The Profit in War

by Editor · Published November 11, 2018 · Updated November 10, 2018

A hundred years ago on November 11 at 11:11, the “war to end all wars” concluded, bringing to a close a global conflict that changed the world.

After four years of war, three once-powerful empires had fallen: the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The demise of the latter created a toxic political realignment in the Middle East which to this day is the venue of war, mostly of the kind that is stoked by the superpowers.

The idea that World War I would end all wars proved to be naïve, even as the establishment of the League of Nations gave brief rise to hope. Within 21 years a new and even more destructive world war began (a timespan that is equivalent of today and 1997). It would be the devastating conflagration of World War II that set Europe on a course of peaceful stability.

It would be the devastating conflagration of World War II that set Europe on a course of peaceful stability.

A continent whose powerful nations over centuries were at regular war with one another are now committed to peace in Europe. Most of these nations are united and tied to one another through the European Union, a guarantor of peace in Europe.

Other regions have been less fortunate since the end of World War II. Colonial and post-colonial warfare and other forms of Western aggression (which can range from full-scale invasion to strategic interference) have done much to destabilise many regions in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Superpowers such as Russia and China have further created stages of tension and conflict. Profit-mongers who feed rampant consumerism are contributing to warfare in their pursuit of control over the natural resources of the underdeveloped world, especially in Africa.

Profit-mongers who feed rampant consumerism are contributing to warfare in their pursuit of control over the natural resources of the underdeveloped world, especially in Africa.

Much as the European Union underwrites peace within Europe, many of its members — especially Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands — are responsible for the slaughter of innocent people in countries around the world through their manufacture of and trade in arms. The United States and Russia are the worst offenders in the global arms trade — each sells more armaments than all other countries combined.

The United States and Russia are the worst offenders in the global arms trade — each sells more armaments than all other countries combined. China and Israel complete the Top 10 of arms traders.

Pope Francis has called arms traders “merchants of death” and their business “the industry of death”.

Addressing the US Congress in 2015, Pope Francis said: “Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer is, simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.” Alas, the pope offered no recipe as to how we might go about stopping the military-industrial complex — a term coined by US President Dwight Eisenhower in 1961, by way of warning against it.

Alas, the pope offered no recipe as to how we might go about stopping the military-industrial complex — a term coined by US President Dwight Eisenhower in 1961, by way of warning against it.

The capitalist dictates of profit trump all calls for peace. The politicians whom Pope Francis addressed in Washington in 2015 are the same people who, by backing the trade in arms to aggressors, legitimise evils such as Saudi Arabia’s destruction of Yemen or Israel’s obliteration of Gaza. Pope Francis has pointed out that it is hypocritical to talk of peace while at the same time fuelling the arms trade which serves only the “merchants of death”.

Pope Francis has pointed out that it is hypocritical to talk of peace while at the same time fuelling the arms trade which serves only the “merchants of death”.

While the pope holds that it is licit to fight wars to “solve a problem”, he has also said: “It’s an absurd contradiction to speak of peace, to negotiate peace, and at the same time, to promote or allow the arms trade.”

Pope Francis has warned that we are already in a third world war. But where World War I was about geopolitical, military and economic primacy (and vanity), and World War II about stopping the hegemony of the evil Nazi regime, the incremental World War III is fed by the profit-driven military-industrial complex. “When all the world is, as it is today, at war — piecemeal though that war may be; a little here, a little there and everywhere — there is no justification,” Pope Francis has said.

“When all the world is, as it is today, at war — piecemeal though that war may be; a little here, a little there and everywhere — there is no justification,” Pope Francis has said.

He added: “And God weeps. Jesus weeps.”

Let the centenary of the “war to end all wars” animate the world’s people of goodwill to work for peace, through prayer and action, that all wars may indeed end.