Analyzing War: From the Freud-Einstein Debate to the Roots of Modern Warfare

Video Series Background and Core Themes

This video took nineteen months to produce, runs one hundred minutes long, and is part of a series with 97 follow-up videos totaling over a thousand minutes of content. The series aims to unpack academic perspectives and theory, revealing the political science, philosophy, and sociology behind war — helping viewers draw on the wisdom of those who came before us, at a time when the threat of war is growing ever more serious.

The Century-Old Debate Between Einstein and Freud

For most Chinese people, war feels like a distant reality. But in much of the rest of the world, it never really went away. At the end of the last century, the United States plunged from the Cold War into the War on Terror. British and French special operations continued their military interventions and intelligence activities across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. Russia fought through the Chechen Wars, the Crimea crisis, and more. As the famous game line goes, "war never changes" — and the modern origins of the question why does war happen can be traced to Freud's work Why War?

In early 1933, with a European war on the verge of breaking out, Einstein wrote to Freud, hoping that intellectuals could use morality and reason to advance the cause of pacifism. He argued that contemporary political leaders derived their power from either force or elections, which made it nearly impossible for the best minds to participate in the highest levels of decision-making. Einstein envisioned a neutral international body composed of the world's leading thinkers, free from nationalism, that could put an end to war — a vision close to Kant's idea of perpetual peace.

Freud, however, was far less optimistic in his reply. He argued that international institutions like the League of Nations and the United Nations were never truly neutral — they were just as caught up in power and ideology as anyone else. Freud placed his hope in civilization itself, and in the possibility that Eros might overcome the death drive. He saw love — both for humanity and for oneself — as standing in opposition to the death drive, which he understood as an impulse toward destruction of others and even of oneself. This struggle, he believed, is a permanent feature of both individual and social life. Civilization requires a degree of authoritarianism to keep humanity's self-destructive tendencies in check, and people need psychoanalysis to learn how to manage their destructive impulses. In short, Freud was calling for a deep, internalized psychological authority — a solution fundamentally at odds with Einstein's liberal, intellectualist approach.

A Deeper Look at the Roots of War

Einstein's ideal of world citizenship was too naive. It overlooked the darker sides of modernity — imperialism, colonialism, and the role of capitalism. Global capitalism sustains itself through conflict and division, and national militaries and markets are so intertwined that they form a self-perpetuating cycle of violence. Freud was more honest about this. He accepted that modern industrial civilization rests on a capitalist foundation — that human greed, private property, and the pursuit of profit underpin this civilization — and that it is nearly impossible to reform or fundamentally change. The most one can do is intervene to manage individual discontent.

At a deeper level, the desire for destruction is rooted in the basic human condition. Peace is an illusion, because human beings are shaped by fundamental lack and internal contradiction. War is deeply embedded in social and psychological structures — it is a foundational condition of civilization itself. Beyond that, hidden forms of violence — what might be called "smiling violence" — exist throughout social structures. The peace of the West is built on the suffering of others, and the peace we talk about is often a peace that serves the interests of global capital.

The Origins of Modern War and the Current Situation

To understand modern war, we have to examine the relationship between capital and the nation-state. Europe is where both the modern nation-state and capitalism were born, and it is also where modern warfare was invented and then exported to the rest of the world. Today, these same countries are trying to control the nation-state forces they created — attempting to bring peace to the world in the name of democracy and capitalism. But it hasn't worked, because democracy and capitalism are in a state of permanent tension.

Over the past twenty-five years, countries like China, India, Russia, and Brazil have driven the expansion of the nation-state capitalist system. But now, with new pressures emerging, that system has reached a more dangerous tipping point. Regardless of where you stand politically, we all need a deeper understanding of these dynamics — otherwise, the things we support can quickly turn into their opposite. Many factors explain war and violent conflict, but when it comes to modern war specifically, its core causes have to be traced back to the historical experience of European expansion from the 17th and 18th centuries onward.

Ultimately, war is a complex, multi-layered problem. From the Einstein-Freud debate, to a deeper analysis of war's roots, to the origins of modern warfare and today's global situation — all of it reminds us that we need to think about war carefully and comprehensively if we want to make sense of the world we're living in.