangement that could outlast the

particular individual.
In common with the humanist writers of his day, from whom he
would nonetheless depart radically, Machiavelli started with the notion
that virtù was the highest goal to which an individual could aspire.
Quentin Skinner argues that while no direct translation of virtù exists,
Machiavelli broadly meant by it courage, wisdom and dynamism (Skin-
ner 2000). This last is important because by it, Machiavelli thinks that
the statesman has agency – that is, that he can shape destiny through
his own decisions, despite the undoubted existence of fortune, which is
another key humanist ingredient in the analysis of politics. In terms of
modern international relations, therefore, Machiavelli thus sits squarely
with classical realists who identify the individual as the locus of under-
standing interstate behaviour, rather than the structure of international
politics, or the situation in hand.
In placing virtù at the centre of his political philosophy, Machiavelli
not only follows his peers but also, as I outline later, presages modern
social psychology, which places the search for esteem or standing as a
central feature of our humanity. In this, he also offers a more sophis-
ticated take than some later realists, particularly Hans Morgenthau,
who, as we shall see, saw a ‘will to power’ underpinning much human
endeavour (Scheuerman 2009). Virtù might indeed be derived from the
standing that one achieves in a society by attaining great power, but
it is a more subtle characteristic. We can, after all, admire those who
deliberately shun power – such as Cincinnatus, the Roman general, who
returned to his farm rather than assume power, having saved Rome from
invading tribes.
Where Machiavelli departed from his Renaissance peers was in his
radical view that achieving virtù might require the statesman to be ruth-
less and amoral. The amorality that he advocated is not incompatible
with glory, he argued, in contrast with other humanists who argued
that it depended on the probity of the actor. Instead, Machiavelli held,
the greater good is served by the glory of the statesman, and that glory
may require utter ruthlessness and any variety of clandestine intrigue.
One problem with that logic is that it is not apparent that all will
agree that despicable means are glorious, even if the times demand
them. Machiavelli addresses this by suggesting that the majesty of the
prince will insulate him from popular discontent at malignant meth-
ods. Respect and awe, rather than love, are the key – and decisive action
will command respect. Virtù in this conception is simply the ability to
adapt oneself to the dictates of the moment, rather than being stymied
by scrupulous behaviour. The virtuous Machiavellian statesman keeps

in mind the good of the group, which demands strict adherence to con-
sequentialist logic: the greater good for the collective is what matters,
and honour falls to the statesman who makes the tough decisions that
are necessary to attain that end.
There are some profound problems with this view of human nature
in Machiavelli’s realism. The ideal statesman may put aside his own
interests in favour of those of the group, but that’s not inevitable or,
an evolutionary psychologist would say, even unlikely. And when the
regime is a republic rather than a principality, it’s not at all clear how
the citizenry will be persuaded of the consequentialist logic that is inher-
ent in Machiavelli’s scheme, if they become aware of it. Machiavelli, of
course, suggested that they might not – what the statesman says and
what he does need not be the same thing.
That is a problem for liberal society, of course. Deontological logic, the
antithesis of Machiavelli’s consequentialism, is one of the key features
of liberal society. That is, authentic liberals venerate the life, and life
choices, of each individual, provided that those choices do not adversely
impact on the lives of other individuals. It is hard to square that sort of
logic with the brutal pursuit of a greater good, advocated by Machiavelli.
Instead we can see that coldly consequentialist logic leading directly to
the illiberal abuse of individuals in society. This recalls the Commu-
nist view that the collective good is achieved in the service of historical
progress, a dubious worldview that is anyway susceptible to corruption
by the self-preserving instincts of a savage dictator. How are we to know
that the ostensible ends that are sought will be achieved by the means
used, or that the dictator is actually pursuing those ends rather than his
own? These are enduring themes, but for me they are most movingly
explored in Arthur Koestler’s wartime novel Darkness at Noon, which is
set amid the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s (Koestler 1966).
Machiavelli, in contrast with Hobbes, was astute in placing the search
for virtù at the centre of his scheme rather than as a bolt-on – the desire
for standing is, social psychologists aver, one of the fundamental drivers
of human behaviour. More than that, our very identity and sense of
self is always defined relative to the norms of some group to which we
belong or that we aspire to join. If by virtù we can mean honour, then
the quest for honour is a powerful force. Machiavelli was, however, on
thinner ice in suggesting that the prince would know what was best for
the group; that he could distinguish between his own interests and the
group; and, lastly, that he could somehow act against those moral values
in the best interest of the group, without either arousing its hostility
or running against his own consciousness. Ruthless dictators might be

able to do this but, as I argue in the following chapters, most people
derive a good deal of their moral framework and their sense of what
is in their interest from the attitudes of their society. Insofar as they
do, the prestige that accords to the decisive and ruthless leader remains
in tension with the honour that he derives, and likely seeks, from his
conformity with the prevailing norms.
The will to power
More modern ‘classical’ realists have provided further compelling takes

on the relationship between human nature and international, or
intergroup, relations. Hans Morgenthau, perhaps the most influential of
the twentieth-century classical realists, presented a view of international
politics that was firmly rooted in individual human nature, but his was a
very particular take on that human nature. In common with Nietzsche,
whose writings, along with those of Sigmund Freud, seem to have influ-
enced him, Morgenthau detected in man a ‘will to power’ – an urge
to dominate (Scheuerman 2009). It was this urging, again abstracted to
the level of competing social groups, that gave international affairs its
inherent characteristics. Here again we can see echoes of natural selec-
tion: dominance hierarchies are an important part of the social groups
of primates, including humans. Having a position of power within a
group confers key advantages in terms of access to resources, such as
food and sex. For Morgenthau the urge to accumulate power was the
ultimate rationale in human affairs.
Morgenthau’s realism had scope for esteem, or what he termed the
politics of prestige. But he viewed the search for esteem as a subset
of the larger concern with power. Prestige was simply a way to dis-
play, and perhaps exaggerate, one’s power, the better to coerce others
and secure one’s interests. There is a logic to this close association of
power and esteem, especially if we conceive power as more than the
coercive capacity to compel others to do our will and instead see it in
broader terms as a way of influencing, including by power of attraction.
As I discuss later, esteem has been seen as a key variable in social psy-
chology, though the reasons why this might be so are often left unstated.
If esteem works as a multiplier for power, as Morgenthau argued, then it
can be considered as a properly realist quality. I think esteem is broader
than power seen as coercion – if we are esteemed we are good members
of the group, and worthy of cooperation, trust and protection. Con-
versely, to be dishonoured is to risk marginalisation or ostracism from
the community – tantamount to death in the ancestral environment,

and not ideal in modern international relations either.
Moral man, immoral society
Reinhold Niebuhr is the second classical realist of the modern era with
an interesting take on honour. For him there was an important distinc-
tion to be made between the ethics that obtained within a group and
that which held between groups of whatever ilk. Much of his analysis
is concerned with domestic and economic relations, but he also applies
the logic directly to international affairs, critiquing the liberal idealism
of the 1920s, particularly the League of Nations. In essence, Niebuhr
argues that society between groups was thin, so that one could contrast,
as in the title of his key book, Moral Man and Immoral Society (Niebuhr
2003). On an individual basis, and contra Hobbes’ state of nature, men
could feel a sense of conscience, or empathy, towards other men; but
the potential for such empathy was dramatically curtailed at the level of
the collective. Thus he wrote: ‘Man is endowed by nature with organic
relations to his fellow-men; and natural impulse prompts him to con-
sider the needs of others even when they compete with his own.’1 This
is pretty close to the view of small-group cooperation and empathy that
we derive from evolutionary psychology, and which I elaborate in the
following chapters. It is a more rounded view of the individual than one
finds in Hobbes’ ‘state of nature’, where the imperatives of individual
survival necessarily curtail such charity.
However, while Niebuhr sees more scope for compassion, this is
strictly limited beyond ‘the most intimate social group’; when the group
grows any larger, coercion is required to bring about cooperation.2 The
trouble is that such coercion privileges order over justice – the power-
ful are able to secure their interests at the expense of others. Niebuhr
allows that it may be possible for enlightened reason to increase the
circle of empathy, but only at the margin. Absent that, we inevitably
value our own interests more highly, and will use force to secure them
if we can. The ‘intimate social group’ he has in mind is left undefined,
but it’s fair to suppose that he means something like the small family
or largely kinship group that is the focus of our evolved tendency to
behave altruistically.
Thus, in Niebuhr’s view, intergroup tensions are arbitrated in the usual
realist manner: by power, deployed in the service of the group’s partic-
ular interest. In this respect he is an authentic realist, notwithstanding
his more benevolent view of human compassion. ‘Society’, he notes in
authentically Hobbesian fashion, is thus ‘in a perpetual state of war.’3

Even in a democracy, minorities, he rather bleakly suggests, must sub-
mit to majority power because the majority controls the instruments of
state power, especially the police.
Niebuhr, surprisingly given the similarity that I have noted between
realist ideas and the view of primitive warfare that one finds in the work
of Gat and of Keeley, traces group conflict to the onset of the agricul-
tural era, and the development of larger, hierarchical social groups, in
which power would be deployed or threaten to protect the vested inter-
ests of those with resources. The evidence suggests otherwise: it seems
that the introduction of larger social groups and hierarchy corresponded
to a reduction in violence. This makes sense if we follow a logic that in
larger societies there is less chance of an individual meeting a violent
and hostile out-group, more extended empathy to in-group members, a
tendency to self-police in line with the group’s norms, and – to be sure –
a coercive element that is able to compel non-violence, à la Hobbes’
Leviathan. Niebuhr’s contention about agriculture and hierarchy may
be closer to the mark in explaining the increasing destructiveness of
intergroup conflict, and the possibility of accumulating sufficient power
to achieve lasting dominance over other groups. Society becomes more
variegated – different roles are possible, which Niebuhr calls a ‘dis-
proportion of power’ that ‘destroyed the simple egalitarianism of the
hunting and nomadic social organisation’.4
There is then, for Niebuhr, a certain ‘brutal character of the behaviour
of all human collectives’.5 As a statement of realist pessimism about
human society, that is pretty succinct, and – to me – reminiscent of
Keeley’s description of primitive war.
Amour-propre
The last ‘classical’ realist I want to consider is the French sociologist
Raymond Aron, whose theory of international relations contains great
subtlety, and gives full reign to the idea that honour and standing moti-
vate human relations (Aron 2003). He was undoubtedly a realist insofar
as his writing emphasises those hardy perennials of realist thought –
security, power and anarchy. And, like the other realists, he readily
extends the logic of the individual to that of the collective group. Yet
there is more than that in his account of human nature underpinning
politics – and much of it has a strong flavour of evolutionary psychology,
which usefully bridges the ground between the stark reading of Hobbes
and Machiavelli that I outlined above and the concept of reciprocal
altruism that we shall consider in the next chapter.
Aron sees politics, both within and between states, as being about
resource allocation and competition. However, he also stresses the
importance of honour and justice in motivating political decisions. This
is the sort of language that a social psychologist would recognise, the
quest for esteem, standing and respect being central to our own sense of
wellbeing. Politics can thus be understood ‘in terms of the reconciliation
of complementary and divergent aspirations (equality and hierarchy,
authority and reciprocal recognition, etc.)’.6
More than this, Aron conceives of politics, both internal and
intergroup, as being shaped to some extent by what we would call
norms (rules of the game) whether explicitly laid out or implicitly
understood – that is, encultured. He takes a conventionally realist view
of the inevitability of war, writing that ‘The nobles who fight for prestige
can never be through fighting.’7 Status requires constant attention and
jealous guarding, and as the original goal approaches attainment, new
horizons open through which glory might be achieved anew. Moreover,
glory is a public virtue by definition: it requires recognition from others,
and there is always an element of insecurity in the seeker after glory –
how sincere are others in their praise or recognition?
Consider the following in line with the caricature of a realist who
would describe a world that is shaped by insecurity and the attendant
quest for power:
Neither security nor force satisfies the aspirations of communities:

each desires to prevail over the others, to be recognised as first among
its rivals. Political units have their amour-propre, as people do; per-
haps they are even more sensitive. Hence they sometimes prefer the
intoxication of triumph to the advantages of a negotiated peace.8
This is a view of politics, including international politics, that opens up a

far richer terrain in which emotions, leadership, a desire for recognition
and the need to belong to a group all work to shape actors’ behaviours.
There are many additional elements that are worth noting in Aron’s
somewhat neglected work – neglected by Anglo-Saxon International
relations, that is. Among these, two are perhaps worth further com-
ment here. For Aron, things need not be as they seem even to us: ‘The
stake itself is not the last word in the analysis,’ he writes. In other
words, the ostensible reason for conflict need not be the declared one,
and this need not even be a matter of deliberate deception. We pos-
sess limited introspective capacities to discern our true motives. ‘Perhaps
peoples do not fight for the motives attributed to them,’ Aron mused.
‘Perhaps the true causes are buried in the collective unconscious.’9 This
idea of a collective mythology certainly resonates with the psycholog-
ical analysis to come below. On both sides of very many conflicts, the
belligerent societies are convinced of their own justice; their own narra-
tive account of the conflict. The power of ‘social proof’ is evident here –
rather than an ontologically given ‘truth’, we derive meaning through
the shared understanding of our group. Different facts are engaged
to support competing narratives. Adherence to the dictates of that
narrative are very much what defined honourable behaviour – it is con-
tingent on the mores of the group. More than this social psychological
phenomenon, Aron’s thought points to another important psycholog-
ical theme: the power of the unconscious to shape our attitudes and
behaviours.
The final thought from Aron that is worth considering here is almost
a throwaway line that immediately follows on from the last sentence
quoted. ‘Perhaps,’ he speculated, ‘aggressiveness is a function of the
number of men or of the number of young men.’10 That, in the context
of ageing liberal societies that are firmly committed to gender equality,
is a point that deserves further attention, especially given the second
level at which honour is considered here: that of the soldier, in the ser-
vice of his society. Azar Gat makes a related point about the decline in
violence being related to the place of young men in society, and it fits
with the idea from evolutionary psychology that young men take risks
in pursuit of reproductive success, and that a prickly sense of honour is
a proxy for the ultimate goals in life.
Realism and the warrior
For states, the lesson of classical realism is clear: reality dictates that
moral scruples should be given short shrift. There may be moral scruples
within society – such is the stuff of politics. However, at the interna-
tional level, society is thinner, and honour is costly. As Bradley Thayer
sees it, the parallels between international affairs and evolutionary the-
ory is profound: the comparison between the authentic ‘state of nature’
and the realist world of states in a ‘state of nature’ holds, at least insofar
as imparting some useful insights (Thayer 2004).
The same imperative ought, from a realist perspective, to drive the
conduct of war. There is an efficiency argument to war – fight hard and
effectively, or go down to defeat and annihilation. In the real world,
by contrast, the style of fighting that a society pursues necessarily bears
some relation to the social conditions obtaining within it.
Clausewitz came close to expressing a realist vision of warfare with

his notion that war would tend towards the total (Clausewitz et al.
1993). Once unleashed as a way of furthering political goals, the com-
pelling nature of the stakes would drive the sides to ever more extreme
measures to achieve victory. Later in life as he continued to edit his
master work, Clausewitz revisited the ideal type of total warfare, not-
ing that even in Napoleonic times, with vast clashing armies, complex
logistics and destructive firepower, war in reality fell some way short
of this apocalyptic vision. War against Napoleon was evidently hugely
destructive and costly to the societies that fought it. Yet most wars ended
with both belligerent societies still in existence – few wars indeed were
fought to the point at which cities were ploughed back into the sand
and entire peoples obliterated. The end of war could be thought of as
a special type of interstate negotiation, one involving violence. War in
reality was limited by the stakes involved, and by the destructiveness
on offer to the combatants. Both were expressions of the societies doing
the fighting: how large an army could they sustain, and how commit-
ted were they to the causes for which they were fighting? There was
another important societal variable underpinning warfare, one that was
neglected somewhat by realist thought but was central to constructivist
ideas: wars were expressions of the social norms that obtained within
societies. In fact, these not only governed the style of fighting, influ-
encing the conduct of warriors, and the structures and equipment of
armies, but also shaped the sort of issues that societies might fight about.
War, in this view, is largely a social manifestation, a cultural artefact of
the combatant groups. In short, efficiency on the battlefield does not
exist in a vacuum but has some relationship to the structure of soci-
ety. This relationship was, of course, one of the dominating themes
in Clausewitz’s work, as he wrestled with the inadequacies of an out-
moded Prussian way of war when outmatched by massed Napoleonic
armies, animated by nationalism and revolution (Paret 2007; Paret
2009).
The efficiency imperative explains some of the dynamism of war,
especially once humans developed the capacity to innovate new and
more powerful weapons. It can help scholars to understand the ‘security
dilemma’ and arms races, like the famous (and fallacious) ‘missile gap’
of the Eisenhower era, or the Anglo-German race to build Dreadnought
class warships in the pre-First World War era. But efficiency is not every-
thing. We might, for example, also explain the Dreadnaught race as
a contest for prestige. Or we might wonder why sometimes weapons
that confer an advantage are not employed, even though they could
be. For example, there are the political constraints on the use of force,
as when President Johnson limited air attacks against North Vietnam
in the mid-1960s lest the war should escalate to include direct conflict
with China or the USSR (Payne 2014). And there are also moral con-
straints on the use of force, even when fighting is desperate and the
stakes are seemingly very high. In the Second World War, for example,
chemical and biological weapons were employed by neither side, despite
the incredible carnage, despite a dramatic weakening in pre-war norms
that prohibited attacks on non-combatants (Price et al. 1996). Another
dramatic deviation from the efficiency argument of warfare is the taboo
against the assassination of enemy leaders (Thomas 2000).
The challenge for me in the remainder of this book is to discern a rela-
tionship between the particular values of liberal society and the causes
that it fights for and the way in which it does so, and then to see how
that relates to the evolutionary theory outlined above. There is some-
thing about a liberal society that shapes both the sorts of wars that it
fights and the ways in which it does so. While there is often a narrow,
parochial explanation for the strategic decisions of liberals states, there
is sometimes a broader terrain to consider too – one in which liberal con-
cerns also feature, both in shaping the way in which liberals organise to
fight and in influencing the causes for which they do so.
Like all others, liberal societies have a distinctive war-fighting style.
In the light of the many differences between them, and my intention
to focus primarily on US and UK examples, I should say immediately,
‘styles’. I say much more on this later, but for now it is sufficient to point
out two points. First, the liberal style of war is sometimes inefficient – it
leads to commitments that a realist might abjure, and it imposes limits
on the sorts of violence that might be employed. And, moreover, in
contrast with a simple, realist view of expedient war, this inefficiency
cannot be readily set aside because that style constitutes both the group
and its interests.
Second, this inefficiency as a result of liberal norms brings it into
tension with liberal warriors. Liberal societies differ from their own war-
riors in an important respect that should be clear from my discussion
of Machiavelli – while the warriors of liberal society must engage in the
sort of consequentialist logic that appealed to Machiavelli, thoroughgo-
ing liberals cannot adhere to the same rules, as a matter of philosophy.
Of course, practical liberalism is a different thing from philosophy, and
many real-world liberal societies have engaged in precisely the sort of
cold-blooded ends-means calculus that Machiavelli recommended to his
prince. But the philosophical difference remains.
Liberal societies can fight, and have fought, with great brutality
against their enemies. In his uncompromisingly bleak history of the war
in the Pacific, John Dower documents the great brutality that existed on
both sides (Dower 1986). This was a war of kamikaze attacks, and suici-
dal frontal assaults against heavily defended positions. Prisoners of the
Japanese were starved and worked to death. On the other side, there
was mutilation of bodies, living and dead. Surrender was refused on
both sides, and prisoners were summarily executed. The fighting was
intense in a struggle that both sides saw as existential. But there was
more at work here than the logic of efficiency in combat. The way in
which each side stereotyped the warriors of the other was revealing.
This was a war with high stakes, uncompromising goals, high-intensity
war-fighting, reaching all the way up to the aerial bombing by incendi-
ary and nuclear weapon of swathes of Japanese cities. Yet the war against
Germany in Western Europe was, for all of its comparable intensity, less
savage. The Germans, unlike the Japanese, were from the same ethnic
community as the Americans and the British. And while many hun-
dreds of thousands were killed, including, of course, civilians who were
massacred in bombing attacks, there was less of a pejorative edge to the
violence – the Japanese were sometimes seen as beyond the pale and
something less than human. This was a war with a strong efficiency
logic to it, but also one where liberal values were less effective as a check
on brutality. There was a firebreak between the Germans (deserving of
liberal empathy) and the Japanese (less deserving).
There is a tension here for liberals – from a realist perspective, they
ought not to limit their wars to protect their values at the expense
of achieving their goals in war. And on the other hand, from a lib-
eral perspective, they should apply their values consistently to all other
humans. That they do neither consistently suggests that neither the
strict realist worldview nor the liberal philosophy provides a full account
of strategic behaviour.
As liberalism has become more robustly observed in Western societies,
we might expect its values to have a greater hold on society than they
did in the Pacific or, say, in the Indian wars of the American frontier.
And, broadly, that is what we observe. That may, however, just be a
question of the limited goals for which these modern wars are fought –
wars in defence of liberal values, on behalf of oppressed groups else-
where, express a cosmopolitanism that may only be partly felt by the
liberal societies that are engaged in them. As a result, their commitment
to those wars may be more limited. Under attack directly after 9/11, by
contrast, the prosecution of the ‘War on Terror’ by the USA was notably
other than liberal in its ‘enhanced interrogation’ of enemy combatants

at ‘black prisons’. Yet even here the scale was small, and the balances
within liberal society were able to achieve some redress.
This deepening liberalism is a problem for the liberal warrior, who
is charged with achieving victory in the battles they fight. The liberal
warrior ought really to fight according to the values of the society that
they serve. And in very many senses, as we shall see, they do. But the
deontological logic of liberalism pushes against the drive for martial
efficiency.
In some respects the liberal warrior’s philosophy rests on the same
foundations as the liberal society at large – a deep-seated and instinc-
tive altruism that calls forth sacrifice at potentially great cost. This is
what ties together the liberal world and the world of human evolution
in the late palaeolithic and neolithic periods. It is why the classi-
cal realists were correct to incorporate honour and prestige into their
accounts.
The difference between the liberal society and the liberal warrior rests
on the issue of who to be altruistic towards. The liberal warrior and lib-
eral society more broadly take a different approach to that question –
at least nominally. The warrior is altruistic towards a narrow subset of
humanity – their comrades, particularly those alongside whom they
fight. Liberal soldiers understand that, just like their illiberal counter-
parts, they may be obliged to undertake, or order, activities that entail
great risk of death in the service of a greater good. They may, in other
words, have to work to the dictates of a consequentialist logic, in pur-
suit of the greater good. It would be problematic to apply the European
Union’s human rights act to the battlefield, given its injunction that
‘No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally’ – an authentic liberal
position.11
Nonetheless, this altruistic impulse is a common feature of liberal
societies and liberal soldiers. It is the key point of departure from that
Hobbesian, realist understanding of primitive society or international
affairs as a struggle of ‘all against all’, or from Machiavelli’s notion of
doing whatever it takes to survive. In truth, Hobbes, like the other real-
ists, understood that honour was an important part of understanding
how humans behave. And, broadly too, they understood that honour
was a collective matter – adhering to the group’s norms, even where that
entailed sacrifice. Clausewitz too, in the epigraph of this book, demon-
strated an astute understanding of altruism in battle. In the end, the
business of fighting and the liberalism in whose cause Western soldiers
fight both rest on altruism.
Conclusion
The realist account of human nature and war is profoundly unsatisfying

in at least two important respects. First, it focuses on key terms of art,
such as power, security and even society, that have, at least to a consid-
erable degree, a subjective meaning. The real world contains uncertain
threats, which we have a limited and flawed psychological capacity to
accurately gauge. Security is thus relational and perceptual, and ex ante
there is no way of knowing with any degree of accuracy how much
power it will take to attain it. As for power, it too is in part a psychologi-
cal and subjective phenomenon, residing certainly in the material realm
of wealth and military hardware, but also, and more profoundly, in the
less certain dimensions of morale, cohesion and honour.
The second weakness of realism is its supposition that human nature
is distinctly self-interested. There certainly is self-interest at work in our
behaviours, but the ‘will to power’ that animates Morgenthau’s humans
is a one-dimensional caricature of human motivation. Notwithstand-
ing that dominance and hierarchy are important in human relations,
I submit that rather than simply being driven to dominate, we are also
motivated by a desire to be esteemed, or honoured, by our peers. Why?
An answer comes from the theory of reciprocal altruism that I turn
to now.
In short, a desire to prove our worth and trustworthiness, and an
instinct to cooperate with those whom we trust or who have done
favours for us, animates much human behaviour, reflecting the over-
whelmingly social nature of our daily lives. The starting point for
Hobbes of the state of nature may only have been figurative rather than
an attempt to discern the true origins of human nature – after all, he
had no notion of evolution. Yet in advancing the notion of intense
competition amid a struggle for individual survival as the key feature
of pre-Leviathan existence, he greatly muddied the waters. Survival is
key, certainly, to human evolution, but it is obtained through the coop-
eration of those within the group as much as the coercive power of an
overlord. To explain the centrality of honour in warfare, both as a gen-
eral phenomenon and as a precursor to exploring honour in ‘liberal’
warfare, we need to understand altruism.
Part II
4
Reciprocal Altruism
One of the fundamental problems with the theory of natural selection

was how to square it with the abundance of cooperative behaviour that
could readily be observed in the animal kingdom and, equally perti-
nently, among humans. Why would a soldier choose to lay down his
life in extremis for his comrades? It is hard at first blush to the see
the evolutionary logic at work, and indeed Darwin himself grappled
unsatisfactorily with the question.
Robert Trivers provided the answer with his compelling theory of
reciprocal altruism (Trivers 1971; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003). We know
from numerous experiments in social psychology that reciprocity is
a powerful tool of social influence. We trust others to repay favours
that we do them, and we feel a sense of obligation to those who have
done favours for us. This evolved tendency is a feature of human rela-
tions within groups, and even reinforces the robustness of cooperation
between distinct social groups. Such cooperation is enabled by acute
sensitivity to deception and awareness of group difference. We have to
be sensitive to free riding, and to interlopers within the group, exploit-
ing our goodwill. Esteem is important here. It is, most obviously, an
indicator of standing within the group, in providing a signal of how
trustworthy one is. Moreover, we are staunch defenders of our own
esteem, which indicates our position within the group, and the sort
of exchange that we can expect – hence our hair-trigger response to
perceived slight, or to evidence that we are being shortchanged. Chal-
lenges to our esteem can elicit retaliatory action, prompted by strong
emotions.
Why should we do anyone a favour – in particular, someone we don’t
know well? Some theorists of altruism detect the work of the group
in promoting ‘strong reciprocity’ – that is, altruism without much if
59
any prospect of a return, either in direct repayment or via earning a

reputation as a good partner for mutual cooperation. People might be
prepared to cooperate at a cost to themselves if the group overall ben-
efits, suggesting a sort of ‘hive’ mentality. However, as Burnham and
Johnson argue, there is no need to extend the logic of evolution to the
group (Burnham and Johnson 2005). In the modern world we can see
‘strong reciprocity’ operating, even where there is limited or no realistic
prospect of payback in the form of future benefit to an individual, or to
individuals who are related to the altruist and therefore carrying their
genes. Why?
The puzzle is easily solvable and has powerful implications for our
thinking about war. People cooperate because they have evolved an
ultra-sociability that proved to be adaptive in the environment pre-
vailing at the time. For such altruism to function adaptively, there
would have to be a reasonable chance of repayment, either directly
or via altruism directed at a relation. Alternatively, altruism would
have to earn one a reputation within one’s own group or society that
would subsequently prove to be beneficial. For all of that to happen,
one would have to have small, fairly stable social groups in which
one’s reputation would be widely known and one would have a good
chance of being paid back. Of course, the modern world, with its
vast anonymous societies, looks nothing like that. However, this era of
essential imaginary, or socially constructed communities, is itself the
product of our highly flexible evolutionary architecture, which devel-
oped to facilitate widespread communication and cooperation with
strangers.
Culture changes the terms of human evolution, allowing humans to
extend far beyond the limits of the evolutionary landscape – shaping
their local environment, adapting to new environments into which they
migrate, and, fundamental for the argument to come, extending the
logic of altruism far beyond that of the small communities in which our
ancestors evolved. It may be maladaptive to be cooperative with utter
strangers in such a modern setting in the sense that a payoff cannot
be assured with sufficient likelihood to make it worthwhile, but that
is beside the point: the theory suggests that we cooperate instinctively
because it used to pay off, on average.
Reciprocal altruism has at its heart the smallish group. We will only be
altruistic towards those from whom we have a fair chance of a payback –
either for ourselves or for others who carry our genes. In the evolution-
ary setting of smallish bands of hunter-gatherers, this was likely to be
Reciprocal Altruism 61
case. But we would need to possess an accurate recollection of who

was who, and of people’s reputation. This would require memory of
firsthand experiences, but also language to communicate reputation to
others. That meant gossip – an important element of social exchange
that involved working out who was in the group, and what role they
had played in it hitherto. And the ‘gossip hypothesis’ is sometimes
advanced as the principal driver of language, with its capacity for con-
veying abstract information about third parties. I return to that in the
penultimate chapter, on storytelling.
In broad terms we have an idea about the size of these hunter-gatherer
groups, both from the archaeological record and from studies of sim-
ilar modern-day communities. Perhaps, though, the most compelling
detail comes from Robin Dunbar’s comparative research on neocortex
size in primates. He found a close association between the size of our
cortex and our social group, which suggests that a fair amount of cog-
nitive effort goes into tracking the various dimensions of social life
within a community of this size. For humans he famously deduced a
number in the region of 150, now known as Dunbar’s number (Dunbar
1992).
There are some intriguing modern parallels to Dunbar’s number.
Think for a moment about the size of a Roman legion, or a modern
infantry company. With this number of soldiers, even allowing for a
fair degree of churn, with people leaving and joining all of the time,
the commander and the non-commissioned officers would be expected
to know the names of pretty well everyone, and to have some idea
about their credentials as a soldier. It’s the largest sort of group where
this is case – where a leader might be able, at a stretch, to know
everyone directly. The military parallel occurred to Dunbar himself,
and also to Sebastian Junger in his gripping account of a company of
American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan’s violent Korengal Valley – a
demonstration of the power of the altruistic network in action (Junger
2010).
With larger groups we may come to hear of people’s reputation
secondhand. That nonetheless may be sufficient to persuade us to
behave altruistically towards them – just being members of our in-group
is enough to foster a favourable reputation, particularly when pitted
against a comparative out-group. Signals that someone is part of our
group thus become an important indicator of whether or not to behave
altruistically towards them. Thus, we can see culture as a badge of group
identity, with important evolutionary implications.
The prisoner’s dilemma versus reality
From this perspective, cooperation seems fragile and conditional. Yet

this tendency to cooperate may be generally applicable, regardless of our
knowledge of group membership. In real-world experiments we tend to
cooperate more than would be expected of a rational actor.
The prisoner’s dilemma is a well-known classic of game theory that
appears to powerfully demonstrate the limits of cooperation in the face
of narrow self-interest. The scenario is of two prisoners who are detained
by police who suspect them of committing a crime. Their choice is
whether to cooperate with their partner in crime by remaining silent,
or to rat them out – defect, in the jargon. Never mind the particulars of
the case, the model is compelling because it can be abstracted to all sorts
of plausible real-world dilemmas in which cooperation is theoretically
possible but unlikely, given the inability of participants to effectively
coordinate their behaviour or trust one another. That sounds similar to
the narrow realist view that I described in the previous chapter.
The various payoffs on offer from the police in the classic experiment
are set out in Table 4.1. From these it follows that the least worst option
for Prisoner A is to defect, no matter what Prisoner B chooses. And, of
course, the same is true in reverse. Faced with this situation, then, the
‘rational’ actor defects – rational, that is, in the sense of having ‘perfect’
knowledge of the various payoffs, and of the rationality of the other
player; and also of being possessed of a consistent desire to minimise the
penalty in each scenario. Since both players are assumed to be ‘rational’
in this abstracted sense, both defect, arriving at a suboptimal outcome
compared with what could be available if each had cooperated with the
other.
But real-world rationality departs from the abstract rationality of game
theory in important ways. When the game is played experimentally,
many people cooperate, even when playing with someone whom they
Table 4.1 The four possible outcomes of the prisoner’s dilemma
Prisoner B cooperates Prisoner B defects

(stays silent) (betrays A)
Prisoner A cooperates Both are jailed for a A is jailed for three

(stays silent) year years while B goes free
Prisoner A defects A goes free while B is Both are jailed for two
(betrays B) jailed for three years years
do not know (Kiyonari et al. 2000). In one experiment, real prisoners

played the game – surely they would know better than to gamble all
on the trustworthiness of someone whom they didn’t know? Appar-
ently not: many of the prisoners cooperated too (Khadjavi and Lange
2013).
The classic prisoner’s dilemma
The prisoner’s dilemma reveals more about human nature in its

departure from abstract, utility-maximising rationality, of the sort
that underpinned much economic theory of the last century, and
that also lay, sometimes implicitly, beneath realist theories of inter-
national relations that described states as morally disinterested,
utility/security/power-maximising agents. Real humans do not strive to
maximise personal utility, at least measured in payoffs such as those
in the game. They may derive more individual satisfaction instead from
upholding the norms of the group to which they belong, and from coop-
erating with members of that group, perhaps, though not necessarily
consciously, in the expectation of a future benefit.
It may just be evolutionarily advantageous to err on the side of a little
bit of trust and generosity (Delton et al. 2011). Those whose ancestors
did so, and whose genes they share, are here because that strategy was
successful. They evolved in an environment where most people whom
they encountered were in their group, and therefore somewhat likely to
reciprocate, or to contribute to their individual reputation.
When a group is formed, or rather, in the jargon of social psychology,
when it becomes salient to us, experiments find that we tend to demand
fairness for its members at the expense of others. Moreover, when the
accepted norms of a collective game are broken, we tend to punish the
transgressor, even at a cost to ourselves. This behaviour – ‘reciprocal
punishment’ – would be evolutionarily adaptive if it policed free-riding
by unscrupulous members of our group, or by outsiders, who, cuckoo-
like, have inveigled their way in (Fehr and Gachter 2002; Boyd et al.
2003). After all, if we did not have both a fairly decent social antenna for
detecting cheating and a willingness to punish it where found, selfish,
free-riders would get away with taking advantage of altruistic cooper-
ators, and genes that selected for altruism would be bred out of the
population. In groups with pronounced inequality, it may be the case, as
demonstrated in one recent model of altruistic punishment, that more
powerful individuals bear a greater relative cost in terms of punishing
transgression. That makes sense insofar as they clearly have an interest
in preserving their position within the group (Gavrilets and Fortunato

2014).
Tit for tat
There is a strong evolutionary logic to cooperation in prisoner’s

dilemma-type situations, whatever rational actor theory might say.
Cooperative dilemmas in the real world are not played like single-
iteration versions of the prisoner’s dilemma. Instead there is scope for
repeated interaction, which is why reputation becomes so important.
Indeed, as Max Krasnow and colleagues argue, if meeting once is a pre-
dictive factor for future encounters, as it might be in the small world of a
hunter-gatherer community, it makes sense to cooperate in anticipation
of future meetings (Krasnow et al. 2013).
Robert Axelrod has a prominent reputation in the study of cooper-
ation. At a time when economists were making extensive use of the
rational actor model and of ideas that were drawn from game theory to
understand human behaviour, Axelrod demonstrated a viable model for
cooperative behaviour (Axelrod 1984). Or rather, Anatol Rapoport did in
answering the challenge that was set by Axelrod to find the best, utility-
maximising solution to repeated iterations of a prisoner’s dilemma. The
answer was the famed tactic of ‘tit for tat’ – all you had to do was mirror
the last move made by your opponent. If they defected – that is, reneged
on your agreed deal in order to profit themselves – then at the next turn
you would defect too. If they then followed that up with a cooperative
move, you too would cooperate next time.
In the real world, in which emotion and that overarching concern for
reputation both feature, there is, however, a tendency towards escala-
tion that the model doesn’t capture. Two computers playing each other
at repeated iterations of the prisoners’ dilemma are not about to get
riled into overreacting. In real-world experiments where players become
aware of their interlocutor violating existing norms, or expectations,
we see plenty of escalation – even when it comes at a cost to oneself.
We will even punish transgressors on behalf of others, especially when
we feel that they are one of us too – that phenomenon of ‘altruistic
punishment’. Rapoport’s solution did not capture the idea of reputation
in a realistic sense either – part of the rationale for overreacting is to
put the interlocutor on guard that you may do so again, thereby deter-
ring future transgressions – ‘escalation dominance’, in the parlance of
nuclear weapons strategy (Kahn 2009). In the Rapoport solution there
was no escalation, just a precise mirroring of the transgression. Real
life is more complex – we have to determine the level of a transgres-

sion, which may be masked by the transgressor, and we have to gauge
an equivalent response. There are degrees of ambiguity and personal
subjectivity involved that wildly complicate the business of reprisals.
An experiment by Shergill and colleagues makes the point. Asked to
match the pressure exerted on their hand via a lever pressed by a part-
ner, we have a tendency to escalate the force sequentially (Shergill et al.
2003). The phenomenon underpins the savage bites that a toddler will
take out of its parents – the lack of an adequate theory of mind for the
person with whom we are interacting and an ability to gauge our own
application of force.
The empathy gap
A theory of mind underpins the phenomenon of reciprocal altruism, as

it does our interactions with others more broadly. We know that we have
a capacity for ‘intentionality’ that surpasses that of all other animals,
including chimpanzees, which some primatologists argue are capable of
a degree of awareness of others. This is the sort of logic that extends
beyond ‘I know that you know’ into new layers of ‘I know that you
know that I know’, and so on. Most humans are capable of four such
layers of mentalising about others, and some of us can manage a few
more. Such is our tendency to gauge what’s going on in others minds
that we tend to anthropomorphise objects and animals, seeing human
characteristics in them even where none can possibly exist. One of my
favourite Twitter feeds, ‘faces in things’, uses this tendency for comic
effect, with regular photos of inanimate objects that are caught acci-
dentally portraying human emotions.1 In his entertaining account of
empathy, Mindwise, Nicholas Epley writes about this tendency to see a
human soul underpinning all sorts of behaviours (Epley 2014). On aver-
age, we might reasonably conclude, it makes sense, in his term, to be
‘mindwise’ – ready to interpret behaviours or events to an intelligent
human agency – if doing so confers an adaptive advantage. That advan-
tage may take the form of a sophisticated social capacity to cooperate
and to detect free-riding. Hackel and colleagues demonstrated that our
tendency to intuit a free agent behind a computer-generated partially
human ‘morphed’ face depends on whether it belongs to our group or
not. On a spectrum in which faces ranged from fully human to fully
avatar, the threshold for assuming human agency is lower for in-group
members than for those in the out-group: it’s better to assume that
your fellow group members are agentic, purposeful actors, with whom
you might cooperate. There is an exception to the pattern – if the out-

group is seen as threatening, in which case it pays to be attentive to the
adversary’s agency (Hackel et al. 2014).
There are, nonetheless, systematic weaknesses to our theory of mind,
and these may underpin our inability, as measured by Shergill, to sen-
sibly gauge how much force we are using on others. As naive scientists,
we are essentially modelling the internal states of others on the basis
of how we see them behaving: that’s all we have to go on since we
can’t actually get inside the mind of others. We extrapolate from the
behavioural effects to try to deduce an underlying cause. Additionally,
while we are aware of the richness of our own internal mental states, we
are somewhat reductive when it comes to imagining the interior lives
of others, which seem comparably grey, more simplistic and frankly not
as interesting. We are the stars of our own show, with everyone else as
supporting actors; and a dollop of empathy, while it goes some way to
counteracting that, cannot overcome the imbalance between our own
rich, experiencing selves and the shallow, less real internal states of oth-
ers. How well can you truly know someone? Nicholas Epley reports a
fascinating study in which partners were asked to predict how well their
soulmate knew them. The results were startling. We dramatically over-
predict the ability of those whom we love to really understand how we
feel about ourselves. Why? Perhaps because we have full access to our
own internal states, whereas they are going on observed behaviour. If we
can experience a full, rich sense of ourself, we can’t imagine why they
wouldn’t too. Related to that, we somewhat egotistically project onto
others our own attitude: if we feel one way about something, surely
they must too.
Seen in this way, empathy and understanding are rather more a mud-
dled dialogue of the partially deaf than a crystal clear insight into
another’s mind. And when it comes to responding to a provocation,
or a violation of norms, all of this suggests that we are altogether more
human than the perfectly informed rational actor of game theory. When
asked to match the downward pressure in Shergill’s experiment, we can’t
really intuit what the other person is experiencing – we just know what
we felt, and it was quite a lot of force. Throw in some anger and self-
righteousness, and our lack of accurate perspective can be a recipe for
escalation, rather than a measured ‘tit for tat’ response.
Yet, rather more remarkable than this tendency to escalate, there is
that real-world feature of prisoners’ dilemmas that goes to the heart
of the argument here. As we saw, when the game is played for real,
even as a one-shot iteration with people we don’t know and need never
meet, there is far more cooperation than the basic, rational actor model
would lead one to suppose. Real humans, these studies seem to sug-
gest, just can’t help cooperating. That is what we might expect too from
our notion of reciprocal altruism in its evolutionary context. Altruism
can’t be expected to work on the basis of a very careful cost–benefit
analysis of the situation in hand. Sometimes we might need a more
instinctive response, as, for example, in situations of sudden and acute
danger. An altruistic instinct would be more adaptive than a laborious
introspection on the merits or otherwise of the recipient of our charity.
This fits what neuroscience tells us about the role of instinct and the
unconscious in our decision-making. From cognitive psychology, par-
ticularly the work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, comes the
idea that we use simplified models of reality, or ‘heuristics’, to make
many of our decisions for us (Kahneman et al. 1982). This research
has already made its mark in political psychology and strategic stud-
ies via scholarship on the decision-making of foreign policy elites. Yuen
Foong Khong and David Houghton have both explored the use of
heuristics by senior US administration officials in the Vietnam War and
the Iranian hostage rescue crisis, respectively (Khong 1992; Houghton
2001). Particularly influential was the idea that we use simplified ana-
logical reasoning to compare a given situation with earlier examples
that we know about. This can be adaptive in situations where infor-
mation is ambiguous, or the pressures of time are severe, but as Khong
demonstrates, they can also introduce costly errors into policy-making
by ignoring some important differences between analogies. More recent
research has expanded the concept of heuristics, with Kahneman distin-
guishing between two broad types of cognition: one a more instinctive,
automatic process that can deliver rapid and often accurate decision-
making; the other a more deliberate and considered process, typically
more demanding on time and effort, and that can involve the conscious,
self-aware mind (Kahneman 2011). This conceptualisation almost cer-
tainly aggregates different mental processes but nonetheless captures
an important idea: that much of our decision-making takes place away
from the conscious mind.
In his neuroscientific research, Antonio Damasio has pointed to
the tremendous importance of emotion in shaping our decisions. His
patients with damage to parts of the brain that are responsible for pro-
cessing or interpreting emotional information displayed a pronounced
inability to make effective, timely decisions (Damasio 2005). Rather
than being an impediment to effective decision-making, Damasio sug-
gests, emotions may be an integral part of it. If something feels good
to us, why not go with it? Emotions, seen in this way, are a powerful
heuristic. Indeed, Paul Slovic refers to an ‘affect heuristic’ (Slovic et al.
2007). Another, related concept is that of ‘cognitive fluency’, which
sees the brain as a labour-saving cognitive miser, always on the look-
out for the path of least effort. Daniel Kahneman’s ‘type 2’ cognition,
the deliberative, conscious and effortful sort of thinking, is engaged
when something draws our attention to it, or when the decision is not
already made by our unconscious mind (Kahneman 2011). This is the
sort of research that profoundly challenges notions of rationality that
have anything in common with the theoretical agent that is elaborated
in the rational actor model. Indeed, rather than a rationalist, this gives
us a sense of the conscious self as someone arriving late at the scene
of an event and rationalising what has happened. This is an important
point to which I shall return when considering memory, storytelling
and agency later on.
Which group?
Many of our options, Kahneman, Damasio and many others suggest,

are filtered out a long time before we become aware of them, if indeed
we ever do. Psychologists have demonstrated great ingenuity in devis-
ing a raft of experimental projects to explore this phenomenon, which
go broadly under the rubric of ‘priming’. Among these experiments are
some that explore liking and trust – either explicitly or implicitly. One
type of experiment, repeated in numerous different variants, suggests
that a group can exert a powerful pull on our behaviours, regardless of
whether it is actually one that is important to us. Henri Tajfel famously
demonstrated this by assigning people to groups on the basis of their
liking for paintings by either Klimmt or Kandinsky – a fairly arbitrary
way of forging an identity (Tajfel et al. 1971). Tajfel was seeking the
minimum prompt that would make a group ‘salient’ to us, and that
would exert some impact on our behaviours. For us, the point of the
experiment was that we favoured those in the in-group reflexively –
without really considering why in any conscious detail. This sort of min-
imal shared affiliation underpins one of the six dramatically monikered
‘weapons of influence’ that Robert Cialdini identifies in his hugely pop-
ular social psychology primer Influence: Science and Practice (Cialdini
2009). For Cialdini, making someone like you is an important way of
achieving influence over them. And we tend to like those best who seem
to be like ourselves, or who present an identity that we aspire to adopt.
Familiarity does not, in this view, breed contempt but rather a warm
glow. Physical identifiers (e.g. ethnicity), as well as cultural identifiers

