War is obsolete.
But most of our political and business leaders fail to understand this glaring fact.
It’s obsolete because in the 21st century, everything ‘s changed.
For most of human history, conflict has been carried out mostly by men. Till roughly 10,000 years ago, conflicts were almost exclusively minor raids and skirmishes.
But since we began living in villages, towns and eventually cities (the so-called “Neolithic Revolution”) mass warfare, a widening gap between “rich” and “poor," and social violence have become normalized. Armed conflict has escalated into wars of takeover and/or annihilation.
In 1832 the aristocratic Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz wrote the famous book, On War, calling war "an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will," normalizing it as "a continuation of policy by other means."
He ignored its destructive brutality.
Fifty years later, General William T. Sherman, after whom the Sherman tank was later named, was more blunt, telling military students: “I tell you, war is Hell!... you don't know the horrible aspects of war. I've been through two wars and I know… cities and homes in ashes…men lying … their dead faces looking up at the skies.”
Sherman still believed, however, that “wars … ever will be.”
In von Clausewitz’ and Sherman’s time, even without war, life could be very fragile. The wealthy could readily oppress the poor. Death from injury or infection could occur almost randomly, occurring within hours, days or weeks (Clausewitz himself died rapidly, age 51, of cholera).
But now everything has changed.
War – or open mass violence between or within nations – is a luxury we can no longer afford.
War’s downside has expanded exponentially, rendering its so-called “benefits” meaningless.
Today we possess incredibly lethal firearms of all kinds, airplanes, rockets, tanks, bombs, drones, biological and chemical weapons and the most dangerous weapon of all, the atomic bomb.
War, as a form of conflict resolution, has to be abolished – for many reasons.
First, identifying “enemies” is increasingly challenging.
Widespread migration and travel, and the Internet and social media, have made us aware of shared values among people everywhere – people who look and act like us and express interests, goals and basic needs like our own.
Second, the brutality of war, no longer hidden, daily causes mental pain and distress in every observer’s mind.
Third, most people killed and wounded in warfighting are now not soldiers, but innocent civilian non-combatants – of all ages. All survivors are scarred and impaired for life, either physically or psychologically.
Finally, existential threats like the climate crisis, rampant pollution and the human-caused extinction of myriad life forms are intensified by warfare. Warfighting leaves a trail of human and ecosystem destruction; its massive financial costs steal funds from valuable activities like education and health care and healing the world’s systems and functions.
Famed Canadian author Gwynne Dyer wrote, in 1985, at the end of his book War: “Some generation [will] face the task of abolishing war…we happen to be that generation”.
I couldn’t agree more.
Warren Bell is a long-time family physician in Salmon Arm with a consuming interest and involvement in community and global affairs.