The Game That No One Wins

“War does not determine who is right—only who is left.”
— Bertrand Russell

Years ago, I spent time in Second Life, where there was a game I used to play obsessively. It was called Greedy, and it was one of the more popular group games you could find in that virtual world. The gameplay itself was straightforward: you rolled six dice, hunting for 1s, 5s, or matching sets—each combination earning you a specific number of points.

Yet the true grip of Greedy was not in its mechanics. It was in the temptation. Every turn began with a roll, and at any point, you could bank your points and stop. But if you used all six dice successfully, you could keep rolling. Again and again, as long as each new roll yielded at least one point-scoring combination. The peril was that if you ever rolled and came up empty—no 1s, no 5s, no sets—the entire turn’s earnings vanished. Worse still, sometimes the loss was so catastrophic that it dropped your total score back to zero.

In essence, it was a game of calculated risk—a dance between hunger and caution. But it was also a game that illuminated how we fail to recognize our limits until we’ve passed them. You would find yourself thinking: Just one more roll. I’m on a hot streak. I can’t lose now. And in that moment, you would forfeit everything you’d worked so hard to build.

In recent years, I’ve started seeing that same pattern all around me—not in some virtual world, but in the most real and dangerous aspects of human existence. Specifically, I see it in how nations and groups choose violence or war. The parallels are striking: we tell ourselves that one more push, one more campaign, one more preemptive strike will finally secure the peace or the safety we crave. But the longer we roll the dice, the closer we come to a catastrophic loss.

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The Illusion of Justified Violence

Much like in Greedy, nations and groups often enter into conflict believing they are justified—or at least that they have no other choice. Defense, retribution, righteous indignation: these are the banners under which armies march. One more action, they promise, then we will have peace. One more push, and the threat will be gone.

The grim truth, however, is that peace rarely follows this path. War, it seems, has a tendency to perpetuate itself. The ancient historian Thucydides famously observed, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” capturing the brutal calculus that so often defines warfare. That sort of thinking reduces entire societies to numbers—resources to be exploited or threats to be neutralized. Good judgment, critical thinking, and empathy are often the first casualties. When war begins, nuance dies.

Suddenly, human suffering is reduced to strategic value. Lives are measured in potential gains or losses. Cities become mere objectives, and entire groups of people become statistics on a general’s chart. Children, grandparents, entire families—they all recede into the background of collateral damage. The moral questions that torment us in peacetime grow strangely muted once the guns start firing. It’s as though flags, slogans, and patriotic fervor bury our capacity for introspection.

Under such conditions, violence no longer has to be justified in any real sense. It simply becomes the normal, logical response in a climate where each side views itself as both victim and avenger. When every belligerent believes it is defending itself from a grave threat, the cycle of killing begins to spin in a self-sustaining loop—fear begets aggression, aggression begets further fear, and so on. Like Greedy, war becomes a game of continuous escalation, where each side believes that the next roll, the next strike, might finally bring the elusive “victory” that will secure them forever.

Why We Pick Sides

The truth is, war can’t happen without a widespread willingness—or at least an acquiescence—to pick sides. We do not merely “stumble” into war. We construct narratives about the righteousness of our cause and the villainy of our enemies. Psychologists refer to this as in-group/out-group bias, an instinct for self-preservation that leads us to align with those who look, speak, or think like we do. Everyone else becomes the “other.”

Once those mental lines are drawn, it becomes nearly impossible for many people to empathize with the supposed enemy. They become nothing more than a threat in our eyes, a faceless abstraction. The language surrounding conflict often makes this easy: “combatant,” “insurgent,” “terrorist,” “extremist.” These words strip people of their humanity, reducing them to obstacles to be overcome or exterminated.

Add national identity, fear, generational trauma, and state or cultural propaganda to the mix, and you have a potent recipe that keeps societies rolling the dice far beyond any logical stopping point. We become so fixated on defeating “them” that we cease to ask whether the entire game itself is rigged for mutual destruction. Indeed, it becomes easier for leaders to drop bombs than to publicly question why the target region mattered in the first place. The inertia of conflict is so strong that, once launched, it is frighteningly difficult to halt. As the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, “There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare.” And yet, ironically, wars persist—often because each side believes it must, or that it has no choice.

Defense vs. Offense

Many people will claim they only support defensive wars. And in a just world, one might imagine that if every side truly fought only when attacked, the cycle of violence would remain dormant. Yet the historical record shows a different truth: wars often begin not when one side simply attacks out of nowhere, but when each side believes it must strike first in order to prevent a larger catastrophe later. The language of war is littered with terms like “preemptive strikes,” “surgical precision,” “collateral damage,” and “targeted response.” These words sanitize the horrors of warfare, making it sound as if violence can be administered cleanly and judiciously.