(e.g. clothing and manners), play an important part in signalling that
someone is part of the group and thus inherently likeable.
With liking we see again the ‘affect heuristic’ of Slovic – we are using
emotion to make some of our decisions for us, and on a ‘good enough’
instinctive basis that need not engage the conscious effort of our delib-
erative self-aware decision-making (Slovic et al. 2007). The bonds of
liking can be strengthened using humour – bringing to mind Dunbar’s
notion that the evolutionary purpose of laughter was a sort of ‘groom-
ing’ that had the distinct advantage of allowing groups rather than
individuals to be bonded together simultaneously (Dunbar 2014). One
of Cialdini’s other ‘weapons of influence’ – reciprocity – also exploits the
affect heuristic by employing the powerful forces that underpin recipro-
cal altruism. If someone does something for you, no matter how trivial,
it can be hard to resist the evolutionary bond that ties you to them in
a web of shared obligation and identity. The ‘How are you’ and ‘Have a
nice day’ of a shopkeeper may appear to be superficial interactions, but
they persist for a reason. Those ‘weapons of influence’ create a shared
identity with the ‘victim’, triggering our sense of obligation to those in
our group. From Henri Tajfel and later adherents to social identity the-
ory, we have a powerful idea of groups being, as he put it, in a constant
state of flux (Tajfel 1982). Our identification with one group or another
is partly a matter of self-categorisation but is partly also driven by the
context in which we find ourselves (Turner et al. 1987). As Cialdini
demonstrates, savvy individuals are able to cynically manipulate our
sense of identity, pulling on the strings of altruism – often without us
being consciously aware of it.
Robert Trivers, to whom we owe the concept of reciprocal altruism,
himself takes a cynical view of cooperation (Trivers 2011). For him,
cooperation is real and meaningful. Moreover, we can have a genuine
sense of ourselves as cooperative, altruistic individuals – doing the best
by our group. But there is a dark underside to this altruism. We are, he
avers, guided by that evolutionary imperative to advance the cause of
our genes, and evolution has developed an altogether underhand way
of doing so. To get ahead in our intensely social environment, coop-
eration is key, entailing sacrifice. But there are also gains to be had
from free-riding, avoiding costly sacrifice while still benefiting from the
sacrifice of others. Of course, if we are spotted free-riding we risk exclu-
sion, or worse. Trivers suggests a neat way around this for humans –
self-deception. To be a convincing liar, we need to fool ourselves into
believing that we are honest characters.
I find this cynicism a useful riposte to the realist tradition in interna-

tional relations that sees self-interest in an unforgiving and anarchical
setting as the leitmotif of much human behaviour. The cynical self-
interest of the realist is present in the theory of reciprocal altruism, but
it is a self-interest that we may not even be aware of. Could we really
be the sort of people to cheat and deceive others, or to slacken off in
cooperative arrangements while still feeling ourselves to be fundamen-
tally good and decent? The answer from Trivers is emphatically ‘yes’.
And, moreover, there is supporting experimental evidence to suggest as
much, some of which I explore in the next chapter on honour. The real-
ist in us, then, is hidden away even from ourselves, the better, argues
Trivers, to fool others into believing our sincerity. We are self-interested
agents who are working towards the preservation and onward selection
of our genetic material. But we often act in ignorance of that underlying
force.
And yet there is a brighter take on altruism that need not be incon-
sistent with the cynical Trivers: advancing our genes in any case usually
entails a high degree of cooperation, since we are entirely social ani-
mals. That being so, we should hardly be surprised that generosity to
others with no hope of payoff simply makes us feel good – after all, why
wouldn’t it, if it were evolutionarily advantageous to foster a sense of
community, or at least to convincingly persuade others that we are gen-
uine altruists? Studies consistently show that giving to others promotes
a sense of well-being. In one large cross-cultural review, for example,
Lara Aknin and others found that ‘pro-social’ spending – that is, using
money to help others – is associated with greater well-being on the part
of the spender (Aknin et al. 2013).
Liberalism and altruism
We can see liberalism as the apotheosis of the altruism instinct – the

most pure manifestation of deontological ethics. Of course, real-world
liberalism, as I will argue in Part III, comes up some way short of the
ideal-type. Real-life liberal governments do engage in a consequentialist
logic, aiming to increase the size of the pie for the greatest number in
society, while trying – and sometimes failing – to ensure that no one is
left worse off by their decision.
What took humanity so long to arrive at this sunlit liberal upland?
Earlier I argued that a process of domestication had been under way
for many thousands of years in human evolution, and that this had
favoured cooperative strategies – allowing the group to expand in size
beyond the small band of hunter-gatherers. The answer to my ques-

tion is that 20,000 years or so is not long at all in the grand scheme
of evolutionary things – the changes to human society unleashed by
that transformation have been far-reaching and profound. And if liber-
alism remains incomplete, that should hardly be surprising: we are, after
all, only 12 millennia from the emergence of large, settled agricultural
communities. Liberalism pushes against the much longer-established
notion of sympathy extending primarily to one’s own kin; it stretches
the empathy that we feel for others to its limits. As a result, it remains
inconsistently observed and fragile, even in states that profess a liberal
ethos. Nepotism, racism and xenophobia are features of modern liberal
societies, just as they were all others.
In fact, as a group identity that binds people together and prompts
action, liberalism remains far behind the tangible hold on people
that is exerted by nationalism. There is a distinction in the litera-
ture on nationalism between those who argue, like Ernest Gellner
and Benedict Anderson, that many nations are a largely modern
phenomenon – owing much to processes of education, industrialisation
and democratisation – and those such as Gat and Yakobson, who hold
that nations have long exerted a pull on the identities of individuals
(Anderson 1983; Gellner 2008; Gat and Yakobson 2013). We need not
disallow one view completely in order to acknowledge the argument of
the other, and certainly there is much truth in Anderson’s account of an
invented concept of ‘Indonesia’. But my own view errs towards Gat’s:
domestication and the emergence of complex and distinctive human
cultures allowed the formation of large-scale identities which could
exert a pull on individuals, drawing on their altruistic instincts. These
groups would share distinctive cultural features, local dialects, dress and
manners, which were used as a shortcut to symbolise membership and
thus the right to be part of the network of reciprocal altruists. Ofttimes
there would be an ethnic dimension to these cultures too, since ethnic
similarity stands as a more permanent marker of connectedness, and
can in some cases indicate a degree of genetic relatedness. Ethnicity,
of course, limits the plasticity of the group. Indeed, as Jared Diamond
argues, the physical traits of particular ethnicities may have emerged for
precisely this reason – to mark outsiders. We can see skin, hair and eye
colour in this view not as serving some sort of practical purpose that is
related to the environmental niche which a particular group of humans
was occupying but rather as a badge of membership (Diamond 2012).
Nationalisms founded on a particular ethnicity might therefore be
expected to be more enduring and slow-changing than the modern
liberal state, which as a matter of philosophy disavows such distinc-

tions. Modern liberal states tend to encompass a variety of ethnicities,
to say nothing of a diversity of cultural ideas. Nonetheless, the pull of
ethnic ties remains profound and is manifest in the uneven prospects
of different minority groups even within the most liberal societies. The
web of reciprocal altruism is parochial and is shaped by propinquity.
We naturally respond readily to the appeals of kinsfolk, and with more
suspicion to those who are unrelated, unknown.
Flexible groups
Even in a neolithic setting, group identity could be flexible. Where we

might suppose that groups are a fairly static concept, involving the same
players who are tightly bound together in a distinct physical space,
archaeological evidence suggests that humans, contra Neanderthals, had
extensive trading networks that linked disparate groups together. In fact,
European humans even have a proportion of Neanderthal DNA, suggest-
ing that interbreeding crossed the species divide (Sankararaman et al.
2014). Readers of Keeley can well imagine that such interbreeding was
not a peaceable affair. In chimpanzee troops too, there is a constant low-
level coming and going of members from other groups. And the research
I cited earlier providing evidence for polygny in palaeolithic human his-
tory suggested that women would typically migrate to new communities
when pair bonding (Lippold et al. 2014).
Social networks might be considerably smaller than today in the
neolithic era, but the atomised small bands of the palaeolithic era were
giving way to a more complex set of identities. Dunbar’s concept of
an extended social network captures this idea well – the 15 core mem-
bers and 150 or so that our neocortex is geared towards are but two
levels at which we mentalise our groups, he argues. A larger collective of
some 1500 distant acquaintances also features in his model – commonly
referred to as a tribe – and it is this larger group that might provide some
of the diversity and ebb and flow in the makeup of our core groups
(Dunbar 1998).
The modern social psychological understanding of the group is of
somewhat fluid identities, of which we may have more than one at a
time. Individuals mould their behaviour to the group in order to belong
to one that seems important, thereby enhancing the prospects for their
genes. Part of that is achieved by enhancing the contrast with out-
groups that are perceived to be in competition. The swirl of human
group identities, their constant comings and goings, and indeed the
evolution through time of their attributes are all part of our desire to
fit in and be esteemed by other group members.
Reciprocity, or at least some promise of it, becomes key to the for-
mation of groups, which then are in turn the font of culture. After all,
culture is what constitutes the group, at least once it expands beyond
the close band of kin. This is the view of culture that is articulated
by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who described it as a sort of
spider web, marked by a shared understanding of how things ought
to be done (Geertz 1975).2 The artefacts of culture – dress, speech
(both language and dialect), tools, buildings and so on, to include, of
course, weapons – are not just symbols of the group but very much
what actually constitutes it. And that, to a considerable extent, is
a fluid concept – whether the group is of Kandinsky enthusiasts or
Indonesia.
Group loyalty
Humans have long evolved as social animals, to the extent that we

would not long survive outside the group. The fear of exile from the
group has become a powerful social force. This ‘in-group love’ exerts a
strong influence on attitudes to outsiders, who may be in competition
with the group or seeking to ‘free-ride’ off its collective endeavour. The
motives of such outsiders are suspect, and they are less deserving of fair-
ness, reciprocity or empathy. We are supportive of individual members
of our group because we recognise, whether consciously or otherwise,
that they are potential partners for cooperation. And we are support-
ive of our group over others because our own survival depends upon its
fortunes, to a considerable degree.
Thus, we have reciprocal altruism towards individual humans, but we
also have ‘group altruism’, as Peter Singer terms it, towards the abstract
idea of our group as a whole (Singer 1983). We will make sacrifices for
a (largely) anonymous, imaginary mass. Again, this is not the same as
saying that groups are themselves the object of natural selection, in a
social Darwinist sense. It does, however, leave space to acknowledge the
role that groups can play in shaping our own evolutionary prospects,
because the group is a large part of the evolutionary environment within
which members’ genes will struggle for fitness. Groups, like bodies, are
vessels that contain genetic stock to be passed along to the next genera-
tion. When Richard Dawkins writes that ‘A gene’s survival is intimately
bound up with the survival of the bodies it helps to build, because it
rides inside those bodies and dies with them,’ we might easily extend
the argument out to the group that provides the individual with the
means to survive.3
This evolutionary logic can help us to understand the otherwise mys-
terious forces of patriotism and honour, where people are willing to
make tremendous sacrifices on behalf of a far larger group than the small
band in which humans evolved for much of our history. It is simply not
possible to know more than a tiny percentage of the population of one’s
country. The stereotypes that we apply to make sense of our nationality,
and that of others, can only ever be crudely reductive. And yet the hold
that our own country, and our countrymen, can have on us is profound.
It can be even more powerful than the bonds of kinship. We see this in
the evident pride of some mothers of suicide bombers in Palestine, cele-
brating the martyrdom of their own sons and daughters. Wilfred Owen
captures the strange sentiment of glory that is associated with dying,
quite horribly, for one’s country in his most famous poem:
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Would you send your own children off to likely death in a brutal and
savage war? Perhaps, if it were an existential struggle, one might make
a decent case for it, but most wars are not. Many are fought not over
territory, or even the right to live in a particular way of life. Owen
was appealing against the awful consequences of nationalism amid the
most destructive of wars. Yet, despite its apparent absurdity, nationalism
retains a powerful hold on our sense of identity.
The same loyalty to group over kin is true, on a smaller canvass, of
cults. In his landmark 1950s study, Leon Festinger and a few colleagues
joined a Doomsday cult to discover what would happen when the clock
struck midnight and space aliens arrived from another planet to take
off cult members before the earth was destroyed (Festinger et al. 2008).
This was a ridiculous belief. Indeed, perhaps fearing ridicule, members
had shunned all publicity, at least before D-Day. But they had also made
some serious sacrifices to be part of this group – leaving jobs, friends
and, in some cases, family.
This intense loyalty to the reference group can be exaggerated fur-

ther by powerful leadership, or by physical isolation from other possible
sources of identity. And often this is a matter of instinct and emotion
more than reason. My country, right or wrong. Thus, Jonathan Mercer
argues that emotion plays an important part in shaping group identity,
and that it can be experienced collectively, as part of our social iden-
tity (Mercer 2014). We can feel outrage at the violation of group norms,
even if we are not the individual who loses out. This emotional dimen-
sion to the group underpins that propensity for reciprocal punishment.
As Molly Crockett and colleagues found, we will punish those who cross
the group even if they never find out about it – so that punishment
cannot be motivated by deterrence but only by an intense desire for
retribution (Crockett et al. 2014).
Culture regulates our individual emotional experience. When it comes
to liberalism, the logical extension of the argument about emotion and
identity is that violations of liberal norms offend the sensibilities of
individual liberals – a direct challenge to the esteem that is vested in
their group. A longstanding belief of liberals is that simply by getting
to know people in other groups, perhaps through trade, the prospects
of conflict between them would diminish. People in other groups, we
would come to see, are just the same as us. To suggest, as I do here,
that there is a spreading liberal norm, which shapes behaviour in war,
is to hold that members of individual liberal states also see members of
other liberal states as part of a referent group. Moreover, they would see
the demands of liberal logic require those standards to be applied to all
people, regardless of their state.
Logic, it seems to me, leads emotion on this point. We liberals are
aware of the inconsistency with which we apply our behavioural norms
to others, but we cannot as readily feel the same attachment to dis-
tant peoples as we do those nearer at hand; nearer, that is, in both the
physical (since propinquity fosters similarity and belonging) and the
philosophical sense. Emotion may be contagious, socially informed and
an integral part of our identity, but there are different groups competing
for our social identity, and some loom larger in our imagination that
others. The prolific Leon Festinger conducted another field study, this
time of the attitudes and relationships of people in housing complexes
at MIT. He found that propinquity, rather than tastes/beliefs, prompted
friendships among residents of the housing complexes (Festinger 1950).
To review, we have evolved to be loyal to our group because it plays
such an important part in our evolutionary and life chances. Being a val-
ued member of the group is critical. We can earn the esteem of the group
by cultivating our reputation, part of which rests on doing good deeds,

part on abiding by the rules that it establishes to govern behaviour.
Transgressing the rules is a dangerous game that could lead to social
exclusion. And so, as Matthew Lieberman demonstrates from a neurosci-
entific perspective, much of our neural architecture is dedicated to social
monitoring – to seeking meaning in our relations with other people;
watching not just to see who we can trust to work with, but also to see
what they are thinking about us (Lieberman 2014). Culture, the product
of this rich and varied group interaction, enables the construction of
larger groups, and ever more elaborate ideas and artefacts.
War makes the liberal and the liberal makes war
There are intriguing ironies about all of this altruism and cooperation.
There is a dark side that Trivers observes is the delicate balance of decep-
tion and detection that underpins it, as we cheat and free-ride wherever
possible, even while trying to fool everyone, including ourselves, about
what morally upstanding actors we are. But there is an even darker
irony in Samuel Bowles’ suggestion that a key driver of the evolution
of altruism has been war (Bowles 2009).
Using a dataset that includes a variety of archaeological and ethno-
graphical case studies, Bowles asks whether, if we assume that coopera-
tive groups were more likely to succeed in conflict with less cooperative
ones, there was enough conflict in these societies to make this a selec-
tive pressure for greater altruism. It seems to be a reasonable assumption,
and his answer, necessarily tentative given the constraints of data and
modelling, is that the level of violent death that we observe is suffi-
ciently high to have allowed the proliferation of altruism – that is, war
was so costly, and the gains from altruism so significant, that individual
altruism at significant cost to the altruist could occur.
Warfare thus provides the answer to the puzzle of why altruists would
not be selectively bred out of populations by cunning and selfish free-
riders. The answer is partly that the sensitivity to cheating and the
profound sense of outrage on discovering that we have been cheated
polices the activity effectively. However, Bowles’ logic provides an addi-
tional, reinforcing rationale. We have to cooperate under pressure of
conflict because, if we don’t, groups that do will in time annihilate us.
This is similar to the argument that was offered by Bradley Thayer and
earlier by Robert Bigelow – that the pressures of predation and warfare
act as a spur to intelligence: groups with more intelligent members can
outperform others in warfare (Bigelow 1969; Thayer 2004). What Bowles
argues is that war acts as a spur for social intelligence. Cooperation
rather than necessarily a capacity for abstract thought is the driving

force in martial performance.
Culture, with its language and weaponry, might be expected to dimin-
ish intragroup violence as altruism deepens within the group. But
between groups the greater lethality of offensive weapons and the devel-
opment of raid-and-ambush tactics might be expected to increase the
effectiveness of intergroup conflict. We observe warfare between troops
of chimpanzees, and this conflict can have a dramatic impact on the
viability of the groups of belligerents. But the introduction of more
sophisticated weaponry in human society would be likely to confer a dis-
tinct additional advantage to predatory behaviour in raid and ambush
by increasing the lethality and benefits that accrue to surprise attack.
We are left then with what looks at first blush like group selec-
tion: intense martial competition selects for the survival of the fittest
group. This indeed was the logic of some theorists who attempted to
account for altruism, just as it was for social Darwinists. But reciprocal
altruism means that there is no need to reach beyond genetic fitness as
the key driver for evolution. We may seem to be making sacrifices for
our group, such that the group that pulls together with most effort and
resolve is likely to survive en masse. But the real motivation is the pay-
back that comes from individual cooperation. There is no logical need
to extend the level at which evolution operates to the group.
Conclusion
For much of evolutionary history the group remained small, with most
members knowing others, and thereby being able to build a picture of
who to trust. It would be possible to gossip about most members, shar-
ing information and shaping reputations. To be reciprocally altruistic
towards individuals in this group would be tantamount to being altru-
istic towards the group. The boundaries with kinship altruism would be
similarly blurred – many members would be related, even if distantly,
and those who were unrelated would stand a decent chance of even-
tually being involved in the onward propagation of one’s own genes.
In the sense of the small evolutionary group of 50 at an overnight camp,
then, altruism makes inherent good sense. In ambiguous, often danger-
ous, situations, or where survival is a matter of small margins eked out
in difficult environmental niches, we develop a pretty acute notion of
who we can trust and who we should do favours for.
Groups eventually became larger – a function, among other things,
of language, culture and the capacity for specialisation. We had the
mental capacity to develop an abstracted sense of identity and fealty to
a group that was larger than the hunter-gatherer band. As part of that,
groups became larger, because of the pressures of war. There is an econ-
omy of scale in warfare: might is not inevitably right, but having larger
groups permits specialisation in fighting and allows the development
of tactics and weaponry. Often victory does go to the big battalions,
and their assembly requires a supporting societal foundation that can
generate and sustain fighting power. In such armies, we might not
know everyone else, except perhaps for some powerful figures who have
earned a reputation for battlefield performance. With weapons increas-
ing the impact of surprise through raid and ambush, we might expect
to see human groups clustering together for safety in numbers, which
would in turn involve the development of settled and fortified camps –
which, of course, require further intense cooperation, hierarchy and role
specialisation.
This tension between offence and defence in intergroup conflict
remains a feature of war down to the modern era, with the balance being
prone to shift in response to changes in weapons technology and tactics,
both of which are reflections of culture. That culture rests on the tremen-
dous cognitive capacity for ingenuity and cooperation of anatomically
modern humans, a capacity unleashed, according to Dunbar, by the
evolutionary resolution of the iron grip of time constraints on forag-
ing, resting and managing tensions in social interactions. The key to
human evolution is our capacity to knit together larger groups via laugh-
ter, music and language – in short, our inherent sociability within the
group. This, combined with threats from without the group, lead to ever
bigger cooperative bands that are capable of increasingly sophisticated
approaches to war.
So to Bowles’s argument that war selects for altruism, we might add an
addendum: war and the altruism that it promotes allows groups to grow
beyond Dunbar’s main constraint – the size of the human neocortex.
The remarkable conclusion of Bowles’ work sets the stage for the argu-
ment to come: groups in war select for altruism – the very basis of the
liberalism that is inherent in the modern conception of warfare in the
West is, somewhat ironically, a product of intergroup conflict, and all of
the savagery that comes with it.
In sharpening the division between group identities, war facilitates
the essential sacrifice within groups that is the bedrock of civilisation.
Charles Tilly famously remarked that war made the state and the state
made war (Tilly and Ardant 1975). We can see the essential truism
of this in evolution too: war shaped our evolution, selecting for new
groups with new cooperative capabilities, and these in turn acted to
transform the character of war, a dynamic interplay between war and

human society that reaches down into our modern era too.
Modern liberal culture represents the high point of altruism. For sure,
this is an imperfect liberalism – the real-world practice falling some
considerable distance short of the Platonic ideal. Alongside the urge to
cooperate with partners whom we can trust, we are still possessed with
the evolved instincts that motivate conflict. We still feel the desire for
scarce resources, and we are still competing against others in an environ-
ment that is marked by the ambiguous intentions of strangers, and with
profound limits on our ability to mount effective deterrence against raid
and predation.
The essential truth of Clausewitz’s dictum that the nature of war is
unchanging while its character is in constant flux is also pertinent to
this discussion of liberalism. I argued earlier that chimpanzees can be
meaningfully thought of as waging ‘warfare’ in pursuit of material goals,
even if the goals for which they fight are unlikely to be as sophisti-
cated as the complex blend of existential and material causes that shape
human behaviour. Their tactics and weaponry are similarly constrained
by their more limited capacity for mentalising. But if we return to the
origins of altruism, and its relationship with honour and esteem, we can
see the outlines of an evolutionary theory of war. It is not just about the
material gains to be had from predation: the control of resource-rich ter-
ritory, the enslavement of the rival group’s women. Rather, it becomes
a much richer phenomenon in which the clamour for prestige makes
sound evolutionary sense.
In the next chapter I explore this idea of groups further by focusing
on the search for standing, or esteem, within and between groups – the
basis of honour itself. Then, armed with that conceptual framework, we
can turn to the question of honour and Western, liberal warfare, and
explore the tension between two very different ways of thinking about
honour: that of the liberal, stressing individual self-worth and dignity
for all; and that of the warrior, stressing extreme fidelity to their group.
5
Honour
In this chapter I connect the scientific evidence on cooperation that was

explored earlier with a central theme in the book – honour as a cause of
war, and honour in the conduct of it. I see honour as a public display
of sacrifice, albeit one that is shaped by particular cultural standards.
It also marks one down as a good partner with whom to cooperate. To be
esteemed is to sit within a network of obligation and social debt, like
Marlon Brando’s Godfather – enjoying the disproportionate spoils of
reciprocal altruism that can accrue to those with social capital.
Honour, seen this way, is clearly connected to reciprocal altruism –
after all, we are less likely to benefit from the efforts of our compa-
triots if we are seen as flaky and untrustworthy. But the concept of
honour is greater than altruism – it also relates to hierarchy, with the
powerful actor being more likely to be held in esteem by the group. Con-
versely, acts that earn the acclaim of the group might pay off in status
terms. Both reasons mean that honour relates to fitness, with pres-
tige standing in as a proxy indicator of genetic suitability. We might
cheekily call this the ‘Kissinger effect’, in recognition of the unlikely
sexual allure of Nixon’s National Security Advisor (Isaacson 1992). Prof.
Kissinger’s charm, incidentally, points to another feature of honour that
might be particularly salient to the modern, liberal state: status need
not be earned through martial valour. In military circles, even in liberal
armies, honour remains connected with performance in battle, or prox-
ies for it, such as membership of elite units. However, liberal societies
have found other ways to measure esteem and status. Sometimes, even
in liberal societies, status may be judged instinctively using cognitive
shortcuts with longstanding evolutionary roots connected to fighting,
as when physical traits act as proxies for martial valour – thus the stud-
ies that find women preferring more masculine faces and voices, or good
80
Honour 81
dancers (Little et al. 2011). But liberals also venerate other, non-physical
attributes, including selflessness, intelligence and wealth. Of course, for
all of these one can also discern an evolutionary logic.
In an evolutionary setting, in contrast with liberal society, the connec-
tion between fighting and honour would likely be more pronounced.
Earlier I argued that men were overwhelmingly the warriors in ‘primi-
tive’ warfare, a similar picture to chimpanzee wars, in which much of
the fighting is done by the males. Moreover, while the gains of combat
may accrue directly to the belligerents – eliminating rivals for feeding
territory and obtaining access to women – these gains might fall dispro-
portionately on some members of the fighting group, particularly those
who are able to dominate rivals or gain status through their public per-
formance in battle. I argued further that we humans are often on a hair
trigger to defend our esteem, as gauged by other members of our refer-
ent group. Garnering a status as an effective warrior, or leader, was one
great way of achieving this esteem within the group and, via that proxy,
securing greater access to the essentials of evolutionary life. Against that
there was, of course, a trade-off: exposing oneself to risk.
In fairly egalitarian societies with limited coercive powers, leader-
ship would probably be earned by example rather than via formal
hierarchy, which would complicate the ability of leaders to compel
particular behaviours, thereby making for simple tactics, especially
in pitched battle. Nonetheless, and especially as larger, more coop-
erative groups develop, groups might become more hierarchical and
tactics more formal and sophisticated. In such societies, ‘big men’ could
emerge, with more clout in collective decision-making, more women
with whom to father children and more material goods as currency to
be converted into genetic success. Hence, perhaps, that evidence sug-
gesting a disproportionately small number of ancestral fathers relative
to mothers.
Warriors, then and now, achieve esteem by public displays of courage
or by killing their enemies. Trophies – heads and scalps, for example –
could be taken by way of account, a practice with direct modern paral-
lels. In the Falklands Conflict of 1982, severed ears were found in the
ammunition pouch belonging to a dead British parachutist, and there
have been allegations of mutilation of Taliban fighters in the recent
War in Afghanistan too. Of course, modern trophy-taking by Western
soldiers is prohibited and greatly offends the liberal sensitivities of soci-
eties that hold individual self-worth in high regard. Such behaviour by
Western warriors has been seen as an emulation of the primitive way of
war, as with the adoption of scalping by some US army soldiers in the
Indian Wars of the nineteenth century (Porter 2009). However, it might

better be seen as an evolved tendency – maladaptive in the modern set-
ting, certainly – to ritualise the killing of enemies and garner esteem
thereby. This, it seems to me, is distinct in motivation from the deliber-
ate degradation of dead enemies, which rather than a badge of honour
is more likely part of a process of legitimising and easing the killing of
others. The two motives clearly overlap, however.
Similarly, killing defenceless enemy soldiers rather than accepting a
surrender is also dishonourable in the modern setting, but it has an
evolutionary rationale: in intraspecies conflict, a common occurrence is
disengagement from fighting once one’s adversary signals retreat. That
way, further risk of injury is avoided and the spoils of victory remain.
But in primitive warfare, enemies who pose no further threat might still
be dispatched (Keeley 1995). With accepting surrender there comes a
cost, since prisoners must be guarded, consume resources and, if male,
offer no reproductive advantages. If the goal of conflict is the annihila-
tion of the competing group, there is little to be gained from retaining
enemy prisoners.
Stopping the killing of defenceless adversaries who moments before
had been engaged in desperate fighting is challenging and requires disci-
pline, both of oneself and from above, along with an ingrained notion of
honour, as articulated by the groups within which one lives. That such
killings are rare in combat involving Western liberal armies is testament
to the power of such societies to shape the attitudes of constituent mem-
bers, and also a reminder that evolutionary logic is not deterministic
of individual’s behaviour. Evolution produces motivations and desires
that are beneficial in certain conditions. It creates complex repertoires of
behaviours, whose payoffs vary according to circumstances. Where they
do not, alternative strategies may be employed. When it comes to lib-
eral warriors turning off their aggression immediately on encountering
surrendered enemy fighters, the instincts of combat, which I consider in
Part III, are up against the hierarchy and discipline of the modern army,
with its capacity to punish ill-discipline and compel desired behaviours.
Public honour
Honour is public insofar as it is a social variable: the point is to be recog-

nised as deserving of acclaim. There is certainly satisfaction to be had
from behaving in accordance with our own, internal view of what is
right, but there is, as we have seen, plenty of evidence from psychology
that this internal view is informed by our social group in any case. There
is evidence too that we systematically delude ourselves about how well
Honour 83
we are doing in adhering to those societal norms of what is right: a self-

aggrandisement that may pay off in the evolutionary sweepstakes if it
imbues us with a degree of resilience in the face of setback or encour-
ages us to take worthwhile risks (Sharot 2012). Honour, then, is about
adhering to a code that others expect of us, and that code is socially
contingent. To be honourable we must have an idea of the prevailing
group norms, and be able to reflect on our own behaviour.
We may not, as Epley argues, have a perfectly accurate view of what
others think of us, but we are nonetheless acutely sensitive to their
attitudes – it matters immensely what the group thinks about us, and
we dedicate considerable effort to monitoring it. This fear of rejection
by the group is perhaps one reason why public-speaking strikes such
dread into many people. A classic demonstration was Solomon Asch’s
famous experiment involving judgement of lines (Asch 1951). Here a
group of ten participants is actually made up of nine confederates of
the experimenter and one genuine participant. The answer to an idi-
otically obvious task – matching the length of a line to three possible
candidates – should present no challenge to anyone, but when the
rest of the group give the wrong answer, peer pressure works to force
the wrong answer from the naive participant. Why? This is in large
part because we fear looking like a fool in front of others. Another
demonstration comes from a 1960s Candid Camera episode toying with
members of the public as they board an elevator in the company of
other people who proceed to change the way they are facing, leaving
the naive participant feeling uncomfortable and subtly shifting his own
position to follow suit.1 A third example comes from Darley and Latane’s
investigation of the ‘bystander effect’, where people pass by someone
behaving abnormally, miming distress, not because they are callous but
because they are uncertain, and taking their cue for how to respond
from other, equally uncertain people, each of whom is trying hard not
to stand out from the crowd, risking ridicule or worse (Darley and Latane
1968). A last experiment combines the lift and abuse. A Swedish group
recently had two actors, a man and a woman, role-play an abusive situ-
ation in an elevator. Only one of 53 people riding the lift while they did
so intervened, saying that she would call the police.2 Perhaps the others
feared the abusive man, even though some of the men were physically
imposing themselves. Perhaps, like those in the bystander effect study,
they were taking their cues from other passengers, afraid to stand out
and mark themselves as different.
In fact, because we are all wrapped up in our own self-obsession, most
people are not taking any notice of us at all. Patients with paralysing
levels of anxiety about their blushing are treated by some cognitive
behavioural therapists with blusher on their cheeks, before being sent

out to see if anyone actually notices. It takes courage, but this sort of
immersion therapy demonstrates, hopefully in a memorable way, how
little attention we pay to those about us.
What these experiments, and many others, demonstrate is the pow-
erful conditioning effect of the group on our own individual behaviour.
Our attention to group norms and expectations works to shape group-
appropriate behaviours and attitudes, whether consciously or otherwise.
It is fantastically difficult to stand apart from the conventions of those
in groups to which we belong, or aspire to belong. This desire to con-
form to the expectations of the group is the basis of honour, and it rests
in the powerful evolutionary pull of reciprocal altruism – the glue that
binds non-kinship-based groups together.
Those experiments also demonstrate the power of the unconscious
mind in shaping our attitudes and behaviours. We incorporate the views
of the group without necessarily even being aware of doing so. We might
fondly imagine ourselves as individuals, masters of our fate. Such a view
might be enhanced in a social milieu that venerates the rights of the
individual over those of society more broadly, as in liberal Western
countries with their emphasis on individual self-actualisation, and the
creation of a personal brand through an array of lifestyle choices. But in
a real sense we are prisoners in a Benthamite panopticon, in which the
guards are, in an ironical sense, ourselves. That is because the judgement
about how we should behave is only partly imposed by the others in
our communal reference group, and partly because it is imposed by our
acutely sensitive perception of what they are thinking. Other peoples’
judgements about our behaviours can often be opaque. They might,
horror of horrors, not actually be paying as much attention to us as
we think. If everyone is wrapped up in a self-centred play in which
they have the starring role, the attention that we give others is per-
force likely limited. The famous gorilla on a basketball court experiment
is one demonstration that our attention is highly selective (Simons and
Chabris 1999). Another is the one in which a person asking directions
is swapped for another behind the cover of a passing billboard, without
the interlocutor noticing (Simons and Levin 1998).3 As cognitive misers,
we tend to focus our attention sparingly on the world around us. Reality
is as much an internal construct of the mind as it is a representation of
what is actually ‘out there’ for us to observe.
Even if ‘they’ are looking on in judgement, their verdict may not be
immediately obvious. But that will not stop us from discerning one. The
fundamental attribution bias describes our tendency to overattribute the
Honour 85
behaviours of others to their internal attitudes, which we cannot, of

course, directly observe. It’s one example of the difficulties that we have
in imputing what others really think about anything, including us. The
false consensus bias is another – we have a tendency to assume that oth-
ers think as we do. In this way, ambiguous behaviours from others can
be interpreted as reflecting their beliefs, which additionally might look
somewhat like ours. We are apt to find meaning in actions by others, and
also to find what we expect to see. If we feel that we are transgressing
moral codes, it is so much easier to feel the opprobrium of others.
Regardless of the flaws in our abilities to mindread, it is clearly a skill
that we rely upon heavily to inform our judgements. Who should we
trust? Will others trust us as reliable? This acute sensitivity to what oth-
ers think of us acts as an internal policeman, enforcing compliance with
group norms. A powerful external force seems to be policing our actions,
even if that force is largely a figment of our imagination. In an innova-
tive experiment, the behavioural economist Dan Ariely and colleagues
demonstrated one of the evolutionary benefits of religion: providing
a powerful reinforcement to shared moral values (Mazar et al. 2008).
Participants in a test were able to self-mark and then destroy their
exam, and subsequently claim a financial reward based on how well
they had performed. The papers were not actually destroyed, however,
allowing the researchers to study the integrity of the participants. The
tendency to cheat, you might think, is not something that would apply
to you, an honest and upright citizen. Likely, however, you would be
wrong – the amount of cheating is a trade-off between our self-image
as a good person and the advantage to be gained from cheating at
the margins. However, Ariely found that invoking the Ten Command-
ments dramatically cuts cheating, regardless of whether the participant
is a believer. It’s not the religious dimension per se, since an upfront
commitment to uphold the university’s honour code also eliminated
cheating, regardless, in fact, of whether the university in question actu-
ally had an honour code (Ariely 2012). Simply being reminded of one’s
obligations to society was enough to boost compliance with those con-
ventions. A similarly entertaining experiment, which is much cited in
the social psychology literature, involved placing a poster with eyes on
it on the wall behind the honesty box for coffee payments in an aca-
demic staff room (Bateson et al. 2006). Takings jumped when the eyes
were on the dons. The sense that we are being watched is sufficient to
promote a sense of obligation in a group. In Ariely’s case, the social
promptings were more indirect – our awareness of a common moral
framework. In the coffee experiment there was a direct sense (even if
perceived unconsciously) of being scrutinised. In both cases, however,

the important factor was the sense of group obligation. As Ariely’s exper-
iment shows, we don’t always need the threat of enforcement to bring
about compliance with social norms.
Certainly, it’s good to think of ourselves as independent actors, with
agency over our behaviour. In imagining myself in wartime France,
I find it extremely difficult to see myself as a collaborator, and much
easier to picture myself as a member of the Resistance, taking a bold and
courageous stance against Fascism. How confident though can I be that
I would resist authority with such bravery? My self-esteem finds it easy
enough to picture, but my understanding of social psychology makes
me more circumspect. Perhaps in many circumstances, a sort of sullen,
stoic attitude of non-compliance is the best I could hope for: to resist
the social pressures of the group is challenging.
Our situation plays a large part in shaping the sorts of groups that we
belong to, and thus the sort of attitudes that we imbibe. Lucien Pye’s
brilliant 1950s study of Communist guerrillas in the Malayan insur-
gency is informative in this regard (Pye 1956). Many of the captured
Communist fighters whom he interviewed had become firm believers in
the movement only after joining it. Their recruitment had been more
a matter of social circumstance than ideological commitment – if you
had family or friends in the group you were more likely to be recruited.
Indoctrination followed, as the new group worked to imbue the guerril-
las with new norms and values, reshaping their identity by exploiting
the social forces of conformity and authority (Payne 2013).
We may imagine ourselves as captains of our ship and masters of our
fate, but a society of truly rugged individuals is likely to be a less stable
and cohesive place than one in which social groups exert pressure to
behave in a certain way. The sense of individualism is a powerful feature
of life, especially in Western liberal societies, which have come to exalt
the rights of individual man, the better to protect civil liberties against
tyranny. But that intuition about ourselves might be illusory, a product,
perhaps, of a self-serving bias that enhances our sense of being a cut
above the norm, and so with the self-confidence to boldly chance our
arm on risky ventures (Sharot 2012).
A world in which we are constantly monitoring those around us to
discern our own standing is one in which we are our own Leviathan.
It’s not so much that society regulates us, although there are certainly
sanctions available to it to do so, and those sanctions, including exile
and ostracism, would have disastrous consequences in an evolutionary
setting. Fear of being socially rejected activates the same brain systems
Honour 87
as play a part in our awareness of physical pain, according to the neu-

roscientist Matthew Lieberman and colleagues (Eisenberger et al. 2003).
The brain’s social alarm bell, in the dorsolateral anterior cingulate cor-
tex, views such a prospect incredibly seriously. Anyone who has known
the pain of grief or heartbreak will know just how mentally consum-
ing enforced social separation can be. Sticks and stones break bones, but
names can be just as damaging – the result of our inherent sociability
that makes membership and standing within a group a vital ingredient
in the survival and onward selection of our genetic code.
Thomas Hobbes, as we saw, famously postulated a relationship
between individuals and a powerful government, the Leviathan, which
would constitute a ‘social contract’, protecting all against the threat
of violence from other individuals and thereby allowing the pursuit
of other life goals. In the absence of such an enforcer, life would, in
Hobbes’ enduring phrase, be ‘nasty, brutish and short’. In point of fact,
even in an age of technologically enhanced government observation
and rapidly evolving conceptions of the public and private sphere, the
power of the Hobbesian Leviathan is limited by capacity. The modern
Leviathan certainly has considerable power over the lives of its citizens.
And yet, even in more authoritarian societies, not all miscreants can
be detected, apprehended and punished. The Metropolitan Police Ser-
vice in London employs some 30,000 officers to police a city of some
8 million people. Social behaviour in a city is not governed by fear of
the police but by conformity to the expected standards of behaviour.
The stern judgement of those millions of fellow citizens is not usually
consciously on my mind. Rather, there is a sort of ‘ought’ when it comes
to behaviour – of standards that are internalised. The internal, often
subconscious, judge that regulates our behaviour rests on the ofttimes
illusory censure of the crowd.
Societal honour
Just as individuals are motivated by social norms, I argue that societies

are too, not as an anthropomorphised entity – ‘Moscow thinks X’, or
‘Britain reacted furiously’ – but rather as a reflection of the shared sen-
timent of group members. Honour is thus a candidate to explain why
liberal states fight wars, just as it is for other forms of society. Fight-
ing to defend honour is about upholding and observing the rules of
the game, and similar forces are at work for groups as for individuals,
jealously guarding their status and keenly aware of insult. For individ-
uals, dishonour might result in marginalisation and ostracism from the
referent group. For states in which leadership is narrowly constituted in

the hands of an individual, there may be no further need to elaborate a
scheme of honour beyond that discussed already. The kaiser would con-
sider himself part of a referent group of European hereditary monarchs,
and his sense of honour or status might be measured against his peers, or
perhaps against potential domestic rivals. But even for groups in which
power is more diffuse, a similar logic obtains – behaving dishonourably
incurs costs – at the very least from cooperative opportunities forgone.
As I explained in Chapter 3 on classical realism, the question of
morality in international affairs has been a central one in international
relations. Realists, I would argue, have typically underemphasised the
extent to which the domestic moral landscape is shaped by the group,
rather than enforced from above, and the extent to which the reluc-
tance to transgress is internalised and automatic. Statesmen on the
international stage may have less to fear from international jurists or
from the judgement of a stern Leviathan than do the citizens of an
efficiently policed state, but their behaviour might also be shaped by
the expectations of a group – via internalised ideas about what one
ought to do.
This is an old argument. Hedley Bull’s landmark treatise entitled
The Anarchical Society pointed to the powerful role that is played by
community and norms in shaping international behaviour (Bull 1977).
If institutions that regulate state behaviour were reliant on enforcement,
then international society would indeed be thin and at the mercy of
powerful states. But if instead state behaviour were shaped by leaders
who had evolved as humans to be cognisant of the views taken by wider
referent groups, then at least some sense of social obligation ought to
obtain even here. This might be especially true given the unconscious
nature of much of the logic outlined above. The students recalling the
Ten Commandments before their test were not consciously aware of
the power being exerted by the social nudge that was employed by the
experimenters, and yet the effect on their behaviour was profound.
Statesmen and citizens alike often transgress moral codes. The partic-
ipants in experiments do too, as Ariely discovered. This is not the issue.
The real question is whether or not those social forces can modify our
behaviours and attitudes to some extent. To allow that they do is not,
of course, to say that they necessarily will. Statesmen must feel the pull
of a referent group in order that it shapes their norms. It must, in the
jargon, be a salient referent group to which they either belong or aspire
to belong. But there need not be a world government or a rigid and
consistently observed normative framework in order that behaviour be
Honour 89
shaped and a degree of society come into being. Rather, even if we allow
for considerable normative variations between the societies that consti-
tute individual states, we are still in a position where values of some sort
or other shape behaviour.
In part, this society will be a reflection of the norms that obtain
domestically, and that form our personal moral framework. It is difficult,
contra Niebuhr, to be a moral agent domestically but not interna-
tionally. This would require an inhuman suspension of the sort of
psychological processes, many of them unconscious, that govern our
innate sociability. The classical realist aspiration for dispassionate states-
manship that is enacted in pursuit of a ‘national interest’ is nonsensical
when our values do so much themselves to constitute our interests.
As Ned Lebow argues, ‘our interests depend on identity, and identity
in turn depends on community’.4
We can, additionally, venture more about what constitutes those
values, and in so doing make the case for a broad commonality of inter-
ests across groups. Specifically, we seek fairness, albeit fairness for our
particular referent group. Earlier I introduced the idea of reciprocal pun-
ishment to uphold the norms of a group. In a fascinating experiment,
Oriel FeldmanHall and colleagues found that when individuals had been
unfairly treated by another person, they preferred compensation with-
out retribution – even when that retribution could be had cost-free
(FeldmanHall et al. 2014). Victims just want redress. But onlookers who
perceived the same violation of the fairness norm preferred the most
punitive option available to them. Clearly, if we have a stake in uphold-
ing the rules of the game, it makes sense to punish transgressions. And,
as argued earlier, if we are a powerful actor with a key stake in the exist-
ing normative framework, we may choose to bear a disproportionate
cost to altruistically punish norm violators.
This finding might tell us something about honour for a liberal state.
Liberals, especially powerful and hegemonic liberals, have an important
stake in upholding the values of the international society that they have
created, and in spreading and deepening its normative hold. Certainly
they seek to satisfy their own, narrow self-interest, and might respond
to perceived injustice with the sort of pique that we would expect of any
other social group that encounters a slight. But their philosophy, with its
expansive idea of community and reciprocal obligation to all, entails a
larger sense of community than the state itself. If a group identifies with
a particular set of values, then we might expect that violation of those
values by a perceived outsider will sharpen the contrast between ‘us-the-
slighted’ and ‘them-the-violator’. Some of the military interventions of
liberal states in recent decades can be understood from this perspective,

where we might find such intervention otherwise puzzling – the cases
of the UK in Sierra Leone, of the USA in Somalia and of the European
Union in the Congo and Chad come to mind. For these and other liberal
interventions we can often adduce additional reasons – a legacy colo-
nial interest, broader security concerns, spillover effects from refugee
migration and so on. And, moreover, we can readily acknowledge that
liberalism remains a less potent focus for group motivation than other
possible identities. But we ought, at the very least, to keep it in mind
when considering possible motivations for intervention. After all, if the
‘national interest’ were so obvious, and if ‘morals’ clearly had no place in
foreign policy, why would classical realists need to remind their readers
of the fact with such insistency?
Honour changes in time
Honour has some broad and basic parameters – it entails public sac-
rifice for a group, and may earn a reward in terms of status. But in
its particulars, precisely what is honourable changes, and sometimes
rapidly. Related to this is the concept of who is deserving of what sort of
behaviour: we may have a quite complex hierarchy of obligation.
This is because honour is related to a concept of group and society,
and as such is flexible and contingent, depending on who is ‘in’ and who
is ‘out’ of whichever social identity is salient at any time. The British
social attitudes survey provides compelling evidence of the possibility
of significant shifts in attitudes across a range of issues, with the gen-
eral direction in recent decades being towards more socially liberal and
inclusive opinions.5 In the mid-1980s, for example, half of the respon-
dents thought that a man’s job was to earn money, and a woman’s to
look after home and family – a figure that had fallen to 13% by 2013.6
In 1983, one in three British people did not affiliate with a religion,
whereas now half of the population do not.7 On race, British people
self-report that they are becoming more tolerant: in 1983, 35% described
themselves as prejudiced, but by 2001 that had fallen to 25%. After that
year, and perhaps as a result of the wars against militant Islamism and
associated terror attacks, that figure began to rise, reaching a new high
of 38% in 2011, before falling again to 30% by 2013.8 Older people,
unskilled workers and men tend to self-report higher levels of prejudice
than younger people, professionals and women. On immigration, by
contrast, British people might, prima facie, be considered to be less lib-
eral, with 75% advocating a reduction in overall immigration – perhaps
Honour 91
partly a response to a period of record migration into the UK. But

even here there was a pronounced difference between skilled labour,
for whom there was net support, and unskilled economic migrants.9
The direction of travel, however, is broadly towards greater liberalism,
with a broader conception of society on whose behalf we might make
a costly sacrifice. But this is not inevitable – to aver that liberalism rests
on a powerful evolutionary logic and to acknowledge that it has spread
rapidly and gained a substantial hold on societies around the world is
not to suggest that its rise is inevitable and irreversible. There is a logic
greater awareness and empathy – interaction, globalisation and so on.
But set against that are more local concerns – more narrowly and sharply
defined referent groups with which we can self-categorise and on whose
behalf we can demand justice. Thus, in the UK we find in the social
attitudes survey evidence that racial prejudice is increasing slightly on
where it was ten years ago.10
Two mechanisms may account for changes towards greater liberalism:
either people change their minds, or society changes its people through
mortality and immigration. While both are possible, some evidence sug-
gests that attitudes towards some social issues, once entrenched, become
hard to shift. The famed Harvard implicit association test provides some
compelling evidence that many of us carry subconscious prejudices that
may jar with our ostensible liberalism, including on race and gender
(Banaji and Greenwald 2013).11 Of course, our conscious minds are able
to reflect and reject the promptings of these instinctive, acquired con-
nections, albeit at the expense of extra cognitive load. Just because
I more readily associate whiteness with positive adjectives does not
make me automatically racist, but it does make me susceptible to racial
prejudice unless I deliberately reflect on the matter in hand.
The question is the extent to which these associations, once acquired,
are malleable. Some evidence suggests that we acquire many of these
social attitudes early in life, and that by our teen years they are robustly
established. Importantly, the groups themselves are a reflection not of
innate group realities – prejudice against blacks, or the view that women
are more suited to domestic tasks than professional employment, in
two of the more famous implicit-association tests – but rather that
the mind has a tremendous capacity to categorise anything, especially
other people, and to develop attitudes that are associated with those
categories. While the constitution of a group is almost infinitely elas-
tic, as we know, from Tajfel, the tendency to group things together is
innate – seemingly hardwired, and a reflection of our inherent sociabil-
ity and the need to know who is in and who is out. This makes sense
if we reflect for a moment on the futility of racism in the evolutionary

setting – everyone would have been black on the African savannah, and
the chances of meeting someone of a different hue for millennia there-
after would have been vanishingly small for most people. And yet, with
life revolving around the hunter-gatherer band, the capacity to recog-
nise who belonged in an environment of resource scarcity would have
been critical. The key question was who to trust and who to exclude
as a potential free-rider off the efforts of the community – hence the
importance of culture as a badge of membership.
Change the group, change the attitude
Some groups might form at the whim of a cunning researcher, as with

