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We Have To End War

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We Have To End War: Part IV Of “War No More: The Case For Abolition” By David Swanson

If we want war to end, we are going to have to work to end it. Even if you think war is lessening, it won’t continue doing so without work. And as long as there is any war, there is a significant danger of widespread war. Wars are notoriously hard to control once begun. With nuclear weapons in the world (and with nuclear plants as potential targets), any war-making carries a risk of apocalypse. War-making and war preparations are destroying our natural environment and diverting resources from a possible rescue effort that would preserve a habitable climate. As a matter of survival, war and preparations for war must be completely abolished, and abolished quickly.

We need a movement that differs from the past movements that have been against each successive war or against each offensive weapon. We need a movement, as Judith Hand and Paul Chappell and David Hartsough and many others have proposed, for the elimination of war in its entirety. We need education, organization, and activism. And we need structural changes to make these steps more powerful.

Ending war-making by the United States and its allies would go a very long way toward ending war globally. For those of us living in the United States, at least, the place to start ending war is within our own government. We may be able to work on this together with people living near U.S. military bases—which is a fairly large percentage of the people on earth.

Ending U.S. militarism wouldn’t eliminate war globally, but it would eliminate the pressure that is driving several other nations to increase their military spending. It would deprive NATO of its leading advocate for and greatest participant in wars. It would cut off the largest supply of weapons to Western Asia (a.k.a. the Middle East) and other regions. It would remove the major barrier to a reunification of Korea. It would create U.S. willingness to support arms treaties, join the International Criminal Court, and allow the United Nations to move in the direction of its stated purpose of eliminating war. It would create a world free of nations threatening first-use of nukes, and a world in which nuclear disarmament might proceed more rapidly. Gone would be the last major nation using cluster bombs or refusing to ban land mines. If the United States kicked the war habit, war itself would suffer a major and possibly fatal set-back.

So, how do we get there from here?

We need a shift in our culture away from acceptance of war, and we need supportive changes that help us get there. Resistance to a U.S. war on Syria at the time of this writing has seen smaller rallies than were held in 2003 against a U.S.-led war on Iraq, but greater support in the polls, greater support within the military and the government, and greater understanding by elected officials. This is in part the result of the past decade of organizing and educating. A lot of work that has seemed futile to people at the time has been paying off in terms of a shift in public attitude, almost a re-birth of the Vietnam Syndrome, if not quite the anti-war enlightenment of the 1920s.

Taking the profitability out of war, and the corruption out of elections, are separate steps from educating people in war abolition. But they are steps likely to make abolition easier. Creating a Department of Peace or otherwise making diplomatic options more prominent is another step. Improvements to our communications and education systems as a whole will be improvements to a movement for peace. The development of independent media, and steps to break up the corporate media cartel are critical for ending war. Student and cultural exchanges with people from nations on the Pentagon’s likely target list (Syria, Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, etc.) will go a long way toward building resistance toward those potential future wars.

We need to remember to think, not in terms of forces that supposedly create war on their own directly, but in terms of factors that contribute to the social acceptability of war in our culture. One of our primary targets therefore is false beliefs, propaganda, a broken communications system. War does not necessarily produce racism, and racism does not necessarily produce war. But racist thinking makes some of our friends and neighbors more accepting of wars against different-looking people. Of course, we need to abolish racism anyway, apart from its contribution to militarism. But a campaign to abolish war needs to take on racism’s contribution to it without imagining that war simply follows from racism (a notion that could divert the entire anti-war campaign into an anti-racism campaign).

The same logic applies to many other factors. If evidence suggests that poor child raising and poor education contribute to people’s subservience to authority or support for violent public policies, then those factors need to be addressed, as they should be addressed anyway for numerous reasons. But in a campaign to abolish war no factor can take the place of advocacy for the abolition of war. Capitalism, in a certain form, may be a factor contributing to war-making, but war predates capitalism by millennia. Ideas about masculinity and heroism may be contributing to militarism, but ever since war ceased to involve hand-to-hand combat, there has been nothing intrinsically masculine about the duties of soldiers. Women and homosexuals have been integrated into the U.S. military much more smoothly than the military predicted. We don’t need to undo maleness, but altering certain ways of thinking about male respectability would almost certainly help. It sounds laughable, but the leading argument for attacking Syria in August-September 2013 amounted to a defense of President Obama’s manhood, in as much as he had previously threatened “consequences” if chemical weapons were used.

This may change somewhat as wars come to be fought by robots. We may stop thinking of the driving force behind war as the nature of the beings on the front lines. We would be right to go ahead and change our thinking now. The driving force behind wars lies with those at the top of the government, and with all of us who let them get away with their behavior.

With this understanding, we should target all or parts of xenophobia, nationalism, religion, extreme materialism, fear, greed, hatred, false-pride, blind obedience, environmental destructiveness, lack of empathy, lack of community, the praise of the military, the lack of praise for resisters and objectors, militaristic conceptions of masculinity, and every other factor that seems to be contributing to the acceptance of war. These efforts will only succeed in combination with a direct nonviolent assault on the acceptance of war—which is what this book is intended to be a part of. And success in eliminating the acceptance of war will go a great distance in the other direction, toward helping to reduce fear, xenophobia, environmental destructiveness, etc.

I can’t say for sure whether empowering women—I mean en masse, not tokenism—would discourage war. The United States yielded the vote to women long before Switzerland did, and we know which nation has been more bellicose. But clearly reforms that empower everyone equally and disempower any elite will help our efforts against the war machine. Empowering everyone equally will mean empowering women. And empowering women will move any society in the direction of empowering everyone equally.

Other reforms will benefit all kinds of activism, including anti-war activism. Moving money from big banks to cooperatives, encouraging worker ownership of workplaces, and developing local economic and political structures will help. While we need an international rule of law, we don’t need the transfer of most governmental functions further away from people, but rather the reverse. We need greater democracy from the local level on up, with greater local control over much of public policy.

Closing prisons—another institution in dire need of an abolition movement—would certainly help. Many potential activists are locked up, and many actual activists are threatened as though they were criminals. Ceasing to prescribe drugs to children who challenge authority couldn’t hurt. Less television, fewer video games, more time away from cell phones—all of that could make a difference. Greater economic security, if we can get it, could help as well—although desperation also has its advantages as a mobilizer of activism.

Reforms in our way of thinking about ourselves and our responsibilities are key. We should understand the extent to which our opinions are shared by others. Usually we are far less alone than we imagine. Often we are a majority depicted as a tiny minority by the media. (Most of us oppose U.S. war-making in Syria, but televised political shows suggest falsely that virtually everyone disagrees with us.) We should understand, also, how effective activism often has been. And we should learn to act from a non-partisan position of strength, without self-censorship or pre-compromise.

The Danger of Obedience

War support often consists largely of support for the idea of trusting and obeying presidents and other officials. Even people who routinely denounce the dishonesty and depravity of politicians, when it comes to war (and its aura of nationalism) insist that we accept outrageous policies on the basis of wildly implausible claims put forth on the basis of secret evidence kept from us supposedly for our own good. Obedience is seen as a virtue in the military, and people not in the military begin to talk as if it is their virtue as well. They begin referring to their “commander in chief” rather than their president. They begin believing that citizens should shut up and do as they’re told and think as they’re told to think, rather than running the country and compelling public servants to serve the public. “You’re with us or against us,” they say, forgetting that one can demand accountability from one’s government without necessarily supporting a violent invasion by a foreign power.

Obedience is a danger. If a two-year-old is about to run in front of a car, please do yell “stop!” and hope for as much obedience as possible. But when you grow up, your obedience should always be conditional. If a master chef appears to be instructing you to prepare a revoltingly bad dinner but wants you to obey his or her instructions on faith, you might very well choose to do so, considering the risk to be tolerable. If, however, the chef tells you to chop off your little finger, and you do it, that will be a sure sign that you’ve got an obedience problem.

This is not a trivial or comical danger. The majority of volunteers in experiments are willing to inflict what they believe is severe pain or death on other human beings when a scientist tells them to do so for the good of science. These are usually known as Milgram experiments, and the pain or death is faked by actors. Were an actor pretending to be a scientist to tell volunteers to cut off their little fingers, I bet they wouldn’t do it. But they are willing to do far worse to someone else. The good old Golden Rule is a counter to this deficiency, but so is resistance to blind obedience. Most suffering in the world is not created by independent individuals, but by large numbers of people obeying when they should be resisting.

Chelsea Manning’s legal defense team tried to explain her exposing of numerous crimes by the government as the result of her “post-adolescent idealism” almost as if that were a disease. But many thousands of people had access to the same information and failed to make it public. Surely we could, with more reason, diagnose them as suffering from Blind Obedience Disorder.

Remember the regretful drone pilot discussed above. His tragedy was not an experiment, but all too real. We should think about how not to put ourselves in positions in which we are expected to blindly obey. It is possible to find jobs that don’t include that unhealthy expectation. And we should prepare ourselves to refuse immoral instructions whenever we receive them, including above all the instruction to sit back and do nothing.

Governments Pretend to Ignore Activism

Several years ago a lot of people were protesting the U.S. war in Iraq. The president and most of Congress and most of the big media outlets were busy giving out the impression that such protests were ignored or even counter-productive. But former president George W. Bush’s memoirs recall a leading Republican senator secretly telling him the pressure was becoming too great and they’d need to end the war. Bush signed an agreement with the government of Iraq to leave in three years.

In 1961 the USSR was withdrawing from a moratorium on nuclear testing. A protest at the White House urged President Kennedy not to follow suit. Posters read “Kennedy, Don’t Mimic the Russians!” One protester recalled their action for decades as having been pointless and futile, until he found an oral history interview with Adrian Fisher, deputy director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Fisher said that Kennedy had delayed resuming testing because of the protest.

A delay in a policy we oppose is not as good as a permanent ban, but if those protesters had known they were being listened to they would have come back day after day and brought their friends and possibly achieved that permanent ban. That they imagined they weren’t being listened to appears ridiculous if you read enough history. People are always listened to, but those in power go to great lengths to give the impression of not paying any serious attention.

Lawrence Wittner interviewed Robert “Bud” McFarlane, President Ronald Reagan’s former national security advisor, asking him whether the White House had paid much attention to protests demanding a “freeze” in nuclear weapons building. “Other administration officials had claimed that they had barely noticed the nuclear freeze movement,” Wittner said. “But when I asked McFarlane about it, he lit up and began outlining a massive administration campaign to counter and discredit the freeze—one that he had directed. … A month later, I interviewed Edwin Meese, a top White House staffer and U.S. attorney general during the Reagan administration. When I asked him about the administration’s response to the freeze campaign, he followed the usual line by saying that there was little official notice taken of it. In response, I recounted what McFarlane had revealed. A sheepish grin now spread across this former government official’s face, and I knew that I had caught him. ‘If Bud says that,’ he remarked tactfully, ‘it must be true.’”

It’s funny: even when protesting government lies or government secrecy, people tend to fall for the lie that the government is ignoring you. Yet, in 2011, when a relatively tiny movement began to take to the streets under the banner of “Occupy,” the government rolled out a massive effort of infiltration, eavesdropping, harassment, brutality, and propaganda—while, of course, claiming to have noticed nothing and done nothing about something so unworthy of notice.

Large companies and government contractors take activism just as seriously. Reporter Steve Horn recently reported on fracking (gas extraction) companies studying the U.S. military’s “counterinsurgency manual” for purposes of developing psychological operations (“psy-ops”) against environmental activists. Horn also reported on documents from the Stratfor corporation outlining its extensive efforts to counter nonviolent activism. A number of corporations exist just for that purpose.

Those in power don’t restrict themselves to directing you toward inaction. They also work on moving you toward doing lots of things that seem effective but aren’t. The way to keep the nation safe, they say, is to go shopping! Or lobby for this watered-down pathetic piece of legislation! Or devote all your activist energy to election campaigning, and then go home and collapse in exhaustion as soon as the election is over—exactly when you should be gearing up to demand actions out of whoever won the election. These activities that have little impact are depicted as serious and effective, while activities that historically have had tremendous real impact (organizing, educating, demonstrating, protesting, lobbying, heckling, shaming, nonviolently resisting, producing art and entertainment, creating alternative structures) are depicted as disreputable and ineffective and lacking in seriousness. Don’t be fooled!

Of course, being active is much more fun than not. Of course, the influence you have is always possible even if undetected (you might inspire a child who goes on to do great things years later, or slightly win over an opponent who takes a few more years to fully see the light). Of course, we have a moral duty to do everything we can regardless of the ease of success. But I’m convinced we’d see a lot more activism if people knew how much they are listened to. So tell them! And let’s remember to keep telling ourselves.

Doing Nothing Is Obeying A Deadly Order

Imagine writing a story about a village that faces possible destruction, and the people don’t do anything to prevent it.

That’s not how stories are written.

But that’s the world we live in and fail to recognize.

We are being instructed to sit at a desk and zap the earth to death, and we’re compliantly zapping away. Only the zapping doesn’t look like zapping; it looks like living. We work and eat and sleep and play and garden and buy junk at the store and watch movies and go to baseball games and read books and make love, and we don’t imagine we can possibly be destroying a planet. What are we, the Death Star?

But a sin of omission is morally and effectively equivalent to a sin of commission. We need to be saving the earth and we’re not doing so. We’re allowing global warming and other major environmental destruction to roll ahead. We’re allowing militarization and war-making to advance. We’re watching the concentration of wealth. We see the division of society into castes. We know we’re building prisons and drones and highways and pipelines and missiles while closing schools and condemning our grandparents to poverty. We are aware that we’re funding military bases and multi-billionaires with our hard work while fueling mass suffering, bitterness, rage, frustration, and violence.

We see these worsening cycles and we sit still. Don’t sit still. Sitting still is mass-murder. Don’t obey anyone who tells you to sit still. Don’t search for or wait for a leader. Don’t sell your conscience to a group or a slogan or a political party.

What Then Must We Do?

We must create a moral movement against mass-murder, even when the mass-murder is accompanied by flags or music or assertions of authority and promotion of irrational fear. We must not oppose one war on the grounds that it isn’t being run well or isn’t as proper as some other war. We must not focus entirely on the harm wars do to the aggressors. We must acknowledge the victims. We must see one-sided slaughters for what they are and grow appropriately outraged. A “good war” must sound to all of us, like it sounds to me, as no more possible than a benevolent rape or philanthropic slavery or virtuous child abuse. “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake,” said Jeanette Rankin, the heroic congresswoman who voted against U.S. entry into both world wars.

A new film called The Ultimate Wish: Ending the Nuclear Age shows a survivor of Nagasaki meeting a survivor of Auschwitz. It is hard in watching them meeting and speaking together to remember or care which nation committed which horror. We should get to the point where we can see all war with that same clarity. War is a crime not because of who commits it but because of what it is.

We must make war abolition the sort of cause that slavery abolition was. We must work around or undo the corporate media. We must develop faith in ourselves and our power. We must be fearless. We must mock war as dueling was mocked. We must abandon the idea that we can be for peace without opposing wars. We must abandon the idea that we can oppose wars without opposing the entire machinery and worldview of war-making. We must hold up resisters, conscientious objectors, peace advocates, diplomats, whistleblowers, journalists, and activists as our heroes. We must thank them for their service. We must honor them. We must cease honoring those who participate in war or war industries.

We must develop alternative avenues for heroism and glory, including nonviolent activism, and including serving as peace workers and human shields in places of conflict. Little is more important than advancing common understanding of nonviolence as an alternative form of conflict to violence, and ending the habit of thinking that one can ever be faced with only the choices of engaging in violence or doing nothing.

We must stop trying to discover a good patriotism, and begin thinking beyond borders. We must abandon nationalism without supposing that we are then somehow obliged to hate our nation any more than we hate our state or city when we fail to encourage our state or city to engage in warfare. We must make a concerted effort to remove nationalism, xenophobia, racism, religious bigotry, and U.S. exceptionalism (the idea that what we would condemn if another nation did it is acceptable when the U.S. government does it) from our thinking.

We must oppose wars for rational, fact-based reasons, as opposed to fictions and misperceptions. Opposing a war because of the party a president belongs to, or because we’d rather not be so generous to the war’s potential victims (“I don’t want to bomb Syria. After everything we did for Iraq, the Iraqis still aren’t grateful”) is good as far as it goes. But this attitude promotes falsehoods about the actual effects of U.S. war and sanctions on Iraq and strengthens the belief that some other war will be worth supporting.

Lies: The Worst Ones Come After a War

Lies are told before, during, and after wars, and it is those told after the wars that teach future generations that wars are acceptable. Without lies about past wars, future wars would never be contemplated at all, not even as “a last resort.” Without lies about World War II and its predecessors, there would have been no war on Korea or Vietnam. Without lies about those conflicts, there would have been no U.S. wars since.

Not to minimize the importance of exposing the lies told just prior to a new war, we need to recognize that those lies stand on the shoulders of all the accumulated myths and disinformation about previous wars. When President Obama escalated the war on Afghanistan, he claimed that an escalation in Iraq had been a “success”. The Pentagon is investing $65 million right now in a “Vietnam Commemoration Project” to transform that catastrophe into a noble cause. On the 60th anniversary of the armistice in Korea, President Obama declared that war a “victory.” Millions of people were killed in Korea to accomplish exactly nothing, and 60 years later the commander in chief feels obliged to redefine that as a victory. The Iraq War is also being beautified, even as you read these words.

Former speech writer for President George W. Bush, David Frum said on March 5, 2013: “The Iraq war has led to a huge shift in regional oil production. Iraq is returning to world oil markets, massively. Last year Iraq produced more oil than in any year since the first Gulf War. By some estimates, Iraq will soon overtake Russia as the world’s number-two oil exporter. Iran meanwhile has dropped out of the top 10 oil-exporting countries. Iraq’s return to world oil markets has enabled the sanctions that have pushed Iran out. If Iraq were still ruled by Saddam Hussein, it’s hard to imagine that the western world would dare take its present hard line against Iran. And of course, if Saddam Hussein had remained in power after 2003, he too would have had the benefit of $100/barrel with which to finance his regime’s military ambitions.”

The war on Iraq is here justified because it has facilitated threatening war on Iran and sanctioning Iran, as well as because a failure to remove Saddam Hussein would mean that he would still be around, unless perhaps the United States had never supported him in the first place.

Having established that the war was good, Frum tries to gain credibility by gently critiquing the way it was “managed”: “The war was expensive and badly managed. It did real damage to the international credibility of the United States. … It left 4,000 Americans dead and many thousands more seriously wounded. Had we known all this in advance, the war would not have been fought. But it would be wrong to say the war achieved nothing. And it’s wrong to shut our eyes to the ugly consequences of leaving Saddam in power.”

Doing so might distract us from shutting our eyes to the ugly consequences of our sociocide, our utter destruction of Iraqi society. From Frum’s comments you’d imagine the war killed 4,000 people, not 1.4 million.

Bill Bigelow, curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools, which has just released a book called Teaching About the Wars, wrote in March 2013:

Now, as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, our wars in the Middle East have moved from the front pages of our newspapers to the insides of our textbooks. The huge corporations that produce those texts have no interest in nurturing the kind of critical thought that might generate questions about today’s vast inequalities of wealth and power—or, for that matter, about the interventionist policies of our government. Exhibit A is Holt McDougal’s Modern World History on the U.S. war with Iraq, which might as well have been written by Pentagon propagandists. Maybe it was. In an imitation of Fox News, the very first sentence of the Iraq war section mentions the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein side by side. The book presents the march to invasion as reasonable and inevitable, while acknowledging: ‘Some countries, France and Germany, called for letting the inspectors continue searching for weapons.’ That’s the only hint of any opposition to war, despite the fact that there was enormous popular opposition to the war, culminating on February 15, 2003, the date which saw millions of people around the world demand that the United States not invade Iraq—if you’re keeping track, this was the largest protest in human history, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

This, of course, is a pattern in corporate textbooks: Conflate governments with the people; ignore social movements. After a quick and bloodless description of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the textbook’s final section is headlined ‘The Struggle Continues.’ It begins: ‘Despite the coalition victory, much work remained in Iraq.’ The only thing missing from this rah-rah section is the confetti: ‘With the help of U.S. officials, Iraqis began rebuilding their nation.’ Oh, is that how it happened? Significantly, there is no Iraqi quoted in the entire section—itself one of the most powerful lessons here. It’s a primer in legitimating imperialism: the violent and squabbling Third World others get no say; we will decide what’s good for them. In a mockery of the term ‘critical,’ the chapter closes with four ‘Critical Thinking & Writing’ exercises. Here is the sole ‘critical writing’ activity: ‘Imagine you are a speechwriter for President Bush. Write the introductory paragraph of a speech to coalition forces after their victory in Iraq.’

We’re turning our children into David Frum. We need activism in our schools to reverse this trend.

Public Opinion, Without Action, Cannot Prevent Another War

We need improved schools and improved news reporting, because we need better informed opinions. Then we need to turn those opinions into effective action. The polls were very useful in August-September 2013 in holding off, at least temporarily, an attack on Syria. But they would have done us no good without the hard work of thousands of people and hundreds of groups. Countless rallies, demonstrations, protests, lobby visits, public forums, interviews, and a flood of emails and phone calls made the will of the public visible and pinned Congress members down on a position for peace.