But war’s reality is hardly ever clean. The idea that one can fight “defensively” yet carry out lethal strikes is part of the larger illusion that we can play the game and not pay a terrible cost. It’s another turn at the dice, another chance at that perfect roll. But the risk accumulates. With every additional soldier deployed, every new bomb dropped, every new confrontation escalated, we add friction and chaos to the world. This friction is precisely what Carl von Clausewitz referred to in his seminal work On War, describing the inevitable uncertainty and confusion that arises when nations take to arms. War, he argued, has its own logic—a deadly undertow that pulls those who wage it deeper into violence, even if they set out with the best of intentions.

The Myth of the Clean Win

Perhaps the greatest lie we tell ourselves is that war can be won “cleanly.” From Hollywood movies to triumphant official speeches, the myth persists that if we fight with the right strategy, enough moral clarity, or superior technology, we can minimize collateral damage and come out on top with our conscience intact. But the underlying premise is flawed. War, by its nature, is destructive to both sides, even to the purported victor.

Yes, one side may achieve its objectives—land, resources, or a perceived strategic advantage. But the costs are incalculable. Soldiers return home burdened by post-traumatic stress, moral injury, and shattered illusions. Cities, families, and entire ecosystems bear scars for generations. The so-called winners carry the weight of having inflicted suffering, which can erode their moral standing and seed resentment that may blossom into future conflicts. We see this time and again, as once-defeated foes arise decades later as a new threat, fueled by memories of injustice. As Martin Luther King Jr. once observed, “Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.”

Despite these truths, the myth of a swift and decisive victory lingers. We see it in the rhetoric of national leaders who promise limited interventions and quick results. We see it in the technological optimism that claims precision-guided munitions can spare civilian lives and speed up the conflict’s end. Yet every real war reveals that these claims are more hope than fact. Once the first shot is fired, the complexity and chaos of reality take over, rendering the tidy notions of a “clean win” little more than a fever dream. War, like Greedy, is not a puzzle to be solved but a trap that must be avoided.

Escalation: The Longer We Play, the Greater the Risk

The real tragedy in any prolonged conflict is how quickly escalation becomes self-justifying. Each side can point to atrocities committed by the other and claim the moral high ground for responding in kind. By degrees, what once seemed unthinkable becomes permissible, then necessary. We have seen it across time and continents: in wars that last years or decades, the initial reasons for fighting become overshadowed by a hatred forged in bloodshed. War molds entire cultures around itself, sustaining industries dedicated to arms production, surveillance, and perpetual readiness. As a result, stepping away from the table is not just a matter of individual choice—there are now entrenched systems, economies, and political careers built on continuing to roll the dice.

With each new roll, the perceived cost of quitting increases. We have already lost so many, spent so much, sacrificed so deeply—how can we turn back now without “justifying” those sacrifices? In Greedy, this mindset compels you to roll the dice one more time, even when the probability of busting is high. In war, it leads entire populations to endorse continued violence, to stay the course, to see it through to the bitter end. In both cases, the logic of sunk costs becomes a straitjacket, driving us toward decisions we would otherwise reject as self-destructive.

The Depths of Moral Compromise

It’s not merely the financial or human toll that makes war devastating. There is a spiritual and moral cost that societies seldom reckon with until it’s too late. When we agree to dehumanize the “other,” we chip away at our own humanity. When we celebrate military prowess above compassion, we inch closer to normalizing cruelty. The language of conflict quickly becomes unrecognizable if we were to translate it into everyday life—because if we applied the same logic of “kill or be killed” in our neighborhoods, we would see how brutally insane it really is.

This moral distortion is perhaps why warfare has been a topic of existential concern for countless philosophers. From Immanuel Kant, who argued in Perpetual Peace for a global framework that might eliminate the necessity of war, to Friedrich Nietzsche, who saw war as part of the darker impulses that drive human history, thinkers have wrestled with the tension between violent struggle and the quest for higher ideals. Many recognized that war often erodes the very values it claims to defend, leaving behind a scorched moral landscape. Or as an anonymous soldier’s adage goes, “War is about killing people and breaking things.” Any attempt to dress it up in righteousness only skirts the fundamental horror at its core.

