Primo Levi, in addition to his famous memoir, If This Is a Man, in which he recounts his experience in Auschwitz, also wrote The Truce, the narrative of his long odyssey from the liberation of the concentration camp to his journey home, to Italy. In this book, he describes a Greek companion in his post-liberation adventures who keeps saying: "War is always!" (“La guerra, sempre”). He says it when the war is absolutely over. It is quite telling that Levi titled the book The Truce: ordinary peaceful life is but a truce of an endless war.

Perhaps the two most important observations on the relationship between politics in the sense of peace and war were made by Carl von Clausewitz and Michel Foucault. The former declared that "war is merely the continuation of policy by other means", the latter that "politics is the continuation of war by other means". We would be mistaken to think that the two statements are contradictory; in fact, they express the same idea from two different perspectives. But it is Foucault's reversal that stresses a profound tragedy: contrary to what we might believe, war is the permanent condition of societies, and politics merely represents a truce.

In any case, whether it be Clausewitz, Levi, or Foucault, one thing is clear: war is not a rupture of peace, nor a catastrophic discontinuity in the mathematical sense of 'catastrophe'. Rather, war and politics during peacetime are continuous with each other. This must be said to those who, without due reflection, repeat: “They must lay down their arms and begin negotiations!” The fact is that fierce battles are waged precisely to secure the ability to negotiate from a position of advantage; and negotiations are only possible when the opposing side is convinced of a readiness for war. A negotiation succeeds when it is possible for either side to threaten war without necessarily resorting to it. The other side must believe that our threat of war is not a bluff.

There is only one way to end a war without negotiating: to force the enemy to surrender. A party surrenders when it loses all bargaining power; surrender is a degree zero negotiation. And in many situations, there is only one way to avoid going to war: to surrender before fighting.  The Holocaust can be understood as the consequence of the fact that the Jews surrendered to the Nazis without a fight, because they had no army at that time.

What truly matters in war is its political impact. Often great military victories lead to great political defeats, but rarely do great political victories lead to military defeats. For example, the American army in South Vietnam effectively repelled the so-called Têt offensive by General Giáp's Vietnamese troops in the winter of 1968. American military leaders were exultant. But the political repercussions were disastrous, because the whole world realised that the very fact that the Americans had won that battle meant that they might have lost the war. Which is what eventually happened.

This is why by the title of this intervention I do not mean "pendant la guerre, penser à l’après-guerre" - during the war, think about the aftermath - but "pendant la guerre, penser à… la guerre prochaine, en espérant de l’éviter". During the war, think about... the next war in the hope of avoiding it.

Does this mean, as Sigmund Freud believed, that wars will never end? We should never presume to play the role of prophets. Perhaps humanity will enter a phase in which conflicts no longer take the form of war in the classical sense. Who knows? But conflicts will certainly never disappear. Homo sapiens is the most conflict-prone mammal—and also the most erotic. It is the mammal species that massacres its own kind more than any other and whose females are always in heat. Contrary to the famous slogan, humans make love just as much as they make war. The perpetual peace envisioned by Kant is not impossible, but it remains highly unlikely.

After all, it is only since the Enlightenment, after Kant, that the political project of a world without war has spread in the West and beyond. Before the 18th century, no philosopher, preacher or theologian had ever considered the possibility of perpetual peace. Even in the optimal Platonic Republic, the warrior class was one of the three fundamental ones. Not even Christian philosophers had ever thought of abolishing armies. War, like anger, thymos, was thought to be ineradicable from the human condition. In the Western tradition there has never been anything similar to Buddhism or Taoism, radically pacifist religions.

It will be argued that Kant's project has so far failed, given that, since the emergence of the pacifist movement, we have witnessed the most horrifying wars in human history. However, I do not believe that this is due to a rise in human aggression or malevolence, but rather because advances in military technology have led to increasingly lethal weapons. 

The Kantian pacifist project nonetheless has had some significant effects. In particular, it has fostered a certain sense of shame with regard to war in our so-called Western culture. Engaging in war is now always seen as blameworthy, even when one side firmly believes in its just cause; that is, always. Today nations commonly state that they were forced to go to war by the actions of the other.

Until the 18th century, warriors were the aristocrats, the superior class. Clerics and warriors formed the noblest social groups. Today, no one would claim that generals and admirals, let alone priests, represent the crème de la crème of society. The military is now composed of mere state employees. Quite different classes are the object of popular admiration today (we all know which). War as such has been stripped of its sacred aura. In many countries, what used to be called the 'Ministry of War' is now the 'Ministry of Defence'. We can tolerate an army, and therefore the possibility of going to war, only in a defensive sense. Although, as we know only too well, many nations use defence as an alibi to attack instead.

At our military academies, cadets are taught that the primary purpose of an army is not to wage war but to prepare for it, following the Latin adage si vis pacem, para bellum, ‘if you want peace, prepare for war’. Armies of nations that haven’t engaged in war for centuries yet remain efficient, such as the Swiss and the Swedish, are held up as models. In short, until about two centuries ago waging war was an honour, those who fought found glory; today waging war is a mere necessity, a dirty job carried out by personnel who, deep down, are a source of shame, like hangmen used to be. 

Generally speaking, since the Enlightenment, the act of killing a human being, even if it seems indispensable at some point, has become devalued. In the most industrialised countries, where the death penalty still exists, the figure of the executioner is met with horror.

