stop the war essay

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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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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

Strong international laws and organizations can mediate disputes and prevent wars from starting.

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.

In conclusion, preventing war requires a multifaceted approach that addresses the root causes of conflict, strengthens international cooperation, enforces disarmament, promotes economic interdependence, and cultivates a culture of peace.

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

International institutions such as the United Nations play a crucial role in preventing wars. These institutions provide a platform for dialogue and peaceful resolution of conflicts. Strengthening these institutions, therefore, is critical. This can be achieved by ensuring that all nations respect and uphold international laws and treaties, and by providing these institutions with the necessary resources to mediate conflicts effectively.

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

Investing in peacekeeping forces and diplomacy is another effective strategy. Peacekeeping forces can help maintain peace in conflict-prone regions, while diplomacy can help resolve conflicts peacefully. By investing in these areas, nations can prevent conflicts from escalating into full-blown wars.

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.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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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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Ken Rotenberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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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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How to prevent World War 3

In the past 100 years we have learned a great deal about how to prevent conflict Image:  REUTERS/Olivia Harris

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"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." – Albert Einstein

Since the ‘war to end all wars’ − as H G Wells so wrongly predicted a century ago − the world has seen the ‘peace to end all peace’ lead to the horrors of the second world war, proxy wars through the Cold War and, today, violent conflicts that increasingly affect civilians disproportionately and cross the red lines laid by the laws of armed conflict. The machinery of war and the available firepower has increased dramatically. The risks of a third world war are enormous. If we add in all the means and methods of warfare − conventional, nuclear, cyber, drones, and so on − we have the military potential to destroy ourselves entirely.

Violence is raging in the Middle East, Europe and Russia are poised on the edge of conflict over Ukraine, the United States is once more engaged in military action in Iraq and, as NATO pulls out, Afghanistan is vulnerable. Other flashpoints over disputed islands in the South China Sea, tensions on the Korean peninsula and over Kashmir are just some of the easily identified points of escalation.

In the past 100 years, we have, however, learned a great deal about how to prevent conflict. After the Second World War, we established the United Nations with the primary purpose of saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war. The European Union grew over decades from a trade treaty to an organization that won the Nobel Peace Prize for its part in transforming Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace. NATO has had its part to play in shoring up the transatlantic alliance that bonded many European countries in a common cause. Today war between Germany and France is almost impossible to imagine.

Other regional organizations have been established in Africa, Asia, the South Pacific and the Americas. International bodies have been established to implement disarmament and security treaties and civil society expertise has been channeled through universities and think tanks − including Chatham House, conceived in 1919 with a view to preventing future wars.

According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 254 armed conflicts have been fought since 1946 of which 114 are classed as wars (defined as more than one thousand battle-related deaths per annum). Since the end of the Cold War, the numbers of armed conflicts have dropped dramatically. Of the 33 armed conflicts listed in 2013, only seven were classed as wars – a 50% reduction since 1989.

Many factors have supported the reduction in armed conflicts including the withering of proxy wars, UN sponsored peace processes and economic development. Research by the Human Security Report demonstrates that peace negotiations and cease-fire agreements reduce violent conflict even when they fail.

Six peace agreements were signed in 2013 and four were agreed in 2012. Over recent years, despite common perceptions, we do seem to have learned how to create, keep and enforce the peace.

The laws of armed conflict and human rights laws along with the international criminal court, war crime tribunals, economic and military sanctions and domestic justice commissions serve to protect civilians. Although nuclear weapons possession or use, outlawed for most countries, are yet to be globally forbidden, international law has proscribed the possession and use of devastating weapons systems such as chemical and biological weapons, antipersonnel landmines, cluster munitions and blinding lasers.

Academic disciplines that study war and peace have developed a rich body of research that helps us understand how wars start and how they can be prevented or ended. No approach or system is perfect, of course, but we understand how resource scarcity, environmental change, economic stress, refugee flows and racism all fuel the engendering of conflict. We understand the importance of history and culture, the role of gender and the ways in which different political systems exacerbate or diminish the risks of conflict.

Have you read?

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} 4 things to know about the state of conflict today, un police don’t just keep the peace, they help prevent future conflict, the world today looks a bit like it did before world war i - but what does that mean.

In a study for the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS) , Chatham House and FRIDE predicted that the world in 2030 will be more fragile and governments and international institutions will struggle to cope with the twin trends of increased interdependence and greater fragmentation. Most significantly, we realized that the risks of inter-state wars are rising and a major inter-state war cannot be ruled out in the near future.

In the lead up to the First World War, many foolishly imagined that Europe was ‘too civilized’ to go to war. Prior to the Second World War people hoped that the aggression from Nazi Germany could be contained. In so many cases of war, we tend to be overly optimistic about the length of time (‘we’ll be home by Christmas’), the scale and the outcome of the conflict.

It is time that we put aside complacency and become more realistic about war and peace and ourselves. We know a great deal about how to prevent war. We owe it to all others who sacrificed their lives and families to put into action all that we have learned and ensure peace in Europe, the Middle East and Asia for forthcoming generations. Otherwise, there will be few left to hear our excuses.

How to Prevent the Third World War , Patricia Lewis, Chatham House

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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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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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The conflict between a just war and peace

Readers respond to articles by Andy Beckett and the Stop the War coalition on how pacifists are being demonised over the war in Ukraine

Andy Beckett ( Pacifists are being elbowed out of British politics just when we need them most, 3 March ) appears to think that we have the choice either to be pacifists or to have to “accept that the world is divided into two camps” – the liberal west and a totalitarian Russia. This is nonsense. It is possible to recognise that Ukraine requires the imposition of sanctions on Russia by the west and a ready supply of western arms and money to defend itself, without believing that the west has suddenly transmogrified into a sainted power bloc, cleansed of all past sins. To choose pacifism in the current circumstances is to opt for a groundless idealism over realpolitik. Ukrainian self-determination needs guns and money.

To stand against the demand to arm Ukraine is to stand for Ukraine’s defeat. If Stop the War believes that there is nothing progressive about Vladimir Putin’s Russia, then it should want his invasion driven back and his regime’s financial lifeline choked off. Laughably, some on the left have even dragged out the old “the main enemy is at home” slogan – as if the UK was actually at war with Russia rather than simply seeking to support Ukraine.

Believing that it’s necessary to oppose Putin’s attempt to drown Ukraine’s right to exist doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to Boris Johnson’s venality or to the proto-fascist leanings of Poland and Hungary, or to alibi the US’s own history of bloody anti-democratic interventions. Right now, though, calling for no sanctions against Russia and no arms to Ukraine means calling for Putin’s victory and its devastating consequences. Orwell was right in 1942 and he would say the same now. Faced with the current circumstances: “Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist.” Nick Moss London

Andy Beckett’s argument is full of contradictions. He claims that Stop the War upholds the right of the Ukrainian people to “self-determination” as well as Russia’s security concerns. What planet is he on? Russia has invaded a peaceful sovereign democracy and is bombing indiscriminately, killing civilians as well as attacking a nuclear power station. Keir Starmer was right to threaten to expel the Labour MPs who signed a Stop the War statement. Let’s hope that none of them ever become foreign secretary. We all want a just peace. June Purvis Portsmouth

