I don't have much to add - I'd just point out that I remember reading that North Korea and China already provide mutual support, though the relationship is often strained.

Reducing war in a economic system which tends towards recurrent crises, and in a world of increasing environmental and resource depletion, is very difficult. You would need some kind of international movement which basically undermines the ability of equivalently sized militaries on all sides to prosecute war - this is very difficult in itself, as they are the people with the arms. There's good historical evidence that sometimes militaries are unwilling to use their arms on their own country-persons, but asside from that, these people, if unconscripted, are willing to kill. I can't see that such a movement exists effectively internationally - if it did begin to form, this would probably precipitate a backlash from governments and militaries themselves.

Any movement hoping to reduce the power of militaries would probably to a degree have to be willing to use arms and to a degree be organised into a fighting force. However, it's open whether these organisations could be more like civil militias and citizen armies - which may also explore options for non-violent fighting strategies as well as violent ones. Historically, state funded standing armies are fairly new - many revolutions in history were pushed forward by citizens taking up arms, without looking to becoming professional soldiers.

That's the most honest answer I can give. I too would like to think that peace could come about through less confrontational approaches, but I don't think that's supported by the evidence of how the world is currently.

So what's your angle for a better, war-free world? How do you do it? What are your thoughts? — DrOlsnesLea

Strengthen international cooperation and make regional organizations take responsibility of their area. If the US (France, UK) would built up these organizations to act themselves to promote stability and joint security operations, that would be far more better than to engage separately the individual nations on a bilateral relationship.

Think for example Western Africa and ECOWAS: The basically Nigerian lead organization has lead peacekeeping missions. The west could promote the ability of African countries themselves. Military cooperation and joint operations is one way to ease potential tensions. The Congolese First and Second Civil wars were a disaster, when different African countries supported different factions and basically fought the African version of WW1. Such stupid tragedies should be avoided.



Middle East, that is a totally shitshow, should start also cooperation, starting with easing the tensions between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). These countries acted together when Kuwait was invaded by Iraq, but now nearly have gone to war with each other (thanks to a reckless young Saudi prince).



The above two are just example, but European integration is a great example of how integration and cooperation bring also peace. Without it, it may have been totally possible to see for example a conflict between some Balkan states if they would have been left to their own devices.

Yugoslav Civil War, the war in Ukraine or the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh war show that conflicts can and do happen. What do all have in common? The countries didn't have security arrangements in international organizations (like NATO). Without NATO, likely Greece and Turkey would have had several conflicts already under their belt. Binding countries into security cooperation does really help!

The Nagorna-Karabakh war happened just last year.

Thanks for the replies. On the premise of increasing (lawful) happiness along with security arrangements as you noted above, I think it's important to connect the World in a rich business network. When nations have a lot of business going on and international military cooperation to keep radical militia groups (ISIS, Al Qaeda) away from prominence, it seems they gain lasting peace. But this is difficult from the outset so why not reinforce the business network in neighboring nations while maintaining the target nations as aim for much business and thereby (lawful) happiness for this lasting peace. This state of affairs may take a long time to achieve, but look to Japan and (West-)Germany what they achieved in 30 years or so. They became wealthy and connected both in terms of much business and militarily (security-wise). Your turn?

This state of affairs may take a long time to achieve, but look to Japan and (West-)Germany what they achieved in 30 years or so. They became wealthy and connected both in terms of much business and militarily (security-wise). — DrOlsnesLea

Germany and Japan are societies with social cohesion and functioning institutions that were forced to seriously look at how disastrous their former aggressive militarism had been. Seldom has a society and it's leaders had to really change.

Peace, cooperation with your neighbors and open trade won't help all nations as it helped Japan and Germany. The poorest societies are riddled with so many problems that the objective at first is to a) avoid collapse and b) get some kind of economic growth and societal progress to happen. Not everything will be fine and dandy. People will be happy, if there is some improvement, if they can say that things have improved from the past.

Looking at history, I think there are a couple of key ingredients to avoid war.

1. Some type of unified identity.

A "family", "town", "state" or "country" are ways of belonging to a group. If we could get people to belong to the "human race" as the most important group, we would diminish the desire for violence. This is where things like philosophy and religion can be extremely useful. Politically, the EU and the UN are fantastic ways to bind countries together as "the people of planet Earth".

2. Respect and assistance towards others in need

Violence is resorted to when people are desperate and not getting a certain quality of life. If you have that life, and others don't, others are going to want to take it from you if you don't share.

3. Creating a culture of morality that prevents the immoral and power hungry from obtaining positions of leadership

It can be politically and personally profitable for leadership to go to war. When you can get other people to die for you, it requires someone of personal integrity and responsibility to be at the helm.

4. Creating situations with others of an alternative identity that is mutually profitable.

In the case in which identities cannot be unified, a form of trade or reciprocal benefit is needed to make war unprofitable. If both sides do not interact profitably, someone in power may start to be tempted in outright taking from the "other" tribe.

