Wars Can Never Bring Peace

Wars over territory, ideological differences, resources, and the quest of dominance and power have been fought throughout human history. One basic fact, meanwhile, never changes: wars can never bring peace. This depressing fact has repeatedly been shown as the ashes of war create fresh tensions, animosities, and violent cycles that undercut any seeming gains or resolutions.

‘’If you need peace, you should prepare for war.’’ But how negative can a war’s impact be on an individual, is the question? Ask a soldier’s family and you’ll hear countless stories on their experiences of war. It’s so brutal and dark that often the people involved in wars, take years or forever to come out of that zone. As there’s a common saying war is never good, peace is never bad. But the history of mankind has proved, how shady can wars be. Although attempts have been made to abolish it, success has not been achieved so far. Thus, eternal peace seems to be beyond our reach. There are people who justify wars and say that it is necessary because it is the law of nature.

People often forget what the father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi taught us about non-violence. He told us that freedom is necessary but when attained with the right measures. There are struggles and hustles but putting innocent people’s life on sake is just too inhumane. Nothing good can ever be achieved by war. How can wars be defended by saying that they are the necessary evils required to solve problems among the nations? Instead, they create problems like hatred and mortality among nations.

Is War Necessary For Peace?

There’s no beauty in this chaos. There’s no beauty in people dying. A soldier serves and saves the nation from evil. When he leaves his home, in an ironed uniform and polished shoes, his family mourns on the fact that it could be the last time they are seeing their family member. Honoring the dead won’t return him to his family. Wrapping him in a tricolor flag won’t still make the blood of his family cold.

This ugly, horror, brutal story needs to end. The fighters need to be thanked and not pushed in the battleground. There’s beauty in their profession, not in their dying. War can never bring peace; it just adds up to the hatred and enmity among the nations. In order to save some lives, we lose some lives too. The sooner we realize this fact, the better we can do for our countrymen.

War Never Brings Peace

Numerous examples since ancient times prove that war never brings peace. Putting aside the individual suffering of the soldiers and their families, what about the general public who get caught in the crossfire? War leads to the loss of countless innocent lives. Children, women, the elderly, and physically disadvantaged people who cannot get out of the war quickly fall victim to it.

What about the indirect impact of the war? War brings with it economic problems to both the warring nations. An immense amount of resources will be used up, which pushes prices, ultimately leading to a financial burden on people. Where is peace in it?

Say No To War

 When a dispute can be resolved diplomatically, countries should make efforts to use diplomacy instead of war to resolve the issues. There are   countless examples where diplomacy averted war.

 The people in power draw strength from the support they get from civil society. If a country's civil society can say no to war, it can be averted.

 In the end, one must realize that war can never bring peace. For peace, we need diplomacy and dialogue.

Why Wars Occur

For countless causes throughout the ages, nations and people have turned to war. As civilizations tried to extend their territories, invasions and border disputes have been sparked by territorial ambitions. Often, military aggression has also been sparked by the need to control essential resources like water, oil, or trade routes.

Numerous conflicts have been further stoked by ideological and religious divides as competing worldviews and belief systems have clashed violently. This kind of conflict between Muslim and Christian forces was typified by the centuries-long Crusades that raged throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Finally, a great deal of battles throughout history have been driven by the unadulterated desire of dominance, control, and subjugation of others. Millions have died in the struggle to impose hegemony by military strength, from the conquests of ancient civilizations like Rome to the aggressive expansion of Nazi Germany in World War II.

Destructive Wars

Even if conflicts have different objectives, their disastrous results have been all too often the same. It is astounding how much ruin and death war has brought about. Not to add the decades-long economic and societal effects, World War I alone claimed the lives of almost 20 million people.

Apart from the death toll, wars have permanently damaged communities on the physical and psychological levels. The terrible potential of nuclear weapons was shown during World War II with the bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Generations later, the consequences are still being felt.

 In the meantime, the Vietnam War left many American and Vietnamese veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health problems in addition to taking over two million lives.

Sadly, innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire frequently bear a disproportionate share of the costs of war. From the deliberate extermination of ethnic groups to the use of rape as a weapon of war, the harshest crimes and abuses of human rights are often committed against non-combatants.

When War Served Peace

To be honest, there have been wars declared to end injustice, stop genocide, or usher in a new period of freedom and peace, but war wars can never bring peace. The most often mentioned example is maybe World War II, when the Allied forces fought to stop Nazi Germany's and its Axis allies' racial, genocidal plan.

Another struggle meant to achieve independence and bring in a period of democratic self-governance and human rights was the American Revolutionary War.

That being stated, war is a reality of unfathomable pain, misery, and death even when it is fought with ostensibly good reasons. The hard-won successes are unavoidably bittersweet because freedom and peace were bought at an incredible price in bloodshed and anguish.

