NOTE: This article is a supplement to today’s Wisdom Calling podcast, Episode 2, “War and Rumors of War.”
On the podcast today, I laid out a brief survey of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine and U.S.-Iran conflicts with an eye on several generation-forming factors that are at work within them. These two ongoing geopolitical wars/conflicts (among others) are shaping the way we think, feel, speak, and act. Moral, ethical, theological, and political ideas are at stake. You can listen to the podcast here: YOUTUBE. SPOTIFY. APPLE.
As I mentioned on the podcast, war is formative in a variety of ways—both negatively and positively. At the outset, let’s be forthright that war, inevitably, has a negative effect on humanity. Only the most rabidly inhumane among us would long for war, hoping for the death, destruction, and despair it brings. The writer of the first Psalm of Ascent grieves that peaceful people must live among obstinate aggressors: “I have dwelt too long with those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war,” (Psalm 120:6–7). War is, above all things, devastating and destructive. Here are some ways war negatively shapes history and culture:
1) War results in the end of human life. As a Christian, I believe unrelentingly in the dignity of every human life. Every person is created in the image of God and, as such, is full of dignity and worthy of respect simply by virtue of his or her God-given existence. In the biblical narrative, immediately after the Genesis 3 Fall comes the Genesis 4 murder of Able by his brother Cain. God tells the murderer, “His blood cries out to me from the ground.” Coldblooded murder, even in Scripture, is separated from bloodshed in just war. And capital punishment, many Christians would argue, is a biblical concept for the most heinous of crimes against the imago dei. But the fact remains that regardless the cause or circumstance, the loss of human life is not a celebration; it’s a horrible degradation of the immoral order that is characteristic of our fallen world. And, let’s just be simple and clear: war results in the end of human life. That fact alone should at least give us reason to pause and count the cost before declaring or entering into warfare.
2) War weakens economies. I will argue the exact opposite of this claim in the next section, but understand for now that it is possible that both this claim and its opposite are true. In WWI, the United States increased its national debt by 650% (from $3.6B in 1916 to $27B in 1919). During WWII, our national debt increased by 429% (from $49B in 1941 to $259B in 1945).[1] If the Russia-Ukraine war ended today, the estimated recovery cost is almost $600 billion over a 10-year period. Three million households have been damaged or destroyed, the transportation and energy sectors have been hit hard, and the overall economic desolation in Ukraine by Russia’s war, in the words of EU Commissioner Marta Kos, “continues to have a devastating impact.”[2] The U.S. Civil War resulted in generations of economic hardship, especially in the South—not merely because of the loss of slave labor (over which we rejoice) but because of a devastated economic infrastructure that was burned, damaged, or otherwise destroyed during wartime campaigns (over which we lament). These are just a few of examples. I don’t think the point needs to be belabored. Surely it is obvious that war weakens economies.
3) War between us diminishes our collective strength. Thomas Hobbes wrote in Leviathan (1651) that warfare diminishes the collective strength of mankind “against a Common Enemy.” What is that common enemy today? Different sectors will give you different answers. A secular populace, focused on secular time, often labels humanitarian ills as our common enemy—things like food scarcity, water pollution, unhoused individuals, curable and uncurable disease, etc. Environmentalists would add climate change, deforestation, and non-renewable energy consumption to the list. Moralists, philosophers, and religious peoples may focus more on certain virtues as the highest good and their greatest threat as our common evil: justice, liberty, righteousness, truth, and temperance, perhaps set against the evils of injustice, oppression, lawlessness, deception, and licentiousness. However you conceive of a common enemy, it is difficult to deny that if we fight against one another, we are not combining our collective strength against that common enemy. So, the credibility of Hobbes’ point is obvious: war between us diminishes our collective strength.
4) Theologically, War reflects and exemplifies the depravity of mankind. Humanity was created by God to live and function together, in meaningful and purposeful community, as representative rulers of God cultivating the earth to his glory and for our good. But since humanity’s Fall, in Genesis Ch.3, this peaceful union has been threatened and disrupted by the sinful inclinations of men and women in every generation. Now all of creation anticipates the day of Restoration, when the second coming of Christ will finally perfect that which has been imperfected, right that which has been wronged, and bring peace where there has been only war. As James Garlow wrote recently, “War is a particularly vile expression of man’s corrupt nature and is ultimately a rejection of God’s divine rule.”[3] Theologically, war reflects and exemplifies the depravity of mankind—the rebellion of our hearts, minds, and wills against God and in opposition to one another.
