From Animal Weapons to New-World Arms Race
Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle is written by an evolutionary biologist, who extended research into arms and armament evolution while studying the origin of weapons in varied species found all across nature.
I have been planning to write a post about this book for the better part of 2023. Not only did I want to present a relatable comparison to X-risk, but I also wanted to draw parallels to the current status of an arms race in present-day wars, especially in/around the underdeveloped countries of Asia. I’ve realized that covering bilateral models with selective agents would attract unnecessary scrutiny in the absence of a multi-relational graph. However, this book does an excellent job of highlighting the cyclic relationships and does not shy away from mentioning the off-course route that’s developing for upcoming warfare. I will try my best to highlight relatively recent patterns.
Central Theme:
Right from the beginning we start with “camouflage”. This serves as a subtle reason for the first-ever creation of any weapon. Defense—a means of protection—is the first choice of weapon for all species, including humans. We can think of it as the result of the primary instincts that connect the living to the rest of the world. In simple terms, Self Preservation. It paves the way for further processes like adaptation, natural selection, competition, etc. As the title suggests, we dive into the animal kingdom to find what makes any weaponry come into existence. The book is divided into four parts—each blurring the lines between the Animal Kingdom and Human Civilization moving progressively.
Part I
The first part starts with species that developed comparatively small weapons. We see carefully developed spines in stickleback fishes, porcupines, and many other species that changed their anatomy over time to tackle the surrounding changes. These changes take multiple generations of time, paying the cost by their bodily features and functions. It should be noted that these are not weapons proper, but rather, defensive armors. The chain of development starts from a purely defensive body cover—void of any means to attack—to the growth of small weapons to aid in defense, to the generation of enhancements (like venom, acid, etc) in those small weapons. We see that in the case of sticklebacks, marine fish have better weapons than freshwater fish (whose anatomy varies in a mere period of years).
A similar pattern is observed when we study the teeth and claws of wildlife species of sabertooths, cats, wolves, etc. Each species developed their attacking weapons based on their environmental needs. The evolution of large sizes increased their power to deal damage to their prey. But enhanced performance in one context can detract from performance in another, forcing a compromise. For some time, there were different kinds of tradeoffs in most of these species—speed, agility, ability to hunt or even chew, etc. In Fact, bigger weapons were better for killing prey, but they also prevented an animal from catching prey in the first place. Eventually, they became extinct.
For as long as we can imagine, deadly jaws, fangs, and canines served as the primary weapon. Different animal species settle on their body structure while evolution takes several turns. Many techniques, like sit and wait, ambush and target are direct results of how to make the most out of your weapon. Small predators like praying mantis have a limb mechanism similar to the working of a gun mechanism. Species like Mantis Shrimp even use the concept to cause vacuum explosions to stun nearby prey.
Following this path, numerous changes in the armor of soldiers were made during the earlier eras of warfare. To strike a balance has always been key, even in tribal battles, spears/ax modifications juggled in size over time. As we see in the later parts, development along the same lines leads to far greater advances in modern arms.
Part II
In this part, we go through the three factors that act as prerequisites for triggering the race to develop weapons(and the need to maintain them.) It is important to note that these factors are interconnected—the absence of one or more can drastically affect the advancement of an arms race, potentially leading to the end. This allows us to measure their causality, to make better forecasts when considering the X-risks.
Competition:
Evolution in all species is widely accepted as the result of natural selection through competition[1]. The most pervasive and potent type of competition can be seen in nature in the form of sexual selection. Usually, males compete to secure mating partners as they are active for mating far longer than females. As a result, we see the physiological modeling of males for battles. They compete for the shot at reproduction and the one with superior weapons wins. However, roles can be reversed if the primary selection process is altered from the beginning.
In Jacana birds, females are the aggressors—bigger bodies equipped with attacking weaponized spurs. They fight for nesting space with other females and mate with multiple males who tend to the broods. This is because, unlike most species found in nature, Jacana females have shorter turnaround times than males.
African elephant females are fertile for less than one percent of their lifetime from a very early age. They go through a gestation period of two years and then another two years, where they tend and protect the young ones. Compare this to a male elephant with a turnaround time of less than a day. This gives rise to fierce competition in males with long ivory tusks ready for battle. Naturally, the ones in their prime rule the battlefield. An observational study found that 53 out of 89 male elephants never get to mate at all. This high degree of competition gives rise to huge weapons(tusks) in elephants. These weapons are not cheap. Males invest a large amount of resources to grow huge bodies to carry such weapons. The same study found that only males 45 years old and above succeed in mating with females. To reach the prime of their battle capacity males have to compete for decades with the might of older generations. This drives the new generation to produce larger weapons(which is already favored by the bloodline of prior victors.) As a result, the few males with the biggest weapons end up mating with a majority of females, and the rest of the males back out.