It was a relief to read Andy Beckett’s warning about attempts to silence voices for peace. Guns and bombs have always been the foundation of UK foreign policy, and since the country’s acquisition of atom bombs, the two main parties have held the line together. It is pitiful therefore that Labour MPs who expressed their views by signing a letter should be threatened with expulsion ( Report, 2 March ). I long to live in a country that focuses its foreign policy on cooperation to end war and poverty, and to save our species from extinction, whether by nuclear war or climate change. Diana Francis Bath

Andy Beckett’s article has some resonance for me on how we challenge oppression. War is the ultimate oppressive force and those who lead us into it are the ultimate oppressors. Pacifists are activists. We do not stand back in our opposition to oppression, we stand firmly against it. Oppression grows when violence, militarism and war are the mechanisms that we use against it. Stop the War is challenging the oppression of war actively and incisively: it is not sitting on the fence, it is not giving succour to “our enemies”, it is making a stand for human freedom and crying out that another way is possible. Richard Ashwell Wolverhampton

While peace is nearly always preferable to war, sometimes there is a case for a just war, as argued by the Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas. The best example of this was the second world war to defeat fascism. Arguably, the same applies to efforts to defeat Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. I have supported Stop the War previously, when I marched against the Iraq war. But it is misguided on Nato expansion and arming Ukraine. Nato responded to requests from former Soviet satellites to join because of their fears of Russia. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine shows the wisdom of these requests.

By arming Ukraine, Nato can at least give it a fighting chance of defending itself without being drawn into a direct conflict with Russia that would spark a war engulfing the whole of Europe . D r Michael Herron London

Lindsey German’s article ( We at Stop the War condemn the invasion of Ukraine, and warmongers on all sides, 4 March ) is full of the misinterpretation of history. She refers to the breakup of the Warsaw pact and says Nato should have also been dissolved. But the pact was never a partnership of equals. It was a Russian empire. Diplomacy down the barrel of a gun. Nato wasn’t formed to defend against the Soviet Union. It was formed to defend against Russia and its vassals.

As soon as the countries that had been invaded by Russia saw a chance for freedom they ran to Nato and the EU in the rightful belief that one day Russia would try to re-subjugate them. Stop the War restates Russian claims that Nato is a threat, but it poses no threat to Russia, only to Russian imperialist ambitions.

Nobody is a “war enthusiast”. But faced with a bloodthirsty invader, Ukraine has no option other than to defend itself and we have a moral responsibility to assist it.

Should we sit back and allow this atrocity? Putin’s stated objectives allow no room for diplomacy. No country can accept an ultimatum to become the vassal of another. Self-defence is no offence. Jeff Bloom London

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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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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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conclusions:The Unpredictability of War and Its Consequences

Professor Julian Lindley-French is Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy, Netherlands Defence Academy, and Associate Fellow, Chatham House.

Professor Yves Boyer, is Professor, Ecole polytechnique, Paris, and Deputy Director, Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), Paris.

• Published: 18 September 2012
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War is unpredictable, as are its consequences. However, it is the job of militaries to prepare for and if necessary fight and win future wars, whatever the uncertainties. Equally, the very fact that war and its consequences are unpredictable remains one of the few great constants in international relations. Therefore, history suggests that the armed forces of the great liberal democracies, whilst of course aware of the political and strategic context of their mission and the societies they serve, must ultimately be permitted to focus on one uncompromising but critical requirement — to win. Furthermore, because armed forces are, have always been, and will likely always be the last resort of the state and its possible recourse to violence as a tool of policy, it is also critical that the very nature of unpredictability and the dangers it portends are at least understood by those who lead and those who command. Unpredictability has of course many dimensions but essentially there are two upon which leaders and commanders must focus and which must drive the act of war in state policy: when war will take place and what form it will take.

Introduction

War is unpredictable, as are its consequences. However, it is the job of militaries to prepare for and if necessary fight and win future wars, whatever the uncertainties. Equally, the very fact that war and its consequences are unpredictable remains one of the few great constants in international relations. Therefore, history suggests that the armed forces of the great liberal democracies, whilst of course aware of the political and strategic context of their mission and the societies they serve, must ultimately be permitted to focus on one uncompromising but critical requirement—to win.

Furthermore, because armed forces are, have always been, and will likely always be the last resort of the state and its possible recourse to violence as a tool of policy, it is also critical that the very nature of unpredictability and the dangers it portends are at least understood by those who lead and those who command. Unpredictability has of course many dimensions but essentially there are two upon which leaders and commanders must focus and which must drive the act of war in state policy: when war will take place and what form it will take.

The Unpredictability of War

For all the moderating influence of international institutions the world of the twenty-first century would be recognizable to a seventeenth-century thinker such as Thomas Hobbes. In spite of globalization, the international community, such as it exists, remains essentially anarchic, comprised of strong states, weak states, sub-state and trans-state actors. Whilst the concept of the nation-state did not formally emerge until after the Thirty Years War of 1618–48, Hobbes would have understood that today's actors exist in a ‘state of nature’, calculating each other's interests, pursuing their own interests, and assessing daily where progress might be contemplated and where failure and defeat might be suffered.

Naturally, the political, diplomatic, and bureaucratic practices of over three centuries have created conventions and norms for state behaviour such that in regions such as Europe and North America conventional war is today unthinkable. However, it has only been unthinkable these twenty years past and for much of the rest of the world, for which growth, decline, and instability are daily challenges, no such comforting assumptions can be made. Indeed, in spite of efforts to paint the contemporary world as ‘post-modern’, i.e. one in which the state and its interactions are a thing of the past, it is surprising how resilient the state as a focal point for identity has proven. If they were really as weak a concept as some would have it then the struggle for leadership evidenced across the Middle East and beyond would not generate the mixture of hope and fear that concerns Israel and much of Europe.

Wars will happen. And it is likely that most of those wars for the foreseeable future will enjoy the prefix ‘limited’. However, whilst one should not be too dictated to by the lessons of history (one can be doomed to repeat history as much by over-reliance as ignorance), this century is shaping up to be more like the late nineteenth than the twentieth, certainly in terms of the shape of the international system, its relatively instable multipolarity, and the unexpectedly rapid shift of the distribution of power amongst states. No longer can unequivocal world leadership be said to reside in the hands of a few Western capitals. For example, in February 2011 China overtook Japan to become the world's second largest economy and could surpass that of the United States within twenty years or so. Clearly, these events, pushed as they are by the tide of globalization, will by their very nature impact on geopolitics and strategy.

The comforting assumption of many Western states as recently as a decade ago that the task of grand strategy was to make the world better by transforming it in some way in their image has changed in the post-9/11 world with remarkable and frightening speed. If nothing else, Al Qaeda and the thus-far failed attempts of the West to deal with Islamism, far from demonstrating hegemonic dominance, have rather demonstrated the West's inability to shape the global polis . This has certainly encouraged the more extreme autocracies, such as Iran and North Korea, to seek ‘security’ through the means of catastrophic war, but it has also suggested to emerging powers that neither reliance upon nor opposition to American leadership will provide the assured consequences—both positive and negative—many once assumed.

Furthermore, with many states no longer compelled by or with a compelling belief in Western liberal democracy, the return of autocracies means that the very concept of legitimacy is changing. Democracies are of course legitimized by the ability of the people to replace under-performing leaderships, whilst in today's sophisticated autocracies and oligarchies it is economic growth that provides ‘legitimacy’. Taken together with the precipitous retreat from power and status of many Western states in the wake of the systemic financial crisis, it is likely that the world is entering into a period of hyper-competition leavened by the weakening of state identities driven by globalization.

