“Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace” by Christopher Blattman
This is a highly realistic book about the ugly nature of war and peace.
The author, Christopher Blattman, is a professor of Global Conflict Studies at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. He’s had the craziest range of first-hand research, from Uganda accounting bodies in war torn area, to Colombia interviewing real drug lords, to Northern Ireland investigating the religious divide, meeting the love of this life in Kenya, and to Liberia where he constructed a rehabilitation program for the worst of the worst fighters from the civil war.
The range of second-hand researches in this book are also intriguing: from the economics in Lesotho involving cows, to tribe war in Mongolia, unstable South Sudan, to hooliganism in England by a journalist who embedded himself with an actual hooligan, and many more hot spots around the globe; using several scientific findings, including a deep analysis of the psychology of war from letter exchanges between Freud and Einstein during World War 1.
And what can this book possibly teach us? Quite a lot, actually. And I’m going to dissect them and reorganize them into 3 categories: 1. What prevents war 2. What causes war 3. Negotiating peace.
What prevents war
This book attempts to enlighten us about one of the most misunderstood notions in history: that us humans are in a constant state of war. Indeed, as Blattman remarks, “For every war that ever was, a thousand others have been averted through discussion and concession.”
Being economically intertwined is one of the big reasons for averting war. Like the Hindus and the Muslims in Somnath, India, where “the enterprises of one side are wrapped up with that of their rival, these entrepreneurs, financiers, and industrialists have a stake in peace with the rival group.” The same with nations, with their multi-nations web of trades, which becomes a key part of maintaining the likes of Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, Pax Britanica, and especially today’s Pax Americana.
Another element that prevents war is the separation of power between the executive, the legislative, and the judicative branches of a nation. Dividing these power and holding the decision-makers accountable can reduce all 5 risks of war (more on this later). Check and balances are indeed the solutions. As Blattman explains, “Elected prime ministers and presidents might be just as lustful for glory as tyrants, but they have a harder time taking their nations to war to satisfy that desire. The same is true for misperceptions. Leaders are human. In a personalized system of power, a nation is at the mercy of the bias (or lunacy) of a cabal. When power brokers are restrained and decision-making is institutionalized, however, a ruler’s mistakes are modulated by other actors.”
This is why, for example, a lot of countries in sub-Saharan Africa become some of the most violent in the world in the late 20th century. “Hasty decolonization left the continent with some of the most unaccountable regimes on the planet. Few rights and responsibilities were spread across different branches of government. Many presidents weren’t just military commander in chief, they were also comptroller of the treasury, appointer of every office, and even chancellor of the university. Authority was concentrated in the capital, and provinces could seldom tax or spend independently of the center. Power was often personalized as well.”
And if we read the history books, the majority of leadership in a kingdom or country for most of human history have also been like this: centralized, personalized to its leader, and unequal. Hence, their tendency for war bias. Because, as Blattman explains, “when power is centralized, governments cannot persuade internal challengers to give up their arms. This may be why countries with more constraints on the government are less likely to have long and repeated internal conflicts. This is also why so many ethnically and religiously diverse countries avoid majoritarian rule, and choose more consensus-based forms of government that are more decentralized and allow power sharing. This ethnic and geographic power sharing seems to be a stabilizing force.”
But gaining these level of checks and balances is not an easy task, something that a Nigerian political scientist Claude Ake sums up nicely: “Democracy cannot be given, it must be seized.” And among all the books written on constraints and democratization, we can see that checks and balances were achieved gradually and through struggle. Because we’re dealing with human nature with its greed for money and lust for power.
Another big determinant that prevents war is a game theory involving risk-reward or cost-return as tools for measure. As Blattman remarks, “People will compete for riches, honor, command, or other power, just as Hobbes believed, but they’d prefer not to kill, subdue, or supplant the other. It’s too dangerous and expensive. That’s why stateless societies try to foster norms and create bodies that keep order. Not a state—that’s difficult to conjure out of nothing. But some of humanity’s other inventions have echoes of the state: tribe and clan structures, for example, with respected headmen and councils of elders, who coordinate with other clans to admonish or punish warlike groups in their network.”
