Why War Brutalizes Soldiers

When soldiers desecrate the bodies of their enemies, there’s a psychological explanation for it. Humiliation of the enemy doesn’t just happen on the battlefield.

Some soldiers pose for photos with naked prisoners, others urinate on the corpses of Taliban fighters, a sergeant indulges in the indiscriminate massacre of Afghan civilians and, most recently, photos were found of soldiers posing with body parts reported to be those of suicide bombers. Whenever such incidents are made public, the usual reaction seems to be, “Such is the nature of war. These are the acts of a few individuals and shouldn’t reflect negatively on the professionalism and positive accomplishments of the military. Too bad, but these things are bound to happen.”

But do they really have to happen? Of course such abuses are only the logical consequence of what war does to individuals. But they also provide an indication of how much blame rests with those responsible for going to war.

There’s no denying that the essence of war is killing. Even the founding father of military strategy, Chinese general and philosopher Sun Tzu wrote, “On the day they are ordered out to battle, your soldiers may weep,” in his most famous work, “The Art of War.”

And with good reason because fear is also a part of war, but not necessarily fear of being killed. The Israeli military psychologist Ben Shalit was the first to discover that the fear of being wounded or even killed actually lessened the longer the soldier was engaged in combat, i.e., in actual imminent danger. The tears dry up and stronger emotions displace the fear of death. Suddenly, the idea of not abandoning ones comrades and accomplishing the mission becomes paramount.

Conditioned to Kill

In any case, war is an emotional burden that gets heavier with the length of involvement. Killing others causes the greatest mental stress. Historian Samuel L.A. Marshall determined that during the Second World War only about 15 to 20 percent of U.S. soldiers actually fired their weapons at the enemy. This determination was the basis of a training plan designed to significantly increase an individual’s acceptance of killing.

It began with replacing the traditional concentric circle firing range targets with human silhouettes. In addition, combat situations were made more realistic in order to condition recruits for killing. Killing was supposed to be abstract and impersonal, an automatic self-preservation reaction. Marshall’s idea proved successful. It only took a few years before the percentage of soldiers shooting at the enemy rose to 55 percent during the Korean conflict, and in Vietnam the number had risen to 95 percent.

The Depersonalized Enemy

Behind it lies a basic psychological tenet: In order for soldiers to function – and the bottom line here is their ability to kill – the enemy cannot be seen as human. That’s the only way one can bear the guilt and pain of taking another life. Specifically, this necessary dehumanization takes place on different levels, but the goal is always distance.

Even physical distance makes a difference. A tank gunner hundreds of meters from the enemy finds it easier to kill than does an infantryman who feels his enemy’s breath on his own face. And technology can help create that distance. It’s enough to recognize and kill the enemy shown in the blurry green luminescence of a night scope.

Added to this is the emotional and moral distance gained through the chain of command and group responsibility. The absolute authority of the soldier’s commanders and the support of his comrades make it possible for the soldier to feel that he is shielded from personal responsibility for his violent acts. The guilt is transferred, shared and repressed. The shooting becomes easier and brutality is able to flourish. The decision to kill is no longer a personal one.

The language of war also creates more distance to the enemy and is largely responsible for dehumanization. Speaking of targets rather than people avoids making the connection. Realizing how many crew members are aboard an enemy ship and envisioning their fate would make it more difficult to torpedo it.

But linguistic distancing goes much further. The names soldiers give their enemies are merely symptomatic. Denigration of the enemy’s ethnicity, culture or religion, not to mention applying terms borrowed from the animal kingdom to them, all serve to place the enemy on a lower level and make it easier to see him as an inferior life form.

The U.S.’s “War on Terror” is largely based on the simplistic observation George W. Bush made in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” As harmless as that statement may seem, it laid the groundwork for the brutalization of the military.

Criminals, Murderers and Animals

It was the beginning of a comprehensive dehumanization of the enemy, a total distancing that made things possible that were previously unthinkable. This includes the torture of suspects in order to extort confessions. It also includes the societal consensus that was an outgrowth of the collective trauma of 9/11: Yes, it’s alright to kill those who attacked us because they’re all criminals, murderers and animals.

How does the lowly soldier find a moral mooring point in such an environment? He’s been taught to see the enemy as inferior, subhuman and dangerous to America. Furthermore, the politicians, the media and his countrymen have granted the soldier blanket absolution for the act of killing the enemy. They approve of drastic measures taken supposedly in the name of national security and for the common good.

Excesses like corpse desecration and the dehumanization of prisoners are, in this regard, the result of processes initiated much earlier by groups of which the soldiers themselves weren’t even a part.