World Peace: An Unattainable Goal?

[wolram]

I was wondering how much it would take to bring about world peace and started to look up some facts, to me it seems impossible with all these countries in conflict.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts

 

[Silicon Waffle]

Very nice! Then what about doing businesses in those red zones ? Is it safe, really enjoyable (without headaches) however cheap the labor over there may be ?

 

[Hornbein]

If Europe can find peace after millenia of war, anywhere can find peace.

The world is a lot more peaceful than it was. I, II, Korea, H-bombs, Viet Nam, Iraq vs. Iran, Kosovo, Iraq I...

 

[phinds]

I was wondering how much it would take to bring about world peace ...

How much WHAT to bring about world peace?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Until war is no longer profitable, it will continue.

 

[phinds]

Until war is no longer profitable, it will continue.

I don't think profit is the cause of all wars. Ideology and religious fervor are among other causes.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I don't think profit is the cause of all wars. Ideology and religious fervor are among other causes.

I'm thinking a degree away. aka arms dealers.

 

[Rx7man]

I think a lot of people with a lot of interest in selling weapons don't have issues with stirring the religious pots up a bit.

 

[Hornbein]

Until war is no longer profitable, it will continue.

In the old days war was about booty. That went out with the invention of the machine gun. War became a loss to everyone involved except Daddy Warbucks types. They may wield considerable influence, but I don't see why this tiny minority can't be kept under control.

 

[jackwhirl]

2.24 X 10^32 Joules would be a good start. How many world pieces did you want?

 

[Hornbein]

War creates jobs. So does disease, lawsuits, mental illness, crime, natural disasters, etc.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

War creates jobs.

So do strip clubs

 

[Hornbein]

So do strip clubs

The question is, should job creation be the criterion?

 

[wolram]

There are 10 companies that make most money from arms sales:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...10-companies-profiting-most-from-war/1970997/

 

[wolram]

Here is what Russia produces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_industry_of_Russia

 

[wolram]

Some of the blood money the UK pulls in:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-arms-sales-to-repressive-states-8711794.html

 

[russ_watters]

Weapons companies cause wars? Are you guys serious? If that were true, they must be reaaalllly bad at it, since none of the major world powers have had a significant war in 40 years! The wars going on right now are low cost, low tech, low profit.

The main profit from war is theft, but even that isn't very significant anymore. Most wars are matters of religious/ethnic hate, not profit. Theft and hate are what war has always been about. Countries that have grown out of using violence to solve such issues amongst themselves (the West) have essentially completely abandoned war.

The idea that weapons companies cause wars is just a popular - albeit vague - liberal conspiracy theory.

 

[S.G. Janssens]

If that were true, they must be reaaalllly bad at it, since none of the major world powers have had a significant war in 40 years!

I think that's a bit odd to say, given the long term military campaigns of the USA and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan during the last 1.5 decade or so, hence even excluding the first Iraq war. A single cruise missile costs around a million dollars, depending on the specific type.

Here I do not pass any judgement on those campaigns, just pointing out that they did take place and much of the West was involved, albeit far from home.

The wars going on right now are low cost, low tech, low profit.

Drones and other unmanned airborne weaponry seem quite high-tech to me. Probably their share of the defense budget in the West will only increase during the coming years.

 

[russ_watters]

Krylov, the needed clarification there is that the US engagement in those wars (and indeed the size of the wars themselves) is not significant -- by historic standards. $1 M for a cruise missile, for example, is pretty much nothing

Yes, the most significant war since Vietnam was Gulf War I. It was tiny in comparison to previous wars: the previous 40 years saw three wars that killed tens or hundreds of times more people and cost tens or hundreds of times more money.

Regarding our wars and height tech weaponry (and the US in general): you are missing the point: the US is not currently a significant contributor in any of the world's wars and in total since Vietnam has contributed very little overall.
[Edit] Clicking through the link in the OP, I see we do still have 10,000 troops in Afganistan. I'd argue that isn't "significant", but I don't think I was aware we still had any.

 

[russ_watters]

I tend to really dislike threads like this because they generally apply the "war is terrible" mantra flatly; without any context or quantification. As a result they give the impression of implying that the world is unusually dangerous by historical standards, when in fact it is unusually safe.

 

[S.G. Janssens]

I tend to really dislike threads like this because they generally apply the "war is terrible" mantra flatly; without any context or quantification. As a result they give the impression of implying that the world is unusually dangerous by historical standards, when in fact it is unusually safe.

I don't agree with you in this thread, but I don't agree with the "war is terrible" mantra either. It is more complex than that.

 

[russ_watters]

Let's try to put a finer point on this:

I was wondering how much it would take to bring about world peace and started to look up some facts, to me it seems impossible with all these countries in conflict.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts

What exactly would satisfy you? Do you literally mean precisely zero war? Personally, I don't think that's realistically achievable nor particularly meaningful.