Economic Defensibility:
While reproductive selection processes provide a massive push, weapons growth settles when one or more favorable factors alter the direction of natural selection. Dynamic changes can even push the growth in the opposite direction. The cycle continues through the course of the evolution of a species, but reproductive competition never ceases. Hundreds of elephant species, of mammoths with tusks extended up to sixteen feet have been found to exist. Most of these species are now extinct, leaving just the two, as huge weapons took a heavy toll that was not economically feasible with the changing times.
The defensibility of a resource can lead to a battle with an opponent or even multiple opponents. The fight to mate is not the only battle for the male species. Similarly, for females, being potent for reproduction is not the only measure for choosing males. Resources like food, territory, sunlight, etc are decisive. The protection of females carrying broods or young broods is especially important during feeding. If a resource is available in limited quantities, it leads to a higher economic defensibility. Efficient use of resources calls for good weapons and when rewards are high enough, even extravagant weapons can be cost-effective. This is especially true in the case of small animal species as they spend their entire lifetime in one environmental condition, coexisting and fighting with countless others.
This concept is seen in the case of Beetles. A particular species, called the Harlequin Beetles, has a set of forelimbs spanning over sixteen inches in males. The females require freshly fallen fig trees to lay their eggs deep into the decaying wood to supply food for larvae. The males protect the chosen spots while the females lay their eggs. Another species called Dung Beetles have distinctively large horns in males. They collect dung balls as their main food resource from fresh animal drops and deliver them to the tunneling females. A male has to fight off rival males while rolling the balls to the destination. These tunnels are strategically designed to act as a choke point so a female can take the balls unencumbered from enemy attacks. The male is left on guard duty on the other side of the tunnel. Another strategy involves the female stacking numerous dung balls while the male beetle fights for the ownership of the tunnel. Both scenarios are favored to match the male in an enclosed setting, with a single opponent to fight over the burrow.
This leads us to the final factor…
Duels:
A one-on-one duel is often seen as an outcome rather than a requirement in the arms race. The conditions leading to duels play a critical role in directing the advancement of weapons, both in animal and human warfare.
Tunnels and cave-like burrows are the most widespread forms of engagement in battle with small animal species. From shrimps, crabs, and wasps to even a particular Asian frog species that develops advanced fangs and spurs to engage in duels in burrows. Even in large confrontations, facing all opponents is unlikely. The restricted confines of a tunnel align battles so that they necessarily occur in a series of duels. Although, we can not say that chaotic battles are absent from nature. When rivals scramble in the chaos, the outcome becomes less predictable and the value of weapons diminishes—It is observed that chaotic fighting species did not have advanced weapons. (Tree)Branches follow the same linear law and work like an inverse tunnel; species guard their territory, resources, or access to females by blocking the passage and confronting the challenger directly. Battle on branches, common in species like rhino-beetle, horned chameleon, etc, are responsible for the development of their sophisticated weapons.
Dueling models go way back in human conflicts and warfare. European knights, Samurais, and Gunslingers—these are the prime examples that come to our mind, as we indulge in the aesthetic of their weapons. The logic of duels works just as well for large entries like ships, planes, and nation-states. Naval battles were prominent at the dawn of human warfare. For hundreds of years, wooden ships ruled the seas as each small boat carried a few dozen warriors exchanging blows on either land or water. The dynamic changed with the introduction of battering rams to the ships entering a one-on-one duel with one another. This triggered the ships to grow larger and larger as several modifications paved the way for history's greatest arms race in naval warfare.
In light of competition and economic defensibility, duels act as a tipping point for weapons enhancements. The role of competition is deeply rooted in the principle of survival of the fittest. From the knights engaging in bloody matrimonial sports to nations expanding territory into fertile lands, as the civilization prospered the need to compete kept the weapons race actively growing. If we compare it to the modern age, competition acts as the first seed to existential risks, as individual nation-states consistently strive to possess the upper hand in upcoming warfare. The utility of any kind of resource is inversely proportional to its scarcity. To obtain and retain a constant supply of existing resources, or even for an alternative, the primary ladder of competition is always laid out to reach the dueling stage.
In the next part, we'll see how advanced weapons act as deterrents and how individuals cheat to affect the dynamic of the arms race...
