The Last War on Earth

Over the past five thousand years of human history, only 292 years have been peaceful. During this time, there have been more than 15,000 wars, and more than 3.6 billion people have died.¹ According to R. Jackson, after 1945 there were only 26 peaceful days on the planet.²

The word “war,” for most of us, means nothing. Only those who have been at war can understand it. Ask them if they want war.

Even the military themselves are horrified by what is happening, as in Russia: the “Afghan syndrome,” the “Chechen syndrome,” in the USA: the “Vietnam syndrome.”

Supporters of war have given a special explanation for the condition of such people: they have post-traumatic stress disorder. That is, the experience led them into a severe mental state. They shift the focus from the horror of war to the person traumatized by this horror. And in society, an incorrect assumption is embedded: war is normal, those who have experienced it are abnormal.

Is it surprising that the most well-known syndromes arose in two countries claiming world domination? Someone fights too much. And everyone will say it is not me. Or I did not start first.

Who is given the right to decide first who will start a war? Common sense suggests using the rule: only the one who has been declared war on may declare war. That would probably be fair. And yet this is the second step. And no one has the right to start a war first. And no one declares war on anyone. It would seem simpler.

But how to start a war, under what pretext? A pretext will be found. Most often they suggest that the war is already underway, just invisibly. One must attack and make it explicit. This leads to armed clashes, where people really die.

To kill first, one must be a killer. Defense and attack are always different. Attack is initiative, defense only responds. And here the military (I mean the military of any country) began to confuse defense with starting a war. The German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) put forward the principle — aversion to war, which “is not forced self-defense, but a mad attack on a peaceful neighboring people.”³ The military are defenders, and someone managed to use them improperly.

Today there are 195 countries on the planet. And all of them have defined borders. The UN Declaration “on the inadmissibility of intervention and interference in the internal affairs of states” (1981) already established the rule of territorial integrity of states and the prohibition of any intervention.

But why do countries attack each other under various pretexts? Once people ate each other, killed the elderly (because they were of no use), then it was allowed to kill in special cases (the principle of “an eye for an eye” (Jus talionis – Latin), blood revenge). Now a murderer is imprisoned even if he kills for a just cause. The diplomat and publicist Charles Saint-Pierre (1658-1743) considered war the most dangerous obstacle to progress. Humanity grows morally, intellectually, psychologically. And thus wars must go into the past.

But how to stop someone who intends to wage war with an entire country? Only the global community as a defender of human life. No value in the world compares to human life. Those countries that accept the principle — no wars — must immediately apply effort to anyone who starts a war. American President Franklin Roosevelt, in March 1945, said: “The world we are building cannot be an American or British world, a Russian, French, or Chinese world. It cannot be the world of large or small countries. It must be a world based on the cooperative effort of all countries.”⁴ One of the founders of the first US capital, Philadelphia, William Penn (1644-1718), proposed creating a universal union of states and abandoning the resolution of disputes by force of arms. And the director of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, V. F. Malinovsky (1765-1814), proposed a project to create an international organization in defense of peace. This union was to regulate emerging conflicts, and its decisions were binding, and violators were to be compelled to peace by any means. No one would want to confront such power.

Clashes will inevitably occur; there will be psychopaths in the world who try to start a war. The Russian and Soviet self-taught scientist, theorist of astronautics Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) said — “The ideal of social order is a union of all the people of the globe.”⁵

And how will politicians play their dirty games now? There will be hybrid wars. Hybrid wars are easier to stop without official support. After all, if you support a hybrid war, you are not on the right side. Hybrid wars are not global in nature; without external support, they are relatively easy to stop at the very beginning.

An interesting fact: in 90% of cases, war is waged without declaring war. This creates a legal casus: in modern public international law, declaring war entails recognition of the state of hostilities between countries, and such a declaration would mean that clashes would be regulated by the Hague Conventions, which many countries signed in 1899 and 1907. Part of the problem is that while war is not declared, one can do whatever one wants. But the main problem is that no convention prohibits war; they only regulate it.

Now the global community establishes rules for military conflicts, for example, the prohibition of chemical weapons, the prohibition of any weapons of mass destruction, with “mass” understood as weapons that cannot selectively target. This is an absurdity, because these rules still kill. Imagine your neighbor is allowed to kill you with a bullet to the head, but forbidden, for humanitarian reasons, to stab you in the stomach. The result is the same — you are dead. Y. P. Kozelsky (1728-1793) called military law invented specifically to justify the cruelties of war.

Therefore, it is necessary to contribute to the development of humanity and recognize war as an illegal act, with criminal consequences. And this time, do not limit actions of the convention “only in case of declaration of war.” This will be a global law. There will no longer be a significant event justifying the unleashing of war. The German philosopher Sebastian Franck (1500-1543) called war “brutal, inhuman, contrary to human nature.”⁶ He formulated the question of responsibility for war crimes; his idea became the basis of the Nuremberg Trials. Humanity moves to the next stage of civilization.

