War is Obsolete

Webster’s defines “obsolete” as “no longer in use, because something better exists.” Very few people would willingly return to a typewriter after experiencing the extraordinary capacities of a laptop.

 We know no one can win an all-out nuclear war. Even a limited nuclear war could lead to a "nuclear winter." Conventional wars between nuclear powers could easily escalate out of control, and even small wars could draw in the ever-growing number of nuclear nations.

Nuclear weapons do not deter terrorists. They have become useless and irrelevant, part of our security problem rather than part of the solution.

Each time we wage war we risk the possibility that weapons of mass destruction will be unleashed. Nations like India and Pakistan may tragically repeat the futile Cold War cycle of “we build/they build.” Nuclear weapons are currently in many more hands than ever before, and the United States threatens to use them in any war.

The concept of a “just war,” long a mainstay of our foreign policy, disintegrates when the unjust result of any war could be a nuclear clash more terrible than we can possibly imagine. This is what philosophers call a “performative contradiction.” What is the meaning of a “just war” that destroys everything?

In 1945 there was one country with nuclear capability. Now there are nine. No one, no matter how expert, can know for certain whether a nuclear accident or misjudgment could cause a rapid escalation to the ultimate catastrophe.

We do know how unacceptably close the planet came during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 to nuclear apocalypse. It is a source of wonder that the planet made it through the fifty years of the cold war without slipping into disaster.  Can this miracle persist forever with those thousands of weapons ready to fire? It cannot. Unless we change direction, the probability of a nuclear weapon being used again on people rises to the level of an inevitable point of no return

To continue to try for security by means of war is a response deeply rooted in ancient survival patterns, but rendered obsolete by the destructive power of modern nuclear, chemical, biological and conventional weapons. We wage war at our own peril, risking annihilation. War will destroy this planet unless we give it up.

Knowing this, we can build reciprocal agreements to negotiate the warheads that various nations possess downward to zero, meanwhile sequestering loose nuclear materials. While most understand that this is the planet’s only alternative, nations have not yet mustered the political will to begin comprehensive arms reduction negotiations in earnest. Leaders are constrained by the fatal political danger of appearing weak.

But even the total abolition of nuclear weapons is not enough. They can always be rebuilt. We know that the scientific principles that make the destructive powers of nuclear weapons possible can never be “de-discovered.” They will be with us forever. What is required is a complete change of thinking, a paradigm shift from believing that war leads to security to knowing that war leads only to further destruction.

Setting aside the whole nuclear issue, people are beginning to understand that the costs of war and the preparation for war, not only in human lives and suffering, but also in money and resources, work against the real prosperity of nations. War destroys the crucial civil processes it is designed to protect, wastes and ravages everything in its path and decimates all that we cherish: our world’s vulnerable children, beloved families, homes, schools, communities and traditions. War’s legacy is death, pain, grief, poverty, disease, starvation and … more war.

In addition, terrorism is not resolved or lessened by wars, which often produce more terrorists than they eliminate. Terrorism is a strategy—not an identifiable adversary. As we’ve seen in Iraq, rather than defeating terrorism, the chaos and divisions of war provided fertile soil for nourishing its growth. The respected international mediator John Paul Lederach suggests that going to war to defeat terrorism is like hitting a mature dandelion with a golf club—it only creates another generation of terrorists.
 
In this time of unprecedented global connection we have a new opportunity to act upon some profound truths. We know that the fates of all the world’s people are intricately entwined; that whatever diminishes or enhances the security and well-being of any one of us does the same for all of us; that building relationships is the foundation for resolving our differences; that within diversity lies the prospect of new, creative solutions, and that there are many concrete examples of practical, effective alternatives to the obsolete behavior of war.

By meeting real human needs directly, we can prevent future wars and reduce the motives for terrorism. It is becoming more and more obvious that massive military force is counterproductive to meeting planet-wide challenges such as feeding the hungry, providing clean, safe supplies of water, or establishing robust political structures that can provide long-term stability. A tiny fraction of what we presently expend upon military budgets would be enough to do the development work that is necessary to prevent future wars—wars based on conflicts over scarce water or arable land. War has become obsolete.