Who will send their kids to war?

Delving into the intersectionality of politics and ethics, we face many profound dilemmas. Politics is the art of governing through planned and agreed decision-making processes, which often clash with ethics and our shared belief in what is right and acceptable.  

As Aristotle taught us, political decisions are often evaluated and justified based on the balance between an end goal and the means used to achieve it. In ethical considerations, the means and the end must be in due proportion, in a mirroring relationship and ideally have an identical nature. However, this is not always the case. If the end is unethical but portrayed as being for the greater good, such as when waging war against an enemy to achieve peace without considering catastrophic results for all, the actions taken to achieve the goal may also be deemed unethical. In addition, sometimes, an end and a means are just inversed to camouflage the hidden goal.

One of the primary factors contributing to this issue is the nature of bureaucracy. According to Max Weber, bureaucracy is characterised by high levels of organisation, formalisation, and impersonality operating on a fixed hierarchical structure with clear rules, regulations, and lines of authority. When individuals work within this bureaucratic hierarchy, their perception of reality often transforms. They view themselves as official entities as part of an impartial and impersonal system in a high order rather than ordinary citizens or human beings. The official title and entitlement their professional legitimacy is founded upon separate them from the realities of the people they serve, making it easy to avoid taking personal responsibility and accountability.

As a result, many decisions made or reviewed by bureaucrats are not based on personal perspectives but instead on an impersonal viewpoint. As a product of the bureaucratic system, this impersonality hinders their ability to perceive the world through unbiased eyes, with a moral conscience, and understand the consequences of their decisions for the lives of the people involved in implementing these decisions.

Bureaucrats know their decisions will rarely be questioned and much less legally investigated later. Even if these bureaucrats are questioned, they defend themselves using the excuse that their decision was made in the nation’s best interests as “an end itself” from the key position of the party in power that they represented. In most cases, neither bureaucrats nor the party they represented will face serious consequences and often go with impunity, even if they misled the public and told lies to justify the cruel means to attain the wrong end, i.e., waging an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Some examples of such are the Vietnam War, which resulted in significant loss of life and resources; the Iraq War, which led to a destabilised region and ongoing conflict; the war in Afghanistan, which had lasted for over two decades without yielding any positive result, and the Syrian war, which has caused a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale.

Particularly regarding governments’ funding of international conflict, this lack of a personal sense of duty in the impersonal administration of office is a problem in decision-making in the Western world- a lack of individual, not merely professional, sense of duty in such decisions. For instance, the EU and the UK are discussing how to continue providing billions of dollars to Ukraine without any apparent public consensus combined with a lack of proper auditing and scrutiny mechanisms. This lack of personal sense of duty allows for decisions to be made without considering the massive potential human cost, as evidenced by Prime Minister of the UK, Keir Starmer’s latest radical rhetoric, repeatedly suggesting putting “boots on the ground” to defend “peace” in Ukraine, which this war has tragically ravaged and which has lost thousands of lives, along with driving millions of Ukrainians in exile.

There are two ironies at play here – Starmer advocates prolonging this war, propagating this to achieve “peace” by keeping the fight against a nuclear superpower, an agitated Russia, potentially resorting to using nuclear weapons, dangerously obliterating any prospect of peace forever and risking leading to the end of human civilisation altogether. Secondly, while unconditionally supporting Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has recently failed to explain a $100 billion black hole in US aid for Ukraine and who is determined to continue this war to save his contentious position, the EU and the UK keep pouring massive money into a bottomless bucket until they spread thin economically to incite more unrest across Europe.

Moreover, this decision, if implemented fully, will further jeopardise the efforts of their historical allies, the US Trump administration, to re-establish links with Putin, setting up peace talks to end the war in Ukraine.

From an ethical perspective, which places significant emphasis on moral foresight and empathy to comprehend the consequences of one’s decision, we can question whether Starmer himself would personally engage in a war against Russia, akin to Napoleon. Further, if he is prepared to face a nuclear attack from Russia without seeking refuge in a bunker, like billions of other individuals on Earth with nowhere to hide. 

Sometimes, a war is necessary to secure peace against pure evil forces. Alternatively, to avoid a war, it is necessary to negotiate for peace, no matter how fragile. However, this time, the war being advocated by Starmer is not to seek peace but rather to annihilate any opportunity to re-establish peace by provoking a nuclear war or a perpetual war. He is dishonestly propagating peace as an end; however, in reality, it is a means to appease a small clique of global elites who profit from this war immensely. 100 billion dollars have already contributed to this goal.

Furthermore, the crux lies in the importance of politicians like him approaching their decisions personally beyond his bureaucratic immunity – will he send his kids to this war he is fanatically advocating for?

Throughout history, we have witnessed notable or notorious leaders who have sent their kids to battle, regardless of whether they were democrats or dictators. Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, had four sons, all of whom served in World War I. Tragically, his youngest son, Quentin Roosevelt, lost his life as a fighter pilot.

The comparison of who has made personal sacrifices for their nation with sacrifices of their family is relevant to see, to a certain extent, how much they have empathised with ordinary people’s misery and trauma, such as losing their kids in war, to achieve peace and prosperity. This empathy, where leaders and citizens bear the burden of war, truly connects leaders to their people in pursuit of meaningful peace and lasting prosperity. Not as purely a measurement of how great leaders they are, it drives deeper to how exposed they are to the consequences of their decisions for the good of humanity or the public good, as against utilising war for the protection and advancement of a small bureaucratic elite group.

The point is finally how much they act not necessarily as a good bureaucrat but, first and foremost, as a decent human being to foresee and possibly experience the pain, suffering and sacrifices of ordinary people, who may not be able to make or influence any political decision but pay a fatal price for disastrous, short-sighted and cruel decisions made in highrise buildings or glittering palaces – in the very protection of impersonal bureaucracy.

With the war in Ukraine, the world is at a crossroads, with decision-making becoming human, humane, and compassionate rather than bureaucratic, impersonal, and heartless.