J Murphy

Many spiritual thinkers believe that the outer world is an out-picturing of our individual inner world. Until each of our inner worlds is at peace, there will be no world peace. I tend to think this is true.

Michael Kennedy

Full scale war is not inevitable. It would require time and a shift in culture, yet it is possible to have a future without war. Now while I write that, I do not think small conflicts will end. As competition for crucial resources, such as water, increase there will be fire fights over them. As human societies see that it is more beneficial to resolve conflicts in a peaceful manner, then the frequency of those outburst will decrease. Yet before that occurs it will take a war weariness caused by too much war to occur first. I don't think this will be a simultaneous global phenomenom, rather it will happen a country or region at a time. The nation of Costa Rica being an example of this. If we can make peace more profitable than war, people will favor peace.

francyne pelchar

Yes, war is inevitable.

M. Beallor

In his book, “The End of War,” John Horgan calls Steven Pinker “one of the most respected proponents of gene-centric theories of human behavior” – theories that Horgan rejects. Coincidentally, Pinker recently wrote a book on the same subject: “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” Pinker, with much research to back up his claims, also concludes that war is not inevitable and documents a long trend of a decline in violence.
Horgan reminds us in his book that the vast majority of warriors throughout history – “99%” – have been men. “Some men,” he wrote, “also seem especially predisposed to violence, including war.” Nonetheless, he does not believe that ending male domination of our political institutions will help to bring about peace. Pinker on the other hand, identifies the empowerment of women as one of five “broad forces” that responsible for a global decline in violence. I see the political empowerment of women as key to ending war. It is an upward trend that must be actively encouraged. Those of us who want to see an end to war, should encourage more women to seek public office, and to make a conscious effort to elect a Congress that is reflective of our gender balanced population. We can end war.

Marc Beallor

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xLuPABuXPU&feature=youtu.be

James C. West, PhD

I believe war is inevitable and predictable. In fact I expect a war to end our current worldwide economic difficulties. I don't see how anyone could look at history or current events and suggest the end of war is possible. If it could be ended, it surely would have been by now.

John Williams

War is a necessary evil, without it there would no nations.

Tim Sheehan

As long as humans are motivated by greed and predjudice and remain ignorant of the rest of the world beyond their own domain, War will remain an easy choice for them to make.

Nils Petter Gleditsch

Is war inevitable? Following the publication of the three seminal books by Robert Muchembled (A History of Violence, 2008, English translation 2012), Joshua Goldstein (Winning for War on War, 2011), and Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature, 2011), it makes sense to reverse the question: Is Peace Inevitable? In either case, the answer is no, in the sense that we cannot rule out events like major war even if they are becoming increasingly improbable. In the last recorded year, the Uppsala Conflict Data project recorded 30 on-going armed conflicts (with more than 25 deaths in a calendar year). Few of these have much escalatory potential. Despite economic and political rivalry between the US and the aspiring superpower China, both seem persuaded that a trading relationship beats a warring relationship hands down. An increasing fraction of on-going armed conflicts may relate to religion, but not an increasing absolute number, and the ‘clash of civilizations’ has failed to erupt. Despite setbacks here and there, democracy continues to rule over a higher fraction of the world’s population than ever before. Environmental disruption and inequitable use of natural resources have inspired cooperation just as much as conflict, and so far there is little if any evidence that climate change along the lines foreseen by the IPCC will make the traditional neomalthusian scenarios of scarcity-driven conflict come true. For these and other reasons, I remain a qualified optimist.

Nils Petter Gleditsch, Research professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo; Professor of political science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; President International Studies Association (2008–09).

David Swanson

See video

Christina

Yes, war is inevitable.

We are animals, and war springs from territorial instinct and scrabbling for resources. It doesn't even matter how resource is defined, and the definition may fluctuate, but one group will always want what another group has, and we will always find a way to segment the population into groups, even if we become more homogenized and are eventually all the same ethnicity and religion.

