Guest blog: Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War

Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War argues that world leaders react to status decline by going to war, guided by a nostalgic, virile understanding of what it means to be powerful. Consulting newly declassified documents at the highest levels of decision-making, Matthieu Grandpierron uses the framework of nostalgic virility to provide surprising ways of thinking about current conflicts, from the Russian war in Ukraine to Chinese actions in the South China Sea.

In the piece below, Grandpierron gives a brief introduction to this recently released title.

Why do wars happen? This question is not new and yet academics, journalists, countries’ officials and individuals keep asking this question. The very first one to formulate it was Thucydides in his War of the Peloponnese. Since his account of the war, countless books and studies have been written about wars and yet every time a war breaks out, we are caught by surprise. Very few people saw the Russian invasion of Ukraine coming; the war between Hamas and Israel also caught the world by surprise.

In Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War, I don’t claim to offer the definitive  answer to the question of knowing why wars break out. It is very rare that a political phenomenon can be explained by a single explanation. When it comes to wars, motives can be as diverse as individuals, cultures, histories, perceptions are. What I  try to show in my book is that the existing literature has been forgetting about some key elements that I combine together under the concept of ‘nostalgic virility.’

What is ‘nostalgic virility,’ and what does it argue? I define it as a belief system articulated around a nostalgic, virile understanding of what it means to be a great power. It combines the following elements: an emphasis on physical strength,  an emphasis on traditional virile values (e.g., firmness and bravery), the use of narratives that enhance moral and behavioural superiority and set examples and models for others to follow, a positive understanding of a country’s history and legacy, which serves as a reference point to assess and understand situations, and a preference for short timeframes of action (i.e., any issue has to be addressed immediately).

Nostalgic virility acts as a filter according to which leaders assess various elements: what it means to be a great power, what their country’s status is on the international stage, and what the appropriate actions/responses are to given situations. Through this ideational perspective, the aggressor has not only to be punished, but punished severely, and not so much because of the aggression in itself, but primarily because of its symbolic aspects and implications. This image is accentuated by a glorified interpretation of the past. The fact that the country was not previously challenged by weaker actors but now is implies that the country’s symbolic deterrence through status alone has vanished, and that the country has therefore, in the eyes of others, become weak.

Status considerations and virile emotions interact to produce certain worldviews or conceptions of self that then lead to concrete decisions to retaliate. Through their mental representations of what constitutes great power status, leaders have a tendency to understand any aggression in their periphery by a less powerful actor as an international insult (or even as a narcissistic insult). Such challenges demonstrate to leaders that deterrence by great power status no longer suffices, and that their country (or even themselves as leader) are no longer respected nor feared. It is not only the image that others have of their country that is at stake if no immediate and strong action is taken in response to the challenge, but also the weakened image of the leader themselves that other leaders (and even domestic public opinion) will have.

In my book I demonstrate that this model can produce more accurate understandings of causes of war compared to traditional explanations (realism, diversionary theory of war). For example, nostalgic virility disproved commonly admitted by the literature about past cases, such as the Falklands war (1982). Nostalgic virility is therefore a book not just about past events, but also about contemporary events and issues. It shows the need for new explanatory frameworks and analytical tools and attempts to provide new way of understanding decision-making processes, especially in today’s changing world.

‘Nostalgic virility’ also provides a surprising explanation of contemporary events: the Chinese militarisation of the South China Sea and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. My book was completed before the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, but I believe that ‘nostalgic virility’ is a concept worth using to investigate Hamas’ motivations and Israel’s response and strategies.

These are the stories I am trying to tell in my book.

Matthieu Grandpierron is associate professor of international relations and political science at the Catholic University of Vendée.