War serves nationalist ends even when unwinnable
Evidence
The Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist ideology further dictates that war is good even if it is not winnable, because war causes Tamils to flee the northeast and vitiates the LTTE’s attempt to create eelam (Tamil State). — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 269
Categorization
- XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s investigation — war here functions as a tool for ethnic demography, not a search for victory, mirroring manufactured-enemy solidarity dynamics. — connects to: Conquest by a nation either awakens conquered nationalism or degenerates into tyranny; Inter-state nationalist wars are elite-driven and mobilize masses only after the fact — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 628; The nationalist ideology needs a manufactured enemy to mobilize — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 303 (+8 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: Policy implication is stark and corrosive: if a group’s expressed goals are demographic and ideological rather than strategic, then military defeat or stalemate never resolves the conflict, since even unsuccessful war ‘works’ for the nationalists.
Broader Connections
- The nationalist ideology needs a manufactured enemy to mobilize
#expands(0.80) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 303 - Inter-state nationalist wars are elite-driven and mobilize masses only after the fact
#expands(0.75) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 628 - Political groups adopt nationalist rhetoric opportunistically
#exemplifies(0.74) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 159 - Conquest by a nation either awakens conquered nationalism or degenerates into tyranny
#complicates(0.72) - Individual lived encounter overrides official nationalist narratives from both sides
#complicates(0.72) — Andrew Demshuk, The Lost German East, 1143 - Simulacral war causes identical suffering while losing ideological stakes
#qualifies(0.72) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 138 - Official nationalism is an anticipatory strategy by threatened dominant groups
#corroborates(0.72) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 385 - Clash-of-civilizations rhetoric ideologically legitimized both foreign wars and domestic attacks
#complicates(0.72) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 421 - Exhaustion-driven truces are self-limiting and war resumes when strength returns
#qualifies(0.70) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 802