In her paper, "War and National Renewal: Civil Religion and Blood Sacrifice in American Culture," Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet writes about the sacrificial theory of warfare--that I've been developing for thirty years--and presenting (with Orion Anderson) through the Library of Social Science Newsletter for the past thirteen years. 

Monnet provides a sytematic presentation of the theory. She observes that although nationalistic rhetoric tends to rely heavily on the notion of sacrifice, and we are  familiar with such phrases in political speeches, "the idea that nations might actually 'need' members to be willing to die for them can appear prima facie as a revolting claim."

Modern political theory, Monnet observes, defines the role of the nation-state primarily as one of protection: of nationals from non-nationals, and of citizens from each other. Therefore, she says, "nothing could seem more wrong (even 'sacrilegious') than to propose that "the nation might need members to die for it on a regular basis in order to sustain its sense of unity."

My book, Nations Have the Right to Kill, could just as well been entitled, Nations Have the Need to Kill. And we are not talking about some idea of biological "aggression." The need to kill is the need to kill (sacrifice) one's own people--to establish the existence and reality of one's nation.

Yes, this theory is not pleasant to contemplate. 

People found Darwin's theory that human beings evolved from lower forms of animal life to be "revolting," "sacrireligious"--deeply disturbing. Yet Darwin's theory generated passionate debate.

Apparently, the idea that nation-states need to kill (sacrifice) their own people--is more disturbing now than Darwin's theory was at the time it was presented. The reaction is not protest or argumentation--but silence, which conveys profound denial.

Richard Koenigsberg
June 6, 2019