Is there a more urgent problem in the world today than war? And when I say “war,” I mean also militarism, the culture of war, the armies, arms, industries, policies, plans, propaganda, prejudices, rationalizations that make lethal group conflict not only possible but also likely.
My answer to the above question: No, there is no more urgent problem than war. Not climate change, pollution, overpopulation, oppression, poverty, inequality, hunger, or disease.
If you seek solutions to any of these problems, you should also devote at least some effort to ending war, for several reasons. First, war exacerbates or perpetuates our other problems, either directly or by draining precious resources away from their solution. War subverts democracy and promotes tyranny and fanaticism; kills and sickens and impoverishes people; ravages nature. War is a keystone problem, the eradication of which would make our other social problems much more tractable.
Second, war is more readily solvable than many other human afflictions. War is not like a hurricane, earthquake or Ebola plague, a natural disaster foisted on us by forces beyond our control. War is entirely our creation, the product of human choices. War could end tomorrow if a relatively small group of people around the world chose to end it.
Third, more than any of our other problems, war represents a horrific moral crime. Particularly when carried out by the U.S. and other nations, or by groups that aspire to or claim the legitimacy of states, war makes hypocrites of us and makes a mockery of human progress. We cannot claim to be civilized as long as war or even the threat of war persists.
Yes, annual war casualties have declined sharply since the cataclysmic first half of the 20th century. But in our heavily—and nuclear—armed world, war is a few decisions away from becoming exponentially more destructive. And even the killing of a single child by a U.S. drone, Israeli rocket, or Syrian tank is an abomination that degrades us all.
I wrote The End of War, which was just published in a new paperback edition by McSweeney’s Books, to start a conversation about why we fight and how we can stop. The End of War addresses in a sustained, concise fashion war-related issues that I’ve written often over the past few decades. This fall, for the first time, I’m teaching a course based on the book; HST470: War and Science.
While writing The End of War, I sometimes fretted that war might end before my book was published, rendering it obsolete. That’s a bad joke, especially today, as war rages in Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq- which the U.S. is bombing once again.
Our biggest challenge is making the transition from our world, which is still armed and dangerous, to a world in which war and even the threat of war have vanished. I am not an absolute pacifist. If a lunatic attacks me or a loved one—or even a stranger–I would do my best to stop him. Sometimes violence is morally justified, even necessary, to thwart greater violence.
So the question is, how should we react to lethal group violence when it erupts in the world today? How, for example, should the U.S. have reacted to the 9/11 attacks? Or to the current advances of ISIS militants in Iraq? How should Palestinians react to Israeli violence, and vice versa? How should Russia respond to violent unrest in Ukraine?
My answer is that we should act in a manner consistent with our ultimate goal of eradicating war once and for all. This is what I call the “end-of-war rule,” which I spell out in more detail in The End of War. My own country, the U.S., has been the most egregious violator of the end-of-war rule over the last dozen years.
According to surveys I’ve carried out for more than a decade, the overwhelming majority of people—including Stevens undergraduates–view war as inevitable, a permanent feature of human existence. This fatalistic outlook is wrong, both empirically and morally. Empirically because it contradicts what science and history tell us about war. Morally because it perpetuates war by discouraging us from seeking solutions.
Every sane person wants to live in a world without war. If you disagree with me about why wars happen and how we can end them, I’d love to hear your ideas. If we all join together in pursuing the end of war, we will surely succeed, not in some hazy, distant future but soon.
John Horgan directs the Center for Science Writings, which belongs to the College of Arts & Letters. This column is adapted from one originally published in his Scientific American blog, “Cross-check.”
Mr. Horgan’s contirbution to ending war, besides selling a few books, will do little else other than confirm an all too human aspiration. And that like many other aspirations that remain outside human reach, remind us just how much has yet to be realized by civilization. For he starts with assumptions on the potential of our species that should be questioned. Evolution has self evidently fixed human nature within moral limitations that cannot be breached by any product of science or natural reason. Which is why war and conflict, among so many other injustices and crimes against humanity, have been “a permanent feature of human existence”. Indeed “war represents a horrific moral crime” that only reflects the ethical and moral limits of our species. If Mr. Horgan wants to end war, he can begin with the critical self scrutiny of our species, one that demands a painful honesty instead of populist wishful thinking. There he may find something useful in his quest. But only if he is able to shake off his existing prejudices, will allow ‘reason’ to accept correction, and imagine outside the box of history itself! http://www.energon.org.uk