Mahanth S. Joishy is Editor

There is a lot of war out there. The white-hot war in Ukraine rages on, unabated since Russia invaded in February 2022 with a brazen but failed hostile takeover bid. There is no end to that horrific conflict in sight.

South of there North Africa is today an active powder keg of coups, counter-coups, and various stages of civil war spanning a number of failing or failed states over a confusing list of disparate historical, ethnic, and political causes it would be impossible to attempt to untangle for outsiders like us.

China meanwhile methodically inches closer toward a massive invasion of Taiwan that feels more inevitable as the days go on and the evidence of such a prospect continues to pile up. Arrival at this nightmare date with destiny seems only to be a matter of time, and nobody will be prepared for the aftermath. The United States would be forced to get involved.

As if all that wasn’t enough…

Then things very suddenly got much worse last weekend, with unwelcome events unexpectedly bursting into the annals of the world’s longest-running blood feud simmering over millennia in the heart of the Middle East. October 7th was a historic day for all the wrong reasons, as Hamas launched a massive coordinated and shockingly sophisticated sneak attack on Israel at a level of escalation unseen for an uneasy 50 years already defined by violence and mistrust. More Jewish people were murdered than any day since the Holocaust. This affair can only result in a downward spiral of death and destruction for many Palestinians and also Israelis for the terror-filled days and dark nights to come amidst piles of rubble and pools of blood. Sure, Palestinian leaders can argue that aggressive Israeli settlement activities and other chauvinistic political policies of recent years around Gaza were unjust, and went too far. But when Hamas leadership chose widespread terrorism and kidnapping as the solution, they lost all moral high ground forever. A disproportionate response by Israel might be warranted but an excessive toll on civilians will have the same effect.

And just so, both sides lose in every war. Whether you call this one Operation Al-Aqsa Flood at Hamas Headquarters or Operation Iron Swords at IDF office water coolers.

Multiple major and costly wars being prosecuted simultaneously is really, really bad news. Despite geographic distance these separate engagements will surely intertwine with each other and destabilize other parts of the world in ways that we cannot predict in a hyper-connected ecosystem. Continuous advances in modern technology provide bad hombres access to increasingly devastating new weapons with unknown consequences. The conflagrations listed above represent but an incomplete accounting of how the world is burning with pure hatred by man for fellow man, and it is depressing. The long arc of recorded human history provides little solace; it is unfortunately defined by war above all else, so perhaps we should not be surprised by the modern Hellscape unfolding before us. Despite all of the knowledge, lines of communication and technology at our disposal, sadly the same story of us is as it always was. It’s as if we have failed to progress at all in the art of diplomacy and are forever relegated to using weapons to solve our differences.

But why, for God’s sake? Why oh why do humans love violent conflict so much?

I am desperate to determine if warfare is an embedded feature in the programming of mankind or a bug. I’m not sure. Is that a loaded question? Or a fool’s errand to try and unravel the deepest mysteries in the darkest recesses of the homo sapiens mind? Well, could it hurt for us to at least try to analyze the issue? After all Mahatma Gandhi figured something out along the way to achieving one of the most profound political victories of the last century without calling for a single shot fired. His British opponents ruthlessly beat up and massacred the freedom fighters of his movement, but those wielding the billy clubs and muskets were ultimately defeated. The British Empire never would recover from losing the jewel in the crown to a funny-looking little dark shirtless man wearing nothing but a loincloth. Gandhi proved that winning with peaceful protest and diplomacy can change the world.

Attempting to better understand our nature is the critical first step towards acceptance of just how ugly we ugly primates can be at our worst moments, and might even help transition us closer to that worthiest of goals mankind could ever aspire to: a lasting and sustainable world peace, for our children to one day soon enjoy if not within our own reach. Is this elusive idealistic outcome even remotely possible? The jury is still out on that one, and if historical evidence is any indication, a strong argument could be made to give up on that glorious pipe dream forever and spend taxpayer dollars to just keep stockpiling more and more arms in preparation for the worst instead. Below are a set of 3 concepts around war and peace I am eager to explore in honest, optimistic and freewheeling fashion: money, tribalism, and feeling good.