I'm sure there's more. I understand you're looking at more high level specifics, but the underlying lower level thoughts can be a guide to the higher specific implementation.

War requires money, money, and money. As simple as that. Okay how we get money from? From taxpayers, selling an unborn generations as debt slaves, and so on.

The war in Afghanistan cost U.S. taxpayers more than two trillion dollars so far. What happened to that amount of money? Where did it go? Funny because that money exists in physical form even now, but it became totally worthless. The inflation has eaten it up completely.

What is missing is the fruit of two decades of work of Americans, their investments, the future of their children, creativity, talent, and their hard work that didn't pay off. It did not benefit society. It was not invested back into the economy, but consumed by the military industry.

U.S. taxpayers worked for virtually free for twenty years for their own government to finance the meaningless war on the other side of the world. The war which solved nothing. And even God knows how long their children will work for the same war for free to repay the huge public debt. Which will never happen, but the debt slavery will still remain.

One of the ancient great Christian fathers, Gregory of Nazianzus said: inflation is the mother of war, and of course the mother of taxation.

What do you think? Is it really worth fighting the endless and meaningless war of the ruling elite? Is the life is not short enough for doing this?

SP

I always wonder which comes first, peace or international co-operation. Do we set up international organisations because we happen to be at peace; or do those organisations cause and help to sustain peace? Or both? But if it is the first, then setting up co-operative structures is not a cause of peace: it is a symptom of a peace that we are already enjoying for other reasons.

I think there is no peace, merely the pause of exhaustion, during which we have to make other arrangements. War is the operation of power, through fear and coercion. It is the same thing as government, and the same thing as trade.

There is another form of relation, that is not the operation of power through manipulation of fear and greed by punishment and reward. That is peace...

So what's your angle for a better, war-free world? How do you do it? What are your thoughts? — DrOlsnesLea

Si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war). — Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus

The arms race, a good benchmark of the violence index (how violent and war-ready we are), is precisely what our good but long dead Roman, Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, is referring to. The logic is rather simple. No country, community or person can trust another country, community or person.

The solution then seems obvious: Openly embrace pacifism and build trust - no backstabbing please, merci beaucoup!

What do you think? Is it really worth fighting the endless and meaningless war of the ruling elite? Is the life is not short enough for doing this? — Art Stoic Spirit

When the people go on with their lives and do not even know that their country is fighting a war with volunteers and drones in a country they couldn't find on the map, it really can be endless.

Suggestion for avoiding war: — DrOlsnesLea

To avoid conflict is to avoid reality and also yourself, and to avoid reality and also yourself is to harm yourself.

By avoiding war you start a conflict within yourself

I like your sentiment, but I don't know about your strategy.

@ssu, despite not adding quite enough drama to the First and Second Congo Wars, which resulted in, according to Wikipedia, 5.65 to 6.25 million casualties, seems to have some good ideas.

ssu, despite not adding quite enough drama to the First and Second Congo Wars, which resulted in, according to Wikipedia, 5.65 to 6.25 million casualties, seems to have some good ideas. — thewonder

Well, since the US wasn't involved, the conflict went largely unnoticed. And people will note that millions didn't die in the actual fighting, just in the famines caused by the collapse of a very fragile economy. But it is a reminder that conflicts were millions can die can and do happen.

There's also that, as inclined as I am to support what could be considered to be veritable of the United Nations, we should be willing to put to question the effectiveness of such organizations, as, if you were to assess the League of Nations, you could only conclude that it was a failure, given the catastrophic Second World War. Today's risks are quite different, but, even considering the famines, that we can still have conflicts of such scale and scope as the First and Second Congo Wars or atrocities such as the Rwandan Genocide is indicative of that the U.N. can only really do so much to effectuate its primary mission, that of retaining peace between nations, and establish human rights. My only real solution otherwise, though, is activism, which can also be argued does all too little all too late.

You are correct...there is always conflict. The problem is taking the conflict to the point of waging war. Without conflict there is no need for growth, so we reach stagnation. A seed forces its way to reach the sun and air. Once there it forces its cells to grow for more sun and air but for how long there is a limit to how far a tree can grow and how long ... until it is dead falls over decays to become soil for the growth of another tree.
All civilizations grow some faster than others but they all reach the limit to their ability and stagnate then collapse for another before another comes to take its place.
And within that civilization there are sub-groups, in our case in America lets call them corporations, made up of little-er companies made up of workers who grow, live, then die.
All of this to resolve a conflict call it a need if you like.
One country thinks they need what another country has. So they talk and cajole; trade, buy and steal. As the snowball gets bigger rolling down the hill, leaves and twigs get caught up in it. Gets to the bottom melts leaves a pile of dead leaves and twigs.
People will argue over property lines and whose tree is leaving leaves in whose yard.
Lost is that it started as a disagreement on a single idea.