T. C., edgykated 'merican

War? We don't have war. We've gone from wars to political corrections to police actions to opening new, (& cheaper), markets/production/job export sites to defending democracy, (by forcing it on 'weaker' countries). Who wants to lose any of these essential manifestations of piety & power?
War - whatever pretty package it's put in - will continue. It's a modern version of ancestor worship, keeping alive a major albeit arcane activity from the old days (when any universal apocalyptic destruction was impossible outside of cheap sci-fi novels).
Now that we are phasing to an international feudal system based on corporate fiefs and religions of ease and convenient simplicities, (well,post-modern, western Christianity at least), amid growing shortages of essential resources, (ie, food, water, space & toleration), and world-wide natural disasters, war will become even more 'morally' justifiable. We all have a right to live, right? And living today requires hoarding, waste and ostentation as much as it requires self-preservation, right?
I guess I'm saying Yes, war will end just as soon as humanity is totally incapable of repeating history. IOW, war will end just as soon as humanity ends.
Until then, there will always be another ally-cum-evil dictator to depose or WMD-intense sandbox for our kids, grandkids great-grandkids ... to be disabled/die in. And there are plenty of useless petitions to sign and inane but safe polls to take for those too old/unable to defend their 'hood. After all, the beat must go on, again.
What other legacy can we -- ANY of us -- possibly pass on to our descendants?

Jim

Yes , war is inevitable. John's view , a steady decline in deaths resulting from state sponsored violence, is undeniable but backward looking. It is true only until it is no longer true. Advances in mechanize killing have caused strategist to pause in risk benefit analysis . ( balance of power , MAD) The result is a decline in state sponsored death. But this view presupposes reasoned thought in deciding weather or not to engage the another militarily; the overwhelming majority of military encounters throughout history have been based on miscalculations and deceit. So much for reason.
Our species is interconnected with every other living thing. It seems an absolute that all living thing want to expand territorially, weather kudzu vines in the south or Hitler in Czechoslovakia.

Neil

Unfortunately, at least in my life time!!!

Cat Maddox

War is not inevitable. Of course it isn't. I'm sure if you polled even the men and women who are serving in them presently, and not those "in charge," they would not for one moment believe they were there out of some great purpose. No, more than likely, it's the best-paying job they could get to take care of their family, afford an education, escape poverty once and for all. That is, if nothing happens to them. Secondly, I think that the more access that the lower and middle classes have to technology, and thus regular global communication with people in other countries with similar interests/commonalities, it will eventually destroy long-held suspicions/prejudices perpetuated by governments and certain popular media, that lead the common people to think of common people from different countries as "other." That realization is building globally- as evidenced in the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. The reasons these movements are powerful, is that they are gaining leverage through sheer numbers of people, and the middle and lower classes realizing that peaceful protest will eventually tumble the system not by any violent force, but because it has to. Because there are more of us than there are of them. Once this happens, and the people are more directly democratically involved in their own lives/livelihoods and communities, there will be no need for countries to go to war with one another, for the idea of a "country" will be totally passe. The world is shifting towards peaceful conflict/resolution, and as time goes on, is awakening to the fact that people do not want to destroy one another. There will be nuclear disarmament. These apocalyptic hounds clamoring to ring the world's ending bells are merely marking the beginning of a new world, inconceivable only for whom change itself is incomprehensible, though it is happening around them every day.

Wayne Fellows

War will end if and when we have international law and the institutions necessary to enforce it. The alternative is a final nuclear war.

Gary Rosenberger

Just look at the visceral hatred that Republicans have for Democrats (and vice versa to a lesser degree, I think). People brand themselves in ways that are exclusive and isolating and, ultimately, hostile.

It's not just in the world of politics but in the world of dog runs, where dog owners form into cliques that are quite hostile to each other.

Hard to see how people will get away from this kind of "group think" from which all hostility arises.

Okay, here is another example. Look at how much the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street have in common and yet they each consider the other to be the enemy.

Having said that, I hope the author is right and that I am wrong.

Steven Pinker

As I argue in a recent book which is (in part) complementary to John's (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined), I think that the causes of war -- human avarice, short-sightedness, vengeance, dominance, tribalism, and self-deception -- will always be with us, but that wars may not be (at least, not in the sense of big interstate wars that kill a lot of people -- local skirmishes and small civil wars that blend into turf battles and mafia-like feuds will be with us a lot longer). The more institutionalized the practice (as in human sacrifice or chattel slavery), the easier it is to abolish, and big interstate wars are highly institutionalized, hence the decline we've seen since 1946 could very well continue until the practice no longer exists.

Tom

No. War in not inevitable.
Since war requires coordinated state planning, this means that there is always time for a rational cost benefit analysis and the international community should be able to make peace the more beneficial outcome.
Of course some wars are wars of ideology, but these can be derailied where intervention is early enough. Again, the international community could play a role in doint this.