It is comfortingly current to suggest that at least such competition is no longer about the nature and governance of the international system itself. The ideological confrontation between Soviet Russia and liberal America is, one is told, a thing of the past. However, in this globalized world the self-evident preparations for war that arms procurement reveals suggest a world breaking down into identifiable blocs, far less strident but not dissimilar to those prior to the First World War. This is reinforced by the very nature of the systemic struggle between the state and the anti-state which has its epicentre in the Middle East, in which the opponents have very different Weltanschauungen , based on diverse philosophical and religious values, further increasing the already enormous unpredictability of war.

The bottom-line is this: what might appear as a relatively stable international system is also beginning to show signs of a potentially rapid descent into instability as nationalism, energy competition, burgeoning and spreading advanced military technology, and state instability suggest that systemic war, whilst unlikely, could well happen far more quickly than many have hitherto thought. Today the possibility of a war between peoples must begin to be seriously considered, not just war amongst the people.

Unpredictability in the Nature and Expression of War

The new systemic uncertainty and the unpredictability of war are compounded by unpredictability in the very nature of war. If the consequences of political, social, and economic dynamics are uncertain, so is the consequence of rapidly developing technology, particularly military technology.

Technology has substantially modified the way wars occur, the way they are launched and fought, not least because the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is rapidly reducing the options and ability of great powers to confront middling and smaller powers. Indeed, with potential and/or real access to nuclear weapons the possibility of strategic equalization through technology has not been lost on the likes of Tehran and Pyongyang, even though they both may have exaggerated the extent of American weakness, given the nature of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the simple fact remains that in the business of war the technology factor and its capacity to drive rapid change in the correlation of opposing forces and resources is a massive factor in the emerging concepts and doctrines of modern warfare. As with all the great technological breakthroughs intended to end war for all time, in fact technology adds an additional layer of complexity in what is already a hideously complex set of political, military, and technological considerations.

Has technology made war more or less likely? Whilst during the Cold War the answer was hopefully the latter today it is not all clear, with many new actors gaining access to weapons technology they could only have dreamed of in the not so distant past. And yet, America's advanced technology, whilst useful, has often proved decidedly ineffective against insurgents in Afghanistan often armed with little more than the ubiquitous Kalashnikov. What can be said with some certainty is that today a new unpredictability parameter has been introduced into the complex equation on war that could compel as much as deter war and which only serves to thicken the fog of war through which Clausewitz so famously peered in 1832.

The unpredictability of war and in the nature of war is further reinforced by unpredictability in the very expression of war. The combination of high-tech means and capabilities and processes, reinforced and strengthened by ‘cultural-historical’ components, makes it very difficult indeed to predict what form future war will take or indeed how it will be expressed. The possible strategic, geographical, military, technical, not to say social permutations and combinations are almost beyond imagination, particularly for those charged with defending open societies in which societal resilience is low and for which the balance between protection and power projection may be being steadily eroded by a mixture of political myopia and financial distress. War could at one and the same time be global, regional, and/or local, flaring and dying down rapidly. It could involve high-tech forces in long, low-intensity struggles or low-tech forces in sudden technology-rich attacks. It could take place simultaneously within state borders and between states and in time it could be both conventional and nuclear. It is hardly reassuring.

Coping with Unpredictability

The unpredictability of war, with the many strategy and policy uncertainties it engenders, is itself a reflection of the blurred distinction between risk and threat. Such blurring makes it very hard for policy-makers to agree a main effort or indeed shape for future armed forces. It is a dilemma further compounded by the merging of military and criminal threat through the great strategic multiplier that is cyberspace.

The twinning of unpredictability with uncertainty explains much of the effort in the West to establish new classifications of war and its many forms—classical war versus atomic war; high-intensity war versus hybrid war; asymmetric war versus humanitarian interventionism—and the role of armed forces therein, etc. In the end such efforts may prove to be, in large part, both circumstantial and peripheral. Indeed, they could essentially miss the point if they drive leaders to recognize only as much threat as they can afford.

The rationale of such efforts on the face of it appears relatively sound: providing political and military leaderships with immediate political, military, industrial, and bureaucratic tools for critical decision-making processes. This, after all, was the appar ent motivation behind, for example, the 2008 French Livre Blanc, the 2010 US National Security Strategy (NSS) and Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), and the UK's 2010 National Security Strategy (UKNSS) and Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). In fact much of the strategic ‘consideration’ and the bureaucratic process they entailed were driven almost exclusively by short-term budgetary necessities. Consequently, much of the ‘strategy’ was in fact the politically correct, financial flavour of the month. Consequently, such reviews can all too easily contribute to false security offering elusive ‘certainties’ and reassurance to hard-pressed leaders confronted with the many unknowns of the current age and increasingly uncertain and insecure publics. Sadly, as has been all too often demonstrated in the past, when real certainty comes knocking the pretence is revealed for what it is and disaster ensues.

What can also be said with some certainty is that the unpredictability of war does not and must not cloud or erase past assumptions about war and how wars should be fought. Sun Tzu and Clausewitz remain essentially correct—if one is going to fight a war, fight it to win and to win it quickly. This basic constant in the teaching of war has as direct a consequence for today's military as it did for ancient China or post-Napoleonic Europe.

Armed forces should concentrate on training and preparing for successful military operations. Hard though it is for political leaders, the more armed forces concentrate on this core mission ( ils s’instruisent pour vaincre ) the more they should be protected and left unaffected by the excess and contingent stakes of political and bureaucratic debates about defence. The failure of past strategic reviews and their findings are examples of what happens when armed forces are forced to take a position in such a debate. Why? War has its own undeniable and dangerous logic. When the cards are on the table, at the point of contact with danger, history is all too eloquent in showing that by then it is too late to remedy past errors. It is therefore precisely (if admittedly naively) that the central argument herein is that the unpredictable character of war must demand a rigorous separation of the military from the many ‘ancillary’ contingencies that any budget-led process necessarily creates. This is not to argue that armed forces should be immune from economic and financial realities but that first and foremost defence reviews should be strategy-led, not budget-led.

This distinction between the strategic and the budgetary is of course easier for autocratic, undemocratic societies to realize, at least over the short to medium term. In democratic countries it is possible to achieve such distinction only if innovative means of planning and budgeting are sought over the longer term. Such an approach avoids the shaping of core military competencies by immediate and more conjectural imperatives. Such a dramatic reappraisal of roles and costs could be achieved quite quickly, contrary to the apparent inclination of many Western states today. If armed forces must do everything, everywhere, all the time, they very rapidly cease to be armed forces.

In a period of scarce financial resources and growing disinterest about military affairs amongst large sections of society, the military itself may be advised to focus on its core competence. At the strategic level, military leaders must of course reach out to the politi cal and civil society. Moreover, civil-military relations will require new forms of contact. However, armed forces are not armed social workers and soldiers are not policemen, and the proliferation of tasks and roles evident in the recent past is in danger of producing people who are poor social workers, poor policemen, and poor soldiers. At the very least the officer corps in particular needs to refocus on their professional art, which is to fight and win wars. Only then will they be able to make the case to politicians to justify their cost, for only then will they be able to speak with one voice as to their purpose and role. As the French writer Alfred de Vigny once wrote, it is both the ‘ grandeurs et servitudes militaires ’ of the officer corps.

Then war might be just a little less unpredictable.

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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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Deterrence in Taiwan Is Failing

The united states has committed to keeping the peace but isn’t doing enough to stop the war..