Why Wars Can Never Bring Peace

Fundamentally, it is incongruous to believe that war may result in long-lasting peace. War by definition creates animosity, plants the seeds of more wars, and keeps violent cycles going that are almost tough to break.

War has genuinely terrible effects on all aspect of human culture. The cost goes much beyond the battlefield and leaves a lasting impression that can change the course of entire countries and individual lives.

The startling death toll is the most obvious effect. Millions of people have died in contemporary wars, both troops and defenceless civilians caught in the crossfire. The human consequences are enormous, though, even for the surviving. From their experiences, countless people are left to struggle with lifetime physical and psychological anguish.

For many soldiers and others who witnessed the atrocities of war, disabling injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance addiction problems, and other mental health problems became part of their daily lives.

Massive migrations of refugees driven from violence, persecution, or poverty in their home countries are another result of war. Many often, these displaced persons wind themselves in filthy camps with inadequate sanitary facilities, little access to employment, education, or healthcare, and heightened susceptibility to gender-based violence, human trafficking, and exploitation. Basically, war tears apart the social fabric that unites societies by uprooting whole populations and cultures.

Prolonged hostilities also have very broad and challenging to recover from economic effects. Huge sums of money, resources, and output are taken out of the hands of productive businesses and put towards the war machine. Investments in industry, education, infrastructure, and development that would have improved societies instead are used to buy weapons, military hardware, and destruction. Common after conflict are crippling financial crises, hyperinflation, and economic standstill.

Tragic environmental costs from wars can leave areas unusable for years. Beyond the enormous carbon emissions driving climate change, the pollution and bombardment of water and soil supplies endanger human health and devastate ecosystems and wildlife habitats. Chemical weapons, depleted uranium, napalm, and even nuclear fallout can contaminate the ecosystem and food systems for decades or centuries to come. Fundamentally, conflict destroys the equilibrium that naturally exists and supports life.

Socially, conflicts have a very damaging impact on the institutions, standards, and principles that ought to defend human rights and dignity. They feed into the growth of criminal enterprises, sectarian conflicts, and the widespread normalisation of violence. The democratic values and the rule of law deteriorate, frequently resulting in the emergence of authoritarian governments from the turmoil of war. Many times, violent, vengeful, and justifying retaliatory war cycles run across generations of people.

On every level—economic, environmental, social, and political—the effects of war are incredibly destabilising from the standpoint of human security. Armed combat is among the most incredibly destructive forces known to humanity because of the enormous death toll, suffering, and expenses involved. Reversing the devastating effects of war becomes a multigenerational battle against insurmountable obstacles. In the end, we have to work to eradicate the evil of war permanently if human civilization is to really advance.

Long after one side is declared "victorious" in battle, the subjugated people continue to harbour intense resentment. For them, the winners were oppressors who used overwhelming force to impose their will. A long-term, mutually acceptable peace is very hard to achieve because of this seething animosity.

This dilemma was brought to attention by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who maintained that a state of war and conflicts cannot bring about peace. As he put it, "No treaty of peace shall be held valid which was contracted with the secret reservation of material for a future war,"

War by itself is never going to bring about true peace; it will need rehabilitation, reconciliation, and addressing the underlying reasons of the conflict in the first place.

In our worldwide society, actual "victory" over another state or people has also been shown to be unfeasible by contemporary conflicts. It is virtually impossible to totally subjugate another group because of the interdependence of countries and communities through trade, computer networks, common environmental resources, and more. Asymmetric strategies, enduring insurgencies, and resistance will always exist to keep wars from reaching their intended conclusion.

Long-lasting peace is elusive because of the terrible consequences of war that last for generations. Massive psychological damage caused to both soldiers and civilians shows itself in drug and alcohol misuse, domestic abuse, mental disease, and trauma cycles that are carried down to next generations. It is significantly more likely that children who witness the atrocities of war will continue to use violence themselves.

The economic costs of war provide conditions that are ideal for crime, destitution, and hopelessness—conditions that are ideal for the emergence of new conflicts. Investment in social services, infrastructure, and education that can help lay the groundwork for peace is hampered by money diverted to military operations. In 1940s dollars, World War II is thought to have cost over $1 trillion, resources that, had they not fueled murder and destruction, could have lifted millions of people.

In the end, wars usually just serve to fuel future wars as the need for retaliation and the continuation of hostilities permeate communities. Wars can never bring peace. Two World Wars and numerous more wars during the 20th century amply illustrated this fact. True, long-lasting peace calls for a far different strategy that emphasises communication, resolving underlying issues, elevating society, and rapprochement between all parties.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that, Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." " said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., quite rightly. A war is the physical expression of violence, darkness, and hatred. Humanity must take a different route directed by knowledge, empathy, and our highest goals if we are to establish lasting peace.