Tajfel and his minimal group experiment, which we encountered ear-
lier, or Muzafer Sherif and his ‘Lord of the Flies’ style experiments with
schoolboys at Robbers Cave (Sherif et al. 1961). And, as Eric Hobsbawm
and Ranger demonstrate in The Invention of Tradition, seemingly time-
less cultures can sometimes be modern constructions (Hobsbawm and
Ranger 2012). Benedict Anderson in his Imagined Communities makes a
similar argument – group identities that we take for granted and that
from within appear substantial and robust may on closer examination
be more modern affectations (Anderson 1983). The repertoire of atti-
tudes that constitute what means to be German can be shaped rapidly
from within.
Jay Van Bavel and colleagues have found further compelling evidence
that nominal groups can have a tangible effect on our attitudes, even
towards racial outsiders. Prompting a group identity in experimental
conditions, even a fairly arbitrary one, can be enough to overcome oth-
erwise powerful and negative unconscious inclinations about people
from a different race. If we make a group salient, even those longstand-
ing unconscious attitudes and stereotypes recede somewhat into the
background. Here is further evidence for the plasticity of groups, and
the possibility of extending them even to those who are physically dis-
similar. And it suggests that the liberal identity – the furthest possible
extension of the notion of group identity beyond that of the small kin
band – may yet exert a hold on the attitudes of individuals in the right
circumstances.
If the constitution of a group is somewhat flexible, so too is what
the group believes. Group attitudes are continually negotiated between
members – part of an exchange of information about what constitutes
the group, and who is important within it. Leaders, of course, play an
Honour 93
important part in that negotiation (Haslam et al. 2011). In their remark-

able book Soldaten, Sönke Neitzel and Harald Welzer draw on transcripts
of German prisoners of war who were secretly recorded in conversation
with one another (Neitzel and Welzer 2012). Among the issues they dis-
cuss is the treatment of Jews under the Third Reich. The authors make
an invaluable point about conversation – it is a process of negotiation
between those talking, part of a process of gauging shared attitudes.
We might see it, in the light of the theory of reciprocal altruism, as a way
of forming judgments about who to trade with – a complicated dance in
which attitudes are explored and adjusted, and trust established. Con-
versation that is transcribed can appear tricky to follow – thoughts do
not proceed linearly or logically as on the written page. There are incon-
sistencies in viewpoints, sometimes in the same conversation from the
same protagonist, as attitudes are explored, and consensus and confor-
mity pressures play out. So Neitzel and Welzer argue that our views are
not latent, waiting to be called forth as conversation, but are instead
forged in the very act of speaking. In their conversations, the German
prisoners express anti-Nazi sentiment at points, but immediately there-
after voice approval for their anti-Semitism. We can see in the transcripts
of these recordings clear signs of the social bargaining process at work.
Group attitudes about what we ought to think and do are thus more
malleable than might be immediately apparent, particularly from within
a culture, where values can seem to be deeply entrenched and timeless.
Rapid change happens, however, and when it does we often rationalise
it, forgetting the extent to which an earlier version of ourselves held
contrary views. Our tendency is to hold onto an autobiographical ver-
sion of ourselves that is constant. It feels much as if we are the same
person at 20 as we are at 40 – older and wiser, perhaps, but recognis-
ably the same individual. In a chapter from his imaginative collection of
short stories about lives after death, the neuroscientist David Eagleman
describes the awful experience of spending eternity in the company of
versions of oneself that have been taken from different periods of your
life (Eagleman 2009). The point is that our attitudes change but that
the autobiographical self forgets. Psychologists refer to a ‘hindsight bias’
that occurs when we look at past events, constantly adjusting our view-
point to square what has happened with our own attitudes, and thereby
protecting our sense of ourselves as a consistent individual. Society may
change around us but, unless we are paying particular attention, we may
not notice the impact that those changes have on our own views.
When it comes to honour and society, we can see some very rapid
shifts in appropriate behaviours within liberal society. The decline of
duelling as a badge of aristocratic virtue is a fine example of the rapid

transformation of cultural norms in a martial setting. Only in part does
that decline reflect the opening up of the officer corps to non-aristocrats
on merit. In fact, duelling persisted in Germany down through the
nineteenth century, long after entry to the Prussian officer corps had
been professionalised, as a response to the challenges thrown up by
Napoleonic warfare. It lived on into the twentieth century too, although
as Richard Hopton notes in his entertaining history of duelling, the
First World War killed many of those who would have otherwise been
adherents (Hopton 2007). In the end, as Hopton relates, almost ruefully,
duelling simply ‘fizzled out’. Among the reasons, he deduces, was a mod-
ern respect for the law and the spread of democracy, duelling being an
elite and aristocratic preoccupation.
Another example with martial connotations is the desegregation of
military units, as happened in the US Army of the 1950s. Black sol-
diers fought in both the First World War and the Second World War,
but mostly in units that were entirely black, and segregated from their
white comrades. More recently the barrier to female participation in mil-
itary roles has been lowered in many Western militaries. In the USA, for
example, the Marine Corps has established an experimental unit, sev-
eral hundred strong and combat capable, that will be a quarter female.
The first batch of women have graduated from the corps’ basic infantry
course. In the British military, women can serve as combat fighter pilots
and accompany combat patrols as medics.
A further example of cultural change is the lifting of prohibitions
against being homosexual and serving in the military, a shift that has
taken place in the USA and the UK in only the last two decades, and
that follows a move towards acceptance of homosexuality in broader
society, reaching back in the UK to the legalisation of homosexual-
ity itself, to the modern era in which homosexual marriage is lawful.
For the UK, the prohibition was lifted when service personnel who
had been dismissed sought legal redress in the European Court of
Human Rights. Within a short period of time the illiberality of dis-
criminating against homosexual servicemen and women was replaced
with active recruiting efforts at gay pride events. In 2012 both the
RAF (at 56th) and the Royal Navy (at 77th) made the campaign group
Stonewall’s list of 100 best employers of lesbian, gay and bisexual
people. By 2014 the RAF had dropped out but the British Army was
on the list in 79th place.12 As with gender equality, wider societal
attitudes preceded the shift in the military’s approach, although in
the case of women a plausible case can be made that both the First
Honour 95
World War and the Second World War acted to shift societal atti-
tudes towards equality by increasing the demands for women in the
workplace.
As these examples demonstrate, the character of societies changes,
and quickly, the result of continual negotiations between members
about what is right and how one ought to behave. There is little honour
from duelling, and less shame, one hopes, in being a gay serviceman.
In liberal societies, one earns honour less from upholding archaic and
chivalric standards and more from inclusivity and tolerance. I chose
these examples because they illustrate what seems to be a broad trend
towards greater inclusivity in liberal societies, including, as here, in
the military sphere. That is intriguing because it pushes against some
enduring themes in military culture – notably its conservatism and tra-
ditionalism, and, in the case of women, which I explore more below, a
notion that close combat in particular is a male activity.
Indeed, in all of these examples, from duelling to tolerance of homo-
sexuals, the response of the military was arguably lagging the attitudes
of wider society. Again, we should guard against making too general a
point – Western militaries have become more socially liberal at differ-
ent rates. But it seems that, while they inevitably reflect the character
of their societies in some respects, they do not, as a specialised subset,
mirror it. For militaries, indeed, perhaps the most salient referent group
is less wider society and more other, similar militaries – what Farrell
and others refer to as military isomorphism (Farrell 2005). Similarly, for
soldiers, even liberal ones, the point of reference, and reciprocity, need
not be the broad community of liberal society but the smaller commu-
nity of warriors. Their sense of honour might, accordingly, be shaped in
response to the needs of that community.
Existential honour: Fighting as meaning
There are some staples in honour and war that reach back through
human history and myth to the verses of The Iliad, with its ideal of
the hero, who achieves eternal acclaim through performance in bat-
tle. This is a key and enduring theme – the veneration of valour in battle.
Related to that is the acceptance of great personal risk, including death.
The archetypal warrior accepts bleak odds with equanimity, even with a
display of sangfroid.
Another theme is that war is, for the warrior, somehow existential.
There is a glory to fighting that is distinct from the rationale for the con-
flict and the society on whose behalf it is fought. Yeats’ verse ‘An Irish
Airman Foresees His Death’, one of my favourites, captures the notion

beautifully:
Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;
...
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
One finds a similar sentiment in Richard Hillary’s account of his experi-

ences as a Second World War fighter pilot with the RAF (Hillary 2014).
Certainly there is patriotism here, but there is also a sense of the war-
rior as existential expression, very much of a piece with the aristocratic
notion of the amateur. The warrior fights because doing so is an expres-
sion of the self. This certainly entails sacrifice for comrades, and it
involves the creation of a collective identity: we-the-warriors, differ-
ent from other, perhaps lesser, men. The result is a degree of mutual
recognition and respect that is manifest in acts of mercy and chivalry.
But being a warrior is perhaps about more than earning mutual
respect; it involves finding meaning through the expression of violence.
Adrift in the sea and badly burned, Hillary wrote: ‘I was going to die, and
I was not afraid. This realisation came as a surprise. The manner of my
approaching death appalled and horrified me, but the actual vision left
me unafraid.’13 And he remembers some lines of Verlaine as he floats,
waiting for death:
With neither king nor country,

And although not brave at all,
I wanted to die in some war:
but death passed up a thing so small.14
The existential warrior’s affected nonchalance in the face of danger fits

the ideal of combat as an elite activity in which the individual is distinct
from the common man. Single combat, whether in a Spitfire wheeling
over the Kentish fields or between Achilles and Hector in the plains
Honour 97
outside Troy, is the apotheosis of individual glory and honour in war.

Modern warfare provides comparatively few opportunities for this sort
of existential splendour, as Joanna Bourke relates in her Intimate History
of Killing (Bourke 1999). Combat nowadays is often more anonymous,
industrialised and altogether squalid, as we shall see. But Bourke finds a
persistent theme of representing it in these terms – a display of courage
involving skill and the risk of sacrifice. And sometimes even modern
warfare affords the opportunity for this sort of existential heroism. Rob
O’Neill, the member of the elite SEAL Team 6 who killed Osama bin
Laden, recalls the fatalism of the unit before embarking on the raid.
‘We are going to die eventually, this is a good way to go and it’s worth
it to kill him . . . we wanted it bad. It’s it. It doesn’t get any better.’15 This
is extreme fatalism, with fighting as an expression of the self and with a
total disregard for one’s prospects.
However, while honour in battle seems at first blush an act of individ-
ual expression, we can see it through an evolutionary lens as a societal
construct. Even for an existential warrior, there is a community of other
existential warriors. For such individuals, honour is a display that sym-
bolises powerfully the membership of the group and adherence to its
dictates. As with much else in society, the balance between individual
choice and social pressure is fluid and can be difficult to discern. The sui-
cide bomber, like the shock infantryman, fights with a total disregard for
his own survival, but he does so in the context of group attitudes and
beliefs. ‘We are at war, and I am a soldier,’ the British suicide bomber
Mohammed Siddique Khan told viewers of his martyrdom video, aspir-
ing in doing so to join the community of those who sacrifice all for their
group.16 I have described the outlines of warrior culture, but it may, in
some circumstances, be more appropriate to speak of the warrior cult.
Part III
6
Liberal Society and War
In this third part of the book, I draw on the earlier work on evolutionary
psychology and honour and apply it to the modern era. There is a
puzzle here: the character of war is manifest through human history
in such a bewildering variety of ways that it can be hard to discern a
deep underlying evolutionary logic to war. That is a particularly tricky
task in an age in which war, as practised by Western, liberal societies,
seems to be in stark contrast with war in its recent, industrial guise,
but also with war in a longer, historical sense. What can evolution tell
us about that Western impulse to intervene in seemingly remote con-
flicts, or about the strict limits that Western states place on their soldiers
during combat?
A caveat is in order. In much of the analysis I focus on the UK and
the USA. There is no such thing as a ‘typical’ liberal state – all have
unique features – but these two may strike some as rather untypical:
they are, for example, among the most globally active, employing large,
expensive militaries, even as some liberals states are spending propor-
tionately less on their own armed forces. The USA is the leading world
power with all of the attendant responsibilities that entails, while the
UK has a legacy as the former hegemon, and was later a great and colo-
nial power. Perhaps both states might take less of a liberal view of war
than, say, Norway and Ireland. I concentrate my attention on these two
states, however, for two reasons. First, they are the societies that I am
most familiar with as a scholar of US foreign policy who works with
the British armed forces. Second, and more importantly, they constitute
a ‘hard case’ to the extent that they are considered less authentically
liberal than those other two states, at least in the foreign policy realm.
Keeping that caveat in mind, what can we say about the liberal way
of war?
101
The liberal invention of peace
In his recent book Barbarous Philosophers, Christopher Coker makes an

intriguing but ultimately flawed argument about war. As he conceives it,
war is an invention of historically literate societies (Coker 2010). Before
civilisation – specifically, before humans had the capacity to write his-
tory and philosophise about the social institution of war – intragroup
violence was somehow less instrumental and more existential. Civili-
sation allowed the creation of war as an institution with meaning and
history.
This is flawed insofar as one defines war as the instrumental use of vio-
lence by one group against another (Payne 2011). Reason is as much a
feature of war for non-state, prehistorical groups as it is for the city states
of ancient Greece. Similarly, both types of social group make decisions
about violence that are emotionally informed. Wars do not require the
formal institutions of states, and they do not require heralds or histori-
ans to record the verdict, nor philosophers to debate their essence. They
do not even require humans – the chimpanzee wars that we encountered
earlier meet my minimal requirement that war is a group phenomenon,
involving organised violence against other groups for ‘political goals’.
The political and organisational elements can be minimally satisfied
too, by a demonstration of some planning that is intended to meet an
underlying goal.
There is, in short, great continuity in the nature of warfare down
the generations, whatever its many manifold differences in character.
Bradley Thayer argues that ‘war’ among chimpanzees occurs in a pre-
political domain – an argument that is close to Coker’s (Thayer 2004).
That need not be so if we allow that politics is essentially an attempt
to answer the question of who gets what, or who has what rights and
responsibilities. Strategy, if we see it as an attempt to coordinate the
actions of the group for some future end, is also very much a part of both
primitive human and chimpanzee warfare. We can debate about the
sophistication of approaches to these problems, particularly the levels
of intentionality entailed and the degree to which strategy needs to be
consciously articulated. In fact, I am a minimalist on these points too –
no doubt anatomically modern humans in modern societies consciously
deliberate on strategic issues, but their politics and strategising are also
susceptible to a large measure of unconscious deliberation. If chimps
are largely unaware of why they fight wars, but fight them nonethe-
less, in response to unconscious, evolved motivations and drives, then
probably they are not so different from us. What this suggests to me
Liberal Society and War 103
is that Clausewitz captured the essence of war, and not just of human
war. The essential nature of war involves coordinated acts of violence in
pursuit of political ends – and these are governed by a sense of purpose
and agency among those that decide on the right course of action. The
evolved responses of humans to these motivations are what underpins
the wars of prehistory with those of today.
Michael Howard’s Invention of Peace offers another take on war and
history that is different from Coker’s, one more along the lines of my
argument here (Howard 2000). Where Coker limits the phenomenon
of war to the historical era, Howard is content with the notion that
war has been a constant of human society, but he argues imaginatively
that with the onset of the Enlightenment, and the spread of a liberal
worldview, beginning in Europe, there grew a notion of progress towards
peace – the idea that there could be a world after war. It wasn’t that
civilisation invented war, as Coker argued, but that war was a constant
of human affairs, until liberals essentially invented peace – the idea that
there could be something other than war. The liberal project sought
to escape war through the extension of reason and empathy. Liberals
pointed to the importance of commerce and representative, transparent
government in building the mutual bonds between national societies –
reducing the predatory motive for war, and the capacity of elites to wage
it to their advantage over those of their constituents.
This attractive liberal idea has its modern form in the writings of
Steven Pinker, John Mueller and Francis Fukuyama, among others
(Fukuyama 1992; Mueller 2007; Pinker 2011). There were, of course,
plenty of periods of peace in human history before the Enlightenment,
and there have been many great outpourings of intergroup violence dur-
ing it, but as a systematic philosophy, it took liberalism, with its appeal
to human reason and empathy, to generate a logic of peace. If there
was something innate in human sociability that contributed to war,
as Bowles suggests, then liberalism and modernity offered the prospect
of superseding it. There was an important addendum: perpetual peace
would come about by working with human nature, not against it.
The argument, perhaps best articulated by the philosopher and ethi-
cist Peter Singer in his book The Expanding Circle, is that our evolved
tendencies for cooperation, which are so vital to extending the group
to non-kinship members, underpin an ever enlarging circle of empathy
towards other humans (Singer 2011). Pinker builds on Singer, holding
that the genie of reason and logic, once uncorked from the Enlighten-
ment bottle, has contributed to this expanding circle. Our subconscious
largely shapes how we react to those who are in out-groups, as we saw
earlier. We seek fairness for our group and act to punish those who
transgress norms against it, even at a cost to ourselves. We may be prej-
udiced against out-groups even if we logically and consciously aver that
all men are equal. But the modern liberal has no out-group: everyone
is theoretically part of that circle of empathy, whether they are liberal
or not.
The last piece in the puzzle has come from modern technologies that
compress time and distance, lending a practical dimension to the theo-
retical notion of empathy for all. Much of life is still distinctly local,
but the meaning of being foreign has changed. There are no longer
barbarians lurking in the shadows beyond the pale against whom the
norms and conventions of civilisation need not be rigorously applied.
Mass migration, particularly into liberal European societies and the USA,
has changed what it means to be a foreigner. In the most cosmopolitan
cities – London, Toronto, New York, Berlin, Amsterdam – many people
are from overseas. This is not necessarily a liberal utopia. Very many
frictions remain, and sometimes clashes in group culture can result in
violent confrontations. All too often, groups coexist rather than inter-
mix. A map of the USA that charts the ethnic makeup of individual
households reveals a pattern of deep ethnic segregation in some urban
neighbourhoods.1 In parts of Western Europe in particular, the issue
of Islam has become highly politicised and contentious, prompted by
large-scale immigration into previously homogenous indigenous neigh-
bourhoods, especially in deprived areas. And if the pattern of liberal
tolerance and intercommunity empathy is patchy within liberal soci-
eties as a whole, then it is even thinner in the large parts of the world
that are less distinctively liberal.
The end of war and history
When, in the early 1990s, Francis Fukuyama postulated an end to

history, he did not mean a literal cessation, then or any time soon there-
after (Fukuyama 1992). He had in mind, rather, the notion of liberal
democracy as a philosophical endpoint to the development of ideology.
Liberalism represented the apotheosis of the ways in which man could
interact and reconcile mutual differences. In a sense, although his work
did not rest explicitly on evolutionary foundations, there is something
of a parallel with Singer’s ethical theorising about expanding empathy.
In his landmark 1943 paper on mankind’s ‘hierarchy of needs’,
Abraham Maslow had described our physiological need for food, water
and shelter as the most basic, fundamental requirements, followed
closely by security, and thereafter layering additional needs on top,

whose attainment might bring a better quality of life (Maslow 1943).
Towards the apex of the pyramid were esteem and belonging. Matthew
Lieberman, whose take on man’s inherent sociability we encountered
earlier, strikingly inverts the pyramid, to place the need for esteem at
the base, as the most fundamental need for humans, rather than at the
top, as the cherry on the cake (Lieberman 2014). For him, the basic need
for food, water and shelter are actually less critical than is the social
respect of our peers; or, rather, they follow from it. Without the support
of our group, we have no way of achieving the primary essential goals.
If we accept Lieberman, then we can understand what Fukuyama was
driving at: a perfectly liberal society is one that most satisfies our esteem
and well-being, and allows the attainment of all of those other needs.
Such a society is the ultimate expression of reciprocal altruism because
everyone is worthy of respect from everyone else.
Fukuyama’s work was published at much the same time as Samuel
Huntington’s treatise The Clash of Civilisations, and both became hugely
popular and influential works of international relations theory, while
all the time remaining somewhat outside the mainstream concern
of international relations theory in the academy (Huntington 1996).
Huntington made a massively reductive and essentially crude distinc-
tion between world civilisations, the fault-lines between which would,
he thought, be the cause of many conflicts to come. In view of the
subsequent confrontation between Al Qa’eda and the USA, his argu-
ment seemed especially prophetic. It is not particularly hard to find
great fault with The Clash of Civilisations – not least in the composi-
tion of the putative civilisations themselves. But there is an essential
point inherent within the theory that juxtaposes nicely with Fukuyama,
and is relevant here. While Fukuyama saw the possibility of societies
overcoming group bonds on the basis of everyone’s mutual participa-
tion in Enlightenment values, Huntingdon pointed to the fragmented,
essentially local nature of culture. Fukuyama, drawing on Hegel, saw
history as a dynamic process, indeed one with teleology, or direc-
tion – in this case towards universal liberal democracies. Huntingdon,
by contrast, saw culture as essentially static, or at least as sticky, involv-
ing the repeated interplay of fairly stable groups that are organised
about a particular culture or ethnicity. For Fukuyama, this was an issue
about ideology, while for Huntingdon, ideology, in the guise of religion,
was to some extent intertwined with ethnicity. We might disaggregate
Huntington’s civilisations to arrive at a view of nationalism as in some
considerable degree being associated with the idea of ethnos – a group
that shares distinctive, usually heritable, ethnic characteristics. More

broadly, perhaps, we might argue that group identities are not entirely
plastic. ‘Enlightenment man’ recognised no inherent, logical difference
between himself and other humans. And if everyone could arrive at this
reasonable point, and moreover feel themselves to be part of a shared
community with others, all created equal, then we might indeed have
arrived at the end of history. Followers of Huntingdon, by contrast,
would see this sunlit upland as being some way distant. An ideologi-
cal attraction to Communism was one thing to shake off, but it was far
harder to cease being an Arab. The liberal circle of empathy may perhaps
be growing larger, but fragmented identities and chauvinism are always
possible.
In a sense, the two men were playing out a longstanding debate about
human nature and conflict. The question, however, was not so much
whether intergroup conflict was unavoidable. Rather, the issue was the
extent to which the nature of the groups that we form are susceptible
to change, and whether a liberal, empathic community might, in time,
come to encompass the entirety of humanity.
This experiment in group formation and attitude change is currently
under way in Western Europe and the USA. The statistics that were mar-
shalled by Pinker to support his argument that a transformation is under
way, at least insofar as levels of violence between and within groups
goes, is impressive. Supporting evidence arrives all of the time – as with
a recent report that arrives in my inbox while I write this on the spank-
ing of children, a practice that is in decline in many liberal societies and
outlawed in some.2
There is a compelling case to make that increased liberalism and the
spread of liberal values has an impact on social norms and violence.
A decent case can be argued that the logic of equality allied to the
emotional sense of empathy underpins that decline. We are, in Pinker’s
analysis, becoming more liberal, both in the depth of our practical com-
mitment to the philosophy, and in terms of the proportion of humanity
that subscribes to liberal values.
The ongoing debate about the democratic peace in international rela-
tions theory is centred on precisely this issue. International relations
theorists can point to few robust findings about interstate war, with the
notable exception of this theory, which holds that democracies do not
fight wars against one another (Doyle 1983).
The idea that publics would put a break on conflict if given a direct
influence on policy formation is a staple of liberal philosophy. And the
evidence is fairly robust that democracies do not tend to fight wars
against other democracies. There are exceptions. There are some from
the ancient world, as in the war between Athens and Syracuse that
formed an important part of wider Peloponnesian conflagration; and
there are others from modern times, as in the ongoing conflict between
a democratically elected Hamas government in Gaza and its democratic
Israeli neighbour. There are complications in measuring the robustness
of the democratic peace – not least in defining the two key terms,
‘democracy’ and ‘peace’. If we allow, for example, that a USA with a
limited franchise and constitutionally permitted slavery is a democracy,
and that a similarly limited franchise in the UK also constitutes a democ-
racy, we could include the Anglo-US war of 1812 as a contra-example.
We might also include the American Civil War as another example.
Overall, however, the correlation between democracy and peace is a dis-
tinctive feature of international affairs that has stood up well to scrutiny,
certainly compared with any other relationships.3
Correlation, however, does not make for cause: perhaps it is the case
that the absence of war has allowed democracy to flourish, rather than
the other way around. Perhaps both variables are dependent on some
other underlying factor – industrialisation, for example, might make for
a large middle class that seeks to defend its property and intellectual
rights by pressing for more representative and transparent government.
It might also prompt more economic interdependence with other enti-
ties, thereby discouraging hostilities because of mutual economic vul-
nerability and enhanced understanding and empathy through repeated
exposure to other cultures. Such was certainly the hope of liberals in the
nineteenth-century tradition of Cobden and Angel. If wealth creation
depends more on speculative capital and comparative advantage in
export production than it does on the ownership and exploitation of ter-
ritory, peoples or primary resources, then predatory war is of diminished
utility.
For the purposes of this analysis, what matters is the process itself –
the progressive spreading and deepening of a body of liberal ideas, atti-
tudes and behaviours that have reshaped Western European and North
American societies in the last few generations. The changes that have
been wrought by these shifts are profound and touch on a welter of
issues, including in health, education and law and order. The military
domain, as we shall see, has been no less affected. Social attitudes have
changed rapidly towards such life-and-death issues as euthanasia, capital
punishment and abortion. They have shifted on female emancipation,
education and equal participation in the labour force. Racial equality has
become de jure the norm, even if de facto it is still imperfectly observed.
Likewise the integration of immigrant communities into wider society

has proceeded patchily, with greater success in some places than in oth-
ers. Overall, however, a significant body of evidence can be adduced
in the post–Second World War era to support the idea that Western
societies are becoming increasingly liberal – that is, liberal defined in
the sort of terms that John Stuart Mill might recognise: a society in
which there is great individual freedom, not just freedom from control
by states or other actors but freedom to live as one pleases, provided,
that is, one adheres to the keystone principle of first doing no harm to
others.
All of this amounts to an unprecedented veneration of the individ-
ual. There is a downside, as Robert Putnam ably documents, in fears,
some justified, about a consequent breakdown of community, in which
American people have smaller social groups, smaller families and fewer
close friends, and so feel a greater sense of social isolation (Putnam
2000). There is a related issue of individuals struggling alone against
increasingly powerful and impersonal forces of modern economic activ-
ity. In terms of inequality, both of opportunity and outcome, there is
a greater skew of societal income than in the early years of the wel-
fare state projects of post-war Europe (Piketty 2014). There is declining
social mobility and growing inequality in some liberal countries, includ-
ing the USA and the UK. In consequence, there is a perceived lack of
opportunity, with a bifurcation of labour force between a growing num-
ber of low-skilled, low-paid jobs and a smaller number of highly paid,
sometimes high-skilled and entrepreneurial activities. The growth in
inequality, brought into sharp relief by a rapid rise in executive pay, and
distorting effects on local economies of ‘flight capital’ that is generated
in less stable parts of the world, combined with an increasing pub-
lic awareness of super-rich lifestyles, and an aspirational, consumerist
culture, have all met in the waves of anti-capitalist protest against the
so-called ‘1 percent’ of wealthiest members of society. The boom years
of the late 1990s and early 2000s faltered amid the collapse into indebt-
edness of the US insurance and subprime mortgage markets, and –
near simultaneously – many Southern European states found themselves
unable to afford to maintain generous welfare provisions. An ageing
population in large parts of Europe, with accelerating health and social
care costs, and a lack of economic competitiveness and an exchange rate
pegged to the euro together compound the economic malaise. More-
over, in Europe the term ‘democratic deficit’ reflects discontent with the
remote powers both of a distant European Union bureaucracy and a
privileged political class.
These are broad-brush observations relating to Western societies in the

round that do scant justice to the considerable variations within partic-
ular communities. Violent crime is far greater in the USA, for example,
than in Scandinavia. So for that matter are levels of incarceration. The
population is ageing less rapidly in the USA than in Italy because of
immigration rates in the former. Income inequality is lower in Denmark
than in the UK, with, apparently, a corresponding effect on experi-
ences of life satisfaction that lend credence to the literature on fairness
and altruistic punishment discussed earlier (De Graaf et al. 2005). The
public finances are in good health in oil-rich Norway compared with
cash-strapped Spain.
The combination of these issues and others has undermined any great
confidence in the view of democracy’s spread as inevitable, even without
considering the problems that are encountered on its periphery in the
developing world amid failing states, resurgent authoritarianism, and
ethnic and sectarian conflicts.
Yet there remains that argument, from Howard, via Pinker, that lib-
eralism has catalysed the pacification of mankind. I say ‘catalysed’
because, as the foregoing analysis suggests, I see the roots of the decline
in bellicosity in the process of domestication that began in palaeolithic
era. Western liberal states still fight wars. In the last 40 years the UK
has fought six interstate wars and been involved in many other military
interventions.4 Some of these conflicts have been fought for traditional
reasons of defence against territorial aggression, and some as part of
a coalition effort to manage international order. However, in addition
there has been a distinctly normative element to these deployments –
they are part of a sustained effort to support and propagate liberal ideas
about governance and society. The British, like the USA, are at the more
hyperactive end of the interventionist spectrum, but these activities
are invariably coalition efforts, and a large number of European, north
American and antipodean allies have been involved in some capacity
in these and other conflict areas. If liberal states are less inclined to
violence, they are still nonetheless inclined to use military power to
advance their liberal agenda, expanding the circle of empathy by force,
if necessary.
Further reasons for diminished liberal bellicosity
In addition to the expanding circle of empathy – fragile and contingent

though it is – there are additional, complementary reasons for greater
pacificity among liberal societies that might factor in, speculatively at
least. First is the idea one finds in Aron and Gat that fighting relates to
aggression and risk-taking by young men. There are fewer fighting-age
men proportionately in liberal societies compared with those in more
bellicose parts of the world, and compared with the same societies a cen-
tury ago. Even these males now have alternative outlets for their restless,
combative urge to forge an identity through adventure in war. Sex and
material wealth are readily available to many young Western males with-
out the risks of campaigning – and, in any case, modern liberal armies
afford scant opportunity for rape and pillage. Related to that is the rise
of the elderly population, with vested interests in preserving the status
quo, particularly in the baby-boomer generation with generous welfare
and pension entitlements, property ownership and sometimes equity
portfolios. Female participation in public life might also be conjectured
to have an impact on bellicosity, at least in an evolutionary sense in
which females have less to gain and more to lose from combat, given
their deeper and longer maternal investment in child-rearing.
Last is an idea that Gat does not broach but that seems essen-
tial. To articulate it I draw on the language of John Turner’s self-
categorisation theory – a development of Tajfel’s work (Turner et al.
1987). Liberal societies offer new and non-violent ways to attain esteem
through the fashioning of a satisfying individual identity. This redef-
inition of esteem in liberal societies means that success relative to
our peers is no longer derived from the defence of individual honour
through combat but is instead realised as an expression of prototypical-
ity in the group that we have self-categorised as being important to us.
Esteem comes from being a successful entrepreneur of our own iden-
tity. Of course, few of us are actually motivated to create unique and
iconoclastic identities; instead we join existing niches and perhaps, at
best, modify them somewhat. Even those who fervently desire to be
individuals may end up as just part of a group of similar folk, which
Jonathan Touboul entertainingly calls the ‘hipster effect’, and seeks to
model using some complex maths that allows convergence to emerge
even when individuals seek difference (Touboul 2014). We probably
don’t need the maths – the desire for individualism is always up against
the pull of some reference group or other. We gain respect from authen-
ticity, but that is shaped by the norms of the group. Want to be a hipster?
If so, esteem comes from being the most authentic hipster you can be.
In a society that venerates the individual, this more realistically means
the possibility of conforming to more varied and selective group iden-
tities. This is the ultimate expression of the self-actualisation that was
articulated by Maslow: few people in modern society are compelled to
duel if their honour is slighted, even if UK town centres on Friday nights

continue to see their fair share of drunken brawling over perceived
insults.
The liberal way in war
The purpose of describing those trends in Western liberal societies, albeit

in crude and doubtless contested fashion, is to establish the ways in
which they might map onto the strategic culture of these states and
allow us to say something meaningful about the evolution of that cul-
ture. The thesis advanced here is as follows. First, liberal democracies
have become increasingly pacific in general, not just towards other
democracies. Moreover, they are comparatively risk averse. However,
they still use military force to defend and expand the liberal norma-
tive sphere. Second, the effects of liberalisation and associated societal
changes feed through into the ways in which these societies instru-
mentalise violence in war. The structure of militaries, their weapons,
their recruits and their concepts all reflect the inherent liberalism of the
societies that deploy them. Meanwhile, however, to flag up the explo-
ration of liberal warriors to come, within the armies themselves, an
older notion of the warrior continues to animate behaviour, despite its
contrast with the liberal norms of the societies that lie without.
Strategic culture has enjoyed a resurgence in international relations
since the end of the Cold War – a time when a rather narrow concep-
tion of realism held sway within the academy. As an idea it has a rather
longer history. Roman writers such as Caesar were fascinated by the con-
trast between the disciplined military style of the legion and the looser,
more freewheeling warfare waged by the tribes of the German frontier
(Caesar 1982). In the modern era, Basil Liddell Hart saw a distinctively
British way of war, which emphasised manoeuvre and improvisation
over a more frontal, attritional alternative (Hart 1932). The British were
making a virtue of their limited resources for land warfare compared
with their continental rivals. Moreover, by stressing mission command,
the British were able to push decision-making down to a low tactical
level, allowing the man on the spot to fashion the most suitable solution
to the problem at hand.
Later, Russell Weigley found evidence for an American way of war,
which rested on America’s tremendous industrial and technological
capacity, and that stressed firepower concentrated on the enemy’s main
forces as the way of achieving victory (Weigley 1973). With a modest
amount of straining, Victor Davis Hanson argues the case for a ‘Western
way of war’, reaching back over the millennia, building on the capac-
ity of democratic, or at least representative, societies to organise for
and prosecute violence with a degree of technical proficiency that their
many and varied adversaries could not match (Hanson 2001).
Strategic culture in recent years has blossomed as a field of study, with
scholars seeking evidence of particular national or strategic behaviours
that reflect underlying cultural norms. There are, however, a number of
significant problems with the approach that bear elaboration here. The
first and most significant is the question of what constitutes a culture.
For Clifford Geertz, as we saw earlier, culture could be seen as a web of
shared understandings. It is a collective mesh of norms and attitudes
that holds for a given group at any time. The trouble is that the bound-
aries of this group can be somewhat indistinct: How much variation in
culture is permissible before we are talking about a separate grouping
altogether? In what sense does it make sense to talk about a distinc-
tively ‘American’ culture when there are pronounced differences within
American society across a range of social issues, including those that
relate to strategic matters?
Another issue is the extent to which culture is static, or shifts through
time. This is a key problem for political scientists who seek to use cul-
ture as their ‘independent variable’ to explain behavioural outcomes.
If we allow that cultures can change, and indeed change rather rapidly,
as I have argued here, the clear danger is of tautology: if culture
is explaining behaviour, but that very behaviour constitutes culture,
a causal relationship becomes impossible to falsify. The solution for
many scholars has been to suppose that culture is either static or very
slow moving. Alistair Iain Johnson takes this view in his account of
a Chinese strategic culture that stretches across millennia (Johnston
1998). Colin Gray offers an account of British strategic culture that
stresses the UK’s enduring maritime character (Gray 1999). There is an
even longer perspective in accounts such as that offered by Jared Dia-
mond in Guns Germs and Steel, or by Fukuyama in his Origins of Political
Order, both of which reach back into early and prehistory to develop
explanations of societal behaviour that are influenced partly by physical
geography and partly by human evolution. (Diamond 1998; Fukuyama
2011).
My focus, by contrast, is on the modern, fast-changing culture in
liberal societies of the last half-century or so. Notwithstanding the long-
term effects of the generation of culture, the style of warfare that is
fought by liberal states has changed dramatically in recent decades.
My contention is that these changes are linked to the growing liberality
of these societies as a modern manifestation of a long-evolved tendency

towards altruism, cooperation and empathy.
What trends can be identified?5 First, Western states have smaller
armed forces. Militaries account for a diminished proportion of over-
all wealth. Typically, the proportion of gross domestic product (GDP)
that is spent on defence has fallen since the end of the Cold War,
and in many European countries it now lies between 1% and 2% of
total expenditure. This, given the overall level of wealth and its growth
through time, still makes for a considerable total, but it is propor-
tionately smaller than hitherto and has broadly been declining. There
are a couple of exceptions – the USA still spends more than 4% of
its wealth on defence, reflecting its global interests and the need to
project power. The UK and France retain similar-sized armed forces, both
of which are capable of modest expeditionary and sustained deploy-
ments some distance from home, and both still spend some 2% of
their GDP on defence, which is commensurate with an evident desire to
continue to play a disproportionate pseudogreat power role in interna-
tional affairs. But even these two European states face budget constraints
that have limited their ability to operate with any great degree of
autonomy.
Second, Western militaries are smaller than for generations in terms
of the numbers involved. For most, conscription or national service has
ended (there are one or two exceptions, such as Norway and Greece), so
that soldiers are all volunteers. There has also been a switch in emphasis
away from static, territorial defence, of the sort that underpinned much
defence planning during the Cold War, towards generating smaller,
highly professional armed forces that might be deployed abroad. Some
smaller countries have become niche suppliers of particular types of
force, acknowledging the inevitability of being deployed alongside coali-
tion allies. The upshot has been that a smaller section of wider society is
directly involved in the profession of arms, perhaps than at any time
since before the Napoleonic revolution in military affairs that rested
on widespread conscription and harnessed the revolutionary forces of
nationalism. Industrialisation and nationalism together allowed for the
generation of ever larger and more destructive armies. The modern
British army, by contrast, comprises only 80,000 regular soldiers, easily
small enough to fit in its entirety inside the national football stadium,
with some seats to spare. At a push, this force could be surged into a
deployment of one fighting division, as last happened in 2003 ahead of
the coalition invasion of Iraq. Altogether, this means that some 0.13%
of the British population is in uniform – a tiny fraction, meaning that
a great many British citizens will have no personal relationship with

service personnel.
Despite this ostensible alienation from the realities of conflict among
the civilian population, there remains an intriguingly high degree of
support for the armed forces in the UK, and also in the USA. The British
Social Attitudes survey found that 75% of respondents in 2012 felt a
‘great deal of respect’ for the armed forces.6 People might not serve
themselves, but they are supportive of those who do so. This is par-
ticularly striking, as was the case of the British military in Iraq and
Afghanistan, when the wars in which those servicemen and women are
embroiled either do not resonate with, or are opposed by large propor-
tions of, the population. The manifestation of this sentiment could be
seen in the remarkable ‘Wootton Bassett’ phenomenon, where progres-
sively larger crowds were drawn to pay their respects to dead personnel
being repatriated to the UK as they passed through the first town after
making landfall at a nearby RAF airbase.
The public support for the victims of conflict, along with other mani-
festations, such as the Help for Heroes charity for injured personnel, or
the regular parades in regional towns of local battalions returning from
deployment, provide a compelling demonstration of the public nature
of honour. This is particularly striking in an era of limited public engage-
ment with foreign affairs, and the limited impact of overseas wars on
what has remained a prosperous, peaceful domestic society.
A third evolution in strategic cultures in Western Europe has been
the increasing reliance on advanced technologies. Technological inno-
vation has long been a trait in Western approaches to war, and Western
armies have also proved to be adept at utilising technologies that were
developed elsewhere. In the modern era, the pace of technological inno-
vation has accelerated, and Western states have had both the financial
resources and the intellectual acumen to stay at the forefront of develop-
ments bearing on warfare. There are deep societal roots that underpin
technological development, involving large-scale tertiary education, a
significant dedication to research and development, and a robust legal
framework that allows for the safeguarding of intellectual property
rights, thereby fostering risk-taking and entrepreneurship. There are,
furthermore, longstanding ties between the public and private sectors
when it comes to the development of technologies that have a mil-
itary application. The origins of the Internet, for example, lie in the
Pentagon’s desire to have a robust, decentralised means of comput-
erised information-sharing. Today, federal funds in the USA are used
to support research in fields such as robotics, biotechnology, space
technologies and artificial intelligence. Often this capital is channelled

through private-sector enterprise and university research departments
via competitive grant awards.
In the 1970s, as developments in computing and computer networks
gathered pace, the USA was able to field military technologies that were
increasingly superior to those that were being created in the Commu-
nist world. Advances in precision targeting, autonomy, robotics and
stealth challenged the longstanding Soviet numerical superiority in con-
ventional weapons. As the results of this technological activity became
evident, in the 1990s there was much talk of a revolution in military
affairs, which promised a radical enhancement of military capabilities.
Computer technologies, aficionados argued, had the potential to lift
much of the Clausewitzian ‘fog of war’ (Owens 2001). In fact, much
friction remained on the battlefield, even with the superabundance of
new technologies, and advanced Western armies, once deployed in com-
bat, quickly discovered that many frustrations remained when it came
to tackling comparatively small and technologically unsophisticated
enemies.
Notwithstanding that, in combat against near-peer adversaries
involving conventional militaries, there was little doubt that the
Western states retained a distinct qualitative edge. And even in low-
intensity, protracted counterinsurgency operations, the West pursued
its goals using highly sophisticated military technologies, including
in unmanned aircraft, biometric databases and computer modelling
of complex social networks. The symbiotic relationship between mili-
tary demand and private-sector enterprise and intellectual acumen had
produced, by the turn of the millennium, a particularly distinctive
approach to warfare that non-liberal Western societies could imitate but
not convincingly replicate.
The development of technologically sophisticated armed forces has
its own logic, as states seek the means to achieve a comparative advan-
tage over adversaries, leveraging the resources of their own society to do
so. But there is an additional motive that drives the process of tech-
nological development in the military sphere. The purported fear of
sustaining casualties in war, the legacy of the long and divisive Vietnam
War, is somewhat overdone. After the ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident in
Somalia in October 1993, in which 18 American servicemen were killed,
the USA rapidly drew down its commitment to that operation and
thereafter proved to be reluctant to intercede in the Rwandan genocide
of 1994 and the ongoing crisis in Bosnia. The NATO intervention in
Kosovo remained an air campaign for so long because of presidential
reluctance to permit ‘boots on the ground’. And yet, after the terror
attacks of 9/11, the USA committed to two long-running campaigns
in which several thousand American personnel were killed in combat
and many were more wounded. Public unease at these conflicts grew
slowly over time, and they were never, aside from an immediate rush
of enthusiasm, particularly popular causes. There was, nonetheless, no
catastrophic outpouring of public opposition on the basis of the service-
men’s deaths. A tentative explanation might lie in the limited size of
the armed forces relative to the overall population, allowing the public
to remain relatively disconnected from the somewhat remote theatre of
operations relative to previous wars. The Second World War, the Korean
War and the Vietnam War had all involved large numbers of combat
soldiers, many of them conscripted into service. Moreover, the numbers
that were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, while high by the standards
of the risk-averse 1990s, were still low by comparison with other major
conflicts, including the largely irregular confrontation in Vietnam.
For all of that the technological sophistication of liberal armed forces
has as part of its rationale a desire to limit human exposure to the
dangers of combat. The essence of social liberalism is to avoid harm
wherever possible, and technology affords a way of doing so, while
happily also conferring a war-fighting advantage. Combat deaths risk
undermining public support for ongoing operations. For the leader-
ship of the armed forces themselves, there is an acute dilemma here.
On one hand, the supportive relationship between society and its ser-
vicemen is a boon, which is worth fostering. The British military initially
welcomed the outpouring of public grief at the repatriation of fallen
soldiers through Wootton Bassett. On the other hand, too much sympa-
thy paints the soldiers as unhappy victims of callous forces that have
embarked on dubious conflicts or prosecuted them with insufficient
consideration of the well-being of those involved. And so, in the case of
the British fallen, military leaders sought to shape public opinion away
from the notion of soldiers as victims, and simultaneously moved to
downplay the repatriation ceremonies, including by moving them away
from Wootton Bassett.7
Technology fits the liberal ideal in another way too: minimising casu-
alties not just to one’s own forces, but also to civilians and even enemy
combatants. The scenes of carnage on the road back from Kuwait into
Iraq at the end of the 1990/1991 Gulf War caused a degree of pub-
lic unease in Western societies. Iraqi conscripts in their hundreds had
been trapped in a convoy that was seeking to flee from advancing coali-
tion forces and was attacked mercilessly from the air. The overwhelming
superiority of coalition firepower raised questions about the proportion-