Part III
When we cast a broad light, the evolution of any species is considered either by chance and/or by choice. The evolution of weapons, however, is often misinterpreted as the outcome of chance events. In the previous parts, we have seen the factors point to choices that vary across different species. Both options are feasible, often working in tandem, provided the effective cost of change is not significantly high.
Once the arms race is triggered, weapons start getting sizable and more sophisticated. In animals, as long as the selection pressure is applied, natural or artificial, the rate of development varies with the required application. In the book, the author demonstrated the evolution of weapons in rhinoceros beetles in an artificial setting to study the variation in cost and size. It is important to note that for an animal species, the primary loss is bodily changes affecting its life cycle. Since the life cycle of the beetles is short, it is possible to observe salient evolutionary changes in a short span. The author conducted his research for two and a half years. The results of the research were clear. There was a significant increase in the size of the horns. However, since the availability of internal resources was limited, deficit spending resulted in unsustainable growth. The eyes of the beetles were shunted, along with affected wings and genitalia. In comparison, horn growth was three times as sensitive to wings and limbs.
Reliable signals and Deterrence
The affordability of a weapon is dependent on the resource pool of animal species. Similar to humans, family and bloodline play a major role in how capable the new generation can be. Weapons get bigger when the rest of the body turns fully grown. What propels the race is the opportunity cost. Whenever an opportunity to invest in weapons development leads to viable returns, animal species can create a discretionary pool to further the size. This is because weapons act as reliable signals to all parties, favoring females as well as rival males. For both battle purposes and protection, weapons advertise honest proofs of investment, and information like health status and fighting ability. This allows rivals to assess each other before engaging in dangerous battles. Avoidance is the best option for those not close to the top of the ladder as they live to fight another day.
For those who are stronger, the deterrence alone is enough. Weapons in animals are vastly more variable than other bodily elements. The dominant ones in a species need to fight with rivals of comparable strength and full attention. Small battles can cause minor injuries, which may later result in risks of distraction and exposure to predation. This is visible in the case of fiddler crabs with huge claspers. Most of the time, fiddlers employ their claws as warnings rather than instruments of battle. They use them as an agent of deterrence for weaker crabs. They do use them for intense fights, but only for a few minutes. After they spend hours waving up and down. This also acts as a welcoming signal for female crabs that are far away from fights as not all fights end well. Normally, crabs are well protected from one another, since their exoskeletons are like armor, but in the heat of a battle, crabs get distracted and become easy targets for gulls and grackles.[1]
Deterrence acts as an integral stage in an arms race. The evolutionary increase in size keeps up with the rate of extreme possessors. As signals, weapons become more honest by pushing the evolution of deterrence to avoid deadly confrontations. Fight costs saved by deterrence boost the already-fulfilled gains for males with the largest weapons. For example, the total horn length of male ibexes, a wild goat species, is ~20 cm for up to 3 years, whereas for individuals ≥10 years, the average lies between 60 and 80 cm.[2] In a typical challenge, Ibex rams size each other up, comparing weapon sizes; most confrontations end without escalating to battle.
This cycle fuels the race to keep getting faster. To quote the author: Arms races and deterrence push each other forward, escalating in an evolutionary spiral. Nowadays, the odds of war on the sea are extremely low. It was different not so long ago. The size of the fleet was the measure of a country’s fighting ability—the perfect signal for deterrence. The research underscores that certainty plays a more significant role in deterrence than severity.[3] Warships used to chase down rivals of comparable size while medium-sized ones focused on escapes. Smaller ships used to either get destroyed or shied away. These elongated battles were too expensive for states to afford. For naval battles, state-of-the-art weapons are still too expensive. As a result, warships are close to being extinct, rather, aircraft carriers serve as the new agents of deterrence.
Sneaks and Cheats / End of the Race
When fighting doesn't ensure a victory, you need to opt for plan B. Strong monopolies incentivize individuals to evolve their way of fighting. Many animals chose alternative ways to infiltrate rival territories for the sake of mating. In the case of dung beetles, males with big horns are often deceived when a weaker rival male reaches the guarded female through a tunnel from a different end, avoiding the confrontation altogether. That's why males are observed doing guarding duty in rounds, but the infiltrators with far smaller weapons are quick and agile. In animals like Bighorn sheep, the strategy to disguise is fairly common as sneaky males are found almost in every species. Since most eminent males are bigger in size and weapons compared to females, smaller males can effectively sneak past the guards and camouflage in the herd.
