If You Want Peace, Study War Colleges are turning against the history of military conflict. But we forget these lessons at our peril.
So why do history faculties, which accept the need to study other great forces in history, such as changes in the means of production or systems of belief, shy from war? I suspect that horror at the phenomenon itself has affected universities’ willingness to treat it as a subject for scholarship. Years ago, when I proposed a new course on war and society, an education consultant asked me, “Why don’t you call it peace studies?”
I have since met with incomprehension, even hostility, when I have pointed out that wars can bring unintended benefits. However much I say that we would not choose to make war in order to improve our societies, I am charged with loving war. Yet nobody would say that the study of imperialism, racism or famine means that we think those are good things.