ality of the attack, given that the Iraqis had already effectively been
defeated. Even enemy forces were entitled to a proportionate response
from liberal Western militaries.
The case of civilians in the battlefield provided a more obvi-
ous demonstration of liberal values in warfare. In the Kosovo War,
NATO bombing prompted large protests in Serbia itself, but also in
neighbouring Greece, a member of the Alliance, and smaller protests in
other NATO member states. A misguided allied attack that hit a convoy
of civilians attracted significant media attention and led to increas-
ingly stringent efforts to discriminate between military and civilian
targets. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, media atten-
tion briefly alighted on the alarming phrase ‘shock and awe’ that was
used in some Pentagon circles to describe an operational approach that
aimed to overwhelm an enemy leadership’s capacity to make informed
and timely decisions but that sounded at first blush like a bloodthirsty
and indiscriminate strategy of stunning enemy societies. Latterly, in
the campaign that was waged against militant Islamists in Afghanistan
and the tribal areas of Pakistan, the USA has employed unmanned
aircraft that are capable of dropping guided munitions. These aircraft
achieved considerable success in killing militant leaders, but scores of
civilians were also killed, either through being attacked by mistake or
as bystanders to successful strikes. The media coverage and, to a more
limited extent, public attention on these strikes says something interest-
ing about reactions to unmanned combat systems, as well as the ethics
of deliberately targeting individual enemies for death some way distant
from the battlefield, and additionally violating the sovereignty of an
ostensible ally in so doing.
Together these examples demonstrate the technological capacity of
liberal armies to prosecute war with unprecedented discrimination and
careful calibration of force. Civilian casualties in recent wars involving
the West have been remarkably low compared with historical prece-
dents. There are still many incidents of misdirected aggression, and
scores of casualties. And very many more civilians have been killed by
the enemies of the West, roused to violence in part by the presence of
Western troops. Overall, however, it is fair to conclude that technol-
ogy acts to facilitate a liberal way of war that strives to be humane and
proportionate, reflecting the values of the society that wages it.
A fourth way in which Western militaries are representative of wider
society is in their social liberalism. This is relative. There is still a dis-
tinction between the armed forces and wider society. In some respects
the military remains a conservative institution relative to the civilian

population from which it draws its soldiers. Tradition has value on the
battlefield, as a way of motivating appropriate behaviour, particularly
amid great chaos and fear. It also allows for decisive executive control of
large organisations that are working in risky situations amid uncertainty
and the sort of confusion that Clausewitz termed ‘friction’.
And yet, hierarchy, like tradition, is another military value that is at
odds with wider liberal society. Liberalism is antithetical to hierarchy,
expect for that attained by merit. In the modern era, deference to class
and even to professional position has eroded. There are still a great many
class differences in the UK, but British society as whole is a more egal-
itarian place than several decades ago. The expansion of the university
system, so that more than a third of peer groups now continue into
undergraduate education, has provided a means of expanding access to
middle-class professions. Similarly, there has been a steady expansion of
the service sector at the expense of manufacturing. The result has been
the creation of a larger, broader and more amorphous band of middle-
class lifestyles. The super-wealthy elite remain at one remove from wider
society, and there are concerns about growing societal inequality and
lack of social mobility. However, on the whole, this is a debate about
finances and income rather than about class, which has connotations of
hereditary and nepotistic privilege.
This flattening of social hierarchy has been paralleled by a similar
compression of business hierarchy too, at least in businesses that are
seen as being at the forefront of modern economic activity. Such indus-
tries stress the need for teamwork and creativity, and they value the
empowerment of individuals within organisations. This is particularly
the case in high-technology companies that seek constant innovation
and strive to retain the most skilled and imaginative workers. The mil-
itary, seeking a constant edge that can deliver battlefield advantage,
might be expected to follow suit. After all, the British military, in my
experience, is constantly seeking to learn about leadership and man-
agement from the civilian sector. Yet liberal armies remain resolutely
hierarchical, with many incremental steps separating the lowliest pri-
vate from a four-star general. The ranking system retains its mediaeval
origins and provides not just an example of conservative traditionalism
but also of military isomorphism – militaries, Western and otherwise,
consciously ape the same ranks, and insignia.
Certainly this is a hierarchy that is judged on merit and professional
aptitude, at least in theory. In the modern British military, there are
still fashionable regiments that select from the pool of cadets vying
for membership on the basis of background or historical connections,

notably in the cavalry and guards. However, selection for the higher
ranks now relies far more on professional judgements of competence,
based on performance in post and completion of professional military
education courses, including, in the case of the British military, a year-
long staff officer’s course, very often accompanied by a master’s degree.
More than 80% of new officers entering the British army’s training
college at Sandhurst have an undergraduate degree – perhaps less an
indicator of the meritocratic and professional nature of the officer corps
than of the rapid expansion of higher education in recent decades.
A last distinction between the military and wider society is worth not-
ing, related to its resilient hierarchy and its veneration of tradition. This
is the military’s continued emphasis on the communal over the indi-
vidual. While Western society has come increasingly to celebrate the
individual, its armed forces retain a suspicion of the iconoclast. Stan-
dards of uniform are typically rigidly enforced, and drill remains an
important part of training, serving to inculcate ideas of uniformity and
collectivity, and fostering thereby small-group cohesion and obedience
to authority, both of which serve an important role in battle. In civilian
society, by contrast, there has been a trend away from social collectives
and towards the individual, even in those Western states that adhere
more closely to the post-War social ideal of the welfare state rather than
the liberal market. Associated trends include more frequent changes in
job; greater internal migration, partly as a result of expanded university
education and the demands of a more flexible and competitive job mar-
ket; the decline of organised religion; changes in leisure habits away
from communal activities, such as public drinking; smaller families;
and more single-dweller households. Together, these and other factors
have contributed to the trend towards individual rather than communal
life. The extent of this trend varies greatly, of course, both within and
between societies of the liberal West. Overall, however, this liberalisa-
tion has produced societies that are more socially relaxed across a range
of issues – that is, they are more authentically socially liberal.
To some extent the armies that are drawn from these societies have
followed suit. Again there is a wide degree of variation, complicating
generalisation. A few examples point in the direction of liberalisation.
The Norwegian army allows male and female soldiers to room together,
suggesting that doing so reduces cases of sexual harassment. Less revo-
lutionary, though altogether more common across states, has been the
opening up of military roles to women. This started, of necessity, during
the Second World War when auxiliary services employed British women
in some operationally vital roles towards the rear of the action. In the
modern era, British women can serve as fighter pilots, as warfare officers
onboard surface ships, and on combat patrols with the infantry, albeit
in the role of medics rather than as infanteers. At the time of writing,
a review of the role of women in the branches of the British Army that
are involved in close-quarters combat is ongoing. Even if it does not do
so on this occasion, the British Army will, I suspect, inevitably follow
the trend of Australia, Canada and the USA in allowing women to apply
for these roles, and serve in them if successful. Gender bias within liberal
armies remains an issue, but this is also the case in society more broadly,
and sometimes the reaction to it is illustrative of a change in attitudes.
The head of the Australian armed forces recently took to YouTube to
remonstrate against officers who were implicated in sexual harassment,
rebuking them in stark terms.8
In one important sense, however, the military remains distinct from
wider societal liberalisation. This is in the core activity of combat –
particularly of close combat – closing with and killing the enemy.
7
Liberal Warriors
The previous chapter explored the question of the way in which Western
armies are reflective of the societies from which they are drawn, and the
extent to which they and their societies have been changing. For our
purposes here, the point of that was to frame a discussion of modern
warfare. In what way are the scholars of strategic culture right that a
society’s martial style reflects the way in which it fights? If Western soci-
ety has become increasingly liberal and individualistic, as I argue, what
does that mean for the military, and for honour? The answer I find is
that liberal soldiers are capable of killing in combat, motivated likely
by the same forces that shape all warriors, notably a powerful group
solidarity and aversive reactions to enemy out-groups.
Later, in the last two chapters, I link this discussion about mod-
ern honour to the earlier argument about evolutionary psychology, to
explain how liberal warfare is consistent with our evolutionary heritage.
Military life is still set apart from all other vocations in one impor-
tant respect – the business of fighting: of killing and risking death in the
service of the state. Modern wars, at least as fought by Western armies,
involve fewer casualties. In part this is because of the political stakes
that are involved in conflicts. Western societies have at their disposal
the wherewithal to inflict utterly devastating violence, at the extreme
destroying the planet in a series of thermonuclear explosions. Their
capacity for conventional violence also outstrips that of any potential
rival. There are 11 US aircraft carriers and a score of ‘mini carriers’
besides. The most that any non-Western power can muster is a single
carrier task group. US military spending alone accounts for over 40% of
the total world defence expenditure (IISS, 2014).
Moreover, military forces involve fewer warriors. Armies are smaller,
reversing a trend towards mass that started, in the modern era, with
121
Napoleon and culminated on the Eastern Front of the Second World

War, as whole groups of armies ranged across vast territories. One of
the most striking features of John Keegan’s book The Face of Battle is
the map of the battlefields with which it opens, each progressively
dwarfed in scale by the battles of later generations (Keegan 2011).
With the Enlightenment, and the development successively of power-
ful nationalist sentiment among the wider population and increasing
industrialisation, modern states developed the capacity to wage wars
on an ever larger scale. As Clausewitz saw it, there was a tendency in
war towards the absolute, driven by the passions of the population and
the means at their disposal to increase their capacity for destruction.
Mass mattered, and smaller states that could not marshal sufficiently
large armies or find amenable allies were vulnerable to predation by
their larger neighbours. Victory would belong to the big battalions, as
Napoleon averred. Or, later, as Stalin sardonically inquired: ‘The Pope?
How many divisions has he got?’
This equation of scale and power was an underlying dynamic in state
relations that, when Darwinian natural selection arrived in the public
consciousness, readily lent itself to social Darwinist conceptions. And
yet in the post–Second World War era, the relationship between popular
support from the masses, industry and military power has been com-
plicated by technology – first in the development of nuclear weaponry,
but more broadly in the introduction of weapons and systems that have
the ability to greatly offset numerical disadvantage. The consequence of
that, as I have discussed earlier, is that liberal society has been able to
become disconnected from an intimate relationship with the security
concerns of the state.
Generating equivalent military power now requires fewer people
in uniform. The development of modern information technologies
allowed NATO forces to offset the conventional superiority of the
Warsaw Pact, thereby radically altering the strategic calculus in Europe
of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Soviet Union simply could
not afford to spend sufficient capital to keep abreast of the latest
changes. It had many more tanks, divisions and troop numbers. How-
ever, new advanced US platforms and systems promised to offset that, if
it came to it.
Moreover, many of those who do serve are not directly involved in
killing others. They might serve as part of the ‘kill-chain’, the large
group associated with preparing and executing violence, but this chain
involves people inside and outside the military.
Private military companies provide services to states across a range of
military and security activities, many of which were previously carried
Liberal Warriors 123
out by uniformed personnel. Some involve considerable risk and the

possibility of experiencing violence directly. For example, private actors
have been involved in defending state installations in warzones, defend-
ing supply convoys and providing close personal protection. However,
states have fought shy of employing private entities for the pure mili-
tary activity of fighting enemies. This purest of military activities has a
long history of private-sector activity but, as Sarah Percy recounts in her
analysis of mercenaries, there has been a fairly robust and longstand-
ing norm against such activities in the West (Percy 2007). Readers of
Machiavelli will know that this is because the republics cannot truly
rely on the loyalties of mercenaries, and also because the citizens of a
republic will be animated to behave in the public good by their par-
ticipation in militia. Armies of citizens would, he advised his prince, be
more committed and passionate in the execution of their duty. For all of
that, Western societies increasingly rely on civilians to generate military
power, if not to actually fight. Civil and military have become inextrica-
bly intertwined. Civilians design and procure weapons, develop military
concepts and deploy with armies on operations.
Lastly, even those in uniform who do kill often do so at some distance
from the target. The development of advanced, stand-off weaponry has
enabled precise and discriminate targeting from a great distance. In the
case of the Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), that distance has
been many thousands of miles from the scene of battle. Dave Grossman
has been prominent in advancing the idea that killing others is difficult
and traumatic for many humans, psychopaths perhaps excepted. The
emotional distance that accompanies the physical distance from killing
has been widely remarked upon – Jonathan Glover does so in his Human-
ity, for example (Glover 1999). Modern, liberal warfare often entails
the infliction of destruction from afar, with some degree of emotional
remove.
Liberal warriors in combat
At the other extreme, there are many excellent first-person accounts of

the visceral emotions that are involved in close-quarters combat. Karl
Marlantes provides one such in his non-fiction reflections on killing
Communist enemies in Vietnam, where he was a junior Marine offi-
cer (Marlantes 2011). ‘In combat,’ he writes, ‘you are already over some
edge. You are in a fierce state where there is a primitive and savage joy
in doing in your enemy.’1
In liberal societies, power and esteem are not usually acquired by brute
force, or by displays of prowess in battle. The context in which we find
ourselves thus changes the payoffs from a particular course of action,

and those to whom that action comes more readily may profit more
from it. But the instinct to kill our fellow man, if there, should sim-
ilarly be called forth in the appropriate context. To see the extent to
which that is true, I turn now to consider the psychological dimen-
sion of combat, drawing in particular on the experiences of warriors
who have fought in liberal armies. The quotes that follow, like that of
Marlantes, are naturally partial and should accordingly be treated with
some caution: they are the experiences and memories of just a handful
of soldiers. Nonetheless, they offer some insight into this central issue
of honour in combat. The question for me is whether they illuminate
some of the psychological processes that I addressed earlier. Specifically,
I am interested in whether liberal warriors have a different conception
of altruism than their parent society.
It is hardly surprising that fighting at close quarters arouses what
might be termed ‘animal passions’. Fear, rage, panic – all of these are
what some psychologists term ‘basic emotions’, and distinct brain ‘sys-
tems’ have been identified by neuroscientists for each (Ekman 1992;
Panksepp 2004). These implicate evolutionarily ancient parts of the
brain, and that again is hardly surprising, since fighting animals and
other humans has been part of our story for much of our existence as
a species. ‘There is’, Marlantes thought, ‘a very primal side to me. I sus-
pect we all have this, but are so afraid of it that we prefer to deny its
existence.’2
In an experiment with rats, researchers found that rigging the results
so that one rat consistently won in fights would be sufficient to prompt
more aggressive tendencies in that rat. It would instinctively go on the
attack in confrontational situations, expecting to win. Perhaps humans
respond in a similar way and can be conditioned into anticipating
success, and therefore resorting more readily to violence. Certainly,
exercises that soldiers undergo aim to simulate some of the emotional
responses that are associated with close combat, and therefore to accli-
matise recruits to it as best as can be done before exposure to the real
thing. The British Parachute Regiment, for example, requires recruits
to participate in ‘milling’ – a sort of boxing contest in which victory
is achieved by being the most aggressive. Defensive technique is not
encouraged. Fighting hand to hand in a desperate struggle to survive
might be expected to bring out the sort of aggression that one sees in
animals fighting. However, as Dave Grossman indicates, there is ample
evidence that humans are traumatised by the prospect not just of being
killed but also of killing (Grossman 2009). We might expect that by
now, given what we know of the self-domestication of humans and the

attendant requirement for empathy, tolerance and a capacity to manage
aggression within groups.
Grappling with an enemy may be a case of kill or be killed. There is no
scope to go easy on the adversary without essentially surrendering your
own life. However, as the killing distance increases, such that projectile
weaponry is involved, researchers have found that soldiers seem to aim
off, for reasons that cannot realistically be solely attributed to errors in
aiming, or to the fear of being attacked in turn.
It seems, as S. L. A. Marshall wrote in his famous study of American
soldiers fighting in the Second World War, that there is a reluctance to
kill our fellow humans (Marshall 2000). A combat historian, Marshall
undertook an extensive study of fighting men in the European and
Pacific theatres of the war. He argued that some 75% of infantry in bat-
tle would simply not fire, or persist in firing if they did start. ‘These
men may face the danger, but they will not fight’ was his stark and sur-
prising conclusion.3 This he attributed to human nature, such that ‘the
majority in any group seeks lives of minimum risk and expenditure of
effort, plagued by doubts of themselves and by fears for their personal
security’.4 But there was more than fear or indolence at work – there
was also a human reluctance to kill, which Marshall called a ‘vast differ-
ence’ between the range and combat. Indeed, ‘fear of killing rather than
fear of being killed’ was, he thought, the most common cause of battle
failure among the infantry.
This is puzzling, given what we saw about the ubiquity of primitive
warfare, and the nature of being a warrior in hunter-gatherer society, in
which every fighting-age male might be called upon to defend the group
or to raid others. It is understandable that the fear of being harmed in
battle might undermine the aggression of soldiers, but why the anx-
iety about killing? A reluctance to kill lies at the heart of the liberal
philosophy of doing no harm. But surely this is a modern, liberal affec-
tation? Certainly Marshall pointed to the effects of culture – the soldier’s
religion, schooling, moral code and societal ideas all point away from
hurting others. Aggression is prohibited in modern civilisation, and the
soldier would have absorbed ‘so deeply and pervadingly – practically
with his mother’s milk – that it is part of the normal man’s emotional
make-up’.5
We can learn those habits of effective communal life, but the reluc-
tance to hurt others was almost certainly a feature of our evolved life too.
And the reluctance to kill is so widespread and persistent that it seems
to be more innate or instinctive than acquired. Moral codes against
violence are, after all, an integral part of a great many cultures, and there
is nothing about that which is inconsistent with the über-altruism that
underpinned the emergence of culture in the first place. We should not,
perhaps, make too much of modern liberal man’s culturally imbibed
pacifism, allowing instead that the ability to form large-scale social
groups with strangers far pre-dates us and rests on an ability to resolve
disputes without violence. The real step change in violence likely came,
as Gat argues, with the development of protostates; and those states,
I have argued, rest on a capacity for empathy and cooperation that is
antithetical to aggression.
Marshall noted the disconnection between those who seemed to have
soldierly traits in peacetime – good leadership, discipline, deportment
and so forth – and those who would perform on the battlefield by
simply firing their weapon towards an enemy: there seemed to be no
connection between the two. He also noted that the same men who
were prepared to fire their weapons would do so consistently, day after
day, and would also be the ones who were most involved in manoeuvres
around the battlefield – in flanking or storming enemy positions. These
few men, who in his view constituted only some 15% of the combat
units, were what we commonly think of as warriors. Their capacity for
violence was simply greater than that of their fellows.
Chris Kyle, the most successful sniper in the history of US arms, noted
the tendency in Iraq, even among snipers, to resist shooting. ‘A little bit
of hesitation was common for the new guys. Maybe all Americans are
a little hesitant to be the first to shoot, even when it’s clear that we are
under attack, or will be shortly.’6 For Karl Marlantes, by contrast, killing
came relatively easily. He was evidently one of the 15%:
When people come up to me and say, ‘you must have felt horrible
when you killed somebody,’ I have a very hard time giving them the
simplistic response they’d like to hear. When I was fighting . . . either
I felt nothing at all or I felt an exhilaration akin to scoring the
winning touchdown.7
Kyle was similarly blunt when writing that
when God confronts me with my sins, I do not believe any of the

kills I had during the war will be among them. Everyone I shot was
evil. I had good cause on every shot. They all deserved to die.8
Kyle denigrates his enemy as ‘savages’ and terms them all evil. He
has a Crusader cross tattooed in red on his forearm – indicative of
a Manichean worldview that almost certainly eased the psychological

trauma of killing. Indeed, he records that, at least ‘after the first kill, the
others come easy. I don’t have to psych myself up, or do anything spe-
cial mentally’.9 Of combat, Kyle, who re-enlisted and served multiple
combat tours, recalled: ‘I loved what I was doing. Maybe war isn’t really
fun, but I certainly was enjoying it. It suited me.’10
That more were men not, in Marshall’s experience, able to respond to
combat like Marlantes and Kyle is a reflection of the immense power
of cooperative behaviour, and our acute capacity for empathy. It is
consistent, as we have seen, with notions of reciprocal altruism.
Military training relies on that group distinction to foster a sense of
loyalty and commitment to comrades. But soldiers must be able to draw
a sharp distinction between allies and enemies, protecting the one while
still inflicting severe violence on the other. Doug Beattie, a British officer
serving in Afghanistan, was reminded of his training even as he made
a desperate, solo assault on a Taliban position – hurling a grenade and
following up with rifle and bayonet into a room with a wounded enemy
fighter:
He seemed far from help, but I was going to make sure. Just as we
had been taught. I leaned forward and thrust my bayonet towards the
man’s body as hard as I could . . . . I heard the metal slice through the
flesh, felt it break bone and cut gristle as it glided further in, right up
the hilt. Did I hear a small gasp from the man? I don’t know, perhaps
it was the devil inside me playing with my imagination. When it
could go no further, I twisted the bayonet to increase the damage.
Just as we had been taught.11
There is no glorious exaltation in violence here, and no evidence of

dehumanising his enemy either. There is certainly fear and adrenaline,
and later on there is the trauma of remembering. Beattie would be hard
pressed to understand why he charged on alone when others did not.
But there is a mechanical or automatic element to it that he puts down
to training and instinct:
There were no long periods of time to mull over things, to weigh

up the pros and cons, to consider the ethical dimension of the job.
War does not allow for that. You are faced with split-second life-and-
death decisions time and again, and you have to get on with it. React.
React. React . . . In the heat of, when I was consumed by fear, when
all I wanted to do was turn away, I made my choices and I got the
job done.12
Beattie’s firsthand reflections on killing, and on courage in combat for

which he was subsequently decorated, are worth reflecting upon. His
heroism and honour, as symbolised by the award of the Military Cross
for his gallantry throughout this particular battle, were instinctive, by
his own admission. This was not a conscious, reflective decision to
act after some deliberation. He does not admit to joy in killing, like
Marlantes, but nor to horror either. Instead he is carried through the
action in a rush of automaticity. If there is agency in his heroism,
it seems that it’s an agency that reaches wider than his deliberative
conscious.
In the railway bridge conundrum, a famous philosophical experiment,
participants are asked about two scenarios. In one they must decide
whether to stop a runaway train heading for a small group of unsuspect-
ing people by throwing a fat man off a bridge over the tracks, in front
of the speeding train. In the other scenario, the train can be diverted
onto a siding away from the gathering of people if the participant pulls
a lever, but there is one individual on the siding track too, and the train
will kill her. What to do? Is it okay to kill one person to save the group?
The practical answer depends on which scenario is presented – people
tend to find it harder to imagine wrestling the poor fat man over the
bridge. It seems far easier to flick a switch and divert the train onto tracks
where one person will be killed rather than a handful on the main line.
In some fascinating experiments, Joshua Greene and colleagues studied
the brains of those deciding on moral issues like these using a functional
magnetic resonance imaging scanner. When participants were weighing
up scenarios akin to that of grappling with the fat man, systems in their
brain that are associated with emotional reasoning were more active.
In scenarios like that with the siding and the lever, by contrast, brain
systems that are more associated with deliberative reasoning came into
play (Greene et al. 2001).
Dropping a precision-guided bomb from afar onto a group of Taliban
fighters many thousands of miles distant is likely to be more akin to
the lever than the grapple with a fat, sweaty frightened man on the
bridge. Wrestling him over the edge, by contrast, seems more compara-
ble to close-quarters combat: a struggle to kill someone who is desperate
to survive. To be sure, of course, we would need to put the Reaper
UAV pilot or the infantryman in a scanner while they carry out their
mission. However, it seems likely to me that the sort of instinctive, emo-
tional responses to killing are more sharply engaged when it is done at
stabbing range. If we follow the logic of these experiments, as Joshua
Greene and his colleagues describe it, then this close killing is more
a matter of emotional logic than deliberative, rational cognition. Me

might expect deontological logic to be at work here, versus the con-
sequentialist calculations that we can make when flicking the switch
from afar.
The visceral emotions that are involved in killing are evident in
another compelling account of close-quarters combat, this time from
William Manchester, fighting as a US Marine in the Pacific theatre of
the Second World War. In his memoirs he described his solo assault on a
position that was held by a Japanese sniper. He attributed the courage to
do so, like Marlantes, to his basic instinct, referring to the ‘fight or flight’
principle, and concluding that he must have been within the range at
which he was simply triggered to attack rather than flee, despite his
obvious fear:
Utterly terrified, I jolted to stop on the threshold of the shack. I could

feel a twitching in my jaw, coming and going like a winky light sig-
naling some disorder. Various valves were opening and closing in my
stomach. My mouth was dry, my legs quaking and my eyes out of
focus.13
After a frantic assault, Manchester confronted the sniper, whose rifle was
caught in its harness and could not be brought to bear. Realising this,
the Japanese soldier ‘was backing toward a corner with a curious crablike
motion’. The American shot him in his thigh, which proved enough to
quickly kill him, leaving Manchester transfixed:
Jerking my head to shake off the stupor, I slipped a new, fully loaded
magazine into the butt of my .45. Then I began to tremble and next to
shake, all over. I sobbed, in a voice still grainy with fear: ‘I’m sorry.’
Then I threw up all over myself. I recognised the half digested C-
ration beans dribbling down my front, smelled the vomit above the
cordite. At the same time I noticed another odour; I had urinated in
my skivvies.14
There is pathos here – a reality more sordid than any clichéd hero-
ism. Manchester also reveals a sense of disgust at the situation in
his detailed description of the Japanese soldier’s death and his curi-
ous ‘crablike’ scuttling movement. And even before his fear has ebbed,
the sense of guilt begins, evident in his apology to the dead man.
Revulsion, reluctance and guilt are the overwhelming sentiments here:
along with the inevitable terror of being killed, there is the manifest
reticence over killing that Marshall and Grossman find so characteristic

of close-quarters combat.
Aside from instinct, it’s not clear what compels Manchester into
action while his comrades remain behind. The author points to a need
to prove himself a leader, because he is a junior non-commissioned offi-
cer with a borderline insubordinate platoon, and someone who feels
unqualified for the role. But the essential mystery remains: Why him
and no one else?
Evidently, some people behave like Beattie, Manchester and Marlantes
under fire, and others do not. For Marshall, the problem was to increase
the proportion of troops who use fire in an effective, targeted way, or
even use fire at all, from the 20% or so that he found. The answer, to
him, lay in the social dimension to fighting:
On the field of fire, it is the touch of human nature which gives

men courage and enables them to make proper use of their weapons.
One file, patting another on the back may turn a mouse into a
lion . . . By the same token, it is the loss of this touch which freezes
men and impairs all action.15
Moreover, it didn’t matter to those who were taking action against the
enemy that their comrades were not – they were unaware. What mat-
tered to them was that someone was there, standing with them. Fighting
was a social activity, Marshall stressed. Both fear and courage are conta-
gious, depending on the actions of those around us. And, in particular,
he noted the role of esteem in all of this. The judgement of others was
all-important. That was one reason for the abject performance of indi-
viduals who had been separated from their own unit and made to fight
in formed units whose members they did not know. By contrast, even
a small group of soldiers who were familiar with one another would
perform capably when fighting amid strangers. Marshall wrote:
When a soldier is unknown to the men who are around him, he has
relative little reason to fear losing the one thing that he is likely
to value more highly than life – his reputation as a man among
other men.16
The epigraph of this book, written by Clausewitz, is worth recalling here:

‘Of all the passions that inspire man in battle,’ he wrote, ‘none, we have
to admit, is so powerful and so constant as the longing for honour and
renown.’ Marshall agreed, writing that ‘personal honour is the one thing
valued more than life itself by the majority of men’.17 It is a finding that
ought not to surprise us, given my earlier argument about the evolu-
tionary significance of the small group, and the vital importance of our
standing within it.
The intensity of combat forges the closest links – at least for the
duration of the fight. Chris Kyle, the SEAL sniper, wrote:
It’s a cliche but it’s true: you form tight friendships in war . . . I became
close friends with two guys in the Guard unit, real good friends;
I trusted them with my life. Today I couldn’t tell you their names
if my life depended on it. And I’m not even sure I can describe them
in a way that would show you why they were special.18
This desire for honour need not be sufficient in a group to provoke acts
of great individual valour, but it would be enough, Marshall argued,
to hold men in place, even amid the terror of battle. If those near at
hand were familiar to him, and if they were behaving with self-control
under fire, then an individual would do his very best to avoid disgrace.
Conversely, the least signal of flight, which might very easily be miscon-
strued amid the confusion and ambiguity of battle, could be sufficient
to send a group of seasoned troops into wild retreat. The finding is
similar to that of another seminal study of troops in combat from the
Second World War, this time by Edward Shils and Morris Janowitz on
the Wehrmacht soldiers, who had displayed remarkable tenacity during
their extended retreat from the Soviet Union (Shils and Janowitz 1948).
The key to their continued effectiveness as a fighting force, Shils and
Janowitz argued, was their small-group social cohesion.
This emphasis on the small group should not be surprising if we pause
for a moment to think about the similarity between modern military
structures and the social groups through which we evolved. I noted
earlier the resemblance between the 150 or so individuals in a mil-
itary company and the number that Dunbar suggests correlates well
with our neocortex size as the scale of group with which we can have
meaningful social interaction. In fact, this military connection is one
that was made by Dunbar himself. In addition, however, he identified
other layers of social group that seem to have an evolutionary basis –
a small group of very close intimates, numbering around 5 with whom
we spend most time, and likely to be our close family; a larger group,
including them and some others, whom we might count as very close
friends, of about 15; and then a group of some 50, who would consti-
tute an overnight camp in the evolutionary sense – coming together
for protection from predation after dark. These too would be people
with whom we were very familiar, and we would be cognitively capa-
ble of tracking social relations among them. For each of these there
is a military parallel – the 3- or 4-man fire team, the 15-strong squad
and the 50-man platoon. The ratio, Dunbar noticed, seems to increase
in multiples of three, as it does with military organisation, so that a
group roughly three times the size of a company makes a battalion, and
three groups that size a regiment. The number of possible combinations
for exchanging information becomes correspondingly more complex
at each level of magnitude. Modern military units were certainly not
designed by evolutionary psychologists, but the relationship is striking
and likely to reflect function – particularly the need to communicate
effectively amid chaotic and fast-changing circumstances; the ability to
control and direct subordinates; and, perhaps most importantly at the
tactical level, given our current discussion, the ability to form groups
with familiar individuals that will foster cohesion and stiffen our resolve
amid great danger. For the modern soldier then, the small group is both
the source from which honour is derived and the best remedy for any
potential to earn dishonour. The values and bonds of the group are the
powerful adhesive that bolsters the individual in times of acute dan-
ger. To be clear, this collective dimension of war is a timeless feature of
human combat, not particular to the industrial or liberal age, despite
the emphasis in antiquity and duelling on individual honour.
Standing firm in combat is but one element of bravery. Honour rests
additionally on acts of choice, like those of Marlantes, Manchester and
Beattie. To gain honour we must act decisively and of our own volition,
publicly displaying agency. But the agency seems, if we believe those
brave fighters, to be instinctive, almost unconscious. A recent study of
testimony from recipients of the Carnegie Hero Medal found that these
‘extreme altruists’ who had risked their lives to save others thought
that they had acted largely instinctively, rather than by engaging ratio-
nal, conscious deliberation (Rand and Epstein 2014). If that is true of
warriors too, is their heroism really a choice? Do they deserve the acco-
lades? If you cannot deliberately will yourself into action, to what extent
is your instinctive behaviour really honourable anyway? And what of
those who break and flee? We seem to be back at the point reached
earlier about the distinction between conscious and unconscious mind.
There I noted that we might see the conscious mind as a rationaliser
of behaviours that are initiated elsewhere. And we know too from that
discussion that the group is an important influence on our unconscious
decisions. I see this daily, to offer a spurious example, when the crowds
of pedestrians at Oxford’s Carfax crossroads in the centre of the city

break from the pavement into oncoming traffic, oblivious of the danger,
because they are taking their lead from one particularly bold member of
the group.
Similarly, Marshall saw the group as a way of increasing not just cohe-
sion, or the capacity to resist aggression, but also the capacity to initiate
aggressive action. The challenge was to get the soldiers doing something
active. This might turn the bystanders into active participants, and dis-
courage any behaviours that were likely to induce panic and retreat. It’s
worth recalling the nature of primitive warfare – it didn’t happen at
a rifle range between two sides arrayed on a battlefield. The tactics of
primitive warfare were, in some senses, the underhand tactics of the
ambush and raid – of only initiating combat with an overwhelming
advantage. Chimpanzees patrol deep into enemy territory, at consider-
able risk, but fight with the odds firmly in their favour. I am reminded of
the description of Hernán Cortés and his conquistadors when fighting
against the Incas at Tenochtitlan – the ‘primitive’ warriors would swarm
en masse against their opponent, clubbing isolated conquistadors into
senselessness (Hanson 2001). It was very much the tactics of the swarm –
overwhelming numbers except, of course, for the Spanish firearms, and
even then it was a close thing.
This group element of close-quarters combat was also a feature of
other historical battlefields. One thinks of the close press of bodies push-
ing and straining against one another in the ranks of hoplites in ancient
Greece, again described vividly by Victor Hanson, or in the thin red
line at Waterloo (Holmes 2004; Keegan 2011). It must truly have been
a horrific experience to be caught in the melée, but being there would
certainly have removed the capacity for passivity.
There is a group element here that can be at odds with modern,
dispersed battle. Marshall noted that, crowded or otherwise, the mod-
ern battlefield could often seem curiously isolated. In earlier battles
the group would be more obviously present, normalising appropriate
behaviour, increasing the pressure for conformity and diffusing the
responsibility for violence. In modern wars of manoeuvre, with soldiers
seeking cover both from view and from fire, this was not, evidently,
always the case.
To overcome the passivity that he found, Marshall advocated first
putting those paralysed by fear into some form of activity – digging a
foxhole or helping with first aid. Action was the antidote to anxiety, in
his view, perhaps because it returned a sense of agency and control to
the soldier. The next step was to put non-firers into the small groups
of working crew who served weapons – machine guns and mortars: this
would get them actually firing a weapon without necessarily being the
trigger puller. Even soldiers, he thought, might be made less reluctant
to kill by diminishing their proximity to the task – via technology that
increases killing distance and that deindividuates their personal share in
the task.
Snipers working in two-man teams are a collective killing system.
Bomber crews flying high over the drop zone are less intimately aware
of the destruction below and are focused on the technical problems at
hand – flying the aircraft, navigating to the target, defending against
enemy interceptors and ground fire. However, for the infrantryman, the
essential problem of closing with and killing another human remains.
It is an explicable aversion seen in the light of the self-domestication and
altruism that I discussed earlier. But if the problem (in a military sense)
is caused by our sense of solidarity and empathy with others, there is a
solution in taking the others – the enemy – out of the equation, as far
as is possible.
To circumvent the problem of killing among infantry groups, it
proved necessary to depersonalise the firing, as far as possible, to cre-
ate a context like that facing the bomber crew, or the artillery battery.
This involved creating interlocking ‘fields of fire’ and directing fire onto
a target, rather than picking out individuals. ‘The average firer’, Marshall
thought, ‘will have less resistance to firing on a house or a tree than a
human being.’19 The key was to increase the weight of fire, and better to
have willing, even trigger-happy, soldiers directing their fire onto some
inanimate object than reluctant soldiers seeking to preserve ammuni-
tion and direct fire against individual targets. In addition to minimising
the humanity of the enemy, combat effectiveness might be improved by
stressing the humanity of one’s comrades, on whose behalf one fights.
Lastly, as Beattie found, another approach was to instil some degree
of automaticity in the process by repeated training, sometimes involv-
ing unarmed combat. This all complicates the notion of courage and
warrior-like behaviour on the battlefield. We may celebrate the individ-
ual exploits of particular heroes, but fighting, as Marshall described it,
is very much a collective activity, with even those who are more willing
to shoot at their fellow humans taking solace from the presence about
them of a small cohesive group of known comrades.
In the end, the essential elements of honour on the battlefield remain,
as an ideal at least. Honour implies an individual display of sacrifice or
solidarity with the group that involves choice and demonstrates mar-
tial prowess. It can also involve an appreciation of the shared values
of combat – the warrior fights and kills, but within a code of accepted
behaviour. If that cuts against the industrialised nature of modern

warfare, the dispersed and anonymous modern battlefield with its undif-
ferentiated mass of troops, many of whom perform supporting activities,
it nonetheless remains the case that soldiers aspire to heroism, with
its implication that they have the capacity to react on the battlefield
by choosing what to do themselves – as conscious actors. And while
military training works to strengthen group cohesion and to foster an
automatic, instinctive and aggressive determination against adversaries,
both of which might produce more effective force, it remains the case
that the military celebrates the exploits of the individual warrior.
The modern battlefield preserves some aspects of the evolutionary
landscape within which intraspecies fighting evolved. Violence is com-
munal and instrumental, and it involves esteem. The liberal warrior,
like those before him, fears the dishonour of cowardice through fleeing,
and strives to earn approval through a display of professional skill that
involves risk and sacrifice.
The liberal warrior and society
For some, the modern liberal soldier in Afghanistan is a warrior in the

tradition of Achilles – a professional killer who stands somewhat apart
from his society and is governed by different rules from it. He venerates
the community of soldiers and their ethos of sacrifice and commu-
nity. In modern liberal society, those values stand in stark contrast with
those of wider society, which extols individualism, and which shuns
hierarchy, deference and tradition.
It is not, in theory, possible to be a thoroughgoing liberal and to be a
warrior. Liberal society prohibits acts that harm the well-being of others,
which is precisely what battle aims to do. A military commander may
have to compel his men to undertake suicidally risky action that in any
other setting would be in clear breach of the human rights of their sub-
ordinates. In fact, considerable debate has been aroused in recent years
over the possible application of European Human Rights legislation to
the battlefield for precisely this reason. There is no philosophical prob-
lem in ensuring that commanders have exercised an appropriate duty
of care in ensuring that their troops are well provisioned, equipped and
cared for, just as one might do with a civilian worker. However, there
is a clear philosophical distinction between the obligation of the sol-
dier to kill and, if necessary, be killed, and the rights of the civilian
to be protected from harm. The soldier is fated to follow the logic of
consequentialism – if his sacrifice is anticipated to bring victory nearer,
then he can be sacrificed, and he has agreed to as much in joining the
ranks. The values of the soldier therefore stress the community – the
small group that provides cohesion and moral support and to whom his
loyalty is primarily dedicated, and the larger group on behalf of whom
he fights. The soldier has a duty which may involve sacrificing his life.
He must follow orders that endanger him and others. And his life is not
worth as much, in the ultimate calculation, as achieving the political
goals of war. That is a profoundly illiberal state of affairs.
The more liberal society moves apart from their values, the sharper we
might expect the contrast between society and its soldiers to become.
We can see that in the culture of the military and its popular representa-
tion, although here again we should be on our guard against cliché and
reductivism, as well as any tendency to package things too neatly into
cultural silos. Certainly, the literature written by soldiers indicates that
tension with civilians is sometimes acutely felt. The hero myth persists
among soldiers and society alike. Liberal society may be non-militaristic,
but the military profession retains its capacity to fascinate. You can see
this in the volume of action-filled memoirs and journalistic accounts of
the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Books such as Sniper One and
One Million Bullets attest to the way in which combat continues to spark
the public imagination (Fergusson 2008; Mills 2008).
However, modern literature and film also capture the sense of alien-
ation of warriors from their society. Soldiers returning home from the
Vietnam War faced an unwelcoming society that either rejected or cas-
tigated them, or simply ignored their experience. The trauma of that
rejection, perceived and real, has been the subject of many accounts of
that conflict. In Chickenhawk, helicopter pilot Robert Mason describes
his homecoming to the USA in an airport gift shop in Hawaii:
The clerk, a young woman, took my money and asked if I was return-
ing from Vietnam. I said, yes, proudly. She suddenly glared at me and
said, ‘murderer’. I stared at her for a long minute, feeling confused.20
In If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O’Brien recalls his return from Vietnam:
‘And over Minnesota you fly into an empty, unknowing, uncaring, puri-
fied stillness. Down below the snow is heavy, there are patterns of old
corn fields, there are some roads. In return for all your terror, the prairies
stretch out, arrogantly unchanged.’21
The soldiers of the current conflict have fought in a war that has not
fully captured the attention, still less the support, of wider society. There
is a strange mixture of disengagement and approbation for those doing
the fighting. Modern warriors who are returning from these wars are not
stigmatised by wider society for their part in them. In some instances

they are celebrated. Nonetheless, a sense of estrangement lingers in the
literature, in both the memoirs and the fiction of veterans from recent
conflicts.
Sometimes the soldiers are absorbed in the war and find it hard to
adjust to life at home. In The Good Soldiers, Sergeant Gietz, recently
redeployed home from Iraq, feels and is diagnosed with ‘survivor guilt,
whatever the hell that is’. Talking to the author, David Finkel, he
admits: ‘I feel guilty about all this. I ask myself, am I going to be
forgiven.’22 For Doug Beattie, reflecting on his combat experience in
Afghanistan, ‘these nightmares I viewed as the price to be paid for sur-
viving unscathed . . . For walking away from Afghanistan when so many
others had not, could not’.23 At home in the UK he finds himself ‘drift-
ing further from my family’, so consumed is he by thinking about the
war.24 The most recent wars may not have produced the antipathy that
was encountered by the unfortunate Vietnam veterans such as Mason,
but there is still a gulf in experience that cannot be breached, perhaps
more so since so few members of society actually join the armed forces,
still less fight in combat.
Chris Kyle felt acutely alienated from civil society, especially when
returning from the war between his deployments as a SEAL. He railed
against the liberal society back home, which sought to constrain and
sanitise war:
For some reason, a lot of people back home – not all people – didn’t
accept that we were at war. They didn’t accept that war means death,
violent death most times. A lot of people wanted to impose ridiculous
fantasies on us, hold us to some standard of behaviour that no human
being could maintain.25
For him, war remained about fighting and killing, even if the liberals
did not understand. ‘Do you want us to conquer our enemy? Annihilate
them? Or are we there to serve them tea and cookies?’26 It is a familiar
trope among warriors – the equation of victory with annihilation by
those tasked with fighting – who cannot see that this would amount to
a catastrophic defeat for liberal society.
In Redeployment, a collection of short stories by Phil Klay, a Marine
Corps veteran is describing his college mates:
Few of them followed the wars at all, and most subscribed to a