Indeed, in the absense of a strong state presence, the danger and cost of war would force us to create structures to keep order out of chaos. In fact, even within a strong state these structures can still exist. And it doesn’t have to be only a tribal or political structure, it can also appear in other structures to shape behavior: religious edicts, rituals, taboos, culture of honor, moral code, and many other shared beliefs that can push people to maintain peace using societal system of praise and shame.
Another incentive to keep peace is when we’re unsure about the strength of our enemies, and thus unsure about the potential risk-reward or cost-return. As Blattman remarks, “When your true strength is ambiguous, your enemies are never sure how strong or resolved you are. Thus, in a lawless society, you have strategic incentives to cultivate a reputation for violence, even if you do not have the taste for it. A culture of honor is what we call it when this strategic response becomes a widely shared social norm.”
That’s right, crucially, in the absence of a strong state presence, a culture of honor is what can help to preserve a fragile peace. This is what often overlooked in history books, the structure that kept peace in tact. “The fact is, even the bitterest of enemies prefer to loathe one another in peace. That’s easy to forget. Our attention gets captured by the wars that do happen, like the ones in northern Uganda or North Lawndale. News reports and history books do the same—they focus on the handful of violent struggles that occur. Few write books about the countless conflicts avoided.”
I mean, sure, conflicts and wars are in abundance, that’s all we humans seem to do. But if we overlook the more abundant examples of when conflicts and wars were avoided, we’re at risk of getting the root-causes of war and the path to peace all wrong. As Blattman elaborates, “When people focus on the times peace failed, and trace back the circumstances and events to find the causes, they often find a familiar set: flawed leaders, historic injustices, dire poverty, angry young men, cheap weapons, and cataclysmic events. War seems to be the inevitable result. But this ignores the times conflict was avoided. If people also looked at the times rivals didn’t fight, they’d see a lot of the same preceding conditions. All these so-called causes of war are commonplace. Prolonged violence is not. Things that are present in both the failures and the successes are probably not the roots of war.”
So what are the root causes of war and peace? Blattman explains, “peace arises not from brotherly love and cooperation, but from the ever-present threat of violence. Each side’s bargaining power comes from its ability to threaten the enemy with harm. This power could come from guns, from defensive fortifications, from the money to hire soldiers, from new terror tactics, or from the ability to mobilize millions of people into the streets, munitions factories, or infantry—anything that helps one group triumph over their rival. But you garner concessions only if you can credibly threaten to burn the whole house down.”
Yes, it is about sizing up our enemies once again, and projecting strengths from our side. Because, as long as war looks costly, both sides would likely to strike a political deal. “This implies something you might find counterintuitive: often, the more destructive our weapons, the easier it should be to find peace.” A case in point, the US and allies never really bother North Korea with “democracy” or “human right” despite being a blatant violator for both, because North Korea explicitly shows that they have a nuclear weapon.
What causes war
But why do wars still happening? Blattman narrows down the risk of war into five categories: 1. Unchecked interests 2. Intangible incentives 3. Uncertainty 4. Commitment problem 5. Misperceptions. Let’s break it down.
The first is unchecked interests. The main incentive for peace is if the cost of war are great, from the actual dollar amount, to the potential death tolls, the destructions, the lost of territory, or the sanctions or social consequences. But war could still occur when the decision maker are not accountable to the others in their group. Like sending other tribes to fight the war for them, or someone else is paying for the weapons supplies or the cost of rebuilding, or sometimes these decision-makers expect to gain personally from these conflicts. As Blattman comments, “Unchecked rulers like these are one of the greatest drivers of conflict in history.” This is like the US and Europe funding and supplying Israel for the genocide in Gaza and attacking 5 countries, while protecting them in the UN through US vetoes, and have Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner leading the “rebuilding” of Gaza without involving any Palestinian. Israel can be so trigger happy because there’s no accountability whatsoever.