• Geopolitics

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“My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” U.S. Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan wrote in a January memo to officers in the Air Mobility Command. The memo, which promptly leaked to reporters, warned that the United States and China were barreling toward a conflict over Taiwan. The U.S. Defense Department quickly distanced itself from Minihan’s blunt assessment. Yet the general wasn’t saying anything in private that military and civilian officials weren’t already saying in public.

In August 2022, a visit to Taiwan by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had set off the worst cross-strait crisis in a quarter century. China’s aircraft barreled across the center line of the Taiwan Strait; its ships prowled the waters around the island; its ballistic missiles splashed down in vital shipping lanes. Months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine had reminded everyone that major war is not an anachronism, the Taiwan crisis made visceral the prospect that a Chinese attack on that island could trigger conflict between the world’s two top powers.

Washington certainly took note. A year earlier, the outgoing chief of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. Philip Davidson, had predicted that a war in the Taiwan Strait could come by 2027. After the August crisis, this “Davidson window” became something like conventional wisdom, with Minihan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and other U.S. officials predicting that trouble might start even sooner. If the United States and China do clash over Taiwan, it will be the war everyone saw coming—which would make the failure to deter it all the more painful.

To be sure, U.S. President Joe Biden has made deterring that conflict a priority. Despite the long-standing policy of “strategic ambiguity,” Biden has publicly affirmed, four times, that the United States would come to Taiwan’s aid if it were attacked. Yet deterrence is about more than declaratory policy: It requires assembling a larger structure of constraints that preserve the peace by instilling fear of the outcome and consequences of war. More than a year after the August crisis and nearly three years into the Davidson window, the United States and its friends are struggling to build that structure in the limited time they may have left.

Taiwan is important in many ways —as a critical node in technology supply chains, as a democracy menaced by an aggressive autocracy, as an unresolved legacy of China’s civil war. Yet Taiwan has become the world’s most perilous flash point mostly for strategic reasons.

Taiwan is a “lock around the neck of a great dragon,” as Chinese military analyst Zhu Tingchang has written . It anchors the first island chain, the string of U.S. allies and partners that block China from the open Pacific. If China were to take Taiwan, it would rupture this defense perimeter, opening the way to greater influence—and coercion—throughout the region and beyond.

In 1972, Chinese leader Mao Zedong told U.S. President Richard Nixon that Beijing could wait 100 years to reclaim Taiwan. China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, is not so patient. He has said the island’s awkward status cannot be passed from generation to generation; he has reportedly ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready for action by 2027. Militaries constantly prepare for missions they never execute, of course. But the risk of war is rising as China’s capabilities—and urgency—grow.

A great-power war over Taiwan would be cataclysmic. It would feature combat more vicious than anything the United States has experienced in generations.

Beijing is reaping the rewards of a multidecade buildup focused on the ships, planes, and other platforms needed to project power into the Western Pacific; the “counter-intervention” capabilities, such as anti-ship missiles and sophisticated air defenses, needed to keep U.S. forces at bay; and now the nuclear capabilities needed to enhance China’s options for deterrence and coercion alike. The scale and scope of these programs are remarkable. Adm. John Aquilino, Davidson’s successor at Indo-Pacific Command, said in April that China has embarked on “the largest, fastest, most comprehensive military buildup since World War II.” As a result, the balance is changing fast. By the late 2020s, several recent assessments indicate , Washington might find it extremely hard to save Taiwan from a determined assault.

Xi would surely prefer to take Taiwan without a fight. He currently aims to coerce unification through military, economic, and psychological pressure short of war. Yet this strategy isn’t working. Having witnessed Xi’s brutal crackdown in Hong Kong, the Taiwanese populace has little interest in unification. Since 2016, the more hawkish, pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has thumped the more Beijing-friendly Kuomintang in presidential elections. If the DPP wins the next presidential race in January 2024—its candidate, Lai Ching-te, currently leads the polls—Xi might conclude that coercion has failed and consider more violent options.

Biden knows the threat is rising—he recently called China a “ticking time bomb”—which is why he has repeatedly said Washington won’t stand aside if Beijing strikes. But make no mistake: A great-power war over Taiwan would be cataclysmic. It would feature combat more vicious than anything the United States has experienced in generations. It would fragment the global economy and pose real risks of nuclear escalation. So the crucial question is whether Washington can deter a conflict it hopes never to fight.

Not everyone believes it can. “Taiwan is like 2 feet from China,” U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly remarked in 2019. “We are 8,000 miles away. If they invade, there isn’t a fucking thing we can do about it.” But protecting Taiwan isn’t as hopeless as the map makes it seem.

China’s fundamental advantages are proximity and the mass of forces it can muster in a war off its coast. The U.S. advantage is that control is harder than denial, especially when control requires crossing large contested bodies of water. An invasion of Taiwan, with its oceanic moat and rugged terrain, would be one of history’s most daunting military operations, comparable to the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. Options short of invasion, such as blockade or bombardment, offer no guarantee of forcing Taiwan to submit. Given the risk that a failed war could pose to Xi’s regime and perhaps his life, the Chinese leader will probably want a high chance of success if he attacks. So the United States and other countries should be able to inject enough doubt into this calculus that even a more risk-acceptant Xi decides rolling the iron dice is a bad idea.

This will require two mutually reinforcing types of deterrence. “Deterrence by denial” convinces an enemy not to attack by persuading him that the effort will fail. The ability to deter invasion, in this sense, is synonymous with the ability to defeat it. “Deterrence by punishment” convinces an enemy not to attack by persuading him that the effort—even if successful—will incur an exorbitant price. The strongest deterrents blend denial and punishment. They confront an aggressor with sky-high costs and a low likelihood of success. The U.S. task in the Western Pacific, then, is to show that Taiwan can survive a Chinese attack—and that any such war will leave China far poorer, weaker, and less politically stable than before.

In practice, this approach would rest on five pillars: first, a Taiwan that can deny China a quick or easy victory because it is bristling with arms and ready to resist to the end; second, a U.S. military that can sink a Chinese invasion fleet, decimate a blockade squadron, and otherwise turn back hostile forces trying to take Taiwan; third, a coalition of allies that can bolster this denial defense while raising the strategic price China pays by forcing it to fight a sprawling, regionwide war; fourth, a global punishment campaign that batters China’s economy—and perhaps its political system—regardless of whether Beijing wins or loses in the Taiwan Strait; and fifth, a credible ability to fight a nuclear war in the Western Pacific—if only to convince China that it cannot use its own growing arsenal to deter the United States from defending Taiwan.

If this sounds like a tall order, it is. Deterring determined revisionists is never easy. If these steps sound awful to contemplate, they are. Deterrence involves preparing for the unthinkable to lessen the likelihood it occurs. The United States and its friends are making real, even historic progress in all these areas. Alas, they are still struggling to get ahead of the threat.

Tyler Comrie illustration for Foreign Policy

Consider Taiwan itself. That country is the first line of defense in the Western Pacific. It may also be the weakest.

In fairness, Taiwan faces an epic task in hardening itself against its hulking neighbor. To do so, it has adopted a smart, asymmetric defense concept that emphasizes using “large numbers of small things,” as former U.S. defense official David Helvey termed it—sea mines, anti-ship missiles, mobile air defenses—to slow and attrite Chinese forces; it is building an army that can surge troops to invasion beaches; and it is raising a reserve force that can fight guerrilla-style in Taiwan’s complex terrain. The United States is selling—and, now, simply giving—Taiwan missiles, drones, and other weapons to hasten this transformation. It is quietly increasing its training and advisory presence on the island. Given time, Taiwan can make itself a prickly porcupine. The question is how much time that will take.

