Lord of War: Against Militarism

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on June 12, 2006.

In the summer of 1994, after my first year in college, I interned for Peace Action, an activist organization that advocated, well, peace. At that time, I was a social anarchist (I now am a libertarian), and I was highly critical of the massive role that militarism played in U.S. foreign policy. Interestingly enough, while social anarchists and libertarians often maintain very different perspectives regarding capitalism, they hold relatively coherent views on militarism, agreeing that the U.S. military is too large, that U.S. foreign policy is too interventionist, and that military culture and "consciousness" are too pervasive in our society.

While at Peace Action, I took an interest in international arms trafficking and conducted some research into the small arms trade; thus, it was no surprise that Andrew Niccol's Lord of War (2005) would spark my curiosity. On one level, this film is a study of an international arms dealer named Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage); the challenges he faces in trying to run guns while maintaining a "normal" family life; and the cat-and-mouse games he plays with Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke), a by-the-book Interpol agent who's constantly on his trail. Niccol creates a composite figure in Orlov—who he portrays as the most prolific arms dealer in the world—in order to cover as many conflicts as possible (and to demonstrate the reach of the global arms trade). We see Orlov smuggling weapons out of the Ukraine right after the fall of the Soviet Union, smuggling weapons into Colombia via ship (with phony international registration, of course), and dealing with African thugs in the trade of the now-infamous "blood" or "conflict" diamonds.

Orlov is a conflicted man: on the one hand, he's very good at what he does, and Lord of War charts his rise from an amateur in the global arms circuit to a multimillionaire with both his own fleet of jets and the discrete, de facto backing of the U.S. government. On the other hand, he is not oblivious to the material outcomes of his trade: his guns help to prop up dictators, maim and kill civilians, and maintain horrendous levels of violence in conflict zones around the world. While he tries to convince himself that he merely is selling a means of self-defense, that his job is not to take sides in fights that are not "his," it nevertheless becomes clear that at some deep level, he knows what he is doing is wrong.

Overall, I enjoyed Lord of War, though parts of it felt a bit too polished (it reminded me of Hotel Rwanda, another fine film that nevertheless had a little too much of that didactic "Hollywood message"). However, neither Lord of War nor Hotel Rwanda had the heavy-handed preachiness of Crash, and they both highlighted issues that do not get much play in mainstream cinema; for those reasons, both films deserve your attention.

Apart from criticizing the global arms trade, Niccol leaves viewers with a sobering message: even if one player, such as Orlov, were to leave the field, there would be plenty more to take his place. As long as individuals and groups want to kill each other for any number of reasons, there shall be weapons producers and distributors willing to take orders. In short, the arms trade, whether domestic or international, is impossible to stop, and laws and regulations to the contrary are largely ineffectual.

On an individual level, of course, one does not have to be an arms dealer. One can leave the field for other lines of work, and even though such a move may not effect any material change, it nevertheless carries moral significance. This is precisely the conflict within Orlov: he feels guilty about his line of work, but he also feels that it is the "only" work that he can do well — and since his departure from gun-running wouldn't make a difference anyway, he might as well stay put.

More broadly, Lord of War is a critique of militarism, the perspective that sees conflict as not only inevitable but fundamental to the human condition. Militarism goes beyond a recognition that the world is a dangerous place, requiring some degree of self-defense and military preparedness. Rather, it seeks to inculcate a culture of martial heroism in which the prized identity is connected with a uniform (preferably emblazoned with medals), a gun, and a history of military service.

While nearly every country in the world has some militaristic impulse, the powerful ones have the means to show it off. Ever since World War II, the United States has cultivated a national identity inextricably linked with military power: for the past 60 years, to be an "American" has meant, in part, to be associated with one of the largest (and now, the largest) military machines on the planet. While this identity has eroded somewhat—probably due, in part, to the abolition of the draft: the primary institution to facilitate the development of military consciousness among young men—we still cannot shake the impulse to spend huge amounts on our fighting forces and to intervene in countries and conflicts far and wide.

It does not take a pacifist to realize that militarism is unhealthy, whether from the perspective of public policy or national identity. On a policy level, the United States is spending itself into the ground, and this is partially due to the size of our military. In terms of identity, militarism has the potential to dwarf other modes of being: compassion, entrepreneurship, individual creativity, etc. And let's not forget what the Bible says about peacemakers (Mt. 5:9). While Scripture may not advocate pacifism in a totalizing sense, it is clear that the Bible teaches us to strive for peace, to avoid attitudes (and policies) of domination, and to love our neighbor. Such teachings do not cohere with militarism, an ideology that helps nobody except the Yuri Orlovs of the world.