Money & Material Possessions. Money is of course awesome if you have it, and all of us in every culture the world over learn this at a tender young age regardless of our socioeconomic background. Owning various objects during our temporary time on this planet and having optionality to amass resources bring happy feelings. Money represents the power of future possibility and the potential acquisition of new material possessions, whether needs like water, clothing, food and shelter or wants such as luxury yachts and gaudy diamond rings. The first taste comes at a young age. When I was five years old I was fortunate to always have had my basic needs met in the classic middle class sense. My relationship with money back then entirely revolved around its power to bring candy and toys in my direction. I am sure I wasn’t alone in this primitive thinking. In a way, none of us have completely grown up when it comes to our simplistic childhood associations with finance. We must all admit that we never completely outgrew or gave up on our burning desire to amass more toys and candy, which is really all that material objects like luxury yachts and diamond rings are when you think about it. Or guns, tanks and missiles.

There is definitely something to the saying in hip-hop circles: Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems. It all became more sinister if we were willing to hurt other people for candy and toys instead of for basic needs. I too am guilty of this charge. I have very vague, hazy memories of getting into minor physical conflicts as a young kid in relation to the distribution of candy and toys, with others my age. These silly little fights with sibling, cousins, or classmates were around wants, and not needs. For some less fortunate children, they need to grow up fighting tooth and nail even for their basic needs, and eventually some of those become adults who are able to wield more deadly weapons and are programmed to survive by deploying them against others.

It is my strong belief that the first step in achieving a lasting world peace is making sure that all people in society globally have at minimum the basic needs of nutrition, water, clothing, and shelter taken care of. There are more than enough resources at our disposal to make this a reality, and every day that someone anywhere is starving to death is a travesty and shame upon all of the rest of us, for the situation is preventable. It is my expectation technology is the way out of this problem; that the rollout of advanced AI and universal basic income (UBI) in tandem can help eradicate the unacceptable scarcity of living necessities for any family. I’m confident the economic productivity of new technologies should be able to make this possible if managed correctly.

Would groups of people then still go to war if basic needs are comfortably met? Yes, but it makes a new war breaking out far less likely. It depends on defining how much is ever enough. People could in theory still go to war because they can’t get the recreational yachts they want. But they are far more likely to fight in a scenario where they have nothing to lose, for example if they would otherwise starve or lose their home to a foreign enemy. These are things that could push almost anyone so desperately cornered into fighting.

So at that great point in the future when AI and UBI help us solve scarcity, the question is whether that’s enough or if people still want to enjoin battle for more yachts or diamond rings and therefore wars never stop proliferating anyway. I think the odds of this happening are much lower, and so we at least have to try to solve abject poverty in order to promote peace above being an inherent good.

TRIBALISM Alas, the evil twin consequences of limited money and runaway materialism in a world of unlimited wants and needs aren’t even the leading drivers of war today, at least in isolation. Economic incentives probably do play a part in every war at some point if not at the outset. But eliminating homelessness, thirst and starvation won’t prevent war completely. Even more dangerous and perpetually likely to create conflict is humanity’s unique propensity to unnecessarily separate ourselves into different categories that define us. After that we foster outsized pride in our own group, and encourage some level of fear and hatred for those outside of our categories, whether these emotional feelings are deserved or not. So much excess violence springs from this irrational tribalism based on ingrained identity and wariness of the unfamiliar. These lines of separation can form over a seemingly endless list of manufactured human constructs: birthplace, family lineage, political borders, language, skin color, religion, sub-religion, socioeconomic status, political party, or even sports teams of preference. Just picture the football hooligans who stalk each other through the pubs and alleys of England and beat the living crap out of each other based solely on which soccer jersey is being worn by a complete stranger. As a rabid sports fan myself, I can at least comprehend the sentiment behind the rampage but how nonsensical is professional sport as a reason-or excuse- to fight?

Separating groups from each other is even more sinister because tribalism deeply defines how all people are raised by their families and wider communities to some degree starting at a very young age. When it comes to Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, North Sudan, China, and Taiwan tribalism itself is the common denominator beneath the drumbeats of war in every single case. Same thing with Chicago gangland gunfights, the January 6th attacks on the US Capitol, or the Civil War right here in the USA, which has been among the most peaceful countries at least within the homeland for much of its existence. Most of this American carnage is fueled by tribalism first and foremost.

The lesson that we should be teaching our children instead of mental and physical self-separation is how alike and fundamentally decent almost all people everywhere are. This is the most rewarding lesson I have learned during my life traveling through 25 countries to date.