But war doesn’t only play a negative role in historical progression and culture formation. Almost paradoxically, in some ways war also positively shapes society. I realize that’s as hard to hear as it is to write. “A thing can be both violent and fruitful,” G.K. Chesterton once wrote.[4] So is it with war. Even Christian Scripture affirms that some things are worth fighting for: personally for your families and homes in Neh. 4:14; metaphorically for the faith in Jude 3; and, yes, even militarily for your country against invading armies in 1 Chronicles 19:13 among other texts. When fought justly, wars can protect societies, shape governments, and form cultures positively, as well. To put it simply, some things are worth fighting for. For example…
1) By War, oppressed peoples across the planet have been freed. The obvious American examples are the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. It was in a bloody contest that American colonies won their independence from a far off, non-representative government, answering for themselves what Patrick Henry called “nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery” in the same speech to the Second Virginia Convention March 23, 1775, which he ended with the immortal line, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”[5] And it was the American Civil War, ninety years later, which solidified the liberty of all humans on American soil by retaining the Union of States in anti-slavery obligation through what was the most costly battle of American history, claiming the lives of more than 600,000 Americans. By these wars, as in many more across the globe and through the generations, the righteous freedom of oppressed peoples was secured or defended.
2) By War, economic and technological progress has been fast-tracked. Again, this seems the direct inverse of a point I made earlier, but both are true. Consider WWI, for example, during which the U.S. agricultural, steel, and manufacturing industries exploded with growth; the U.S. emerged as the world’s leading creditor; and—for better or worse—U.S. government agencies proliferated for the stimulus of the private sector toward collective economic and national purposes. Technological advancements have been created or improved during war, and for war: the fast two-wheeled chariots and bronze castings of the Mesopotamians during Bronze-Age warfare; intricate roadway systems built for military movement during Roman Imperialism; railroad and telegraph infrastructure during the American Civil War; radar during WWII; or—again, for better or worse—AI-guided attack drones in Lybia’s 2020 Civil War and now even more so in the Russia-Ukraine War. No doubt, today we all enjoy and benefit from well-planned roadways, metal casting, fast vehicles, long-distance communication, and artificial intelligence. And that’s to say nothing of advancements in the industries of medicine, agriculture, and business that we owe to wartime innovation. It’s hard to deny that war has positively affected economic and technological advancement throughout human history.
3) By War, oppressive totalitarian governments have been eliminated. In 1938, as Adolf Hitler began amassing power and influence, Winston Churchill wrote in a British newspaper: “The shores of History are strewn with the wrecks of Empires. They perished because they were found unworthy.” The obvious examples are the fall of Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Fascist Italy during WWII. But historical examples also abound. For example, the fall of Sparta to Rome in the 2nd Century BC came after Sparta’s military was emasculated in the Battle of Luectra in 371 BC. A groundswell Chinese Civil War ultimately overthrew China’s first Imperial Dynasty, the Qin Dynasty, in 206 BC (although China’s independence from oppressive totalitarian Imperialism was short-lived). Similar historical examples can be found in the fall of Ancient India’s Mauryan Dynasty, Genghis Khan’s massive middle-aged Eastern Mongol Empire, and others.
Totalitarian persecution still exists, by the way: North Korea’s Kim Dynasty, determining basic provision for life (food, housing, jobs) by citizens’ loyalty to the Kim family… Afghanistan’s Taliban now multiplying oppression against women and children after U.S. withdrawal in 2021… and various regions within established nation-states currently controlled—or outright terrorized—by theocratic Jihadist Islamism, particularly in the African countries of Somalia, Mali, and Niger to name a few. The point is simply that, historically, bloodshed has been required for people to be freed from oppressive totalitarian governments. The bloodshed of war is not itself a celebration, but the human and societal liberation that has at times resulted from just warfare is something to be noted.
4) By War, national and international solidarity has been realized. The U.S. Civil War secured the union of the states in an unbreakable federal democratic republic, and it is on that permanently unified foundation that America has become an international powerhouse militarily, economically, and philosophically. War is what ultimately brought back together the United States and Great Britain during what’s called “The Great Rapprochement” in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and that international reunion was even further solidified between the U.S. and the U.K. during the two World Wars. Just a couple of examples.
My point is that war does something to us culturally—socially—economically. The causes of war and the effects of war are both negative and positive, and in both cause and effect, war shapes us as humans, as societies, and as nation-states. Be sure to listen to today’s podcast for more insight on how current geopolitical conflicts are shaping our generation.
[1] “Historical Debt Outstanding,” https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/historical-debt-outstanding/historical-debt-outstanding.
[2] “Ukraine: $588 billion recovery cost over the next 10 years,” United Nations, February 23, 2026 (https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/02/1167016).
[3] James Garlow, Well Versed: Biblical Answers to Today’s Tough Issues (Washington D.C.: Regery Faith, 2016), 200.
[4] G.K. Chesterton, “The Paradise of Thieves,” in Father Brown: The Essential Tales (New York: The Modern Library, 2005), pp. 179–195.
[5] Patrick Henry, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death: Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775” Yale Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/patrick.asp.
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