The definition of the word “war” gives an understanding of what it is — “an armed conflict between two or more parties”⁷, “organized armed struggle”⁸. When you see that any conflict reaches the phase of hostilities, know that it is war. Do not let your vigilance be lulled when someone says that war is when a war has been declared, and that this is not war at all, because it was not announced. “He who has ears, let him hear; he who has eyes, let him see; he who has reason, let him understand.”⁹ Therefore, legally formulating the concept of war should not be difficult.

The global community must set for itself, first of all, the goal of ending international wars and military conflicts of any degree. All initiators of military conflicts must be prosecuted according to a new international law “on the unleashing of wars” and judged as ordinary violent criminals and murderers. This law can possibly be adopted on the basis of existing international organizations or by reviving the League of Nations.

Ending wars is inevitable. Stopping wars is a logical stage in the evolution of the human psyche. First, the world will finally divide into two parts: those who support war and those who oppose war. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), in his work Perpetual Peace (1795), first expressed the idea of an objective lawfulness leading to the establishment of perpetual peace and the inevitability of creating a league of nations on peaceful principles. Whether people want it or not, they will be forced to join this league.¹⁰

Divide the world into two poles. Finally divide. Those who are for wars and those who are against. The struggle for peace must become the basic (primary) idea. Other ideologies must realize their secondary nature in relation to the primary idea. Supporters of communism wrote: “The modern movement for peace aims to raise the masses to struggle for the preservation of peace, for the prevention of a new world war. Therefore, it does not pursue the goal of overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism — it is limited to democratic goals of the struggle for preserving peace.”¹¹

Of course, there will be people who are well-settled in the old paradigm; they do not want to solve problems peacefully. They risk losing power because their power relies on wars. This is a true ideology. The ideology of those who support and spread violence in society. For example, the Prussian philosopher-king Frederick II asserted that wars are inevitable: “If you want to achieve perpetual peace, go to the ideal world, where there is no ‘yours’ and ‘mine,’ where princes, ministers, and subjects have no passions, and all follow the dictates of reason.”¹² Needless to say, supporters of such opinions exist. But why do they impose their ideology on us, why convince that war is normal?

The last war of ideologies on Earth. Why ideologies? Because ideology is a system of views and ideas, a person’s worldview. Those who support and those who do not support war have fundamentally different worldviews; the differences lie in the primary idea. For some, killing is acceptable to achieve goals, for others it is not. The kakistocracy (from Greek κάκιστος — “the worst” — a system governed by the most unscrupulous citizens) cannot dictate their barbaric principles to civilized people.

Why the last war? We will not fall into the “pacifist trap,” when those who attack the pacifist claim that he has no right to resist simply because he denies war as a method. We do not agree with this logical diversion. The pacifist opposes war, but he is obliged to stop anyone who has started the war, including by symmetrical measures. This is the only case in which war is inevitable — you or your allies are attacked.

Then, the world will only have people who are against war, people willing to resolve any conflicts peacefully, both within states and internationally. The educator Jan Amos Komensky (Comenius) (1592–1670) said: “One cannot end wars while continuing to wage them.” The first step toward ending wars must be taken, and do not let yourself be deceived by the “pacifist trap.” Peace will come when the idea of peace becomes dominant, not the idea of killing. This is the last war on Earth — the war of those who desire war against those who desire peace. The military themselves will not disappear, after all, someone must defend peace from murderers and aggressors.

Regarding the self-determination of citizens, it must be understood that if a civil war begins in a particular country, that society is deeply ill and requires fundamental reform. In such a case, reform must be helped. And reasonable governments themselves must and even are obliged to strive for such reform, since the main task of any government is the care of its population. Only tyrannical governments will prevent this in order to preserve their status at any cost.

If your government is not against war, think about the values that divide you. Is this your government?

Literature:

1. Slovo o nauke / compiled, author’s preface and chapter introductions by E. S. Lichtenstein. Moscow: Znanie, 1976. [Book 1]. 302 pp.
   
2. NATO and Peacekeeping / Jackson R. J., 30 June 1997
   
3. Herber / 2nd revised edition by A. V. Gulyga, Mysl Publishing, Moscow, 1975
   
4. Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945 / Dimitriy Churakov, Alexandra Matveeva, Prometey Publishing
   
5. Mirages of Future Social Order / Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, 1918
   
6. Treatises on Perpetual Peace, Preface F. V. Konstantinov, Introductory article by I. S. Andreeva. Compiled by I. S. Andreeva and A. V. Gulyga. Moscow: Soc-ekgiz, 1963. 279 pp.
   
7. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics
   
8. International Law. Reference Dictionary 2017, Khridochkin A.V., Makushev P.V.
   
9. Gospel of Matthew
   
10. The Law of Peace: Philosophical and Legal Dimensions / Monograph I. A. Umnova, RAS, Moscow, 2011
    
11. Remarks on Economic Questions Related to the November Discussion of 1951 / I. Stalin, 1 Feb 1952
    
12. World Military History in Instructive and Entertaining Examples / Nikolay Kovalevsky, Kron-Press Publishing, 2000