What might help cure the burning hot fever of self-selected tribalism that has scorched every civilization since the beginning of time? We must learn to broadly align altogether as one solid entity with a communal identity. Fighting each other instead is a dangerous distraction now more than ever before because we have bigger fish to fry. There is plenty of very real danger out there to deal with even if we finally decide to stop shooting and bombing each other, killing and dying in the name of country or religion. We must urgently act collectively and without regard to borders and shallow constructs when it comes to multiple imminent overarching borderless threats. Whether that’s to tackle global economic meltdown, climate change, or rationing the critical natural resources we need to survive like drinking water and food supply chains. We must stand prepared to control the next pandemics, relentlessly police AI to proliferate in the real world safely within ironclad ethical guardrails created by men and women, and also prevent a nuclear holocaust. There’s a lot on our plate even with war out of the picture. Unfortunately, the likelihood of any of these threats coming to fruition, or God save us more than one manifesting at the same time, are unacceptably high as our leaders dither on small bore issues, that too ineffectively, and allow wars to keep breaking out.

I’m only half-joking about this next one. There’s also a non-zero possibility of alien invasion against Earth at some point, and if we are too busy being at war with one another, the invading force, certain to be technologically superior to ours, will crush us. Humans united at planetary level might at least stand a fighting chance. Wouldn’t it be better to go down swinging in unity even if that’s the best we can muster? At least that way we might be remembered in alien childrens’ history classes as brave, rather than laughably stupid and easy to divide and conquer. Perhaps alien encounters are unlikely but failing at any of these other endeavors mentioned before, the wars for survival that really matter, will in a matter of time present existential threats to humanity we may not outlast.

FEELING GOOD & BEING RIGHT vs BEING EFFECTIVE. Somewhere along the way in both the private sector and public sector, at least in the United States, we steadily creeped away from what made us the greatest country in the history of this world. This mission creep and rot are deeply degrading our ability to solve problems effectively for ourselves, or on behalf of the world. Our lack of control is partly to blame for wars breaking out as we watch on helplessly. And tribalism rears its ugly head in this sphere as well. The United States is the only country positioned to lead the world at this point in time, with no close second. If we abdicate this responsibility as the ship’s captain, there will simply be no other that can take the helm of leadership. So humanity would float aimlessly toward the next big iceberg that could easily take us all down like the rats and human passengers alike on the Titanic. Without America taking charge of maintaining the world order, the planet would be rudderless in times of dramatic crisis, and this state of affairs should embarrass us as I know it would shame our ancestors who worked, fought and died to place America in this pole position. So what will the legacy to our own progeny be besides a planet we left in worse condition than we found it? A legacy of shame. American exceptionalism should be characterized by hard work, quality, and results; not resting on our laurels based on what we were gifted by others who came before us. Claiming there’s anything exceptional about our way of doing things must be earned the hard way without shortcuts, generation by generation.

Unfortunately the larger priority when it comes to anything related to business, public policy and politics for most people involved in the relevant American debates is proving to themselves and others, those on their side or the opposite camp, that they are right instead of effective. People feverishly twist themselves into knots to call their views exclusively right, and that’s because being right feels good, being wrong feels bad, and changing sides on any little thing is embarrassing to the individual, frowned upon by allies, and ridiculed and celebrated by opposing forces.

Too few of us seriously engage in thinking about the nation’s affairs, as the large majority of the citizenry is tuned out of current affairs. Our education system has not set us up adequately for this either. Most who do enter the fray in a meaningful way go around chasing short term gains over long term returns, profits over quality and customer service, selfish ends over the common good, tribalism above unity, and the easy way rather than the sustainable way. In business and politics we have become a society of instant gratification and shortcuts to the detriment of the commons. In most debates all sides long ago decided that their opinion was the only right answer, compromise is almost nonexistent, and being persuaded toward a different point of view in light of updated data or new facts is almost nonexistent. This is how we fall woefully short on the work required to be a more vibrant society with credible prospects for global peace. We fail to employ logic in debate or work off of a common set of facts anymore, necessary ingredients for effective discourse on any contentious topic. Therefore we have given up on utilizing rationality to discuss solving our problems, substituting that with longstanding entitled opinions. In this dangerous scenario the need to always be right, and the good feelings that half-baked ways of drawing conclusions artificially provide, are more important than effective results.