The second reason is intangible incentives. Sometimes violence occurs when there are intangible incentives to be gained, like revenge or status or dominance. In other times, violence is the only means to a justified end like God’s glory, combating injustice, or freedom. These things are priceless in their eyes, and it justifies any cost necessary. As Blattman remarks, “Unjust acts triggered a strong, lasting, predictable desire to act justly and punish the aggressor. The glow from righteous action would outweigh some of the costs and risks.” Nearly all leftist revolutions against right-wing dictators came from this desire for justice, or the terror attacks by Afghani and Iraqis against US soldiers during US occupation.
The third reason is uncertainty. It’s like calling a bluff in a game of poker: “You don’t know what cards your opponents hold, but you know they have an incentive to fool you. Obviously, your best response is not to fold every time. Likewise, in war, you don’t know your enemies’ strength or resolve, and they, too, may bluff. So sometimes you call. The fact that you don’t have the same information as your rivals means that attacking is occasionally the best strategy, even if fighting is detrimental.” Indeed, while most of the time when we’re unsure about the strength of our enemy it can preserve peace, other times a risk-taking enemy will do the opposite and test our real strength. US attack on Iran (on behalf of Israel) in June 2025 seems to be about this, where Iran’s retaliation showed a force mightier than expected, which prompted the US to ask for a truce. Or Russian invasion of Ukraine can be seen as a safeguard measure to prevent a potential NATO recruitment right at the borders with Russia (no matter how unjustified the invasion is).
Fourth reason is commitment problems. During a commitment of peace, when your rival grows powerful your best option is to concede with it. But what if you can see your opponent’s rise in advance? You can have the incentive to strike them now while they’re still an equal match and you’re still strong, breaking the peace commitment pre-emptively. “The fear of an encroaching, growing minority consumes many societies”, Blattman remarks, “We see it in the native concerned about immigrants with a different language or color of skin (in America or Sweden, for instance); in the exploding population of a minority with a different religion (in China, Israel, or Northern Ireland, for example).”
What happened in Rwanda is a horrific example for this: “Genocide is a tactic of the temporarily powerful. The logic should sound familiar by now: today’s majority can share a slice of the pie with the minority group for eternity, or they can pay a cost now and avoid having to bargain and share in the future. When the minority is expected to remain small and weak, it doesn’t make sense for the majority to pay the price of eliminating them. But if the minority is growing quickly in number, military might, or wealth, then the majority is faced with a diabolical decision akin to that of a Germany facing a rising Russia.” And thus, “Often, the majority feels imminently imperiled—a situation so dire that it overcomes internal opposition and fears of being held to account for this horrific crime. That’s one reason most mass killings happen in the middle of an active conflict. This was the case in Rwanda. The Hutu hard-liners in government were losing a war to an invading force of Tutsi soldiers. The civilian massacre was part of the Hutu extremists’ final failed gamble for victory.”
The fifth reason, misperceptions. This stems from overvaluing ourselves and downvaluing our enemies. As Blattman explains, “We are overconfident creatures. We also assume others think like us, value the same things we do, and see the world the same way. And we demonize our enemies and attribute to them the worst motives. We hold on to all sorts of mistaken beliefs, even in big groups, and when we do, it hijacks our ability to find a bargain we and our enemies can agree to. Competition and conflict make all these misjudgments worse.” The ever growing political polarizations anywhere in the world is a prime example for this. Or the baffling support of a mass murder.
Indeed, probably one of the most frequently asked questions about World War 2 is why do people support Hitler’s rise to power and the eventual conduct of the Holocaust? The answer is, the same with any other support for mass murder and genocide: propaganda. Demonizing or dehumanizing our enemy is a classic propaganda trick. Using religious texts to justifies the horrific act is another. And doctrinizing the population with a fear-mongering of a target group is a sure way to get approval behind your actions. As Blattman commented, “When marshaled by war-biased leaders, our fear and anger can be bent to their aims.”