Taiwan’s promising defense reforms have been dogged by political and bureaucratic opposition, just as U.S. arms sales have lagged for years due to backlogs in the military supply pipeline. Yet the underlying problem is more fundamental. It is hard to claim that a country that spends just 2.4 percent of its GDP on defense, that is only slowly preparing the sort of all-of-society resistance that has sustained Ukraine, and whose military spends precious dollars on expensive, easy-to-kill capabilities that could be useless in the event of war is entirely serious about its own defense. According to the Rand Corp., Taiwan’s ability to hold out until help arrives is becoming more tenuous—which will make it a more tempting target for Beijing.

The United States reportedly lacks enough anti-ship missiles and other munitions to blunt the first Chinese attack, let alone keep fighting after a few days or weeks.

For the U.S. military, the story is also one of smart reforms and glaring weaknesses. The Pentagon is doing many of the right things to turn geography against Beijing by transforming the Western Pacific into a killing zone for attacking forces: buying more missiles and munitions, hardening its bases and learning to disperse its forces, investing in loitering shooters and sensors, exploring creative ways of delivering firepower from longer ranges, and even making the Marine Corps into a ship-killing force that operates from tiny islands. As new capabilities, such as a next-generation stealth bomber, and new basing opportunities come online in the late 2020s and 2030s, the United States may stand a good chance of stymying a Chinese attack. Yet these changes are still years or more from fruition, and striking deficiencies remain.

Modern combat remains a matter of mass. Recent investments aside, the United States reportedly lacks enough anti-ship missiles and other munitions to blunt the first Chinese attack, let alone keep fighting after a few days or weeks of high-intensity combat . Amphibious ships, attack submarines, and other critical platforms are all too scarce. Rapidly surging production of any of these capabilities is difficult, thanks to decades of disinvestment in the defense industrial base—and because even now, defense spending is roughly as low, relative to GDP, as at any time since World War II. As aging ships, planes, and submarines are retired in the late 2020s, in fact, U.S. firepower in the Western Pacific will decline, just as China’s current military reforms reach fruition. The Pentagon is working hard to address the China challenge, but it is still a long way from closing the window of vulnerability that is opening up.

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4 Ways U.S. Support for Ukraine Helps Defend Taiwan

From deterrence to military readiness, Ukraine aid is a major boost to Pacific security.

What about the multilateral aspects of deterrence? The best news, ironically, involves addressing the long-standing U.S. weakness in the Indo-Pacific: the lack of a regional alliance that makes an attack on one an attack on all. History and geography still conspire against such an arrangement. In recent years, though, Washington has made great strides in strengthening and stringing together relationships that could make up a winning coalition.

The U.S.-Japanese alliance is becoming a real warfighting partnership, as Tokyo embarks on its greatest defense buildup in generations and works with Washington to turn its Ryukyu Islands into maritime strong points. Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have formed a partnership focused on shoring up the military balance—especially undersea—in the region. Australia, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines are giving Washington expanded basing access in the first and second island chains; the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is holding more ambitious exercises; and numerous European countries are expanding deployments to the region. South Korea and Japan are enhancing their security cooperation. Officials in Washington, Tokyo, and Canberra are even whispering about fighting together in a three-way coalition to defend Taiwan.

That coalition could be a game-changer. Japan in particular would bring vital air and sea assets to a scrap. Even short of that, additional basing options can make a big difference, by making it harder for Chinese missiles to crush U.S. power without starting a huge regional war. Then there is the psychological contribution to deterrence. A Chinese regime that obsessively monitors the “correlation of forces” can hardly be encouraged as an Indo-Pacific balancing coalition coheres.

Officials in Washington, Tokyo, and Canberra are even whispering about fighting together in a three-way coalition to defend Taiwan.

Yet, if that coalition is a tribute to Beijing’s self-defeating bellicosity, the process is hardly complete. There remain uncertainties about which foreign facilities the United States will actually be able to use in wartime. Even the most enthusiastic allies, Australia and Japan, haven’t explicitly declared that they would fight for Taiwan. In 1914, another loose coalition—the Triple Entente—failed to prevent World War I because the lack of a firm British commitment caused German leaders to hope, wrongly, that the pact might crack under stress. Coalitions that fully coalesce only after a war has started coalesce too late to prevent the war from breaking out.

The same dynamic challenges the formation of a global punishment campaign. Russia’s war in Ukraine showed that advanced democracies around the world can rally to impose costs on an aggressor. NATO and the G-7 are taking a growing interest in Taiwan and the Western Pacific; Washington has engaged allies about hitting China with technological, financial, and trade sanctions in case of war. Add in the fact that the U.S. Navy could use its control of maritime choke points to cut off Beijing’s seaborne energy imports, and Xi now has to grapple with the possibility that attacking Taiwan would lead to economic ruin.

It’s only a possibility, though. There is no agreed, let alone announced, Western position on sanctioning China. Some European countries—most notably France—are publicly cool to the idea. Others are probably reluctant to commit, and thereby earn Beijing’s wrath, until the shooting starts. Xi, for his part, has surely noticed that sanctions have harmed but not destroyed Russia’s economy. He is sprinting to reduce China’s exposure by stockpiling food and gas, cultivating technological self-sufficiency, and investing in overland pipelines and supply routes that are safer from the threat of interdiction. Deterrence is thus a moving target. As Washington tries to prepare a punishment campaign, China tries to mitigate its potential effects.

Finally, there is the nuclear pillar. It seems unlikely that the United States would use nuclear weapons first in a war over Taiwan—an important but not existential interest—given that Beijing could respond in kind. A better objective is to dissuade China from thinking it can use the threat of limited nuclear escalation, likely against U.S. forces or bases in the region, to prevent Washington from intervening in the first place.

Through the end of this decade, the U.S. nuclear arsenal will remain larger and far more lethal than China’s, which gives Washington dominance at the top of the escalation ladder. The Pentagon is also developing and fielding limited nuclear capabilities—such as lower-yield warheads delivered via submarine-launched ballistic missiles—that will make it harder for Beijing to exploit an escalatory gap on the rungs below. Even so, deterring China from using nuclear threats to win a conventional war may not be as simple as it seems.

Chinese leaders may believe they possess greater resolve in a Taiwan conflict because that island—thanks to geography and history—is less important to Washington than to Beijing. As China’s arsenal expands rapidly from the late 2020s onward, Beijing may also be more inclined to use nuclear weapons for coercive leverage, as Moscow did when Soviet intercontinental capabilities matured in the Khrushchev years.

Not least, it is possible that recent events have convinced Beijing that the United States just won’t fight a conventional war against a nuclear-armed rival. Biden’s stated reason for not intervening directly in Ukraine is that doing so would cause “World War III.” If Xi doubted that the United States was any more eager for a contest in nuclear risk-taking in Asia, he might well be wrong—but he wouldn’t be crazy. Plenty of wars have begun due to miscalculations more egregious than this.

Deterrence is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. Short of climbing inside Xi’s head, we can’t know precisely what will or won’t stay his hand. The best Washington can do is try to reduce any optimism Xi could plausibly have about where a war might lead while recognizing that this will always be an imprecise art. It’s reassuring, in this context, that the United States and its friends are doing so much to address the growing danger—and deeply worrying that they sometimes seem to be moving in slow motion as China races to get ready for a fight. On issues from coalition-building to hardening Taiwan to strengthening U.S. capabilities, the direction of travel is excellent. The speed of travel is not.

