War Is Not Inevitable. It Is a Breakdown

Traditional explanations of war—political choice, moral failure, or human aggression—fail to explain how large-scale, modern conflict becomes possible and why it threatens civilization. This paper frames war as a systemic failure of symbolic regulation, drawing on the Deep Symbolic Systems Model (DSSM), which formalizes how long-term symbolic stabilization regulates societal fear, decision cycles, and coordination Historical and contemporary case studies—including pre-modern warfare, Cold War nuclear crises, and cross-cultural nuclear events—demonstrate that symbolic systems metabolize fear, slow decision cycles, and maintain societal stability. Failure of these systems compresses time horizons, erodes trust, and triggers procedural escalation, creating structural extinction risks. DSSM simulations identify critical decision-time thresholds (~48 hours), beyond which preemptive escalation dominates. Policy interventions to strengthen symbolic regulation, embed temporal buffers, and maintain global coordination are essential to civilizational survival.