Unrestricted warfare destroys the mutual confidence needed for any peace
Evidence
For where the parties do not abstain at least from assassination, breach of word, and instigation to treason, they destroy that confidence in the thought of the enemy which alone permits the materialization of a peace treaty following the end of the war. It is almost inevitable that an element of commonness injects itself into the enmity once the stage of open violence yields to any other relationship, even though this new relation may contain a completely undiminished sum of animosity between the two parties. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 296
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Lofland’s account of how strangers relate only through constrained, minimal norms; Simmel’s ‘element of commonness’ in enmity parallels civil inattention. — connects to: Antiwar sentiment rises from threatened common humanity, not just casualties — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 629; Arms-control compliance cannot be verified because decision rules are unobservable and breach means war — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 516; Peace purchased by submission to force is worthless — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 285 (+1 more)