We need, and we are building, a movement that is international. We need allies around the world. We need their help, and they need ours, in eliminating nuclear weapons, weaponized drones, cluster bombs, and other instruments of death, as well as in closing military bases, and shutting down the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., where so many assassins and torturers have been trained. These partial steps toward war abolition should be understood as just that. We should use them to build the abolition movement. We should measure our progress in terms of how many people say Yes, we can end war, and Yes, we should end war.

We must build a coalition that can accomplish serious steps: defunding military advertising campaigns, restoring war powers to the legislative branch, cutting off weapons sales to dictatorships, etc. To do this, we’ll want to bring together all those sectors that rightfully ought to be opposing the military industrial complex: moralists, ethicists, preachers of morality and ethics, doctors, psychologists, and protectors of human health, economists, labor unions, workers, civil libertarians, advocates for democratic reforms, journalists, historians, promoters of transparency in public decision-making, internationalists, those hoping to travel and be liked abroad, environmentalists, and proponents of everything worthwhile on which war dollars could be spent instead: education, housing, arts, science, etc. That’s a pretty big group.

But most activist organizations want to stay focused in their niches. Many are reluctant to risk being called unpatriotic. Some are tied up in profits from military contracts. We must work our way around these barriers.

We have, in recent years, begun to see some environmentalist organizations oppose some military base construction (such as on Jeju Island, South Korea), some civil liberties groups object to an entire mode of warfare (drone wars), some labor unions back a process of conversion from war industries to peace industries, and various cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors demand a reduction in military spending. These are the tiny pebbles from which we must start building a massive wall of opposition to war-making. We must move organizations away from exclusively treating the symptoms—as when civil liberties groups oppose torture or indefinite imprisonment—and toward also attempting to cure the root cause: militarism.

Green energy has far greater potential to handle our energy needs (and wants) than is commonly supposed, because the massive transfer of money that would be possible with the abolition of war isn’t usually considered. We should encourage environmentalists to begin thinking in those terms. War making is not good for the economy as a whole. There are wealthy interests not profiting from weaponry or other war spending, and not profiting from a militarily enforced exploitation of foreign peoples. A U.S.-based green energy company ought to be able to back a process of conversion from war spending to green-energy spending. As should the rest of us. In 2013, the state of Connecticut created a commission to work on converting manufacturing in Connecticut from a war to a peace basis. This effort was backed by and has the involvement of workers and owners, as well as peace advocates. If it does well, it should be closely observed by the other 49 states and the nation as a whole.

Celebrity War Games

In 2012, if you watched the Olympics on NBC, you saw advertisements promoting a war-o-tainment reality show cohosted by retired U.S. General Wesley Clark, co-starring Todd Palin, and with no apparent role for reality. The ads bragged about the use of real bullets, but the chances that any of the celebrities engaged in “war competition” on NBC’s “Stars Earn Stripes” were going to be shot and killed was essentially what it was for John Wayne as he promoted war while dodging it (even if nuclear weapons testing got him in the end). RootsAction.org set up a website at StarsEarnStripes.org to pressure NBC (and its war-profiteering owner, General Electric) to show the real costs of war. During the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia commanded by Gen. Wesley Clark, civilians and a TV station were bombed, while cluster bombs and depleted uranium were used.

A coalition formed to denounce “Stars Earn Stripes.” Activists protested at NBC’s studios in New York. Nine Nobel Peace Prize laureates spoke out against the program. The show became an embarrassment and was quickly canceled (or, as NBC put it, not produced beyond its “pilot” episodes). We need that sort of public response to every new outrage, and to outrages that have been around so long we barely notice them anymore.

A Process Toward Peace

Just as people often believe that we have to choose between bombing the hell out of a country or doing nothing, people often believe we have to choose between continuing to routinely bomb the hell out of countries or dismantling the entire military by Wednesday. Instead, we should envision a disarmament process that can proceed over a period of months and years. Disarmament will encourage further disarmament. Foreign aid (not the weaponry we call “foreign aid”) and cooperation will discourage hostility. Compliance with the rule of law will encourage the development of international law enforcement. I use the term “enforcement” not to suggest the use of war but rather the prosecution of individual war makers.

Partial steps along the way may prove useful. A campaign to ban weaponized drones could take advantage of the fact that drone strikes look more like murder to many people than do other forms of murder in war. But such campaigns should be used to advance the larger goal of war abolition, and not to encourage the idea of improving or sanitizing war. A campaign to ban military bases in foreign nations might also be a good place to gain a foothold.

As we begin to imagine a war-free world, what will we see? Virginia and West Virginia don’t go to war because they are both the United States. France and Germany don’t go to war because they are both Europe. One is tempted to say that nations would not go to war if they were united by an earth-wide government. But, in fact, a global government as corrupt and unaccountable—or more so—than our national governments would not help us. We need to build healthy democratic representation from the local level up to an international federation. Getting there may actually mean distributing more power to localities, states, and regions, rather than concentrating more power at higher levels.

The United Nations should be reformed or replaced. It should be made democratic, stripping away the special privileges for a handful of nations. It should be made into a complete opponent of war. Acceptance of defensive or U.N.-authorized wars should be undone. One way to do this would be to revive understanding of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which pre-dates the U.N. Charter and remains on the books of over 80 nations, with others free to sign on.

Outlawing War

When people propose banning war by law, including by Constitutional amendment, I have mixed reactions. While banning war is just what the world ordered, it has about it something of the whole Bush-Cheney ordeal during which we spent years trying to persuade Congress to ban torture. By no means do I want to be counted among those opposed to banning torture. But it is relevant, I want to suggest, that torture had already been banned. Torture had been banned by treaty and been made a felony, under two different statutes, before George W. Bush was made president. In fact, the pre-existing ban on torture was stronger and more comprehensive than any of the loophole-ridden efforts to re-criminalize it. Had the debate over “banning torture” been entirely replaced with a stronger demand to prosecute torture, we might be better off today. (As I was writing this, on July 24, 2013, Congressman Alan Grayson passed an amendment to a military spending bill once again “banning torture.”)

We are in that same situation with regard to war. War was banned 85 years ago, making talk of banning war problematic. We were in that same situation, in fact, even before the U.N. Charter was drafted 69 years ago. By any reasonable interpretation of the U.N. Charter, most—if not all—U.S. wars are forbidden. The United Nations did not authorize the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, the overthrow of the Libyan government, or the drone wars in Pakistan or Yemen or Somalia. And by only the wildest stretch of the imagination are these wars defensive from the U.S. side. But the two loopholes created by the U.N. Charter (for defensive and U.N.-authorized wars) are severe weaknesses. There will always be those who claim that a current war is in compliance with the U.N. Charter or that a future war might be. So, when I say that war is illegal, I don’t have the U.N. Charter in mind.

Nor am I thinking that every war inevitably violates the so-called laws of war, involving countless atrocities that don’t stand up under a defense of “necessity” or “distinction” or “proportionality,” although this is certainly true. Banning improper war, while useful as far as it goes, actually supports the barbaric notion that one can conduct a proper war. The situation in which a war would be a “just war” is as mythical as the much-imagined situation in which torture would be justified.

Nor do I mean that U.S. Constitutional war powers are violated or fraud is perpetrated in making the case for war, although these and other violations of law are frequent companions of U.S. wars.

I also do not want to dispute the advantages of banning war in the highest U.S. law, the Constitution. There is a common misconception that holds up lesser, statutory law as more serious than the Constitution or the treaties that it makes “supreme law of the land.” This is a dangerous inversion. The whistleblower Edward Snowden is right to expose violations of the Fourth Amendment. Senator Dianne Feinstein is wrong to insist that those violations have been legalized by statutes—which is debatable even if one accepts unconstitutional statutes. Amending the Constitution to ban war would (if the Constitution were complied with) prevent any lesser law from legalizing war.

But a treaty would do that too. And we already have one.

It is little known and even less appreciated that the United States is party to a treaty that bans all war. This treaty, known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, or the Peace Pact of Paris, or the Renunciation of War, is listed on the U.S. State Department’s website. The Pact reads:

The High Contracting Parties solemly [sic] declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.

The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.

Pacific means only. No martial means. No war. No targeted murder. No surgical strikes.

The story of how this treaty, to which over 80 nations are party, came to be is inspiring. (See my book, When the World Outlawed War.) The peace movement of the 1920s is a model of dedication, patience, strategy, integrity, and struggle. Playing a leading role was the movement for “outlawry,” for the outlawing of war. War had been legal until that point, as people falsely imagine it to be today.

Eliminating war, the outlawrists believed, would not be easy. A first step would be to ban it, to stigmatize it, to render it unrespectable. A second step would be to establish accepted laws for international relations. A third would be to create courts with the power to settle international disputes. The outlawrists took the first big step in 1928, with the treaty taking effect in 1929. We haven’t followed through. In fact we’ve collectively buried what was probably the single biggest news story of 1928: the creation of this treaty.

With the creation of the peace pact, wars were avoided and ended. But armament and hostility continued. The mentality that accepts war as an instrument of national policy would not vanish swiftly. World War II came. And, following World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt used the Kellogg-Briand Pact to prosecute the losers of the war, not just for “war crimes,” but also for the brand new crime of war. Despite an endless plague of war on and among the poor nations of the world, the wealthy armed nations have yet to launch a third world war among themselves.

When not simply ignored or unknown, the Kellogg-Briand Pact is dismissed because World War II happened. But what other legal ban on undesired behavior have we ever tossed out following the very first violation and what appears to have been a quite effective prosecution? An argument can also be made that the U.N. Charter undoes the earlier pact simply by coming later in time. But this is by no means an easy argument, and it requires understanding the U.N. Charter as the re-legalization of war rather than the ban on war that most people imagine it to be.

In fact, the Kellogg-Briand Pact has been used in cases of international law long after the adoption of the U.N. Charter, including a case at the World Court in 1998 that arguably prevented a U.S. war against Libya. (See Francis Boyle’s Destroying Libya and World Order.)

In the two years since I published an account of the activism that created the Pact, I have found a great deal of interest in reviving awareness of it. People may not be as sick of war now as they were following World War I, or at least not as open to the possibility of abolition, but many are pretty far down that road. Groups and individuals have launched petitions. The St. Paul, Minnesota, City Council (where Frank Kellogg lived) has voted to create a peace holiday on August 27th, the day the treaty was signed in 1928 in a scene well described in the song Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream.

A fan of the story has created an essay contest that’s received thousands of entries. Drone protesters have educated judges about the Peace Pact when they’ve been hauled into court for making use of the First Amendment. A Congress member has put into the Congressional Record his recognition that the Kellogg-Briand Pact made war illegal. I just saw an op-ed in the New York Times by some law professors mentioning the pact. And I’ve been in touch with other nations not party to the treaty and not party to any wars, encouraging them to both sign on to the Pact and then urge certain other parties to begin complying with it.

When someone wants to legalize torture or campaign bribery they point to court proceedings marginalia, overridden vetoes, speeches, and tangentially related ancient precedents. When we want to de-legalize war, why not point to the Kellogg-Briand Pact? It is a treaty to which the United States is party. It is the Supreme Law of the Land. It not only does what we want. It does more than most people dare to dream. I’ve found that some people are inspired by the Pact’s existence and by the fact that our great-grandparents were able to create a public movement that brought it into existence.

War the Crime, not “War Crimes”

It is common to think of “war crimes” as improper conduct during a war, but not to think of the war itself as a crime. This needs to change. When presidents and other leaders of nations get away with launching wars, their successors repeat their crimes.

Many of us pushed hard for the impeachment or prosecution of George W. Bush, predicting that without that accountability his crimes would be continued and repeated. Lately I’ve been, somewhat bitterly, remarking, “Wow, not impeaching Bush has sure paid off!” His successor has continued and expanded upon many of his war powers and policies.

Many loyal Republicans opposed impeaching George W. Bush. So did most liberal and progressive activist groups, labor unions, peace organizations, churches, media outlets, journalists, pundits, organizers, and bloggers, not to mention most Democratic members of Congress, most Democrats dreaming of someday being in Congress, and—toward the end of the Bush presidency—most supporters of candidate Barack Obama or candidate Hillary Clinton.

Remarkably in the face of this opposition, a large percentage and sometimes a majority of Americans told pollsters that Bush should be impeached. It’s not clear, however, that everyone understood why impeachment was needed. Some might have supported a successful impeachment of Bush and then turned around and tolerated identical crimes and abuses by a Democrat.

But this is the point: whoever followed Bush’s impeachment would have been far less likely to repeat and expand on his high crimes and misdemeanors. And the reason many of us wanted Bush impeached—as we said at the time—was to prevent that repetition and expansion, which we said was virtually inevitable if impeachment was not pursued.

“You just hate Republicans” was the most common argument against impeachment, but there were others. “It’s more important to elect someone different.” “Why do you want President Cheney?” “Why do you want President Pelosi?” “Why distract from good work?” “Why put the country through trauma?” “Why not focus on ending war?” “Why not do investigations?” “Why divide the Democrats?” “Why start a process that can’t succeed?” “Why destroy the Democratic Party the way impeaching Clinton destroyed the Republican Party?” We answered these questions as patiently as possible at great length and enormous repetition for years and years (See WarIsACrime.org/ImpeachFAQ).

People pursued alternatives to impeachment, from spreading the word about how bad the crimes and abuses were, to pushing legislation to redundantly re-criminalize Bush’s criminal behavior, to promoting supposedly lesser-evil candidates, to promoting truly good candidates, to constructing ways to drop out of society and wash one’s hands of it. The trouble was that when you let a president make war, and everything that comes with war—spying without warrant, imprisoning without charge, torture, lying, secrecy, rewriting laws, persecuting whistleblowers—you can predict, as we predicted for years, that the next president will adopt and build on the same policies. Nothing short of punishing the offender will deter the successor.

In fact, the new president, working with Congress and all of his other facilitators, has turned abuses into policies. The scandal and secretiveness have been replaced with executive orders and legislation. Crimes are now policy choices. Checking off lists of murder victims is official open policy. (See “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will,” New York Times, May 29, 2012.) Secret laws are normal. Secretly rewritten laws are established practice. Spying in violation of the Fourth Amendment is openly defended and “legalized,” with sporadic bursts of public outrage and establishment excusing, following new detailed revelations. Whistleblowing is being transformed into treason.

What failure to impeach Bush has done to legitimize his crimes is nothing compared to what it has done to delegitimize impeachment. If a tyrannical president who liberals hated and who talked funny and who didn’t even pretend to be killing for some higher benevolent purpose can’t be impeached, then who can? Surely not an intelligent, articulate African American who pretends to agree with us and gives speeches denouncing his own policies!

But this is the same problem as before. Making speeches against Bush’s abuses was not enough. Clapping for speeches against Obama’s abuses—even speeches by Obama—is not enough. There is a reason why people abuse power. Power corrupts them. And absolute power corrupts them absolutely. Telling a handful of Congress members who are forbidden to speak about it, and most of whom don’t really give a damn, what sort of outrages you are up to is not a system of checks and balances or the rule of law.

Refusal to impeach pulls the foundation out from under representative government. Congress won’t impeach for violation of subpoenas, so it avoids issuing subpoenas, and it therefore can’t compel production of witnesses or documents, so it doesn’t take a position on an important matter, so the unofficial U.S. state media takes no position either, and people follow the media.

There is no demand to impeach Obama alive among the public as I write this. There are murmurs about impeaching him for minor or fictional crimes, but not for war. In an ideal world, we would compel Congress to truly drop the partisanship and proceed with a double-impeachment of Obama and Bush for identical crimes. (Impeachments after leaving office are possible and have been done; do a web search for “William Belknap”.)

We should aim to bring about that ideal world, in which top officials are held accountable for crimes, and the most serious crime on the list is the crime of war.

A Global Rescue Plan

People ask: Well, what do we do about the terrorists? We begin learning history. We stop encouraging terrorism. We prosecute suspected criminals in courts of law. We encourage other nations to use the rule of law. We stop arming the world. And we take a little fraction of what we spend killing people and use it to make ourselves the most beloved people on the planet.

The United States alone is perfectly capable, if it chooses, of enacting a global marshall plan, or—better—a global rescue plan. Every year the United States spends, through various governmental departments, roughly $1.2 trillion on war preparations and war. Every year the United States foregoes well over $1 trillion in taxes that billionaires and centimillionaires and corporations should be paying.

If we understand that out-of-control military spending is making us less safe, rather than more—just as Eisenhower warned and so many current experts agree—it is clear that reducing military spending is a critical end in itself. If we add to that the understanding that military spending hurts, rather than helping, economic well-being, the imperative to reduce it is that much clearer.

If we understand that wealth in the United States is concentrated beyond medieval levels and that this concentration is destroying representative government, social cohesion, morality in our culture, and the pursuit of happiness for millions of people, it is clear that taxing extreme wealth and income are critical ends in themselves.

Still missing from our calculation is the unimaginably huge consideration of what we are not now doing but easily could do. It would cost us $30 billion per year to end hunger around the world. We just, as I was writing this, spent nearly $90 billion for another year of the “winding down” war on Afghanistan. Which would you rather have: three years of children not dying of hunger all over the earth, or year #13 of killing people in the mountains of central Asia? Which do you think would make the United States better liked around the world?

It would cost us $11 billion per year to provide the world with clean water. We’re spending $20 billion per year on just one of the well-known useless weapons systems that the military doesn’t really want but which serves to make someone rich who controls Congress members and the White House with legalized campaign bribery and the threat of job elimination in key districts. Of course, such weapons begin to look justified once their manufacturers begin selling them to other countries too. Raise your hand if you think giving the world clean water would make us better liked abroad and safer at home.

For similar affordable amounts, the United States, with or without its wealthy allies, could provide the earth with education, programs of environmental sustainability, encouragement to empower women with rights and responsibilities, the elimination of major diseases, etc. The Worldwatch Institute has proposed spending $187 billion annually for 10 years on everything from preserving topsoil ($24 billion per year) to protecting biodiversity ($31 billion per year) to renewable energy, birth control, and stabilizing water tables. For those who recognize the environmental crisis as another critical demand as urgent in its own right as the war-making crisis, the plutocracy crisis, or the unmet human needs crisis, a global rescue plan that invests in green energy and sustainable practices appears even more powerfully to be the moral demand of our time.

War-ending, earth-saving projects could be made profitable, just as prisons and coal mines and predatory lending are made profitable now by public policy. War-profiteering could be banned or rendered impractical. We have the resources, knowledge, and ability. We don’t have the political will. The chicken-and-egg problem traps us. We can’t take steps to advance democracy in the absence of democracy. A female face on an elite ruling class won’t solve this. We can’t compel our nation’s government to treat other nations with respect when it has no respect even for us. A program of foreign aid imposed by imperial-minded arrogance won’t work. Spreading subservience under the banner of “democracy” won’t save us. Imposing peace through armed “peace-keepers” prepared to kill won’t work. Disarming only so-much, while continuing to suppose that a “good war” might be needed, won’t get us far. We need a better view of the world and a way to impose it on officials who can be made to actually represent us.

Such a project is possible, and understanding how easy it would be for powerful officials to enact a global rescue plan is part of how we can motivate ourselves to demand it. The money is available several times over. The globe we have to rescue will include our own country as well. We don’t have to suffer more than we are suffering now in order to greatly benefit others. We can invest in health and education and green infrastructure in our own towns as well as others’ for less than we now dump into bombs and billionaires.

Such a project would do well to consider programs of public service that involve us directly in the work to be done, and in the decisions to be made. Priority could be given to worker-owned and worker-run businesses. Such projects could avoid an unnecessary nationalistic focus. Public service, whether mandatory or voluntary, could include options to work for foreign and internationally run programs as well as those based in the United States. The service, after all, is to the world, not just one corner of it. Such service could include peace work, human shield work, and citizen diplomacy. Student exchange and public-servant exchange programs could add travel, adventure, and cross-cultural understanding. Nationalism, a phenomenon younger than and just as eliminable as war, would not be missed.

You may say I’m a dreamer. We number in the hundreds of millions.

Educate, Organize, Get Active

Give this book to a friend or relative who doesn’t agree with it.

Give it to your Congress member, your library, and your crazy uncle.

Invite me to come talk with your group about it. Don’t have a group? Join or create one. I recommend checking out and getting involved with the groups found on the following websites. These groups do not necessarily recommend this book or have anything to do with it, but I recommend them:

DavidSwanson.org WarIsACrime.org RootsAction.org VCNV.org WarResisters.org VeteransForPeace.org CodePink.org Space4Peace.org UNACPeace.org UnitedForPeace.org StopWar.org.uk AntiWar.org PeacePeople.com AFutureWithoutWar.org WILPFUS.org WagingPeace.org NuclearResister.org SOAW.org IPB.org NobelWomensInitiative.org HistoriansAgainstWar.org Peace-Action.org ThePeaceAlliance.org

6 Responses

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What a great article. I learnt a lot, thank you.

Thx so much I did a project on “how we can end war” and this article helped me a lot

Great article. Very willfull. But it sounds like complete enviromental party nonsense. You try to blame other things lik electronics addiction and other things like enviromental poisoning. Please make it all about war and how to stop it

Good article, but without addressing the roots of the problem (Zionist/neoconservative imperialism causing terrorism and driving it into Israeli tributaries like US/NATO states to keep them weak and compliant) you can’t stop war. As long as Jewish supremacy is the world order, there will be war to keep everyone else weak.