‘It’s a terrible mess, so let’s not think about it too much’ way of
thinking. Then there were the political kids who had definite opin-
ions and were my least favourite people to talk to. A lot of these
overlapped with the insufferable public interest crowd, who hated
the war, . . . didn’t understand why anyone would ever want to own
a gun, let alone fire one, but still paid lip service to the idea that
I deserved some sort of respect.27
Not much empathy, perhaps, but at least better than being called a mur-
derer. And that, it seems, has been the sort of reaction to the wars –
mild curiosity about soldiering, apathy or scepticism about the logic that
sends them to fight, and warmth and sympathy for casualties.
Not everyone is cool about the idea. War remains attractive to a seg-
ment of society – young men who aspire to prove their worth to peers,
to earn glory and to belong. Philip Caputo, the US Marine officer in the
Vietnam War, wrote:
That is what I wanted, to find in a commonplace world a chance

to live heroically. Having known nothing but security, comfort and
peace, I hungered for danger, challenges and violence.28
Enlisting for him was a chance to live the myth of the hero – embarking
on an existentially fulfilling journey that might provide the opportunity
for honour. These are timeless staples of conflict itself and the liter-
ature of war: the yearning for comradeship, and a life more exciting
that appeals to young men down the ages. The industrialisation of war,
and the commensurate diminishment of the individual relative to the
scale of fighting, did little to dampen the ardour with which young men
aspire to become warriors.
But what has changed in the modern era, I venture, is the distinction
between the values of wider society and that of the warrior, or of those
who aspire to become warriors. Both are motivated by honour, to be
sure, but the warrior attains this through sacrifice for his comrades, and
only then, perhaps, for wider society.
Cultural exchange
How far different, then, are liberal warriors from their counterparts else-
where? Patrick Porter’s Military Orientalism reminds us that we would
do well not to see culture either as static or as hermetically sealed from
outside influences (Porter 2009). For him, culture is constantly evolving
and feeding off other, outside influences.
Visiting Afghanistan in 2010, I noticed an interesting example of

the cross-cultural exchange involved in being a warrior. On arrival in
Afghanistan, US Special Forces units had adopted an interesting look –
they had grown long beards, though some wore their hair short. The
disconcerting effect was to make them look almost like their Islamist
enemies. This was accompanied by non-regulation military clothing
and custom weaponry, all of which had the effect of marking them
down as distinct from their regular counterparts. Next to arrive on
the scene were regular units, some of whom began to adopt Spe-
cial Forces chic, wherever they might get away with it. Their own
Oakley sunglasses and beards signalled their membership of the fighting
elite.
If this was cultural imitation it came full circle, as the cleaning con-
tractors I saw in NATO headquarters in turn adopted the Special Forces
look, wearing knock-off wraparound sunglasses, baggy combat fatigues
and generously pocketed waistcoats. In the recent conflicts in Syria and
Libya, young Western Muslims have been drawn to the fighting, perhaps
for much the same reason that their peers sign up to the British infantry.
The photographs of these fighters that appear in the newspapers, often
when they are reported killed in action, are striking in that the same
look sported by Delta and SEAL fighters from Afghanistan is now appro-
priated by their enemies. Here again are the beards, baseball caps, shades
and body armour. It is the look of urban, Western youth: ‘gangsta’ chic.
To be an elite warrior is to strive to be apart from the group – elevated
from and respected by onlookers. Yet the result has been to generate a
uniform among liberal warriors and their adversaries: the aspirant indi-
vidual ends up belonging to just another group. It is the hipster effect
that I introduced earlier.
Women in combat
The liberal warrior is nonetheless different in some important respects

from others, and is so because of the liberalism of his parent society.
The tension between liberal values and traditional military values comes
into sharp focus on the question of women in combat. This seems
to be a clear issue in which our evolved tendencies jar with the dic-
tates of culture. As such, it provides a useful example through which
to explore the central theme of this book – that evolution and cul-
ture are connected, even where it seems otherwise. Moreover, the issue
involves honour, at least insofar as traditional conceptions of honour
often involve chivalrous sacrifice by men for women.
Traditionalists argue that military roles that call for close-quarters

killing are best carried out by men, for primarily physiological reasons.
Richard Kemp, a retired British colonel, makes the point via his Twitter
feed that women are not selected for the men’s Boat Race, or to play
rugby for England with men, because they are simply not physically
capable of competing with them.29 If infantry combat comes down to
a desperate hand-to-hand struggle, on average a man would prevail
against a woman. Efficiency matters and, in Kemp’s view, that is suf-
ficient to preclude women from participating in close combat: all else
is liberal posturing at the expense of martial effectiveness. The pressure
to include women in combat arms, from this perspective, is an example
of the spread of a cultural idea – what Richard Dawkins calls a meme –
which may not be adaptive (Dawkins 2006).
These notions of memes and of memetic selection are conceptually
related to the natural selection of genes. Memes – ideas that spread
within a culture and between them – are propagated via language and
imitation. Yet, unlike genetic selection, they can spread horizontally
among members of the same generation, and they are subject to almost
infinite mutation through a Chinese whispers effect. In this case the
meme of gender equality is being drawn from other areas of modern
culture into the military sphere, and it is spreading between liberal soci-
eties. In a tough evolutionary environment, of the sort that Richard
Kemp envisages, this might be a mimetic, and even perhaps an evo-
lutionary, dead end. Societies under existential threat from other groups
that persisted in fielding women warriors would die out, along with the
notion that women should be infanteers. Perhaps such an environment
existed in an evolutionary setting, in which women were necessarily
tied to child-rearing for long periods of their fertile lives, the equivalent
age at which men were being prepared for combat. But as we saw from
Adrienne Mayor’s history, there is a long pedigree of women warriors,
not least because the technology of war can compensate for physical dif-
ferences. With culture, natural selection morphs into niche selection –
it continues, but with the proviso that humans can shape their own
environment even as it shapes them.
And so in the modern, liberal world, the ‘cost’, if indeed there is
one, of having women serve in combat arms is bearable – not all wars
are existential. Close infantry fighting is rare, and usually of tactical
value only, assisted by projectile and stand-off weaponry which confers
a far greater advantage. Strategic defeat because of one lost encounter
is not impossible – witness the aftermath of the ‘Black Hawk Down’
incident in Somalia in 1993, when the USA withdrew all of its forces
from the country after losing 18 servicemen in combat during a botched

attempt to capture a local warlord (Bowden 2010). Here the rationale for
US involvement was humanitarian, at the extreme of altruism, but the
commitment to the cause proved limited.
However, we might find more broadly that the societal gains from
including women on an equal basis in the military produce bigger ben-
efits than the cost, in terms of widening the pool of talent on offer to
the army, for example, or, more profoundly, of being consistent and
authentic in the application of one’s liberal values. Moreover, the larger
argument made by many proponents of allowing women the chance to
serve in the infantry is about equality of opportunity, not outcome. This
is what is expected by liberal society – that the ranks should be filled on
merit rather than by any other criteria. Rather than guaranteed places
in the infantry, the question is whether women should be allowed to
compete on equal terms for the opportunity to join the infantry. Few
may either aspire to or have the ability to succeed, but this, for liberals,
is not the point. As a secondary argument, we might question whether
the existing standards of entry into the teeth arm of the military reflect
the required skills of modern combat at close quarters.
It is not, then, that having women in the infantry is an efficiency cost
but rather that not having them represents a challenge to prevailing
cultural norms that can be reasonably borne. The greater cost to society
might instead be from not having women in the infantry. Liberal soci-
eties that move towards a role for women in the infantry have made the
decision, implicitly at least, that the cost of retaining the prohibition is
higher than the risks that are associated with women being involved
in close-quarters combat. To date, liberal societies making that deci-
sion include those with highly effective fighting forces: Australia, the
USA and the Irsael Defence Forces. At time of writing, a British review is
under way and will in all likelihood follow along the path towards true
equality of opportunity.
The relationship between humans and evolution changed with the
development of culture, such that humans now shape the environ-
ment within which evolution happens. General-purpose machine-guns
and flame-throwers are cultural artefacts – expressions of a society’s
capacity for organised violence. Unambiguously, they increase combat
effectiveness on the modern battlefield, although with flame-throwers
one suspects a soft taboo against their use by liberal forces, given their
grisly and indiscriminate effects. Women infanteers, like homosexual
servicemen and desegregated units, are simply further expressions of
that relationship between society and violence. Armed forces, while they
stand apart from their societies, and in the case of liberal societies may
lag behind its cultural attitudes, are nonetheless tethered to them.
So, I concur with Azar Gat when he suggests that the evolution of cul-
ture greatly lengthened the leash that connects the societal expression
of violence to its evolutionary roots, even if it always bears remember-
ing that that the leash is there. Darwinian selection, viewed narrowly,
might suggest a struggle for efficiency in war that requires a functional
split between men and women. Groups that best nurtured and protected
the individuals who carry their genes would on balance survive better
than those that did not. Given the levels of intergroup violence and
other predation, clearly there was a need for the best warriors. These
might be individuals with the most aggression, the greatest muscular
strength and a capacity for risk-taking. If the odds were in their favour,
men had much to gain from combat – not least access to sex, which
was a scarce resource. And if we buy the evolutionary logic advanced by
Dunbar of the human male as protector, or ‘hired gun’, to keep away
other males who were bent on securing their own genetic inheritance,
we have a plausible explanation for comparatively larger and more com-
bative males. Similarly, the best nurturers were needed to look after
the young with their long period of infancy, and women had evolved
particularly strong nurturing and attachment traits (Haidt 2006).
But this traditional warrior role for men need not be the whole story.
First, it is not inevitable that men make the best warriors from the point
of view of natural selection. For starters, genes are not fate, as I argued
from an interactionist perspective. Some women may be physically
more capable than some men, or more aggressive. Some men may have
more of a nurturing tendency than their peers. Second, the group is an
important factor in shaping the onward success of genes that belong to
individuals within it. In conditions of much historical and evolutionary
warfare, while it may be advantageous to split gender roles so that men
do most of the fighting, it need not always be thus. If the shared ideals
that constitute the group require equality and diversity, then the greater
evolutionary good may be served by a more equitable division of fight-
ing labour. In the West, our groups are increasingly synonymous with
our liberal values. We may still be defined to a considerable extent, of
course, by geography, and even by race or ethnicity, but modern liberal
states are also constituted by their values. And as an organising philoso-
phy for societies, liberalism has proved to be remarkably advantageous,
including in war. If we see culture as shared meaning, this is hardly
surprising. Technology and migration have facilitated the spread of lib-
eral ideas, and those ideas have logically challenged the organisation
of people on the basis of anything other than their adherence to those

values.
Liberal states increasingly require a sincere commitment to equality
of opportunity. The degree of sincerity entailed has grown with time
so that the de jure equality offered in law and constitution has gradu-
ally become de facto opportunity. Reason and emotion work increasingly
together to promote the notion of liberality. Challenges to that liberality
threaten the cohesion of the group, and thus the prospects of individual
members. Gradually, then, opinion in liberal societies is becoming more
socially liberal. Equality is an important part of identity and, insofar as
it manifests across issue areas, women in the infantry is as much a part
of that debate as desegregation was previously, and as allowing gays to
openly serve in the military was until very recently.
So, it is not that having women in the infantry is right or wrong
from an efficiency sense. That question, given modern, technologically
dependent combat, is debatable. Instead it’s that it is inevitable from
a logical sense of conforming consistently to group norms. The liberal
West has gained far more from its adherence to liberal values than it
would lose in martial prowess from offering the opportunity for women
to qualify for service in close-quarters combat.
Warrior genes versus Western culture
The essential question in this chapter is about the relationship between

the character of modern warfare and the ways in which evolution
shaped man to fight. The answer is that many of the same traits apply.
Warriors, liberal or otherwise, hold their group in esteem and sacrifice
themselves for it.
Ultimately, some Western values challenge longstanding evolution-
arily informed human behaviours across a range of issues, including
gender. Social welfare states have changed the requirement for women
to invest so much time in child-rearing, freeing some instead for partici-
pation in the labour force. The contraceptive pill has totally undermined
the evolutionary logic of choosing mates – women can, if they wish,
adopt a far more promiscuous approach to mating without any concern
for the likelihood that a mate will prove a good carer for their offspring.
Similarly, modern societies promote different roles for men. The sorts
of aggressive response to challenges to collective and individual status
that might serve well as a deterrent or defence in an evolutionary set-
ting are of little utility in my daily life in Oxford: indeed, they might
be rather a hindrance to scholarly debate. There is no intrinsic need for
modern man to be more heavily muscled or proportionately larger than

women.
Evolution, however, acts at a far slower pace than social change,
not least because selection happens vertically, down the generations,
whereas the cultural propagation of memes happens across society, and
between non-kin-related individuals. Thus, men remain larger and more
heavily muscled, the better to ward off aggressive male competitors and
guard their parental investment. They persist in paying for first dates,
and marriages fail proportionately more when women earn more than
half of household earnings, perhaps because even in our enlightened,
liberal societies, wealth acts as a proxy for male genetic fitness by crudely
signalling status within the group.30
From an evolutionary perspective, we have, however, changed some-
what rapidly over the last 20,000 years or so, becoming, as I have argued,
more domesticated and cooperative, with larger groups. However, we
still retain that evolutionarily older logic of kin-based altruism, and we
are still suspicious of group outsiders. I know that, logically, and as a
good liberal, I should feel no distinction between myself and someone
far distant. But from Robin Dunbar I know that my neocortex is still
evolved to handle small social groups of about 150 people. My prefer-
ence is still to favour my kin, and secondarily to favour people with
whom I feel some sort of group bond. Local wins out over global in
the evolutionary sense, which, after all, diminishes the prospect of
free-riding by undeserving strangers.
My instinctive responses in combat are likely to be much the same
as those of my evolutionary ancestors. In a tight spot I might respond
with the same fight or flight instincts that William Manchester noticed.
I would feel terror, and perhaps rage – emotions that served an adaptive
purpose to early humans. We are primed to respond to those evolved
tendencies, even though our culture varies profoundly from the evo-
lutionary landscape. Thus, when we consider evolutionary psychology,
we find in the ‘hired gun’ thesis a compelling logic to explain why tall
men do better in life than short, or women prefer men with deep voices
(Collins 2000; Judge and Cable 2004).
However, as a domesticated human, I would probably, if I were ever
in combat, also feel a reluctance to kill other humans. I would proba-
bly also experience the same intense loyalty and love of close comrades
that prompts tremendous self-sacrifice of the warrior. And this empa-
thy, allied to that instinct to cooperate, is as much a part of the
makeup of the modern warrior as those evolutionary older adaptations –
aggression, and a drive for dominance.
Discipline, hierarchy and tradition versus liberalism
From this perspective, ‘modern’ warfare is a cultural artefact, layered

onto the evolved and enduring traits for intergroup conflict. In one
important respect, though, culture has been profoundly transforma-
tive of primitive conflict by demanding discipline from soldiers. The
legions of Rome walking steadily into combat in rigidly disciplined ranks
were likely even more terrifying and unnerving for their utter alienness
as the baying of the Germanic hordes opposing them (Goldsworthy
1996). They proved, over an extended period of time, more effective
than warriors fighting in traditional, evolutionarily adaptive ways. Later,
conscripted national armies, including many weaker physical speci-
mens and reluctant warriors, proved vastly superior to the smaller, more
professional forces opposing them. Specialisation, hierarchy and the tra-
ditional military virtues of discipline in the face of chaos and danger
are departures from the evolutionary landscape. In this sense there is
nothing particularly unique about liberal warfare – many illiberal armies
in history, from Sparta and Xerxes’ Persia onward, have extolled these
martial virtues. They require such effort to instil in the troops perhaps
because they are so unnatural.
We did not evolve to have disciplined ranks of warriors or, in another
salient contrast, to have specialised soldiers on the battlefield, some tak-
ing care of engineering tasks, others tending for the wounded, some
employed in ensuring the delivery of key supplies, and only a pro-
portion of the fielded army required to close with and kill the enemy.
These cultural variants of war, along with the myriad developments in
weapons technology – the chariot, the stirrup, the lance and so forth –
are a product the social groups that produce them. In a broad, concep-
tual sense they are evolutionary developments – the group itself and its
capacity for coordinated and cooperative action, innovation and indus-
try, are the great achievements of human evolution. But in their specifics
they are examples of cultural, rather than human, evolution – the dis-
tinctively human ability to shape its environment rather than be shaped
by it. The direction in which that broad capacity is directed, however,
is the stuff of human history and anthropology rather than evolu-
tion or evolutionary psychology, except, perhaps, insofar as liberalism
is the ultimate expression of the evolutionary tendency for sociability
that enables all of the cultural variety that we see in war. Liberalism
enshrines the individual, which makes it the ultimate expression of our
über-sociability. To be a thoroughgoing liberal is to eschew the oppor-
tunities that society routinely places before us to exploit each other for
individual gain. The unintended result of liberalism may be, as discussed

earlier, a societal malaise in which we are less communal and more iso-
lated than previously. But the underlying logic of liberalism is essentially
social – in avoiding harm to others we are advancing their interests,
sometimes at the expense of our own.
This altruism cuts against the martial virtues: to compel discipline
on the battlefield, commanders must sometimes act with a ruthless
consequentialist logic. Young men are sent into high-risk situations,
sometimes knowing that there is little prospect of safe return. And so the
military, liberal militaries included, value sacrifice for the wider group
and venerate the tradition of their units, and individuals submit them-
selves to discipline and obedience. The sacrifice is made for comrades in
the heat of battle, for the regiment itself – that group whose existence
and virtue extends through time – and lastly, one suspects, for many,
in defence of the wider societal group and its values, from which they
sometimes feel alienated, if not opposed.
This is the essence of it. Liberal armies fight in defence of values
that many of their constituent soldiers may individually admire or sub-
scribe to. Armed forces are reflective of the societies from which they are
drawn, and – though unrepresentative in some important aspects, being
young and predominantly male – the warriors of liberal armies might
nonetheless share similar values. But those values must be set aside in
battle, if not in the recruiting office. Both armies and their liberal soci-
eties value the notion of altruism and sacrifice. Yet the deontological
logic that drives liberal philosophy – celebrating the sanctity of each
individual life – cannot easily be squared with the utilitarianism of bat-
tle. Liberal militaries fight to defend, and even to extend, liberal values,
but they must do so in an illiberal manner. They must accept discipline,
and acknowledge the prospect of their own death. And, ultimately, they
must be prepared to kill – the defining act of illiberalism.
Losing the will to fight
An enduring conservative thought holds that modernity and civilisa-

tion undermine the capacity to fight, producing degenerate and weak
citizens, so consumed with the material attractions of life that they
neglect the virtues of duty and sacrifice. There is little new here – the
same thought occurred to Roman authors and many since. In our mod-
ern era, masculinity is in poor shape – often literally, given rising levels
of childhood obesity and the associated health problems. The military
vocation may only require a small sliver of society to fill the ranks,
but recruiters in both the USA and the UK have increasingly found it
difficult to meet even these modest targets. Have modern liberal citi-
zens become less effective warriors? My answer is that as domesticated
humans we may be less inclined to fight, and that as modern liberals
we might also be encultured not to fight. But both of these factors can
readily be modified by the more proximate environment.
In a vintage experiment, John Seward found that when rats believed
that they had lost a fight, they would respond less aggressively the next
time they were in a confrontation (Seward 1946). The defeated rats had
encountered an environment in which force did not pay off, and so they
had learned to fear fighting. Another, later experiment conversely found
it possible to condition an automatic aggressive response from rats –
they would respond more confidently having learned to do so from
earlier experience (Ulrich et al. 1963). In a third experiment, from the
1980s, van de Poll and colleagues found that rats that had been defeated
(they were fighting a consistently more aggressive strain of rat) learned a
significant and enduring inhibition – they demonstrated thereafter less
initiative and aggression. The reverse was true of the same type of rat
when put in confrontations with a less aggressive strain (Van de Poll
et al. 1982). In all of these experiments the interaction of inherited
traits and environmental conditions produced either a more or a less
aggressive response from the rats, depending on what they had learned.
There was a genetic component to aggression which was latent in the
rat but was called forth by the context of the moment and by what it
had learned from experience.
In modern liberal societies, force does not pay off, most of the time.
There are punitive consequences for resorting to violence, and – more
than that – there are the social constraints that we encountered in the
previous chapter. Perhaps then the traditionalists are right and we lib-
erals are degenerate. We have learned through our development that
violent responses are wrong; and as adults we live in environments
where few peers offer social proof of violence working. Moreover, we
are descendants of humans who have evolved cooperative approaches
to problem-solving.
Might it be that a selective breeding programme would be able to
produce more aggressive humans that are capable of outstanding per-
formance in close-quarters combat? Richard Dawkins certainly thinks
that is possible (Dawkins 2009). After all, it rests merely on the sort of
‘artificial selection’ that is seen in dog breeding. In a very short period
of time, breeders can select for all sorts of physical traits, including
aggression. The military itself has an interest in this sort of artificial
selection through its use of dogs in all sorts of roles, including in

combat by the Special Forces. If dogs, like humans, have undergone
a period of domestication, becoming more sociable and less violent,
then surely that can be undone in short order? However, the idea of
breeding humans to be more aggressive conjures up images of sinister
eugenics and discredited notions of social Darwinism of the sort that
captivated the Nazis, and it would not be completely straightforward.
While we saw earlier that there is some evidence for a genetic compo-
nent to violent criminal behaviour, this was not sufficiently robust as
to be predictive. Even the so-called ‘warrior gene’ which is implicated
in the Finnish study of convicted criminals that I cited earlier is not
tantamount to fate.
Perhaps a more viable alternative is the use of pharmaceutical, neuro-
scientific and other artificial enhancements for warriors – a prospect that
was raised by Christopher Coker who sees in it a radical transformation
of war, fundamentally altering its human essence (Coker 2007). Warriors
who are more aggressive, suffer less fatigue and experience less trauma
in killing are all feasible products of ongoing scientific research, and
the efficiency imperative in warfare makes them plausible, even though
there would be deeply troubling ethical ramifications in so doing for a
society that venerates the individual.
What about conditioning warriors? The experiments with rats were
essentially about the effect of the environment on genes that are already
present. Similarly, the social character of a child may be highly influ-
enced by its developmental interaction with other humans, especially
parents, in its early years. The ‘hard-wired’ architecture for developing
social intelligence is present, but the child learns through its interactions
with other humans.
And so we are back to where we started: How violent is mankind, and
are we becoming more or less so? My argument should by now be clear:
an ‘innate’ capacity for belligerence is with us all, doubtless in varying
degrees, but it has, I suggest, been ameliorated through an evolutionary
process of self-domestication. What’s more, such inclinations as remain
(and they certainly do) can be modified in their expression by our social
development and then summoned in a particular environmental con-
text. Part of infantry training, after all, aims to do just that – encourage
cadets to express their aggression in bayonet drills, ‘milling’ and close-
quarters unarmed combat ahead of any battlefield encounter with the
real thing. Training and exercising helps them to learn to manage their
fear and stress, for example, when experiencing tear gas without wearing
a respirator, on survival resistance and evasion courses, and in coping
with capture and hostile interrogation. Training also helps, as Captain

Beattie averred, in preparing them to kill at close quarters, even if doing
so remains particularly difficult for many. Like the rats, the cadets are
being conditioned to fight aggressively.
Returning the discussion to liberal war, some speculation is possible
regarding the effects of liberal society in shaping individuals for combat.
Most youngsters in Western liberal societies do not encounter the sort
of physical privations that hunter-gatherers would have met regularly.
Modernity has dramatically curtailed infant mortality, and the threat
from out-group violence is also vanishingly small by comparison. And
yet, while healthier in some respects – notably in being free from many
disease risks and malnutrition – modern lifestyles have also diminished
the physical fitness of many children.31 Children in modern liberal soci-
eties are happily free from much violence, both within and between
communities. There is no corporal punishment at school and smack-
ing as a disciplinary measure is declining at home. The brutalisation of
children who become embroiled in conflict in the developing world pro-
vides a stark contrast. Does this mean that the fear of a degenerate and
defenceless liberal sphere is justified? Far from it.
There is little that is fundamentally intrinsic to Western societies
that would necessarily inhibit their abilities to use violence instru-
mentally. Fit and aggressive soldiers may be in fairly short supply,
but technology and organisation have been able to a considerable
degree to compensate. Indeed, in their capacity to innovate new and
effective approaches to war, liberal societies have found a compelling
advantage over many diverse, non-liberal societies. As the extensive
conscription of the Vietnam War demonstrated, there are certainly lim-
its to the capacity of Western states to compel large numbers to serve
effectively in wars that are of dubious strategic value and that corre-
spondingly command limited support. But this does not necessarily
mean that liberal societies could not again generate substantially larger
forces if they needed the numbers in the event of a more existential
threat.
In any case, while violence may be maladaptive in daily life for a lib-
eral citizen, yet quite handy in the midst of battle, I have little reason to
suspect that a liberal citizen, being essentially the same sort of human
today as his grandfather was on D-Day, is any less capable of fighting.
In fact, as I’ve argued, similar psychological forces underpin both lib-
eralism and effective soldiering. This is not, clearly, the propensity for
violence in a fight that might be considered evolutionarily important
for all animals that face predation or rivals, but rather the capacity to
form meaningful group bonds, and to make high-cost sacrifices for our
fellows. We cooperate instinctively and are motivated to punish those
who threaten the group, either physically or by attacking their ideals.
Liberals and liberal warriors have all that in common; they may just
differ in the size of the group in question and in the depth of their
emotional attachment towards it.
8
Liberal War Stories
This chapter links the evolutionary ideas that were explored earlier to
the rather postmodern idea of constructed social meaning. In interna-
tional relations the constructivist tradition suggests that what might
seem to a realist scholar to be ontological realities of strategic affairs
are in some degree social creations. The two schools need not, in fact,
be mutually exclusive (Barkin 2010). In fact, for a classical realist such as
Raymond Aron, the idea that meaning and identity are integral elements
of human intergroup relations is not at all strange. From an evolution-
ary psychology perspective too, there is nothing new in the idea that
the stories that we tell one another can in part constitute our reality.
In this chapter I consider stories of war and heroism, and find that, while
they are an enduring feature of human society, there is, nonetheless,
something distinctive about liberal society’s war stories.
We have evolved as storytellers, embedded within a social group that
provides the basis for our security and self-actualisation. Our ability
to interpret and respond to the world around us, especially our social
world, and to express this to others is possibly the biggest thing that
sets us apart from our primate cousins.
The capacity for language and stories presupposes the existence of
conscious, reflective minds, whose deliberations are the stuff of abstract
thought. There is plenty of cognition going on outside our conscious
mind, as I argued earlier, and we may well be deluding ourselves to sup-
pose ourselves possessed of a free will, independent of the unconscious,
often instinctual decision-making that actually drives our behaviour.
But illusory or not, we see ourselves as purposive agents who are able
to interpret and reflect on the world. If the self is essentially an illu-
sion, as Sam Harris and many others have argued, then it is a powerful
one (Harris 2012). We can see this unified self as our internal reflections
151
on the feeling of what happens, as Antonio Damasio puts it (Damasio

2012). This self is a constantly generated response to the world, an
observer engaged always in a search for meaning and understanding.
The evolutionary psychologist Nicholas Humphrey argues that our
conscious self confers a powerful evolutionary advantage. We are aware
of ourselves as agents in the world, interacting purposively with our
environment and other individuals (Humphrey 2011). At a core level,
this conscious mind gives us a stake in the world that is a powerful
motivator to stay alive. Reflecting on life, he writes, we find that we
enjoy it, and, anticipating death, that we dread it.
Meaning is an important aspect of that consciousness. The self is an
inveterate storyteller, not least to itself – always seeking connections and
narrative. Jonathan Gottschall suggests that we evolved in this way in
part to make sense of the jumble of confusing reality by imposing a
logical narrative – one that is ofttimes good enough to account for the
available evidence (Gottschall 2012). We typically concoct these stories
in a self-serving way, building not objective interpretations of the facts
but narratives that preserve our esteem and provide personal meaning.
Lastly, he conjectures, we use stories as a way of rehearsing to ourselves
possible courses of action – a form of scenario planning, involving all
sorts of situations that we might not regularly encounter in our daily
lives. Similarly, Jonathan Haidt sees stories as a way of enhancing our
well-being. Happiness comes, in his view, from being able to spin a story
that makes sense of the world, and our responses to it (Haidt 2006).
But, of course, as well as giving us a personal narrative, stories are
a social affair. Stories serve to bind a group together. In fact, in some
senses they serve to actually define the group. We articulate these stories
socially through shared language, and it seems to be a plausible specu-
lation to me that our rich consciousness and our capacity for abstract
language co-evolved. Our conscious mind serves an important social
purpose – it allows us to actively reflect on what others are thinking – in
particular, what they think about us. The stories that we tell are a useful
way of conveying gossip. In fact, one reason Humphrey advances for
the evolution of sophisticated, rich consciousness is precisely this abil-
ity of enhanced social awareness. A species that can reflect on its social
relationships in this manner would have a distinct evolutionary advan-
tage over one that could not. Elena Martinescu and colleagues argue
that much of this gossip, while ostensibly about others, is actually about
ascertaining our own place in the social order: we use the sort of gossip
that people share with us as a barometer of what they think about us
(Martinescu et al. 2014).
Liberal War Stories 153
All of this requires ‘mentalising’ about others’ internal states, whence

comes empathy. Being self-aware, we are able to reflect that the same
phenomenon may exist to others – perhaps they too have a lively inte-
rior mind. We become aspirant mind-readers, seeking to intuit what
those around us are thinking. In fact, as we’ve seen, we may overdo
that, anthropomorphising all sorts of creatures and inanimate objects,
and intuiting in them the same sense of agency that we feel in ourselves.
It’s a reflection of our wider concern with causal relationships, particu-
larly where these may involve human agency, and our desire to establish
meaning and narrative.
Language then, likely co-evolving as our sense of self, deepened and
became richer, and has provided the great cognitive leap forward for
Homo sapiens, allowing us to share information socially with these other
conscious minds, and also to articulate abstract thoughts – describing
ideas, not merely objects – in ways that no other animal we know of
can manage. Consciousness and language are ubiquitous human traits –
perhaps even the defining feature of our humanity, and certainly vital
ingredients in that process of self-domestication. We come, as modern
neuroscience demonstrates, preloaded with an ability to learn complex
language, and capable of expressing abstract ideas (Pinker 1994). Other
species of human may have come some way along this path, as recent
evidence of Neanderthal art suggests, but there is good reason to suspect
that their ability to do so was not as well developed (Rodriguez-Vidal
et al. 2014). Part of that suspicion is founded on the complexity, or
rather the lack thereof, of their societies.
Myth
Language and consciousness thus provide a means of bonding the group

together, through time and across space. Together they enable the rich
cultural diversity of human history, by allowing for abstract thought
and the propagation of ideas. They create, in particular, the capacity
for myth, which is the essence of culture – a shared story that res-
onates across a community, with the potential to unite people who
are otherwise total strangers and who may never meet. Storytelling and
gossip allow the group to enlarge far beyond its longstanding bound-
aries, as a small band of mostly interrelated individuals. This requires
imagination – empathy, after all, is an imaginative act.
A myth is simply a collective story that may be allegorical, or
have some basis in fact. Myths often have symbolic meaning and a
moral dimension. There are personal forces at work in the stories of
myth – not impersonal laws – making them easier to relate to and

memorable.
Karen Armstrong, in her stimulating short history of myth, argues that
we have separated myth from reason to our detriment in the modern
era (Armstrong 2004). Myths seem somehow alien to our Enlightened
selves – products of a less knowledgeable and less knowing time. That
may be our modern inclination and aspiration, but I am not convinced
that it represents how we really think. As Damasio and others show,
the connections between our ‘rational’ and unconscious, instinctive
and emotional selves are not as clearcut as they might seem. Modern
mythologies address the immanent rather than the material world –
they are not literal or factual, yet they retain their purchase on our
imagination despite the scientific revolution. A scientific revolution that
places rationalism front and centre would seem ostensibly to challenge
the rationale of mythology, at least of myth seen as stories that lack
material evidence. Yet we know that even seemingly obvious myths,
such as the creation story, retain a powerful hold on the collective con-
scious, even in ostensibly rational and increasingly secular societies.
We are still superstitious, and ghost stories still frighten and thrill us,
even if our reason tells us that both are nonsense.
This speaks of a deep, foundational need to share social stories and
meaning. Social proof may be all the proof we need that a story is cred-
ible, or at least meaningful. Being at one with the group may even be
more a powerful motive than seeking challenging evidence. The story
need not matter as much as its being our story. But we moderns also
employ myth as metaphor, with no requirement that the story should be
real in anything other than its deeper sense as a conveyer of normative,
not factual, information.
Religion provides one particular form of collective myth, emerging
perhaps in our tendency to seek meaning for the unexplained, and find-
ing it in a supernatural spirituality. But religion also provides a way of
encoding moral information, and conveying it memorably and convinc-
ingly via story. Jonathan Gotschall suggests, incidentally, that the same
function is fulfilled by much fiction, which shares with holy scriptures
both the social and the moral elements (Gottschall 2012). Religion rein-
forces meaning, identity and appropriate behaviours to those within
and without the group. And religion need be only one among many
markers of what is essentially cultural identity. After all, culture, if we
again follow Geertz, is simply a shared understanding of who we are
and how we ought to behave (Geertz 1975).
Homo sapiens may have lived in small groups of intimates, but
the archaeological record shows that they traded across considerable
distances. With the onset of urbanisation and then later agriculture,

they proved able to form large social units, exceeding their capacity
to remember the detail of information about their associates. Stories of
‘who we are’ served to fill some of the gaps in their knowledge and
allowed a rough reckoning of who to trust. Both individual and collec-
tive identities are stories that are more or less fabricated, and more or
less self-serving. We should hardly be surprised that stories of war and
honour are also self-serving.
The meaning of war
The search for meaning via stories and myth is an integral constituent
of human warfare, serving both instrumental and existential purposes.
The stories that we tell about war are at once a way of describing the
phenomenon and seeking to ascribe meaning to it, which may go far
wider than the ontological realities of war itself. War is inevitably a social
activity, and war stories have a social dimension, including delineating
and defining the group, and perhaps bringing it closer together in sharp
contrast with its enemies.
War is also an individual activity, and the stories that we tell about it
will in part be about preserving the space for individual agency – that
capacity for action; the ability to reflect and respond to the violence
about us; and to find personal meaning in what is happening. Richard
Hillary’s romanticised notions of aerial warfare that we encountered
earlier offer one response to war that reveals this search for narrative,
agency and meaning. The violence is savage and brutal – after all, Hillary
paid with extensive burns and ultimately his life. But it is also evident
that he finds meaning and purpose in his actions – war is existentially
fulfilling. Not everyone, of course, can lay claim to similarly uplifting
experiences of warfare, though there are many accounts of war that
involve joy and happiness, as we saw with Karl Marlantes and Chris
Kyle earlier, even in the grimness of close-quarters combat. In Sebastian
Junger’s War, the soldiers feel particularly alive amid combat and worry
that they will not recapture that feeling as civilians (Junger 2010).
Lastly, since the individual does not exist in social isolation, war sto-
ries may reflect on the relationship between the protagonist and the
group, and these last are the stories of honour and heroism, since I have
defined honour as necessarily related to the dictates of society. To attain
honour in war, the individual acts at personal cost to uphold public
good, becoming in so doing a valued member of society. These themes
are the essential ingredients of the mythology of war, across time and
cultures, as true of today’s liberal societies as they were of protohistorical
Homeric Greece. The highest point of heroism is of total sacrifice for

the group, not for a cause, which can only serve as a proxy for the
group. Kyle quotes from the Medal of Honour citation of his SEAL com-
rade Mike Monsoor, who dived onto a grenade to save his comrades and
was killed. ‘[I]f he had so chosen,’ the citation reads, ‘he could easily
have escaped. Instead, Monsoor chose to protect his comrades by the
sacrifice of his own life: the ultimate story of heroism.’1
War stories are told by soldiers to their comrades, and to themselves,
not just as a way of integrating the small group but as a way of making
sense of what has happened – the story as a form of therapy that strives
to create a satisfying logic out of the messy jumble of reality. And the
stories that they tell are often about honour – not in the sense of brag-
gadocio about personal valour, but more often about the honour of not
letting the team down and the disgrace that accrues to those who do.
War stories are also told for and consumed by a wider society, perhaps
eager for a safe exposure to the savage danger of combat – stories again
as a way of scenario planning. And war stories are created and shared by
wider society, not just combatants, as a way of understanding why war
has happened, and of telling a particular and partial narrative.
Storytelling then remains a central feature of modern warfare, in con-
trast perhaps with the sense that we have of the modern world as
rational, scientific and in possession of fact and method. In the non-
existential wars of modern liberal societies, it does not matter so much
what has happened but what is believed to have happened. So we find
that the UK’s military doctrine publication centre places a particular
emphasis on narrative as the key to achieving favourable outcomes in
future wars.2 Victory does not simply amount to annihilating enemies,
no matter how much Chris Kyle might have wished it so.
It is here, in the military acknowledgment of a compelling strategic
narrative to explain war and a related story to describe victory, that
we can again detect the importance of esteem. The feeling of having
won, of believing it is almost as important as the reality, modern war
itself appears as a somewhat remote stage play to citizens in liberal soci-
eties, with its share of drama and even tragedy. We are familiar with the
players from their own accounts, and from the tactical drama of cur-
rent affairs television; we can participate in the drama by turning out
to salute the returning coffins of the dead. But war does not make any
particular demands on our own society, outside occasional terror plots,
or the inconvenience of tightened airport security. Our armies are tiny;
the cost of the war, while not insignificant, can be readily borne by pros-
perous economies. What we are left with is a need to understand why
we are involved – the common refrain of the British public regarding

Afghanistan was this lack of clear explanation.
This large perceptual element differs from earlier wars in which the
outcome was more definitive and the connection between military
activity and political goal more tightly drawn. But if liberal war is a
particularly subjective account, we should remember that there is a
common evolutionary thread with a great many wars having been
fought by disparate societies. Wars are often fought for reasons of sta-
tus, and that, I argue, is not necessarily because status makes sense as
an important goal for modern states to pursue, notwithstanding argu-
ments about the deterrence value of reputation and credibility. Rather,
it is a goal that we instinctively feel on behalf of the group with which
we identify.
And so the 9/11 attacks on the USA provided a jarring shock to the
self-confidence of a hitherto invulnerable homeland, delivered by a
poorly trained gaggle of young men who were armed with box cutters.
The attack, while vivid, clearly does not constitute a serious threat to the
continued existence of US society but rather is a challenge to its sense of
self and is viscerally felt. This attack on its standing sharply delineates
the group – ‘You are either with us or against us,’ as President Bush told
the world. The Taliban were against: they refused to surrender Osama
bin Laden, because that, in turn, would violate their sense of honour.
And so liberal democracies embarked together on a decades-long war
against a decidedly illiberal and deeply conservative religious grouping
in a battle over status. Western leaders talk about a ‘battle of ideas’, and
the language is constitutive of the group and the stakes in the ongoing
war (Payne 2009). In a battle of ideas, the prestige of the group, indeed
its very identity is closely bound up in the fortunes of war. For all the
cultural uniqueness of advanced liberal societies, we can readily detect
the evolutionary logic of identity and status in their decisions to fight,
and to continue fighting (Payne 2014).
So war involves telling a story, not least about who has won. Suc-
cess in war is relative, contingent and sometimes subjective. In this
sense, war, as both Clausewitz and Thomas Schelling saw it, is a par-
ticular type of conversation between two or more belligerent societies
(Schelling 1966). Victory is a waypoint in that conversation, bounded in
time and space, and representing an agreement, achieved through force,
that may be implicit and subjective. There is nothing to preclude both
sides simultaneously feeling either victorious or defeated because there
may be an asymmetry in goals to add to the subjective interpretation of
outcomes.
In this way there is scope for a profound disconnect between military

activity and the political outcome of war. One is the outcome of battle:
enemies killed or routed. The other is the product of a society’s collective
storytelling: their understanding of who they are and what has been
changed by fighting.
War is sometimes unambiguously decisive in imposing a settlement
in which all sections of society can understand clearly who has won
and who has lost. Perhaps the outcome of particular battles translates
directly into victory. An army is annihilated, so that the country loses
the ability to defend itself. Or perhaps some vital piece of territory is cap-
tured, or a key, charismatic and popular leader who is closely identified
with the group is killed. In the Götterdämmerung of May 1945, all of these
defeats were inflicted on Nazi Germany, leading to a decisive and uncon-
ditional surrender, and a dramatic and rapid transformation of what it
meant to be German. Germany itself remained, of course, albeit split
in two for a time. That abrupt and clear defeat constrained the bounds
of storytelling about the war. There was no stab-in-the-back narrative
to parallel that which followed the First World War, fuelling national
socialism. Nor was there a protracted and somewhat inconclusive debate
about the origins of the war, as has followed in the historiography of the
First World War – a war whose cause, conduct and ultimate conclusion
remain the subject of divergent narrative accounts.
By contrast with the Second World War, the gap between tactical
action and the ultimate political goal has become particularly pro-
nounced in recent conflicts that have been fought by Western liberal
societies. On the one hand there is a narrative of extreme professional
competence on the part of Western fighting forces – the all-volunteer,
technologically sophisticated armed forces are held in high esteem by
many members of the public. On the other there is a lack of defini-
tive clarity about rationales and results. Why are ‘we’ in Afghanistan,
and how can we judge whether or not the protracted operation, combat
deaths and huge financial outlays (more than was spent on the Marshall
plan for reconstructing Europe, according to one recent account) have
worked. If liberal societies fight to preserve their esteem, then the stories
that they tell about their wars are an important part of their self-image.
Death, terror and the group
The desire to impose a narrative on what happens is an inherent human

tendency that has origins in our sociability. It may also relate to our
awareness of individual mortality – a distinctly human phenomenon.
Adherents to terror management theory suggest that we use narrative

and seek meaning as a way of dealing with the absurdity of our impend-
ing deaths (Greenberg et al. 1986). There can be no meaning in death,
except that which we are able to provide for ourselves. In particular, the
theory suggests that we avoid the terror by ascribing meaning to the
group. We may die, but the group lives on, imbued with our values and
myths. Culture thus offers a secular form of immortality – a way of cop-
ing with our conscious awareness of death. In a range of experiments,
psychologists have demonstrated that making death more salient shifts
our perception of the group. In the normal course of events, we are
biased in favour of our in-group, as we have seen. Bringing the prospect
of death to mind only enhances those tendencies. And so, in a landmark
study, Greenberg et al. found that making mortality ‘salient’ – that is,
bringing it to mind – made American subjects strongly dislike someone
who was critical of the USA, regardless of whether they were described
as a Communist or a Harvard professor – the latter someone whom they
might otherwise instinctively have considered a respected establishment
voice. Similarly, Christians who were made aware of their mortality gave
more positive interpersonal judgement ratings and trait assessments to
fellow Christians than to Jews (Greenberg et al. 1990).
Of course, few events are more likely to bring death to mind as war,
particularly if one is caught up in the fighting as a participant. We might
plausibly expect, and do indeed observe, a ‘rally to the flag’ effect in
times of national emergency. Indeed, Landau and colleagues discovered
that making mortality salient in a series of studies that also brought to
mind the 9/11 terror attacks increased support for President Bush and
his anti-terror policies (Landau et al. 2004).
Meanwhile, on the battlefield itself, we should hardly be surprised if
the threat of death contributes to a hardening of attitude towards the
‘enemy’ whether combatants or civilians in the society among which
the fighting occurs. Caputo describes just such a hardening in attitudes
over the five months of his deployment as a Marine to Vietnam.
The relevant group to which we feel a cultural affinity, the better to
buffer the anxiety of death, need not be the state, defined by a national
culture – it might as easily be the more localised culture of a military
unit. If we think back to Samuel Bowles’ contention that war catalysed
the evolution of altruism because more altruistic societies were better
able to coordinate their violence, then we might detect in terror man-
agement theory a complimentary idea – the real prospect of individual
death makes people more aware of their group identity, and more vested
in it. The group provides both protection in life and a sense of enduring
meaning beyond death, regardless of any conjectures about immortal

souls.
We need not subscribe fully to terror management theory to allow
that we draw immense comfort from the stories that we tell ourselves
and others, particularly in responding to times of crisis and anxiety.
Timothy Wilson argues that talking therapies can enjoy success not
by successfully allowing us to access our true inner thoughts through
introspection and engagement with a trained and skilled therapist, but
because the stories that we emerge with, provided that we believe them,
offer a way of making sense of our lives in a satisfying way (Wilson
2002). What matters is a convincing narrative, especially if it portrays us
in a way that manages to preserve or bolster our self-esteem. We might,
in the case of war, expect such stories to involve self-serving narratives
of collective injustice, of struggle against the odds, the enemy or our
own fears. If we can articulate a collective story of war, we bolster the
coherence of the group and thereby its fighting power – the individuals
constituting the group will identify strongly with it, and be prepared to
make greater sacrifices on its behalf.
So the modern world retains its fascination with stories, and for solid
psychological reasons – they are both role-play and scenario planning.
They connect us to our wider cultural landscape, across space and time,
keeping at bay the fear of death. They offer a spiritual element in a
secular age, and they encapsulate and reinforce the morals of our group.
The liberal hero
The arguments that are offered above about storytelling apply to society
in general, not merely to liberal societies. This consistency is revealing –
liberal societies share with many others a capacity for spirituality, even
absent institutional religiosity. There are still collected stories constitut-
ing identities. And in many respects the moral framework is similar,
especially in its emphasis on justice for us over justice for them. We lib-
erals are still animated by a desire for revenge and punishment, and we
still have the capacity to make reductive, stereotypical and pernicious
judgements about others.
Evidently too there is a still an empathy gap – some stories are more
emotionally engaging than others, although it’s not always evident why
one particular narrative might gain traction and another not. Enemies
are still hajis, slopes or gooks – and to popular culture too, not just to the
fighting man. We still hear about ‘ancient hatreds’ that animate more
primitive societies, juxtaposed with our modern rationality.
In short, modern, liberal narratives of war are in some respects similar

to the myths of war from other cultures. But there is an important dif-
ference: liberal war stories are self-knowing, reflective and even cynical –
postmodern, that is, at least in the sense that was meant by Foucault.
There is a straightforward myth of the hero that is still with us. He is
often embarked on a journey or a struggle, sometimes into a supernat-
ural world, from which he can emerge purified. The hero stands apart
from his society as something to admire, and perhaps emulate, if only
symbolically. This Homeric hero retains an important role in modern
mythology. The modern hero, like his historic predecessors, fights either
for the needs of his society or to satisfy the demands of his own moral
code. The complete hero is the warrior who fights, as does Achilles and
Yates’ airman, not merely for the slight to honour but for the pure exis-
tential expression of fighting. The cause may be a necessary explanation
of his valour, but it is not sufficient to explain his delight in the mastery
of combat.
These myths speaks to the psychological power of individual agency
and self-determination. In ancient mythology, the hero chooses the
right path, not the easy one, and the modern hero does likewise, presup-
posing choice. That agency sometimes was not easy in an industrialised
battlefield of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in mass armies
and societies that celebrated the collective over the individual. Yet even
totalitarian warfare required heroes, and both the Soviet Union and the
Third Reich produced individual warriors whose feats could be extolled
in propaganda for the benefit of the collective public. Hans Rudel, Stuka
pilot, shot down more than 20 times, winner of a specially created medal
from Hitler and with a reward on his head from Stalin, exemplifies the
type (Rudel and Hudson 1979). The hero retained his place in mythol-
ogy even in radically different social settings. We should not be surprised
therefore that the hero remains relevant in a postmodern setting in
which the balance has swung again, in the liberal West, back towards
the individual.
Today we perceive ourselves as entrepreneurs of our own identities.
Thus, Philip Caputo describes the transition into Marines of himself and
his men. They had chosen to become Marines, and it gave them pride.
Later on he describes another transition that they make after the first
combat death in the unit. The fictitious and romanticised version of war
that he had carried with him and that had motivated him to actively
seek out war, by choice, fell away.
The idea of the individual identity and the search for subjective mean-
ing even permeates army recruiting, as exemplified by the US Army’s
2001 ‘Army of One’ campaign. The reality may be somewhat differ-

ent. Of course, militaries and warriors alike have long had the tension
between the anonymous team and the valourous individual. Consider
T. E. Lawrence’s post-war desire to subsume himself under a false name
within a mass of junior RAF personnel, in stark contrast with the dra-
matic and self-conscious image that he crafted as an army officer in
the First World War. The fact that he wrote a book about his search for
anonymity is also perhaps revealing, though in fairness he insisted that
it should be published posthumously (Lawrence 1955). And yet, as much
as it is about the individual, the tale of the hero speaks of the collective.
The hero, modern or otherwise, is someone who suffers for the common
cause. Even in a world of dramatically changed social scale, with huge
nation states and large armies, the hero’s story is a way of relating our-
selves to the group in a meaningful way. The hero of Afghanistan and
Iraq may be somewhat apart from society, and can feel alienation and
apathy from his countrymen. But the wider society of non-warriors is
still hungry for tales of war and warriors.
Karen Armstrong makes another stimulating point about modernity.
We may still mythologise heroes, she argues, but we do so in a way that
is distinct from earlier society. The modern hero is the celebrity, whom
we seek to emulate for acclaim, rather than the traditional hero, whose
struggle against larger forces informs our understanding of the world
and our place within it. This, she suggests, is a profound change. ‘The
myth of the hero was not intended to provide us with icons to admire,’
she writes, ‘but was designed to tap into the vein of heroism within
ourselves.’3
I disagree again. Acclaim and adulation have always been part of hero-
ism and of esteem. Stories of the hero then as now contain an element
of idolisation. They also act as scripts to follow, at least for some –
perhaps not literally, since it’s true that the martial hero has been a more
marginal figure in modern times, and the celebrity looms larger. The mil-
itary life is not a literal call to action for any other than a tiny minority
of liberal society who follow the call to arms. But for the rest of us, per-
haps there is little harm in daydreaming. After all, the liberal way of life
that is the destination point for the ‘Last Man’ in Fukuyama’s End of His-
tory and the Last Man sounds a bit dull, as the author himself conceded
(Fukuyama 1992). The military hero at least provides a form of escapism
from the mundanity of everyday life in a post-industrial society. Mili-
tary virtue can speak to us of the values of duty, respect and integrity
in other areas of life than the battlefield. The soldier is still admired by
some in liberal society for this sense of selflessness. The hero can be read
thus as a symbol of virtue.
Celebrity in any case has always been a part of heroism. The heroes
of recent wars are often the anonymous figures of the Special Forces
community, like the SEALs of the successful raid on Abbottabad dur-
ing which bin Laden was killed. There are some exceptions: figures who
are publicly acclaimed for their heroism. The death of Pat Tillman, star
American football player, while serving with the US Army Rangers in
Afghanistan, is a story of heroic and noble sacrifice to set against the
barbarism of 9/11. He unites in one person Armstrong’s notion of the
hero-as-celebrity with the hero-as-warrior. The controversy over whether
Tillman was shot by his own side misses the point: his heroism rests
on his action, fighting with the group, for his comrades.4 In the UK,
meanwhile, Private Johnson Beharry won his Victory Cross for two inci-
dents in which he rescued comrades from ambush, displaying courage
under fire and while badly injured himself.5 The hero here is one who
saves rather than destroys. Beharry achieved deserved public renown,
but at great cost: he later suffered post-traumatic stress and reportedly
attempted suicide. These are heroes who exemplify the sort of pro-
fessional, collective ethos that brings the army its favourable public
reputation. It is an old-fashioned heroism, somewhat at odds with the
more modern, knowing and ironic hero of modernity.
This, I would argue, is the larger difference between the heroes of old
and today. Modern societies are sceptical and sometimes cynical about
the stories that we tell ourselves, about the nature and authority of
knowledge, and about who gets to arbitrate meaning. The phenomenon
goes under the broad rubric of postmodernity, of course – a pushback
against the Enlightenment era’s scientific certainties and optimism. The
irony that results is perhaps more than anything else the symbol of mod-
ern liberal societies, resting above all on a knowingness and scepticism.
This knowingness is perhaps nowhere more sharply distinct than when
modern societies wage war. And so we are angry when it turns out that
the casus belli for war was exaggerated, or even manufactured by elites,
but we respond with a jaded ennui.
There is, for example, tremendous irony in pursuing the heroic quest
despite foreknowledge of failure and the cost to oneself. The best mem-
oirs of Vietnam capture that sense of doom foretold, and the very
best writing, such as that of Philip Caputo and Karl Marlantes, you
watch unfold uneasily despite the benefit of hindsight. This is self-
awareness of futility, of the individual who knows that the scale of
war dwarfs his efforts at agency and meaning. Here is a reluctant
hero, created by circumstances and forces that he cannot control, yet
who nonetheless follows though, seeking to do the right thing by
his men.
Caputo argued that there was little scope for heroism in Vietnam.
‘A good death involved a certain amount of choice, ritual and style,’ he
wrote, before concluding that ‘there were no good deaths in the war.’6
The killing there was simply too random, stripping the warrior of agency
and skill, and the fighting of meaning. War was just one attritional
ambush after another, without decision, in the pursuit of goals that
seemed remote and ludicrous to the fighting men. Yet this was Caputo
at a low point; elsewhere he rightly notes the heroism of his friend and
fellow officer, who was killed while trying to rescue an injured Marine,
despite his own injuries. Caputo describes the essentials of heroism in
that small act of courage – it is sacrifice for the small group of warriors,
done instinctively, and with little connection to the wider rights and
wrongs of war. Caputo writes: ‘I had to admire his determination to do
the thing as it was supposed to be done . . . he had probably done it as he
had done everything else – naturally and because he thought it was the
right thing to do.’7
It was in the larger search for meaning, of course, that the Vietnam
War was so disruptive – tearing the fabric of US society and robbing the
warriors themselves of wider acclaim for their courage. Caputo writes of
the herald, or ‘battle singer’ of old, who ‘sang verses around the war-
rior’s guttering fires to wring order and meaning out of the chaotic clash
of arms, [and] to keep the tribe human by providing it with models
of virtuous behaviour’.8 This is the notion of the mythological hero,
and of war as a story, themes that I argue are common to liberal and
early modern war alike. But for Caputo there was a problem with the
Vietnam War:
The battle singer’s task was the same. The nature of war made it
exceptionally difficult: how to find meaning in such a meaningless
conflict? How to make sense out of a succession of random fire fights
that achieved nothing? How to explain our failings? And what heroes
could be found in a war so murky and savage?9
Difficult, he argues, but necessary. And not, I would add, impossible.

