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I see war mainly as an engine for transferring money (wealth) from the citizens to the arms manufactures.
A small group of people can get rich, very rich on war. But as a mankind, together we suffer enormous losses with each war. Stop finally listening to those few who get rich from wars.
The citizens of the world as a whole have to pay twice for wars - at first for the arms development and manufacture, and then again for the reconstruction of what was damaged in a war.
And nobody asks them in the first place.
It was a small group of politicians who until now made decisions on the important questions of war and peace.
But we can require a change. We can achieve change if we just start to think for themselves, if we
all really wanted. We could for example require that:
- Military force should be used only for self-defense, only if attacked, only to chase out the attackers out
of one's territory. Not to occupy other countries.
- Professional armies should be banned. For self-defense, Swiss-style citizen's militia army should instead be organized of all citizens.
This would prevent appetite for prolonging conflict, foreign adventures, occupation of other countries, and mistreatment of civilians or POWs.
- Peacekeeping and peace enforcement abroad should be strictly collective undertaking of the world community.
- Selling arms abroad should be prohibited.
- There should be no military secrets; all defense information should be made free to all countries
so that nobody would be threatened.
- It is not enough to to try limit the war crimes by designing rules for wars. If one side
is losing, it will usually forget about all conventions and do anything not to lose the war.
What is a war crime is usually determined by the victors anyway. The victors have hardly ever
been tried for war crimes they committed. THE WAR (offensive, preventive, pre-emptive) ITSELF IS A CRIME.
The effort to improve and enforce the conventions on the conduct of war (Geneva conventions) is better
than nothing, but our main effort should be to outlaw the war itself and any use of force as a means
of foreign policy.
Humankind should set for itself as a long-term goal the elimination of most of its weapons.
We should strive for mutual gradual disarmament of all countries. As a first step,
a ban on the development of all new weapons is needed. Then a system of global security and mutual trust between all countries of the World needs to be established. In this process, probably over quite a long period, the number and type of the arms should simultaneously be reduced to some essential minimum necessary for policing purposes. It must be done in such a manner that no country would feel threatened by another one. Production of arms should be turned into a non-profit activity for one's defensive purposes only. In the meantime, arms producers should be required to pay for all the war damage from their profits. At some point during this process, complete elimination of all nuclear weapons must be achieved.
All the means now wasted for producing arms and destruction, could be put to so many other
peaceful purposes that would improve the life of all citizens of the World!
We could use them much better on education, environment protection, reduction of poverty,
improving the understanding between peoples ...
Just a small fraction of the military expenses would go such a long way in improving our lives!
We, members of various nations and ethnic groups are more or less all the same.
We just need to put some more effort in trying to understand better each other.
War can only further increase the misunderstanding and perpetuate the cycle of violence.
A wrong cannot be rectified by another wrong. We need objective information.
Dictators can thrive only if you provide them with enemies.
Discussion with a military academy student.
Reduce military spending.
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