Understanding the systemic differences and tradeoffs between war and law helps explain why the application of physical power is so effective at restoring law and order when rules-based societies inevitably become dysfunctional. Rulers who exploit rules of law can be compelled to stop by using physical power, in what’s often called revolution. Participants who can’t be trusted to follow the rules can be compelled to follow them using physical power, in what’s often called enforcement. Outsiders who don’t sympathize with the rules can be compelled to sympathize with them using physical power, in what’s often called national strategic defense. Whenever laws become dysfunctional, the cure appears to be the same for each affliction: keep projecting increasing amounts of physical power in increasingly clever ways until symptoms improve. As energy-efficient and peaceful as it would be to remedy the exploitation, abuse, and neglect of laws using courts of law, it clearly doesn’t work in all cases – else there would be no war in the first place. A great deal of evidence suggests that signing policy is a far less effective way to fix dysfunctional societies than applying brute-force physical power (see the 1938 Munich Agreement for one of countless examples from history).
Understanding the systemic differences and tradeoffs between war and law helps explain why the application of
physical power is so effective at restoring law and order when rules-based societies inevitably become
dysfunctional. Rulers who exploit rules of law can be compelled to stop by using physical power, in what’s often
called revolution. Participants who can’t be trusted to follow the rules can be compelled to follow them using
physical power, in what’s often called enforcement. Outsiders who don’t sympathize with the rules can be
compelled to sympathize with them using physical power, in what’s often called national strategic defense.
Whenever laws become dysfunctional, the cure appears to be the same for each affliction: keep projecting
increasing amounts of physical power in increasingly clever ways until symptoms improve. As energy-efficient and
peaceful as it would be to remedy the exploitation, abuse, and neglect of laws using courts of law, it clearly doesn’t
work in all cases – else there would be no war in the first place. A great deal of evidence suggests that signing
policy is a far less effective way to fix dysfunctional societies than applying brute-force physical power (see the
1938 Munich Agreement for one of countless examples from history).
Excerpt from Softwar by Jason Lowery