Some analysts believe the only way to increase that speed is to downshift elsewhere—that the United States can only save Taiwan by sacrificing Ukraine. Things aren’t quite that simple. Deterrence, after all, is a product of will and capabilities. Many Indo-Pacific democracies, including Taiwan, have so strongly backed Ukraine because they know that the free world’s response to aggression in one place must figure into Xi’s assessment of the likely consequences of aggression in another. Materially speaking, the war in Ukraine has also impelled many of the positive moves—defense spending hikes, closer cooperation among partners and allies, investments in the U.S. defense industrial base—occurring in the Indo-Pacific. The right approach is to find, in one shocking war, the sense of urgency needed to ramp up efforts to prevent another. In the early 1950s, for example, the Truman administration used the alarm stoked by the Korean War to mount the U.S. military buildup and diplomatic offensive that bolstered free-world positions around the globe.

As U.S. President Harry Truman once put it, countries that don’t pay the price of peace will eventually pay the price of war.

Many obstacles—spending constraints, bureaucratic logjams, collective action problems—make an emergency program of this type difficult. But given that failure to deter Chinese aggression would confront Washington with a choice between fighting an earth-shaking conflict and letting Beijing reorder maritime Asia, those challenges should be kept in perspective. As President Harry Truman once put it , countries that don’t pay the price of peace will eventually pay the price of war.

To some degree, all the discussion of timelines and prospective D-Days is artificial. There presumably isn’t a giant clock ticking down to zero in Beijing. But it’s not a bad idea to pretend that there is. Deterring an awful war in the Western Pacific won’t require some magic formula. It will require greater urgency, resources, and unity than those committed to defending the existing order have exhibited so far. Washington and its allies must start acting as though they believe what U.S. officials have been saying—that time may be the free world’s most finite asset of all.  

This article appears in the Fall 2023 issue of Foreign Policy. Subscribe now to support our journalism.

Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger distinguished professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Twitter:  @HalBrands

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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.

Tired of Looming Deadlines?

Get the help you need from our expert writers to ace your next assignment!

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!

Having Hard Time Writing on Wars?

From the causes and consequences of wars to the strategies and tactics used in battle, our team of expert writers can provide you with a high-quality essay!

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Essay on War - A nation or organisation may turn to war to reach its goals, but what is the actual cost of progress? Countless lives have been lost to war and continue to be lost. It costs a lot of money and resources as well. Wars have always been brutal, deadly, and tragic, from the American Revolution to World Wars I and II to the Crusades and the ancient Hundred Years' War. Here are a few sample essays on "war" .

100 Words Essay on War

The greatest destroyers of people in modern times are wars. No matter who wins a war, mankind loses in every case. Millions of people have died in battles during the past century, with World Wars I and II being the worst. Wars are typically fought to protect a nation. Whatever the motive, it is hazardous conduct that results in the loss of millions of priceless innocent lives and has dangerous impacts that even future generations will have to deal with.

The results of using nuclear bombs are catastrophic. The weapons business benefits when there is a war elsewhere in the world because it maintains its supply chain. Weapons that cause massive destruction are being made bigger and better. The only way to end wars is to raise awareness among the general public.

200 Words Essay on War

Without a doubt, war is terrible, and the most devastating thing that can happen to humans. It causes death and devastation, illness and poverty, humiliation and destruction. To evaluate the devastation caused by war, one needs to consider the havoc that was wrecked on several nations not too many years ago. A particularly frightening ability of modern wars is that they tend to become global so that they may absorb the entire world. The fact that some people view war as a great and heroic adventure that brings out the best in people does not change the fact that it is a horrible tragedy.

This is more true now that atomic weapons will be used to fight a war. War, according to some, is required. Looking at the past reveals that war has drastically changed throughout the nation's history. The destructive impacts of war have never been more prevalent in human history. We have experienced lengthy and brief wars of various kinds. There have been supporters of nonviolence and the brotherhood of man. Buddha, Christ, and Mahatma Gandhi have all lived. Despite this, war has always been fought, weapons are always used, military power has always been deployed, and there have always been armies in war.

500 Words Essay on War

If we take a closer look at human history, it will become evident that conflicts have existed ever since the primitive eras. Although efforts have been made to end it, this has not been successful so far. Thus, it appears that we are unable to achieve eternal peace. Many defend wars by claiming that nature's rules require them. Charles Darwin is placed in front of them to illustrate their point. He was the one who created the rule of the fittest. He claimed that everything in nature, whether alive or dead, is constantly engaged in a battle for survival. Only the strongest will survive in this fight. Therefore, it is believed that without battle, humankind won't be able to progress.

Impacts of War

People fail to see that war invariably results in severe damage. They ignored the nonviolent principles taught by Mahatma Gandhi, who used them to liberate his country from the shackles of slavery. They fail to consider that if Gandhi could push out the powerful Britishers without resorting to violence, why shouldn't others do the same? Wars are unavoidable calamities, and there are no words to adequately depict the vast quantity and scope of their tragedies. The atrocities of the two world wars must never be forgotten. There was tremendous murder and property devastation during the battles. There were thousands of widows and orphans. War spreads falsehoods and creates hatred. People start acting brutally selfishly. Humanity and morals suffer as a result.

War is an Enemy

War is the enemy of all humanity and human civilisation. Nothing positive can come of it. Consequently, it should never be celebrated in any way. In addition to impeding national progress, it undermines social cohesion. It slows down the rate of human progress. Wars are not the answer to the world's issues. Instead, they cause issues and generate hatred among nations. War can settle one issue but creates far too many other ones. The two most horrific examples of the war's after-effects are Hiroshima and Nagasaki. People are still enduring the effects of war 77 years later. Whatever the reason for war, it always ends in the widespread loss of human life and property.

Disadvantages of War

Massive human deaths and injuries, the depletion of financial resources, environmental degradation, lost productivity, and long-term harm to military personnel are all drawbacks of war. Families are split apart by war. Both towns and cities are destroyed by it. People become more sensitive, and every industry faces collapse. People’s health declines physically and they lose their sense of security. They won't have any security, and those who win the battle will treat the citizens of the defeated nation as their slaves and prohibit them from the right to work. After the war, there will be a lack of jobs and corruption issues for the nation to deal with.

Russia – Ukraine War

The world saw great turmoil beginning in February 2022 with the Russian-Ukraine War. Russia's invasion of Ukraine was the most serious conventional attack on a nation, bringing a severe economic crisis to the world. India has taken a neutral stance for Russia, keeping in mind the two countries' long-standing alliance, especially in its foreign policies and positive international relationships. Russia was concerned about Ukraine's security due to its intention to join NATO and invaded Ukraine in 2014. Additionally, Russia provided help to the rebels in the eastern Ukrainian districts of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The war between Russia and Ukraine has had a substantial impact on oil prices and other commodity prices, as well as increased trade uncertainty. India has economic troubles due to Western countries' supply disruptions and limited trade with Russia.

War has historically been the worst mark on humanity. Although it was made by man, it is now beyond the power of any human force. To preserve humanity, the entire human species must now reflect on this. Otherwise, neither humanity nor war will survive.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

• Construction
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• Information Technology

Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary. 

