Is preparation for war a means to achieve peace?

[Nwokocha]

 The world has seen two wars with each being called a war to end all wars during its bloody days. On close examination one can observe that without the stockpiling of weapons by the belligerents these wars would never have happened though they were carried out with peaceful intentions which we all know how that turned out. Are we not facing the same problem again? We sit back and watch our countries have bunkers filled with nukes all in a bid to protect our peace. Is this pretence not a preparation for a third war to end all wars?

[styca]

I don't think we will have another war between any two developed nations. The triumph of capitalism has meant that we now have global markets, big companies are now multinational, and all of the big economies are intertwined. A big country can't really start a war with another without causing huge damage to its own economy. Indeed multinational corporations are now so powerful that countries are effectively in thrall to them. Look for example at Ireland prostituting itself to Amazon so that it could be the Amazon base in Europe. Capitalism causes a lot of problems, and it does create wars - like the Gulf War oil grab - but one thing in its favour is I think that it prevents wars between big countries.

[TECSHARE]

Walk softly and carry a big stick. Think about it... when you see people start fights, is it always the huge guy who can destroy everyone, or the little angry man who feels impotent and feels he needs to prove himself?

[omonuyak]

I think the third world war that people has been expecting will not happen and if it is going to happen it might bring the end of life on the planet Earth. The preparation for war is war itself as it creates tension among the populace, people may die because of that and that is why wiping off the ideas of war is the best thing to do we must achieve peace.

[Nwokocha]

I don't think we will have another war between any two developed nations. The triumph of capitalism has meant that we now have global markets, big companies are now multinational, and all of the big economies are intertwined. A big country can't really start a war with another without causing huge damage to its own economy. Indeed multinational corporations are now so powerful that countries are effectively in thrall to them. Look for example at Ireland prostituting itself to Amazon so that it could be the Amazon base in Europe. Capitalism causes a lot of problems, and it does create wars - like the Gulf War oil grab - but one thing in its favour is I think that it prevents wars between big countries.

I think all these factors were in play during WW1 and WW2. Economies between nations were intertwined and the wars were fought between world powers. I don’t think capitalism can prevent a war if it is in play, I think denuclearization should be a global stand including the US and its allies, that actually is a move towards global peace

[Naida_BR]

It is a known tactic to do something bad in order to achieve the opposite.
War is also a strategy to cultivate a new economy. There are many examples of war that happened in order to reborn economies and start them from the beginning.

[TheCoinGrabber]

Many countries operate under the Mutual Assured Destruction paradigm, that a country must be armed to the teeth that attacking it would also destroy the attacker. Think about it, we've had more nuclear powers today but they've not been used in combat since WWII. In that way they fulfilled their purpose.

Why do you think North Korea government insist on a nuclear program even though its populace starve? Yes, the nukes (or the threat of, we don't know how good their missiles are) prevent them from being invaded.

[squatz1]

I am going to jump on the bandwagon here and also say that I can't see another world war, or a massive all-out war between developed nations due to the amount of destruction that could be caused by modern military machines.

Though we do have to realize that it is possible, warfare may not be sending boots on the ground anymore -- it may be sending out unmanned drones to attack individual targets and to wipe them out. Or to use cyber warfare to attack a countries tech infrastructure. Something along those lines.

We're not in the days of sending boots on the ground for combat, that's long gone.

But back to the original question: Preparation for war and militarization is one of the best deterrence towards someone else attacking you.

[Mometaskers]

Though we do have to realize that it is possible, warfare may not be sending boots on the ground anymore -- it may be sending out unmanned drones to attack individual targets and to wipe them out. Or to use cyber warfare to attack a countries tech infrastructure. Something along those lines.

I agree with you. Using nukes would arouse widespread condemnation and other countries could retaliate using the same. Drones would be less controversial by comparison and we've already seen the US use them successfully in the Middle East (though not without civilian casualties) so it's definitely the way forward.

The only time I think a nuclear weapon might be used is on a smaller missile and detonating miles above major cities to cause an electromagnatic pulse to fry all the electronics. There are other ways to induce an emp though so nuke once again would be a last resort.

[TimeBits]

No, preparation for peace is a means to achieve peace.

war
a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.

peace
a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended.


I want you to take a look into the psychology of gorillas, for you will see, that threatening and fear is not the answer. No matter how many times the silver back gorilla beats the others, they will only get more and more sneaker to sleep with "his wives".

Negative reinforcement does not work, it just builds up the anger until the animal snaps. Look at dogs, sure they might seem tamed if you teach them with negative reinforcement (punishment) but one day that dog will bite you, for the dogs that are treated with positive reinforcement never trigger agasint their owner, they have respect, not fear, which turns into anger and rebellion.

[Daniel91]

The world has seen two wars with each being called a war to end all wars during its bloody days. On close examination one can observe that without the stockpiling of weapons by the belligerents these wars would never have happened though they were carried out with peaceful intentions which we all know how that turned out. Are we not facing the same problem again? We sit back and watch our countries have bunkers filled with nukes all in a bid to protect our peace. Is this pretence not a preparation for a third war to end all wars?

The world has seen many, to many wars in the human history.
We can freely say that numerous wars and conflicts slowed down the development of the human race.
Everyone starts the war to win and destroy the opponent so there is no peaceful intentions here (unless we believe in statements by politicians lol).
We don't know if and when third world war my happen but such war would completely destroy our civilization and would not be a winner.
So, better avoid any such global conflict in the future or we will see the end of our world.

[coolcoinz]

The world has seen many, to many wars in the human history.

It's quite interesting that two biggest wars of the last century were started by Germany.

Stockpiling weapons works as a deterrent. Think about it, when you're a small guy at school you're asking for trouble. At some point some bully will see you as inferior and want to unload his frustration and anger on you, because it's safe for him. Guys who go to the gym and do sports have it much easier. Bullies just avoid them because even if they win they walk out of it with a broken nose or a black eye = not worth it.

[KingScorpio]

The world has seen two wars with each being called a war to end all wars during its bloody days. On close examination one can observe that without the stockpiling of weapons by the belligerents these wars would never have happened though they were carried out with peaceful intentions which we all know how that turned out. Are we not facing the same problem again? We sit back and watch our countries have bunkers filled with nukes all in a bid to protect our peace. Is this pretence not a preparation for a third war to end all wars?

jes, peace is a product of financial order, there is a natural tendency to disband the financial order and create a financial mess, (crypto, us social and state infrastructure) people closer around the financial centre are privileged, in their lifestyle due to it. there for war and dominance is being executed in order to protect the order.

regards

[squatz1]

I think there's this thing that people forget about traditional wars and wars of today, and to truly understand this sort of thing you have to understand the interdependence of nations due to our new global trading / financial world.

If a war is to start in this world right now -- instead of trying to blow up factories, roads and so on and so forth --> The stronger government with more connections and more power is able to sanction the hell out of you, and then they cut off your access to goods, financial instruments, and so on and so forth.

War has changed.