Similar courses of action are visible when talking about human conflicts and warfare. The definition of cheating becomes irrelevant in an active war when one military force cannot stand a chance against a larger one. Non-combatants and spies blend inside rival warring states as sneak forces. They stay in the game just by surviving in disguise. The surprise element can dismantle large tanks by slipping IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and disabling deadly weapons, making the bulk of conventional forces a liability. Guerilla warfare, a paragon of sneak tactics, is the foremost way of battle in a majority of small countries with poor economies.[4] Even the conflicts between large nations are heavily dependent on sneaky submarines capable of knocking down aircraft carriers positioned in relatively safer territory.
The biggest cheat of the current era comes in the form of cyberattacks. Getting access to rival weapons can cripple the entire military force to a scary extent. A compromised security system is the worst nightmare for a warring nation as it may pose an existential risk to the population. In these Zero-day attacks, codes are deeply embedded until the day they are needed. Once active, hackers can gain control of everything from missile guidance systems to navigation and handling of submarines, to aircraft and aircraft carriers.
With the advent of such high risks in handling the deadliest of weapons, the end of the weapons race becomes the only option.
In the case of animals, the evolution of weapons is bound to reach an equilibrium stage. Bigger weapons in animals start losing their advantage, stalling the arms race, and the population settles on a new size. The relative benefit of weapon growth often fails to keep up with the associated cost, especially when the resources to sustain deplete in the surroundings. These circumstances are further exploited by others leading to the extinction of the entire species (for ex. Sabertooth, Mammoth).
Human civilization is surrounded by a realm of costs, resources, expenses, payoffs, etc., at different points. Enrichment of cheats is primarily backed by innovation and the trigger for change. When horse-mount soldiers were investing in shiny-bulky armor and engraved swords, foot soldiers invented the crossbow and longbows that pierced through centuries of investment in battle gear. As long-range weapons became more sophisticated and effective, we saw the birth of guns that collapsed the race for melee weapons. In such cases, even after the race ends, the weapons linger in various parts of society because of their low cost and considerable payoffs at the time.
In the final part, we'll see the extension of the parallels we have seen in the first three parts to the current state of human technologies, how it affects war in our time, and some important distinctions...
Part IV
In the final part, the author starts by recalling the significance of defense in the setting of a conflict. We are introduced to Siafu, a deadly variety of predatory African ants. These ants are known to kill and eat anything in their way. Surprisingly, these ants have a hard time with termites because of their sophisticated shelters. Termite mounds are built like fortresses, with walls acting like force multipliers, dedicated alarm signals, and kill zones. Breaching a colony of termites is difficult for Siafu as their strength lies in their numbers. Inside the mounds, a direct duel in the tunnels results in the termite’s victory due to their large weapon and body size. The sheer number of ants is neutralized by the meticulous fortification of the mounds. The chain of command works like clockwork, with workers blocking the gates upon receiving the signal and soldiers facing the intruders in several blocks while the queen and eggs are secured on the top of the towers. Other times, when the ants get lucky, large tunnelers like aardvarks gape through the mounds to get a fill of termites. The ants use this opportunity as a cheat to breach the defense and launch an all-out attack.
Similar arrangements of siege warfare are observed across Europe, Middle-east and parts of Asia throughout history. Just like the Saifus and termites, battles have unfolded between the Assyrian societies and Lachish. According to the author, the city of Lachis exemplified this style of ancient fortification. The Assyrian siege strategies applied overwhelming forces to different parts of the fortress at the same time with carefully engineered siege towers constructed on-site. These towers house huge iron-tipped battering rams suspended by a frame large enough to swing back and forth. Upon breach, the strength of the Assyrian army was unmatched at the time, with rapid-firing archers and foot soldiers with shields, pikes, and swords in massive numbers. Defense architecture has gone through multiple changes/updates in different parts of Eurasia. We do not observe such fortifications in the case of Mayans, Aztecs, and other Mesoamerican civilizations, as they did not develop heavy siege weapons. Towers, Castles, forts, Starforts, etc, have their remains scattered at present times. What caused their extinction are not ballistas and catapults. Gunpowder and explosives changed everything.
What sets the human arms race apart?
One valid argument is that humans manufacture weapons from the materials obtained from the environment. They act as separate entities to our battles. They get damaged, broken, and repaired but do not affect our bodies in the process. Whereas in animals, the weapons are attached to their bodies and get modifications parallel to their anatomy. One could argue that there is a clear distinction between our world and theirs, so there shouldn’t be a correlation between the two arms races. The author argues that the circumstances triggering the arms race and the stages of the evolution of weapons are the same regardless.
