All Quiet on the Western Front:
The Fallacies of Anti-War Films

“All Quiet on the Western Front” is the latest anti war film to receive critical acclaim from both the entertainment industry and the general audience, sweeping the BAFTA awards this year. Despite it being a 3rd remake of the famed anti-war novel from the 1930s set in the first World War, critics and general audiences shower the film with praise, pointing to the anti-war message present in the original novel and the new film to be timelessly relevant and poignant.

I respectfully disagree.

Like many of you, I grew up loving films and media art, and it's hard to not be exposed to some incredibly well made anti war films. “Apocalypse Now”, “Platoon”, “Dr Strangelove”, “Full Metal Jacket”, and so many more are considered to be not only good anti-war films but incredible films overall. I would even include “Lawrence of Arabia” as an anti-war film. It has been a long road in media art to persuade people against “war” as such, and the latest “All Quiet on the Western Front” continues this tradition. But just how relevant and helpful is the anti-war narrative for the audience in the modern age? Has it ever been helpful at all?

As someone who has a fascination with international politics and relations, the subject of war is inescapable. To say that “war” is a complex phenomenon would be the understatement of the century. War is so complex I don’t even use that word often, I much prefer specific definitions such as “Organized Political violence”, “inter or intra state conflict”, or “armed conflict”, because the term war itself often fails to capture the complexities of war as understood in public discourse. So, when an anti-war film like “All Quiet on the Western Front” comes out to convince people that “all wars are bad” in the year of our lord 2023, without engaging in the complexities of international politics, I feel physical pain on the inside. So please allow me to rant about why I find anti-war films to be not only inadequate in their quest to persuade the public against war, but also downright morally questionable when the lessons that they offer are applied in real life. Hopefully, you will find this entertaining.

Problem 1: The Experience of War

“All Quiet on the Western Front” does what most anti-war films do; it tries to convey the subjective experience of war to dissuade people from supporting war. The film’s narrative follows a single soldier’s journey through war as he feels and experiences all the horrors of war: the randomness, the blood, the carnage. The message “war is bad” is delivered through the following explanation: war is bad because the experience of war is bad. At a superficial level, we all agree. But there is a problem with relying on subjective experience to make moral judgements: subjective experiences are subjective.

Let's take a look at a real war example. The first Gulf War in 1991 was fought by two military forces, the Coalition Forces and the Iraqi military. The war was quick, decisive, and successful for the coalition forces, which lost less than 200 soldiers. The Iraqi military lost 20,000 soldiers. For the Iraqis, the experience of war was probably horrible, but I would venture to say that the experience of war felt by the Iraqi soldiers is not comparable to those of the US soldiers. I’m not saying the US soldiers enjoyed the war, although such things happen frequently in war as human emotions are complex and subjective experiences vary widely. I am saying that the experiences of war are not uniform nor necessarily negative.

Human subjectivity is so unpredictable and complex and varied that it does not help anti-war films deliver the point that “war is bad because the experience of war is bad”. I am not surprised that most anti-war films don’t feature wars that were successful, quick, and decisive, because the anti-war narrative cliche is so absorbed in the experience of war.

On the topic of subjective experiences, soldiers who experience combat or life-threatening events don’t necessarily feel “negative” emotions. There are enough testimonials, tests, and studies to understand that people not only feel horror, terror, disgust, or disillusionment in war but also excitement, exhilaration, satisfaction, and even spiritual enlightenment. Those who feel these seemingly positive emotions don’t do so because they are simply psychopaths, for to dismiss such people simply as psychopaths is to have such a superficial understanding of the complexities of the human experience and mind. I am merely pointing out that subjective experiences are unpredictable and varied, making it unreliable as an indicator of moral judgment about “war”.

That war is horrible as an experience is also problematic in its usefulness. Imagine a person who saw “All Quiet on the Western Front” and was thoroughly convinced by its message. This person buys a plane ticket to Ukraine and starts going around telling the Ukrainians that war is horrible. I think the Ukrainians know just how horrible war is. But the horrors of war are not enough to convince them to stop fighting, because they are literally fighting for their political autonomy and the survival of the Ukrainian Nation. They fight, despite the horrors.

Just to drive home the point, let's take a look at another real-life example, the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea. In the Donbass region, there was what we consider “war”, with soldiers fighting and dying at scale. In the Crimea, the Russian forces mostly captured Crimea through maneuvering, resulting in a total of 3 soldiers dead from both sides combined. The lack of death, and fighting, and suffering, does not make the Russian invasion and continued occupation of Crimea any less immoral nor illegal. But notice how the anti-war narrative fails to explain such wars.

The Problem 2: All or Nothing

The anti-war message told by “All Quiet on the Western Front” and other films like it, try to make a general claim about war. But it’s never clear if anti-war films oppose SOME wars or ALL wars. The ambiguity is deeply problematic. But it is also never addressed. At least not from the anti-war films I’ve seen.

If we take the position that ALL wars are bad, we quickly run into some serious moral problems.

