Prof. Gadi Heiman, at the height of the war crisis between Ukraine and Russia, publishes your new book "Fear, Repentance and Desire" (Dvir, The Hedgehog and the Fox Series), in which you examine why leaders and nations choose war.
The answer, surprisingly, is often related to emotion as well.
Putin acts out of fear or megalomania
"Emotions are often attributed to the individual realm, but I have found that sometimes anger can lead to carnage of hundreds of thousands, wishful thinking leads leaders to irrational gambling, and regret empires empires. My engagement in the field began when we identified, Dr. Revenge.
What captured us at the time was the Second Lebanon War.
"We thought that the Israeli government acted with a certain revenge, that is, a desire to retaliate against Hezbollah for the injustice it did to us, for the actions it took against us - for example, attacking Hezbollah in the border area with Lebanon, abducting two IDF soldiers and killing three.
Even during the war, many elements could be attributed to the issue of vengeful action - for example, the insistence on occupying Bynet Jabal, the 'capital' of Hezbollah, in which Nasrallah delivered the famous spider web speech.
The operation was named "Steel Core", an indication of the vengeful component. "
But leaders will not admit, or will not consciously acknowledge, that their motivation is emotional.
Then we encounter the use of political rationalization: not revenge, but "renewal of deterrence."
"Rhetoric is indeed, more than once, a deterrent. The interesting thing is that until 20 years ago it was unthinkable, at least in academic research. "But emotions do permeate and have a place and a role in decision-making, in all sorts of ways."
In the book you take three emotions - fear, remorse and wishful thinking - and try to analyze them according to international events, with an emphasis on wars, as mentioned.
Fear, for example, led Germany to ignite a war in 1914, and Israel to start pre-emptive wars in 1956 and 1967: its honor was trampled on in those days, and Arab countries showed utter contempt for its international rights.
Bynet Jbeil, Photo: Reuters
"Fear is one of the strongest and most present emotions in international relations and it explains a common and unfortunate phenomenon, of wars breaking out even though no one wants to break out. For example, World War I opened wide because of the security dilemma "A dynamic is created of armed countries up to the neck, which also attribute hostile intentions to each other, which creates fear and as a result - war. This was also the case during the Suez War and the Six Day War."
On the other hand, we have the example of the wish of the heart, which led Japan to attack Pearl Harbor.
They gambled on the whole pot in order to gain tremendous power and become one of the great powers in the world.
But this emotion that flooded her eventually led to fateful damage.
"A wish includes two emotional aspects whose mix creates an incentive for war: hatred of loss alongside a built-in tendency to optimism. That is, we face loss and thanks to that optimism take a gamble to avoid it. This is what happened to German leadership in the midst of World War I and Japanese leadership World War II, to your question: Japan was facing a real loss in the war, and had to decide whether to expand its empire in Southeast Asia to more countries, and risk the United States joining the war with its vast resources.
"Her attack on Pearl Harbor was a crazy decision - stemming from her unwillingness to lose her empire, and optimism that her move would succeed, which, as I recall, did not happen."
Superiority, ideology and evil
Another important emotion you address in the book is remorse.
According to Minimax theory, players will choose an alternative that will minimize the remorse they may feel.
But it does not always pay off.
"Decision-makers will strive to avoid repeating national traumas following war, and will change their policy 180 degrees to do so. They apply historical lessons to the new case, that is, make decisions that were right for the last war, but not necessarily right for the current war. They do so out of remorse. A deep that beats in them and the public.
"Regret can explain the conciliation of Britain and France on the eve of World War II, as well as the segregation of the United States in the 1920s and 1930s.
But the lessons of this conciliation allowed Hitler to enter World War II on better terms.
Subsequently, the helplessness that allowed Hitler to intensify and challenge the world, led to a rigid US policy towards the USSR at the beginning of the Cold War.
"The United States saw Stalin as a kind of Hitler who should be stopped and not reconciled. And that is what pushed the parties to the Cold War."
Hitler and Stalin reminded me of another dimension, not mentioned in the book - ambition, lust for power.
Leaders want to occupy more territory for themselves, it only makes sense.
Putin Bennett, Photo: EPA
"Many times the aspiration for imperialism is related to the perception of supremacy of the self, and the perception of the other as inferior to me. In addition, many times in history the great imperialists acted from a sense of superiority driven by ideology, which also gives moral authority to terrible deeds. ".
In a more topical context, what is the emotion that drives Putin?
"It's hard to answer that question, and I'm not sure Putin himself can. However, there are two schools of thought that interpret it: the first is that it is driven by fear, and looks at how Russia has been hit in recent centuries by invaders, mostly from the West, who have tried to eliminate it. Gorbachev , For example, was very concerned about the spread of NATO to the east, a spread that eventually occurred during the Yeltsin era.