Animals also manufacture their weapons, just like we saw in the case of termites. Genetic information is transferred from parents to offspring through templates of their DNA. The evolution of their DNA and further mutation directly result from how efficiently or poorly the previous weapon performed. For instance, the antlers of the progeny resemble the father, for he was the victor of the battle of strongest antlers. Although the cultural information is not encoded in the DNA, the transmission along the timeline follows the same path. The selection pressure applied is the same. Biological evolution is a diverse criterion, but there are apprenticeship and replication criteria that play connecting roles in both arms races. Cultural information travels faster than genetic information. It can cross borders and taught by other agents like spies and travelers. Since cultural information is learned rather than inherited, it can transferred from person to person. The same is present in bacteria and viruses, which carry and transfer genetic information, deriving mutations across animal species.
The key difference is that the cultural traits of a weapon are not related to the reproductive success of the wielder. Antlers are evolved along with the body of the elk who wears them. Human evolution works independently from weapons evolution. If we keep them separate, we can compare the animal weapons with ours. The successful traits of human weapons like rifles and missiles are passed down to the next generation. Innovation takes the role of mutation. The constant experimentation with design and use efficiency is replicated with each update along with the changes. As we have seen, advances in artilleries pushed for better fortifications and strategies and vice versa. This cycle spirals into an arms race, just like in the case of prey and predators. The battles we get are reminiscent of the ones with beetles, crabs, elks, etc.
Warring States of the Modern Times
The wars of modern times are quintessentially defined by armed vehicles. Vehicles can be considered very similar to animals as they burn energy to travel while carrying the weight of their body and maintaining speeds.
As the majority of the space on Earth kept getting established, the competition and economic defensibility grew exponentially among the turbulent governments around the world. During the Modern Era, the seas were rampant with naval warfare fueled with gunpowder and canons. As the first two ingredients were provided by the states, ships started dueling at close range triggering another arms race at the sea in the 1600s. This time marks the development of the sailing warship, The Galleon. These ships were propelled by wind and had sturdy hulls capable of withstanding storms and extending the voyages in the open ocean. The evolution of this technology was so significant that it gave rise to the golden age of piracy. With time, they grew larger, faster, and deadlier, with the number of canons pushing the size of the ships to be bigger than battlegrounds on lands. But soon, like in animals, the size proved to be a liability than an advantage. Big galleons were ill-suited for ramming; smaller, faster ships would sneak into the fleet with men carrying fast-loading rifles and dismantle the formation, or taint the canons. By the eighteenth century, bigger ships weren’t just worth the cost, and the arms race ended. The invention of airplanes changed everything. Battleships nowadays have some to the point of extinction and sea travel has become central to global trade and export.
Air reconnaissance was deemed the future of wars for centuries before the invention of the aircraft. Just ten years after their advent, aircraft started shooting each other down. WWI became the testing ground for aerial duels, starting with reconnaissance missions to mounting machine guns to rough dogfights. By the WWII, “air superiority” had become the priority for success in battle. The planes had categories by then—from transport carriers to lightweight fighter bombers and heavy bombers. The fierce competition pushed the arms race to exponential heights. Model after model hit the skies, each a bit faster and better than the last.
By the time the war ended, human civilization was posed to enter the two arms races interlinked together to form the deadliest one in history: Air superiority and Nuclear warfare. The rapid evolution of bomber aircraft even forced the pilots to their limit, with fighter jets pushing past the supersonic speeds. The two superpowers remaining after the war, the United States and the USSR, made way for the grandest scale of arms race between the rival nations. States are even more like animals than vehicles. They consume resources while competing with each other for the control of these resources. In this case, unlike the ancient times, these rival nations compete to get access to energy, mainly in the form of oil. When states compete, the individual that confronts each other are rival governments. During this time, these states spend more and more of their resources on weapons until the race culminates into an outright war. Or one spends beyond its capabilities and collapses. Just like the Irish Elks, who took too much calcium and phosphorus from their skeleton to develop their antlers. They are now extinct.