Stepping Away from the Table

What then is the solution to this seemingly endless game? In Greedy, the challenge isn’t about figuring out how to win—it’s about knowing when to stop. You must have the self-awareness to realize you’ve pushed your luck far enough, and the courage to accept what you have without risking it all for more. Translated to the real world, it means recognizing that war is not a route to lasting security or moral vindication. It’s a dangerously addictive process, one that rewards those who gamble—and punishes everyone else.

Stepping away from the table demands a level of introspection rarely seen in political arenas. It requires leaders and citizens alike to question the narratives that have justified their actions. It means acknowledging that we’ve been sold illusions: the illusion that we can bomb our way to peace, that we can outmaneuver and outgun our enemies so thoroughly that no new threat will arise, that we can keep rolling the dice without eventual catastrophe. Refusing to play the game might mean pursuing dialogues, negotiations, or third-party mediations we’d otherwise find unpalatable. It might mean curbing national pride in favor of humility, admitting that there is no final “win” waiting for us on the battlefield.

The Price of Refusal

Of course, choosing not to fight has its own costs. There are times when violence seems forced upon a population or a group—when an aggressor appears so blatant and brutal that resistance feels like the only moral path. This is the complexity of the human condition: passivity in the face of atrocity can itself be a moral failure. Yet between the black-and-white extremes of all-out war and absolute pacifism, there exist a myriad of less-destructive options. Diplomacy, economic pressure, international coalitions, restorative justice, and creative conflict resolution—these may not always work, but their failure is rarely as catastrophic as launching a full-scale war.

Refusal to continue rolling the dice also has a personal dimension. Soldiers on the battlefield, officials in war rooms, and everyday citizens all contribute to the momentum of conflict, consciously or unconsciously. Stepping away might involve conscientious objection, protest, or simply a refusal to speak in terms that dehumanize others. These small acts of defiance can shift the social fabric, making it that much harder for entire nations to embrace war. As Albert Einstein cautioned after witnessing two world wars, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” The implication is clear: if we do not stop rolling the dice, we risk annihilating the very civilization that war purportedly aims to protect.

Rejecting the False Dichotomy of Sides

One of the most radical acts in a climate of conflict is to question the very notion of “sides.” If war begins with the creation of an in-group and an out-group, then perhaps true peace starts by blurring those lines, by refusing to demonize entire populations, and by challenging the narratives that paint the world in stark colors of good and evil. This does not mean tolerating violent behavior or ignoring genuine threats. Rather, it means recognizing the shared humanity at the core of every group and understanding how individuals and societies can be co-opted into a war machine that benefits a select few at the cost of the many.

We must see war for what it is: a social technology that has, for centuries, allowed certain powerful interests to exert control. In modern times, the stakes are higher than ever, with nuclear, biological, and cyber capabilities that can plunge the world into chaos or devastation on an unimaginable scale. The game is truly rigged; it has no real winners, only those who lose less—until, one day, the ultimate bust happens, and all players stand to lose everything. As Sun Tzu also noted, “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” We would do well to heed such advice in an age where the potential for global harm has never been greater.

The Game Designed for Loss

Greedy taught me many things, mostly about the people I played with, but the overarching lesson was that chasing the idea of an endless winning streak is the quickest path to ruin. Each additional roll carried with it a greater chance of losing everything—and often, that loss felt sudden and merciless. It’s no coincidence that this mirrors the path nations take when they commit to war, believing they can secure a “final” victory.

War is the game that no one wins, a black hole into which resources, lives, and moral compasses can vanish. We console ourselves with stories of heroism, liberation, and final solutions, but these are ultimately illusions that hide war’s fundamental futility. The only true triumph lies in refusing to play—or at least, in knowing when enough is enough. That might sound idealistic, yet throughout history, peace treaties, truces, and mass movements have shown that stepping away is possible, however difficult.

In the end, who truly wins at war? Perhaps the closest we come to a victor is the side that realizes, before it’s too late, that the game is rigged. Those who walk away from the table, refusing to let sunk costs or national pride keep them locked in a cycle of violence, may not enjoy a triumphant parade or see themselves lionized by history. But they preserve something far more valuable: a chance at genuine peace, a measure of moral integrity, and a life not overshadowed by regret and grief.

Let that be our final reflection. We can keep rolling the dice, flirting with the tragedy of total collapse. Or we can heed the lessons of strategists and philosophers who, across thousands of years, have warned against the endless lure of violence. As we stand on the precipice, unsure whether our next roll will carry us to fleeting glory or total disaster, perhaps the wisest move is to ask ourselves why we ever reached for the dice in the first place—and whether we have the courage to set them down for good.