The large and growing literature produced by that war is testament to
the powerful narrative attraction of war itself. The wider society that
consumes the books and films – many the product of the warriors, of
course – demonstrates that much. The story of Vietnam is ironic in the
tragic sense, and in large part it is senseless. It prompted and exacerbated
tensions within US society, and it alienated those who were doing the
fighting. The stories that emerged are symptomatic of our continued
search for meaning and identity, for moral guidance and, I contend, for
honour and heroes.
There is a further irony in much of this literature in the contrast
between heroism and the hero’s obvious human flaws and failures.
Caputo here embodies the flawed hero, reduced by endless sustained
combat pressure to a visceral hatred for his enemy that sees him encour-
age subordinates to kill two suspected enemy Viet Cong in dubious
circumstances, an action that bring criminal charges against him; and
lead the earlier rampaging of his men through a Vietnamese village,
which he does nothing to check. He has come a long way from the boy
who joined the Marine Corps seeking only a chance to live heroically in
a commonplace world.
What difference, muses Caputo, is there between the indiscriminate
violence that was wrought by his shattered men at close quarters and
that of napalm canisters and artillery shells from afar? The vicious,
pointless war corrodes the morals of those doing the fighting, who are
exhausted, stressed and frightened, making them capable of great brutal-
ity and abuse, but capable, all the same, of heroism and tenderness – for
one another at least. Daydreaming in a Saigon bar about going AWOL,
Caputo writes that he was ‘constrained by the obligation I had towards
my platoon. I would be deserting them, my friends. That was the real
crime a deserter committed: he ran out on his friends.’10
Modern war in all of these senses is ironic, and so is the art that it
produces – a point well made by Christopher Coker in his account of
war in literature (Coker 2014). There is also a lesson here in the anti-
heroes of modern currency. Joseph Conrad’s Mr Kurtz is reimagined as
a sinister US colonel operating alone upriver in Vietnam in Coppola’s
Apocalypse Now (Conrad et al. 2007). Kurtz’s improving mission ends in
alienation, hostility and horror, which might seem to be a more appo-
site representation of the interventions of liberal armies. A less overtly
sinister figure is Alden Pyle, Graham Greene’s Quiet American, whose
earnest desire to impress and to transform Vietnam contrasts with the
mature knowingness of his English friend (Greene 2004). The novels are
steeped in a knowingness about the limits of action and intention. The
audience shares a sense of foreboding at what Kurtz has been getting
up to behind the back of civilisation and of what damage the foolish
Pyle will wreak. The irony there is of a hero whose actions and sac-
rifice produce a counterproductive outcome. These are modern fables
for liberal societies that may disavow violence, but that find themselves
embroiled in long war for dubious, but ostensibly noble, reasons with
little prospect of a favourable outcome. As stories, they achieve a place
in the modern consciousness, not only because they are great art or
because they retain those essentials of the war story – the search for
meaning and esteem through honour – but also because they speak to
the postmodern concern with a self-aware irony.
Modern liberal culture remains deeply affected by the Vietnam War
and the art that it produced, sometimes explicitly, as when Alex
Garland’s fictitious account of a gap-year backpacker in Thailand opens
with a daydream of Vietnam, of helicopters blaring Wagner, an incom-
ing artillery round, and wasted Saigon days on LSD (Garland 2005).
In Jarhead, Anthony Swofford opens his memoir of combat with the
US Marines in the 1991 Gulf War with the unit gathered in Kuwait,
killing time before the invasion:
we get off on the various visions of carnage and violence and deceit,
the raping and killing and pillaging. We concentrate on the Vietnam
films because it’s the most recent war, and the successes and failures
of that war helped write our training manuals . . . We watch again the
ragged, burnt out fighters walking through the villes and the pretty
native women smiling because if they don’t smile, the fighters might
kill their pigs or burn their cache of rice.11
These war films, Swofford notes, might strive to be anti-war, but they
are not to the young Marines watching them, excited at the thought
of their own impending combat experience. There is certainly irony
in that, as the weary knowingness of Coppola’s lens is again refracted
into gung ho enthusiasm by a new generation of warriors. ‘I bet more
Marines have joined the Corps because of Full Metal Jacket than any
fucking recruiting commercial,’ one Iraq War veteran tells another in
Phil Klay’s Redeployment. ‘And that’s an anti-war film,’ the other replies.
‘Nothing’s an anti-war film.’12
More often the artistic resemblance to Vietnam is implicit, but no less
pervasive. The modern wars of liberal states differ in many particulars
from that formative war, but in some respects they are the same – the
Vietnam War was mediatised – in film, in music, in its essence. It was
the first war that was unambiguously lost by the most powerful lib-
eral state, and the one that challenged the esteem of the establishment,
the veterans who fought in it and wider society. Vietnam demonstrated
that the triumph of liberal society was not inevitable, and, moreover,
war itself would challenge and corrupt that liberalism. Modern war sto-
ries from Iraq and Afghanistan struggle in vain to escape its shadow,
whether they are straightforward stories of heroism, such as that told
by Marcus Luttrell, SEAL protagonist of Lone Survivor, or more know-

ing, ironic accounts, such as Evan Wright’s Generation Kill (Luttrell and
Robinson 2008; Wright 2009). Both of those books are portrayed very
well on screen, yet neither, for all of their respective merits, including
their undoubted authenticity, say much new about either the heroism
or sacrifice in modern war, except perhaps insofar as they are know-
ing about their knowingness. Postmodernity redux: as Huey helicopters
pass overhead, one of the Marines in Wright’s book ‘starts singing a Cre-
dence Clearwater Revival song. A Vietnam anthem. And then he stops
abruptly. “This war will need its own theme music.” ’13
Even in Edward Snowdon’s leaking of the National Security Agency’s
secret programmes, there is an echo of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon
Papers; and many of the same issues – the hero, or anti-hero, depending
on perspective – acting against powerful authority that itself is attempt-
ing to control the very narrative of the war (Ellsberg 2002). Both are
stories about a government whose power threatens the very liberality of
the society that it is ostensibly fighting to protect.
Conclusion
For liberal societies, then, war remains a story about honour, with
heroes and villains. But it also comes with a cynical edge, which is
shared by citizens and soldiers alike. The Vietnam War represents, for
now, the apotheosis of this postmodern narrative, but a similar jaded
knowingness certainly infuses the stories from more recent conflicts.
These modern wars are different from Vietnam in many respects: they
involve broad coalitions of liberal countries; the soldiers are invari-
ably professional volunteers; and the armies are smaller. Perhaps as
a result, the fractures that are consequent in liberal society are less
pronounced. But there are similarities too, including an initial opti-
mism about the mission, both among the soldiers and within society
at large.
Prestige is involved in these modern liberal wars. In Vietnam, Henry
Kissinger railed against ‘insolent’ Vietnamese negotiators, and Lyndon
B. Johnson saw a ‘pissant’ adversary in Hanoi (Payne 2014). In the mod-
ern wars, Colin Powell, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, saw ‘ancient
hatreds’ at work in Bosnia – somehow less rational and more backward
than the liberal West. Later, Richard Armitage, Powell’s deputy at the
State Department, threatened to bomb Pakistan ‘back to the stone age’
unless it cooperated with the ‘War on Terror’.14 Meanwhile for Tony
Blair the ‘battle of ideas’ was very much a struggle against dark forces
of extremism, but one that could very readily include great swathes of
the non-Western Islamic world:
I don’t mean just telling them that terrorist activity is wrong. I mean
telling them that their attitude to America is absurd, that their con-
cept of governance is pre-feudal, that their positions on women and
other faiths are reactionary.15
And it wasn’t, of course, simply liberal elites who formed a view of

antagonistic outsiders as being inferior. Closer to the action, the sol-
diers themselves, frustrated, confused and angered by their situation,
responded sometimes with aggression and ill-discipline. Modern warfare
was in this respect too just like Vietnam. And so copies of the Koran were
burned, corpses urinated on, trophies taken, injured enemy killed, civil-
ians raped and prisoners humiliated and beaten.16 In aggregate, these
were less savage and indiscriminate wars than Vietnam, and certainly
less so than the Eastern and Pacific campaigns of the Second World War,
but similar psychological forces were in evidence. Discipline and order,
bulwarks against those ‘primitive’ urges in combat, remained, on the
whole, intact – this was not the conscript US army of the late 1960s and
1970s, with shattered morale, and poor discipline and cohesion (Turse
2013).
One could certainly point to prestige in explaining the cause of these
modern wars too – in Vietnam, as with Afghanistan and Iraq, liberal
society was challenged by antagonistic and inferior adversaries. Liberal
societies, as ever, responded differently to these ostensible challenges,
reflecting their different stakes and cultures of national security. Yet,
piqued prestige aside, these wars could also be construed as part of the
liberal project – that logical extension of empathy and altruism to the
largest possible group of humans. John F. Kennedy’s pledge to bear any
price for freedom seems in retrospect hopelessly idealistic and unre-
alistic, akin to Tony Blair’s watershed speech in Chicago at the time
of the Kosovo crises about liberal intervention to protect the human
rights of threatened groups. The sentiment is authentically liberal, even
if the execution of it is uneven and inconstant. Blair himself cautioned
as much, warning in the speech that some degree of ‘national inter-
est’ would likely still be needed before any commitment to a liberal
intervention materialised. Nonetheless, liberal society, and its leaders,
continue to tell expansive stories about who deserves protection, in
keeping with the essential ingredient of liberalism – that the circle of
empathy keeps expanding. As Blair argued in his speech, ‘In the end,
values and interests merge. If we can establish and spread the values of
liberty, the rule of law, human rights and an open society, then that is in
our national interests too.’17 As an authentic expression of liberal society
and intervention, that is as succinct as it gets.
This European notion of security, as the British diplomat Robert
Cooper has observed, largely consists of expanding the area that shares
its collective liberal norms (Cooper 2011). If the stories that we tell, as
I argued, constitute our collective identity, then this liberalism is more
than window-dressing for a narrower and more cynical national inter-
est. Even if it were designed as a fictional window-dressing for a more
cynically self-interested realpolitik, as a classical realist such as Hans
Morgenthau might argue, the liberal narrative would still have some
effect: just reading fiction about people from different cultures, as Dan
Johnson and colleagues found experimentally, can make us less sus-
ceptible to reaching for negative out-group stereotypes (Johnson et al.
2014).
This liberal society is the cultural high watermark of the domesticated
human that I introduced in the opening chapter. It is the logical end
point of the cognitive and social revolution that has moved us beyond
the Hobbesian hunter-gatherer world. The stories that liberal society
tells about war reflect its enduring fascination with conflict, but also
its strong aversion to prejudice and violence against others.
The group that motivates liberal society’s soldiers, by contrast,
remains resolutely small – the group of comrades whose solidarity is
forged in the intensity of battle. We might see in their solidarity the
evolutionary logic of the primitive warrior. The discipline and hierarchy
that attend modern battle are not authentically part of our evolutionary
heritage, except insofar as they reflect our evolved ability to construct
large and hierarchically differentiated societies. But just like liberal soci-
ety at large, the warrior is motivated by his relationship with that group
and the personal esteem that he derives from it. What we see then,
in both instances, is the same evolved conception of altruism operat-
ing in different cultural domains. The liberal and the liberal warrior are
both domesticated humans; altruists, and inveterate storytellers; and for
both, theirs is a story about honour and obligation.
9
Conclusion: Heroic Warfare
We are supposed, at least according to some academic accounts, to be

living in a post-heroic age (Scheipers 2014). Part of the responsibility
for that lies, it is argued, with the global, universalist aspirations of lib-
eral societies. After all, what sort of hero would be inspired by such
expansive utopianism as saving the whole of humanity? The philoso-
pher Cheyney Ryan points to identity as a motivation for fighting. This
identity need not be patriotism, he notes, though that certainly provides
a handy distinction between us and them, and it remains potent, at least
in motivating individuals to join liberal armies. Motivation could come
from those universalist liberal values, Ryan notes, but I am sceptical that
too many soldiers are moved to action in defence of a liberalism which
by its very definition is non-partisan. Ryan agrees – ‘fashioning a cos-
mopolitan culture’ that sufficient to motivate soldiers will, he argues,
take considerable effort, and ‘there is no guarantee that it will succeed’.1
The ‘post-heroic’ school has, however, missed the point. As the forego-
ing chapters have suggested, the motivation for heroism comes largely,
in the moment of battle, as an instinct that is derived from the intensely
felt desire not to disgrace oneself before the small group of one’s peers.
Being a liberal is neither here nor there when the shooting starts. That
small group cohesion is a tendency that evolved thousands of years ago,
long before the liberal age. On a broader canvas, the motivation to serve
comes from seeking the acclaim of a wider referent group, including
those at home, and also as a question of self-actualisation – of being
worthy of acclaim. These are motivations that are present in young peo-
ple of liberal societies as much as they are in all others. The goals of
liberal society are a separate matter, such that we need not, I argue,
share the concern of the ‘post-heroism’ school that the liberal warrior
is an oxymoron.
170
Conclusion: Heroic Warfare 171
If there is a case to be made for ‘post-heroism’, it is the one that

is made by Hew Strachan, that the challenge to heroism comes not
from liberalism per se but from the industrialisation of war. The mod-
ern notion of a hero who is a common soldier, he argues, was a creation
of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, which opened up the
possibility for every man, as opposed to the great commander, to achieve
public renown for his valour. To be a hero was to be part of a democratic,
egalitarian society, fighting for nationalistic reasons, not an anonymous
brawler seeking the spoils of war.
Yet no sooner had this modern heroic age arrived than it was threat-
ened by the radical changes to society and warfare that were under
way in the late nineteenth century. The era of the post-heroic warrior
reached its apotheosis not in the messy, indecisive and, for liberals,
marginal wars of the 1990s, but in the mechanised, industrial armaged-
don of the Western Front.2 The emphasis on morale, patriotism and duty
in the pre–First World War French army was designed to foster an élan
that could overcome the tremendous defensive power of the machine-
gun. But on the front, when the war commenced, it quickly became
apparent that there could be no scope for individual expressions of skil-
ful courage and valour, and no ritualised, skilful way in which to express
it during a suicidal frontal assault. Moreover, the noble calling of war –
of sacrifice on behalf of one’s country, with the attendant sense of patri-
otism and duty – had been altogether sullied by the incomprehensible
scale of waste and destruction.
Could one be a hero in the trenches? To display courage amid the car-
nage of the Western Front, with such grim odds, was to surrender oneself
to fate and to go over the top. If anything the hero was someone who
was prepared to return from leave, or from the sick bay, without desert-
ing, in sound mind and ready to face the enemy artillery, machine-guns
and wire again. This was a sort of choice, but of very limited scope.
The emergence of shell shock as a distinct psychiatric phenomenon
in this war is in part a reflection of the stresses that were associated
with that passivity and loss of agency (Shephard 2000). The learned
helplessness and despondency of the dogs in Martin Seligman’s 1960s
experiments calls to mind the stolid endurance under punishment of
the trench-bound infantry soldier (Overmier and Seligman 1967).
The liberalism of John Stuart Mill, with its emphasis on individual
autonomy with minimal societal intervention, was at odds with the
notions of duty and collective obligation in Victorian Britain. To be
British, Christian and a fighting-age man was to feel the bonds of duty
to society and respond to them even for a war that was fought for
somewhat obscure alliance logic and against a German ‘militarism’. The

story has often been told, but for me the almost absurd mood is cap-
tured well in Wade Davis’ exceptional history of the war, passed on via
the stories of the climbers in Mallory’s subsequent expedition to Everest
(Davis 2012).
As the war wore on with immense human cost, the idea of the enemy
was created and disseminated via a vigorous propaganda effort, and fur-
ther transmitted via a pliant and jingoistic mass media. Conscientious
objectors could be challenged and ridiculed publicly, feeling the oppro-
brium of their peers, but a large part of British soldiery were their own
policemen, responding to the powerful, internalised promptings of duty
and patriotism. The soldiers of Kitchener’s new model army volunteered
after the annihilation of the professional pre-war imperial army in the
Marne. Successive cohorts of young men, until recently just school-
boys, were commissioned, deployed and destroyed without mutiny or
resistance.
Of course the First World War neither ended all wars nor saw off patri-
otism. Young men in particular continue to see war as a means of self-
actualisation, and war has retained its disturbing glamour. Moreover,
despite the incredible destructive power on offer to combatants, there
remains enough agency in battle to satisfy the requirements of honour.
In vast armies, individuals were perforce reduced to very small cogs. But
with the return of manoeuvre to the battlefield in the final year of fight-
ing on the Western Front, and with the interwar development of com-
bined arms, employing armour and aircraft in close coordination with
infantry and artillery, it once more became possible to imagine heroism
(Biddle 2010). The more recent wars of liberal society demonstrate the
enduring possibility for heroism and honour in war. But changes in lib-
eral society, particularly in the decades after the Second World War, have
altered the causes for which that heroism might be used.
If industrialisation failed to see off the heroic warrior, there is another,
related challenge still lying ahead. Writing at the onset of the ‘War on
Terror’, the prolific Coker was pessimistic about the warrior ethos, which
he saw as being under threat from science – particularly from biotech-
nologies and pharmaceuticals, which might change the essence of what
it means to be a human, altering our capacity to experience feelings and
to remember, as much as changing our physical potentialities (Coker
2007). The possibility is real, if we assume that courage is demonstrated
in the conscious awareness of human frailty and limits. When these
limits are transcended or when this consciousness is subverted, we are
at risk of being something other than human. A genetically modified
soldier stands apart from society in an altogether different way from the
elitism that today distinguishes the warrior from his community. Yet
for now there is a window in which the warrior can exist, as a special
manifestation of the modern liberal.
If Coker’s vision points to a possible future for the warrior, what about
the liberal society that he serves? The surprising lesson for strategic
studies is Bowles’ notion that it is the very threat of violence that has
produced this evolved liberalism – a function of predation, altruism and
our capacity for large and elastic groups, stretching far beyond those of
other primates.
And yet, in the end, there is sometimes a disconnect between the
motivations of society and those of a professionalised military, which
is responsible for conducting its violence. As Strachan argues, volun-
teer, professional armies widen the gap between ‘why a nation thinks
it is at war and how its army does the fighting’.3 He and I ought not
to overdo this – patriotism remains a powerful urge, both for society
and its soldiers. We saw that after 9/11, when troops went into combat
with New York Fire Department memorabilia in honour of those who
had died while attempting to rescue people trapped in the Twin Towers.
The fissures become more pronounced as society becomes less engaged
with the sorts of wars that their liberal ethos leads them towards. The
‘Blair Doctrine’, which was outlined in Chicago, was a recipe for military
intervention in pursuit of authentically liberal goals. However, like the
warriors, liberal society is often motivated by more parochial concerns.
Altruism remains instinctively local, even in the most liberal-minded
breast. And while Peter Singer may optimistically point to an expand-
ing circle of empathy, we still need compelling stories that feature
emotionally engaging individual humans to spur us to sympathy. The
state and the ethnos remain, for now at least, more powerful imaginary
communities than does the entirety of humanity.
Recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have commanded the support of
limited proportions of liberal society, perhaps reflecting their less than
existential nature, but also a reluctance to intercede more vigorously in
the management of international society. The disengagement of soci-
ety from its own security is reflected in the priority that is given to
defence spending, with the USA as the only notable exception. It is not
that liberal society has become blasé about risk either – across a range
of issues, the public remain concerned about risk, arguably out of pro-
portion to the actual consequences or likelihood of adverse outcomes.
However, the prospect of war does not seem to alarm liberals as much
as do other risks to their security.
We might see liberalism as a high point of cultural development, or

mimetic evolution, in which the altruistic urgings of our evolved human
nature are given full rein. Liberalism as a philosophy is the logical end
point of the altruism that was unleashed some one or two hundred
centuries ago, and which presents the largest challenge to the realist
worldview of narrow self-interest. We might, optimistically, imagine a
future that is close to Francis Fukuyama’s idealised Hegelian vision of a
‘last man’, dwelling in a landscape that is devoid of violent conflict, and
indeed of ‘History’ itself (Fukuyama 1992). The logic of ever more widely
shared rational and enlightened values makes that conclusion hard to
resist.
Yet, as experimental research demonstrates, we retain a highly evolved
capacity for fine judgements about who is in our group and thus
deserving of altruism. We also retain a chippy protectiveness about our
collective esteem. We are perhaps motivated more by in-group love and
bonds of loyalty than by out-group hate and discrimination (Brewer
1999). But we do discriminate, even subconsciously, and we do have a
hair-trigger response to perceived unfairness that violates the norms of
our group. Accordingly, liberal society, when its sense of honour and jus-
tice is peaked, remains capable of great chauvinism – witness the USA in
the aftermath of 9/11, or the UK following the Argentine invasion of the
Falkland Islands.
For all of the extension of reason and empathy suggested by the
Enlightenment, there is still a tremendous capacity for groups to frag-
ment into new identities, given salience by uncertain and dangerous
times. Groups have sometimes become larger, but they remain a funda-
mental feature of human existence, along with the capacity for conflict.
And for each group there will be a set of implicit (and sometimes
explicit) norms that govern appropriate behaviours and responses to
challenges. We might see that manifest in the push back against greater
European Union federalism, not just in traditionally sceptical societies
such as the UK and Denmark, but also on the southern fringe of the
Continent in struggling, indebted and less wealthy societies that are
experiencing a resurgent nationalism, as exemplified by the rise of the
Greek far right. Democracies, contra the Kantian logic, can make for stri-
dent and belligerent societies – insular and chauvinistic. And after many
decades of spreading liberalism, there seems to be, for the short term at
least, a slowdown and perhaps even a retrenchment in liberal values.
In Russia, Central Asia, the Middle East and China, an illiberal author-
itarianism remains in place a quarter-century after the end of the Cold
War. Identities continue to fragment as well as cohere, along secular,
ethnic, ideological and other lines. The encounter with modernity has
been transformative of many parts of the world, but destabilising too,
and certainly incomplete.
Honour, an apparently old-fashioned quality, remains an unavoidable
consequence of our innate sociability. Western liberal societies demand
honourable behaviour, much as any other. Coker is correct to argue that
honour is ‘just as important today as it was in our prehistoric past’, even
if the language of honour has morphed to that of ‘credibility’ – which,
after all, appears to be so much more rational.4 And in conflict, liberal
society also demands honourable behaviour from its warriors. There is,
as a result, an inevitable tension between the honour of the warrior, with
its emphasis on collective duty and sacrifice, and the profound individ-
ualism of liberal society, with the rights of the individual to follow their
own course being sacrosanct. But both codes of honour have their roots
in our evolved capacity for altruism.
In the end, the eternal debate about man’s propensity for violence
seems insoluble, perhaps because we retain the tendency for intense
cooperation and extreme aggression. We are always social, we always
cooperate; yet we are always self-interested, insecure and on our guard
for deception. And running through it all is a desire for meaning and
esteem: the stories that we tell ourselves about war and honour are an
integral part of who we are and why we fight, liberal or otherwise.
Notes
1 Introduction
1. Mill, J. S. and G. Himmelfarb (1985). On Liberty. Harmondsworth, Penguin,
p. 72.
2. Rawls, J. (2009). A Theory of Justice. Massachusetts, Harvard University Press,
p. 53.
3. For a review, see Bouchard, T. J. (2004). ‘Genetic influence on human psy-
chological traits a survey.’ Current Directions in Psychological Science 13(4):
148–151.
4. The European Commission reported in 2014 that violent crime had declined
across the European Union’s member states by 10% between 2007 and 2014.
The trend, however, was not uniform – violent crime fell dramatically in the
UK, but there were significant rises in some countries, including Hungary and
Denmark. The finding points to the heterogeneity of liberal societies and the
subsequent need for caution in identifying unifying social attitudes, a point
that I return to in later chapters. See European Commission, Eurostat Crime
Statistics, January 2014, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/
eurostat/home/ (accessed 29 October 2014).
Meanwhile, in the USA, the fall in violent crime has been even more dra-
matic, with FBI data showing a remarkable 48% decline in violent crime
between 1993 and 2012. See http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-
the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/1tabledatadecoverviewpdf/table_
1_crime_in_the_united_states_by_volume_and_rate_per_100000_inhabitants
_1993-2012.xls (accessed 29 October 2014).
The reasons for the decline remain subject to considerable discussion in the
criminological literature, and my argument that there is a cultural dimension
in explaining crime would cover an array of possible contributory factors,
including changing economic activity, age demographics and incarceration
rates.
5. For an accessible recent overview of man’s evolutionary history, see
Harari, Y. (2014). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. London, Random
House LLC.
6. See ‘A troublesome inheritance’, letter to the editor, New York Review of Books,
8 August 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/books/review/letters-a-
troublesome-inheritance.html?_r=1 (accessed 8 November 2014).
2 Violence and Human Nature

1. Keeley, L. H. (1995). War Before Civilization. New York; Oxford, Oxford
University Press, Kindle loc 3495.
2. Ibid., Kindle loc 3518.
176
Notes 177
3. See Douglas Fry (2013). In Fry, D. P. War, Peace, and Human Nature: The
Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views. New York, Oxford University
Press, p. 6 and R. Brian Ferguson, ‘Pinker’s list’, in ibid., pp. 112–131, at
p. 126.
4. Frans de Waal, Foreword in ibid., p. xi.
5. See Pinker, S. (2011). The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in
History and Its Causes. London, Allen Lane, p. 49.
6. Marlantes, K. (2011). What It Is Like to Go to War. London, Corvus, p. 40.
7. Ibid., p. 49.
8. Diamond, J. M. (2012). The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from
Traditional Societies?. London, Allen Lane, p. 125.
9. See ‘The chimpanzee’s monkey ambush’, Predators. BBC Earth, via YouTube,
9 November 2011, http://youtu.be/40SEMy4Z_zM (accessed 15 November
2014).
10. See Salk Institute, Domestication and Human Evolution Symposium,
10 October 2014, http://carta.anthropogeny.org/events/domestication-and-
human-evolution (accessed 17 November 2014).
11. See Wilson, M. L. (2003). ‘Chimpanzees, warfare and the invention of peace’,
in Fry, D. P. War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and
Cultural Views. New York, Oxford University Press.
3 Classical Realists on Honour

1. Niebuhr, R. (2003). Moral Man and Immoral Society. Lanham, MD, Rowman &
Littlefield, p. 2.
2. Ibid., p. 3.
3. Ibid., p. 19.
4. Ibid., p. 9.
5. Ibid., p. xx.
6. Aron, R. (2003). Peace & War: A Theory of International Relations. New
Brunswick, NJ, Transaction Publishers, p. 51.
7. Ibid., p. 76.
8. Ibid., pp. 76–77.
9. Ibid., p. 87.
10. Ibid., p. 87.
11. Council of Europe, ‘European Convention on Human Rights’, Article 2,
p. 6, http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf (accessed
14 November 2014).
4 Reciprocal Altruism
1. See twitter.com/FacesPics.
2. To share Geertz’s view of culture as understanding does not imply agreement
with his view on the essentially socially determined nature of the human
world, on which see John Tooby and Leda Cosmides (1992). ‘The psycho-
logical foundations of culture’, in Barkow, J. H., L. E. Cosmides et al., The
Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford,
Oxford University Press, pp. 19–136.
178 Notes
3. Dawkins, R. (2009). The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.
London, Simon and Schuster, p. 248.
5 Honour
1. See ‘Conformity – Elevator Candid Camera’, http://vimeo.com/61349466
(accessed 13 November 2014).
2. Elena Cresci (14 November 2014). ‘Swedish “social experiment” shows
people ignoring domestic abuse in a lift,’ Guardian, http://youtu.be/R1-
A7R15uYU (accessed 15 November 2015).
3. ‘The “door” study,’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWSxSQsspiQ (access
ed 15 November 2014).
4. Lebow, R. N. (2003). The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests, and Orders.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 354.
5. See NatCen, British Social Attitude Survey, http://www.natcen.ac.uk/our-
research/research/british-social-attitudes/ (accessed 10 November 2014).
6. See NatCen, British Social Attitude Survey 30: 2013, ‘Gender roles: An incom-
plete revolution?’, http://bsa-30.natcen.ac.uk/read-the-report/gender-roles/
introduction.aspx (accessed 30 November 2014).
7. See NatCen, British Social Attitude Survey 28: 2011, ‘Religion: Losing faith’,
http://ir2.flife.de/data/natcen-social-research/igb_html/index.php?bericht_
id=1000001&index=&lang=ENG (accessed 30 November 2014).
8. See NatCen, British Social Attitude Survey, ‘30 years of British social atti-
tudes self-reported racial prejudice data,’ http://www.natcen.ac.uk/media/
338779/selfreported-racial-prejudice-datafinal.pdf (accessed 30 November
2014).
9. See NatCen, British Social Attitude Survey 29: 2012, ‘Immigration: Fewer
but better,’ http://www.bsa-29.natcen.ac.uk/read-the-report/immigration/
introduction.aspx (accessed 30 November 2014).
10. See NatCen, ‘30 years of British social attitudes: Self reported racial prejudice
data’, British Social Attitude Survey, 2013, http://www.natcen.ac.uk/media/
338779/selfreported-racial-prejudice-datafinal.pdf (accessed 15 November
2014).
11. To participate in the research by taking a test, see Project Implicit, https://
implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ (accessed 10 November 2014).
12. See Stonewall, ‘Top 100 employers, 2014’, http://www.stonewall.org.uk/
at_work/stonewall_top_100_employers/default.asp?fontsize=large (accessed
29 October 2014).
13. Hillary, R. (2014). The Last Enemy. London, Michael O’Mara Books, Kindle
loc 72.
14. Ibid., Kindle loc 100 (this is my translation from the French original that
Hillary provides).
15. See Heather Saul (12 November 2014). ‘Rob O’Neill: US Navy Seal
claims team never planned to take Osama bin Laden alive’, Inde-
pendent, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rob-oneill-us-
navy-seal-claims-us-never-planned-to-take-osama-bin-laden-alive-9855068.
html (accessed 12 November 2014).
Notes 179
16. Mohammed Siddique Khan (n.d.). ‘Martyrdom video’, http://youtu.be/

jHXLaio8G3I (accessed 15 November 2014).
6 Liberal Society and War

1. See Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, ‘The racial dot map’, http://
demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/ (accessed 16 November 2014).
2. See ‘Spare the rod: Spanking makes your children stupid’, The Economist,
15 November 2014, http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/216325
21-spanking-makes-your-children-stupid-spare-rod (accessed 15 November
2014).
3. For a detailed account of the democratic peace, see Gat, A. (2005). ‘The
democratic peace theory reframed: The impact of modernity’, World Politics
58(1): 73–100. Gat argues that modernity and industrialisation, rather than
liberalism, were the key driver behind the declining violence.
4. The wars were against the governments and armed forces of Argentina
(1982), Iraq (1990/1), Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003) and
Libya (2011). Additional overseas military interventions included peace
enforcement in Bosnia (1995) and Sierra Leone (2000), stabilisation in
Iraq (2003–11) and Afghanistan (2002–14) and counter-revolutionary action
in Syria/Iraq (2014). In addition there have been other, smaller oper-
ations aimed at peacekeeping, capacity-building and upstream conflict
prevention.
5. For a comprehensive review of Western military capabilities, see IISS (2014).
The Military Balance. London, Routledge.
6. NatCen, ‘Armed forces: Public opinion over time,’ BSA Report 29, http://www.
bsa-29.natcen.ac.uk/read-the-report/armed-forces/public-opinion-over-time.
aspx (accessed 16 November 2014).
7. See General Sir David Richards (8 December 2009). ‘Each death hardens
our resolve’, The Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/
afghanistan/6755053/General-Sir-David-Richards-Each-death-hardens-our-
resolve-to-get-the-job-done.html (accessed 16 November 2014) and Kenneth
Payne (1 November 2010). ‘No stomach for the fight’, Analysis, BBC Radio
4, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vkwk8 (accessed 16 November
2014).
8. See AustralianArmyHQ (12 June 2013). ‘Chief of army message regard-
ing unacceptable behaviour’, http://youtu.be/QaqpoeVgr8U (accessed 15
November 2014).
7 Liberal Warriors
2. Ibid., p. 30.
3. Marshall, S. L. A. (2000). Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command.
Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, p. 50.
4. Ibid., p. 52.
180 Notes
5. Ibid., p. 78.
6. Kyle, C., S. McEwen et al. (2012). American Sniper: The Autobiography of the
Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. New York, William Morrow, p. 308.
8. Kyle, C., S. McEwen, et al. (2012). American Sniper: The Autobiography of
the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. New York, William Morrow,
p. 431.
9. Ibid., p. 163.
10. Ibid., p. 217.
11. Beattie, D. and P. Gomm (2009). An Ordinary Soldier: Afghanistan – A Fero-
cious Enemy, a Bloody Conflict, One Man’s Impossible Mission. London, Pocket,
Kindle loc 1746.
13. Manchester, W. (1980). Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War.
Boston, Little, Brown, p. 5.
14. Ibid., p. 7.
15. Marshall, S. L. A. (2000). Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command.
Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, p. 41.
16. Ibid., p. 153.
17. Ibid., p. 149.
18. Kyle, C., S. McEwen, et al. (2012). American Sniper: The Autobiography of the
Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. New York, William Morrow, p. 220.
19. Ibid., p. 78.
20. Mason, R. (2005). Chickenhawk. London, Penguin, p. 388.
21. O’Brien, T. (2003). If I Die in a Combat Zone. London, Flamingo, p. 203.
22. Finkel, D. (2010). The Good Soldiers. London, Atlantic Books, p. 271.
23. Beattie, D. and P. Gomm (2009). An Ordinary Soldier: Afghanistan – A Fero-
cious Enemy, a Bloody Conflict, One Man’s Impossible Mission. London, Pocket,
Kindle loc 4082.
25. Kyle, C., S. McEwen et al. (2012). American Sniper: The Autobiography of the
Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. New York, William Morrow, Kindle
loc 4948.
27. Klay, P. (2014). Redeployment. London, Canongate, pp. 250–251.
28. Caputo, P. (1999). A Rumor of War. London, Pimlico, p. 5.
29. See https://twitter.com/COLRICHARDKEMP.
30. See Kevin Voight (17 September 2014). ‘Who pays? NerdWallet study
finds gender roles remain strong among couples’, NerdWallet, http://www.
nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/featured-articles/who-pays-first-date-gender-
roles-couples/ (accessed 17 November 2014). The key finding was that 77.4%
of those who were surveyed who were in a relationship thought that men
should pay for the first date. On female earnings and marriage prospects, see
Bertrand, M., J. Pan et al. (2013). Gender Identity and Relative Income within
Households, National Bureau of Economic Research.
31. The latest figures from the UK show that 18.9% of 10–11-year-olds in
the UK are obese, with a further 14.4% being overweight. See Pub-
lic Health England, ‘Child obesity’, http://www.noo.org.uk/NOO_about_
obesity/child_obesity (accessed 17 November 2014).
Notes 181
8 Liberal War Stories

1. Kyle, C., S. McEwen et al. (2012). American Sniper: The Autobiography of
the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. New York, William Morrow,
p. 352.
2. See Ministry of Defence (3 February 2010). ‘Strategic trends pro-
gramme: Future character of conflict’ (Shrivenham: Development, Concepts
and Doctrine Centre), https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/
uploads/attachment_data/file/33685/FCOCReadactedFinalWeb.pdf (accessed
20 November 2014).
3. Armstrong, K. (2004). A Short History of Myth. Edinburgh, Canongate Books,
p. 141.
4. See White, J. (2004). Tillman killed by ‘friendly fire’. Washington Post. p. A01.
5. The National Archives/Ministry of Defence (18 March 2005). ‘Private
Johnson Gideon Beharry, Victoria Cross’, http://webarchive.nationalarchives.
gov.uk/+/http://www.operations.mod.uk/telic/ophons05/beharry.htm (access
ed 30 November 2014).
6. Caputo, P. (1999). A Rumor of War. London, Pimlico, p. 261.
7. Ibid., pp. 222–223.
8. Ibid., p. 355.
9. Ibid., p. 355.
10. Ibid., p. 247.
11. Swofford, A. (2003). Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other
Battles. New York; London, Scribner, Kindle loc 71–72.
12. Klay, P. (2014). Redeployment. London, Canongate, p. 234.
13. Wright, E. (2009). Generation Kill: Living Dangerously on the Road to
Baghdad with the Ultraviolent Marines of Bravo Company. London, Corgi,
p. 142.
14. ‘US “threatened to bomb” Pakistan’, BBC News (22 September 2006), http://
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5369198.stm (accessed 12 November
2014).
15. Tony Blair (2006). ‘A global alliance for global values’, The Foreign Policy
Centre, http://fpc.org.uk/fsblob/798.pdf (accessed 12 November 2014).
16. See, in order, ‘US troops punished for Koran burning and urination video’,
BBC News (28 August 2012), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-
19394154; Judy Royal (16 January 2013). ‘US Marine pleads guilty to uri-
nating on Taliban corpses’, Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/
17/us-usa-military-desecration-idUSBRE90G01B20130117; Patrick Cockburn
(12 November 2011). ‘Soldier who killed and mutilated Afghan villagers
is jailed for life’, Independent, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/
americas/soldier-who-killed-and-mutilated-afghan-villagers-is-jailed-for-life-
6261035.html; Steven Morris and Richard Norton-Taylor (6 Decem-
ber 2013). ‘Royal Marine must serve at least 10 years in jail for
Taliban murder’, Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/
dec/06/royal-marine-blackman-10-years-jail-taliban-murder; ‘US ex-soldier
guilty of Iraq rape’, BBC News (7 May 2009), http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/
hi/world/americas/8039257.stm; Seymour M. Hersh (10 May 2004). ‘Tor-
ture at Abu Ghraib’, New Yorker, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/
torture-at-abu-ghraib (accessed 11 November 2014).
182 Notes
17. Tony Blair (22 April 1999). Speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, http://
www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international-jan-june99-blair_doctrine4-23/
break (accessed 5 November 2014).
9 Conclusion: Heroic Warfare