Totally agree sir. I teach metaphysics and meditation is one of my important lectures. It has altered many people from violent behavior to that of love. Having all schools learning this will I believe, change the course of all mankind. We must also eliminate politics unless it on course w/ spirituality. Thank you.

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How do we stop war?

War is state-sponsored terrorism. Or if not “terrorism,” then legally condoned killing. War-time killing is not considered to be a crime of “murder” because states claim a power (currently considered legal) to wage war. Under humanitarian law, war is meant to be used for self-defense. More often than not, however, governments initiate internal and international wars as a tool of aggression — to maintain power and control over people, land, resources and ideology.

Is humanitarian law meant to stop war?

Why do national governments allow the carnage and barbarism to continue in Syria and elsewhere? Because international humanitarian law (the “Laws of War”) allows tanks, war planes, battleships, and missiles to be built, and to be bought and sold as if they are fruits and vegetables in the produce section of a grocery.

Humanitarian law starts with the premise that war can be controlled and have a useful purpose. Humanitarian law posits that killing in war is okay as long as the killing distinguishes between civilians and combatants, the killing is limited in scope and time, and the war is winnable. The nation-state system’s attempt to apply rules to war, rather than outlawing war entirely, is morally bankrupt, especially in the nuclear age.

Nation-states want to maintain their exclusive identity, usually at the expense of others outside their putative borders. Because they must then protect those borders, they will not give up their power — at least under the current international law system — to build weapons for themselves and to sell weapons to their allies or to various governments for strategic advantage.

Has there ever been any international law attempt to stop war?

The 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact (“General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy”) attempted to outlaw wars of aggression between nations. Sixty-two of the seventy-three independent nations at the time had signed the treaty. However, the treaty did not address the issue of nations engaging in warfare as a measure of self-defense.

The treaty failed because it did not limit the tools of warfare, and it did not create an enforcement mechanism to ensure that all disputes would be resolved peacefully. The nations continued to expand their weapons arsenals, and they did not cede power to an external governing authority to handle disputes. A treaty between equally sovereign states, such as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, does not prevent those states from choosing to wage wars, rather than go to court, as a final resolution to conflict. The governments did not establish common world law.

Can existing international law or current treaties prevent war?

UN Charter:

The purpose of the United Nations as outlined in Article 1 of the Charter is to “maintain international peace and security,” to prevent and remove threats to peace by peaceful means, affirm equal rights and self-determination, and to achieve international cooperation to solve international problems.

The problem with the UN Charter is that it encourages countries to interact peacefully but cannot require them to do so. The first President of the UN General Assembly, Dr. Herbert Evatt, elaborated, “The United Nations was not set up to make peace,” he wrote in a letter to Garry Davis in 1948, “but only to maintain it once it was made by the Great Powers…”

Furthermore, the Charter upholds the “sovereign quality” of each of its members, barring intervention in “domestic” matters. Because we have separated ourselves into exclusive nations, we do not act as a unified whole to resolve conflict.

Articles 28 and 30 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) affirm that a war-free world requires the protection of fundamental rights. Article 28 states that a “social and international order,” i.e., peaceful human interactions, is necessary for the rights in the Declaration to be realized. Article 30 states that no state, group or individual has a right to participate in any activity (e.g., aggression) “aimed at the destruction of any of the rights” affirmed by the Declaration.

The problem with the UDHR is that its customary law status means that governments have not agreed unequivocally to be bound by it. The will to enforce it has been ineffective. Even with the ICCPR and the ICESCR, which are binding treaties, governments are still able to violate rights with impunity — the breeding ground for war.

Geneva Conventions:

The 1949 Geneva Conventions and subsequent Protocols were created to limit the barbarity of war by restricting conflict to military combatants, protecting the injured and prisoners of war, ensuring the safe passage of medical and aid workers, and prohibiting torture, rape and other war tactics that impose severe suffering. As previously mentioned, these laws do not attempt to eliminate war, only to reduce its impact on certain combatants and upon the civilian population.

Nuremberg Principles:

The principles recognized in the 1950 Charter and Judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal affirm that individuals can be held responsible under international law for war crimes, crimes against the peace and crimes against humanity even if acting upon orders of a superior. These principles have become the basis for ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Cambodia, East Timor and for the permanent war crimes tribunal that now exists as the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Although these principles attempt to hold individuals accountable, because of political stalemates and an unwillingness to pierce the veil of national sovereignty, individuals and governments are able to continue the war game. More than 200 armed conflicts have been waged around the world since 1950.

Can international courts intervene to stop war?

Why do we have international courts if not to help us to resolve our differences peacefully, with and by law?

In 2010, Garry Davis submitted a petition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the threat and use of nuclear weapons, because a nuclear war would be the actual war to end all wars , the ultimate crime against humanity.

Although the petition was received, the court neither acknowledged the petition nor rejected it. They simply ignored it. The ICC is beholden for its existence to the very states that perpetuate war and maintain the threat of nuclear weapons. Because the ICC depends upon acceptance by states and upon the states’ financial support, the ICC does not have autonomy.

If the court had rejected Davis’s petition, then they would be violating the principle of their own existence to adjudicate crimes against humanity of which nuclear war is the utmost crime. If they had accepted the petition and adjudged the case, then they would have had to reject the use of nuclear weapons in all circumstances. The ICC was unwilling to set a new precedent because, in 1996, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) established that nations could use nuclear weapons for self-defense.

It seems that the ICJ and the ICC can only attempt to adjudicate conflicts between states or crimes of war after the fact, once a dispute or aggression has started and oftentimes after it has ended. As courts, unlike a parliament or congress, they cannot make law. They have no independent Marshal’s Service to arrest suspects, having to rely upon the nations to conduct this policing.

Existing international law and tribunals have only been mildly successful in limiting the impact of wars; they have not been successful in preventing or outlawing war.

So, how do we stop war?

Because nations have waged war with increasing frequency over the past hundred years, it seems impossible to stop war. Governments can easily wage wars because the production, sale, distribution, and use of weapons is legal.

We now need to outlaw weaponization. We need to make the production of weapons not only illegal, but unprofitable. We need to prevent governments and corporations from profiting off of death and destruction. We need to make it economically, socially, and politically untenable. Politics and government must be ethicized.

World laws against war would establish financial and criminal penalties against individuals, companies and governments that make weapons. This would require not simply an embargo on arms, but a halt to the production of all new weapons and the dismantling of current weapons. We can repurpose the weapons manufacturing industry to provide tools of construction, instead of tools of destruction — to provide machines and products that help people live safer, healthier, happier and more productively. We can recalibrate the global economy to produce goods, services and infrastructures that help, not hurt, people. Countries should be exporting life, not death.

The principle, ideology, strategy and tactics of governments must be humanized and earth-ized.

So if governments won’t or can’t outlaw war, itself, what about outlawing the tools that make mass aggression possible?

We have compliance programs to stop terrorist funding. Why don’t we have compliance programs to stop the sale of guns, tanks, warplanes, bombs, etc.? Why don’t we illegalize the manufacture, sale, transfer and use of all forms of weaponry — conventional, bio, chemical, psychological and cyber?

Cut off access to weaponry, cut off its supply, and governments no longer have the capacity to engage in warfare.

Aggression among people who carry a knife or a bat or a broom may still occur. But that kind of aggression would be much easier to stop with a peace or police force than aggression that involves using weapons of mass killing and destruction. Machine guns, tanks and bombs can only kill; they have no benevolent purpose. Although we can cut up our dinner salad with a knife, we cannot prepare our dinner with a nuclear bomb.

Where do we go from here?

The national governments themselves cause the atrocities of war. Under existing international law, national government leaders can continue to prepare for and wage wars, especially internal conflicts. The veil of national sovereignty and the weakness of international enforcement allow them to act aggressively.

National governments could outlaw war and its preparations in their national constitutions, like Japan (in Article 9) and Costa Rica (in Article 12) have done. In those two countries, governmental leaders cannot weaponize the state and commandeer armed forces. It’s unlikely, however, that many other nations, and certainly not the permanent members of the United Nations “Security Council,” would voluntarily reject war as a tool of national policy.

Nations cannot or will not stop war. As Garry Davis once shouted from the public balcony at the United Nations, “If the nation-states won’t stop war, then they should step aside and let us, the people, create the institutions that will.” War becomes perpetual only if we choose it as the principal mode of interaction during conflict.

We the people must create new governmental institutions beyond the nation.

If we want to have an effective compliance program to prevent the sale, transfer and use of arms, some independent body or institution outside the nation-states is going to have to take charge. In other words, we need a system in place that will maintain the restrictions of illegality on the war preparation process.

A World Congress would create common world law that outlaws violent force everywhere as well as the sale, distribution and use of weapons. Aggression of war and violent conflict must be made illegal. Just like shooting someone or fighting with someone in a local setting can be considered assault and battery or murder, fighting or using weapons between groups of people in different places around the world must also be considered illegal. So no matter one’s location or whether one is wearing a uniform, killing would be outlawed. Killing anywhere would be considered murder everywhere.

A World Court of Human Rights (WCHR) would adjudicate violations of the law, with a World Marshals Service to apprehend violators. A WCHR will shed light on violations by governments that oppress the many and maintain benefits for only a select few, affirming that governments must be transparent and act in service to the people. A WCHR will provide a legal and peaceful forum for victims to air their grievances and to obtain justice against the sponsors of war. Everyone should be able to sue for the violence they have faced.

Even if lawmakers and courts establish the illegality of war, how will we protect ourselves from rogue actors?

This is what a volunteer peace or police force is for. A World Peace/Police Guards Force would implement and enforce the law — acting as roving ombudspeople to prevent conflicts and intervene in conflicts before they become violent. World Peace Guards would provide mediation and collaborative strategies and processes.

War is the biggest waster of human and natural resources.

People in the green movement must unite with people in the peace and collaborative development movements to stop war and its preparations for the sake of humanity and the earth. We need to work together to dismantle the structural violence that has been built into the nation-state system.

We need to alleviate the economic, political, technological, and social factors of humiliation — the underlying inequalities and oppression — that cause people to seek vengeance against and to hate, oppress, and control others.

As citizens of one world, we must fulfill human and environmental needs, rights and duties. We need to eliminate the anarchy, the lack of unified law, between nation-states that is the breeding ground of war. World peace, as well as human and environmental sustainability, will depend upon the advancement of common world law.

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March 18, 2022

How Do We End Wars? A Peace Researcher Puts Forward Some Innovative Approaches

Young people and women need to be more involved in a continual process of averting armed conflict

By Theodor Schaarschmidt

Russian State Duma member Leonid Slutsky ( far left ), Russian president Vladimir Putin’s adviser Vladimir Medinsky ( left ) and Ukrainian parliament member Davyd Arakhamia ( right ) at Russian-Ukrainian talks.

Sergei Kholodilin/ITAR-TASS News Agency/Alamy Stock Photo

For three weeks, Ukraine has been engulfed in a war of aggression. While Russian troops are forming around Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, government representatives are simultaneously struggling to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. But how exactly do such negotiations work? What contributes to the success of diplomatic talks—and what causes them to fail?

Thania Paffenholz is an expert in international relations, based in Switzerland and Kenya, who conducts research on sustainable peace processes and advises institutions such as the United Nations, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). She is executive director of Inclusive Peace, a think tank that accompanies peace processes worldwide. Paffenholz talked with Spektrum der Wissenschaft , the German-language edition of Scientific American, about new ways to think about peacekeeping.

[ An edited transcript of the interview follows .]

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You have experienced some violent conflicts during your professional career. What makes the current war in Ukraine different?

For many decades, there have tended to be internal conflicts. We have hardly seen wars of aggression against another country since the end of World War II in Europe, with the exception of the Bosnian War. At the moment, there is a lot of talk about warfare—and very little about peace solutions. Yet we actually have institutions with precisely this goal: OSCE, the U.N. Security Council and others. But the international system that is supposed to enable diplomatic work is clearly no longer functioning.

How could it come to this?

On the one hand, we are witnessing strong aggression from the Russian side. But NATO’s dealings with Russia in recent years have also failed. There has been a creeping escalation. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were still numerous disarmament talks and negotiations on how the different needs could go together. This diplomacy, in terms of prevention, failed in the run-up to the war in Ukraine.

Instead we are currently in a phase of escalation. Does diplomacy work differently in times of war?

The basic questions are the same: What are the interests of the actors involved? What positions do they hold? Of course, the points of view differ greatly. According to the Russian leadership, the Ukrainian state is an artificial entity, and the territory should really belong to Russia anyway. The perspective of Ukraine and the West is diametrically opposed to this: Ukraine has every right to exist as its own sovereign state—and does not have to let Russia dictate whether it can become a NATO member.

How does one proceed then?

By analyzing the needs behind the positions. Russia wants a buffer zone to NATO and is therefore against an eastward expansion of the military pact. In Ukraine, the dominant need is not to be crushed between Russia and the West but to have good relations with both sides. In addition, of course, it is a matter of securing the existence of its own state. So in terms of their security needs, the two sides are actually very similar.

How does a diplomatic process like this actually work?

The first talks are already taking place, for example in Turkey or on the Belarusian border. Formal negotiations usually deal with questions such as “Can there be a ceasefire—and if so, under what conditions?” As a rule, the maximum demands are first put on the table. The parties to the conflict often try to strengthen their own positions in advance through escalating measures: Russia sends tanks and weapons. The West puts pressure on the Russian leadership through a sanctions regime. Propaganda also plays a role: both sides try to spread their own views and mobilize their own populations.

Are there other paths to peace besides formal negotiations?

There are also informal negotiations, behind the scenes, so to speak. For example, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko made a video calling on religious dignitaries to come to Kyiv. Clergymen have discreetly mediated in previous disputes, such as the Pope in the conflict between Cuba and the U.S. Both approaches to negotiation, however, are part of long-established diplomacy.

You consider that inadequate. What is your criticism?

It is absurd that the fate of the country is mainly discussed by men older than 60, as is usual in this type of negotiation. Where is the rest of the population? What about women? What about younger people? Do they really want the same things as those in power? How can their perspectives be carried into the peace processes? There are now concepts for inclusive negotiation in which delegations from civil society discuss issues together with the leaders. In Eastern Europe, however, there are only a few examples of this.

The war in Ukraine has not been a stellar moment for diplomacy so far: The numerous talks with Vladimir Putin in the run-up have not been able to prevent the violence. Currently, not even agreements on humanitarian corridors are holding.

First of all, the protection of civilians is a duty under the Geneva Conventions. Those who do not comply can later be prosecuted for this in the International Court of Justice. Nevertheless, the Russian military is now using the corridors for their power games.

Is diplomacy becoming an empty spectacle here?

Political will is always the limit of diplomacy. The question is rather “What is the alternative?” Firing at each other is, of course, the worst option of all. But even sanctions against Russia are not in full force, for example, because of dependence on Russian gas and oil supplies. So the question is how it is possible to reach a compromise that all sides accept—and as quickly as possible so that the war finally stops.

How can this be achieved?

The question is “What can a compromise look like?” Usually, it starts with smaller projects that promise quick success: confidence-building measures, in other words. Once that has worked, both parties are, in the best case, ready to take the next step. Ultimately, it could come down to renegotiating the security architecture of the entire region. Such negotiations would, of course, have to include the other European states.

So much for the theory. In reality, however, even the first small steps are currently failing. Does the way of negotiating have to change?

In my view, it is not the negotiations that are at fault but rather the strategic objective. The war goes on until one party feels, “If we continue, we will weaken our position”—or rather “What we want is now better achieved at the negotiating table.” When a conflict reaches this point, we call it “ripe for resolution.”

So the dying continues until those in power feel the necessary level of “maturity” has now been reached. Isn’t that cynical?

Unfortunately, this is how it works at present. Until the war is over, completely useless human dramas occur. The current system allows old men to act like kings in the Middle Ages sending their peasants to war.

After all, the relationship with Russia used to be much better. Why has peace diplomacy become so rusty in recent decades?

Our idea of peace processes is often still too linear: first, there is war, then come the preliminary talks, then the negotiations, then a peace agreement is implemented—done. But the idea of concluding some treaty and then having peace forever is wrong. The fact that the relationship between nations is always questioned and has to be discussed anew is historically normal.

You advocate a paradigm called “perpetual peace building”—in other words, an ongoing peace process with no time limit. Is that really necessary?

Within states, but also between states, coexistence is constantly being renegotiated. Think of the yellow vest movement in France a few years ago. Dissatisfaction over the economic situation led to protests and riots. France’s president Emmanuel Macron responded, albeit very late, with a “national debate”in which he traveled around the country, offering talks. Even when there is no war, togetherness must always be redefined. In the relationship with Russia, too, one should have said, “When the old treaties and institutions have reached their end, then we have to rethink.”

The criticism of this linear thinking is not new. Even major institutions such as the E.U. and the U.N. share this view. Nevertheless, the practice is often oriented toward outdated peace models. Why?

In research, we call this phenomenon “path dependency”: once actors know how to something one way, they often continue to do it that way, even if the framework conditions change. International diplomacy, too, often still proceeds as if it were stuck in the 1990s. The OSCE was founded primarily so that Western states could remain in dialogue with [the former Soviet Union and then] Russia. Nevertheless, after a while, they were satisfied with sending a new ambassador to the meetings every few years, although it hardly brought any results.

How can we succeed in bringing peace policy into a new era?

Social movements such as Fridays for Future and Black Lives Matter are currently showing how this can be done. What previously seemed politically unfeasible suddenly becomes possible when many people join forces. This is also possible for the opposition forces in Russia. But their room to maneuver is severely limited because they are being muzzled—for example, with arrests and the closing of their media channels. In general, however, the spark for social change must come from civil society.

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A Buddhist monk stands next to a banner with a picture of monk Thich Quang Duc, who set himself on fire on a busy Saigon street corner in 1963, at the at Vietnam Quoc Tu pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City on June 3, 2018.

Why Would Anyone Kill Themselves to Stop a War? On Aaron Bushnell and Others

In the past three months, two people in the united states have taken or risked taking their own lives in an attempt to change u.s. policies on palestine and call for a cease-fire..

Six years ago in 2018, after returning from a Veterans For Peace trip to Vietnam, I wrote an article called “ Why Would Anyone Kill One’s Self In an Attempt to Stop A War? ”

Now, six years later, in the past three months, two people in the United States have taken or risked taking their own lives in an attempt to change U.S. policies on Palestine and call for a cease-fire and stop U.S. funding to the State of Israel that would be used to kill in the Israeli genocide of Gaza . An yet unidentified woman, wrapped in a Palestinian flag, set herself on fire in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 1, 2023. Three months later authorities have yet to release the name of the woman. Her condition was unknown as of mid-December.

This week, on Sunday, February 25, 2024, active duty U.S. Air Force member Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., while he was stating “Free Palestine and stop the genocide.” Bushnell died from his injuries.

Content Warning : Viewers may find the following video disturbing. It shows the moments leading up to and including Bushnell ’s f inal act. The moment of self-immolation itself has been blurred.

As I mentioned in the article in 2018 , many in U.S. admire young men and women who join the military and profess to be willing to give up their lives for whatever the U.S. politicians or government decide is best for another country—“freedom and democracy” for those who don’t have the U.S. version of it, or overthrowing self-rule that is not compatible with the U.S. administration’s view. Actual U.S. national security seldom has anything to do with U.S. invasions and occupations of other countries.

But, what about a private citizen giving up his or her life to try to stop the politicians or government from deciding what is best for other countries? Could a “mere” citizen be so concerned about politicians’ or government actions that she or he is willing to die to bring public attention to those actions?

One well-known and several little-known actions of private citizens from five decades ago provide us with the answers.

As American soldiers were killing Vietnamese, there were American citizens who ended their own lives in order to try to bring the terror of invasion and occupation for Vietnamese citizens to the American public through the horror of their own deaths.

While on a Veterans for Peace trip to Vietnam in 2014 and while on another VFP delegation in March 2018, our delegation saw the iconic photo of a well-known Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc who set himself on fire in June1963 on a busy street in Saigon to protest the Diem regime’s crackdown on Buddhists during the early days of the American war on Vietnam. That photo is seared into our collective memories.

The photos show hundreds of monks surrounding the square to keep the police out so that Quang Duc could complete his sacrifice. The self-immolation became a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a pivotal act in the collapse of the Diem regime in the early days of the American war on Vietnam.

But, did you know that several Americans also set themselves on fire to attempt to end U.S. military actions during those turbulent war years in the 1960s?

I didn’t, until our VFP delegation saw the portraits displayed of five Americans who gave their lives to protest the American war on Vietnam, among other international persons who are revered in Vietnamese history, at the Vietnam-USA Friendship Society in Hanoi. Though these American peace persons have fallen into oblivion in their own nation, they are well-known martyrs in Vietnam, 50 years later.

Our 2014 delegation of 17—six Vietnam veterans, three Vietnam-era vets, one Iraq-era vet, and seven civilian peace activists—with four Veterans for Peace members who live in Vietnam, met with members of the Vietnam-USA Friendship Society at their headquarters in Hanoi. I returned to Vietnam in March 2018 with another Veterans for Peace delegation. After seeing one particular portrait again—that of Norman Morrison—I decided to write about these Americans who were willing to end their own lives in an attempt to stop the American war on the Vietnamese people.

What distinguished these Americans to the Vietnamese was that, as American soldiers were killing Vietnamese, there were American citizens who ended their own lives in order to try to bring the terror of invasion and occupation for Vietnamese citizens to the American public through the horror of their own deaths.