Too many people who are passionate about the nation’s affairs are in the game to feel good- about themselves, about their beliefs, about their political party, affiliations to friends or family or sports team or country, in lockstep with their narrow tribal band ensconced in a comfortable echo chamber full of camaraderie. Loyalty is great but not if it’s misplaced. Most of us are not in the game to solve anything. Rather than challenging ourselves and our ingrained belief systems, we are choosing the comfort that predictably degrades into intellectual laziness over time. The best way to describe American discourse across the board today, is lazy. We flail around when presented with grand problems, we fail to establish common sets of facts or data points to use in our responses to address the problems, and are unable to even agree that some existential problems are real(!)

These factors have hampered for years now our ability to tackle climate change, illegal immigration, the burgeoning debt crisis at both household and federal levels, Russian interference in our political campaigns, or even COVID-19. A damn virus that should have been analyzed and debated on the basis of scientific knowledge had no business tearing us apart politically at the worst possible time, throughout the height of its spread. America fared much worse than many nations with fewer financial, scientific, military, and academic resources. Such a shambolic response could only occur in a terminally weakened civil society. When being right and feeling good about your established views on COVID-19 based entirely on your tribe’s echo chamber talking points and dog whistles became more important than effectively working together to defeat the plague, America never stood a chance to safely contain the pandemic for ourselves, let alone for the world. Both sides, from the right-wing conspiracy mongers and anti-vaxxers with American blood on their hands, to the liberal politicians who led the call for excessively draconian shutdowns that harmed our society in other ways, deserve to share the blame for failing to conduct an open and honest dialogue when we needed it the most. Our institutions, from drug companies to government agencies, from politicians to scientists were not trusted as every tribe retreated into its own corner. The disastrous national response was definitely not a good dry run for the next pandemic, which could easily be worse.

But that will seem like nothing compared to how a terminally dis-United States would fumble into the next great war with an external force, which is almost guaranteed to involve the only near-peer military rival in the Indo-Pacific theater where the world’s most dangerous disagreements have already been brewing for decades. China is building the potential to one day soon defeat the United States in war if the Chinese manage to stumble through their own significant headwinds to stay cohesive as a nation. Americans do not have much time to get our act together to prevent such a war, or failing that to at least decisively win it.

COMBINING CONSCIOUSNESSES: THE FUTURE LOOKS BLEAK BUT IS NOT YET WRITTEN. There is a lot of negativity to process here but the process of processing it all is our way out of the dangerous moment we find ourselves in. There are bad times ahead but the extent of damage is still up to us and we can navigate through to the other side intact if we act now.

We know we are barreling unmistakably towards a US-China war precisely due to the facts we laid out to start this discourse. Humans just love to engage in conflict and have throughout the course of history with all sorts of real and perceived enemies foreign and domestic. War as the grandest manifestation of conflict possible should always be the very last resort for national defense. If unprecedented hostility between the two leading world powers threatens to break out, by accident or deliberate action, deadly escalation is the default setting and most likely course of action by both sides due to chest-thumping, jingoism, racism, fear and lack of mutual understanding. All of which boils down to universal tribal tendencies paired with the love of conflict. Domination of the other side and killing “bad guys” feel good too. And righteous. When the drumbeats of war start growing louder, hawks on both sides will promise glory and victory, and their appeals will be on track to win the internal deliberations in favor of military force under extreme pressure. People tend to rally around the flag when they hear the battle cry, especially males. But we know only one side will end up being right in the end.

Nothing is inevitable. The good news is that if we recognize the factors behind why we love conflict so much, we can find creative ways to resolve them in the future. I don’t have all the answers but I am sure the combined consciousnesses of humanity working as one with AI can get us there. It will require soul-searching, hard conversations, and pivoting. It will require all of us to accept that we are wrong sometimes even if it doesn’t feel good. We will need to change the way we interact with one another and shore up our education systems and use of logic. We must disarm. We must beef up the United Nations. We must have faith that we are capable of progress regardless of the past and present. The overarching goal of humanity must be to cooperatively build a working roadmap to prevent potential flash points from descending into war and chaos ever again. There is no higher aspiration than this, no more noble challenge for our generation to conquer. After all we are no longer knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. So let’s finally prove it.