Richard A. Koenigsberg, a scholar who fuses psychoanalysis with social theory, argues that war is not primarily about conquest or gain, but about psychic and social self-sacrifice. Nations wage war not to expand territory or resources, but to demonstrate the vitality of the nation-state by having its people die for it www.libraryofsocialscience.com+1.

Koenigsberg’s analysis draws on the idea that war is an ideology of sacrifice. He observed that in the First World War, for example, the willingness of soldiers to die on the Somme and Verdun was not just a military necessity but a way for the nation to “come alive” — to prove that it was a real, living entity rather than a mere social construction www.libraryofsocialscience.com. This sacrifice was fed by the nation’s need to maintain its symbolic life, much like a body that must be “fed” with blood and bodies to remain alive www.libraryofsocialscience.com.

He also linked this to the “love of country” as a perverted form of attachment. In extreme cases, such as Hitler’s ideology, this love was twisted into a desire to punish those who did not fully commit — including “shirkers” like Jews — because they had not sacrificed themselves in the same way www.nationshavetherighttokill.com. For Hitler, the nation’s survival depended on total surrender of individual interests to the collective.

Koenigsberg’s broader framework, influenced by the Frankfurt School, saw warfare as a mechanism for restoring psychic equilibrium in societies. People kill and die for their nations not because they are rational actors seeking profit, but because they are acting out unresolved internal conflicts and attachments www.nationshavetherighttokill.com. This makes war a self-destructive institution — it consumes human life to sustain the very entity that is destroying it.

In sum, Koenigsberg’s point is that war is a form of national self-destruction because it is built on the premise that the nation’s life depends on the death of its people. The “gain” is not material but symbolic: the nation’s imagined vitality. This dynamic turns war into a ritual of sacrifice that ultimately undermines the social and psychic health of the nation.