Introduction
The 20th century began with World War I, a military conflict of unprecedented scale. When the war was over, dozens of millions of lives had been lost, and three empires that played an essential role in the global configuration of power—Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary—had collapsed. Everyone could see the horror and devastation of such a large-scale war. However, the terrible outcomes did not result in a long-lasting peace. Instead, the 20th century went on to become the bloodiest time in human history so far.
About two decades after WWI ended, a new world war ravaged the planet, bringing even more death and destruction to humanity. The ultimate defeat of the Nazi regime and its fascist allies paved the way for the Cold War between the victorious superpowers. The United States and the Soviet Union divided the world into two alliances struggling for global dominance. This undeclared war for supremacy was fought in propaganda and on the battlefields of proxy wars.
One can try to explain wars through humanity’s inherently aggressive and violent nature. This explanation would be satisfactory from the perspective of evolutionary theory. The drivers of previous wars triggered every major military conflict of the 20th century. However, an unprecedented escalation of violence in the 20th century requires additional clarification. In that regard, one can argue that the rise of nation-states and global ideologies caused wars and bloodshed. The clash of the powerful nation-states launched WWI, and the subsequent emergence of mass-mobilizing ideologies fueled WWII and the Cold War, leading to brutality and violence unknown to ever-aggressive humanity.
Fighting as an Evolutionary Trait of Humanity
Before looking at the 20th-century bloodshed, one should explore human nature’s warlike aspect. In particular, one would make a mistake by claiming that humanity was averse to violence until the 20th century released its inner demons. According to Gat (2009), human nature has several violence-enabling triggers that can provide a rationale for a fight. Competition over resources, struggle for power and status, a desire for revenge, and the wish for safety can prompt humans into aggression (Gat, 2009). In that regard, one can explain WWI, WWII, and the Cold War through the basic categories of the human mind.
Competition Over Resources
Humans are not significantly different from animal species in terms of resource competition. In particular, the human mind justifies the fight for material resources, even though modern people in affluent societies may find that concept hard to comprehend (Gat, 2009). At the beginning of the 20th century, great powers extracted essential resources from their colonies. Hence, expansion into new territories ahead of the rival empires was a priority.
One can see an example of such a mindset in Prince Esper Ukhtomskii’s vision of Russian imperial destiny. A close friend of Tsar Nicholas II, Ukhtomskii believed that Russia must “become a great power uniting the West with the East” or it would “tread to a downward path” otherwise (Pollard & Rosenberg, 2019, p. 237). Before WWI, the British, the French, and, especially, the German elites shared similar views. As a result, war became a feasible solution for wresting control over resource-rich territories from hostile powers.
Rank, Power, Status, Prestige
Humans are social animals, meaning hierarchy plays an essential role in relationships. More specifically, rivalry for rank, power, status, and prestige is natural to human beings (Gat, 2009). High power and status elevate individuals to a position where they can dictate their will to subordinates. Likewise, the nation-states of the 20th century strived to attain power and influence by defeating their rivals in wars.
National socialism, the German branch of fascism, was the most aggressive and brutal attempt to establish dominance. Through the Nazi ideology, Adolf Hitler justified Germany’s right to rule not only over non-Europeans but also over non-Germans (Fukuyama, 1989). When Hitler’s plans for world dominance were shattered, the United States and the Soviet Union started their long power struggle. Proxy conflicts of the Cold War era were a means of proving that liberal capitalism (or communism, from the Soviet perspective) was the best way of life that every self-respecting nation must adopt.
Revenge, Deterrence, and Elimination of Opponents
Retaliation is another major cause of fighting that humans have retained through generations of evolution. Violent payback for real or imaginary injuries to honor and property is aimed at weakening, destroying, or at least deterring the offender from subsequent attacks (Gat, 2009). Regarding 20th-century wars, revenge and deterrence were significant motivating factors behind WW2 and proxy conflicts of the Cold War era.
Humiliated by a crushing defeat in WWI, many Germans followed Hitler out of hope to reverse the disastrous results of the previous war. Nazi propaganda skilfully used the bitterness and anger of the Germans to mobilize the nation for another wave of violence. During the Cold War, Americans and Soviets backed their proxies in Asia and Africa to prevent the spread of hostile ideology. Korea, Vietnam, Chile, and other countries have become an arena of brutal civil wars, where belligerents relied on U.S. or Soviet financial and military support to usurp or hold power.
Security Dilemma
Finally, the Cold War of the 20th century was primarily driven by a security dilemma, where both sides acted aggressively to prevent the escalation of violence through intimidation. According to Gat (2009, 581), a security dilemma frequently leads to arms races, where the goal lies in overpowering or scaring the opponent into submission. In the Cold War scenario, neither the U.S. nor the Soviet Union achieved a decisive military advantage in crushing the rival in a direct armed conflict. As a result, both contenders for world dominance attempted to curb each other’s military and economic potential in a series of proxy wars.
