Ants are social creatures and so they are no strangers to social exploits.
Kidnapping!
Coups!
Slavery!
Hi-jacking!
Highway Robbery!
Protection Rackets!
Wars of Territory Conquest!
Wars of National Security!
Wars of resource extraction!
Wars of stealing your house!
You can find ants doing things that have the same shape of many human crimes. Is it projection to name what these ants do with our ideas of human crimes? Perhaps.
One thing I find enlightening about observing these "short cuts" as evolutionary strategies is the big ideas, the false idealism and justifications are gone. The material reasons are laid bare.
Some ants steal the young of their neighbors because producing and raising young ants takes energy and if you can get another colony to do that for you it's an advantage.
The other thing that is clear is that these strategies are locally powerful but can never dominate the game.
myrmepropagandist
David W. Jones