3 ms·

The struggle between national interests does not require war. War is counter-productive to national interests. A great conflict is currently playing out between

by rms 17y ago

The struggle between national interests does not require war. War is counter-productive to national interests. A great conflict is currently playing out between the USA and China in Africa but not a shot has been fired and there is no reason for a shot to be fired.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
Well it's worse than that -- all armed conflict requires is a group of armed people determined to use violence. What terrorism has shown us is that it doesn't even require nation-states. So your nation can be so inept as to not be able to control things inside it's borders (many nations fit this bill). If armed camps build up inside them and attack other countries, guess what? You're at war -- or something so close to war as to be indistinguishable from it. If you'd like the world to work like some super-big version of your local country, where most conflicts are solved by some civil system, then you're going to have to have popular choice of representatives, mixed local, national, and world control, an independent court system built on something besides treaties, etc. The UN is nowhere near any of that. There is the theory that democracies only compete via commerce. If you buy into that, then perhaps a world full of democracies would be the most peaceful. But I don't see that happening either any time soon. It's just a long-shot. A real long-shot. I'd argue that in order to do away with war you would have to do away with 99.999% of the impetus for using violence under any circumstances. It'd be a world of extreme pacifists. Would that be such a great thing? Doesn't chaos -- whether war, sickness, disasters, etc -- contribute to evolution and growth? Do we really want to live in stasis? Or -- to put it in religious terms -- is heaven really such a great thing?

3 ms·

The struggle between national interests does not require war. War is counter-productive to national interests. A great conflict is currently playing out between

by rms 17y ago

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
Well it's worse than that -- all armed conflict requires is a group of armed people determined to use violence. What terrorism has shown us is that it doesn't even require nation-states. So your nation can be so inept as to not be able to control things inside it's borders (many nations fit this bill). If armed camps build up inside them and attack other countries, guess what? You're at war -- or something so close to war as to be indistinguishable from it. If you'd like the world to work like some super-big version of your local country, where most conflicts are solved by some civil system, then you're going to have to have popular choice of representatives, mixed local, national, and world control, an independent court system built on something besides treaties, etc. The UN is nowhere near any of that. There is the theory that democracies only compete via commerce. If you buy into that, then perhaps a world full of democracies would be the most peaceful. But I don't see that happening either any time soon. It's just a long-shot. A real long-shot. I'd argue that in order to do away with war you would have to do away with 99.999% of the impetus for using violence under any circumstances. It'd be a world of extreme pacifists. Would that be such a great thing? Doesn't chaos -- whether war, sickness, disasters, etc -- contribute to evolution and growth? Do we really want to live in stasis? Or -- to put it in religious terms -- is heaven really such a great thing?