The first person in the United States to die of self-immolation in opposition to the war on Vietnam was 82-year-old Quaker Alice Herz who lived in Detroit, Michigan. She set herself on fire on a Detroit street on March 16, 1965. Before she died of her burns 10 days later, Alice said she set herself on fire to protest “the arms race and a president using his high office to wipe out small nations.”

Six months later on November 2, 1965, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker from Baltimore, a father of three young children, died of self-immolation at the Pentagon. Morrison felt that traditional protests against the war had done little to end the war and decided that setting himself on fire at the Pentagon might mobilize enough people to force the United States government to abandon its involvement in Vietnam. Morrison’s choice to self-immolate was particularly symbolic in that it followed President Lyndon Johnson’s controversial decision to authorize the use of napalm in Vietnam, a burning gel that sticks to the skin and melts the flesh.

Apparently, unbeknownst to Morrison, he chose to set himself on fire beneath the Pentagon window of then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

Thirty years later in his 1995 memoir, In Retrospect: The Tragedy in Lessons of Vietnam, McNamara remembered Morrison’s death:

Antiwar protests had been sporadic and limited up to this time and had not compelled attention. Then came the afternoon of November 2, 1965. At twilight that day, a young Quaker named Norman R. Morrison, father of three and an officer of the Stony Run Friends Meeting in Baltimore, burned himself to death within 40 feet of my Pentagon window. Morrison’s death was a tragedy not only for his family but also for me in the country. It was an outcry against the killing that was destroying the lives of so many Vietnamese and American youth. I reacted to the horror of his action by bottling up my emotions and avoided talking about them with anyone—even with my family. I knew (his wife) Marge and our three children shared many of Morrison’s feelings about the war. And I believed I understood and shared some of his thoughts. The episode created tension at home that only deepened as the criticism of the war continued to grow.

Before his memoir In Retrospect was published, in a 1992 article in Newsweek , McNamara had listed people or events that had had an impact on his questioning of the war. One of those events,McNamara identified as “the death of a young Quaker.”

One week after Norman Morrison’s death, Roger LaPorte, 22, a Catholic Worker, became the third war protester to take his own life. He died of burns suffered through self-immolation on November 9, 1965 on the United Nations Plaza in New York City. He left a note that read, “I am against war, all wars. I did this as a religious act.”

The three protest deaths in 1965 mobilized the anti-war community to begin weekly vigils at the White House and Congress. And every week, Quakers were arrested on the steps of the Capitol as they read the names of the American dead, according to David Hartsough, one of the delegates on our 2014 VFP trip.

Hartsough, who participated in anti-war vigils 50 years earlier, described how they convinced some members of Congress to join them. Rep. George Brown (D-Calif.) became the first member of Congress to do so. After the Quakers were arrested and jailed for reading the names of the war dead, Brown would continue to read the names, enjoying congressional immunity from arrest.qz

Two years later, on October 15, 1967, Florence Beaumont, a 56-year-old Unitarian mother of two, set herself on fire in front of the Federal Building in Los Angeles. Her husband George later said, “Florence had a deep feeling against the slaughter in Vietnam… She was a perfectly normal, dedicated person, and felt she had to do this just like those who burned themselves in Vietnam. The barbarous napalm that burns the bodies of the Vietnamese children has seared the souls of all who, like Florence Beaumont, do not have ice water for blood, stones for hearts. The match that Florence used to touch off her gasoline-soaked clothing has lighted a fire that will not go out—ever—a fire under us complacent, smug fat cats so damned secure in our ivory towers 9,000 miles from exploding napalm, and THAT, we are sure, is the purpose of her act.”

Three years later, on May 10, 1970, 23-year-old George Winne, Jr., son of a Navy captain and a student at the University of California, San Diego, set himself on fire on the university’s Revelle Plaza next to a sign that said “In God’s name, end this war.”

Winne’s death came just six days after the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University student protesters, killing four and wounding nine, during the largest wave of protests in the history of American higher education.

At our 2014 meeting at the Vietnam-USA Friendship Society office in Hanoi, David Hartsough presented Held in the Light , a book written by Ann Morrison, the widow of Norman Morrison, to Ambassador Chin, a retired Vietnamese ambassador to the United Nations and now an official of the Society. Hartsough also read a letter from Ann Morrison to the people of Vietnam.

Ambassador Chin responded by telling the group that the acts of Norman Morrison and other Americans in ending their lives are well remembered by the people of Vietnam. He added that every Vietnamese school child learns a song and poem written by Vietnamese poet Tố Hữu called “Emily, My Child” dedicated to the young daughter that Morrison was holding only moments before he set himself on fire at the Pentagon. The poem reminds Emily that her father died because he felt he had to object in the most visible way to the deaths of Vietnamese children at the hands of the United States government.

Sparking Revolutions

In other parts of the world, people have ended their lives to bring attention to special issues. The Arab Spring began on December 17, 2010 with a 26-year-old street Tunisian vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi setting himself on fire after a policewoman confiscated his food street vending cart. He was the only breadwinner for his family and had to frequently bribe police in order to operate his cart.

His death sparked citizens throughout the Middle East to challenge their repressive governments. Some administrations were forced from power by the citizens, including Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled with an iron fist for 23 years.

Or Being Ignored as Irrational Acts

In the United States, acts of conscience such as taking one’s own life for an issue of extraordinary importance to the individual are viewed as irrational and the government and media minimize their importance.

For this generation, while thousands of U.S. citizens are arrested and many serve time in county jails or federal prisons for protesting U.S. government policies, in April, 2015, young Leo Thornton joined a small but important number of women and men who have chosen to publicly end their lives in hopes of bringing the attention of the American public to change specific U.S policies.

On April 13, 2015, Leo Thornton, 22 years old, committed suicide by gun on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. He had tied to his wrist a placard that read “Tax the 1%.” Did his act of conscience have any effect on Washington—the White House or the U.S. Congress? Unfortunately, not.

The following week, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed legislation that would eliminate the estate tax applying only to the top 1% of estates. And no mention of Leo Thornton, and his decision to end his life over inequitable taxation, appeared in the media to remind us that he ended his life in opposition to another piece of favorable legislation for the rich.

Then years ago, in October 2013, 64-year-old Vietnam veteran John Constantino set himself on fire on the Washington, D.C. National Mall—again for something he believed in. An eyewitness to Constantino’s death said Constantino spoke about “voter rights” or “voting rights.” Another witness said he gave a “sharp salute” toward the Capitol before he lit himself on fire. A neighbor who was contacted by a local reporter said Constantino believed the government “doesn’t look out for us and they don’t care about anything but their own pockets.”

The media didn’t investigate any further into the rationale for Constantino’s taking his own life in a public place in the nation’s capital.

In the case of U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell, Aaron told the world his reason: "I do not want to be complicit in the genocide of Gaza! Free Palestine!." His sentiments are echoed by hundreds of millions around the world who recognize the horrific Israeli genocide of Gaza. For U.S. citizens, it is our duty to keep pressure on the Biden administration to stop funding Israel's genocide of Gaza and violence in the West Bank.

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10 Ways to Resolve All Conflicts and End War

By Deepak Chopra, MD

The recent reckless skirmish between the U.S. and Iran held a deep irony. Neither side wanted to go to war, and yet neither side could talk to each other except in terms of war. Language and action go together. If you are stuck in the metaphor of war, with its winners and losers, revenge, enmities that last for generations, and the macho image of the warrior, you can never end war even though you want to.

There is no clean end to war once you are in a war mentality. Winners in one war become losers the next, and combat runs into a quagmire in which it is obvious that neither side will be able to claim victory, war thinking keeps stubbornly drilling home the same metaphor of war. As history teaches us from World War I to Vietnam and now Afghanistan, wars are at once pointless, relentless, and endless. War heroes on one side are war criminals on the other.

There is a way to end war, and one sees signs of the solution appearing wherever people realize that we share the same goal, to achieve a prosperous, healthy, sustainable planet. War doesn’t serve this shared goal, and the question is how long it will take for a positive global purpose to overshadow the metaphor of war that is embedded in nationalism, tribalism, racial and ethnic divides, and the other fellow travelers of war. All of these divisions are mind-made. They exist because we constructed them, and the secret is that whatever you made you can unmake.

In the face of so much blood and death, it seems strange to root war in a misguided concept. What William Blake called our “mind-forg’d manacles” are a form of self-imprisonment. Change your concepts, and only then will the manacles fall off. Here are some of the replacements for the whole concept of war.

De-escalate the concept of enemy. An enemy can be reframed, in progressive order, as an adversary, competitor, partner, teacher, and finally your equal.

Treat the other side with respect. otherwise you lose them before you start., recognize that there is the perception of injustice on both sides. this is a point of agreement adversaries can join in., be prepared to forgive and ask for forgiveness. here forgiveness means letting go of your desire for retribution and revenge. this is an act of true courage. even if you believe that the other side doesn’t deserve forgiveness, you deserve peace., refrain from belligerence. it will be taken as bullying and arouses renewed antagonism., use emotional intelligence, which means understanding the other side’s feelings, giving them value, and making them equal to your feelings., reach out to understand the other side’s values, both personal and cultural. the fog of war descends when two adversaries know nothing about one another. the result is a war based on projections and prejudice. the goal is mutual acceptance. at the deepest level we all want the same things., refrain from ideological rhetoric over politics and religion., recognize that there is fear on both sides. don’t be afraid to express your anxieties and to ask the other side what they are afraid of., do not insist on being right and proving the other side wrong. give up the need to be right allows you to focus on what you actually want..

These ideas work in any negotiation, whether between nations or in a family. When we lack these ideas, we cannot turn them into coping mechanisms. War is the worst of all coping mechanisms, yet in many cases conflict is the first response we make when we feel resistance, obstacles, and pushback.

When people don’t know how to cope, nations don’t either. The basis of peace is peace consciousness in individuals. Even though you and I can’t change how nations interact, we have the choice to be units of peace consciousness and to put the ideas listed above into daily practice. The survival of the planet depends on as many people hearing the call in the shortest possible time.

DEEPAK CHOPRA MD, FACP, founder of  The Chopra Foundation , a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global , a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. He is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego. Chopra is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book and national bestseller,  Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential (Harmony Books), unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”

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Can War Be Stopped? We Explain

Conflicts between groups of people are as old as humanity itself. However, war is probably the worst thing human beings do. Millions of people throughout history have died in wars and modern wars are enormously destructive. Many people dream of a world without war, but could this really happen? Can war actually be stopped?

War cannot be stopped. Conflicts have been fought between people for as long as human history. Although efforts can be made to reduce war, end ongoing conflicts, and reduce the impact of wars, it is not possible to completely put an end to violent conflict.

…but that’s just an overview. To fully understand if war can be stopped, we need to look in more detail.

Why Should We Stop War?

If we are going to discuss if an end can be put to war, we first need to think about why it might be beneficial to work towards a world where there is no more conflict. Really, there are four main reasons why we should stop war all together. These are:

• Stop people dying in conflicts
• End the destruction caused by wars
• Allow countries to reduce military spending
• Create a more peaceful world

Let’s go over each of these…

Stop People Dying In Conflicts

A first reason why we should stop war is to put an end to people dying in conflicts. Millions of people have died in wars throughout history. Today, hundreds of thousands of people a year are killed in violent conflicts. It is not only soldiers that die in wars, but huge numbers of innocent civilians are killed in conflicts. Stopping war would save huge numbers of lives.

End The Destruction Caused By Wars

A second reason why we should stop war is to end the destruction that war causes. Fighting between armies causes huge amounts of damage. Houses, businesses, infrastructure, and crops are all destroyed by fighting. If we end war, we could prevent a huge amount of destruction.

Allow Countries To Reduce Military Spending

A third reason why war should be stopped is because countries spend enormous amounts on their militaries and ending war would allow them to spend this money elsewhere.

Total global expenditure on defence reached 2.1 trillion dollars in 2021. Lage countries, such as the US. China, India, and Russia, spend trillions of dollars a year on armaments preparing for war. Even the poorest countries in the world devote significant amounts of their government revenue on their armed forces. If war was stopped, then every country in the world could spend this money on public services that do good, like education, healthcare, and assistance to the poor.

Create A More Peaceful World

A final reason why we should stop war is because it would create a more peaceful world. Peace is vital for people to live happy and free lives. It’s also key to economic development and lifting people out of poverty. If we ended war all together, millions more people around the world could live in peace.

Why Cant We Stop Wars?

World peace sounds like an amazing thing. Imagine a world where people didn’t die in wars and without the destruction caused by conflicts. Attempts have been made throughout history to stop wars or introduce international laws to try and discourage countries from starting wars. However, it has not been possible to completely end war. Why is this? Well, there are five main reasons:

• Cannot end economic inequalities
• Cannot remove the differences between people
• Impossible for resolve all territorial disputes
• War is ingrained in human nature
• Some people will always resort to war

Let’s take a quick look at each of these…

Cannot End Economic Inequalities

A first reason why we can’t stop wars is because we cannot end the economic inequalities that are often the root causes of conflicts. The world will always be an unequal place. This means there will always be one group of people who see their position as disadvantaged, or who seek to take resources from another group, and so start a war. Without ending economic inequality completely, we cannot stop wars.

Cannot Remove The Differences Between People

A second reason why we cannot stop wars is because we cannot eradicate the differences between people. Another root cause of many wars is different ethnic, religious, linguistic, or cultural groups fighting for supremacy. As the world will always have differences between peoples, there will also be conflict.

Impossible For Resolve All Territorial Disputes

A third reason why we can’t stop wars is because we cannot resolve all the territorial disputes in the world. There are currently 170 claims between nations where one country insists the land of another is there’s. Some areas are contested by several nations. Territorial disputes are one of the leading causes of conflicts, as countries go to war to seize the land they believe should be there’s by force. As it is not possible to solve all land disputes, it is also not possible to stop every war.

War Is Ingrained In Human Nature

Another reason why we can’t stop wars is because violence and conflict are as old as human beings themselves. Many believe that war is ingrained in human nature – that there is an enate part of humanity that seeks destruction and violence and is willing to use force to dominate other peoples and groups. Essentially, there will also be war because it’s part of what human beings do. We can’t stop all wars because we can’t change the core tenants of the human race.

Some People Will Always Resort To War

A final reason why we can’t stop wars is because there will always be some people who will use violence to achieve their aims. There is no way to create a world where violence is not seen as one way for a group to dominate another, to achieve economic or material superiority or to take revenge. Whilst there are always those willing to resort to conflict, it will be impossible to stop all wars.

How War Can Be Stopped?

So, we know why we should put an end to war, and why so far humanity has failed to end human conflict, but let’s look now at how it might be possible to stop war all together. There are four main ways this could be done:

• Stronger international laws
• Powerful nations intervening to prevent conflicts
• Economic incentives to stop wars
• Full isolation for countries that begin conflicts

Now we’ll look at each of these in-turn…

Stronger International Laws

One way that wars could be stopped is through stronger international laws. There are already laws in place that many nations have signed-up to that make acts such as wars of aggression, genocides, and crimes against humanity illegal. However, these laws are often impossible to enforce, and perpetrators of wars are rarely brought to justice. If international law was strengthened, and more countries were willing, or compelled, to abide by it, then some wars could be stopped.

Powerful Nations Intervening To Prevent Conflicts

Another way that war can be stopped is if more powerful nations were willing to intervene to prevent or end conflicts. Weaker nations would be less likely to go to war if they knew stronger countries would take action against them if they did. The problem with this is that outside interventions into conflicts that often exacerbated, not ended, wars. However, intervention by a group of powerful nation working together could end some conflicts.

Economic Incentives To Stop Wars

A further way that war can be stopped is by incentivising nations not to go to war. Providing economic assistance, or even financial aid, to countries that didn’t begin conflicts could help prevent some wars. Offering economic aid to countries to end wars could also bring conflicts to a close. However, not all nations would willing accept financial or material incentives to stop wars, and other countries are not always willing to provide the economic assistance needed.

Full Isolation For Countries That Begin Conflicts

A final way that war can be stopped is by isolating countries that start wars. This method of preventing of ending wars has become more common in recent decades, with sanctions applied to countries that are seen as aggressive instigators of conflict. However, these sanctions often fail as there is not global unity in their enforcement. If a complete global sanctions regime could be implemented, and upheld, to completely isolate countries that started wars, it might be possible to prevent some conflicts.

How To Abolish War?

Now we know that how conflicts might be stopped, lets think about how we might abolish war. This is not the same thing as just creating a world where there is no war – abolishment would mean putting frameworks in place that meant no nation could go to war, even if they tried.

There is no way to abolish war. Although efforts to improve international law, strengthen sanctions on countries that begin conflicts and launch interventions into ongoing wars to bring them to an end can help reduce the number of conflicts, it is not possible to formally put an end to war.

Collins English Dictionary defines abolishment as:

”formally put an end to (a system, practice, or institution).” Collins English Dictionary, 2022

The main difference between abolishing something and simply stopping it is that abolishment means the complete and formal ending of a practice. To abolish war, humanity would need to agree that war was no longer allowed. Systems would need to be put in place to prevent countries that did want to go to war from doing so. This is impossible to do. There are no international mechanisms, nor the global political will, to officially abolish war. It simply cannot be done.

How Can War Be Destroyed?

War is by the far the most destructive thing humans do. It destroys lives, as well as homes, businesses, infrastructure, and economies. But if war is so destructive, what if we tried to destroy war? Would this even be possible? And if so, how could it be done?

War cannot be destroyed. It is not possible to put war out of existence. Human beings have always fought wars, and although efforts can be made to reduce the number of conflicts, and end ongoing wars, there is no way to eradicate war entirely.

The word destroy is defined as:

”the act or process of damaging something so badly that it no longer exists or cannot be repaired.” Britannica, 2022

Taking this definition, in order to destroy war humanity would need to take action to damage the both the idea of conflict and every nation’s ability to physically wage war. This would be impossible.

The idea of fighting a war is as old as human beings themselves. There is essentially nothing that humanity could do to damage the fundamental idea that violence is one way for people to resolve their differences or achieve their aims.

As well as there being no way for humanity to destroy the idea of war, it would also be impossible for people to destroy every nations capacity to wage war. Almost no country would willingly give up their armed forces or destroy their military equipment. Forcing countries to do this would only result in an enormous war as nations resisted attempts to take their militaries away by force.

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How to avoid war and conflict – with a little help from social psychology

Professor in Psychology, Keele University

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The posturing of US President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un gave rise to a terrifying realisation: that we are moving closer to a nuclear war. The recognition that such a war could be our last raises the most serious questions about human behaviour.

Can we prevent war? If so, how? Can we can make our world a safer place to live in? Fortunately, social psychological research provides some answers.

One insight is provided by Social Identity Theory (SIT), originally formulated by the psychologist Henri Tajfel . He believed that people are naturally inclined to self categorise into an “ingroup” (us) and an “outgroup” (them).

According to SIT, the ingroup seeks to distinguish itself from the outgroup by attributing them with negative qualities. The theory has been used to account for discrimination and hostility towards different groups. Outgroup members of a different race, culture, and political affiliation are seen as less trustworthy than ingroup members.

Distrust of outgroup members, and the hostility it creates, provide fertile grounds for conflict. But SIT also provides potential for intervention strategies. Specifically, the major goal of any intervention should be to promote trust.

One way is through third party mediation. This involves the opposing parties meeting in the presence of a neutral person, with the goal of finding solutions to the dispute, and resolving the conflict. Social psychological research has shown that mediation is effective in restoring the victim’s sense of power as well as the perpetrator’s moral image. The use of mediation (among other forms of peacekeeping) has been used by the United Nations with some success in resolving international conflicts, such as the one in Cyprus during the 1970s.

The aim of mediation is to build trust by encouraging communication. But its effectiveness depends in part on the extent to which the conflicting parties trust the mediator. This poses a problem for mediation between warring nations because the mediator has to be trusted by both countries.

Another approach involves a group of strategies involving what is known as “structured reciprocally cooperative interactions”. This approach is shown in the work of the American psychologist Charles Osgood , who was concerned with the cold war and the arms race of the 1960s.

He suggested that hostile nations engage in a strategy of “graduated reciprocation in tension reduction” (GRIT) to achieve disarmament. The strategy involves the first nation making a modest reduction in arms, which, crucially, is verifiable. They then wait until the other nation reciprocates with a similar reduction.

The first partner then engages in a greater reduction in arms which is matched by the other. As a consequence of these reciprocal exchanges, a trusting relationship emerges between the nations, and mutual disarmament is achieved.

Outgroup distrust can be reduced and peace promoted if conflicting nations or groups are engaged in specific cooperative ventures with mutual benefits. These interventions are most effective when they involve interactions which involve equal status, common goals and cooperation. Using such an approach, social psychologist Miles Hewstone found that cross religion friendships promoted trust between Catholic and Protestant adolescents in Northern Ireland.

Prevention is better than cure

Unfortunately, by the time that conflict arises and there is a threat of war, the nations or groups involved have usually already made significant progress on this path. More attention needs to be given to developing and implementing prevention strategies that remove the conditions for conflict and war.

Adopting preventative strategies based on cooperative ventures with mutual benefits is invaluable, and would help us to make the world a safer place to live. It must be hoped that world leaders will draw upon the recommendations from social psychology.