1. Cheney Ryan (2014). ‘The dilemma of cosmopolitan soldiering’, in Scheipers,
S. (ed.), Heroism and the Changing Character of War: Toward Post-Heroic Warfare?.
Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 135.
2. See Hew Strachan, ‘ “Heroic” warfare and the problem of mass armies: France
1871–1914’, in ibid., pp. 47–63.
3. Strachan in Ibid., p. 60.
4. Coker, C. (2014). Can War Be Eliminated? Polity, Cambridge , John Wiley &
Sons, Kindle loc 137.
Bibliography
Aknin, L. B., C. P. Barrington-Leigh, et al. (2013). ‘Prosocial spending and

well-being: Cross-cultural evidence for a psychological universal.’ Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 104(4): 635.
Anderson, B. R. O. G. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism. London, Verso.
Ariely, D. (2012). The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone,
Especially Ourselves. London, HarperCollins.
Armstrong, K. (2004). A Short History of Myth. Edinburgh, Canongate Books.
Aron, R. (2003). Peace & War: A Theory of International Relations. New Brunswick,
NJ, Transaction Publishers.
Asch, S. E. (1951). ‘Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion
of judgments’, in Guetzkow, H (ed.) Groups, Leadership, and Men: Research in
Human Relations. Oxford, England: Carnegie Press, pp. 177–190.
Axelrod, R. M. (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation. New York, Basic Books.
Banaji, M. R. and A. G. Greenwald (2013). Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People.
New York, Random House.
Barkin, J. S. (2010). Realist Constructivism: Rethinking International Relations Theory.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Barkow, J. H., L. E. Cosmides, et al. (1992). The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary
Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Bateson, M., D. Nettle, et al. (2006). ‘Cues of being watched enhance cooperation
in a real-world setting.’ Biology Letters 2(3): 412–414.
Beattie, D. and P. Gomm (2009). An Ordinary Soldier: Afghanistan – A Ferocious
Enemy, a Bloody Conflict, One Man’s Impossible Mission. London, Pocket.
Bertrand, M., J. Pan, et al. (2013). ‘Gender identity and relative income
within households’, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper
No. 19023.
Biddle, S. (2010). Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle.
Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Bigelow, R. S. (1969). The Dawn Warriors: Man’s Evolution Toward Peace. London,
Hutchinson.
Bobbitt, P. (2013). The Garments of Court and Palace: Machiavelli and the World That
He Made. London, Atlantic.
Bouchard, T. J. (2004). ‘Genetic influence on human psychological traits a survey.’
Current Directions in Psychological Science 13(4): 148–151.
Bourke, J. (1999). An Intimate History of Killing: Face-To-Face Killing in Twentieth-
Century Warfare. London, Granta.
Bowden, M. (2010). Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War. New York, Grove
Press.
Bowles, S. (2009). ‘Did warfare among ancestral hunter-gatherers affect the
evolution of human social behaviors?’ Science 324(5932): 1293–1298.
Boyd, R., H. Gintis, et al. (2003). ‘The evolution of altruistic punishment.’
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100(6): 3531–3535.
183
184 Bibliography
Brewer, M. B. (1999). ‘The psychology of prejudice: Ingroup love and outgroup

hate?’ Journal of Social Issues 55(3): 429–444.
Bull, H. (1977). The Anarchical Society: A Study of World Politics. London,
Macmillan.
Burkart, J. M., O. Allon, et al. (2014). ‘The evolutionary origin of human hyper-
cooperation.’ Nature Communications Aug 27, 5: 4747.
Burnham, T. C. and D. D. Johnson (2005). ‘The biological and evolutionary logic
of human cooperation.’ Analyse & Kritik 27(2): 113–135.
Caesar, J. (1982). The Conquest of Gaul. Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Caputo, P. (1999). A Rumor of War. London, Pimlico.
Christakis, N. A. and J. H. Fowler (2014). ‘Friendship and natural selec-
tion.’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(Supplement 3):
10796–10801.
Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: Science and Practice. Harlow; London, Pearson
Education.
Cieri, R. L., S. E. Churchill, et al. (2014). ‘Craniofacial feminization, social tol-
erance, and the origins of behavioral modernity.’ Current Anthropology 55(4):
419–443.
Clausewitz, C. V., M. Howard, et al. (1993). On War. London, David
Campbell.
Coker, C. (2007). The Warrior Ethos: Military Culture and the War on Terror. London,
Routledge.
Coker, C. (2010). Barbarous Philosophers: Reflections on the Nature of War from
Heraclitus to Heisenberg. London, Hurst & Co.
Coker, C. (2014). Can War Be Eliminated? Cambridge, Polity.
Coker, C. (2014). Men at War: What Fiction Tells Us about Conflict, from the Iliad to
Catch-22. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Collins, S. A. (2000). ‘Men’s voices and women’s choices.’ Animal Behaviour 60(6):
773–780.
Conrad, J., O. Knowles, et al. (2007). Heart of Darkness. London, Penguin.
Cooper, R. (2011). The Breaking of Nations. London, Atlantic Books Ltd.
Cosmides, L. and J. Tooby (2013). ‘Evolutionary psychology: New perspectives on
cognition and motivation.’ Psychology 64: 19–136.
Crockett, M. J., Y. Özdemir, et al. (2014). ‘The value of vengeance and the demand
for deterrence.’ Journal of Experimental Psychology 143(6): 2279–2286.
Damasio, A. R. (2005). Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain.
London, Penguin Books.
Damasio, A. (2012). Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. London,
Vintage Books.
Darley, J. M. and B. Latane (1968). ‘Bystander intervention in emergencies: Dif-
fusion of responsibility.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8(4p1):
377.
Davis, W. (2012). Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest.
London, Vintage.
Dawkins, R. (2006). The Selfish Gene. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Dawkins, R. (2009). The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. London,
Simon and Schuster.
De Graaf, J., D. Wann, et al. (2005). Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic. San
Francisco, CA, Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Bibliography 185
Delton, A. W., M. M. Krasnow, et al. (2011). ‘Evolution of direct reciprocity under

uncertainty can explain human generosity in one-shot encounters.’ Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences 108(32): 13335–13340.
Diamond, J. M. (1998). Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the
Last 13,000 Years. London, Vintage.
Diamond, J. M. (2012). The World until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from
Traditional Societies? London, Allen Lane.
Dower, J. W. (1986). War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. London,
Faber.
Doyle, M. W. (1983). ‘Kant, liberal legacies, and foreign affairs.’ Philosophy &
Public Affairs 12(3): 205–235.
Dunbar, R. (1998). Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language. Cambridge,
MA, Harvard University Press.
Dunbar, R. (2012). The Science of Love and Betrayal. London, Faber & Faber.
Dunbar, R. (2014). Human Evolution: A Pelican Introduction. London, Penguin.
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1992). ‘Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates.’
Journal of Human Evolution 22(6): 469–493.
Eagleman, D. (2009). Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives. Edinburgh, Canongate
Books.
Eisenberger, N. I., M. D. Lieberman, et al. (2003). ‘Does rejection hurt?
An fMRI study of social exclusion.’ Science 302(5643): 290–292.
Ekman, P. (1992). ‘An argument for basic emotions.’ Cognition & Emotion 6(3–4):
169–200.
Ellsberg, D. (2002). Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. New York;
London, Viking.
Epley, N. (2014). Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel,
and Want. New York, Random House.
Farrell, T. (2005). ‘World culture and military power.’ Security Studies 14(3):
448–488.
Fehr, E. and S. Gachter (2002). ‘Altruistic punishment in humans.’ Nature
415(6868): 137–140.
Fehr, E. and U. Fischbacher (2003). ‘The nature of human altruism.’ Nature
425(6960): 785–791.
FeldmanHall, O., P. Sokol-Hessner, et al. (2014). ‘Fairness violations elicit greater
punishment on behalf of another than for oneself.’ Nature Communications Oct
28, 5: 5306.
Fergusson, J. (2008). One Million Bullets. London, Bantam.
Festinger, L. (1950). ‘Informal social communication.’ Psychological Review 57(5):
271.
Festinger, L., H. W. Riecken, et al. (2008). When Prophecy Fails. London, Pinter &
Martin.
Fink, B., H. Seydel, et al. (2007). ‘A preliminary investigation of the associations
between digit ratio and women’s perception of men’s dance.’ Personality and
Individual Differences 42(2): 381–390.
Finkel, D. (2010). The Good Soldiers. London, Atlantic Books Ltd.
Freedman, L. (2013). Strategy: A History. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Frisell, T., P. Lichtenstein, et al. (2011). ‘Violent crime runs in families: A total
population study of 12.5 million individuals.’ Psychological Medicine 41(01):
97–105.
186 Bibliography
Frisell, T., Y. Pawitan, et al. (2012). ‘Heritability, assortative mating and gender
differences in violent crime: Results from a total population sample using twin,
adoption, and sibling models.’ Behavior Genetics 42(1): 3–18.
Fry, D. P. (2013). War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary
and Cultural Views. New York, Oxford University Press.
Fukuyama, F. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. London, Penguin.
Fukuyama, F. (2011). The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the
French Revolution. London, Profile Books.
Garland, A. (2005). The Beach. London, Penguin.
Gat, A. (2005). ‘The democratic peace theory reframed: The impact of modernity.’
World Politics 58(1): 73–100.
Gat, A. (2006). War in Human Civilization. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Gat, A. (2013). ‘Is war declining – and why?’ Journal of Peace Research 50(2):
149–157.
Gat, A. and A. Yakobson (2013). Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots
of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism. Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press.
Gavrilets, S. and L. Fortunato (2014). ‘A solution to the collective action problem
in between-group conflict with within-group inequality.’ Nature Communica-
tions Mar 26, 5: 3526.
Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York, Basic
Books.
Geertz, C. (1975). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. London,
Hutchinson.
Gellner, E. (2008). Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, Cornell University Press.
Glover, J. (1999). Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century. London,
Jonathan Cape.
Goldsworthy, A. K. (1996). The Roman Army at War: 100 BC–AD 200. Oxford,
Clarendon Press.
Goodall, J. and H. V. Lawick (1989). In the Shadow of Man. London, Weidenfeld &
Nicolson.
Gottschall, J. (2012). The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Boston,
MA, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Gray, C. S. (1999). ‘Strategic culture as context: The first generation of theory
strikes back.’ Review of International Studies 25(1): 49–69.
Greene, G. (2004). The Quiet American. London, Vintage Classics.
Greene, J. D., R. B. Sommerville, et al. (2001). ‘An fMRI investigation of emotional
engagement in moral judgment.’ Science 293(5537): 2105–2108.
Greenberg, J., T. Pyszczynski, et al. (1986). ‘The causes and consequences of a
need for self-esteem: A terror management theory.’ Public Self and Private Self
Springer: 189–212.
Greenberg, J., T. Pyszczynski, et al. (1990). ‘Evidence for terror management the-
ory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or
bolster the cultural worldview.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58(2):
308.
Grossman, D. (2009). On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War
and Society. New York, Little, Brown and Co.
Hackel, L. M., C. E. Looser, et al. (2014). ‘Group membership alters the thresh-
old for mind perception: The role of social identity, collective identification,
Bibliography 187
and intergroup threat.’ Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 52:

15–23.
Haidt, J. (2006). The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom.
New York, Basic Books.
Hanson, V. D. (2001). Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western
Power. New York, Anchor.
Hanson, V. D. and R. B. Strassler (1998). The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehen-
sive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. New York, London, Free Press.
Harari, Y. (2014). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. New York, Random House.
Harris, S. (2012). Free Will. London, Simon and Schuster.
Hart, B. H. L. (1932). The British Way in Warfare. London, Faber & Faber limited.
Haslam, S. A., S. Reicher, et al. (2011). The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity,
Influence, and Power. Hove, Psychology Press.
Hillary, R. (2014). The Last Enemy. London, Michael O’Mara Books.
Hobbes, T. (1968). Leviathan. Edited with an Introduction by CB Macpherson.
Harmondsworth, Penguin Books.
Hobsbawm, E. and T. Ranger (2012). The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Holmes, R. (2004). Acts of War: The Behaviour of Men in Battle. London, Cassell.
Hood, B. (2012). The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity. Oxford,
Oxford University Press.
Hood, B. (2014). The Domesticated Brain: A Pelican Introduction. London, Penguin.
Hopton, R. (2007). Pistols at Dawn: A History of Duelling. London, Portrait.
Houghton, D. P. (2001). Us Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Howard, M. (2000). The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International
Order. London, Profile.
Hugill, N., B. Fink, et al. (2009). ‘Men’s physical strength is associated with
women’s perceptions of their dancing ability.’ Personality and Individual Dif-
ferences 47(5): 527–530.
Humphrey, N. (2011). Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness. Princeton, Princeton
University Press.
Huntington, S. P. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
New York, Simon & Schuster.
IISS (2014). The Military Balance. London, Routledge.
Isaacson, W. (1992). Kissinger: A Biography. London, Faber and Faber.
Johnson, D. R., B. L. Huffman, et al. (2014). ‘Changing race boundary perception
by reading narrative fiction.’ Basic and Applied Social Psychology 36(1): 83–90.
Johnston, A. I. (1998). Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in
Chinese History. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Judge, T. A. and D. M. Cable (2004). ‘The effect of physical height on workplace
success and income: Preliminary test of a theoretical model.’ Journal of Applied
Psychology 89(3): 428.
Junger, S. (2010). War. London, Fourth Estate.
Kahn, H. (2009). On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios. New York, Transaction
Publishers.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. London, Allen Lane.
Kahneman, D., P. Slovic, et al. (1982). Judgement Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and
Biases. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
188 Bibliography
Keegan, J. (2011). The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme.
New York, Random House.
Keeley, L. H. (1995). War Before Civilization. New York; Oxford, Oxford University
Press.
Khadjavi, M. and A. Lange (2013). ‘Prisoners and their dilemma.’ Journal of
Economic Behavior & Organization 92(0): 163–175.
Khong, Y. F. (1992). Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the
Vietnam Decisions of 1965. Princeton, NJ; Oxford, Princeton University Press.
Kiyonari, T., S. Tanida, et al. (2000). ‘Social exchange and reciprocity: Confusion
or a heuristic?’ Evolution and Human Behavior 21(6): 411–427.
Klay, P. (2014). Redeployment. London, Canongate.
Koestler, A. (1966). Darkness at Noon. Translated by D. Hardy. London, Penguin.
Krasnow, M. M., A. W. Delton, et al. (2013). ‘Meeting now suggests we will
meet again: Implications for debates on the evolution of cooperation.’ Scientific
Reports Apr 16, 3: 1747.
Kyle, C., S. McEwen, et al. (2012). American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most
Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. New York, William Morrow.
Landau, M. J., S. Solomon, et al. (2004). ‘Deliver us from evil: The effects of mor-
tality salience and reminders of 9/11 on support for President George W. Bush.’
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30(9): 1136–1150.
Lawrence, T. E. (1955). The Mint: A Day-Book of the RAF Depot between August and
December 1922 with Later Notes by 352087 A/c Ross. London, J. Cape.
Lebow, R. N. (2010). Why Nations Fight: Past and Future Motives for War. New York;
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Lieberman, M. D. (2014). Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect. Oxford,
Oxford University Press.
Lippold, S., H. Xu, et al. (2014). ‘Human paternal and maternal demographic his-
tories: 4 insights from high-resolution Y chromosome and mtDNA sequences
5.’ Methods 1: 2.
Lippold, S., H. Xu, et al. (2014). ‘Human paternal and maternal demographic
histories: Insights from high-resolution Y chromosome and mtDNA sequences.’
Investigative Genetics 5(1): 13.
Little, A. C., J. Connely, et al. (2011). ‘Human preference for masculinity differs
according to context in faces, bodies, voices, and smell.’ Behavioral Ecology:
arr061.
Luttrell, M. and P. Robinson (2008). Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of
Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10. London, Sphere.
MacFarlane, N. (2005). Intervention in Contemporary World Politics. London,
Routledge.
Machiavelli, N. (1961). The Prince (1516), Translated with an Introduction by
George Bull. London, Penguin Books.
Manchester, W. (1980). Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War. Boston,
Little, Brown.
Marlantes, K. (2011). What It Is Like to Go to War. London, Corvus.
Marshall, S. L. A. (2000). Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command. Norman
OK, University of Oklahoma Press.
Martinescu, E., O. Janssen, et al. (2014). ‘Tell me the gossip: The self-evaluative
function of receiving gossip about others.’ Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin 40(12): 1668–1680.
Bibliography 189
Maslow, A. H. (1943). ‘A theory of human motivation.’ Psychological Review 50(4):

370.
Mason, R. (2005). Chickenhawk. London, Penguin.
Mayor, A. (2014). The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the
Ancient World. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Mazar, N., O. Amir, et al. (2008). ‘The dishonesty of honest people:
A theory of self-concept maintenance.’ Journal of Marketing Research 45(6):
633–644.
Mearsheimer, J. J. (2001). The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York; London,
WW Norton & Company.
Mercer, J. (1996). Reputation and International Politics. Ithaca; London, Cornell
University Press.
Mercer, J. (2014). ‘Feeling like a state: Social emotion and identity.’ International
Theory 6(03): 515–535.
Mill, J. S. and G. Himmelfarb (1985). On Liberty. Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Mills, D. (2008). Sniper One: The Blistering True Story of a British Battle Group Under
Siege. London, Penguin.
Mitani, J. C., D. P. Watts, et al. (2010). ‘Lethal intergroup aggression leads to
territorial expansion in wild chimpanzees.’ Current Biology 20(12): R507-R508.
Morgenthau, H. J. (1949). Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace.
New York, Knopf.
Morris, E. (2002). Theodore Rex. London, HarperCollins.
Mosing, M. A., B. P. Zietsch, et al. (2009). ‘Genetic and environmental influences
on optimism and its relationship to mental and self-rated health: A study of
aging twins.’ Behavior Genetics 39(6): 597–604.
Mueller, J. E. (2007). The Remnants of War. Ithaca, Cornell University Press.
Neitzel, S. and H. Welzer (2012). Soldaten – On Fighting, Killing and Dying: The Secret
Second World War Transcripts of German POWs. London, Simon & Schuster.
Niebuhr, R. (2003). Moral Man and Immoral Society. Lanham, MD, Rowman &
Littlefield Pub Inc.
O’Brien, T. (2003). If I Die in a Combat Zone. London, Flamingo.
Overmier, J. B. and M. E. Seligman (1967). ‘Effects of inescapable shock upon
subsequent escape and avoidance responding.’ Journal of Comparative and
Physiological Psychology 63(1): 28.
Overy, R. J. (2013). The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945. London, Allen Lane.
Owens, W. A. (2001). Lifting the Fog of War. Baltimore, JHU Press.
Panksepp, J. (2004). Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal
Emotions. New York, Oxford University Press.
Paret, P. (2007). Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times.
Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.
Paret, P. (2009). The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia 1806. Princeton, NJ,
Princeton University Press.
Payne, K. (2009). ‘Winning the battle of ideas: Propaganda, ideology, and terror.’
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 32(2): 109–128.
Payne, K. (2011). ‘Barbarous philosophers: Reflections on the nature of war from
Heraclitus to Heisenberg.’ The Times Literary Supplement No. 5657, 2 Sept 2011,
24–24.
Payne, K. (2013). ‘Social psychology in classic counterinsurgency writing.’
Defence Studies 13(1): 80–98.
190 Bibliography
Payne, K. (16 June 2014). ‘Fighting on: Emotion and conflict termination.’
Cambridge Review of International Affairs 1–18.
Payne, K. (2014). The Psychology of Strategy: Exploring Rationality in the Vietnam
War. London, Hurst & Co.
Percy, S. (2007). Mercenaries: The History of a Norm in International Relations.
Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA, Harvard
University Press.
Pinker, S. (1994). The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind.
London, Penguin.
Pinker, S. (2011). The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History
and Its Causes. London, Allen Lane.
Porter, P. (2009). Military Orientalism: Eastern War Through Western Eyes. London,
Hurst.
Price, R., N. Tannenwald, et al. (1996). Norms and Deterrence: The Nuclear and
Chemical Weapons Taboos. New York, Columbia University Press.
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community. London, Simon and Schuster.
Pye, L. W. (1956). Guerrilla Communism in Malaya: Its Social and Political Meaning.
Rand, D. G. and Z. G. Epstein (2014). ‘Risking your life without a second thought:
Intuitive decision-making and extreme altruism.’ Forthcoming in PLoS ONE,
available at SSRN 2424036.
Rawls, J. (2009). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
Roberts, A. I., S.-J. Vick, et al. (2014). ‘Chimpanzees modify intentional gestures
to coordinate a search for hidden food.’ Nature Communications Jan 16, 5: 3088.
Rodriguez-Vidal, J., F. d’Errico, et al. (2014). ‘A rock engraving made by
Neanderthals in Gibraltar.’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
111(37): 13301–13306.
Rousseau, J.-J. (2002). The Social Contract and the First and Second Discourses. New
Haven, Yale University Press.
Rudel, H. U. and L. A. Hudson (1979). Stuka Pilot. New York; London, Bantam.
Sankararaman, S., S. Mallick, et al. (2014). ‘The genomic landscape
of Neanderthal ancestry in present-day humans.’ Nature 507(7492):
354–357.
Scheipers, S. (ed.) (2014). Heroism and the Changing Character of War: Toward Post-
Heroic Warfare? Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Schelling, T. C. (1966). Arms and Influence. New Haven, Yale University Press.
Scheuerman, W. E. (2009). Hans Morgenthau: Realism and Beyond. Cambridge,
Polity.
Sémelin, J. (2007). Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide.
New York, Columbia University Press.
Seward, J. P. (1946). ‘Aggressive behavior in the rat. IV. Submission as determined
by conditioning, extinction, and disuse.’ Journal of Comparative Psychology
39(1): 51.
Sharot, T. (2012). The Optimism Bias. London, Robinson.
Shephard, B. (2000). A War of Nerves. London, Jonathan Cape.
Shergill, S. S., P. M. Bays, et al. (2003). ‘Two eyes for an eye: The neuroscience of
force escalation.’ Science 301(5630): 187–187.
Bibliography 191
Sherif, M., O. J. Harvey, et al. (1961). Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The
Robbers Cave Experiment. Norman, OK, University Book Exchange.
Shils, E. A. and M. Janowitz (1948). ‘Cohesion and disintegration in the
Wehrmacht in World War II.’ Public Opinion Quarterly 12(2): 280–315.
Simons, D. J. and C. F. Chabris (1999). ‘Gorillas in our midst: Sustained inatten-
tional blindness for dynamic events.’ Perception-London 28(9): 1059–1074.
Simons, D. J. and D. T. Levin (1998). ‘Failure to detect changes to people during
a real-world interaction.’ Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 5(4): 644–649.
Singer, P. (1983). The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology. Oxford, Clarendon
Press.
Singer, P. (2011). The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress.
Skinner, Q. (2000). Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Slovic, P., M. L. Finucane, et al. (2007). ‘The affect heuristic.’ European Journal of
Operational Research 177(3): 1333–1352.
Swofford, A. (2003). Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles.
New York; London, Scribner.
Tajfel, H. (1982). Social Identity and Intergroup Relations. Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
Tajfel, H., M. G. Billig, et al. (1971). ‘Social categorization and intergroup
behaviour.’ European Journal of Social Psychology 1(2): 149–178.
Tannenwald, N. (1999). ‘The nuclear taboo: The United States and the normative
basis of nuclear non-use.’ International Organization 53(3): 433–468.
Thayer, B. A. (2004). Darwin and International Relations: On the Evolutionary Origins
of War and Ethnic Conflict. Lexington, University Press of Kentucky.
Thomas, W. (2000). ‘Norms and security: The case of international assassination.’
International Security 25(1): 105–133.
Tiihonen, J., M. R. Rautiainen, et al. (2014). ‘Genetic background of extreme
violent behavior.’ Molecular Psychiatry.
Tilly, C. and G. Ardant (1975). The Formation of National States in Western Europe.
Touboul, J. (2014). ‘The hipster effect: When anticonformists all look the same.’
arXiv preprint arXiv: 1410.8001.
Trivers, R. (2011). Deceit and Self-Deception: Fooling Yourself the Better to Fool Others.
London, Allen Lane.
Trivers, R. L. (1971). ‘The evolution of reciprocal altruism.’ Quarterly Review of
Biology 46(1): 35–57.
Trut, L. N. (1999). ‘Early canid domestication: The farm-fox experiment.’
American Scientist 87(2): 160–169.
Turner, J. C., M. A. Hogg, et al. (1987). Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-
Categorization Theory. Oxford, Basil Blackwell.
Turse, N. (2013). Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.
New York, Metropolitan Books.
Ulrich, R., M. Johnston, et al. (1963). ‘The operant conditioning of fighting
behavior in rats.’ The Psychological Record 13(4): 465–470.
Van de Poll, N., F. De Jonge, et al. (1982). ‘Aggressive behaviour in rats: Effects of
winning or losing on subsequent aggressive interactions.’ Behavioural Processes
7(2): 143–155.
192 Bibliography
Visscher, P. M. (2008). ‘Sizing up human height variation.’ Nature Genetics 40(5):

489–490.
Wade, N. (2014). A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History.
New York, Penguin.
Weigley, R. F. (1973). The American Way of War: A History of United States Military
Strategy and Policy. New York, Macmillan.
White, J. (2004). ‘Tillman killed by “friendly fire”.’ Washington Post.
Washington DC.
Wilson, T. D. (2002). Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious.
Cambridge, MA; London, Belknap Press.
Wrangham, R. W., M. L. Wilson, et al. (2006). ‘Comparative rates of violence in
chimpanzees and humans.’ Primates 47(1): 14–26.
Wright, E. (2009). Generation Kill: Living Dangerously on the Road to Baghdad with
the Ultraviolent Marines of Bravo Company. London, Corgi.
Zheng, H.-X., S. Yan, et al. (2012). ‘MtDNA analysis of global populations sup-
port that major population expansions began before Neolithic Time.’ Scientific
Reports Oct 18, 2:745.
Index
Note: locators followed by ‘n’ indicate notes section.
Abbottabad, 163 aggression

abortion, 107 and criminal behaviour, 8–9
abstract rationality, 2–3, 19, 34, 36, decline in, 50, 82
46, 61–3, 73, 77–8, 151–3 display of, 6–7, 33, 40, 125
accumulation intergroup, 33, 125
of power, 28, 34, 46, 48 misdirected, 117, 168
of wealth, 36 in modern civilisation, 125–6, 133,
Achilles, 14, 96–7, 135, 161 135, 144, 147–9, 175
actor(s) in response to provocation, 12,
behaviours, 49 143, 147
conscious, 135 and risk-taking by young men, 50,
desire for esteem, 1, 3–4, 39–40 110, 142, 144
independent, 86 tendencies in animals, 33, 40,
powerful, 39, 80, 89 124, 147
territorial, 109
private, 123
agricultural revolution, 6–7, 19, 21,
rational, 62, 64, 66–8
23–4, 36, 48, 71, 155
strategic, 34
Aknin, L. B., 70
supporting, 65–6
alienation, 114, 136–7, 145–6, 162,
adaptative behaviours, 2, 19, 25, 28,
164–5
32, 34, 44, 60, 63, 65, 67, 144–5
‘all against all’ struggle, 54
adrenaline, 127
Alliance, 117
adultery, 27
alliances, 27, 38, 41, 172
aerial warfare/bombing, 53, 123, Al Qa’eda, 105
128, 155 Amazons, 27
see also unmanned combat systems ambiguity, 40, 65, 67, 77, 79, 85, 131
affect heuristic, 68–9 ambush, 21, 23, 31, 35, 77–8, 133,
Afghanistan, war in, 35, 61, 81, 114, 163–4
117, 127, 135, 158, 162 American Civil War, 107
British military, 81, 114, 127, 137 ‘American’ culture, 112
casualties, 116 amorality vs. honour, 43–6
heroes, 162–3 amour-propre, 48–50
memoirs and journalistic Amsterdam, 104
accounts, 136 Anarchical Society, The (Bull), 88
public opinion, 157, 173 anarchy, 5, 15, 20, 40, 42–3, 48, 70
stories of, 162–3, 166–7 ‘ancestral environment,’ 7, 19, 47
US military, 61, 116–17, 139, 163 Anderson, B. R. O. G., 71, 92
ageing population, 50, 108–9 Angel, 107
agency, 44, 65–6, 68, 86, 103, 128, anger, 6, 35, 66, 163, 168
132–3, 153, 155, 161, 163–4, 167, Anglo-US war of 1812, 107
171–2 ‘animal passions,’ 124
193
194 Index
animals Asch, S. E., 83

aggressive, 7, 124 assassination of enemy leaders, 52
capacity for intentionality, 32, 65 assault, 8, 53, 127, 129, 171
cooperative behaviour, 4, 59, 70 Athens/Athenians, 41–2, 107
defences, 31 attribution bias, 84–5
domestication of, 24, 147–8 Australia
fear of predation/ rivals, 31, 149 armed forces, 120
selective breeding, 7, 147–8 gender bias, 3
annihilation, 13, 25, 31, 38, 50, 76, heritability of height, study on, 8
82, 137, 156, 158, 172 marginalisation of aboriginals, 3
anonymity, 26, 60, 73, 97, 135, modern hunter-gatherer
162–3, 171 communities, 22
anti-capitalist protest, 108 women in military roles, 120, 141
anti-heroes, 165, 167 authenticity, 110, 167
anti-Nazi sentiment, 93 authoritarianism, 87, 109, 174
antipathy, 137 autonomy, 113, 115, 171
anti-Semitism, 93 auxiliary services, 119–20
anti-terrorism, 159 AWOL, 165
anti-war film, 166 Axelrod, R. M., 64
anxiety, 83–4, 125, 133, 159–60
apathy, 138, 162 baby boomers, 108, 110
Apocalypse Now (Conrad), 165 Banaji, M. R., 91
Arctic tundra, 9 ‘band of brothers’ mythology, 14
Ardant, G., 78 barbarism, 10, 104, 163
Argentina Barbarous Philosophers (Coker), 102
invasion of Falkland Islands, 174 bare-knuckle boxing, 27
war against, 179 n.4 Barkin, J. S., 151
Ariely, D., 85–6, 88 Barkow, J. H., 177 n.2
armed forces ‘basic emotions,’ 124
expenditure on, 101, 113 Bateson, M., 85
professional, 113 battalions, 23, 78, 114, 122, 132
relationship between society and, battery, 9, 134
114, 116–18, 141–2, 146 ‘battle of ideas,’ 157, 167–8
rival states’, 21 bayonet, 127, 148
sexual harassment by, 120 BBC, 31
technologically sophisticated, Beach, The (Garland), 166
114–16, 158 Beattie, D., 127–8, 130, 132, 134, 137,
see also warriors, modern/liberal 149, 180 n.11, 180 n.23
Armitage, Richard, 167 Beharry, Johnson, 163
Armstrong, K., 154, 162–3, 181 n.3 behaviour
Aron, R., 48– 50, 110, 151, 177 n.6 adaptative, 2, 19, 25, 28, 32, 34, 44,
arrow, 28–9 60, 63, 65, 67, 144–5
art, 24, 35, 55, 153, 165–6 altruistic, 3–4, 14, 30
artefacts, cultural, 19, 35, 51, 73, 76, ambiguous, 79, 85
141, 145 conditioning of, 84, 148
artificial intelligence, 115 cooperative, 2, 24, 55, 59, 62,
artificial selection, 7, 76, 147 64, 127
artillery, 165–6, 171–2 evolutionary accounts of, 37, 38, 82,
battery, 134 118, 132, 143
Index 195
fundamental drivers of, 45, 151 brain, human

honourable, 36, 50, 175 basic emotions and, 124
impact of culture, 112 decision-making process, 67–8, 128
international, 5, 39, 88 emotional responses to killing,
maladaptive, 6–7, 34, 60, 82, 149 128–9
modern norms, 30, 37, 75–6, 81–3, impact of physical and emotional
87–9, 93, 107, 111, 135, 137, pain, 86–7
174–5 sizes of, 24, 33–4, 61, 78, 131
predatory, 77 Brewer, M. B., 174
‘reciprocal punishment,’ 63–4, 75, bride price, 27
89, 109 British Parachute Regiment, 124
brutality, 45, 48, 53, 74, 149, 155, 165
repertoire of, 2, 6, 11, 13, 36, 82, 92
Bull, H., 88
shaping of, 2, 5–6, 9–10, 28, 39, 41,
Burkart, J. M., 4, 33
49–50, 72, 75, 79, 84, 88–9
Burnham, T. C., 60
social, 4, 87
Bush, George, 157
state, 39, 44, 88
anti-terror policies, 159
strategic, 53, 112 bystander effect study, 83
violent/criminal, 7–9, 48, 148
Belyaev, Dmitri, 7 Cable, D. M., 144
Berlin, 104 Caesar, J., 111
Bertrand, M., 180 n.30 Canada, 120
bias, 3, 25, 27, 84–6, 93, 120, 159 Candid Camera, 83
Biddle, S., 172 cannibalism, 30
Bigelow, R. S., 76 canonical realism, 5
‘big men,’ 20, 36, 81 capital, 107, 115, 122
bin Laden, Osama, 97, 157, 163 anti-capitalist protest, 108
biological weapons, 52 social, 80
biometric databases, 115 capital flight, 108
biotechnology, 114–15, 172 capital punishment, 3, 107
‘Black Hawk Down,’ 115, 140 Caputo, P., 30, 138, 159, 161, 163–5,
black prisons, 54 180 n.28, 181 n.6
Blair, Tony, 167–8 memoir of Vietnam War, 30, 138,
159, 161, 163–5
watershed speech in Chicago,
Carnegie Hero Medal, 132
168–9, 173
castigation, 136
blushing, 83–4
casualties
Bobbitt, P., 43
civilian, 116–17
bombing attacks, 37, 53, 74, 97, 117,
in hunter-gatherer societies, 22
128, 134, 167
military, 31, 115–16, 121
bombing crew, 37, 134 minimising, 116–17, 121
booty, 31 sympathy for, 138
Bosnia, 115, 167, 179 n.4 casus belli, 27, 35, 163
Bouchard, T. J., 176 n.3 Central Asia, 174
Bourke, J., 97 Chabris, C. F., 84
Bowden, M., 141 Chad, 90
Bowles, S., 23, 76, 78, 103, 159, 173 chariot, 145
boxing, 27, 124 charity, 47, 67, 114
Boyd, R., 63 chauvinism, 10, 106, 174
196 Index
cheating, 63, 70, 76, 85 classical realism (on honour), 5, 38–55

chemical weapons, 52 Aron’s view, 48–50
Chicago, 168, 173 Hobbes’ view, 42–3
Chickenhawk (Mason), 136 liberal society and warriors, 50–4
children Machiavelli’s view, 43–6
brutalisation of, 149 Morgenthau’s view, 46–7
development in, 5–6, 9, 33 Niebuhr’s view, 47–8
in modern liberal societies, 149 Thucydides’ view, 40–2
modern lifestyles, impact of, 149 Clausewitz, Carl von, 51, 54, 79, 103,
obesity in, 146, 180 n.31 115, 118, 122, 130, 157
rearing, 26, 33, 110, 140, 143 ‘fog of war,’ 115
spanking of, 106 nature of war, 79, 103
warriors, 25 realist vision of warfare, 51
chimpanzees understanding of altruism in battle,
cannibalism, 30 54, 130
capacity for ‘intentionality,’ 32, war as conversation between
34, 65 belligerent societies, 157
evolutionary argument, 26 Western militaries and society,
limited parental care by male, 26, 117–18
32–4 close personal protection, 123
on patrol, 31, 40 close-quarters combat, 4, 26, 29, 120,
pattern of pair bonding, 26, 32–3 123–35, 140–1, 143, 147, 149,
war vs. human war, 24, 31–4, 77, 81, 155, 165
102, 133 clubbing/clubbing weaponry, 29, 133
China, 52, 174 coalitions, 109, 113, 116–17, 167
strategic culture, 112 Cobden, Richard, 107
Chinese whispers effect, 140 coercion, 42, 46–8, 55, 81
Christakis, N. A., 10 cognitive behavioural therapy, 83–4
Christianity, 42, 85, 159, 171 cognitive processes/capacity, 24–5,
Cialdini, R. B., 68–9 33–4, 61, 67–8, 78, 80, 84, 91,
Cieri, R. L., 33 129, 132, 151, 153, 169
citizenry, 21, 45, 85, 87–8, 114, 123, cognitive psychology, 67
146–7, 149, 156, 167 Coker, C., 13, 102–3, 148, 165, 172–3,
civilian(s), 28, 114 175, 182 n.4
and armed forces, 114, 123, Cold War, 111, 113, 174
135–6, 159 collective good, 13, 45
casualties, 36, 53, 116–17, 168 collective identity, 3, 10, 13, 96,
life, 28, 155 155, 169
society, 118–19, 159 Collins, S. A., 144
targets, 117, 168 colobus monkeys, 31
civilisation, 11, 20–1, 34, 42, 78, colonial warfare, 22, 90, 101
102–6, 125, 146, 165 combat
clans, 12 altruism in, 3–4
Clash of Civilisations, The citizenry to serve in, see
(Huntington), 105 conscription
class close-quarters, 4, 26, 29, 120,
differences, 118 123–35, 140–1, 143, 147, 149,
middle, 107, 118 155, 165
political, 108 dangers of, 116
Index 197
effectiveness, 134, 141 and language, 4, 152–3, 166

fighter pilots, 94 and meaning, 152
frequency of, 21 reflection, 4, 128, 151
instinctive responses in, 35, 67, 82, conscription, 21, 113, 116, 145,
128, 132, 135, 144, 164, 168 149, 168
patrols, 94, 120 consequentialism, 14, 43–5, 52, 54,
prowess in, 8, 20, 123, 134, 143 70, 129, 135, 146
shared values of, 134–5 constructivist ideas, 15, 42, 51, 151
status and esteem from, 35 consumerism, 108
technologically sophisticated, 115, conventional weapons, 115, 121–2
117, 143 Cooper, R., 169
and trauma, 28 cooperation
unarmed, 134, 148 and altruism, 2, 4, 7, 14, 43, 69–70,
women in, 11, 25–6, 94–5, 110, 114, 76, 113
119–20, 139–43 in chimps, 31
commerce, 103 conditional and limited, 41, 62
Communism, 45, 106, 115, 123, 159 dilemmas, 62–4
Communist guerrillas, 86 and empathy, 19, 24, 47, 113, 126
community evolved/instinctive tendencies for,
breakdown of, 108 4, 7, 9–10, 11, 12–13, 15, 23, 24,
cooperative, 24, 70 55, 59, 60, 65, 67, 70, 78, 103,
culture, 92, 153 144, 147, 150, 175
empathic, 19, 24, 47–8, 104, 106 groups, 12, 14, 23, 31, 34, 46, 55,
identity, 89 60, 73, 76–9, 80–1, 102, 145
norms, role of, 88 individual, 77
ostracism from, 46–7 reward for, 13, 32
reciprocal obligation, 89 social, 12
shared, 106 with strangers, 60, 126
social exchanges, 12, 61 coordination, 9, 31–2, 34, 62, 102–3,
of warriors, 95, 97, 135–6, 163, 173 145, 159, 172
compassion, 47–8 corporal punishment, 149
compensation, 89, 140, 149 Cortés, Hernán, 133
competition, 8, 12, 15, 20, 28, 38, 49, Cosmides, L. E., 19, 177 n.2
55, 72, 73, 77 cosmopolitanism, 53, 104, 170
compliance, 85–6 counterinsurgency operations, 115
computer technologies, 64–5, 114–15 courage, 14, 35, 44, 81, 83–4, 86, 97,
comrades, 4, 30, 54, 59, 94, 96, 127, 124, 128–30, 133–4, 148, 163–5,
130, 138, 144, 146, 156, 163, 169 171–2
‘confirmation bias,’ 25 creativity, 34, 118
confusion, 118, 131, 136, 152, 168 Credence Clearwater Revival, 167
Congo, 9, 90 criminal violence, 8, 33
Conrad, J., 165 Crockett, M. J., 75
conscious mind/consciousness, 28, crows, 32
67–8, 91, 132, 151–3 cult, 74, 97
awareness of death/human frailty, culture, 8
159, 172 cosmopolitan, 170
collective, 154 cultural change, 11–12, 94
decision-making, 68–9, 128 cultural diversity, 112, 153
deliberation, 128, 132 cultural exchange, 138–9
198 Index
culture – continued Detroit, 33

cultural identity, 61, 69, 71, 92, 154 developing world, 109
effects of, 125–6 brutalisation of children, 149
emergence/evolutionary legacy, de Waal, Frans, 22, 24, 33
8–13, 24, 26–7, 30, 34–6, 60, 92, Diamond, J. M., 9, 23, 27, 30–1, 71,
139, 141–2, 145 112, 177 n.8
exposure to, 107 diplomacy, 40
Geertz’s view, 10, 73, 112, 154, disease, 23, 149
177 n.2 dishonourable outsiders, 29–31
group, 75–9, 92–3, 95, 97, DNA, 10, 22, 26, 72
104–5, 136 documentary, 27
issues, 112–13
dogs
local, 105
learned helplessness and
myths and war stories, 153–5,
despondency, 171
159–61, 166, 168–9
military use of, 147–8
and notion of memes, 140–1
and wolves, 7, 23
strategic, 111–12, 114, 121
domestication, 8, 12, 33, 71, 109, 144,
variation in, 112, 138, 144, 153
147–8, 169
Western, 143–4, 180 n.30
in animals, 7, 24
Damasio, A. R., 67–8, 152, 154 physical traits of, 24, 33
dancing ability, men’s, 26, 81 self-domestication, 23–4, 32, 125,
Darkness at Noon (Koestler), 45 134, 148, 153
Darley, J. M., 83 über-sociability, 24, 33
dart, 28–9 Dower, J. W., 30, 53
Darwin’s theory, see evolution, Doyle, M. W., 106
theory of Dreadnought class warships, 51
Davis, W., 172 Dunbar, R. I. M., 26, 61, 69, 72, 78,
Dawkins, R., 73, 140, 147, 178 n.3 131–2, 142, 144
daydreaming, 162, 165–6 evolutionary purpose of laughter, 69
D-Day, 74, 149 extended social network, 72
deception, 26, 49, 59, 69–70, 76, 175 ‘hired gun’ thesis, 26, 142, 144
decision-making number of, 61, 132
collective, 81, 102 research on neocortex, 61, 78,
conscious, 28 131, 144
emotions, importance of, 67–9
instinctual, 67, 132, 151
Eagleman, D., 93
defeat, 41, 50, 117, 137, 140, 157–8
defensive technique, 40, 124, 171 early man, 20, 24, 42
De Graaf, J., 109 economic theory, 63
deliberation, 7, 44, 49, 67–9, 82, 91, education, 71, 107, 114, 118–19
102, 117, 128–9, 132, 151 egalitarianism, 2, 20, 48, 81, 118, 171
Delta fighters, 139 Eisenberger, N. I., 87
Delton, A. W., 63 Eisenhower era, 51
democracy/democratisation, 48, 71, Ekman, P., 124
94, 104, 106–9, 112, 171 elderly population, 110
Denmark, 109, 174, 176 n.4 elites, 67, 80, 94, 96–7, 103, 118, 139,
desegregation, 94, 141, 143 163, 168
despondency, 171 Ellsberg, D., 167
Index 199
emotions, 49, 64 Enlightenment, 103, 105–6, 122, 163,

basic, 124–5 171, 174
emotional attachment, 4, 150 environment
emotional distance, 123 ancestral, 7, 19–20, 24, 47
and empathy, 106, 160, 173 changes in, 7, 12
and identity, 75 and genetic influences, 5–6, 8–9
instinctive, 35, 43, 75, 128, 154 niches, 9, 34, 71, 77
perception and, 41 resource-scarce, 24, 27–8, 92
reason and, 128–9, 143 social, 38, 69
role in decision-making, 67–9 Epley, N., 65–6, 83
strong, 59 Epstein, Z. G., 132
visceral, 123, 129, 165 equality, 49–50, 94–5, 106–7, 140–3
in war, 25, 35, 124, 128–9 equanimity, 95
empathy, 2–3, 10–11, 13, 15, 19, 24, equity portfolios, 110
32–4, 47–8, 53, 65–8, 71, 73, 91, escalation dominance, 64–5
103–4, 106–7, 109, 113, 125–7, esteem
134, 138, 144, 153, 168, 173–4 challenges to, 59, 75, 166
gap, 65–8, 160 collective, 169, 174
enemies defending/preserving, 81, 143, 152,
altruistism towards, 14 158, 160
aversive reactions to, 121, 130, desire for, 1, 28, 44, 46, 49, 55, 73,
159–60, 165 79, 81–2, 166, 175
brutality against, 53 heroism and, 162
captured, 30 honour and, 79, 166
casualties, 116, 127, 168 Morgenthau’s view, 46
civilians killed by, 117 power and, 46, 123
defenceless, 82 re-definition of, 110
degradation of dead, 82 self-, 40, 86, 105, 160
dehumanising, 29, 35, 126–7, 168 status and, 3–4, 15, 28, 35, 39, 80
distinction between allies and, ethics, 2, 14, 47, 70, 117
127, 155 ethnic conflicts, 109
fighting, 123 ethnicity, 11, 53, 69, 71–2, 105–6,
forces, 111, 116–17 142, 175
interrogation of, 54 ethnic segregation, 104
killing of, 14, 28–30, 52, 81–2, 120, ethnos, 105, 173
123, 125, 145, 156, 158, 168 Eurasia, 26
operational approaches against, 117 euro, 108
prisoners, 82 Europe
surrendered, 82 ageing population, 108
targeting, 29, 115, 117, 123, changes in military power, 122
126, 134 democratic deficit, 108
technologically hereditary monarchs, 88
unsophisticated, 115 liberal worldview, 103
territory, 133 Marshall plan for, 158
trophies from, 30, 81, 168 post-war, 108
engineering tasks, 145 spread of liberal worldview, 103
England, 42, 140 unsettled political circumstances, 42
English Civil War, 43 Western democracies, 3
200 Index
European Commission, crime of exile, 73

statistics, 176 n.4 honour and interest, 39–42
European Court of Human Rights, 94 and insecurity/uncertainty, 5,
European Human Rights, 135 39, 125
European Union, 38 of killing, 125
bureaucracy, 108 managing, 148
crime statistics, 176 n.4 of police, 87
federalism, 174 of predation, 34–5
human rights act, 54 of rejection, 83, 86–7
military intervention in Congo and of ridicule, 74, 83
Chad, 90 Fehr, E., 59, 63
European war, 36 FeldmanHall, O., 89
euthanasia, 107 female emancipation, 107
evolution Ferguson, R. Brian, 22
of culture, 8–13, 9–11, 24, 26–7, 30, Fergusson, J., 136
34–6, 60, 92, 139, 141–2, 145 Festinger, L., 74, 75
of human nature, 4–7 fiction, 136–7, 154, 161, 166, 169
and liberalism, 11–13 fighter pilots, 94, 96, 120
theory of, 5, 20, 42, 50, 52, 59, 79, ‘fight or flight’ response, 129, 144
122, 142 films, war, 136, 164, 166–7
of warriors, 13–14, 20–7 Fink, B., 26
evolutionary psychology, 5–7, 12, 15, Finkel, D., 137, 180 n.22
19, 24–5, 40, 45, 47–8, 50, 101, Finland, 9, 148
121, 132, 144–5, 151–2 first aid, 133
exhilaration, 35, 126 firsthand experiences, 61, 128
exile, 73, 86 First World War, 51, 94, 158, 162, 171
Expanding Circle (Singer), 103 Fischbacher, U., 59
experimental psychology, 5 fish, artificial selection, 7
extremism, 11, 25, 168 flame-throwers, 141
food, access to, 19–20, 25, 27–8, 31–4,
Face of Battle, The (Keegan), 122 46, 104–5
faces force, use of, 37, 40, 47, 49, 52, 65–6,
early human, 33 109, 147, 157
masculine, 80 foreign policy, 38, 67, 90, 101
‘morphed,’ 65 Fortunato, L., 64
‘faces in things’ (Twitter feeds), 65 Foucault, Michel, 161
fairness norm, 2, 63, 73, 89, 104, 109, Fowler, J. H., 10
162, 174 foxes, domestication of, 7–8
Falklands Conflict of 1982, 81, 174 France
false consensus bias, 85 army, 171
famine, 23, 25 defence spending, 113
Farrell, T., 95 Freedman, L., 36
fatalism, 31, 97 free-riding, 63, 65, 69, 73, 76, 92, 144
FBI, crime statistics, 176 n.4 free will, 3, 6, 151
fear French Revolution, 171
of attacking/being attacked, 115, Freud, Sigmund, 46
125, 129, 133 friction, 104, 115, 118
contagious, 130 Frisell, T., 8
of death, 160 frontal assaults, 53, 171
Index 201
frustration, 115, 168 material, 79

