Future Peace by Robert H. Latiff;

Author:Robert H. Latiff;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)
Published: 2021-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

FOUR

AVOIDING WAR

It would be better for our country and the world in general,

if at least the few people who were capable of thought

stood for reason and the love of peace instead

of heading wildly with blind obsession for new war.

—Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf

In the aftermath of World War II and with the start of the Cold War, citizens worried about, and experienced an existential dread of, thermonuclear Armageddon. While the Cold War per se has ended and the numbers of weapons have been reduced dramatically in the US and Russia, nuclear technologies continue to proliferate around the world. Some senior officials say that it is not a matter of “if” a nuclear event will occur, only a matter of “when.”1 From the end of World War II to 1973, the US was involved in 19 military operations. From 1973 to 2012, there were 144.2 The US has conducted more armed interventions since the end of the Cold War than during it.3 At some level, everyone agrees that war and violence are bad things, but we keep engaging in them.

We have to ask ourselves several important questions. How did things get this way? Citizens cede war-making authority and responsibility to political leaders, who then freely engage us in conflicts that we do not understand and that often have little to do with our own security. Worse yet, we repeatedly let them do so with little, or no, pushback. When and why did citizens become so detached from America’s wars? The public pays little attention. It is not directly affected. Why should the public even care? At some point, the costs—personal, financial, reputational—of US involvement in endless wars will have to be paid. What information should citizens have and should they demand if the politicians decide to deploy troops? They will need to be informed if they are to push back against the undebated policies and the unrestrained behavior of politicians in using military force. What role do new war-fighting technologies play in these decisions, if at all? With new weapons technologies, there will be new and different pressures, which makes the search for ways to avoid war even more important. These all add up to the fundamental questions of why and how people should resist war in this era of new technologies and new types of conflict.

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