1 - Argument, belief, and culture

Summary

Soldiers and their generals fight for many causes, worthy and unworthy, and when it comes to the battlefield the considerations are pretty much the same, whatever the cause. The generals study each other's tactics across the battle lines, often with admiration. They are the technicians of warfare. The soldiers of the contending armies display courage (and sometimes cowardice), and the people they fight for make heroic sacrifices (or exploit the war for gain) on both or all sides, although perhaps to different degrees and in different ways. To learn what the fighting and the courage and sacrifices meant one must look elsewhere, behind the physical contest to loyalties and emotions, thoughts and ideas, moral convictions and arguments. One must ask what moral and mental content shaped the decisions that brought these people to the battlefield.

To be of greatest interest to us, the act of demolishing another must be enshrined in justifications. The muscle movements must occur in a context of verbal legitimacy.

Why do people, either alone or in groups, choose one action and not another? How do they even come to know that they must make a decision? Why choose blockade over invasion, or confrontation over appeasement? Indeed, how do people decide what is worth fighting for at all? Surely actors are often circumscribed by resources, or their options seem limited by the structure of choice (such as time pressure), but generally decisionmakers still have options even within constraint.