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

GIS officer work on various GIS software to conduct a study and gather spatial and non-spatial information. GIS experts update the GIS data and maintain it. The databases include aerial or satellite imagery, latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, and manually digitized images of maps. In a career as GIS expert, one is responsible for creating online and mobile maps.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Database Architect

If you are intrigued by the programming world and are interested in developing communications networks then a career as database architect may be a good option for you. Data architect roles and responsibilities include building design models for data communication networks. Wide Area Networks (WANs), local area networks (LANs), and intranets are included in the database networks. It is expected that database architects will have in-depth knowledge of a company's business to develop a network to fulfil the requirements of the organisation. Stay tuned as we look at the larger picture and give you more information on what is db architecture, why you should pursue database architecture, what to expect from such a degree and what your job opportunities will be after graduation. Here, we will be discussing how to become a data architect. Students can visit NIT Trichy , IIT Kharagpur , JMI New Delhi . 

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive. 

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Product manager.

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.  

Operations Manager

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Stock Analyst

Individuals who opt for a career as a stock analyst examine the company's investments makes decisions and keep track of financial securities. The nature of such investments will differ from one business to the next. Individuals in the stock analyst career use data mining to forecast a company's profits and revenues, advise clients on whether to buy or sell, participate in seminars, and discussing financial matters with executives and evaluate annual reports.

A Researcher is a professional who is responsible for collecting data and information by reviewing the literature and conducting experiments and surveys. He or she uses various methodological processes to provide accurate data and information that is utilised by academicians and other industry professionals. Here, we will discuss what is a researcher, the researcher's salary, types of researchers.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues. 

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems. 

Safety Manager

A Safety Manager is a professional responsible for employee’s safety at work. He or she plans, implements and oversees the company’s employee safety. A Safety Manager ensures compliance and adherence to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) guidelines.

Conservation Architect

A Conservation Architect is a professional responsible for conserving and restoring buildings or monuments having a historic value. He or she applies techniques to document and stabilise the object’s state without any further damage. A Conservation Architect restores the monuments and heritage buildings to bring them back to their original state.

Structural Engineer

A Structural Engineer designs buildings, bridges, and other related structures. He or she analyzes the structures and makes sure the structures are strong enough to be used by the people. A career as a Structural Engineer requires working in the construction process. It comes under the civil engineering discipline. A Structure Engineer creates structural models with the help of computer-aided design software. 

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description:  A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Field Surveyor

Are you searching for a Field Surveyor Job Description? A Field Surveyor is a professional responsible for conducting field surveys for various places or geographical conditions. He or she collects the required data and information as per the instructions given by senior officials. 

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Pathologist

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Veterinary Doctor

Speech therapist, gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth. 

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Are you searching for an ‘Anatomist job description’? An Anatomist is a research professional who applies the laws of biological science to determine the ability of bodies of various living organisms including animals and humans to regenerate the damaged or destroyed organs. If you want to know what does an anatomist do, then read the entire article, where we will answer all your questions.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs. 

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Photographer

Photography is considered both a science and an art, an artistic means of expression in which the camera replaces the pen. In a career as a photographer, an individual is hired to capture the moments of public and private events, such as press conferences or weddings, or may also work inside a studio, where people go to get their picture clicked. Photography is divided into many streams each generating numerous career opportunities in photography. With the boom in advertising, media, and the fashion industry, photography has emerged as a lucrative and thrilling career option for many Indian youths.

An individual who is pursuing a career as a producer is responsible for managing the business aspects of production. They are involved in each aspect of production from its inception to deception. Famous movie producers review the script, recommend changes and visualise the story. 

They are responsible for overseeing the finance involved in the project and distributing the film for broadcasting on various platforms. A career as a producer is quite fulfilling as well as exhaustive in terms of playing different roles in order for a production to be successful. Famous movie producers are responsible for hiring creative and technical personnel on contract basis.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook. 

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion. 

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article. 

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Individuals who opt for a career as a reporter may often be at work on national holidays and festivities. He or she pitches various story ideas and covers news stories in risky situations. Students can pursue a BMC (Bachelor of Mass Communication) , B.M.M. (Bachelor of Mass Media) , or  MAJMC (MA in Journalism and Mass Communication) to become a reporter. While we sit at home reporters travel to locations to collect information that carries a news value.  

Corporate Executive

Are you searching for a Corporate Executive job description? A Corporate Executive role comes with administrative duties. He or she provides support to the leadership of the organisation. A Corporate Executive fulfils the business purpose and ensures its financial stability. In this article, we are going to discuss how to become corporate executive.

Multimedia Specialist

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications. 

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product. 

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans. 

Process Development Engineer

The Process Development Engineers design, implement, manufacture, mine, and other production systems using technical knowledge and expertise in the industry. They use computer modeling software to test technologies and machinery. An individual who is opting career as Process Development Engineer is responsible for developing cost-effective and efficient processes. They also monitor the production process and ensure it functions smoothly and efficiently.

AWS Solution Architect

An AWS Solution Architect is someone who specializes in developing and implementing cloud computing systems. He or she has a good understanding of the various aspects of cloud computing and can confidently deploy and manage their systems. He or she troubleshoots the issues and evaluates the risk from the third party. 

Azure Administrator

An Azure Administrator is a professional responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Azure Solutions. He or she manages cloud infrastructure service instances and various cloud servers as well as sets up public and private cloud systems. 

Computer Programmer

Careers in computer programming primarily refer to the systematic act of writing code and moreover include wider computer science areas. The word 'programmer' or 'coder' has entered into practice with the growing number of newly self-taught tech enthusiasts. Computer programming careers involve the use of designs created by software developers and engineers and transforming them into commands that can be implemented by computers. These commands result in regular usage of social media sites, word-processing applications and browsers.

Information Security Manager

Individuals in the information security manager career path involves in overseeing and controlling all aspects of computer security. The IT security manager job description includes planning and carrying out security measures to protect the business data and information from corruption, theft, unauthorised access, and deliberate attack 

ITSM Manager

Automation test engineer.

An Automation Test Engineer job involves executing automated test scripts. He or she identifies the project’s problems and troubleshoots them. The role involves documenting the defect using management tools. He or she works with the application team in order to resolve any issues arising during the testing process. 

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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

Is This the End of Academic Freedom?

By Paula Chakravartty and Vasuki Nesiah

Dr. Chakravartty is a professor of media, communication and culture at New York University, where Dr. Nesiah is a professor of practice in human rights and international law.

​At New York University, the spring semester began with a poetry reading. Students and faculty gathered in the atrium of Bobst Library. At that time, about 26,000 Palestinians had already been killed in Israel’s horrific war on Gaza; the reading was a collective act of bearing witness.

The last poem read aloud was titled “If I Must Die.” It was written, hauntingly, by a Palestinian poet and academic named Refaat Alareer who was killed weeks earlier by an Israeli airstrike. The poem ends: “If I must die, let it bring hope — let it be a tale.”

Soon after those lines were recited, the university administration shut the reading down . Afterward, we learned that students and faculty members were called into disciplinary meetings for participating in this apparently “disruptive” act; written warnings were issued.

We have both taught at N.Y.U. for over a decade and believe we are in a moment of unparalleled repression. Over the past six months, since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, we have seen the university administration fail to adequately protect dissent on campus, actively squelching it instead. We believe what we are witnessing in response to student, staff and faculty opposition to the war violates the very foundations of academic freedom.

