Written in the Form of a Counteressay to Highlight Points Missed in the Book…
Calls for world peace are often echoed by former has beens best described as empty headed idealists entering the twilight of life. The more advanced in age we become, the more welcoming we are of past idealisms that remind us of an innocent youth now long gone. Simplicity overtakes the mind when attempting to root out why people take up arms and willingly slaughter each other on the battlefield. We inhabit the present in our own time which leaves posterity as an open-ended proposition. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, theorists came together predicting that war, in its most conventional application, would become obsolete less than one hundred years after voicing such high and mighty propositions. Apparently, there was a great deal of imaginative reticence to imagine that the weapons of war would eventually become deadlier, harder to detect, and more unconventional.
World War One was supposed to be the “war to end all wars” ushering in a new era of collaborative multinationalism, as the best method of maintaining the preservation of world peace. Despite significant arms reductions that occurred during the interwar years, worsening economic conditions combined with the radicalization of politics on both the far left and right respectively, did nothing to prevent the rearming of Germany. International law has traditionally been viewed as the best deterrent against war. However, similar to white collar criminals and sly defense attorneys that make it their business to know the law, what can possibly prevent the usurpers of peace from waging war when in fact they can potentially be the most well versed in international law?
That combined with no multinational body to enforce international law, by force if necessary, renders it useless against modern war machines determined to recapture an alternative narrative to world history. The best defense against war is an intellectual one best broken down along the lines of educational and economic empowerment. Populations have little incentive to go to war if they enjoy a high standard of life which in a world overrun by poverty, developmental backwater, and political corruption, is nothing short of a luxury. Yet, contrary to popular belief, humans are anything but innately prone to war. Militarist tendencies are as circumstantial as they are environmental because there are populations out there that time again are denied the opportunity to live a dignified way of life.
Perhaps that is where international law should begin? Now more than ever political scientists must address how to achieve such multinational cohesion in the name of the common international good in a way that does not pit one power against the other. How will it be possible for Russian and American peacekeepers to stand a post alongside each other at some distant geographic parallel demarcating an armistice when both nations are opposed geo-politically? As long as there are have and have nots at the international stage, there will be little chance for the permanence of peace as nations of the former sell weapons to nations of the latter which only further political crises. The role of the military is indispensable to the preservation of peace, but rather than militarizing the world, why not intellectualize with literacy centers, academics, and cultural outlets simultaneously?
I did not find any concrete suggestion or solution in this book whatsoever which is why I give it a mere two stars.
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