Take the Haitian Revolution of 1791. Haiti was a French colony that ran on slave labor. The Haitian slaves, ironically inspired by the French Revolution, revolted against their French Colonial masters, gaining freedom and establishing the Haitian State. Are we really going to say that the Haitian slaves should not have fought the war for their freedom because war is bad? Should the slaves have negotiated peacefully with their masters?

Should have NATO stood idly by while the Bosnian Genocide in 1992 continued to completion?

Should the UN, including both the Security Council and the General Assembly, let Iraq conquer and pillage Kuwait in 1990?

Should we have never tried to stop ISIS?

If you think I am cherry picking examples from history to make my point, you are right. But I get to enjoy this rare luxury considering the opposing claim: “we should oppose ALL wars”. That such a claim is absurd should be clear to everyone.

If anti-war films maintain the other position, that we should oppose SOME wars, then they have done a terrible job of helping the audience think about which wars to oppose and why. If any of you know of anti-war films that attempt to do this, please leave them in the comments because I would love to watch them.

If we give “All Quiet on the Western Front” the benefit of the doubt, that it does not take the extreme position of opposing all wars, then why does the director of the film, Edward Berger, say this?

“And today, there's a different war in Ukraine. In five days, it will be the one-year anniversary and there are no heroes in that, or in any war.”

Edward Berger

At a stupid level, I think I know where he is coming from. What Director Berger accomplishes with that statement, is establish a false moral equivalence between Russia and Ukraine. Do I really need to explain why doing such a thing is incredibly inappropriate given the context of that war? I would rather not insult your intelligence.

Anti-war films, whether they oppose some wars or all wars, repeatedly fail to formulate a cohesive argument for neither because they omit one crucial aspect of understanding war, nor understanding anything. And that is context. Anti war films don’t provide political, social, cultural, economic, historical nor structural contexts for how and why wars begin, continue, and end. This is a trend that unfortunately continues in “All Quiet on the Western Front”. There is, of course, one form of context that is prevalent in most anti-war films: the Political Elites.

The Problem 3: “Elites” & Political Cynicism

“All Quiet on the Western Front” is not alone in using political and or military elites as figures of blame for many aspects of war. They are often referred to as the “real” causes of war. The elites are portrayed as vain, greedy, and self-interested people who hold the “real” power. Of course, it's always the elites within the government that control everything and pull all the strings.

It's the deep state… Wake up, Sheeple! They don’t care about you, they care only about themselves, and don’t think twice about using you as pawns in their game of political chess. They are responsible for the meaningless deaths, wars, crime and poverty. We need to get rid of them, because the Jewish elites…

Woah, there. Hold up a minute.

The way anti-war films incorporate political elites in explaining the complex phenomena of war, too often run uncomfortably close to racist political conspiracy theories. This kind of political cynicism is deeply harmful and misleading, and often serves no purpose in helping people understand how foreign policy decisions are made in real life. Wars are major foreign policy decisions, and the public always plays a significant part in how that decision is made. Yes, politicians do lie, and mislead the public. Yes, militarism is real and dangerous. But not all wars begin because of some shady elites that lie to the public. Not all wars begin because military generals somehow dictate foreign policy. Wars that do, rarely succeed. Once again, the first Gulf War comes to mind. The decision to use military force to liberate Kuwait from Iraq was not deliberated in some back rooms of government buildings. The issue was publicly debated, quite intensely, in the open halls of the United Nations for all to watch. Literally the whole world talked about how to handle the situation. And only after receiving unanimous support from the UN Security council and overwhelming support from the General Assembly, did the US take the charge in forming the Coalition forces.

It’s really great being able to cherry pick examples from history.

One side note. “All Quiet on the Western Front” ends with the main character dying by a stab in the back. It’s a puzzling decision by the director to end the film that way, because it's hard not to see it as a reference to the “stab in the back” myth. For those of you who may not know, the stab in the back myth was a popular conspiracy theory that believed Germany could have won the first World War if the war continued. The conspiracy theory places the blame on the Jewish, socialist, and communist elites in government for surrendering Germany before it could finish the war. The stab in the back myth was popular with the Nazis.

While I don’t believe that the film sympathizes with the “stab in the back” myth, it seems incredibly irresponsible for the filmmakers to have ended the film the way they did.

Towards a better Anti-War Stance

I like to believe that I’m not a complete asshole. I think I’m just partially an asshole. So, I don’t want to end on a critical note.

I am not ashamed to admit that I also want to live in a world that has less war and conflict and violence. And, no, this is not the part where I say “that's not how the real world works, kid”. No, I genuinely believe we can get closer to that goal of making the world more humane, just, and peaceful. But as members of the general public, I do not believe we can get there by the lessons that anti-war films have offered so far. They are far too simple, and often misleading. It's incredibly infuriating to see major anti-war activists in the US and Europe come up with some absurd logic to oppose wars, even to wars that should not be opposed in the first place.

