An Answer

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 8 brings together the conclusions of earlier chapters in the form of an integrated war support model. Three factors are central: readiness for war in the form of embedded militarism and moral justifications for war; war-justifying threat perception narratives, encouraged by leaders and the media; and a cognitive over-simplification of the enemy or potential enemy, and of one’s in-group and its position in the world, contrasted with more considered, complex thinking favoring cooperation and understanding. Each of the three factors is relevant at all three phases in the spiraling buildup to a war—preparing, contemplating, engaging—although readiness for war is of special importance in the early phase. Implications of the model are drawn for understanding the war in Ukraine and the possibility of war between China and the United States and its allies.