Total War and the Psychology of Domination

Excerpted from “Liberalism and Domination” by Dave Harris

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Daniel Pipes is one of the dominant voices favoring total war and domination-submission in international politics in general. The following quotation sums up the argument nicely.

Sun Tzu observed that in war, “Let your great object be victory”... Clausewitz added that “War is an act of violence to compel the enemy to fulfill our will.” These insights remain valid today: Victory consists of imposing one’s will on the enemy, which typically means compelling him to give up his war goals. Conflicts usually end with one side’s will being crushed... [S]o long as neither side experiences the agony of defeat – having its hopes dashed, its treasury wasted, and lives extinguished – the possibility of war persists... Ironically, Israeli success in crushing the Palestinian Arab war morale would be the best thing that ever happened to the Palestinian Arabs... To become a normal people, one whose parents do not encourage their children to become suicide terrorists, Palestinian Arabs need to undergo the crucible of defeat.[1]

Lifton is a psychiatrist by profession, and he noted in this framework of domination, the logic of “radical good” suffuses into “a believer’s most prosaic everyday struggles.”[2] Compared with geopolitics, few things are more mundane than childrearing, but, surprisingly, the same psychology applies. Consider the following suggestion from James Dobson (a psychologist) for dealing with unruly children:

When a youngster tries this kind of stiff-necked rebellion, you had better take it out of him, and pain is a marvelous purifier... [I]t is not the time to have a discussion about the virtues of obedience. It is not the occasion to send him in his room to pout. It is not appropriate to wait until poor, tired old dad comes plodding in from work... You have drawn a line in the dirt, and the child has deliberately flopped his big hairy toe across it. Who is going to win? Who has the most courage? Who is in charge here? If you do not answer these questions conclusively for the child, he will precipitate other battles designed to ask them again and again. It is the ultimate paradox of childhood that a youngster wants to be controlled, but he insists that his parents earn the right to control him... [P]unishment... is not something he does to the child; it is something he does for the child.[3]

Though the contexts are quite different, the arguments are nearly identical. In both cases, “the possibility of war” persists until the child’s (or the Arab’s) “rebellion” is “crushed” and unchallengeable domination is restored. The goal is to give them no choice but to submit to “our will,” and for this purpose, “pain is a marvelous purifier.” There is no room for “discussion” or mediation or half-hearted (proportionate) responses. The enemy crossed an arbitrary “line in the dirt” and must be punished to demonstrate the importance of respect and submission. The weaker party must experience sufficient pain that they are “compel[led] to “give up” their goals and “fulfill our will” instead of their own. It doesn’t matter what those goals are; it’s not about resolving grievances or defusing the conflict. It’s about who has the “courage” to “win.” It’s about settling, once and for all, “who is in charge here.” It’s about securing “the right to control” them through a spectacular show of force that crushes their morale and leaves their “hopes dashed” and their self-esteem in ruins. According to this argument, “if you do not answer these questions conclusively for the child [or the Arab], he will precipitate other battles designed to ask them again and again.” But also remember, the devastation is wrought out of love; without our help, they will never become “normal people,” and anything but terrorized obedience to “our will” will ensure their self-destruction because they are incapable of proper self-governance. While it may seem “paradoxical” or “ironic,” crushing them might even be “the best thing that ever happens” to them because, deep down, they “want[ ] to be controlled.” Bombing, torture, detention, spankings, and so on aren’t things we do “to” them, they’re things we do “for” them. There is no conflict except to the degree that they disregard their own best interests and threaten the established order, and it is our job to set them straight with as much force as is needed.

The rhetorical similarities aren’t a coincidence. Dobson actually bases his strikingly illiberal arguments in liberal rhetoric. Both parent and child are represented as states and he manages to frame despotic home rule as a liberal struggle against an illiberal regime.[4] Conversely, he appears to have some influence on American foreign policy through the Bush administration, which considers him an important advisor.[5]

Whether or not this kind of thinking leads Americans to treat their children like rogue states or to treat rogue states like children, such conflation is unlikely to produce good results. The fact that one of the country’s most prominent psychologists and commentators[6] advocates total war on children shows how much Americans’ view of conflict is shaped by this framework, as does the long list of geopolitical statements from Americans going back to Washington to the same effect.[7]

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[1] Pipes, Daniel. April 4, 2006. “How Israel can Win.” New York Sun, cited from http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3496.

[2] Lifton, Superpower Syndrome, p. 19-20

[3] Dobson, James. 1976. “Teaching Respect and Responsibility to Children.” From Dare To Discipline. Cited from http://www.ourcivilisation.com/parent/dscpline/chap3.htm.

[4] For example, “her tiny little girl had hopelessly beaten her in a contest of wills, and the child had become a tyrant and a dictator” (emphasis mine). Simultaneously, he adopts the frame of the parent as the state: children are in “rebellion” when they do not submit to authority; similarly, parents that do not heed his advice and brutalize their children are too “laissez-faire.” Dobson, James. 1996. The New Dare to Discipline. Cited from http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=9780842305068&displayonly=CHP&z=y#CHP

[5] Geroux, Henry A. 2006. “Dirty Democracy and State Terrorism: The Politics of the New Authoritarianism in the United States.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 26.2, pp. 163-177.

[6] Michael Crowley, “James DobsonThe religious right's new kingmaker.” Slate, November 12, 2004. Available from http://www.slate.com/id/2109621/.

[7] Recall his eagerness for a time when “when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not likely hazard giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest guided by our justice, shall counsel.”