Tweeted threats can simply fuel the fire of conflict. Well thought out strategies for mediation and cooperation may well help to extinguish it.

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The Five Reasons Wars Happen

Christopher Blattman | 10.14.22

Whether it is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats of nuclear strikes or Chinese belligerence in the Taiwan Strait , the United States seems closer to a great power war than at any time in recent decades. But while the risks are real and the United States must prepare for each of these conflicts, by focusing on the times states fight—and ignoring the times they resolve their conflicts peacefully and prevent escalation—analysts and policymakers risk misjudging our rivals and pursuing the wrong paths to peace.

The fact is that fighting—at all levels from irregular warfare to large-scale combat operations—is ruinous and so nations do their best to avoid open conflict. The costs of war also mean that when they do fight countries have powerful incentives not to escalate and expand those wars—to keep the fighting contained, especially when it could go nuclear. This is one of the most powerful insights from both history and game theory: war is a last resort, and the costlier that war, the harder both sides will work to avoid it.

When analysts forget this fact, not only do they exaggerate the chances of war, they do something much worse: they get the causes all wrong and take the wrong steps to avert the violence.

Imagine intensive care doctors who, deluged with critically ill patients, forgot that humanity’s natural state is good health. That would be demoralizing. But it would also make them terrible at diagnosis and treatment. How could you know what was awry without comparing the healthy to the sick?

And yet, when it comes to war, most of us fall victim to this selection bias, giving most of our attention to the times peace failed. Few write books or news articles about the wars that didn’t happen. Instead, we spend countless hours tracing the threads of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, America’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, or the two world wars. When we do, it distorts our diagnosis and our treatments. For if we follow these calamitous events back to their root causes and preceding events, we often find a familiar list: bumbling leaders, ancient hatreds, intransigent ideologies, dire poverty, historic injustices, and a huge supply of weapons and impressionable young men. War seems to be their inevitable result.

Unfortunately, this ignores all the instances conflict was avoided. When social scientists look at these peaceful cases, they see a lot of the same preceding conditions—bumblers, hatreds, injustices, poverty, and armaments. All these so-called causes of war are commonplace. Prolonged violence is not. So these are probably not the chief causes of war.

Take World War I. Historians like to explain how Europe’s shortsighted, warmongering, nationalist leaders naively walked their societies into war. It was all a grand miscalculation, this story goes. The foibles of European leaders surely played a role, but to stop the explanation here is to forget all the world wars avoided up to that point. For decades, the exact same leaders had managed great crises without fighting. In the fifteen years before 1914 alone, innumerable continental wars almost—but never—happened: a British-French standoff in a ruined Egyptian outpost in Sudan in 1898; Russia’s capture of Britain’s far eastern ports in 1900; Austria’s seizure of Bosnia in 1908; two wars between the Balkan states in 1912 and 1913. A continent-consuming war could have been ignited in any one of these corners of the world. But it was not.

Likewise, it’s common to blame the war in Ukraine overwhelmingly on Putin’s obsessions and delusions. These surely played a role, but to stop here is to stop too soon. We must also pay attention to the conflicts that didn’t happen. For years, Russia cowed other neighbors with varying degrees of persuasion and force, from the subjugation of Belarus to “ peacekeeping ” missions in Kazakhstan. Few of these power contests came to blows. To find the real roots of fighting, analysts need to pay attention to these struggles that stay peaceful.

Enemies Prefer to Loathe One Another in Peace

Fighting is simply bargaining through violence. This is what Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung meant in 1938 when he said , “Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.” Mao was echoing the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz who, a century before, reminded us that war is the continuation of politics by other means.

Of course, one of these means is far, far costlier than the other. Two adversaries have a simple choice: split the contested territory or stake in proportion to their relative strength, or go to war and gamble for the shrunken and damaged remains. It’s almost always better to look for compromise. For every war that ever was, a thousand others have been averted through discussion and concession.

Compromise is the rule because, for the most part, groups behave strategically: like players of poker or chess, they’re trying hard to think ahead, discern their opponents’ strength and plans, and choose their actions based on what they expect their opponents to do. They are not perfect. They make mistakes or lack information. But they have huge incentives to do their best.

This is the essential way to think about warfare: not as some base impulse or inevitability, but as the unusual and errant breakdown of incredibly powerful incentives for peace. Something had to interrupt the normal incentives for compromise, pushing opponents from normal politics, polarized and contentious, to bargaining through bloodshed.

This gives us a fresh perspective on war. If fighting is rare because it is ruinous, then every answer to why we fight is simple: a society or its leaders ignored the costs (or were willing to pay them). And while there is a reason for every war and a war for every reason, there are only so many logical ways societies overlook the costs of war—five, to be exact. From gang wars to ethnic violence, and from civil conflicts to world wars, the same five reasons underlie conflict at every level: war happens when a society or its leader is unaccountable, ideological, uncertain, biased, or unreliable.

Five Reasons for War

Consider Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What do these five tell us about why peace broke down?

1. Unaccountable. A personalized autocrat , Putin doesn’t have to weigh the interests of his soldiers and citizens. He can pursue whatever course helps him preserve his regime’s control. When leaders go unchecked and are unaccountable to their people, they can ignore the costs of fighting that ordinary people bear. Instead, rulers can pursue their own agendas. That is why dictators are more prone to war .

2. Ideological. Consider Putin again. Most accounts of the current war dwell on his nationalist obsessions and desires for a glorious legacy. What costs and risks he does bear, Putin is willing to pay in pursuit of glory and ideology. This is just one example of intangible and ideological incentives for war that so many leaders possess—God’s glory, freedom, or some nationalist vision.

Societies have ideological incentives too. Unlike the people of Belarus or Kazakhstan, the Ukrainians refused to accept serious restrictions on their sovereignty despite what (at first) seemed to be relative military weakness. Like liberation movements throughout history—including the American revolutionaries—they have been willing to undertake the ruin and risks of fighting partly in pursuit of an ideal.

3. Biased. Most accounts of Russia’s invasion stress Putin’s isolation and insulation from the truth. He and his advisors grossly underestimated the difficulty of war. This is a story of institutional bias—a system that is unwilling to tell its leader bad news. Autocrats are especially prone to this problem, but intelligence failures plague democracies too . Leaders can be psychologically biased as well. Humans have an amazing ability to cling to mistaken beliefs. We can be overconfident, underestimating the ruin of war and overestimating our chances of victory. And we demonize and misjudge our opponents. These misperceptions can carry us to war.

4. Uncertain. Too much focus on bias and misperception obscures the subtler role of uncertainty. In the murky run-up to war, policymakers don’t know their enemy’s strength or resolve. How unified would the West be? How capably would Ukrainians resist? How competent was the Russian military? All these things were fundamentally uncertain, and many experts were genuinely surprised that Russia got a bad draw on all three—most of all, presumably, Putin himself.

But uncertainty doesn’t just mean the costs of war are uncertain, and invasion a gamble. There are genuine strategic impediments to getting good information . You can’t trust your enemy’s demonstrations of resolve, because they have reasons to bluff, hoping to extract a better deal without fighting. Any poker player knows that, amid the uncertainty, the optimal strategy is never to fold all the time. It’s never to call all the time, either. The best strategy is to approach it probabilistically—to occasionally gamble and invade.

5. Unreliable. When a declining power faces a rising one, how can it trust the rising power to commit to peace ? Better to pay the brutal costs of war now, to lock in one’s current advantage. Some scholars argue that such shifts in power, and the commitment problems they create, are at the root of every long war in history —from World War I to the US invasion of Iraq. This is not why Russia invaded Ukraine, of course. Still, it may help to understand the timing. In 2022, Russia had arguably reached peak leverage versus Ukraine. Ukraine was acquiring drones and defensive missiles. And the country was growing more democratic and closer to Europe—to Putin, a dangerous example of freedom nearby. How could Ukraine commit to stop either move? We don’t know what Putin and his commanders debated behind closed doors, but these trends may have presented a now-or-never argument for invasion.

Putting the five together, as with World War I and so many other wars, fallible, biased leaders with nationalist ambitions ignored the costs of war and drove their societies to violent ruin. But the explanation doesn’t end there. There are strategic roots as well. In the case of Russia, as elsewhere, unchecked power, uncertainty, and commitment problems arising from shifting power narrowed the range of viable compromises to the point where Putin’s psychological and institutional failures—his misperceptions and ideology—could lead him to pursue politics by violent means.

The Paths to Peace

If war happens when societies or their leaders overlook its costs, peace is preserved when our institutions make those costs difficult to ignore. Successful, peaceful societies have built themselves some insulation from all five kinds of failure. They have checked the power of autocrats. They have built institutions that reduce uncertainty, promote dialogue, and minimize misperceptions. They have written constitutions and bodies of law that make shifts in power less deadly. They have developed interventions—from sanctions to peacekeeping forces to mediators—that minimize our strategic and human incentives to fight rather than compromise.

It is difficult, however, to expect peace in a world where power in so many countries remains unchecked . Highly centralized power is one of the most dangerous things in the world, because it accentuates all five reasons for war. With unchecked leaders , states are more prone to their idiosyncratic ideologies and biases. In the pursuit of power, autocrats also tend to insulate themselves from critical information. The placing of so much influence in one person’s hands adds to the uncertainty and unpredictability of the situation. Almost by definition, unchecked rulers have trouble making credible commitments.

That is why the real root cause of this current war is surely Putin’s twenty-year concentration of power in himself. And it is why the world’s most worrisome trend may be in China, where a once checked and institutionalized leader has gathered more and more power in his person. There is, admittedly, little a nation can do to alter the concentration of power within its rivals’ political systems. But no solution can be found without a proper diagnosis of the problem.

Christopher Blattman is a professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. This article draws from his new book, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace , published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Oles_Navrotskyi , via depositphotos.com

30 Comments

War, in the end, is about Armed Robbery writ large; whether Committing it, Preventing it, or Redressing it. It is all about somebody trying to take somebody else's stuff.

Peace is the time of waiting for war. A time of preparation, or a time of willful ignorance, blind, blinkered and prattling behind secure walls. – Steven Erikson

That is the right reason, I do not know about the others, but I will give you a+ on this one

its beeches thy want Resorces

Wars often come when a group of nations (for example the USSR in the Old Cold War of yesterday and the U.S./the West in New/Reverse Cold War of today) move out smartly to "transform"/to "modernize" both their own states and societies (often leads to civil wars) and other states and societies throughout the world also (often leads to wars between countries).

The enemy of those groups of nations — thus pursuing such "transformative"/such "modernizing" efforts — are, quite understandably, those individuals and groups, and those states and societies who (a) would lose current power, influence, control, safety, privilege, security, etc.; this, (b) if these such "transformative"/these such "modernizing" efforts were to be realized.

From this such perspective, and now discussing only the U.S./the West post-Cold War efforts — to "transform"/to "modernize" the states and societies of the world (to include our own states and societies here in the U.S./the West) — this, so that same might be made to better interact with, better provide for and better benefit from such things as capitalism, globalization and the global economy;

Considering this such U.S./Western post-Cold War "transformative"/"modernizing" effort, note the common factor of "resistance to change" coming from:

a. (Conservative?) Individual and groups — here in the U.S./the West — who want to retain currently threatened (and/or regain recently lost) power, influence, control, etc. And:

b. (Conservative?) states and societies — elsewhere throughout the world — who have this/these exact same ambition(s).

From this such perspective, to note the nexus/the connection/the "common cause" noted here:

"Liberal democratic societies have, in the past few decades, undergone a series of revolutionary changes in their social and political life, which are not to the taste of all their citizens. For many of those, who might be called social conservatives, Russia has become a more agreeable society, at least in principle, than those they live in. Communist Westerners used to speak of the Soviet Union as the pioneer society of a brighter future for all. Now, the rightwing nationalists of Europe and North America admire Russia and its leader for cleaving to the past."

(See "The American Interest" article "The Reality of Russian Soft Power" by John Lloyd and Daria Litinova.)

“Compounding it all, Russia’s dictator has achieved all of this while creating sympathy in elements of the Right that mirrors the sympathy the Soviet Union achieved in elements of the Left. In other words, Putin is expanding Russian power and influence while mounting a cultural critique that resonates with some American audiences, casting himself as a defender of Christian civilization against Islam and the godless, decadent West.”

(See the “National Review” item entitled: “How Russia Wins” by David French.)

Bottom Line Thought — Based on the Above:

In the final paragraph of our article above, the author states: "That is why the real root cause of this current war is surely Putin’s twenty-year concentration of power in himself."

Based on the information that I provide above — which addresses the "resistance" efforts of entities both here at home and there abroad — might we beg to differ?

From the perspective of wars between nations relating to attempts as "transformation" by one party (and thus not as relates to civil wars which occur with "transformative" attempts in this case) here is my argument above possibly stated another way:

1. In the Old Cold War of yesterday, when the Soviets/the communists sought to "transform the world" — in their case, so that same might be made to better interact with, better provide for and better benefit from such this as socialism and communism:

a. The "root cause" of the conflicts that the U.S. was engaged in back then — for example in places such as Central America —

b. This such "root cause" was OUR determination to stand hard against these such "transformative" efforts and activities — which were taking place, back then, in OUR backyard/in OUR sphere of influence/in OUR neck of the woods.

2. In the New/Reverse Cold War of today, however, when now it is the U.S./the West that seeks to "transform the world" — in our case, so that same might be made to better interact with, better provide for and better benefit from such things as market-democracy:

“The successor to a doctrine of containment must be a strategy of enlargement, enlargement of the world’s free community of market democracies,’ Mr. Lake said in a speech at the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University.”

(See the September 22, 1993 New York Times article “U.S. Vision of Foreign Policy Reversed” by Thomas L. Friedman.)

a. Now the "root cause" of the conflicts that Russia is engaged in today — for example in places such as Ukraine —

b. This such "root cause" is now RUSSIA'S determination to stand hard against these such "transformative" efforts and activities — which are taking place now in RUSSIA'S backyard/in RUSSIA'S sphere of influence/in RUSSIA's neck of the woods.

(From this such perspective, of course, [a] the current war in Ukraine, this would seem to [b] have little — or indeed nothing — to do with "Putin's twenty-year concentration of power in himself?")

It’s easy to put the whole blame on Putin himself with his unchecked power . But this is a gross simplification of the reality in case of the Ukraine war. NATO expansion everywhere and especially into the very birthplace of Russia was a huge irritator , perceived as unacceptable, threatening, arrogant with no regard to Russia’s interests. Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 was a clear warning, that was completely ignored. Without NATO’s ambitions there would be no war in Ukraine. Or Georgia .

When the Soviet Union installed missles in Cuba , the democratic and presumably the country with all checks and balances in place almost started a nuclear war with the Soviets. It was a reckless gamble that could end the world Why expect anything less from the modern Russia that feels threatened by NATO encroachment?

In the end, whether it's about committing, preventing, or rectifying, war is all about armed robbery. The main plot is around a thief trying to steal from another person.

One of the main causes of war is nationalist garbage. This nationalist site conveniently omits this as they push their preferred chosen nationalist enemy(cold war leftovers in this case) on the reader. What do you expect from OVRA/NKVD reruns?

In addition to the reasons explored to further explain the cause of war, there are also self-defeating schema in thought structures that deteriorate over time. They become compromised by the wear-and-tear grind of life of individuals seeking natural causes and solutions collectively and apart. This is particularly relevant to the matter of war dynamics. When energies used to pursue peace are perceived as exhausted, unspent warfare resources appear more attractive. Particularly in the instances of deteriorating leaders who are compromised by psychopathy, war can quickly become nearly inevitable. Add a number of subordinated population that are unable to resist, and the world can quickly find itself following in the footsteps of leaders marching to their own demise. On the broader sociopolitical battlefield, with democracy trending down and the deterioration in global leadership increasing, the probability of both war and peaceful rewards increase. The questions that arise in my mind point to developing leaps forward to the structures of global leadership, particularly for self-governing populations, leveraging resources that mitigate the frailties of societal and individual human exhaustion, and capping warfare resources at weakened choke points to avoid spillovers of minor conflicts into broader destruction. Technology certainly can be used to mitigate much more than has been realized.

Wow, I could say all those things about the U.S. and its rulers.

We don't have a dictator.

Trump came pretty close to being a dictator, what with the way people were following him blindly, and the ways that all parties, (Both republicans AND democrats) have been acting lately I wouldn't be surprised if a dictator came into power

War happens because humans are predatory animals and preditors kill other preditors every chance they get. The 3 big cats of africa are a prime example. We forget that we are animals that have animal insticts. There will always be war.

As in, "SOme of us are carnivores and some of us are herbivores?" Hitler was a vegetarian….

The cause of war is fear, Russia feared a anti Russian Army in Ukraine would come to fruitinion in the Ukraine threatening to invade Moscow!

But did the USA really have anything to fear from Iraq? From Afghanistan? From Vietnam?

it takes one powerful man in power to start war and millions of innocence people to die, to stop the war . / answer!,to in prison any powerful person who starts the war , and save your family life and millions of lives, / out law war.

The biggest cause of war is the demonstration of weakness among democratic nations facing a well-armed dictator with irrational ambitions. In the case of Russia, the democratic world turned weak on Vladimir Putin at a time when both democratic institutions and peace might have been preserved. Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first-ever freely elected president, had given the newly democratic Russia a real chance to enter the community of free nations in 1991. But when Putin was elected in 2000, we saw the warning signs of trouble. Putin already was undermining democracy. In Russia’s transition from socialism, he used his old KGP connections to buy up all the political parties (except ironically the Communist Party, which now was tiny and unpopular). He also declared he yearned for the old greater Russia, with those Soviet Union borders. The U.S. and NATO didn’t take Putin’s greater-Russia statements too seriously. After all, once their economy stabilized after the transition from socialism, the Russian people were pleased with their new and free Russia, the removal of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, and the new openness to the West. There was no popular call for retaking old territory. But Putin had his own plans, and as Christopher Blattman’s article observes, when you’re dictator (and even with ‘elections’ you are dictator if you own all the political parties) you can go your bloody way. Then came America’s ‘Russian re-set.’ As Putin consolidated his power, and forced the parliament, the Duma, to give him permission to run for several unopposed ‘re-elections,’ the U.S. decided to go gentle on Putin, in hopes he’d abandon his authoritarian course. This was the fatal mistake. When the U.S. should have been publicly encouraging Putin to commit himself to international borders and to democracy in Russia, the U.S. leadership instead was asking what it could do to make Putin happy. Putin saw this as weakness, an opening for his insane territorial desires, which focused mainly on Ukraine. He let a few more years go by, prepared secretly, and then in 2014, he ordered the invasion of Ukraine, killing about 14,000 people and claiming Ukraine’s Crimea for Russia. The U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Russia, but the terrible damage had been done. Because the Free World’s leaders had let down their guard, an awful precedent had been set. A new Russian dictator had murdered to steal territory. To him, the price was low. That told him he could do it again someday. And in 2022, again sensing weakness from the West, Putin invaded Ukraine once more. Not only have tens of thousands of Ukrainians been killed in this new war, but the Russian people themselves are now locked in an even tighter, more brutal dictatorship. Peace through Strength is not just a slogan. It’s as real as War through Weakness. My father, who fought in Europe in World War II, said an American soldier’s first duty was to preserve America’s rights and freedoms, as described in the Constitution. He said an American soldier also has two jobs. A soldier’s first job, he said, is to block the tyrants. Just stand in their way, he said, and most tyrants won’t even try to pass. That’s Peace through Strength. A soldier’s second job, he said, is to fight and win wars. He said that second job won’t have to be done often if we do enough of the first job.

I hope there will be no more wars in the world

This, pandemic of wars will soon make us realize and accept the fact that the global society’s compassion towards its individuals is numbed and will eventually be completely absent as it is transformed into a human super-organism, just as one’s body is not concerned about the millions of cells dying daily in it, unless it affects the body as a whole like the cancer cells where we consider them to be terrorists and actively kill them.

Boghos L. Artinian MD

I hope there is no more war in this world

war it not good for all humans

Ultimately, be it engaging in, averting, or resolving, war can be likened to organized theft. The central theme revolves around a thief attempting to pilfer from someone else.

In the end, whether involving, preventing, or resolving, war can be compared to organized theft. The core idea centers on a thief attempting to steal from someone else.

No nation would wage a war for the independence of another. Boghos L. Artinian

And I will give you one word that sums up and supersedes your Five Reasons: Covetousness James 4:2, ESV, The Holy Bible.

Christopher Blattman offers a comprehensive analysis of the five key reasons wars occur, shedding light on the complexities underlying conflicts and peacekeeping efforts. Blattman emphasizes the importance of understanding the incentives for peace and the institutional mechanisms that mitigate the risk of war. By examining factors such as accountability, ideology, bias, uncertainty, and reliability, he provides a nuanced perspective on the decision-making processes that lead to conflict. Blattman's insights underscore the significance of promoting dialogue, minimizing misperceptions, and strengthening institutions to preserve peace in an increasingly volatile world.

Excuse me, but why all the Russia focus? Also, can all these "reasons of war" be applied to Israel also – autocratic rule, biases in information, etc? Finally, most wars in the last 70 years have been started by the US (either directly invading, or by supporting a nationalist faction in bloody coups and civil wars) – do the same reasons apply to those wars, as in the US has essentially autocratic leadership which has biased views and fears competition?

