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Hornbein
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russ_watters said:What exactly would satisfy you? Do you literally mean precisely zero war? Personally, I don't think that's realistically achievable nor particularly meaningful.
I think zero war is entirely realistic and achievable, and it wouldn't even be that hard. All it would take is the will.
Look at the example of the United States. Back in the colony days there was a small war between Connecticut and New Jersey. Connecticut had a royal charter that its territory went all the way to the Pacific Ocean. If they had had their way, today Connecticut would be a strip of land all the way to Eureka, CA. This strip went through New Jersey, which did not recognize the claim. Connecticutians started to move into Jersey. Jerseyites burned down their cabins and chased them out. It didn't become a full-scale war because still-Dutch New York wouldn't let Connecticutians pass over its land to fight New Jersey. Without a supply line the invasion fizzled.
The other 12 states blockaded Rhode Island to get it to ratify the Constitution. That's an act of war.
Even after the states united, Michigan went to war with Ohio over Toledo. Toledo had mistakenly been built in Michigan. Michigan asserted its legal rights. Ohio wouldn't give. So there was armed conflict. The US gov't gave Michigan its current upper peninsula to settle the claim on Toledo.
Then of course there is the Civil War/War Between the States.
The question is, if war is inevitable, why don't the US states go to war more often? How does the system settle claims without violence? Why is war between the states pretty much unthinkable these days? Why don't states keep large standing armies to defend themselves from other states? Think about it.
It's because there is a working legal system to settle their disputes. They don't need to waste their resources on large standing armies. It would make no sense to have such an army,navy, or air force. The states can settle their conflicts without carrying a big stick.
Then why do nations have big standing armies? It is because no system exists that works to solve disputes peacefully. International politics is anarchy. There is no working international system. So nations often employ threats of violence. Those threats may be implicit or explicit, but they go on constantly. Occasionally there is actual violence: a war, a drone strike, or a plane shot down. You have to use real violence on occasion to "maintain credibility" for your threats.
There are economic sanctions, but they don't work very well. Too many cheaters.
If there were a system that worked to solve disputes peacefully, the nations would use it. They wouldn't waste their resources on large standing armed forces. Such waste would no longer make sense.
The United Nations is not such a system and never will be as long as the great powers have veto power. But it is a step in that direction. Dwight Eisenhower and many others were very enthusiastic about it. It could grow into such a system.
The United Nations has passed many resolutions to end the conflicts in the Middle East. The USA always vetoes them. They prefer the status quo, with Israel holding on to its ill-gotten gains via force of arms.
Nicaragua sued the US in the World Court and won. The US simply ignored the judgement. It preferred to settle the conflict via force of arms.
One thing for sure: as long as the US prefers the status quo and disdains international attempts to make peace, there will be no peace.
russ_watters said: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.
That blue line is military deaths. We don't have that data from before WWII. You have to use the red line. Then the most peaceful period is 1460-1490.
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