Warfare, death--and truth

Warfare is about killing and dying. This much we know. We ordinarily emphasize the role of killing. I suggest that the institution of war revolves rather around dying. The objective of war is the death of the soldier. Warfare is an institution that produces corpses.

Historians focus upon who “wins” a war and who “loses.” Nations engage in warfare, it has been assumed, to determine who the “winner” will be, and who the loser. But what if this way of looking at war —how we always have looked at it—is obsolete.

If warfare is not primarily about killing, nor about winning or losing, what is war all about? I hypothesize that the institution of warfare revolves around the issue or question of truth. That for which we die becomes true.

The truth emerges, not only by virtue of the death of our enemy, but by virtue of the death of our own soldiers. We wage war to demonstrate our sincerity. Death constitutes a testament or testimonial; a demonstration that we believe in our sacred ideals. The proof of the pudding is in the dying.

Richard Koenigsberg