Civilization wars mobilize outside aid along religious rather than ideological lines

Evidence

If we look at them in a wider global perspective, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are different branches of the same religion. Their resemblances are far greater than their differences. Compared with the religions of India, of China and of other places, they are as alike as peas in a pod. This of course is what gives particular virulence to the conflicts between them. When Christians and Muslims argued in the Middle Ages and continued into modern times and each said to the other: “You are an infidel and you will burn in hell,” they understood each other perfectly. Such an argument would have been impossible between either a Christian or a Muslim on one side and a Buddhist or a Hindu on the other. They would not have known what they were talking about. Christians and Muslims understood each other because they both meant the same thing. Their heavens are significantly different but their hells are almost identical. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1036 (#complicates, via linked claim)

What, we may well ask, is the nature of this “intertwining” to which Walker refers? Is political unionism or nationalism the expression of religious affiliation, and the conflict therefore a residual phenomenon of seventeenth-century religious wars, lingering long after other nations have resolved or forgotten them? Or is religious affiliation merely one mode in which political positions – ideological and/or structural – get articulated? To riff on Stuart Hall’s famous observation that “race is the modality in which class is lived,” is religion the modality in which the political is lived, or is politics the modality in which religious difference is lived? (see Hall 1980, 341). Religious difference, or religious sectarianism, would indeed be the more accurate term here than “religion”: What is operative is not the positive theological or ritual content of religious belief, but the invocation of religion as differential. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 2064 (#complicates, via linked claim)

If we take all the violent conflicts we know of in a given historical period, and assess the degree to which religious divisions were a factor, what would we find? Such studies are rare, but in the Encyclopedia of Wars, Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod attempted one such comprehensive analysis. They surveyed nearly 1,800 violent conflicts throughout history. They measured, based on historical records, whether or not religion was a factor, and if so, to what degree. They found that less than 10 percent involved religion at all. In a related “God and War” audit commissioned by the BBC, researchers again scrutinized 3,500 years of violent conflicts recorded in history, and rated the degree to which religion was a factor. Wars got high marks if religious leaders expressed support for the war effort, if religion was a mobilizing factor, if religious targets were attacked, and if religious conversion was a key goal of the war. Thus, on a six-point scale of 0 (no religious role) to 5 (central role of religion), the Peloponnesian War (460–445 BCE) was a zero; the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) was a 1; the United States and allied second invasion of Iraq was a 3; the Al-Qaeda terror war was a 4; and the Crusades (1097–1291) and the Arab-Muslim conquests (632–732) earned a full 5 points. In the end, religion was a factor in 40 percent of all rated violent conflicts, but rarely as the key motivator of the conflict. Religion is an important player, but rarely the primary cause of wars and violent conflicts. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 512 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Ideological movements can mobilize global volunteers and territory far beyond material resources — Scott Atran, The Devoted Actor: Unconditional…, 80; Religion dominates communal conflict because it offers the broadest external support; Western aid neglect drove Tajikistan and Afghanistan into dependence on rival civilizational patrons (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Shared religious premises make inter-Abrahamic conflicts more virulent than cross-civilizational ones #complicates (0.82) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1036
• Religion in settler conflict operates as a differential marker, not as doctrine #complicates (0.76) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 2064
• Religion factors into most wars but rarely causes them #complicates (0.75) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 512
• National and religious identity can conflict when war pits same-faith enemies #complicates (0.74) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 56
• Protracted ethnic conflict and domestic liberalization jointly drove military religionization #complicates (0.73) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 165