While N.Y.U. says that it remains committed to free expression on campus and that its rules about and approach to protest activity haven’t changed, students and faculty members in solidarity with the Palestinian people have found the campus environment alarmingly constrained.

About a week after Hamas’s attacks in October, the Grand Staircase in the Kimmel student center, a storied site of student protests , closed indefinitely; it has yet to reopen fully. A graduate student employee was reprimanded for putting up fliers in support of Palestinians on the student’s office door and ultimately took them down; that person is not the only N.Y.U. student to face some form of disciplinary consequence for pro-Palestinian speech or action. A resolution calling for the university to reaffirm protection of pro-Palestinian speech and civic activity on campus, passed by the elected Student Government Assembly in December, has apparently been stuck in a procedural black hole since.

The New York Police Department has become a pervasive presence on campus, with over 6,000 hours of officer presence added after the war broke out. Hundreds of faculty members have signed onto an open letter condemning the university’s “culture of fear about campus speech and activism.”

Such draconian interventions are direct threats to academic freedom.

At universities across the country, any criticism of Israel’s policies, expressions of solidarity with Palestinians, organized calls for a cease-fire or even pedagogy on the recent history of the land have all emerged as perilous speech. In a letter to university presidents in November, the A.C.L.U. expressed concern about “impermissible chilling of free speech and association on campus” in relation to pro-Palestinian student groups and views; since then, the atmosphere at colleges has become downright McCarthyite .

The donors, trustees, administrators and third parties who oppose pro-Palestinian speech seem to equate any criticism of the State of Israel — an occupying power under international law and one accused of committing war crimes — with antisemitism. To them, the norms of free speech are inherently problematic, and a broad definition of antisemitism is a tool for censorship . Outside funding has poured into horrifying doxxing and harassment campaigns. Pro-Israel surveillance groups like Canary Mission and CAMERA relentlessly target individuals and groups deemed antisemitic or critical of Israel. Ominous threats follow faculty and students for just expressing their opinions or living out their values.

To be clear, we abhor all expressions of antisemitism and wholeheartedly reject any role for antisemitism on our campuses. Equally, we believe that conflating criticism of Israel or Zionism with antisemitism is dangerous. Equating the criticism of any nation with inherent racism endangers basic democratic freedoms on and off campus. As the A.C.L.U. wrote in its November statement, a university “cannot fulfill its mission as a forum for vigorous debate” if it polices the views of faculty members and students, however much any of us may disagree with them or find them offensive.

In a wave of crackdowns on pro-Palestinian speech nationwide, students have had scholarships revoked, job offers pulled and student groups suspended. At Columbia, protesters have reported being sprayed by what they said was skunk, a chemical weapon used by the Israeli military; at Northwestern, two Black students faced criminal charges , later dropped, for publishing a pro-Palestinian newspaper parody; at Cornell, students were arrested during a peaceful protest . In a shocking episode of violence last fall, three Palestinian students , two of them wearing kaffiyehs, were shot while walking near the University of Vermont.

Many more cases of student repression on campuses are unfolding.

Academic freedom, as defined by the American Association of University Professors in the mid-20th century , provides protection for the pursuit of knowledge by faculty members, whose job is to educate, learn and research both inside and outside the academy. Not only does this resonate with the Constitution’s free speech protections ; international human rights law also affirms the centrality of academic freedom to the right to education and the institutional autonomy of educational institutions.

Across the United States, attacks on free speech are on the rise . In recent years, right-wing groups opposed to the teaching of critical race theory have tried to undermine these principles through measures including restrictions on the discussion of history and structural racism in curriculums, heightened scrutiny of lectures and courses that are seen to promote dissent and disciplinary procedures against academics who work on these topics.

What people may not realize is that speech critical of Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies has long been censored, posing persistent challenges to those of us who uphold academic freedom. Well before Oct. 7, speech and action at N.Y.U. in support of Palestinians faced intense and undue scrutiny.

Our students are heeding Refaat Alareer’s call to bear witness. They are speaking out — writing statements, organizing protests and responding to a plausible threat of genocide with idealism and conviction. As faculty members, we believe that college should be a time when students are encouraged to ask big questions about justice and the future of humanity and to pursue answers however disquieting to the powerful.

Universities must be places where students have access to specialized knowledge that shapes contemporary debates, where faculty members are encouraged to be public intellectuals, even when, or perhaps especially when, they are expressing dissenting opinions speaking truth to power. Classrooms must allow for contextual learning, where rapidly mutating current events are put into a longer historical timeline.

This is a high-stakes moment. A century ago, attacks on open discussion of European antisemitism, the criminalization of dissent and the denial of Jewish histories of oppression and dispossession helped create the conditions for the Holocaust. One crucial “never again” lesson from that period is that the thought police can be dangerous. They can render vulnerable communities targets of oppression. They can convince the world that some lives are not as valuable as others, justifying mass slaughter.

It is no wonder that students across the country are protesting an unpopular and brutal war that, besides Israel, only the United States is capable of stopping. It is extraordinary that the very institutions that ought to safeguard their exercise of free speech are instead escalating surveillance and policing, working on ever more restrictive student conduct rules and essentially risking the death of academic freedom.

From the Vietnam War to apartheid South Africa, universities have been important places for open discussion and disagreement about government policies, the historical record, structural racism and settler colonialism. They have also long served as sites of protest. If the university cannot serve as an arena for such freedoms, the possibilities of democratic life inside and outside the university gates are not only impoverished but under threat of extinction.

Paula Chakravartty is a professor of media, communication and culture at New York University, where Vasuki Nesiah is a professor of practice in human rights and international law. Both are members of the executive committee of the N.Y.U. chapter of the American Association of University Professors and members of N.Y.U.’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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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.

War has existed since the inception of human civilization with lust for power, territory and wealth being the principal reasons for inflicting war. War has become more dynamic i.e from fighting battles with swords and arrows to using state-of-the-art technologies such as hi-tech aircraft such as Raphael and submarines to using nuclear weapons, war has evolved gradually with the evolution of man himself. Occurrence of World War II after most countries such as the UK, France, Germany, Italy and the USA reconcile not to go to war after witnessing the mass-scale loss of human lives and material wealth, the measures to stop the war are limited and ineffective. As such the only two scopes for preventing war or at least minimizing the scale of war are arms control and diplomacy. The first attempt in preventing war was made after the culmination of World war I with the creation of the League of Nations in 1920. It was the first intergovernmental organization that was initiated to promote international agreements and cooperation for the sake of the security of citizens of member countries. The  Covenant of the League of Nations consisting of 26 Articles of international cooperation was drafted by the founding members of the organization the UK, France, Italy and Japan. Other countries could join the league after getting elected for three years. The Leagues of nations failed to redeem their pledges of respecting one another’s territorial integrity when it could not check Germany’s ambition of annexing its neighbouring territories ultimately resulting in World War II. The second attempt at preventing war was made with the creation of the United Nations on 24 October 1945. The Non-Proliferation Treaty aimed at hindering the development of nuclear weapons and weapons technology to promote the cooperation of peaceful use of nuclear energy and nuclear disarmament. The Arms Act of 1959, incorporated into the Indian constitution aimed at consolidating and amending the use of the laws concerning arms and ammunition to check the spread of violent conflicts within the nation as well as violent conflicts with foreign countries. It replaced the Indian Arms of Act 1878.

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.

Q1. What is the theory of War?

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.

Q2. Why was the United Nations formed?

Ans: The second attempt at preventing war was made with the creation of the United Nations on 24 October 1945.

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