IS PEACE DESIRABLE?

Jason Brewer

Think of a world with no fighting, no wars, not even armies or the means to fight wars. Imagine what it would be like to have complete and total world peace. Peace is more than just the absence of war. It is the absence of war, threats of war, or even the possibility of war. So not only must all the militaries in the world disband, all weapons must be destroyed as well. Consider the world at a state of peace that is maintained because war is no longer possible. At first glance this may seem like an ideal world, one in which all could be happy; however, it is more likely that the world would collapse very quickly.

On 6 August 1945, American forces detonated a twenty kiloton atomic bomb approximately five hundred and fifty meters above Hiroshima. It is estimated that 78,000 were killed and 84,000 more were injured from the explosion (Basic Problems of Disarmament 81). Three days later, 9 August 1945, America dropped another twenty kiloton bomb on Nagasaki, killing 27,000 and injuring 41,000 (Basic Problems of Disarmament 81). These bombs, while incredibly deadly, pale in comparison to the arsenal today’s countries have at their disposal. According to the nuclear weapons archive, countries like Russia and the U.S. have up to 50 megaton bombs (Big Ivan). 50 megatons is the equivalent of 50 million tons of T.N.T. These bombs are capable of killing millions at a time (Big Ivan).

War has been a base for society ever since the beginning of mankind. It is the most basic social system we know (Iron Mountain 29). One group of people joins together against another group of people. Ancient Greece first organized itself into city states which provided protection for their citizens. The ancient empires of Persia and Rome were also empires built by wars. These empires which were based on war have been the basis of Western civilization. In other words, our culture is based on a war society. Even now nations still organize by military means. Countries achieve superpower status based on the strength and capability of their respective militaries.

So to bring about an absolute peace would require us to completely sever ourselves from our roots and our culture. Even America was founded by a war. Such a radical change will have many effects, one of which will be economic. Military bases can be found around the world. There are over one hundred Air Force installations in America alone. If we were to shut down every single military base of each military branch in every single country in the world, the results would be devastating. Instantly, the world economy would be flooded with the unemployed. Not only would soldiers be out of a job, but millions of civilians would be too. Civilians who operate the stores on base, supply the food, and deliver all the goods and materials would all lose their jobs. Even big companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin would take a huge hit. These companies in turn would have to lay-off thousands of employees, if they managed to avoid bankruptcy.

Technological and medical advances would be affected as well. Military spending and even wars are responsible for the majority of all technological and medical advances. Communication has been advanced by the military as it moved from tubes, to transistors, and then to digital communication as a result of the military’s demand for better communication. We learned how to make steel framed buildings using technology gained by building battle ships. Even the assembly line was invented during the War Between the States because there was a need for lots of guns as fast as possible (Iron Mountain 53).

Medical advances also come as a result of military spending. Often these advances come as a result of war. For example, amputation, blood-handling techniques and even surgery were vastly improved as a direct result of the Vietnam War (Iron Mountain 54). Technology and medicine are not the only areas affected by war. Most of today’s research and development, or R&D, comes through military spending. Over three-fifths of all funding for R&D comes from the Department of Defense, NASA, and the Atomic Energy Commission. This includes research done by non-profit institutions, and educational institutions such as universities (Benoit and Boulding 112-116). If this amount of money is cut from the average university, it will go under. The budget cuts we face now are severe and we can feel those effects; however, this is nothing compared to the loss researchers would take if the military were no longer in existence to fund them.

Without militaries, nations will cease to exist. There will be no need for borders. No longer will one country worry about being attacked by another country’s military. There will be no military to attack them, and thus, no need for separate countries or nations. Without nations or countries to unite people there must be some other reason to unite the masses. These people no longer have jobs, their economy is bankrupt, and the world as they know it is turned upside down. This is a recipe for disaster, unless there is some other reason for these people to unite. In other words, there must be a substitute for war.

This substitute could be one of many things. It could come in the form of some deadly virus. It could be something like pollution or a fear that global warming will melt the ice caps and flood the world. Whatever form this cause takes, it will not be some kind of philosophical ideal, but something that brings out the survival instinct in man. Basically, the world would trade war for something else just as horrific (Iron Mountain 64-66).

However, this still does not solve all of the problems the world will face. People, who once served in the military, will no longer have homes or an income. The bases they lived on are now nonexistent. The salaries they once collected are no longer there. Civilians who relied on the jobs these bases provided no longer have a place to work. They no longer have an income. Yet somehow the needs of these people must be met; otherwise, the problems of uprisings and crime, which were blocked by the potential for war, will resurface.

The solution to this is government. Government would now have to provide the needs of the people who no longer have income to take care of themselves. Massive welfare programs would be implemented. The government will now have to provide all basic needs such as healthcare, food and shelter. In many cases the new government would go about this by providing government jobs. It would have to educate its own doctors, assign people to produce food, and then provide the means for them to do so.

Regulating this system will require a worldwide police force, or a Peace Corps. The Peace Corps would insure that people stayed civil, and that no fights break out. Most importantly though, the Peace Corps would make sure that people fulfilled the roles assigned to them by this new government. In actuality this new form of government would be a new, high tech, sophisticated form of slavery (Iron Mountain 86). This government will be a form of slavery in which the people are forced to work for government apportioned rations and where “peace” is enforced by the Peace Corps. Instead of beating slaves with whips in the cotton fields, these task masters will use clubs and tasers to ensure production is on schedule.

Peace like this comes with too high a price. This kind of change will wreck our already weak economy. People everywhere will lose their jobs and be forced to turn to the government for aid. Technological advancement will come to a stand-still. The medical industry will no longer be able to provide top notch care. But the most severe penalty to be paid for peace is the loss of freedom. No people should ever be willing to become slaves, especially not for fear that they may one day have to fight. This false security robs men of true liberty, and this type of peace is by no means desirable.

 
Works Cited
Benoit, Emile and Boulding, Kenneth E. Disarmament and the Economy. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Print.
Big Ivan, The Tsar Bomba (“King of Bombs”). Nuclear Weapons Archive. 3 September 2007. Web. 5 September 2009.
Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace. New York: The Dial Press, Inc. 1967. Print.
United Nations. Reports of the Secretary General. Basic Problems of Disarmament. New York: United Nations, 1970. Print