This article offers a crucial reminder that while the threats from nations like Russia and China are real, war is usually a last resort due to its ruinous costs. By focusing not just on conflicts but also on the many instances where peace is maintained, we can better understand how to prevent escalation and foster stability. The analysis of the five reasons wars occur—unaccountability, ideology, bias, uncertainty, and unreliability—provides valuable insights for building stronger institutions that promote peace.

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What can the UN do to stop war?

The United Nations was established at the end of World War II “t o save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” . Now that war has returned to Europe many ask what the United Nations can do to stop it. Following are 5 questions and answers regarding the instruments at the UN´s disposal in its efforts to secure international peace and security.

Can the Security Council stop a war?

Well, first let us review its mission.

The functions and powers of the Security Council are set out in the UN Charter, the Organization’s founding document.

The Security Council is made up of 15 members : five permanent seats belong to China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States; 10 non-permanent seats rotate by election among other UN member countries. Itis the body that was granted the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Under Article 25 of the Charter all members of the UN have the obligation to accept and carry out decisions adopted by the Council . In other words, actions taken by the Council are binding on all UN member countries.

When dealing with crises, the Council, guided by the UN Charter, can take several steps.

Acting under Chapter VI of the Charter, the Council can call upon parties to a dispute to settle it by peaceful means and recommend methods of adjustment or terms of settlement. It can also recommend the referral of disputes to the International Court of Justice ( ICJ ).

In some cases, the Security Council may act under Chapter VII of the Charter and resort to imposing sanctions . As a last resort, when peaceful means of settling a dispute are exhausted, it can even authorize the use of force by Member States, coalitions of Member States or UN-authorized peace operations to maintain or restore international peace and security.

The first time the Council authorized the use of force was in 1950 under what was referred to as a military enforcement action, to secure the withdrawal of North Korean forces from the Republic of Korea.

What is the ‘veto power’ and how can it be used?

The voting procedure in the Security Council is guided by Article 27 of the UN Charter which establishes that each member of the Council has one vote.

When deciding on “procedural matters”, nine members need to vote in favour of a decision  in order for it to be adopted. On all other matters, an affirmative vote from nine members “including the concurring votes of the permanent members” is necessary.

In other words, a negative vote by any of the permanent five (China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom or the United States) can prevent the adoption by the Council of any draft resolution relating to substantive matters.

Can the General Assembly step in when the Security Council is unable to take a decision on stopping a war?

According to the General Assembly’s 1950 resolution 377A (V) , widely known as ‘Uniting for Peace’, if the Security Council is unable to act because of the lack of unanimity among its five veto-wielding permanent members, the Assembly has the power to make recommendations to the wider UN membership for collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security.

In addition, the General Assembly may meet in Emergency Special Session if requested by nine members of the Security Council or by a majority of the Members of the Assembly.

However, unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, meaning that countries are not obligated to implement them.

Can a country’s membership in the UN be revoked?

Article 6 of the Charter reads as follows:

A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

This has never happened in the history of the United Nations.

Article 5 provides for the suspension of a Member State:

A Member of the United Nations against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Security Council may be suspended from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

Unless they agree to their own expulsion or suspension, permanent Council members can only be removed through an amendment of the UN Charter, as set out in Chapter XVIII .

The UN has, however, taken steps against certain countries to end major injustices. One example is the case of South Africa and the world body’s contribution to the global struggle against apartheid . The General Assembly refused to accept the country’s credentials from 1970 to 1974. Following this ban, South Africa did not participate in further proceedings of the Assembly until the end of apartheid in 1994.

What are the Secretary-General’s ‘good offices’?

One of the most vital roles played by the Secretary-General is the use of his ‘good offices’ – steps taken publicly and in private, drawing upon their independence, impartiality and integrity, and the power of quiet diplomacy, to prevent international disputes from arising, escalating or spreading.

At the end of March, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invoked the use of his good offices and asked Under Secretary-General Martin Griffiths, the UN emergency relief coordinator, to explore the possibility of a humanitarian cease-fire with Russia and Ukraine, and other countries seeking to find a peaceful solution to the war.

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16.4 Preventing War and Stopping Terrorism

Learning objectives.

• Outline approaches that show promise for preventing war.
• Understand the differences between the law enforcement and structural-reform approaches to preventing terrorism.

War has existed since prehistoric times, and terrorism goes back at least to the days of the Old Testament (e.g., when Samson brought down the temple of the Philistines in an act of suicide that also killed scores of Philistines). Given their long histories, war and terrorism are not easy to prevent. However, theory and research by sociologists and other social scientists point to several avenues that may ultimately help make the world more peaceful.

Preventing War

The usual strategies suggested by political scientists and international relations experts to prevent war include arms control and diplomacy. Approaches to arms control and diplomacy vary in their actual and potential effectiveness. The historical and research literatures on these approaches are vast (Daase & Meier, 2012; Garcia, 2012) and beyond the scope of this chapter. Regardless of the specific approaches taken, suffice it here to say that arms control and diplomacy will always remain essential strategies to prevent war, especially in the nuclear age when humanity is only minutes away from possible destruction.

Beyond these two essential strategies, the roots of war must also be addressed. As discussed earlier, war is a social, not biological, phenomenon and arises from decisions by political and military leaders to go to war. There is ample evidence that deceit accompanies many of these decisions, as leaders go to many wars for less than noble purposes. To the extent this is true, citizens must always be ready to question any rationales given for war, and a free press in a democracy must exercise eternal vigilance in reporting on these rationales. According to critics, the press and the public were far too acquiescent in the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003, just as they had been acquiescent a generation earlier when the Vietnam War began being waged (Solomon, 2006). To prevent war, then, the press and the public must always be ready to question assumptions about the necessity of war. The same readiness should occur in regard to militarism and the size of the military budget.

In this regard, history shows that social movements can help prevent or end armament and war and limit the unchecked use of military power once war has begun (Breyman, 2001; Staggenborg, 2010). While activism is no guarantee of success, responsible nonviolent protest against war and militarism provides an important vehicle for preventing war or for more quickly ending a war once it has begun.

People Making a Difference

Speaking Truth to Power

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that has long worked for peace and social justice. Its national office is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and it has local offices in more than thirty other US cities and also in more than a dozen other nations.

AFSC was established in 1917 to help conscientious objectors serve their country in nonmilitary ways during World War I. After that war ended with the defeat of Germany and Austria, AFSC provided food to thousands of German and Austrian children. It helped Jewish refugees after Hitler came to power, and sent various forms of aid to Japan after World War II ended. During the 1960s, it provided nonviolence training for civil rights activists and took a leading role in the movement to end the Vietnam War. Since the 1960s, AFSC has provided various types of help to immigrants, migrant workers, prisoners, and other “have-not” groups in need of social justice. It also works to achieve nonviolent conflict resolution in urban communities and spoke out against plans to begin war in Iraq in 2003.

In 1947, AFSC and its British counterpart won the Nobel Peace Prize for their aid to hungry children and other Europeans during and after World Wars I and II. The Nobel committee proclaimed in part, “The Quakers have shown us that it is possible to carry into action something which is deeply rooted in the minds of many: sympathy with others; the desire to help others…without regard to nationality or race; feelings which, when carried into deeds, must provide the foundations of a lasting peace.”

For almost a century, the American Friends Service Committee has been active in many ways to achieve a more just, peaceable world. It deserves the world’s thanks for helping to make a difference. For further information, visit http://www.afsc.org .

As we think about how to prevent war, we must not forget two important types of changes that create pressures for war: population change and environmental change. Effective efforts to reduce population growth in the areas of the world where it is far too rapid will yield many benefits, but one of these is a lower likelihood that certain societies will go to war. Effective efforts to address climate change will also yield many benefits, and one of these is also a lower likelihood of war and ethnic conflict in certain parts of the world.

Finally, efforts to prevent war must keep in mind the fact that ideological differences and prejudice sometimes motivate decisions to go to war. It might sound rather idealistic to say that governments and their citizenries should respect ideological differences and not be prejudiced toward people who hold different religious or other ideologies or have different ethnic backgrounds. However, any efforts by international bodies, such as the United Nations, to achieve greater understanding along these lines will limit the potential for war and other armed conflict. The same potential holds true for efforts to increase educational attainment within the United States and other industrial nations but especially within poor nations. Because prejudice generally declines as education increases, measures that raise educational attainment promise to reduce the potential for armed conflict in addition to the other benefits of increased education.

In addition to these various strategies to prevent war, it is also vital to reduce the size of the US military budget. Defense analysts who think this budget is too high have proposed specific cuts in weapons systems that are not needed and in military personnel at home and abroad who are not needed (Arquilla & Fogelson-Lubliner, 2011; Knight, 2011; Sustainable Defense Task Force, 2010). Making these cuts would save the nation from $100 billion to $150 billion annually without at all endangering national security. This large sum could then be spent to help meet the nation’s many unmet domestic needs.

Stopping Terrorism

Because of 9/11 and other transnational terrorism, most analyses of “stopping terrorism” focus on this specific type. Traditional efforts to stop transnational terrorism take two forms (White, 2012). The first strategy involves attempts to capture known terrorists and to destroy their camps and facilities and is commonly called a law enforcement or military approach. The second strategy stems from the recognition of the structural roots of terrorism just described and is often called a structural-reform approach. Each approach has many advocates among terrorism experts, and each approach has many critics.

Law enforcement and military efforts have been known to weaken terrorist forces, but terrorist groups have persisted despite these measures. Worse yet, these measures may ironically inspire terrorists to commit further terrorism and increase public support for their cause. Critics also worry that the military approach endangers civil liberties, as the debate over the US response to terrorism since 9/11 so vividly illustrates (Cole & Lobel, 2007). This debate took an interesting turn in late 2010 amid the increasing use of airport scanners that generate body images. Many people criticized the scanning as an invasion of privacy, and they also criticized the invasiveness of the “pat-down” searches that were used for people who chose not to be scanned (Reinberg, 2010).

In view of all these problems, many terrorism experts instead favor the structural-reform approach, which they say can reduce terrorism by improving or eliminating the conditions that give rise to the discontent that leads individuals to commit terrorism. Here again the assessment of the heads of the 9/11 Commission illustrates this view: “We must use all the tools of U.S. power—including foreign aid, educational assistance and vigorous public diplomacy that emphasizes scholarship, libraries and exchange programs—to shape a Middle East and a Muslim world that are less hostile to our interests and values. America’s long-term security relies on being viewed not as a threat but as a source of opportunity and hope” (Kean & Hamilton, 2007, p. B1).

Although there are no easy solutions to transnational terrorism, then, efforts to stop this form of terrorism must not neglect its structural roots. As long as these roots persist, new terrorists will come along to replace any terrorists who are captured or killed. Such recognition of the ultimate causes of transnational terrorism is thus essential for the creation of a more peaceable world.

Key Takeaways

• Arms control and diplomacy remain essential strategies for stopping war, but the roots of war must also be addressed.
• The law enforcement/military approach to countering terrorism may weaken terrorist groups, but it also may increase their will to fight and popular support for their cause and endanger civil liberties.

For Your Review

• Do you think deceit was involved in the decision of the United States to go to war against Iraq in 2003? Why or why not?
• Which means of countering terrorism do you prefer more, the law enforcement/military approach or the structural-reform approach? Explain your answer.

Arquilla, J., & Fogelson-Lubliner. (2011, March 13). The Pentagon’s biggest boondoggles. New York Times , p. WK12.

Breyman, S. (2001). Why movements matter: The west German peace movement and US arms control policy . Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Cole, D., & Lobel, J. (2007). Less safe, less free: Why America is losing the war on terror . New York, NY: New Press.

Daase, C., & Meier, O. (Eds.). (2012). Arms control in the 21st century: Between coercion and cooperation . New York, NY: Routledge.

Garcia, D. (2012). Disarmament diplomacy and human security: Regimes, norms, and moral progress in international relations . New York, NY: Routledge.

Kean, T. H., & Hamilton, L. H. (2007, September 9). Are we safer today? The Washington Post , p. B1.

Knight, C. (2011). Strategic adjustment to sustain the force: A survey of current proposals . Cambridge, MA: Project on Defense Alternatives.

Reinberg, S. (2010, November 23). Airport body scanners safe, experts say. Bloomberg Businessweek . Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com .

Solomon, N. (2006). War made easy: How presidents and pundits keep spinning us to death Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Staggenborg, S. (2010). Social movements . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Sustainable Defense Task Force. (2010). Debt, deficits, & defense: A way forward . Cambridge, MA: Project on Defense Alternatives.

White, J. R. (2012). Terrorism and homeland security: An introduction (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Social Problems Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Essay on How to Prevent War

Students are often asked to write an essay on How to Prevent War in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on How to Prevent War

Understanding war.

War is a serious conflict between nations or groups, often leading to suffering and loss. It’s crucial to prevent war to maintain peace.

Education is key. Learning about different cultures, histories, and perspectives can promote understanding and reduce conflicts.

Open and honest communication can solve disagreements before they escalate. Diplomacy is a powerful tool for preventing war.

Cooperation

Countries working together on common goals, like climate change or poverty, can foster unity and lessen the risk of war.

International Laws

250 words essay on how to prevent war, understanding the roots of conflict.

War, a manifestation of extreme conflict, often stems from disputes over resources, territorial claims, or ideological differences. To prevent war, it is essential to understand these roots of conflict. Education plays a crucial role in fostering understanding and empathy among diverse groups, reducing the likelihood of ideological clashes.

International Diplomacy and Cooperation

International diplomacy and cooperation are key in preventing war. By promoting dialogue, countries can resolve disputes peacefully. International organizations like the United Nations play a significant role in mediating conflicts and enforcing international law. These institutions should be strengthened and supported to effectively prevent wars.

Disarmament and Non-Proliferation

Disarmament and non-proliferation treaties can also help prevent war. By reducing the number of weapons, particularly weapons of mass destruction, the potential for conflict is diminished. These treaties must be enforced rigorously, with violators held accountable.

Economic Interdependence

Economic interdependence can serve as a deterrent to war. When countries are economically intertwined, the cost of conflict becomes too high. Thus, promoting global trade and economic integration can contribute to peace.

Encouraging a Culture of Peace

Finally, fostering a culture of peace within societies can prevent war. This involves promoting values such as respect for human rights, tolerance, and non-violence. Through education and societal norms, we can cultivate a mindset that rejects war as a means of resolving disputes.

500 Words Essay on How to Prevent War

Introduction.

War, a state of armed conflict between different nations or states, is a devastating event that brings about immense loss of life and property. It disrupts the social, economic, and political balance of the involved regions and leaves a lasting impact on the global community. The prevention of war is a complex task that requires international cooperation, diplomatic efforts, and a deep understanding of the root causes of conflicts.

Understanding the Root Causes of War

The first step in preventing war is understanding its root causes. Wars often stem from unresolved conflicts, territorial disputes, economic disparities, and ideological differences. By identifying these triggers, we can devise strategies to address them proactively. For example, through diplomatic dialogues, nations can resolve territorial disputes peacefully, and through international aid, wealthier nations can help alleviate economic disparities that often spark conflicts.

Strengthening International Institutions

Building trust and promoting dialogue.

Trust-building is an essential component of war prevention. This can be achieved through open dialogue, transparency in international relations, and the promotion of cultural exchange programs that help foster understanding and respect among different nations. By promoting dialogue, nations can address misunderstandings and miscommunications that often lead to conflicts.

Education and Awareness

Education is a powerful tool in preventing war. By educating people about the devastating effects of war and the importance of peace, we can foster a culture of non-violence. Additionally, education can help promote critical thinking and empathy, which are essential for understanding and respecting different perspectives.

Investment in Peacekeeping and Diplomacy

Preventing war is a collective responsibility that requires international cooperation, diplomatic efforts, and a deep understanding of the root causes of conflicts. By addressing these causes proactively, strengthening international institutions, building trust, promoting dialogue, educating people, and investing in peacekeeping and diplomacy, we can create a more peaceful world. The prevention of war is not only about avoiding conflict but also about building a world where peace, justice, and human rights are upheld for all.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Five Ways to Stop War

The way things stand war is too easy. It is too easy to send someone else’s children to fight and die. It is too easy to dehumanize the enemy, making people believe, for example, that all children of Iraq wear the face of Saddam Hussein. It is too easy for leaders to commit egregious crimes under international law, including the crime of aggression, and not pay the price as did the Axis leaders at Nuremberg.

It’s time to change the rules so that those who wage war, particularly illegal war, will have appropriate consequences. It’s time to end the double standards, and to replace might makes right with the rule of law. It’s time to demand that our leaders find peaceful ways to resolve conflicts. Here are five simple ways in which war could be stopped in its tracks.

1. Require the leaders who promote and support war to personally participate in the hostilities. This would provide a critical threshold of personal commitment to war by requiring some actual personal sacrifice of leaders.

2. Show the faces and tell the stories of the children of the “enemy” until we can feel the pain of their deaths as though they were the deaths of our own children. It is much more difficult to slaughter an enemy who one recognizes as being part of the human family.

3. Give full support to the establishment of an International Criminal Court so that national leaders can be tried for all egregious war crimes at the end of any hostilities. All leaders who commit egregious crimes must be held to account under international law as they were at Nuremberg, and they must be aware of this from the outset.

4. Impeach any elected leaders who promote or support illegal, preventive war, what was described at the Nuremberg Trials as an “aggressive” war. It is the responsibility of citizens in a democracy to exercise control over their leaders who threaten to commit crimes under international law, and impeachment provides an important tool to achieve this control.

5. Rise up as a people and demand that one’s government follow its Constitution, cut off funding for war and find a way to peace. US citizens must demand that Congress not give away or allow the president to usurp its sole authority under the Constitution to make the decision to go to war. Citizens should also demand that Congress exercise its power of the purse to prevent war, including not giving financial support to a president attempting to bribe other countries to participate in an illegal war. *David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He is the editor of Hope in a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s Future (Capra Press, 2003). Readers’ Comments

What a wonderful set of rules that could begin our move from pre-cultural to cultural existence. (I explain this in my book.) I especially think the second and last rule are so important. If we had anyone in office with any integrity and character they would have taken away the money long ago, given the state of our (non-exsitent) health and welfare policies. I don’t know why it’s so hard to see that sending butter not bombs and medicine not missiles could turn our foreign policy around. Combine that with allowing countries to be what they want to be in religion, politics, etc., and it wouldn’t be too long that we would be respected and trusted and terrorists would have no place to hide because friends don’t injure friends. What I can’t understand is why no one hasn’t unearthed the president’s “military gap,” his investment shadows and his academic skills so that the world could see really what we have in the White House. Maybe he would turn out to be very impressive and maybe not, I just wish the American people were given the choice to decide for themselves. Where’s Mike Moore when you need him? Keep up your wonderful words and work, — Roger

Another way to stop war is to join an organized boycott of particular U.S. companies. For more information see http://www.motherearth.org/USboycott/

General Electric (Hotpoint and other appliances), Oil Exxon Mobil/Esso, ChevronTexacom, Symbols of US Imperialism Altria (Philip Morris, Kraft) Pepsico (Pepsi, Starbucks), Coca-Cola, McDonalds –Pol D’Huyvetter For Mother Earth International Campaign for Disarmament, Ecology and Human Rights Establish 500 Sister Cities exchanges with the potential adversary. Exchange representatives from business, sports, education, health care, agriculture, city administration, religions, etc. Guests would stay at no cost with congregations of the various “peace churches.” Obvious purpose of these visits, but also seriously converse of the problems between us. Who would prevent this? –Ray David: I especially like your first point – Require the leaders who promote war to personally participate in the hostilities. Alexander the Great was not lolling in some safe bunker with central heat and air – he was in the forefront of the battle. I would also require bush the “leader” to personally meet with Saddam Hussein before hostilities start. Before Gulf WarI I wrote to George Sr. that he and Saddam should meet in the desert, draw a line in the sand, and do hand-to-hand combat until only one was left alive. This would certainly cut down on the casualties!

Another point. It is far too easy to just ship several thousand troops to a staging area to start a war. I realize in the military it is necessary to maintain discipline, meaning “do as you are told”, but when our country has not been directly threatened, personnel should have an opportunity to opt out of participating wihout fear of reprisal. What if they gave a war and nobody showed up? I know that’s not an easy thing to accomplish, but it certainly would be worth a try. –Bernice Grandmothers for Peace Sacramento

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What Was I Made For?

Stop fighting for peace

Should we fight for peace? Well this is what happens in the world. Countries are trying to control the world through wars nowadays. We are trying to get peace through war. That’s the problem: This is just like throwing wood in the fire instead of water. For centuries we have been trying to get peace, but with no results. There are many examples that you could look at to understand what exactly I mean by this. If you take a look at human history you’ll see that we’ve fought many wars and many battles in the name of peace, but where has that really gotten us? It is 2017 and we still have “war against terror” ”war against regions” ”war against poverty” “war against disease”. We must remember that when we win a war by defeating someone, those who lost can suffer from huge problems, isn’t that opposite of peace now? 

On 25th December 1979, Afghanistan was invaded  . After the war ended it made a huge mess and terrorist groups like ISIS emerged . Now what? War again started and is still going. What’s the guarantee of the future that this war with ISIS will bring peace? Maybe after a few years there will be another terrorist group in other parts of the world with dead roots from the middle east. During World War 2, the Middle East saw more peace than places in Europe, Americas, Pacific, and Asia, but after 50 years it appears that conditions are the opposite.