Fry, D. P., 22, 177 n.3 political, 51, 102, 157–8
Fukuyama, F., 11, 103–5, 112, 162, 174 primary essential, 105
Full Metal Jacket (film), 166 warrior, 25, 28, 39–40, 43–4, 53, 82,
functional magnetic resonance 136, 164
imaging, 128 God, 126
future encounters, 64, 156 Goldsworthy, A. K., 145
Gomm, P., 180 n.11, 180 n.23
Gachter, S., 63 Goodall, J., 31–2
game theory, 62–4, 66 Good Soldiers, The (Finkel), 137
‘gangsta’ chic, 139 gossip, 61, 77, 152–3
Garland, A., 166 Götterdämmerung, 158
Gat, A., 7, 15, 21–3, 33, 43, 48, 50, 71, Gottschall, J., 152, 154
110, 126, 142, 179 n.3 Gray, C. S., 112
Gavrilets, S., 64 greater good, 14, 44–5, 54
gay pride events, 94 Greece, 113, 117
Gaza–Israel conflict, 107 ancient, 102, 133, 156
Geertz, C., 10, 73, 112, 154, 177 n.2 Greenberg, J., 159
Gellner, E., 71 Greene, G., 165
gender bias, 3, 120 Greene, J. D., 128
gender equality, 50, 94, 140 Greenwald, A. G., 91
gene(s) grenade, 127, 156
expression, 5–6 grief, 87, 116
inheritance, 5–6 grooming, 69
selection, 20, 28, 63, 140 gross domestic product (GDP), 113
and violence, 7–9 Grossman, D., 123–4, 130
warrior, 25, 27, 143–4, 148 group(s)
generalisation, 3, 119 bonding, 105, 132, 144, 150, 153,
general (military rank), 118 174
Generation Kill (Wright), 167 clashes in culture, 104
generosity, 63, 70 conditioning effect on individual
genocide, 23, 115 behaviour, 84
Germany flexible, 72–3
Dreadnaught race, 51 identity, 61, 68–72, 75, 78, 89, 92–5,
duelling, 94 106, 110, 159
First World War, 158 loyalty, 73–6, 127, 136, 144, 174
frontier warfare, 111, 171 norms and expectations, 12, 75,
identity, 92 83–5, 143
‘militarism,’ 172 sacrifice for, 1–2, 90, 96–7, 138, 146,
prisoners of war, 93 156, 164
Gietz, Sergeant, 137 selection, 77
globalisation, 91 social, 4, 8, 22–3, 32, 34, 46–8,
glory, 39, 44, 49, 74, 95, 97, 138 59–61, 82, 86, 89, 102, 108,
Glover, J., 123 126, 131, 144–5, 151
goals solidarity, 121, 134, 169
collective, 36 transformation, 106
individual, 3, 20, 36 as ‘weapons of influence,’ 68–9
liberal, 170, 173 guided munitions, 117
life, 20, 28, 50, 87 guilt, 29, 129, 137
202 Index
Gulf War (1990/1991), 116–17, 166 Hitler, Adolf, 161

Guns Germs and Steel (Diamond), 112 ‘hive’ mentality, 60
Hobbes, T., 4–8, 5, 15, 42–3, 45,
habits, 43, 119, 125 54–5, 87
Hackel, L. M., 65–6 Hobbesian Leviathan, 86–8
Haidt, J., 142, 152 Hobsbawm, E., 92
hair-trigger response, 59, 81, 174 Holmes, R., 133
hajis, 160 homicide, 9
Hamas government (Gaza), 107 Homo sapiens, 23–4, 32, 34, 153–5
Hanson, V. D., 40, 111–12, 133 homosexuals, 94–5, 141
Harari, Y., 176 n.5 honour
Harris, S., 151 amorality vs., 43–6
Hart, B. H. L., 111 as cause of war, 15, 35, 80, 95–7
Haslam, S. A., 93 changes with time, 90–2
hatred, 35, 160, 165, 167 code, 83, 85
Hawaii, 136 essentiality of, 36–7
health, 107–9, 146, 149 existential, 95–7
Hector, 96–7 fear and interest, 39–42
Hegel, 105, 174 group identity/group attitudes, 92–5
height, heritability of, 6, 8 ‘Kissinger effect,’ 80
Help for Heroes charity, 114
notion of, 3–4
hero/heroism
public, 82–7
as celebrity, 162–3
realist thought, 38–55
flawed, 165
societal, 27–9, 36–7, 87–90
and honour, 14, 42, 95–7, 128, 155,
stories of heroism and, 155,
162, 165, 167, 172
160–7, 172
idolisation, 162
and war, 95–7
ironic, 163–6
Hood, B., 24, 32
liberal, 160–7, 171
Hopton, R., 94
myth of, 136, 138, 161–2, 164
horse, use in warfare, 26–7
‘post-heroism,’ 170–1
traditional/old-fashioned, 161–3 hostilities, 27, 45, 107, 165
heuristics, 67–9 Houghton, D. P., 67
hierarchy Howard, M., 10, 103, 109
and discipline, 1, 35, 145, 169 Hudson, L. A., 161
dominance, 31, 36, 46, 55, 81 Hugill, N., 26
group, 48 Humanity (Glover), 123
military, 118–19, 145–6 human nature
obedience to, 1, 12, 36 evolved, 4–7, 174
social, 118 realist account of, 38–55
hierarchy of needs, Maslow’s, violence and, 19–37
104–5 human rights, 4, 54, 94, 168–9
Lieberman’s formulation, 105 breach of, 135
Hillary, R., 96, 155, 178 n.13–14 Humphrey, N., 152
Himmelfarb, G., 176 n.1 hunter-gatherer societies, 1–2
‘hindsight bias,’ 93 altruism, 3
‘hipster effect,’ 110, 139 behaviours, 7, 10, 38
History of the Peloponnesian War group size, 61
(Thucydides), 40–1 modern, 5, 22–3
Index 203
small bands, 12, 15, 23, 28, 32, instinct

60–1, 64, 71, 78 cooperative tendencies, 4, 7, 11, 24,
violence/war, 8, 13, 27–30, 32–3, 35, 65, 67, 78, 103, 175
125, 149, 169 decision-making, 67, 132, 151
Huntington, S. P., 105–6 emotions, 35, 43, 75, 128, 154
responses in combat, 35, 67, 82,
ice age, 23 128, 132, 135, 144, 164, 168
iconoclasm, 28, 110, 119 intellectual rights, 107, 114
identity intentionality, 10, 32, 54, 65, 102
collective, 3, 10, 13, 96, 155, 169 intergroup conflict, 21, 48, 77–8, 103,
community, 89 106, 142, 145
cultural, 61, 69, 71, 92, 154 international behaviour, 5, 39, 88
emotions and, 75 international relations theory, 15,
group, 61, 68–72, 75, 78, 89, 92–5, 105–6
106, 110, 159 Internet, 114
as motivation for fighting, 170 interrogation, 54, 149
social, 10, 69, 75, 90 interstate war, 106–7, 109
If I Die in a Combat Zone (O’Brien), 136 Intimate History of Killing (Bourke), 97
Iliad ( Homer), 95 ‘intimate social group,’ 47
illicit affairs, 26
intraspecies/intragroup violence, 7–8,
Imagined Communities (Anderson), 92
77, 82, 102, 135
immersion therapy, 84
intuition, 34, 40, 86
immortality, 159–60
Invention of Peace (Howard), 103
implicit-association tests, 91
Invention of Tradition, The (Hobsbawm
incarceration, 13, 109, 176 n.4
and Ranger), 92
Incas, 133
Iranian hostage rescue crisis, 67
incendiary, 53
Iraq
Indian Wars, 53, 82
invasion of, 35, 113–14, 116–17,
individualism, 86, 110, 121, 135, 175
126, 174 n.4
indoctrination, 28, 86
‘Indonesia,’ invented concept of, 71 invasion of Kuwait, 116–17
industrialisation, 71, 107, 113, 122, memoirs and journalistic accounts
138, 171–2 of war in, 136
in extremis, 59 stories of heroism, 166–7
infant mortality, 149 US military casualties of war, 116
infantry, 61, 94, 97, 120, 125, 128, Ireland, 101
134, 139–41, 143, 148, 171–2 ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’
infidelity, 26 (Yeats), 95–6
Influence: Science and Practice Irish traveller communities, 27
(Cialdini), 68 Isaacson, W., 80
information-sharing, computerised, Islamist extremism, 11, 39, 90, 104,
114 117, 139, 168
information technologies, 122 isolation, 14, 24, 30, 34, 75, 108, 133,
in-groups, 12, 15, 48, 61, 65, 68, 73, 146, 155
104, 159, 174 isomorphism, military, 95, 118
inherited/evolved traits, 5–6, 8, 11, Israel
142, 145, 147, 153 Defence Forces, 141
insecurity, 5, 15, 31, 38, 49 and Gaza conflict, 107
insignia, 118 Italy, 109
204 Index
Janowitz, M., 131 at random, 164

Japan raping and, 166
nuclear weapons against, 37, 53 short distance, 28–9, 120,
prisoners of war, 53 128–9, 140
and UK, 37 trauma of, 127, 148
and US, 30, 129 kinship, 3, 10, 12, 20, 30, 47, 71, 72–4,
Jarhead (Swofford), 166 77, 92, 144
jealous guarding, 49, 87 Kissinger, Henry, 167
Jews, 5, 93, 159 ‘Kissinger effect,’ 80
Johnson, D. D., 60 Kiyonari, T., 63
Johnson, D. R., 169 Klay, P., 137, 166, 180 n.27
Johnson, Lyndon B., 52, 167 Klimmt, Gustav, 68
Johnston, A. I., 112 knowingness, 163, 165–7
journalistic accounts, of war, 136 knowledge, pursuit and transmission
Judge, T. A., 144 of, 36
Junger, S., 61, 155 Koestler, A., 45
Junger, Sebastian, 61, 155 Koran, burning of, 168
justice Korean War, 116
honour and, 49, 174 Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, 61
liberal, 13 Kosovo War, 115–17, 168
‘Melian dialogue,’ 41 Krasnow, M. M., 64
Rawlsian idea, 2 Kuwait, invasion of, 116–17, 166
juveniles, 9 Kyle, C., 126–7, 131, 137, 155–6, 180
n.6, 180 n.8, 180 n.18, 180 n.25,
Kahn, H., 64 181 n.1
Kahneman, D., 67–8
kamikaze attacks, 53 labour force, 90–1, 107–8, 118, 143
Kandinsky, Wassily, 68, 73 lance, 145
Keegan, J., 122, 133 Landau, M. J., 159
Keeley, L. H., 20–3, 27, 30–1, 33, 42, Lange, A., 63
48, 72, 82, 176 n.1 language, development of, 4, 8–9, 19,
Kemp, Richard, 140 24, 34, 36, 49, 61, 73, 77–8, 140,
Kennedy, John F., 168 151–3, 157
Khadjavi, M., 63 Latane, B., 83
Khan, Mohammed Siddique, 97 law and order, 107
Khong, Y. F., 67 Lawick, H. V., 31
‘kill-chain,’ 122 Lawrence, T. E., 20, 42, 162
killing leadership, 20, 41, 43, 46, 49, 52, 61,
in combat, 82, 121, 128 75, 81, 88, 92–3, 116–18, 126,
emotions involved in, 123, 125, 130, 157, 168
127–9 League of Nations, 47
of enemies, 14, 29, 81–2, 117, learned helplessness, 171
120, 123 learning, 9, 153
extreme distance, 24, 29, 35, Lebow, R. N., 4, 89, 178 n.4
125, 134 leisure habits, 119
fear of, 125 leitmotif, 3, 70
joy in, 28, 30, 128 lesbian, gay and bisexual people,
justice of, 14 94–5, 143
kill or be killed, 124–5 lethality, 40, 77
Index 205
Leviathan (Hobbes), 42, 48 loyalty, 73–6, 123, 127, 136, 144, 174
Levin, D. T., 84 Luttrell, M., 167
liberalism
and altruism, 70–2 Machiavelli, N., 39, 43–5, 48, 52,
evolution and, 11–13 54, 123
foundation of, 14 consequentialism, 43–5
tradition vs., 145–6 Prince, The, 43–5
liberal society(ies) virtù, notion of, 44–5
advanced technologies, 114–17 virtuous statesman, 43–6
defined, 108 machine guns, 134, 141, 171
empathy for all, 103–4 majority power, 48
end of war and history, 104–9 maladaptive behaviours, 6–7, 34, 60,
esteem in, 110, 123 82, 149
ideal-type, 2, 11–13 Malayan insurgency, 86
liberal warriors and, 13–14 male warriors, 25–7, 142
Niebuhr’s view, 47–8 ‘hired gun’ thesis, 26
progressive spread of ideas, 107–9 physical strength, testosterone and
progress towards peace, 102–4 dancing ability, correlation
reasons for diminished bellicosity, between, 26
109–11 pursuit of reproductive success,
social/cultural revolution, 9–13 25, 27
strategic culture, 111–12, 114 sexual jealousy, 26
and war, 101–20 women favouring, 26–7, 80–1
war-fighting style, 111–20 and women warriors, 25–6
war stories, 151–69 malnutrition, 149
Western militaries and, 112–20 Manchester, W., 129, 130, 132, 144,
liberal state, 3–4, 37–8, 42, 72, 75, 80, 180 n.13
87, 89–90, 101, 109, 112, 136, Manichean worldview, 127
142–3, 166 manoeuvres, 111, 126, 133, 172
Libya, 139, 179 n.4 manufacturing, 118
Lieberman, M. D., 76, 87, 105 marginalisation, 3, 46–7, 87
liking, 68–9 Marlantes, K., 29, 123–4, 126–30, 132,
Lippold, S., 26, 72 155, 163, 177 n.6, 179 n.1,
literature 180 n.7
development of, 24, 71, 73 Marshall, S. L. A., 125–7, 130–1,
war, 136–8, 151–69 133–4, 158, 179 n.3, 180 n.15
Little, A. C., 81 Marshall plan, 158
logistics, 51 Martinescu, E., 152
London, 87, 104 martyrdom, 74, 97
Lone Survivor (Luttrell and masculinity, associated health
Robinson), 167 problems, 146
losing the will to fight, warriors, Maslow, A. H., 104–5, 110
146–50 Mason, R., 136–7, 180 n.20
artificial enhancements for massacre, 36, 53
warriors, 148 mass graves, 21
artificial selection, 147–8 mass migration, 25, 104
conditioning warriors, 147–9 material wellbeing, 37
health problems, impact of, 146 Mayor, A., 25–6, 140
modernity, impact of, 149 Mazar, N., 85
206 Index
McEwen, S., 180 n.6, 180 n.8, 180 Mill, J. S., 2– 3, 108, 171, 176 n.1
n.18, 180 n.25, 181 n.1 notion of liberalism, 2–3
meaning, 2, 6, 34, 40, 50, 76, 85, milling, 124, 148
95–7, 142, 151–60, 163–6, 175 Mills, D., 136
Mearsheimer, J. J., 39 mindreading, 85, 153
Medal of Honour citation, 156 Mindwise (Epley), 65
medals, 132, 156, 161 minorities, 48, 72, 162
media, 25, 117, 172 Mitani, J. C., 31
medics, 94, 120 ‘moderate’ heritability, 8
melée, 133 modern economic activity, 108, 118
‘Melian dialogue,’ 41–2 modernity, 11, 23, 103, 146, 149,
memes, 140 162–3, 175
memoirs, war, 30, 129, 136–7, modern states, 21–3, 122, 157
163, 166 monarchs, 88
memory, 61, 68, 124 Monsoor, Mike, 156
mercenaries, 123 moral codes, 39, 85, 88, 125–6, 161
Mercer, J., 35, 75 morale, 55, 168, 171
Metropolitan Police Service, ‘morale’ bombing, 37
London, 87 morality, 39, 88
Middle East, 174 Moral Man and Immoral Society
(Niebuhr), 47
migration, 25, 90–1, 104, 109,
moral values, 39, 45, 85
119, 142
Morgenthau, H. J., 5, 44, 46, 55, 169
militants, 39, 90, 117
Morris, E., 40
military
mortality, 91, 149, 158–9
activity, 122–3, 157–8
mortars, 134
clothing, 139
Mosing, M. A., 8
costly expeditions, 39, 101
motivation to fight, 4, 14, 25, 27–8,
culture, 95, 136, 159
35–6, 55, 77, 82, 90, 102–3,
desegregation of units, 94
170, 173
education/training, 118–19, Mueller, J. E., 103
127, 135 murder, 26, 136, 138
effective communication, 132 mutilation, 30, 53, 81
group cohesion, 131–3 My Lai massacre (1968), 36
hardware, 55 myths, 24, 41–2, 153–5
identity, 3 capacity to remember, 155
isomorphism, 95, 118 modern, 154
life, 121, 146, 162 and religion, 154
power, 109, 111, 122–3 symbolic meaning and moral
private companies, 122–3 dimension, 153–4
professionalised, 35, 173
spending, 121 napalm canisters, 165
structures/organisation, 131–2 Napoleonic wars, 51, 94, 113, 122
technologies, 36, 78, 114–18, 122, ‘nasty, brutish and short,’ 42–3, 87
134, 140, 143, 145, 149, 158 national interest, 5, 89–90, 168–9
values, 118, 139–40, 145, 162 nationalism, 51, 71, 74, 106, 113, 174
vocation, 14, 35, 121, 146–7 National Security Agency, 167
Military Cross award, 128 national service, see conscription
Military Orientalism (Porter), 138 Native Americans, 43
Index 207
NATO, 115–17, 122, 139 Pacific war, 30, 37, 53, 125, 129, 168
natural selection, 5, 9, 12, 20, 28, 34, pacifism, 12–13, 22–4, 109, 111, 126
37, 42, 46, 59, 73, 122, 140, 142 pain, 87
nature–nurture debate, 6 pair bonding, 26, 32–3, 72
Nazis, 5, 93, 148, 158 Pakistan, 117, 167
Neanderthals, 72, 153 palaeolithic era, 6, 12, 15, 19–20,
negotiation, 49, 51, 92–3, 95, 167 23–4, 32, 34, 54, 72, 109
Neitzel, S., 93 Pan, J., 180 n.30
neolithic era, 12, 23, 54, 72 Panksepp, J., 124
nepotism, 71, 118 Papua New Guinea
neuroscience, 5, 39, 67, 76, 87, 93, fighters, 28–9
124, 148, 153 modern hunter-gatherer
newspapers, 139 communities, 22–3
New York, 104 transformation of society, 9
Fire Department memorabilia, 173 parental care, 26, 32–3
New York Review of Books, 11 Paret, P., 51
niche selection, 12, 140 pastoralists, 24
Niebuhr, R., 2, 5, 47–8, 89, 177 n.1 patrilocal societies, 27
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 46 patriotism, 74, 96, 170–3
9/11 attacks, 53, 116, 157, 159, patrol, 31, 40, 94, 120, 133
163, 174 Payne, K., 52, 86, 102, 157, 167,
New York Fire Department 179 n.7
memorabilia, 173 peace
Nixon, Richard, 80 invention of, 102–11
non-compliance, 86 negotiated peace, 49
non-cooperative humans, 12 settlement of disputes, 20
non-kinship members, 2, 10, 14, 84, societies in, 7, 11–13, 21, 27, 33,
103, 144 35, 114
Northern Europe, 2 peacetime, 28, 35, 126
North Vietnam, 52 Peloponnesian War, 40–2, 107
Norway, 101, 109, 113 pension, 110
army’s unisex dorms, 119 Pentagon, 114, 117
nuclear weapons, 25, 37, 53, 64, 121–2 Pentagon Papers, 167
‘escalation dominance’ strategy, perception, 24–5, 40–1, 84, 159
64–5 Percy, S., 123
Persia, 145
O’Brien, T., 136, 180 n.21 personal security, 125
One Million Bullets (Mills), 136 pharmaceuticals, 148, 172
organisation, 48, 102, 118, 132, physical traits, 24, 33, 69, 71, 80, 147
142, 149 Piketty, T., 108
organised violence, 102, 141 pillage/pillaging, 36, 110, 166
Origins of Political Order pilots, fighter, 94, 96, 120, 128,
(Fukuyama), 112 136, 161
ostracism, 46–7, 86–8 Pinker, S., 7, 22–5, 33, 103, 106, 109,
out-groups, 15, 30, 48, 61, 65, 103–4, 153, 177 n.5
121, 149, 169, 174 pitched battles, 21, 28–9, 81
Overmier, J. B., 171 police, 48, 62–3, 76, 83, 85, 87–8, 172
Overy, R. J., 37 political psychology, 67
Owens, W. A., 115 political theory, 39
208 Index
politics Hernán Cortés, 133

Aron’s view, 48–50 Keeley’s view, 20–2, 42, 48
international, 3, 44, 46 motivation for conflict, 25, 27–8;
of prestige, 46 realist accounts, 40
polygamy, 26 Pinker’s analysis, 22–5
population short killing distance, 28–9
ageing, 50, 108–10 ‘total war,’ 21
civilian, 114, 118 trophy taking/head hunting, 30, 81
heritability of height in, 8 vs. modern war, 28–31, 35–7, 133
indigenous, 22 Prince, The (Machiavelli), 43–5, 52, 123
pressures, 27 prisoners
Porter, P., 82, 138 execution of, 53
post-heroism, 170–1 extreme violent criminality, 9
postmodernity, 2, 151, 161, 163, incarceration cost, 82
166–7 torture of, 53, 168
post-traumatic stress, 28, 163 transcripts of, 93
Powell, Colin, 167 prisoner’s dilemma, 62–4, 66–7
power private military companies, 122–3
accumulation of, 28, 34, 42, 46–8 private (military rank), 118
in anarchical setting, 5, 20 private sector, 114–15, 123
balance of, 40–1 professionals, 35–6, 90–1, 94, 113,
coercive, 42, 55, 81 118–19, 135, 145, 158, 163, 167,
displaying, 40 172–3
‘disproportion of power,’ 48 projectile weaponry, 125, 140
and esteem, 46, 123 propaganda, 161, 172
fighting, 78, 160 property rights, 107, 110, 114
individual vs. group, 3, 38, 88 ‘pro-social’ spending, 70
military, 109, 111, 122–3 protection, 26, 33–4, 42, 46, 48, 53,
and prestige, 28 86–7, 93, 123, 127, 132, 156,
realist accounts, 40, 48 159–60, 167–8
of rivals, 5 Protectorate, 43
of ‘social proof,’ 50 proto-states, 21, 24, 126
‘will to power,’ 44, 46–7, 55 provocation, 12, 27, 66
world, 101 Prussia
precision targeting, 115, 128 officer corps, 94
predation, 26, 31, 34, 38, 40, 42, 76, way of war, 51
79, 122, 132, 142, 149–50, 173 psychiatric phenomenon, 171
prejudice, 90–1, 104, 169 psychological processes, 89, 124
prestate societies, 20–1 psychopaths, 14, 123
prestige, 28, 35–6, 46, 49, 51, 54, public honour, 82–7
79–80, 157, 167–8 public sector, 114
Price, R., 52 public-speaking, 83
primates, 4, 24, 28, 32–4, 46, 61, punishment
151, 173 altruistic, 63–4, 75, 89, 109
primitive war/warriors, 29–31 capital, 3, 107
dehumanising enemies, 29–30 corporal, 149
Diamond’s view, 27–9 revenge and, 35, 160
fatal injuries, 31 Putnam, R. D., 108
Gat’s view, 21 Pye, L. W., 86
Index 209
quality of life, 105 ‘tit for tat,’ 64–5

Quiet American (Greene), 165 Trivers’ notion, 2, 59, 69–70
war as key driver of, 76–7
race/racism, 5, 11, 46, 51, 71, 86–7, recognition, 49, 80, 96
90–2, 107–8, 142 Redeployment (Klay), 137–8, 166
RAF, 37, 94, 96, 114, 162 redress, 54, 89, 94
raid-and-ambush tactics, 21, 23, 29, refugees, 5, 90
31, 77–9 rejection, fear of, 83, 86–7, 136
railway bridge conundrum, 128 religion, 25, 43, 85, 90, 105, 119, 125,
raison d’etre, 14 154, 157
Rand, D. G., 132 Renaissance, 44
Ranger, T., 92 repatriation, 114, 116
ranking system, 118–19, 141, 145–7 reputation, 12, 27, 35, 41, 60–1, 63–4,
rape, 110, 168 76–8, 130, 157, 163
rational actor model, 62, 64, 66–7 see also esteem
Rawls, J., 2 research and development, 114
realism, see classical realism (on resilience, 14, 83, 119
honour) resource scarcity, see scarce resources
realpolitik, 169 retaliatory action, 59
real-world setting, 2, 52, 62–4, 66, retribution, 75, 89
70, 79 rifle, 127, 129, 133
Reaper UAV, 123, 128 risk-taking, 3–4, 8, 14, 30, 37, 39, 46,
reason 50, 54, 69, 81–3, 86, 95, 97,
abstract, 34 110–11, 114, 116, 118, 121, 123,
and decisions, 102 125, 132–3, 135, 141–2, 146, 149,
deliberative, 128 172–3
and emotion, 43, 75, 128, 143 Roberts, A. I., 32
and empathy, 103, 174 Robinson, P., 167
enlightened, 47 robotics, 114–15
and logic, 67, 103 Rodriguez-Vidal, J., 153
reciprocal altruism, 10, 15, 59–79 role-play, 83, 160
altruistic punishment, 63–4, 75, Roman legion, 61, 111, 145
89, 109 Roosevelt, Theodore, 40
culture, role of, 60–1, 77 Rousseau, J.-J., 21–2, 34, 42
effective decision-making, 67–8; Royal Navy, 94
emotions shaping, 67–9; Rudel, H. U., 161
instinct and unconscious, role Russia, see USSR
of, 67 Rwandan genocide, 115
empathy and understanding, 65–8
evolution of altruism, 76 Saigon, 165–6
group: evolution of smallish, 60–1; sampling, 30
flexible, 72–3; influence/ sanctions, 86
identity, 68–72; loyalty, 73–6 Sandhurst, 119
and honour, 80 sangfroid, 95
liberalism and, 70–2, 76–7 Sankararaman, S., 72
prisoner’s dilemma, 62–4 scalping, 81–2
punishment, 63–4, 75, 89, 109 Scandinavia, 109
‘strong reciprocity,’ 59–60 scarce resources, 6, 8, 13, 15, 19, 24,
theory, 55, 59, 70, 93 27–8, 31, 38, 40, 79, 92, 142
210 Index
scenario planning, 152, 156, 160 Shils, E. A., 131

Scheipers, S., 170 sieges, 25, 36
Schelling, T. C., 157 Sierra Leone, 90
Scheuerman, W. E., 44, 46 Simons, D. J., 84
scientific revolution, 154 Singer, P., 73, 103–4, 173
SEAL Team, 97, 131, 137, 139, 156, skill, 4, 27, 35–6, 85, 91, 97, 108, 118,
163, 167 135, 141, 164
secondhand information, 61 Skinner, Q., 44
Second World War, 1, 30, 37, 52, 94–6, skirmishes, 25
108, 116, 122, 125, 131, 158 sling, 28–9
sectarian conflicts, 109 Slovic, P., 68–9
security smacking, 149
activities, 122–3 small group cohesion, 3–4, 14, 19, 24,
airport, 156 47, 119, 128, 130–3, 136, 154,
dilemma, 5, 20, 41, 43, 51 156, 164, 170
European notion of, 169 snipers, 126, 129, 131, 134
national, 168 Sniper One (Fergusson), 136
personal, 125 Snowdon, Edward, 167
from predation, 31 social bargaining, 93
pursuit of, 34, 39 social behaviour, see behaviour
self-actualisation, 84, 110–11, social care costs, 108
151, 170 ‘social contract,’ 22, 43, 87
self-categorisation theory, 69, 91, 110 social Darwinism, 5, 42, 73, 77,
self-confidence, 86, 157 122, 148
self-control, 131 social exchanges, 12, 61
self-esteem, 40, 86, 160 social groups, see group(s)
self-interest, 37, 55, 62, 70, 89, 169, social hierarchy, see hierarchy
174–5 social identities, see identity
self-preservation, 15, 28–31, 45, 70 social identity theory, 69
self-sacrifice, 3, 30–1, 144 socialism, 13
self-serving, 86, 152, 155, 160 social networks, 72, 115
Seligman, M. E., 171 ‘social proof,’ 41, 50, 147, 154
Sémelin, J., 30 social psychology, 44–6, 49–50, 59, 63,
sequential monogamy, 32 68, 72, 85–6
Serbia, 117, 179 n.4 social relations, 15, 132, 152
service sector, 118 social separation, 87, 130
setback, 83 societal honour, 87–90
set-piece battles, 25 Soldaten (Neitzel and Welzer), 93
Seward, J. P., 147 soldiers
sex, access to, 19–20, 25, 31–2, 46, American, 36, 53, 61, 81–2, 125
110, 142 black, 94
sexual harassment, 119–20 bravery, 132
shame, 36, 41, 95 British, 53, 94, 113, 172
Sharot, T., 83, 86 capacity to inflict and experience
shells, 165 violence, 13–14, 121, 135
shell shock, 171 casualties, 116, 121
Shephard, B., 171 combat, 28, 101, 116, 121, 155
Shergill, S. S., 65–6 communal over individual
Sherif, M., 92 activities, 119
Index 211
discipline, 145–6 Stalinism, 45

education, 119 stand-off weaponry, 27–9, 123, 140
effects of culture, 125 startle response, 7
fear and courage, 130 starvation, 53
German, 53, 92–3, 131 state, the
group element, 132–3 creation of, 21
heroism, 135, 160–7, 171 pacifying effects of, 43
injured, 114 security of, 43, 122
Japanese, 53, 129 service of, 121
losing the will to fight, 146–50 state behaviour, 39, 44, 88
modern, 28–31, 35, 54, 81, 95, state failure, 11, 25, 109
121–50 ‘state of nature,’ 7, 15, 21–2
motivation, 169–70 Hobbes’ account, 42–3, 47, 55
and new technologies, 114–17 state power, 48
non-firers, 133–4 statesmanship, 88–9
Norwegian, 119 Machiavellian, 43–6
post-traumatic stress disorder, 28 status
public support and respect for, 114 collective and individual, 143–4
ranking system, 118–19, 141, 145 and esteem, 3–4, 15, 28, 35, 39, 80
rejection by society, 136–7 gaining/attainment of, 20, 25, 28,
reluctant, 125, 134 35–6, 39, 49, 80–1, 90
repatriation of fallen, 116 identity and, 157
returning home, 136–7 stealth, 115
risk-taking, see risk-taking stirrup, 145
seeking cover, 133–4 stone tools, 34
and society, 135–8, 173 Stonewall 100 best employers
specialised, 145 (2012), 94
storytelling, 155–60 stories of war/storytelling, 15, 41–2,
traits in peacetime, 126 151–69
as unhappy victims, 116 death/terror/the group, conscious
solidarity, 121, 134, 169 awareness of, 158–60
solo assault, 127, 129 empathy gap, 160
Solomon, S., 83 as a form of therapy, 156, 160
Somalia, 90 hero/heroism, 160–7
‘Black Hawk Down’ incident, 115, myths, 153–5
140–1 search for meaning via, 155–8
space technologies, 114–15 spiritual element, 154, 160
Spain, 109 Strassler, R. B., 40
Spanish conquistadors, 133 strategic culture, 111–12, 114, 121
spanking of children, 106 Stuka pilot, 161
Sparta/Spartans, 41, 145 success, 13, 27, 117, 126, 160, 163
spear, 28–9 anticipating, 124
specialised soldiers, 145 genetic, 63, 81, 142
Spencer, Herbert, 5 reproductive, 27, 36, 50
spillover effects, 90 suicides, 31, 53, 135, 163, 171
spirituality, 154, 160 suicide bomber, 74, 97
spoils of victory, 82, 171 surface ships, 120
stabbing, 29, 128 surrender, 41, 53, 82, 125, 157–8, 171
Stalin, 122, 161 ‘survival of the fittest,’ 5, 14, 42, 77
212 Index
survivor guilt, 137 Tillman, Pat, 163

Sweden, 8, 13, 33, 83 Tilly, C., 78
Swofford, A., 166, 181 n.11 ‘tit for tat’ tactic, 64–6
sympathy, 10, 71, 116, 138, 173 tolerance, 90, 95, 104, 125
Syria, 139, 179 n.4 Tooby, J., 19, 177 n.2
tools, 20, 34, 73
taboo, 52, 141 Toronto, 104
Tajfel, H., 68–9, 91–2, 110 total world defence expenditure, 121
Taliban, 81, 127–8, 157 Touboul, J., 110
talking therapies, 160 trade, 10, 19, 72, 75, 93, 154–5
Tannenwald, N., 37 traditional society
targets, 21, 29, 115, 117, 123, 130, and honour, 27–9, 36
134, 147 vs. liberalism, 145–6
teamwork, 33, 97, 118, 132, 134, traits
156, 162 culturally distinct, 12
tear gas, 148 deliberate breeding of traits in
technological innovation, 36, 78, 87, animals, 7
104, 111–12, 114–18, 122, 134, inherited/evolved, 5–6, 8, 11, 142,
140, 142–3, 145, 149, 158, 172 145, 147, 153
television, 156 leadership, 20
Ten Commandments, 85, 88 physical, 24, 33, 69, 71, 80, 147
territory conflicts, 25, 27, 32, 34–5, 74, soldierly, 114, 126, 143
79, 81, 107, 109, 133, 158 treachery, 31, 41
terrorism, 3, 5, 39, 90, 116, 129, 131, tribes, 12, 29, 44, 72, 111, 164
136, 144, 156, 158–9, 168 tribute, 41
terror management theory, 159–60 Trivers, R.
testosterone, 24, 26 deceit and self-deception, 69–70, 76
Thayer, B. A., 15, 50, 76, 102 reciprocal altruism, 2, 59, 69–70
theory(ies) trophies/trophy-taking, 30, 81–2, 168
economic, 63 Troy, 97
evolutionary, 5, 20, 42, 50, 52, 59, trust, 12, 41, 46, 55, 59, 62–3, 68,
79, 122, 142 76–7, 79–80, 85, 92–3, 131, 155
game, 62–4, 66 Trut, Lyudmila, 7
international relations, 15, 105–6 Turner, J. C., 69, 110
of mind, 32, 65–6 Turse, N., 168
political, 39 Tversky, Amos, 67
of reciprocal altruism, 55, 59, 70, 93 Twin Towers, 173
self-categorisation, 69, 91, 110 Twitter, 65, 140
social identity, 69 ‘type 2’ cognition, 68
terror management, 159–60
thermonuclear explosions, 121 UK
Third Reich, 93, 161 armed forces, 94, 101, 113–14, 118;
Thirty Years War, 42–3 duty and patriotism, 171–2;
Thomas, W., 52 education, 119; Military Cross,
threats, 20, 29, 31–2, 38–43, 48, 55, 128; ranking system, 118–19
66, 78, 82, 86–7, 140, 143, class differences, 118
149–50, 157, 159, 167–8, 171–3 colonial power, 101
Thucydides, 5, 24, 40 defence spending, 113
Tiihonen, J., 9 Falklands Conflict of 1982, 174
Index 213
female participation in military federal funds, 114–15

roles, 94 female participation in military
gender equality in the military, 94 roles, 94
immigration to, 90–1 gender equality in the military, 94
inequality, 108–9 and Germany, 53
interstate wars, 109 immigration rates, 109
invasion of Iraq, 113–14 incarceration, levels of, 109
legalisation of homosexuality, 94 Indian Wars, 81–2
mass migration to, 104 inequality, 108
Metropolitan Police Service, 87 insurance/subprime mortgage
military doctrine publication markets, 108
centre, 156 interstate wars, 109
military interventions, 90, 109, 127 and Japan, 30, 53
Parachute Regiment, 124 legalisation of homosexuality, 94
public support for armed forces, 114 Marine Corps, 30, 94, 129, 137,
RAF, 37, 94, 96, 114, 162 159, 161
repatriation ceremonies, 116 mass migration to, 104
Royal Navy, 94 military casualties of war, 115–16
social attitudes survey, 90–1, 114 military spending, 113, 121, 173
social isolation, 108 military technologies, 115, 121–2
strategic culture, 112 mutilation of the war dead, 30, 53
way of war, 111 9/11 attacks, 53, 116, 157, 159,
women in military roles, 163, 174
119–20, 141 Pacific war, 53, 125, 129
Wootton Bassett, 116 public support for armed forces,
Ulrich, R., 147 114, 116
uncertainty, 20, 39–40, 42, 55, 83, social isolation, 108
118, 174 societies, 3, 10, 107, 109, 112
unmanned combat systems, 115, 117, Special Forces, 139, 148, 163
123, 128 technological development, 114–15
urbanisation, 19, 36, 104, 139, 155 violent crime, 109
urinating on corpses, 168 War on Terror, 53–4
USA way of war, 111
ageing population, 109 women in military roles, 120, 141
air attacks against North world power, 101
Vietnam, 52 USSR, 7–8, 52, 131, 161, 174
Al Qa’eda and, 105 numerical superiority in
‘American’ culture, 112 conventional weapons,
anti-Islamic sentiment, 168 115, 122
anti-terror policies, 159 war heroes, 161
army/military interventions, 90, utility-maximising rationality, 63–4
115–17, 168 utopianism, 104, 170
‘Army of One’ campaign, 161–2
‘Black Hawk Down’ incident in Van de Poll, N., 147
Somalia, 115, 140–1 vested interest, 2, 48, 110
capital punishment in, 3 veterans, 29, 137, 166
crime statistics, 176 n.4 victims, 69, 89, 114, 116
desegregation of military units, 94 victory, 23, 51, 54, 78, 82, 111, 122,
ethnic segregation, 104 124, 135, 137, 156–8
214 Index
Vietnam in combat, 123–35; close quarters,

My Lai massacre (1968), 36 128–30; emotional sentiments,
US air attacks against North 129–30; joy in killing, 126–8;
Vietnam, 52 psychological trauma of killing,
War, 29–30, 67, 115–16, 123, 136–8, 127, 148; reluctance to kill/fire,
149, 159, 163–8; mediatised in 125–6, 134
film and music, 166–7; memoirs conditioning, 147–9
of, 163–4, 166 cult, 97
violence cultural exchange, 138–9
clustered in families, 13 culture, 95, 125, 136, 159
criminal, 8–9, 33 death rates, 22–3
exposure and early death, 20 dehumanising enemies, 29–31,
genes and, 7–9 35, 126
and human nature, 19–37 destruction from afar, 123, 125, 134
organised, 102, 141 discipline and hierarchy, 145–6
violent crime, 8–9, 13, 109, 148, duty of care, 135–6
176 n.4 emotions, see emotions
virtù, Machiavellian, 44–5 esteem, see esteem
virtue, 14, 37, 49, 145–6, 162, 164 evolutionary adaptations, 143–6
Visscher, P. M., 8 evolution of, 13–14, 20–7
existential expression, 95–7
Wade, N., 11, 12 exposure to risk, see risk-taking
war homosexual, 141, 143
Clausewitz’s notion, 51, 157 honour, issue of, 27–9, 36, 124, 132,
collective enterprise, 14 134–5, 139–40
constructivist ideas, 51 and liberal society, 52–4, 112–20,
cost of, 156, 172 123, 135–8
cultural/evolutionary shaping of, losing the will to fight, 146–50
9–11 male, 25–7, 144
decline in, 104–11 motivation to fight, 4, 14, 25, 27–8,
honour, essentiality of, 36–7 35–6, 55, 77, 82, 90, 102–3,
on industrial scale, 37 170, 173
liberal way in, 111–20 photographs in newspapers, 139
military activity and political goal, public displays of courage, 81
157–8 realist perspective, 50–5
narratives of, 24–5, 151–69 rejection by society, 136–8
origins of, 40–1 returning home, 136–7
primitive, 29–30, 29–31, 35–7 society and, 27–9, 36, 101–20,
War Before Civilisation (Keeley), 20 139–40
warfare officers, 120 tradition vs., 145–6
War (Junger), 155 training, 127–8, 147–9
War on Terror, 53–4, 90, 167, 172 trophy-taking by, 81–2, 168
warrior ethos, 13, 172 use of dogs, 147–8
warrior gene, 143–4, 148 Western culture, 143–4
warriors, modern/liberal women in combat/military roles,
aspirant, 138–9 11, 25–6, 94–5, 110, 114,
battle failure, 125 119–20, 139–43
capture and hostile interrogation Warsaw Pact, 122
by, 149 Waterloo, 133
Index 215
wealth choice of mates, 26–7, 80–1, 143–4

accumulation of, 36 in combat/military roles, 11, 25–6,
creation, 107 94–5, 110, 114, 119–20, 139–43
defence spending, 113 emancipation of, 107
material, 55, 110 enslavement of, 79
wealthiest ‘1 percent,’ 108 exclusion of, 91, 140
weapons, see specific entries household earnings, 144
‘weapons of influence,’ 68–9 nurturing and attachment
Weigley, R. F., 111 traits, 142
welfare provisions, 108, 110 participation in public life, 110
welfare state projects, 108, 119, 143 in patrilocal societies, 27
Welzer, H., 93 perception of men’s physical traits,
Western culture, 143–4 26–7, 80–1, 144
Western Europe, 10, 53, 106–7, 114 ‘Wootton Bassett’ phenomenon,
Western societies, see liberal 114, 116
society(ies) Wrangham, R. W., 33
‘Western way of war,’ 111–12 Wright, E., 167, 181 n.13
White, J., 181 n.4
Whitman, Walt, 6
xenophobia, 71
‘will to power,’ 46–7, 55
Xerxes, 145
Wilson, M. L., 160
Wilson, T. D., 160
wolves, 7, 23, 32 Yakobson, A., 71
women YouTube, 120
acquisition of, 25
and child-rearing, 26, 33, 110, zero sum, 20, 28
140, 143 Zheng, H.-X., 23

Psychology of Modern Conflict Kenneth Payne

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Psychology of Modern Conflict Kenneth Payne

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

The Psychology of Modern Conflict

This page intentionally left blank

List of Tables viii

3 Classical Realists on Honour 38

7 Liberal Warriors 121

8 Liberal War Stories 151

9 Conclusion: Heroic Warfare 170

4.1 The four possible outcomes of the prisoner’s dilemma 62

This book explores the relationship between our evolved psychology

hunter-gatherers. Liberal armies and liberal society do agree, however,

of evidence from psychology to cast doubt on that, as well as on our

An evolved human nature

Parts I and II of the book concentrate on our evolutionary legacy. I out-

in its view of the importance of power in an anarchical setting that

environmental factors. In modern evolutionary psychology, there is no

Genes and violence

Culture supplants evolution in shaping war

Francis Fukuyama (Fukuyama 1992). The modern world of state failure,

Evolution and liberalism

Liberal society is essentially a cultural phenomenon. There is a cord con-

In a society where violence has become less prevalent, the capacity of

psychopaths with a signal aptitude for inflicting violence, owing to an

The central theme of this book is that warfare as manifest by liberal

landscape of small bands of hunter-gatherers. Indeed, liberal society

I begin my account of evolution and liberal war by outlining a view of

fierce pressures of environmental competition that select those who do

The evolution of warriors

The evolutionary landscape seems to be a harsh environment for early

and gathering. A less pejorative term might be ‘traditional’ societies, so

The evidence compiled by Keeley from the archaeological record sug-

together to agree a ‘social contract’, presaging modern states with their

3% by including deaths from war-related famine, disease, genocide and

revolution as but one manifestation of that. As Bruce Hood relates, we

collectively fostered a greater awareness of conflict. With great armies,

Male warriors – Why men fight

An evolutionary psychologist would account for the violence between

themselves, particularly in cultures that used the horse in warfare

So men are ideally suited, and motivated, to fight in pursuit of

Traditional society and honour

The anthropologist Jared Diamond paints a bleak picture of war in

on to explore in the remainder of the book, are undoubtedly important

do happen – sometimes by mutual arrangement. However, the tactics

There are some important respects in which primitive warfare is similar

Psychologically I had become identified with the threatened group,

group over those of another (Sémelin 2007). Dehumanising others in

has a compelling evolutionary logic. Nonetheless, the instinct of self-

Chimpanzee war versus human war

Keeley describes a world in which fighting is commonplace, casualty

Goodall was also struck by the distinctly non-human approach that

communities (at 276 deaths per 100,000 population per year, 69 of

Out of the state of nature

Why would the evolutionary picture of conflict be relevant to a dis-

though we sometimes flatter ourselves here, we have the capacity to

of appropriate behaviour, including by ostensibly ‘liberal’ states – as

The world of the primitive hunter-gatherer in which much human

Why do Western states persist in misguided and costly military expedi-

Fear, honour and interest

of safeguarding one’s interests, and especially one’s life, is through the

Related to this is the notion of a security dilemma, in which a concern

demagogues in shaping public discourse, we create space for an alter-

Nasty, brutish and short

and religious temporal authority were challenged by new ideas about

Amorality versus honour