The obsolescence of war

War does not serve us. It represents the worst in humanity. Thankfully, we now have nonviolent tools to manage conflict in life-affirming ways.

Waging Non Violence Nadia Mejjati July 3, 2024

The proponents of war say that violence is necessary for “defense.” But is that true? Humanity has learned how to wipe itself out in a matter of minutes with just a fraction of its nuclear weapons capability. Our atrocious culture of violence shows thousands of children killed in cold blood like a relentless horror film playing out on social media. We have invented killer-drones to undertake massacres without personally witnessing the horrors inflicted. In the face of our threatened extinction as a species, we must do better. That starts with seeing war for what it is.

War is grotesque. It represents the worst of humanity: the cruelty of unharnessed anger and unhealed trauma, led by greedy leaders far from the frontlines, playing with human lives. No matter who wins or loses, the result is pain and increased trauma on both sides, fuelling further injustice and oppression.

Benjamin Casteillo describes, “In the past, dangers of hostility, scarcity and rejection were met with primal impulses of domination, accumulation and conformism, thus trapping a large part of humanity in self-perpetuating rivalries for power, resources and status. Yet, in the current context of exponential technological development which has resulted in weapons of mass destruction, multiplied extractive capacities, and amplified capacities for social engineering, these primal impulses are becoming increasingly obsolete and unsustainable, resulting in existential risks of catastrophic wars, ecosystems destruction and human obsolescence, threatening life itself.”

War does not create harmony. Despite this, we glorify it in our history classes when we could teach the history and practice of nonviolence, to our advantage. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan provided us with statistical evidence that nonviolence is far more successful in reaching campaign objectives than violence. In other words, the belief that we must respond to violence with more violence to establish peace is now outdated by documented fact.

War is weak — especially compared to the hard work of nonviolent struggle, diplomacy and peacebuilding.

Transformational change takes courage and commitment. Nonviolence is not a wishy-washy choice we make because we have hippy parents. It is a response to the violence in our communities, our families, and most importantly, in ourselves. It is a dedicated yearning to find other ways to be, ways that favor life.

War is nonsensical, unless you profit from selling arms and destroying life. We face the ecological breakdown of our planet, while the military industrial complex is outrageously polluting, topping the fossil fuel consumption record, obliterating life and landscape. ……………………………………………………………………. more https://wagingnonviolence.org/cnv/2024/07/the-obsolescence-of-war/—