PART III – TRIBES BECOME POLITICAL SYSTEMS
Question 13
War, security dilemmas and the scramble for resources
Some conflicts are fuelled by identity, grievance and hatred. Others begin with a colder problem: states cannot be certain what other states will do.
What if mistrust is sometimes rational?
There is no global police force with unquestioned authority over every country.
States therefore remain ultimately responsible for their own security. They build armies, form alliances, control strategic territory and try to anticipate threats before those threats become overwhelming.
That creates a dangerous paradox.
What makes one side feel safer can make the other side feel less safe.
A country strengthens its defences. Its neighbour cannot know whether those weapons are truly defensive. So the neighbour arms itself in response.
The first country sees the buildup — and concludes that its fears were justified. Neither side may have wanted war. Yet both can become trapped in an escalating system of suspicion.
This is the security dilemma.
Material interests matter too. States compete over territory, trade routes, energy, water, minerals and strategic access. Scarcity can intensify that competition — although the same pressures can also produce trade, adaptation and cooperation.
Nationalism, historical grievance, prestige and political leadership can make these structural tensions far more dangerous.
But that leads to an uncomfortable possibility for Beyond Tribes:
war cannot always be explained as tribalism writ large.
Sometimes leaders manufacture enemies. Sometimes populations become consumed by national identity. But sometimes states face genuine strategic risks that would remain even if everyone suddenly became more tolerant and less nationalistic.
This creates one of the project’s hardest questions:
How much destructive conflict can be reduced by changing identities and building trust — and how much requires changing the security architecture itself?
The questions we want to explore
- Are powerful states condemned to compete for security when no higher authority can reliably protect them?
- How do nationalism and threat perception amplify conflicts that already have material or strategic causes?
- When does resource scarcity produce violence — and when does it instead encourage trade, adaptation or cooperation?
- How much interstate conflict is really about territory and resources, and how much is about status, fear and prestige?
- Do arms races behave like prisoner’s dilemmas, in which individually rational choices leave everyone worse off?
- When does deterrence prevent war — and when does it lock rivals into permanent hostility?
The problem may not be hierarchy itself, but what happens when power begins to create the conditions for more power.