Following WWII, the two superpowers entered the Cold Wars along with a series of proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. These were deemed low-risk conventional means for both states to signal to the opposition military and act as deterrents for a full-scale conflict. Most states have a limited resource pool (GDPs) and a discretionary pool. In the case of rich countries like the US and the USSR, these pools extended up to trillions of dollars. In the next forty years, right after dropping nuclear warheads on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we saw the growing fleet of nuclear submarines, dozens of generations of supersonic fighter jets, a new generation of tanks, Unmanned aerial vehicles(UMVs aka Drones), antitank and antiaircraft missiles, antimine and bridging vehicles and a barrage of technological advancements for wars fought during that time. On the nuclear side, silos with intercontinental ballistic missiles(ICBMs) were born with nuclear warheads placed into their nose cones. Possessing nuclear power was only as good as living with the explosives in your house. The power to launch them anytime and anywhere was the ultimate deterrent. It pushed Humanity into the space race in the 1960s when the Soviets launched the first space satellite, proving the world their technological prowess. The decades followed huge investments in rocket technologies, missile guiding systems, and propulsion fuels, all designed for the offensive. It was high time for full-scale nuclear war to unfold.
It is estimated that the US spent 10% of its GDP each year and 70% of its discretionary funds on defense during this period. For the Soviets, the numbers were unclear, but it is believed to be at least 15-17% of the GDP (40% by some estimates) while exceeding the discretionary funds. In December 1991, the USSR collapsed; the following year, all the republics declared independence.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Humanity faced high chances of extinction more than once during the period of the Cold War, avoided only by luck and the individuals who refused to press the button. We nearly escaped these events, and in the end, deterrence prevailed because of the looming threat of mass destruction. In the Cold War, obtaining nuclear warheads was expensive. They were seen as an honest signal of strength. At present, obtaining them has become both accessible and inexpensive for small rival states. Deterrence only works up to a point. Even in animals, when rival males back off against a stronger opponent, they then seek the ones they can defeat. Both deterrence and honest signals are effective in avoiding a full-scale war, but the case of mass destruction propagates further from this logic. Smaller rivalries involving nuclear warfare can be sudden as well as deadly for the entire planet. As the author states, collateral damage from weapons of mass destruction is likely to be staggering, and this changes the stakes of conflict. The primary use of deterrence is choosing the battles wisely and using honest signals to predict the fighting ability of the rival. In the absence of honest signals, anybody can make these weapons and use them. This paves the way for the evil actors of war to use sneaks and cheats to get on top of a conflict, irrespective of the inevitable consequences.
The existential risk of weapons of mass destruction is not limited to nuclear weapons. Bioweapons are equally likely to cause near-extinction events for humanity. Living in 2024, we even have precedent for such scenarios. These weapons are not even expensive to make. Many countries are investing in research and technology for tons of heat- and cold-resistant strains of viruses that are beyond the comprehension of the general population. In the presence of constant global conflict, there is fierce competition to prepare vaccines for a future attack of bioweapons. New studies are aided by advanced computing tools of machine learning and big data processing. Since the possibilities of bioweapons are endless, the decisions of catastrophic life and death lie in the hands of unreliable government states and often in the hands of rogue individuals capable of producing the tiniest weapons of mass destruction.
The author ends the book on the high by stating that Humanity would not survive the next arms race. In terms of X-risks, it is probably right up there at the top(along with probably AI misalignments and Climate Change). Through this book, we understand that the primary factors of any arms race are the same. We can not discount economic defensibility from our systems. And most probably, it is going to stay with humans forever. Duels, on the other hand, can be considered as the direct result of competition. If we think about the stakes that are involved with weapons of mass destruction, I can argue that states can potentially avoid a competitive setting. Peter Theil, in his book, states that Competition is for losers. In the case of the arms race, Humanity always ends up on the losing side. Although Theil wrote this line in entrepreneurial settings, it can be understood as humans’ tendency to imitate the traits of others, especially animals; in this case, the competitive need to fight. We are attracted to do things other people do. Competition always helps in improvements and makes us better at things we are competing for. But it comes with a price: we lose sight of what’s more valuable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Lachish
https://gizmodo.com/where-was-the-last-place-on-earth-discovered-by-humans-1788075726
https://www.britannica.com/technology/military-technology/The-gunpowder-revolution-c-1300-1650
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/golden-age-piracy
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/red-sea-route-accounts-for-50-countrys-exports-30-of-imports-report/articleshow/107203087.cms?from=mdr
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/5-october-1914/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/air-warfare/Ground-attack
Direct book quote by Douglas Emlen
https://www.rferl.org/a/soviet-union-collapse-timeline/31487661.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/08/10/reason-we-havent-had-nuclear-disasters-isnt-careful-planning-its-luck/
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/6/21/23768810/artificial-intelligence-pandemic-biotechnology-synthetic-biology-biorisk-dna-synthesis