"In 2004 a new record was set when NATO sponsored Baltic states that were once Soviet republics, and in 2008 they began talking about Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO. Putin has often expressed displeasure with this trend, and as long as Ukraine had a regime that was "It was accepted then that the fear was not so great, but when he was replaced by a regime that did less than the will of Moscow, the fear grew. Thus, the attack on Ukraine is an attempt to solve this security dilemma, this fear, through the demilitarization of Ukraine."
Putin is also credited with megalomaniacal ambitions.
"This is a different school, according to which he strives to bring Russia back to the days when Europe trembled from it, to the days when it was one of two superpowers, equal to the great United States.
After all, in 1991 Russia lost many of its assets, with the disintegration of the USSR.
The question of what Putin wants might dictate the Western response?
"Absolutely. If Putin is driven out of fear, the right lesson is a Sarajevo lesson, a take of conciliation - that is, to acknowledge Russia's concern, and go towards Russia's legitimate security interests. "It is forbidden to appease their aggressors. According to this thesis, the war will come, so it is better to fight, and it would be nice one hour earlier."
Taiwanese soldiers in training, Photo: AP
Precedent Munich
Will economic sanctions lead Putin to back down?
"The historic international record of economic sanctions leaves little room for optimism: after Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, the League of Nations imposed, for the first and last time in its history, severe economic sanctions on Italy, which caused it to lose about two-thirds of its foreign trade - but its Ethiopia. Sheep, and finally the sanctions were lifted.
"But now, the economic sanctions imposed on Russia do create severe hardship among the Russian people, because what matters is not the intensity of the sanctions, but the relative situation you were in when the sanctions were imposed on you.
"Now, the sanctions can actually prove to be effective because of the relatively good standard of living of the Russian public."
In the book you discuss the question of whether emotions are contagious.
Could Putin's warlike feelings infect other countries as well and cause them to resent a battle?
"The danger is that other countries with revisionist goals will feel that they can carry out their hidden desires. If the international community fails to stop the Russians, one can find China that might say - 'We also have a small interest called Taiwan.'
After all, popular China has never given up on the desire to reunite with Taiwan.
So the case of Russia could set a precedent for China.
In this respect, the Russia-Ukraine war could be a factor in violating international order.
The attack on Pearl Harbor, Photo: AP
Are you worried about the domino effect of collapsing into World War III?
"Since 1945 no war has broken out between two great powers. It is not for nothing that this period is called 'the long peace'. This is an unprecedented thing in history, and the question is what is the explanation for this - possibly the trauma of world wars, or the existence of nuclear weapons. "Overall, no political target justifies the risk of total elimination, so large powers are wary of a situation where they shoot at each other. These rules of the game are still in place, even though Putin's act caught everyone with their mouths open."
Will this rule be observed this time as well?
Ultimately, this is a fragile mental construction.
"It is true that one can imagine conventional wars between great powers without using nuclear weapons, but on the other hand - precisely because such a thing has not happened for about 70 years, one of the parties may try to break this unwritten rule.
"Once the Western powers appreciate that there are precedents in the style of Munich, and that Putin wants to conquer more countries - then sadly and apprehensively they will defend those countries, even at the cost of a flare-up of war, perhaps nuclear. ".
We must not be complacent.
"True, and we must not think that because it has not happened for 70 years it will not happen again. This kind of thought can be very dangerous. Even before the First World War they thought such a thing could not happen, and it did happen. What worries me most is that Putin may find himself In a situation where his government will sway, and he may take risks that a leader would not have taken if he had not faced a loss. In recent days, Putin seems to be building a new dictatorship and bringing Russia back. , Which may present him with difficult elections.
"Sometimes leaders take a gamble when faced with the loss of power;
This is called the 'goat to hell' phenomenon.
"Argentina's decision to occupy the Falkland Islands in '82, for example, is a decision of a leadership whose throne has been shaky in any case."
"Lower profile"
In another matter, you think that Bennett's mediation efforts are not exactly what Israel needs these days.
"In my opinion, the Israeli government is making a mistake. Israel is on the wrong side of history, and the fact that it goes between the drops, and does not fully align with the Western ranks - is a moral problem in some ways: it makes it one of the few Western countries with an ambivalent attitude towards war. "It is clear what the real-political considerations are here, and it is very possible that the Israeli government is doing the right thing politically - but I would expect it to lower its profile."
What is the concern for you?
"I am appalled by the thought that Putin will use Israel as a server tool, precisely to deepen the war, and we would be sorry if we were in this position.
"In general, Bennett's mediation attempts show a change in historical trend - over the years Israel has been considered one that other actresses have tried to distance themselves from, and today it has become a factor at the center of the stage. It is historically ironic. But one should not get drunk on this new wine."
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
If you found an error in the article, we'll be happy for you to share it with us