It is only after seeing these 5 reasons that we can finally understand why today in 2026 the global geopolitical temperature is at its worrying level. Level that hasn’t been seen in decades.
Negotiating peace
So, where do we go from here? What do we do after war breaks out? Around 2,500 years ago, the Chinese military general Sun Tzu puts it aptly in his book The Art of War: “There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.” Indeed, war massacres soldiers, ravages civilians, starves cities, disrupt trades, plunders stores, demolishes industry, and bankrupts governments. In short, war is ruinous. Nobody in their right mind wants a prolonged war, and so we naturally resort to negotiation.
As Blattman remarks, “On the whole, however, we’re a remarkably cooperative species. If anything, the striking thing about human nature is our capacity to empathize, to work together in large groups, to negotiate, and to make the kinds of trade-offs that preserve peace. In no way are we unthinking war machines.” And the key to peace negotiation is how to strike a balance between incentives and bargaining.
The challenge, however, is once the weapons are put down, the stronger side (such as the controlling government or the bigger country or an occupier) has the incentives to renege on the agreement or at least to settle old scores. The risk is particularly high when the rebels are disproportionately weak, even worse if the controlling regime is autocratic and unchecked. Hence, as Blattman said, “a constrained, legitimatized state is probably the most effective at producing peace.” Because peace is not the absence of conflict, but it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.
But you can see the irony here, right? Most likely the main reason why the rebels put up an assymetric war to begin with is because of the unconstrained and unchecked nature of the controlling regime. And this is the ugly truth about peace deals, “A peaceful society does not have to be equal or just. Even repressive security forces can be an effective institution of violence control.” We never said anything about justice, only how to end a war. This is also why some wars prolong way longer than it should, due to the injustice nature of peace terms.
Conclusion: It’s all about compromise
But the good news is, everything has its price. And the effectiveness of a peace negotiation depends on how to reach a compromise. As Blattman remarks, “To find the real roots of fighting, we need to pay attention to the struggles that stay peaceful. By this I don’t mean happy and harmonious. Rivalries can be hostile and contentious. The groups may be polarized. They’re often heavily armed. They disparage and threaten one another, and they ostentatiously display their weapons. That is all normal. Bloodshed and destruction are not.”
“This shows something important”, Blattman further remarks, “we should expect peace to be resilient, even when power is unequally held, even when rivals detest one another, and even when they’re buffeted by shocks and shifts in power. In general, the side with the least material wealth, mobilizational power, and military strength should expect to get a lesser share of the pie, and to live with it. A final lesson is this: if a mismatch between spoils and power ever arises, it is better for both sides to deal than fight.”
Because, we very rarely can have the entire pie to ourselves, but we sure can share it.
Hence, the attempt to create a two-state solution in Palestine and Israel (no matter how unfair it is); or the Treaty of Tordesillas 1494 between 2 competing superpowers of the day, that gave Portugal “land rights” to the east (Africa, Asia, and Brazil) and Spain to the west (most of Americas); or the Berlin Conference 1885 between several European colonisers that breaks apart the continent of Africa into several fictitious countries; or the type of deals that I resent the most and can be seen in a lot of conflict resolutions: a peace treaty where the war will stop with the condition that the perpetrators will be immune from prosecution and can get away with their crimes.
Indeed, forget justice and equality, the world is never fair to begin with. And seeing it from the point of view of power struggles and incentives – as covered in this book – can provide us with how the real world really operates. Afterall, it’s never our intention to seek utopia, instead what we’re trying to do is to prevent a war or to stop it from prolonging much longer.
It is perhaps analogous to what former UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld liked to say about the function of the UN: “The UN was not created to take humanity to heaven but to save it from hell.”
THE CHAOS THEORY 