How to End All Wars in the World Today

Conflict between nations is no different from conflict between citizens, or even children. Resolving them requires the same principles and strategies, scaled up.

Ending all wars and achieving world peace is, therefore, not as utopian an idea as many think; they are very real and easily achievable goals. These are fairly basic problems, and their continuance only highlight the miserable failure of our faculties, as a supposedly intelligent species, at this point.

STEP 1: Take Power Away from the War-makers, Our Modern “Kings” (the Presidents), and Diffuse this Power of Governance to Citizens Instead (as in a True Democracy), in Each of Our Countries

If wars were decided by citizens of countries, there’d be less wars. Wars are decided by presidents and politicians with profit and other motives. So much so that even citizens, in their own country, often risk a lot to protest wars whenever a (so-called “democratic”) government wages war and splurges vital resources on same; a clear indication that these “democratic” governments neither act on the will nor in the interests of the people (they aren’t meant to, because they aren’t actually democracies; that’s just modern propaganda and flawed scholarship you can learn more about in other posts).

The first step to ending all wars is to take away authority from those creating and deciding these wars in the first place, endlessly. It’s that simple.

Countries must create true democracies that give more control to citizens when it comes to decisions, rather than an all powerful office, and a few politicians in political parties (and the businesses behind them).

The wars would IMMEDIATELY begin to recede once this happens. But that would not be the end of our measures.

Ps: how do we create true democracies? You can learn more by checking out some of our other posts, or finding our key source material: The Tragedy Called Democracy in the 21st Century (2023).

STEP 2: Democratizing International Governance

Organizations like the U.N. need to be changed or replaced with a more democratic one, where all nations, together, can fairly play active roles on matters of international importance, rather than leave judgement and decisions on international peace in the hands of one or a few war-making and war-profiting countries who are clear about their alliances and biases.

A new international organization designed for better democracy and international cooperation, and independent arbitration, will have much stronger leverage in controlling all countries (including the actions of “super-powers”) and international relations and politics around the world. This new international organization will have a completely different appeal and support base; and there are many ways to achieve this which we cannot exhaust in this short post; not least of which is the fact that it will be built on top of newly truly democratic countries that revert power ultimately to citizens of the world.

Step 2 cannot, however, be realized without step 1, because if decisions are still being taken unilaterally by the inept yet autocratic presidents and politicians we currently have (rather than the people), we can go nowhere.

STEP 3: The Proper, Fair and Continuous Investigation and Pursuit of Justice and Protection of Rights, in All Conflicts and Differences around the World, as a Path to Lasting Peace

The fact that war is permitted (that organizations like the U.N. even have rules for war) only exposes just how backward and primitive the thinking of our time is.

And as one philosopher has rightly said: war does not determine who is right – only who is left.¹

In prehistory, it was all about survival of the fittest: jungle rules, in settling disputes. Even up until medieval times, humans (at least in some societies) still settled disputes by duel and other primitive means. How on earth does a fight determine who is right!?

Would we allow citizens in a city to settle their differences by fight? If a bully in grade 5 steals a pencil from another, should they settle it by fight? The strongest generally wins whether they are wrong or right!

We settle differences by ensuring all parties surrender to the community and it’s authority – a community which is stronger than, and an authority above, any one of its members alone – for investigation and adjudication in a fair manner. This happens at every level of society; from the classroom all the way to the state/national level. Yet expanding this simple logic or wisdom to the international level has long eluded BIG “thinking” societies to date.

The international community today is like a classroom with no teacher; where chaos rules, based on alliances, friendships or gangs within the class, and where alliances are formed along economic lines (where the rich few huddle together into a clique vs everyone else), or along religious or ethnic lines, and bullying and revenge is the order of the day.

As a general rule, at every level of society, under no circumstance should parties within a community be allowed to engage directly in conflict.

Once international governance has been properly democratized (from Steps 1 and 2 above), we would need, and now have the means, to create stronger global judiciary and security infrastructure.

No such structures currently exist, and institutions like the ICC and ICJ are cosmetic under the current order, only serving to entertain a few large countries and punish or embarrass the smaller ones. Steps 1 and 2 above will prevent this moving forward.

Justice is the only route to lasting peace. These structures are needed to properly investigate and adjudicate all conflicts in a way that will be transparent and acceptable to all thinking parties; and there is always a fair resolution to any issue that is properly and fairly investigated. People take the law into their own hands (be it citizens, warring countries, “terrorists” or any kind of aggressor) when they cannot depend on a system to give them what they feel they deserve. It is therefore of utmost importance for any society that wants to build lasting peace, to first and foremost develop people’s trust in its judiciary systems, so that they can run to these institutions anytime they are aggrieved, confident that they will be heard and attended to urgently, reasonably and amicably.

Conclusion

These are very real and obvious simple steps to greatly foster world peace today, that has somehow eluded our great minds, and makes the concept of world peace now seem idealistic or unachievable to many today, most unfortunately.

Of course, society can’t be perfectly quiet and peaceful, but there is an unforgivable gap between the atrocious horrors of today (fitting for a primitive and savage species) now practically accepted, and what wisdom and sanity is possible if we tried.

Of course, also, there is a lot more that can be done, after the 3 concrete and fundamental steps above are in place: a comfortable and educated world (viz. poverty alleviation, pursuit of human rights and sustainable development, social welfare, access to education, health, food and other basic needs etc.) will all go a long way to sustain peaceful coexistence. It has been the unfortunate folly of organizations like the U.N., however, to pursue these goals in reverse.

Footnotes:

1. This is often attributed to Bertrand Russell, but the source is disputed.