Digressions on War and Peace by Matias Bulnes, NYC

Sometimes I feel despair. Like many, I spend a good deal of time thinking, reading, talking and debating about politics, war, society, justice, as our ancestors did generation after generation. And yet violence has not been in decline. Our predecessors’ effort did not manage to bring peace to a world much in need of it. On the contrary, their good intentions often elicited more conflict than harmony (Cf. Marx). Should we believe that our efforts will turn things around in the future?

The XX century was a deadly one. Two World Wars, hundreds of regional wars, inhumane dictatorships, and some 20 years on the verge of a nuclear catastrophe appear on its résumé. What’s worse, as things stand now the XIX century doesn’t seem to be coming much friendlier. Is violence ever going to subside? Can’t we be reasonable and resolve our disputes peacefully? What’s wrong with us!

This is what may be wrong with us: our organization. Maybe, just maybe, peace is a chimera in a world like ours where people live in and around nations. Various nations in the world have achieved a significant degree of internal peace. We observe countries with low degrees of social convulsion almost all around the globe, most notably in Europe or North America. But this peace is restricted to their internal affairs, many of them participating in conflicts with other countries (e.g. the US, England, Israel). My concern is thus international peace, not domestic peace.

I’m not the first one who has deprecated nations. There is a vast literature filled with warnings of the dangers involved in nationalistic sentiments. But I want to focus on the political organization of nations and whether that organization encourages conflict. I want to invite reflection on the possibility that there is something intrinsic to the political organization of nations that partially explains why they can’t live in peace with each other. More specifically, I want to explore the question whether political leaders have a duty to disregard their own sense of justice in favor of the interest of their nation. If this were the case, political leaders should be open to honest dialog only when other alternatives are seen as detrimental to their country. Conflict should thus be expected quite frequently.

Let’s concentrate on the case of democratic nations. The case of authoritarian regimes is more difficult for their political organization is usually less institutionalized and more prone to conflict and turmoil. Plus, if democracy, so usually exalted to the best form of government (or the least bad—as Churchill liked to put it), turns out to be a form of organization furthering of conflict, we can consider the prospects of world peace doomed.

Undoubtedly the role of the politician essentially involves the promotion of the well-being of their nation. They are elected to look after the interest of the nation and they are accountable for it. Moreover, oftentimes politicians have to make political decisions that conflict with their personal stances. Politics is all about making concessions, for otherwise it would be impossible to make political parties workable associations. Parties need to be disciplined in order to constitute a significant political force. And of course parties’ ideologies don’t dictate every single political issue that pops up on the way. There is a significant area of issues where politicians have to take their own stances and where disagreement within parties will arise. But when this happens the disagreements will be resolved one way or the other and the defeated will have to accept the mandate of the victorious.

Politicians are thus accustomed to negotiate their stances and this may well prove necessary for a healthy society. However, what happens when politicians have to face decisions that jeopardize their moral stance? How much should they be willing to compromise in order to accomplish their duty qua politicians? In point of fact, probably this varies from person to person, some being more flexible than others depending on the case at hand. But when the well-being of the nation is at stake, when the highest political value in the minds of most people is in the balance, moral principles that would otherwise be upheld can be overridden. I take it that nobody can consider bombing other countries and killing innocent people morally acceptable, but politicians make these decisions when they have to in the name of their own nation and the responsibility that has been set on their shoulders by their people.

Whether a decision like this is ever morally acceptable is a question I would rather not answer. After all, no political leader would like to be remembered as the one who brought his or her country to a state of near destruction in order to safeguard his or her moral values. I think what is more interesting is why life organized around nations impinges upon our value structure, exalting the value of our nation to an undisputable podium. In fact, the problem does not lie in the politicians only but in society as whole. Politicians are just a reflection of the demands their societies place upon them. There is something about living in nations that makes us one-sided and impartial when judging our situation in relation to that of other countries.

I don’t purport to answer all these questions. Such an endeavor would surely take a lot more time and effort than I can offer here. But maybe, just maybe, there is something about the human condition that predisposes us to give priority to our interest even at the expense of the interest of others. Maybe our organization around nations is just an expression of our natural tendency to form associations that secure our well-being pace others. Arguably this tendency also finds expression within nations as families, political parties, labor unions, racial and ethnic communities, sport fans, business groups, etc. But unlike the situation across nations, within them there is the state, an authority that can settle disputes and, more importantly, encourage reasonableness and mutual understanding.

Whether a worldwide authority like this can possibly be achieved at the international level is hard to tell. At the very least, it is not clear how such an international system could be kept in equilibrium lacking counterbalances. But whether or not that’s possible, we are nowhere near achieving it and hence peace does not seem to be on the horizon. For now it seems as though we will have to go on fighting each other for the centuries to come.