How about this: for all of recorded history, global war deaths ran from as little as about 1 per 100,000 population per year during "peacetime" (average of about 2) to 100 per 100,000 per year during "war" (average of about 50). Then starting in the 1990s, the peacetime war deaths rate dropped as low as 0.2 and the "wartime" death rate dropped to about 0.5. In other words, at the height of the worst wars of the past 20 years, the world was four times safer than during any sustained peacetime in previous human history - and compared to other "wartimes", about a hundred times safer.

The drop at the end of the cold war (really, it started after WWII, then plateaued for a bit) is so stark that in order to avoid having to say we're a rounding error away from complete world peace, the graphs have to be logarithmic:

http://ourworldindata.org/data/war-peace/war-and-peace-before-1945/
http://ourworldindata.org/data/war-peace/war-and-peace-after-1945/

There are a bunch of graphs on the site. I recommend perusing it.

 

[Rx7man]

While I of course no conclusive evidence weapons companies are fomenting wars, it would be hard to imagine them being very much against it either, and have you ever seen any of their executives rallying for peace?.. Also, when you look at the connections between the Bush family and companies like Halliburton, etc, it just gives me reason to pause and wonder.
What the west is doing in the middle east I consider 'meddling'... We seem to be very good at replacing one dictator with another,... Arming one side of a conflict to later regret it and go to war against them, and for the most part we are making some very serious enemies in the process of gaining some pretty shallow friendships.

 

[phinds]

... in the process of gaining some pretty shallow friendships.

What friendships ?

 

[Rx7man]

Yeah.. you're right.. it's probably none.. perhaps Israel?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Also, when you look at the connections between the Bush family and companies like Halliburton, etc, it just gives me reason to pause and wonder.

This is not a very good argument.

1. Haliburton is not an arms dealer.
2. The private military contractor arm of Haliburton, KBR, was spun off a decade ago.
3. Even when it was part of Halburton,it was less than 10% of their business.

Your argument seems to be to collect the things you don't like - war, Haliburton. the Bush family, arms dealers - and declare that there must be some relation between them.

Russ is right that the Pax Americana is one of the most peaceful times in history. If you look at the Wikipedia list, you will see "wars" that don't seem like wars (because the regular wars no longer exist, at least not the way they used to), like the Mexican Drug War. And for those who think it should be a war, why not consider organized crime in the US also a "war"? It had a comparable fatality rate.

 

[Rx7man]

@Vanadium 50
While it is true that I don't possesses much sympathy in my heart for the aforementioned, I didn't really 'declare' anything.
I'm a skeptic, and I'm even skeptic of skeptics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton
Some interesting reading there, and while there are some things that are allegations, they have pled guilty to bribery and destruction of evidence, And when the CEO is also the US vice president... I don't put it beyond them to do some backhanded deals.

 

[russ_watters]

Some interesting reading there, and while there are some things that are allegations, they have pled guilty to bribery and destruction of evidence...

None of which has anything to do with profiting from arms trade/war.

And when the CEO is also the US vice president... I don't put it beyond them to do some backhanded deals..

Which, again, you have no evidence for and even if there were, they'd have little or nothing to do with weapons trade/war.

And:

While I of course no conclusive evidence weapons companies are fomenting wars, it would be hard to imagine them being very much against it either, and have you ever seen any of their executives rallying for peace?

Sure, and by that logic, since I have never seen Tim Cook at a peace rally either, we should assume Apple is secretly profiting from war.

C'mon, this isn't even conspiracy theory, it is just fantasy.

 

[russ_watters]

This is not a very good argument.

1. Haliburton is not an arms dealer.
2. The private military contractor arm of Haliburton, KBR, was spun off a decade ago.
3. Even when it was part of Halburton,it was less than 10% of their business.

Not that I think it would matter much to this discussion, but...
4. My read of the wiki for KBR says they are an engineering/construction company, not a weapons company. Their bread and butter may be military construction contracting, but heck, most significant (and many insignificant) engineering companies have done at least some government/military work, including both I've worked for.

And we're really getting off track here. Again, (more for Rx7Man and several others), war is way down and currently the US is playing very little role in wars in the world - though it has in the past 13 years played a more significant role in what is considered "wartime" but bears little relation to previous "wars" in scope (it was just long). And even then, I'm not sure how this got to be about the US, but if you want to blame the US for selling weapons, you should at least also give us credit for causing them to be used far, far less than ever before in Western history.

 

[Rx7man]

Profiting from war can be less direct than selling arms... Seems like Halliburton had been awarded some significant restoration projects in the gulf

Have you read anything from John Perkins? He describes lots of underhanded deals (in peacetime). Some people say his book is completely fictional...

It's all a chess game, and the big players are looking 8 moves ahead.