WAR & PEACE

BY BILL HANSEN- page 1 of 7 pages

War, man’s most ignoble pursuit, has unmistakable patterns of recurrence. Violence has a rhythm! By understanding the cause of these patterns, we may be able to diffuse the periodic outbursts of mass hysteria that lead to unconscionable acts of violence. In the past 3,400 years, the world has enjoyed only 200 years or so of absolute peace. This grim historical note is even more pathetic considering the many religious crusades, peace advocates, and martyrs that have tried and failed to discourage violence. It is easy to shrug-off man’s penchant for violence. Many people accept the human being as an aggressive and deadly animal that preys not only on other animals for food and sport but are capable of wanton murder of its own kind. At no time is man’s predacious nature more fully unleashed than during war. Without social restraints and under the duress of battle, once peaceful people will kill with little provocation.

Those who profess the virtues of peaceful coexistence among archrivals have been frustrated time and time again. The desire for physical conquest and subjugation of weaker peoples is a strong human tendency. Yet pockets of peaceful coexistence among people do exist. The Semai people of

Malaysia never fight. Tribe members resolve conflicts with words. The final word comes from the village leader who makes a ruling; thereafter, the dispute is never mentioned. Many members of the Society for American Archaeology believe that war is a social invention, a tool of political states bent on territorial control and economic expansion. War, they argue, would have developed about 10,000 years ago. Until about a decade ago (revelations during the Pluto perihelion) warfare among primitive peoples was dismissed as nonexistent. But recent archaeological evidence supports the opposing argument that war is a basic element of human nature. Nearly every primitive society ever studied fought wars. Although cultures such as the Semai are exceptions, the Semai had strikingly high homicide rates. They just did not organize into groups to fight one another. Raymond Kelly makes an interesting point in his Warless Societies and the Origin of War (published 2000). Kelly states that those cultures before about 20,000 years ago lacked the concept of group identity. As societies settled into set communities and became more agrarian, somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, the concept of group identity emerged. People then had a community to fight for. This theory finds support in archaeological records. The oldest known cemetery is in the Nile valley of southern Egypt in what is called Jebel Sahaba. The 59 skeletons uncovered at Jebel Sahaba died of sharp stone wounds. It is here, between 12,000 and 14,000 years ago, that group warfare first appeared

The probabilities of war, like the probabilities of rain, do not guarantee results. But ignoring the chances of showers can prove uncomfortable in the event of rain. War, on the other hand, is a deadly game; lives are too easily lost if preventative options are thrown to chance. Edward Dewey (1970) discovered an 11.24-year cycle in war that cannot be the result of chance more often than once in 500 times! Dewey’s cycle is a dependable forecasting tool; to ignore this cycle would be the greatest of follies.

The fervor of violence is like an outbreak of disease: if contained locally, the impact is negligible. Most wars are regional conflicts. Small-scale wars usually do not expand beyond a limited territory. But battles can escalade into wars just like a spreading disease can grow into an epidemic. Conditions must be right for widespread warfare, but conditions are right every 11 years!

Dewey wrote in “Cycles” (Vol. 31, November 1980: Foundation for the Study of Cycles), “It is inconceivable that the war cycle, which has recurred as regularly as it has, and has continued over nearly 2,500 years, could possibly be the result of anything except some external cause.” Dewey did not believe that the Sun was responsible for the war period of 11 years, and yet sunspots do seem to be a guiding force leading humanity through times of peace and times of war.

Although worldwide peace seldom exists, the number of people killed in wars fluctuates in set rhythmic patterns. A few local clashes do not spell wider warfare unless the cycle of war is heading up. When the cycle of war nears its peak, a number of large conflicts tend to ignite, and smaller ongoing wars tend to increase in severity. Once the war-fever spreads, peaceful conditions are lost until the following low point in the war cycle.

Relatively peaceful conditions throughout the world are most likely to end within a year or two of sunspot maximums. An increase in local hostilities and the eruption of large-scale war tends to occur near the sunspot peak. Peace resumes within a year or two of sunspot minimums.