What I see as the first major change that is needed in the general anti-war narrative is the unambiguous rejection of opposing all wars. To be anti ALL war, is like being anti ALL crime. We all agree generally and very casually that we oppose crime until we actually think about the wide range of contexts that crime can be understood by. What happens when freeing slaves is a crime? When interracial marriage is illegal? When it is a crime to simply exist? Where is the justice in observing the law, when the law is unjust? I am not trying to make general claims about law and justice, but I am trying to emphasize how criminally simplistic (pun intended), such extreme positions as anti-war and anti-crime are at face value. We need more mature narratives that can help people understand complex subjects such as war. And to do that is to first understand why not all wars should be opposed.

I will now try to do my best in explaining the core ideas in modern political moral philosophy regarding the use of force in international politics. I am painfully aware of how unqualified I am so take this with a grain of salt.

There are three frameworks that serve as the moral, ethical, and legal foundations of the current political system regarding the use of force: The UN Human Rights Framework, the UN Charter, and the Geneva Conventions.

The Human Rights framework does not prohibit the use of force at all times, because people know there will be cases in which people will intentionally violate human rights at a systemic scale. Genocides, unprovoked military aggressions, the use of state police or military to massacre domestic populations… These horrific events are just some examples that the human rights framework morally compels other nations and societies to prevent, intervene, and stop. To stop such events, the use of force is a possible solution especially for those who are victimized so that they can defend themselves, because peaceful political negotiations do not work all the time. It especially doesn’t work, when the perpetrators are not willing to negotiate or even stop. This happens much more frequently than you think. They don’t want to stop. There are even cases when negotiation is itself immoral. Imagine trying to negotiate with Nazi Germany while the Holocaust is ongoing. What does negotiation even mean in that context?

The UN Charter, recognizes the nation state, as the primary polity in the current world. The defining feature of a nation-state is the recognition of national borders. Borders are immutable. They cannot change unless in very specific cases. They certainly do not change from the threat or use of force. This is a deliberate decision to prevent imperialism. So when a nation state like Russia, invades and annexes territory from Ukraine, there is no justification. None, whatsoever. There are no historical grievances that Russia can use to justify territorial conquest. And it is up to the entire world, as agreed upon in the UN Charter, to stop Russia, by using methods including the use of force. Because we all agreed, including Russia, that imperialism no longer has a place in the human world. This was a moral agreement.

And even in all these cases, where use of force can be justified to promote and protect human rights and international peace and security, we, the liberal political forces of the world, wanted to regulate the use of force to conform to the values of human rights, peace, and justice. That is where laws on armed conflict such as the Geneva Conventions serve its purpose. We prohibit certain forms of violence at all times, such as sexual violence, torture, intentionally harming civilians, looting, abusing prisoners of war, using chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons, and so on. But the Geneva Conventions do not prohibit the use of force, if justified according to the UN human rights framework and UN Charter and are compliant to rules of the Geneva conventions. Because we have to stop things like genocide and would-be Empires that want to bring back territorial conquest as the norm in international politics. There are things that we need to fight against.

Our responsibility, as members of the general public, is to keep our national governments accountable by these rules and laws and norms. We have to hold them responsible so that foreign policy decisions are made responsibly. And when bad things happen in the world, as they unfortunately do, we should make sure that the government does everything in its power to seek a peaceful solution, but be ready to fight for the very rules of the world that we want to protect from those who seek to destroy them. If we do not protect these rules, no one will. If we do not fight for these rules, no one will.

This is not about nationalism nor blind patriotism. It's about what kind of a world that we want to live in, the rules that we want for ourselves and others to abide by, and recognizing that there will be those who fundamentally disagree with our commitment to the values enshrined in the UN Human Rights Framework, UN Charter, and the Geneva Conventions. The use of military force should never be considered lightly, and we should always deliberate carefully on how to use it responsibly for the right reasons, using the right methods at the right times.

My version of the anti-war stance would look like this:

War is horrible, terrible, and destructive. Even when war seems manageable, due to the perceived advantages in military strength, war always carries unpredictable risks. It should never be the first choice in the resolution of any political issue, it should always be the last resort. But there are such things in the world that we wish to protect. Human rights, international peace, and justice, that will be challenged by those who do not believe in them. War, or the use of force, should only be used for self-defense or in the defense of others who are victims of unjustified use of force, because we have the moral responsibility to protect others. There is always a cost to war, but there is also a cost to inaction.

“Two of my friends who had previously served in the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan at the end of the Second World War, and who had seen the results of what happened when Japan occupied Korea, decided that they were not prepared to stand by and see something similar inflicted on Korea again by, at that time, another militarily superior force.”

“I have been back to Korea four times, and each time the feeling and wonderment I have for Korea grows even stronger, and my pride in the very small part I played in what stands — where once war ruled — was assuredly worth the effort."

Des Vinten, New Zealand Veteran of the Korean War.

So, with all due respect, Director Edward Berger, I disagree.