When you engage in violence, don't expect peace. By giving out violence, you will only receive more violence as a reaction from the opposite side . This rage-reaction cycle will continue. You cannot fight for peace to experience peace. Today countries should think about contributing a huge amount of resources towards humanity, poverty, and development, not towards tanks, guns, and modern weapons. There are many examples in history books in need of revision and now nations should take steps towards humanity, not conflicts.

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How to Write War Essay: Russia Ukraine War

Understanding the Purpose and Scope of a War Essay

A condition of armed conflict between nations or between groups living in one nation is known as war. Sounds not like much fun, does it? Well, conflicts have been a part of human history for thousands of years, and as industry and technology have developed, they have grown more devastating. As awful as it might seem, a war typically occurs between a country or group of countries against a rival country to attain a goal through force. Civil and revolutionary wars are examples of internal conflicts that can occur inside a nation.

Your history class could ask you to write a war essay, or you might be personally interested in learning more about conflicts, in which case you might want to learn how to write an academic essay about war. In any scenario, we have gathered valuable guidance on how to organize war essays. Let's first examine the potential reasons for a conflict before moving on to the outline for a war essay.

• Economic Gain - A country's desire to seize control of another country's resources frequently starts conflicts. Even when the proclaimed goal of a war is portrayed to the public as something more admirable, most wars have an economic motivation at their core, regardless of any other possible causes.
• Territorial Gain - A nation may determine that it requires additional land for habitation, agriculture, or other uses. Additionally, the territory might serve as buffer zones between two violent foes.
• Religion - Religious disputes can stem from extremely profound issues. They may go dormant for many years before suddenly resurfacing later.
• Nationalism - In this sense, nationalism simply refers to the act of violently subjugating another country to demonstrate the country's superiority. This frequently manifests as an invasion.
• Revenge - Warfare can frequently be motivated by the desire to punish, make up for, or simply exact revenge for perceived wrongdoing. Revenge has a connection to nationalism as well because when a nation has been wronged, its citizens are inspired by patriotism and zeal to take action.
• Defensive War - In today's world, when military aggression is being questioned, governments will frequently claim that they are fighting in a solely protective manner against a rival or prospective aggressor and that their conflict is thus a 'just' conflict. These defensive conflicts may be especially contentious when conducted proactively, with the basic premise being that we are striking them before they strike us.

How to Write War Essay with a War Essay Outline

Just like in compare and contrast examples and any other forms of writing, an outline for a war essay assists you in organizing your research and creating a good flow. In general, you keep to the traditional three-part essay style, but you can adapt it as needed based on the length and criteria of your school. When planning your war paper, consider the following outline:

Introduction

• Definition of war
• Importance of studying wars
• Thesis statement

Body Paragraphs

• Causes of the War
• Political reasons
• Economic reasons
• Social reasons
• Historical reasons
• Major Players in the War
• Countries and their leaders
• Military leaders
• Allies and enemies
• Strategies and Tactics
• Military tactics and techniques
• Strategic planning
• Weapons and technology
• Impact of the War
• On the countries involved
• On civilians and non-combatants
• On the world as a whole
• Summary of the main points
• Final thoughts on the war
• Suggestions for future research

If you found this outline template helpful, you can also use our physics help for further perfecting your academic assignments.

Begin With a Relevant Hook

A hook should be the focal point of the entire essay. A good hook for an essay on war can be an interesting statement, an emotional appeal, a thoughtful question, or a surprising fact or figure. It engages your audience and leaves them hungry for more information.

Follow Your Outline

An outline is the single most important organizational tool for essay writing. It allows the writer to visualize the overall structure of the essay and focus on the flow of information. The specifics of your outline depend on the type of essay you are writing. For example, some should focus on statistics and pure numbers, while others should dedicate more space to abstract arguments.

How to Discuss Tragedy, Loss, and Sentiment

War essays are particularly difficult to write because of the terrible nature of war. The life is destroyed, the loved ones lost, fighting, death, great many massacres and violence overwhelm, and hatred for the evil enemy, amongst other tragedies, make emotions run hot, which is why sensitivity is so important. Depending on the essay's purpose, there are different ways to deal with tragedy and sentiment.

The easiest one is to stick with objective data rather than deal with the personal experiences of those who may have been affected by these events. It can be hard to remain impartial, especially when writing about recent deaths and destruction. But it is your duty as a researcher to do so.

However, it’s not always possible to avoid these issues entirely. When you are forced to tackle them head-on, you should always be considerate and avoid passing swift and sweeping judgment.

Summing Up Your Writing

When you have finished presenting your case, you should finish it off with some sort of lesson it teaches us. Armed conflict is a major part of human nature yet. By analyzing the events that transpired, you should be able to make a compelling argument about the scale of the damage the war caused, as well as how to prevent it in the future.

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Popular War Essay Topics

When choosing a topic for an essay about war, it is best to begin with the most well-known conflicts because they are thoroughly recorded. These can include the Cold War or World War II. You might also choose current wars, such as the Syrian Civil War or the Russia and Ukraine war. Because they occur in the backdrop of your time and place, such occurrences may be simpler to grasp and research.

To help you decide which war to write about, we have compiled some facts about several conflicts that will help you get off to a strong start.

Russia Ukraine War

Russian President Vladimir Putin started the Russian invasion in the early hours of February 24 last year. According to him. the Ukrainian government had been committing genocide against Russian-speaking residents in the eastern Ukraine - Donbas region since 2014, calling the onslaught a 'special military operation.'

The Russian president further connected the assault to the NATO transatlantic military alliance commanded by the United States. He said the Russian military was determined to stop NATO from moving farther east and establishing a military presence in Ukraine, a part of the Soviet Union, until its fall in 1991.

All of Russia's justifications have been rejected by Ukraine and its ally Western Countries. Russia asserted its measures were defensive, while Ukraine declared an emergency and enacted martial law. According to the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the administration's objective is not only to repel offensives but also to reclaim all Ukrainian land that the Russian Federation has taken, including Crimea.

Both sides of the conflict accuse the other of deploying indiscriminate force, which has resulted in many civilian deaths and displacements. According to current Ukraine news, due to the difficulty of counting the deceased due to ongoing combat, the death toll is likely far higher. In addition, countless Ukrainian refugees were compelled to leave their homeland in search of safety and stability abroad.

Diplomatic talks have been employed to try to end the Ukraine-Russia war. Several rounds of conversations have taken place in various places. However, the conflict is still raging as of April 2023, and there is no sign of a truce.

World War II

World War II raged from 1939 until 1945. Most of the world's superpowers took part in the conflict, fought between two military alliances headed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, and the Axis Powers, led by Germany, Italy, and Japan.

If you'd like to explore it more in-depth, consider using our history essay service for a World War 2 essay pdf sample!

After World War II, a persistent political conflict between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies became known as the Cold War. It's hard to say who was to blame for the cold war essay. American citizens have long harbored concerns about Soviet communism and expressed alarm over Joseph Stalin's brutal control of his own nation. On their side, the Soviets were angry at the Americans for delaying their participation in World War II, which led to the deaths of tens of millions of Russians, and for America's long-standing unwillingness to recognize the USSR as a genuine member of the world community.

Vietnam War

If you're thinking about writing the Vietnam War essay, you should know that it was a protracted military battle that lasted in Vietnam from 1955 to 1975. The North Vietnamese communist government fought South Vietnam and its main ally, the United States, in the lengthy, expensive, and contentious Vietnam War. The ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union exacerbated the issue. The Vietnam War claimed the lives of more than 3 million individuals, more than half of whom were Vietnamese civilians.

American Civil War

Consider writing an American Civil War essay where the Confederate States of America, a grouping of eleven southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860 and 1861, and the United States of America battled each other. If you're wondering what caused the civil war, you should know that the long-standing dispute about the legitimacy of slavery is largely responsible for how the war started.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

After over a century, the Israel-Palestine conflict has evolved into one of the most significant and current problems in the Middle East. A war that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people destroyed their homes and gave rise to terrorist organizations that still hold the region hostage. Simply described, it is a conflict between two groups of people for ownership of the same piece of land. One already resided there, while the other was compelled to immigrate to this country owing to rising antisemitism and later settled there. For Israelis and Palestinians alike, as well as for the larger area, the war continues to have substantial political, social, and economic repercussions.

The Syrian Civil War

Pro-democracy protests broke out in southern Deraa in March 2011 due to upheavals against oppressive leaders in neighboring nations. When the Syrian government employed lethal force to quell the unrest, widespread protests calling for the president's resignation broke out.

The country entered a civil war as the violence quickly increased. After hundreds of rebel organizations emerged, the fight quickly expanded beyond a confrontation between Syrians supporting or opposing Mr. Assad. Everyone believes a political solution is necessary, even though it doesn't seem like it will soon.

Russia-Ukraine War Essay Sample

With the Russian-Ukrainian war essay sample provided below from our paper writing experts, you can gain more insight into structuring a flawless paper.

Why is there a war between Russia and Ukraine?

Final Words

To understand our past and the present, we must study conflicts since they are a product of human nature and civilization. Our graduate essay writing service can produce any kind of essay you want, whether it is about World War II, the Cold War, or another conflict. Send us your specifications with your ' write my essay ' request, and let our skilled writers help you wow your professor!

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What Could Stop the War

Dennis Ross, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama, is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute.

Ambassador Norman Eisen is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former U.S. envoy to the Czech Republic.

If the Ukrainians can hold out long enough to force serious negotiations, Washington must remind both parties that they will need to make several specific—and bitter—concessions.

As Russian leader Vladimir Putin continues his vicious bombardment of Ukraine’s cities and people, it may seem premature to consider what a negotiated solution—an exit strategy—for the invasion might look like. But as former ambassadors who have worked extensively in the region, we believe finding a way to end the war and stop the bloodshed is necessary and will require negotiation.

That reality is clearly appreciated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has sought genuine negotiations,  even asking  the Israelis to mediate. Putin has consented to talks, but still seems more interested in decapitating the Ukrainian government than in negotiating with it. Nonetheless, it is not too early to think about what the contours of an eventual negotiated outcome could be.

Of course, the viability of any solution will depend on the course of the war in the days and weeks ahead. As of this writing, indications are the Putin-led effort is still hellbent on toppling the democratically elected government in Kyiv and replacing it with a  Kremlin-friendly puppet regime  whose strings can be pulled from Moscow. With missiles  shattering buildings and killing civilians  in Kharkiv, Mariupol and Kyiv, and Russia’s foreign minister  continuing to warn  of further escalation, there is little reason for hope in an immediate reduction in hostilities.

But given the devastating effects of the West’s  economic countermeasures , which accelerate by the day, and the costs the Ukrainians  have inflicted  on the Russian military, Putin may well need to look for a way out if the Ukrainians are able to hold on for the next few weeks. Indeed, over that time, the financial pressures, Russian fatalities  and domestic disturbances may become so painful Putin will seek an exit path.

In that scenario, any serious steps toward a negotiated solution would still be some distance away, and would be heavily shaped by the invasion’s outcome. If the war fails to deliver Russia a decisive victory, Ukraine may come to the negotiating table with greater advantages.

Indeed, even if the war and Ukrainian resistance drag on for longer, indefinite Russian occupation or a frozen conflict throughout the country are not sustainable paths forward for the Russians or the Ukrainians. Similarly, the Russian economy will likely not survive under the perpetual weight of current and future sanctions. Something must give.

The first round of talks between the two sides  produced little beyond a tentative plan for further negotiations, the second round of which is set for Thursday in Belarus. We have little hope any real progress will be made; Putin seems clearly not ready for it and probably believes if he cannot remove the regime, he needs to intensify the pain to force concessions.

Still, the two sides are talking. Sooner or later, if a deal is to be reached, concessions will need to come from both sides. We take no pleasure in articulating that reality given the heroic conduct of Ukraine and the abominable behavior of Putin’s Russia, but it is a fact of every negotiation.

What might those concessions be? On the Ukrainian side, Zelensky probably already understands he will need to promise Ukraine will not join NATO. This is at the core of Putin’s supposed  reasoning for the invasion , and he is unlikely to back down from his central demand.

No doubt, Putin will press for demilitarization in Ukraine, and it will be a non-starter for the Ukrainians. But they might well be willing to say once a peace is clearly established, they will accept limitations on the amount and types of weapons they will maintain, and will also agree not to have foreign forces based in Ukraine. Hedges should be built in if there is an external threat to Ukraine.

Perhaps most difficult to swallow for Kyiv: Crimea is for all intents and purposes destined  to remain  under Russia’s dominion, and Luhansk and Donetsk will likely be granted significant autonomy within the Ukrainian system. That, of course, would be consistent with the  Minsk II plan , which provided for decentralization and local self-government for the regions. Putin, whose  obsession  with protecting Russian-speakers from the alleged predations of the Ukrainian state is central to his grievances, will  resist surrendering  the territorial foothold Russian-backed separatists have helped establish for him in those places over the past eight years.

All that being said, the Ukrainian government and people will not concede too much after having so gallantly withstood Putin’s brazen attacks on citizens and nonmilitary infrastructure. As noted above, Ukraine will not demilitarize, as the Kremlin  has demanded . And if we are to understand Putin’s nonsensical justifications correctly, Ukraine will not undergo “denazification” by ousting its own democratically-elected government led by a president who happens  to be Jewish .

For all it will sacrifice, Ukraine will expect commensurate concessions from Russia. Paramount among them will be a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. The withdrawal will need to be accompanied by a drastic reduction of Russian forces away from Ukraine’s borders, including in eastern Ukraine, Belarus and the Black Sea. The Ukrainian government and people cannot be expected to rebuild and return to their peacetime lives with Russian boots, tanks and warships  hovering near  Ukraine’s borders.

These de-escalatory moves would be tied to the phased lifting of sanctions by countries around the world; the United States, United Kingdom and European Union nations being primary among them. Russian compliance with the deal would need to be closely monitored, with the possibility remaining any phased-out sanctions could be reinstated upon a Russian reneging.

While the Russian invasion continues, what should the rest of the world do? First and foremost, Ukraine’s allies should keep the pipeline of resupply open. The thruway for arms, medical supplies and other crucial wartime necessities should not be closed until Russia has proved it negotiated in good faith and intends to hew to the terms of whatever deal emerges.

We strongly agree with President Joe Biden that a no-fly zone  should not be imposed  over Ukraine and US and NATO forces should not be stationed there. Simply put, you do not back a nuclear superpower into a corner.

It does not matter that the Russian president ultimately trapped himself with his own miscalculations. His nuclear saber-rattling reflects not his strength but his weakness. We do not want to create a situation that leaves him no choice but to escalate, potentially setting in motion a chain of events taking on a catastrophic momentum of its own.

Some  analysts  and  commentators  have mapped out scenarios in which further negotiations never happen, and they could be right. Putin might prove successful in ousting Zelensky and his administration. Ironically, if he does, it will come at great cost to his forces, and the puppet regime he imposes will also be sanctioned heavily, making Putin responsible for another potential economic basket case to go along with the one he is engineering in his own country.

Alternatively, the cost of the war in Russian lives and the  severe economic downturn  Russia will suffer could combine to spur Russian protests and threaten Putin’s hold on power. Either of these outcomes are certainly possible.

But if the Ukrainians can resist and hold out long enough, we suspect the war over the coming weeks and its associated agonies—human, economic, political and social—may well push both sides to additional negotiations. If that happens, neither side will get everything it wants. The morality is black and white here, but diplomacy seldom is.

The concessions that come with negotiations are often painful. But our experience has taught us they are infinitely preferable to the indefinite continuation of hostilities, and even when conflicts are driven by an irrational actor like Putin, the logic of diplomacy can take hold. We pray that is the case here.

Ambassador Dennis Ross is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute and former special assistant to President Obama. Ambassador Norman Eisen is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former U.S. envoy to the Czech Republic. This article was originally published on the CNN website , and is republished here under the auspices of The Washington Institute’s Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East.

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How to Stop WAR? 5 Pages 1286 Words

             War is an armed clash between nations because of hostility or .              In simple words, war is fighting between two .              sides. War, in my opinion, is useless because of its damaging results, .              which will be talked about in this paper. It brings suffering and .              death. Under no circumstance is war moral, even in cases of self .              defense. There are just other ways to solve problems. Peace treaties .              are an easy way to end war. In a peace treaty, it is easy to settle .              the differences and come up with an agreement that both sides can .              decide on. That way the solution can be a compromise and problems will .              be fixed. Often it happens when one side can't agree so they decide .              that war is the only solution. In Israel, Jews always try to keep .              peace with other nations, but the Arabs just can never compromise. .              Arabs and Jews are always fighting because they just can't come up .              with a compromise. Wars are begun with many different reasons: Land .              conflicts, Religious disagreements, and independence conflicts. This .              is a story about my grandfather's experience in World War II. It was .              horrifying and gruesome, but the story is not as bad as it was in real .              life.              In 1991, my grandfather, Mike Sabetai, was taken from his home .              by the Nazis, with 17 members of his family. He was taken to a war .              camp where he and other divide into groups. There were groups of .              people who could use their occupations to help them survive. If you .              weren't put in one of these groups, you were immediately brought to a .              gas chamber. There you would wait and be killed by gas. Luckily my .              grandfather was a barber. He used his skill as a tool to stay alive. .              Everyone would be woken at 5:00 am and they would have to carry heavy .              things and run for miles. Then they would come back and do labor work. .              One normal torturous morning, my grandfather was going about his .              business and doing his work. Suddenly his name was called; he was to .              be brought to the chamber. He thought that it was the end.

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Guest Essay

Only a Strong U.S. ‘No’ to Israel Will Stop War in Lebanon

By Steven Simon

Mr. Simon is a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and a distinguished fellow and professor at Dartmouth College.

Update: This guest essay was published before the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and has been updated by the author to reflect the news.

As tension grows between Israel and Hezbollah, the dominant political and military force in Lebanon, neither side wants a full-scale war. But one could explode inadvertently — precipitated by the recent attacks on the Golan Heights and on Hezbollah and Hamas leaders — or deliberately, should Israel see a post-Gaza opportunity to rid itself of another one of its enemies.

In the best case, a cease-fire in Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza would prompt Hezbollah to stop firing rockets into the Jewish state, and the possibility of war in Lebanon would fade.

But tensions rose starting on Saturday, with the launch of what Israel said was a Hezbollah missile that hit Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights on Saturday and killed 12 children and teenagers. Israel responded by hitting a building in Beirut on Tuesday, saying it targeted the Hezbollah commander it believes was responsible. The next day, a top Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran ; Hamas and Iran accused Israel, which has not commented on the report.

If Israel goes further and launches a major operation to uproot Hezbollah, which right-wing members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have been urging, it would be devastating.

The conflict would eviscerate Lebanese society, which is already in a state of economic collapse, spark a humanitarian crisis for which the United States and others will have to pick up the tab, generate increased attacks against U.S. interests in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, and propel violence by Houthi forces in Yemen to higher levels. It will likely also fail to eliminate Hezbollah.

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Essay on What can be done to stop Wars?

Essay – what can be done to stop wars.

What can be done to stop Wars? Essay: War is defined as a period of armed conflict between societies, states and parliamentary groups. The Just War theory is a theory that explains why wars occur. It was originated by Classical Greek and Roman philosophers like Plato and Cicero and was later adopted by Christian theologians like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas that elucidates three reasons why wars are inflicted.  The cause of war in Latin is; ‘Jus ad Bellum’ which justifies war as a means of seeking justice and redemption. However, the devastating impacts of World War I and World War II led to unforeseen losses of human lives and material wealth that warrants the need to stop wars.

In conclusion, war is imminent in modern human civilization as it is motivated by Human greed, lust for power, the gratification of the need to have authority, and acquiring territory. War is justified by three elements such as seeking justice, seeking redemption for defiance of the code of conduct of war and impeachment of peace agreements. The methods of ending war remain two; international Peace Agreements and diplomacy. Both measures have proved to be futile with the outbreak of conflict between Russia and Ukraine on April 18, 2022.

Ans: The Just War theory is a theory originated by Classical Greek and Roman philosophers like Plato and Cicero and was later adopted by Christian theologians like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas that elucidates three reasons why wars are inflicted.

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The increasingly complicated Russia-Ukraine crisis, explained

How the world got here, what Russia wants, and more questions, answered.

by Jen Kirby and Jonathan Guyer

Editor’s note, Wednesday, February 23 : In a Wednesday night speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a “special military operation” would begin in Ukraine. Multiple news organizations reported explosions in multiple cities and evidence of large-scale military operations happening across Ukraine. Find the latest here .

Russia has built up tens of thousands of troops along the Ukrainian border, an act of aggression that could spiral into the largest military conflict on European soil in decades.

The Kremlin appears to be making all the preparations for war: moving military equipment , medical units , even blood , to the front lines. President Joe Biden said this week that Russia had amassed some 150,000 troops near Ukraine . Against this backdrop, diplomatic talks between Russia and the United States and its allies have not yet yielded any solutions.

On February 15, Russia had said it planned “ to partially pull back troops ,” a possible signal that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be willing to deescalate. But the situation hasn’t improved in the subsequent days. The US alleged Putin has in fact added more troops since that pronouncement, and on Friday US President Joe Biden told reporters that he’s “convinced” that Russia had decided to invade Ukraine in the coming days or weeks. “We believe that they will target Ukraine’s capital Kyiv,” Biden said.

