Do Men Cause Wars?

My posted reply to the Inside Man article titled 'Do Men Start Wars'


You use the word 'start', by which you must mean either 'cause' or 'declare'.

We all know that some men have declared war and that some women have also done so. The question of whether men cause wars is a more interesting one.


Every claim about causation entails a corresponding counterfactual claim.
“An arsonist caused my house to burn down.” (Claim)
“If there had been no arsonist, my house would not have burned down.” (Counterfactual)

So to answer whether “Men cause wars”, we can ask the counterfactual question “If there had never been men, would there have been wars?” However the answer is, of course, no; there would not be any humans if only one gender existed.

So we should ask something else.
“Does male leadership cause wars?” (Claim)
“If there were no male leadership, would there have been (as many) wars?” (Counterfactual)

Ignoring the possibility of no leadership at all; hence assuming female leadership. From history, it seems like female leadership would cause at least as many wars as male leadership does.

Margaret Thatcher: Falklands War
Indira Gandhi: Indo-Pakistan War
Golda Mier: Yom Kippur War
Elizabeth I of England: Nine Year’s War, Irish War, Elizabethan War
Anna of Russia: War of Polish Succession, Russo-Turkish War
Elizabeth of Russia: War of Austrian Succession, Seven-Year’s War
Catherine the Great: Russo-Persian War

A look through English and Russian history confirms that most female leaders have declared war. I don’t know about the history of other nations. More recently, Hillary Clinton voted for war.

It seems that men do not “cause” wars anymore than women do.

Contra Patriarchy - Part 1: The women of I♥IDF who used sex in order to encourage men to kill for them.

There are some men who use women to attain their ends. Indeed, I suspect that almost all people have once used at least one member of their own sex, and of the opposite sex, in order to attain some selfish end. However, some academic feminists claim that modern women lack the means to use men in order to attain their ends. I deny that claim; I contend that modern women can, and do, use men in order to attain their ends. I've published this entry, as the first of two parts, in order to corroborate that contention.

_______________________

Some women have, and do, use sex to manipulate men in order to attain their ends.

Consider a popular¹ grassroots campaign, 'I♥IDF', whose participants endeavour to bolster the morale of the IDF's (Israeli Defense Force) male² combatants in Gaza by uploading sexual photographs of themselves to social media websites (see below).

Recent survey data indicates that 73% of Israeli women³ desire that the mission in Gaza continue until Hamas surrenders. In this entry, I have included a sample of the images uploaded by the campaign's participants, which collectively depict 60 different participants⁴. There is virtually no chance (1 in 10³⁶) that none of those participants desire that the mission in Gaza continue until Hamas surrenders.

I cannot remember an instance of a person voluntarily abetting someone in order that the abetted might effect a state of affairs that the abettor did not hope would obtain. Accordingly, I believe that I may reasonably presume that when a person voluntarily abets another person, the abettor usually does so in order that the abetted might effect a state of affairs that the abettor hopes will obtain. In other words, common sense suggests that the I♥IDF participants hope that their campaign will, directly or indirectly, increase the chance that the IDF compels Hamas to surrender.

In conclusion, there is, almost certainly, one participant in the I♥IDF campaign who used a sexual photograph of herself in order to encourage men to do what she desired them to do. Accordingly, there is, almost certainly, at least one woman who manipulates men in order to attain her ends. Assuming such manipulations succeed (the contrary assumption depreciates the judgement of these women), then the academic-feminist cannot claim that modern-women lack the means to manipulate men.

[1]Well known newspapers covered the campaign.
[1][a]Jezebel
[1][b]Salon
[1][c]BBC
[1][d]Huffington Post
[2]Men constitute 97% of the IDF's combatants.
[3] Recent survey data indicates that approximately 86% of Israelis desire the mission in Gaza to continue until Hamas surrenders. Accordingly, if we assume the population of Israel comprises equal numbers of men and women, then if every member of one sex expressed the aforementioned desire, 73% of the other sex would have indicated the same desire. In the interest of conservatism, I've assumed, the least favourable possibility for this argument, that 73% of Israeli women expressed the aforementioned desire.
[4]I assume that there is no person depicted more than once in the 60 included images. However, the image in the second column of the first row of the second mosaic depicts three people, so the photographs possibly collectively-depict 62 people.