Our world is no more peaceful today than it was in the past. On the other hand, there is a de-idealisation of war.  I have been wondering for some time whether there is an antonym for 'idealisation' in the English language. Debasement, perhaps? The warrior is no longer an object of admiration, but of compassion.

There is, however, one kind of war that remains sacred, and one type of military leader that is still venerated: the general who commands a war of liberation. Think of Washington, Simón Bolívar, Garibaldi, Giáp... up to Che Guevara. These wars of liberation from an alleged oppressor actually fall into another register, that of revolution: they are approved as revolutionary wars. The brutal war in Vietnam, for example, is still absolved by many as a war of liberation by the Vietnamese from American domination.

We live in a world deeply imbued with pacifist ideology (a popular commercial in Italy, I can’t recall for which product, features the Mahatma Gandhi) and as a result real wars are perceived as diseases that stubbornly continue to claim victims, much like epidemic crises. Armies are increasingly equated with police forces and soldiers with policemen. Accordingly, the United States has often been described as the 'global policeman', tasked with punishing rogue states. Policing is, of course, a necessity—but a grim one, reflecting our enduring belief that crime is something we will always fear. 

This secularisation of the military as a necessary filth, useful for disposing of other filth, has made giant strides since the Second World War—the last officially declared war. After it, wars have been fought without formal declarations. This absence of declarations oozes with a profound meaning.

The formal declaration of war on an enemy state was a remnant of the ritualistic nature of war. It reflected a time when there was considerable respect for the opposing side, because being a warrior was the noblest calling for a human being (aside from the priesthood). The enemy warrior was therefore also worthy of respect. A certain ritualisation of war was an act of honour that distinguished the military aristocracies. Today, in an era of the debasement of war, the rules of fair play have lost their meaning. It would be like a policeman announcing to a thief or murderer during a chase, ‘You are being pursued by the police!’ A cop does not see himself as the criminal's equal. And my enemies in war are no longer equals with different interests from mine, they are criminals. In short, in modern wars the enemy is de-legitimised, dishonourable. 

This can be seen in the two most resounding wars of recent times. Ukraine does not consider the Russian army as an equal enemy: it is just an invader, like a burglar breaking into my house at night to steal from me and whom I try to drive out. But the Russian military is taught the same thing: that the real aggressors are the Ukrainians, and the West, which is using Ukraine to destroy Russia and its civilisation. I know Russian civilians who genuinely believe this: that they are fighting to save Russia from destruction. In short, wars today are only admissible as a form of defence against a crime, in the same way as the police. 

Even Hitler, until his death, believed that the world war had not been started by him but by international Jewry. For him, the Shoah was nothing more than an act of defence of Germany.

This symmetry is even more marked in the conflict between Israel on the one hand and Hamas and Hezbollah on the other. Each claims the right to what is known as 'existential defence', the protection of its very existence. Each side accuses the other of seeking its destruction as a state, nation or people. In essence, what legitimises war today is the claim to be a potential victim of a Holocaust. The painful shame of war is endured in the name of ensuring survival.

The paradoxical effect of our pacifistic—but not peaceful—world is that the more war is de-legitimised, the more violent and anomic it becomes.

Each of us obviously thinks that there is a true aggressor and a true victim of aggression, depending on our deep-seated sympathies. Our political sympathies, which are a weak form of belonging, lead us to read the narrative of conflicts in such a way as to place the blame on the enemy of those we sympathise with. Wars are justified by the ‘nationicidal’ will of the other.

Hence the paradox: wars have become increasingly savage and inhumane precisely because they have been de-legitimised, seen as shameful acts imposed on a nation by the villainy of others. Consequently, the portrayal of war—in novels and films—has, in recent decades, become grittier, verging on the horror genre. But if millions of viewers or readers are flocking to watch or read increasingly gruesome war stories, it is because war continues to fascinate most of us, especially if we are male by birth. It also seduces pacifists, when they delight in watching war videos. Precisely because war has shed its aristocratic aura, today, more than ever, it is reduced to nothing but “blood, sweat and shit” (William Howard Russell, 1854). It seduces like a pure temptation. It culminates in the orgasm of horror.

Once sex was considered obscene and war glorified, now sex is glorified and war seen as obscene. This also explains why so many people volunteer to fight in wars that are not their own (at the time of writing, an estimated 30,000 non-Ukrainian volunteers are fighting against the Russians in Ukraine), and it would be small-minded to think that they only do it for the money. Freud reminded us that killing is a form of pleasure, all the more so when killing, even in a war situation, is considered illegitimate.  

Reason why it’s quite striking to read in an article by an eminent psychoanalyst, written in response to the war in Ukraine, his assertion that ‘war is something old’. In other words, something outdated, ridiculous. But it seemed outdated to him only because he thought he had moved beyond it. This is the naivety of the idealist: to believe that there is a sense to history, and that if history seems to be going in a completely different direction, then it is going against the grain, 'it is old', it is mistaken… “I am right, history is wrong!” 

In reality, war is always new, like love, sex, the desire for truth and freedom. And it is always the same. Of course, we say more and more that we kill only to defend ourselves, but we whisper in our ears: “how fortunate that, by attacking us, someone affords us the pleasure of killing them!”