Get in-depth coverage about Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Why Ukraine?

Learn the history behind the conflict and what Russian President Vladimir Putin has said about his war aims .

The stakes of Putin’s war

Russia’s invasion has the potential to set up a clash of nuclear world powers . It’s destabilizing the region and terrorizing Ukrainian citizens . It could also impact inflation , gas prices , and the global economy.

How other countries are responding

The US and its European allies have responded to Putin’s aggression with unprecedented sanctions , but have no plans to send troops to Ukraine , for good reason .

How to help

Where to donate if you want to assist refugees and people in Ukraine.

And the larger issues driving this standoff remain unresolved.

The conflict is about the future of Ukraine. But Ukraine is also a larger stage for Russia to try to reassert its influence in Europe and the world, and for Putin to cement his legacy . These are no small things for Putin, and he may decide that the only way to achieve them is to launch another incursion into Ukraine — an act that, at its most aggressive, could lead to tens of thousands of civilian deaths, a European refugee crisis, and a response from Western allies that includes tough sanctions affecting the global economy.

The US and Russia have drawn firm red lines that help explain what’s at stake. Russia presented the US with a list of demands , some of which were nonstarters for the United States and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Putin demanded that NATO stop its eastward expansion and deny membership to Ukraine, and that NATO roll back troop deployment in countries that had joined after 1997, which would turn back the clock decades on Europe’s security and geopolitical alignment .

These ultimatums are “a Russian attempt not only to secure interest in Ukraine but essentially relitigate the security architecture in Europe,” said Michael Kofman, research director in the Russia studies program at CNA, a research and analysis organization in Arlington, Virginia.

As expected, the US and NATO rejected those demands . Both the US and Russia know Ukraine is not going to become a NATO member anytime soon.

Some preeminent American foreign policy thinkers argued at the end of the Cold War that NATO never should have moved close to Russia’s borders in the first place. But NATO’s open-door policy says sovereign countries can choose their own security alliances. Giving in to Putin’s demands would hand the Kremlin veto power over NATO’s decision-making, and through it, the continent’s security.

Now the world is watching and waiting to see what Putin will do next. An invasion isn’t a foregone conclusion. Moscow continues to deny that it has any plans to invade , even as it warns of a “ military-technical response ” to stagnating negotiations. But war, if it happened, could be devastating to Ukraine, with unpredictable fallout for the rest of Europe and the West. Which is why, imminent or not, the world is on edge.

The roots of the current crisis grew from the breakup of the Soviet Union

When the Soviet Union broke up in the early ’90s, Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, had the third largest atomic arsenal in the world. The United States and Russia worked with Ukraine to denuclearize the country, and in a series of diplomatic agreements , Kyiv gave its hundreds of nuclear warheads back to Russia in exchange for security assurances that protected it from a potential Russian attack.

Those assurances were put to the test in 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and backed a rebellion led by pro-Russia separatists in the eastern Donbas region. ( The conflict in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 14,000 people to date .)

Russia’s assault grew out of mass protests in Ukraine that toppled the country’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych (partially over his abandonment of a trade agreement with the European Union). US diplomats visited the demonstrations, in symbolic gestures that further agitated Putin.

President Barack Obama, hesitant to escalate tensions with Russia any further, was slow to mobilize a diplomatic response in Europe and did not immediately provide Ukrainians with offensive weapons.

“A lot of us were really appalled that not more was done for the violation of that [post-Soviet] agreement,” said Ian Kelly, a career diplomat who served as ambassador to Georgia from 2015 to 2018. “It just basically showed that if you have nuclear weapons” — as Russia does — “you’re inoculated against strong measures by the international community.”

But the very premise of a post-Soviet Europe is also helping to fuel today’s conflict. Putin has been fixated on reclaiming some semblance of empire, lost with the fall of the Soviet Union. Ukraine is central to this vision. Putin has said Ukrainians and Russians “ were one people — a single whole ,” or at least would be if not for the meddling from outside forces (as in, the West) that has created a “wall” between the two.

• “It’s not about Russia. It’s about Putin”: An expert explains Putin’s endgame in Ukraine

Ukraine isn’t joining NATO in the near future, and President Joe Biden has said as much. The core of the NATO treaty is Article 5, a commitment that an attack on any NATO country is treated as an attack on the entire alliance — meaning any Russian military engagement of a hypothetical NATO-member Ukraine would theoretically bring Moscow into conflict with the US, the UK, France, and the 27 other NATO members.

But the country is the fourth largest recipient of military funding from the US, and the intelligence cooperation between the two countries has deepened in response to threats from Russia.

“Putin and the Kremlin understand that Ukraine will not be a part of NATO,” Ruslan Bortnik, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Politics, said. “But Ukraine became an informal member of NATO without a formal decision.”

Which is why Putin finds Ukraine’s orientation toward the EU and NATO (despite Russian aggression having quite a lot to do with that) untenable to Russia’s national security.

The prospect of Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO has antagonized Putin at least since President George W. Bush expressed support for the idea in 2008. “That was a real mistake,” said Steven Pifer, who from 1998 to 2000 was ambassador to Ukraine under President Bill Clinton. “It drove the Russians nuts. It created expectations in Ukraine and Georgia, which then were never met. And so that just made that whole issue of enlargement a complicated one.”

No country can join the alliance without the unanimous buy-in of all 30 member countries, and many have opposed Ukraine’s membership, in part because it doesn’t meet the conditions on democracy and rule of law.

All of this has put Ukraine in an impossible position: an applicant for an alliance that wasn’t going to accept it, while irritating a potential opponent next door, without having any degree of NATO protection.

Why Russia is threatening Ukraine now

The Russia-Ukraine crisis is a continuation of the one that began in 2014. But recent political developments within Ukraine, the US, Europe, and Russia help explain why Putin may feel now is the time to act.

Among those developments are the 2019 election of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian who played a president on TV and then became the actual president. In addition to the other thing you might remember Zelensky for , he promised during his campaign that he would “reboot” peace talks to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine , including dealing with Putin directly to resolve the conflict. Russia, too, likely thought it could get something out of this: It saw Zelensky, a political novice, as someone who might be more open to Russia’s point of view.

What Russia wants is for Zelensky to implement the 2014 and ’15 Minsk agreements, deals that would bring the pro-Russian regions back into Ukraine but would amount to, as one expert said, a “Trojan horse” for Moscow to wield influence and control. No Ukrainian president could accept those terms, and so Zelensky, under continued Russian pressure, has turned to the West for help, talking openly about wanting to join NATO .

Public opinion in Ukraine has also strongly swayed to support for ascension into Western bodies like the EU and NATO . That may have left Russia feeling as though it has exhausted all of its political and diplomatic tools to bring Ukraine back into the fold. “Moscow security elites feel that they have to act now because if they don’t, military cooperation between NATO and Ukraine will become even more intense and even more sophisticated,” Sarah Pagung, of the German Council on Foreign Relations, said.

Putin tested the West on Ukraine again in the spring of 2021, gathering forces and equipment near parts of the border . The troop buildup got the attention of the new Biden administration, which led to an announced summit between the two leaders . Days later, Russia began drawing down some of the troops on the border.

Putin’s perspective on the US has also shifted, experts said. To Putin, the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal (which Moscow would know something about) and the US’s domestic turmoil are signs of weakness.

Putin may also see the West divided on the US’s role in the world. Biden is still trying to put the transatlantic alliance back together after the distrust that built up during the Trump administration. Some of Biden’s diplomatic blunders have alienated European partners, specifically that aforementioned messy Afghanistan withdrawal and the nuclear submarine deal that Biden rolled out with the UK and Australia that caught France off guard.

Europe has its own internal fractures, too. The EU and the UK are still dealing with the fallout from Brexit . Everyone is grappling with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Germany has a new chancellor , Olaf Scholz, after 16 years of Angela Merkel, and the new coalition government is still trying to establish its foreign policy. Germany, along with other European countries, imports Russian natural gas, and energy prices are spiking right now . France has elections in April , and French President Emmanuel Macron is trying to carve out a spot for himself in these negotiations.

Those divisions — which Washington is trying very hard to keep contained — may embolden Putin. Some experts noted Putin has his own domestic pressures to deal with, including the coronavirus and a struggling economy, and he may think such an adventure will boost his standing at home, just like it did in 2014 .

Diplomacy hasn’t produced any breakthroughs so far

A few months into office, the Biden administration spoke about a “stable, predictable” relationship with Russia . That now seems out of the realm of possibility.

The White House is holding out the hope of a diplomatic resolution, even as it’s preparing for sanctions against Russia, sending money and weapons to Ukraine, and boosting America’s military presence in Eastern Europe. (Meanwhile, European heads of state have been meeting one-on-one with Putin in the last several weeks.)

Late last year, the White House started intensifying its diplomatic efforts with Russia . In December, Russia handed Washington its list of “legally binding security guarantees ,” including those nonstarters like a ban on Ukrainian NATO membership, and demanded answers in writing. In January, US and Russian officials tried to negotiate a breakthrough in Geneva , with no success. The US directly responded to Russia’s ultimatums at the end of January .

In that response, the US and NATO rejected any deal on NATO membership, but leaked documents suggest the potential for new arms control agreements and increased transparency in terms of where NATO weapons and troops are stationed in Eastern Europe.

Russia wasn’t pleased. On February 17, Moscow issued its own response , saying the US ignored its key demands and escalating with new ones .

One thing Biden’s team has internalized — perhaps in response to the failures of the US response in 2014 — is that it needed European allies to check Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. The Biden administration has put a huge emphasis on working with NATO, the European Union, and individual European partners to counter Putin. “Europeans are utterly dependent on us for their security. They know it, they engage with us about it all the time, we have an alliance in which we’re at the epicenter,” said Max Bergmann of the Center for American Progress.

What happens if Russia invades?

In 2014, Putin deployed unconventional tactics against Ukraine that have come to be known as “hybrid” warfare, such as irregular militias, cyber hacks, and disinformation.

These tactics surprised the West, including those within the Obama administration. It also allowed Russia to deny its direct involvement. In 2014, in the Donbas region, military units of “ little green men ” — soldiers in uniform but without official insignia — moved in with equipment. Moscow has fueled unrest since , and has continued to destabilize and undermine Ukraine through cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and disinformation campaigns .

It is possible that Moscow will take aggressive steps in all sorts of ways that don’t involve moving Russian troops across the border. It could escalate its proxy war, and launch sweeping disinformation campaigns and hacking operations. (It will also probably do these things if it does move troops into Ukraine.)

But this route looks a lot like the one Russia has already taken, and it hasn’t gotten Moscow closer to its objectives. “How much more can you destabilize? It doesn’t seem to have had a massive damaging impact on Ukraine’s pursuit of democracy, or even its tilt toward the West,” said Margarita Konaev, associate director of analysis and research fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

And that might prompt Moscow to see more force as the solution.

There are plenty of possible scenarios for a Russian invasion, including sending more troops into the breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, seizing strategic regions and blockading Ukraine’s access to waterways , and even a full-on war, with Moscow marching on Kyiv in an attempt to retake the entire country. Any of it could be devastating, though the more expansive the operation, the more catastrophic.

A full-on invasion to seize all of Ukraine would be something Europe hasn’t seen in decades. It could involve urban warfare, including on the streets of Kyiv, and airstrikes on urban centers. It would cause astounding humanitarian consequences, including a refugee crisis. The US has estimated the civilian death toll could exceed 50,000 , with somewhere between 1 million and 5 million refugees. Konaev noted that all urban warfare is harsh, but Russia’s fighting — witnessed in places like Syria — has been “particularly devastating, with very little regard for civilian protection.”

The colossal scale of such an offensive also makes it the least likely, experts say, and it would carry tremendous costs for Russia. “I think Putin himself knows that the stakes are really high,” Natia Seskuria, a fellow at the UK think tank Royal United Services Institute, said. “That’s why I think a full-scale invasion is a riskier option for Moscow in terms of potential political and economic causes — but also due to the number of casualties. Because if we compare Ukraine in 2014 to the Ukrainian army and its capabilities right now, they are much more capable.” (Western training and arms sales have something to do with those increased capabilities, to be sure.)

Such an invasion would force Russia to move into areas that are bitterly hostile toward it. That increases the likelihood of a prolonged resistance (possibly even one backed by the US ) — and an invasion could turn into an occupation. “The sad reality is that Russia could take as much of Ukraine as it wants, but it can’t hold it,” said Melinda Haring, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

What happens now?

Ukraine has derailed the grand plans of the Biden administration — China, climate change, the pandemic — and become a top-level priority for the US, at least for the near term.

“One thing we’ve seen in common between the Obama administration and the Biden administration: They don’t view Russia as a geopolitical event-shaper, but we see Russia again and again shaping geopolitical events,” said Rachel Rizzo, a researcher at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

The United States has deployed 3,000 troops to Europe in a show of solidarity for NATO and will reportedly send another 3,000 to Poland , though the Biden administration has been firm that US soldiers will not fight in Ukraine if war breaks out. The United States, along with other allies including the United Kingdom, have been warning citizens to leave Ukraine immediately. The US shuttered its embassy in Kyiv this week , temporarily moving operations to western Ukraine.

The Biden administration, along with its European allies, is trying to come up with an aggressive plan to punish Russia , should it invade again. The so-called nuclear options — such as an oil and gas embargo, or cutting Russia off from SWIFT, the electronic messaging service that makes global financial transactions possible — seem unlikely, in part because of the ways it could hurt the global economy. Russia isn’t an Iran or North Korea; it is a major economy that does a lot of trade, especially in raw materials and gas and oil.

“Types of sanctions that hurt your target also hurt the sender. Ultimately, it comes down to the price the populations in the United States and Europe are prepared to pay,” said Richard Connolly, a lecturer in political economy at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Birmingham.

Right now, the toughest sanctions the Biden administration is reportedly considering are some level of financial sanctions on Russia’s biggest banks — a step the Obama administration didn’t take in 2014 — and an export ban on advanced technologies. Penalties on Russian oligarchs and others close to the regime are likely also on the table, as are some other forms of targeted sanctions. Nord Stream 2 , the completed but not yet open gas pipeline between Germany and Russia, may also be killed if Russia escalates tensions.

Putin himself has to decide what he wants. “He has two options,” said Olga Lautman, senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. One is “to say, ‘Never mind, just kidding,’ which will show his weakness and shows that he was intimidated by US and Europe standing together — and that creates weakness for him at home and with countries he’s attempting to influence.”

“Or he goes full forward with an attack,” she said. “At this point, we don’t know where it’s going, but the prospects are very grim.”

This is the corner Putin has put himself in, which makes a walk-back from Russia seem difficult to fathom. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, and it doesn’t eliminate the possibility of some sort of diplomatic solution that gives Putin enough cover to declare victory without the West meeting all of his demands. It also doesn’t eliminate the possibility that Russia and the US will be stuck in this standoff for months longer, with Ukraine caught in the middle and under sustained threat from Russia.

But it also means the prospect of war remains. In Ukraine, though, that is everyday life.

“For many Ukrainians, we’re accustomed to war,” said Oleksiy Sorokin , the political editor and chief operating officer of the English-language Kyiv Independent publication.

“Having Russia on our tail,” he added, “having this constant threat of Russia going further — I think many Ukrainians are used to it.”

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1 Trending: If Democrats Want Proof Foreigners Are Registering To Vote, Virginia Just Found 6,303 Examples

2 trending: tim walz’s lies about his military record include inflating his rank and ducking deployment, 3 trending: simone biles’ life proves exactly why ‘suffering’ should never decide if a baby lives or dies, 4 trending: kamala harris can’t articulate the case for voting for her, firebrand leftist jamie raskin said congress must ‘disqualify’ trump, predicted ‘civil war conditions’.

“So it’s going to be up to us on Jan. 6, 2025 to tell the rampaging Trump mobs that he’s disqualified,” far left Rep. Jamie Raskin said.

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If you listen to U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the real insurrection will be led by Democrats and it will begin on Jan. 6, 2025 — should the American people dare to elect former President Donald Trump president again. 

In a video clip making the rounds Monday on social media, the far left firebrand laments what he characterizes as a lazy U.S. Supreme Court interfering with the Democratic Party’s plan to interfere with the 2024 election. 

“And so [the court] want to kick it to Congress, so it’s going to be up to us on Jan. 6, 2025 to tell the rampaging Trump mobs that he’s disqualified,” Raskin said in a panel discussion on Feb. 17, as the Supreme Court was mulling the constitutionality of the leftist Colorado secretary of state’s use of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to remove Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot. 

“And then we need bodyguards for everybody and civil war conditions all because nine justices — not all of them, but these justices who have not many cases to look at every year, not much work to do, have a huge staff, great protection — simply do not want to do their job and interpret what the great 14th Amendment means,” Raskin declared at a Washington, D.C. bookstore gathering of self-important leftists. 

Jamie Raskin is saying that congress will STOP Trump from taking office even if he’s chosen by the voters. This is extremely dangerous. Every Democrat needs to be on the record about this immediately. pic.twitter.com/9IwRoGrrQu — Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 5, 2024

Raskin’s rant may rank among the more incendiary comments about the court since U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., unleashed his “ release the whirlwind” diatribe at a pro-abortion rally on the steps of the high court in 2020. The congressman’s vitriol simply cements the fact that the same people calling Trump a threat to democracy would assault the will of the people to keep the Republican from governing. 

“Congressman Raskin continues to stoke the flames of division in this country through his use of incendiary language aimed at his political opponents, and once again proves the hypocrisy of leftists like him who slander conservatives in an attempt to mask progressives’ proclivity towards violence which has been on full display in cities and college campuses across America in recent times,” U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., told The Federalist Monday evening. 

Raskin’s office did not respond to a request for comment. His bellicose statements will mean nothing if Republicans take back the Senate and hold the House, but they are a look into the Trump-hating radical mindset of Democrats that will stop at nothing to maintain power. In a tinder box election year seared by an assassination attempt against the GOP’s presidential candidate, Raskin’s threatening rhetoric now seems more like the release of the whirlwind than ever.

‘This year is critical’

The congressman, known for his overheated rhetoric, made his fiery statements alongside Sherrilyn Ifill, leftist law professor and former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund . She also served on the boards of the George Soros ’ Open Society Foundations , according to InfluenceWatch. Raskin and Ifill were discussing the latest book by Rick Hasen , director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at the UCLA School of law and vehement critic of basic voter integrity tools such as voter ID. Hasen’s book, A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy , as the title implies, calls for a constitutional amendment to “enshrine the right to vote.” He and his fellow leftists assert the Supreme Court historically, and particularly today’s conservative-led court, has been “no friend of the people.” 

Acknowledging that “the path to a constitutional amendment is undoubtedly hard,” Hasen insists that changing the constitution by outlawing fundamental state election integrity laws is the way to save democracy. In the meantime, militant-sounding Democrats believe they’re on a righteous mission to save democracy —  even if it means destroying it. Their dire warnings bounded into the absurd.  

“I absolutely believe that this year is critical to whether or not we are a democracy this time next year having a conversation in this room, having this conversation, which will be allowed in this place but there will be many places in this country where it’s not allowed,” Ifill dourly predicted. “Should we get past next year as a democracy this is the work we should be doing.” 

Remember that all of this theatrical melancholy came days before the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that kicking a political party’s leading political candidate off the primary ballot under the auspices of an amendment that enshrines the principle of due process doesn’t comport with the Constitution. It doesn’t look real good for democracy, either. 

Colorado’s far left secretary of state agreed with leftist lawfare groups that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment barred Trump from running because he, without being convicted of the crime, in their eyes engaged in an insurrection. The Constitution, contrary to the Democrats’ twisted reading, gives Congress, not the states, enforcement authority over the post-Civil War amendment. 

“Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse,” the Supreme Court ruling , released in March, states. 

Constitutional law expert Hans von Spakovsky said the Article 3 argument was legally flawed from the beginning.

“I don’t believe the provision is still effect because of the Amnesty Acts passed by Congress,” said von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative,  “In any event, this is an anachronistic provision that was driven by the passions inflamed by a civil war that killed and wounded more Americans than in any other war we have ever fought.  It is an insult to those who fought in that conflagration for this congressman to try to use it to go after his political opponents, because that is what it amounts to.”

‘Something Akin to a Civil War’

As the decision loomed, Raskin expressed foreboding that the court would not uphold Colorado’s decision to disenfranchise the 555,000 voters who cast ballots for Trump in the Centennial State’s March primary —  and many millions more to follow in other blue states. 

“Last night I was most worried about the Supreme Court’s prospective, imminent abdication of its very clear duty to disqualify Donald Trump form the ballot … and what that might mean if their decision says it’s really up to Congress on Jan. 6, 2025 to disqualify him at the counting of electoral college votes, which really could lead to something akin to a civil war,” Raskin told his fellow D.C. leftists. 

Keeping with his party’s projection campaign talking points, Raskin insisted that “the right to vote is under attack in very specific ways in lots of states.” He is, of course, correct. Just not in the way the liberal elitist thinks he is. Democracy is under attack, and Democrats hold the cudgel. 

• 14th amendment
• Chuck Schumer
• Donald Trump
• George Soros’ Open Society Foundations
• Jamie Raskin
• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
• Rep. Anthony D'Esposito
• Safeguarding Democracy Project
• Sherrilyn Ifill
• U.S. Supreme Court

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