Overall, one can claim that the wars of the 20th century stemmed from the warlike human nature. However, this conclusion leaves another question: why have military conflicts become particularly massive and intensive in the 20th century? Since aggression and violence are long-known evolutionary traits of the human mind, the unprecedented bloodshed of that historical period must have an additional layer of explanation. The answer lies in the ultimate development of nation-states and the subsequent birth of mass ideologies, which provided governments with an effective political, civil, and military mobilization instrument.
Historical Examples: What Made the 20th Century So Bloody
Before the rise of nation-states, wars were fought between rulers rather than people. After the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, the nature of military conflicts changed drastically. Now, wars were waged between peoples. The pattern of nation-based involvement in wars lasted until the end of World War I (Huntington, 1993). Achieving an increased level of a nation’s participation in the war would be impossible without the concept of nationalism.
Anderson (1983) defined a nation as an imagined, limited, and sovereign community — an identity-forming notion existing in the minds of people living within finite boundaries. In that regard, one can describe nationalism as a deeply ingrained sense of belonging and comradeship. During the WWI era, nationalism was inseparable from the nation-state, which led to rather romanticized perceptions of war and death.
Millions of soldiers headed to the frontlines to protect their beloved imagined communities. However, after four years of fighting, the unexpected brutality of modern warfare is reflected in human minds. In his famous poem Dulce et Decorum, Wilfred Owen described the agony of a British trooper caught in a gas attack. Empty white eyes and blood “gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” could not be further from the image of a noble and glorious death for the country (Pollard & Rosenberg, 2019, p. 284). WWI ended with millions of casualties on both sides and shattered the idealistic perceptions, leaving the nations disgruntled and disillusioned.
Mass ideologies, such as liberalism, fascism, and communism, filled that spiritual vacuum. The socialist revolution in Russia was met with a powerful reaction in the shape of fascism. Ideologies were essential in mobilizing dazed and confused nations for new wars to restore justice. The Nazi attempt to establish Germany as an undisputed hegemon was stopped by a joint effort of liberal democracies and the Soviet Union (Fukuyama, 1989).
In the aftermath of WWII, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as two superpowers engaged in the global struggle for power (Huntington, 1993). The Communist camp lost the war of economies and proxy armed conflicts, which resulted in what Fukuyama (1989, 4) called “the end of history.” When the Soviet Union and China effectively abandoned Marxist-Leninist ideology, Western liberalism won an almost century-long war for supremacy that turned the 20th century into an age of bloodshed.
Ramifications for the Modern World
The triumph of Western liberal democratic ideology had multiple ramifications for the modern world. On a positive note, Fukuyama (1989) was right — the world dominated by market liberalism has not yet seen another large-scale war, such as WWI or WWII. However, liberalism also eroded the sense of identity since it largely abandoned religion and nationalism. As a result, attempts to overcome that identity crisis brought people to religious fundamentalism and nationalist movements (Huntington, 1993).
In addition, one can confidently claim that ressentiment, an extreme anger and bitterness, has prevailed in various nation-states and countries that lost the ideological war to liberalism. Fukuyama (1989) predicted that the Soviet Union might remain stuck in history. Given the political course of modern Russia, one can claim that Fukuyama’s prediction has come true three decades later. Lastly, Huntington (1993) warned that the erosion of liberalism and its failure might result in a clash of civilizations, a “West versus the Rest” global conflict. In the end, one can only hope that existing mechanisms of checks and balances in international relations and current security arrangements will prevent the escalation of violence to the world war level.
Conclusion
In summary, the 20th century was the bloodiest time in human history. Competitiveness and aggression inherent to human nature were stimulated by nationalism and ideological differences. As a result, nation-states received powerful tools of mass mobilization, which led to wars of unprecedented scale and brutality. The absolute triumph of the Western liberal democratic paradigm was short-lived, as religious fundamentalism and nationalism quickly filled the popular demand for imagined communities. Whereas liberalism holds positions strong enough to prevent world war-level conflicts, one can hardly call the current geopolitical situation entirely safe. Liberal democracies will have to withstand the challenge from rogue nation-states, religious fundamentalists, and nationalist movements to preserve global peace and stability.
References
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso Books.
Fukuyama, Francis. 1989. “The End of History?” The National Interest 16: 3–18.
Gat, Azar. 2009. “So, Why Do People Fight? Evolutionary Theory and the Causes of War.” European Journal of International Relations 15 (4): 571–599. Web.
Huntington, Samuel P. 2009. ” The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72 (3): 22–49. Web.
Pollard, Elizabeth, and Clifford Rosenberg. 2019. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A Companion Reader, Volume 2. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.