Sermon for 29 March 2015, 1st Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois
A WORLD WITH NO MORE WAR
Ronald J. Glossop
I. Introduction
A. A popular ideal is a world with no more war.
B. Why does that ideal seem so far off or so unlikely that it is not even worth spending time thinking about it?
(1) the disastrous effects of wars while showing little interest in the causes of wars or ideas about what needs to be done to prevent them. It focuses on
(2) the heroism and sacrifices of soldiers fighting present wars rather than how such suffering might be eliminated. It focuses on
(3) activities of military and political leaders as they prepare for battle against other countries rather than whether wars are necessary. It focuses on
(4) the new weapons being designed to fight wars rather than whether war could be eliminated. It focuses on
(5) the need for national governments to spy on each other rather than on whether the war system must continue.
The focus on these matters just stimulates people to get ready to fight the next war, including supporting much spending for new weaponry and military training.
D. Almost nothing is said about the nature of the present international system of nation-states with their unlimited national sovereignty and the fact that it is a system which produces wars or about proposals on how it could or should be changed. Also too often those who want to promote peace focus on the behavior of individuals in relation to other individuals rather than on our political institutions and social forces. This focus on individual behavior misses the mark because wars are fought between group and group, not between individual and individual.
II. A crucial distinction which needs to be remembered in order to successfully confront this problem of war is to note that "war" is not the same as "conflict."
A. Maybe in human society there will always be conflicts, but that does not mean that there will always be wars. To end wars we need institutions which keep conflicts from becoming violent.
B. Governments have been created to control conflicts within the society and keep them from becoming violent. Democratic governments especially have been relatively successful in doing this. There may still be civil wars to determine which organized group gains control of the government, but such civil wars are very unlikely in long-established democracies.
C. More important for our understanding of warfare is the fact that after governments were established, wars between these governments began to occur. Governments aimed to protect and expand the territory they controlled. Consequently some governments came into conflict with each other, and there was no government over them to keep the conflicts from becoming violent, that is from becoming wars.
D. Just as governments were developed to control conflicts between individuals and groups within a society, we finally learned how to control the conflicts between governments. We created cooperative associations of governments called confederations or federations. That development occurred in Switzerland with smaller governed societies called "cantons" and in the United States of America with larger governed societies called "states."
E. At first there was no distinction between a confederation and a federation. The words were used interchangeably, but then a similar development occurred both in Switzerland and in the U.S.A. In both places an association which began as a confederation became a federation.
F. It is still possible to distinguish between a confederation and a federation, even though the former often very gradually evolves into the latter. We can say that a confederation or league is a looser association of governments while a federation or union is a stronger or tighter one.
1. The key term is sovereignty, which means possessing ultimate authority, that is, no one else having any authority over you. It originally applied to kings, the sovereigns who had ultimate authority in the country where they ruled. Afterward, as more countries became democracies, that term "sovereign" began to be applied to the national governments, and we got the notion of unlimited national sovereignty. Each national government had the sole right to determine what is legally permissible within its national boundaries.
2. The history of our own country exemplifies the distinction between a confederation in which the component state governments retain all of their sovereignty as in the Articles of Confederation (1775-1789) and a federation in which some areas of control or sovereignty are transferred from component states to the new federal government. That transformation occurred when the U.S. Constitution was ratified by the state governments in 1787-1788. George Washington, the first U.S. President, was elected in 1788 and took office in 1789.
3. A very important difference between a confederation and a federation is whether the component governments have a right to secede from their commitment to join the association or federation. States have a right to secede from a confederation but not from a federation. The U.S. Civil War was really a war to determine whether the U.S.A. was a confederation where states could secede or a federation or union where states could not secede. The slogan for the creation of the U.S. was "E pluribus unum," Latin for "Out of many, one." Lincoln made it clear that the purpose of the Civil War was "to preserve the Union," the federation. The ending of slavery was a secondary issue.
4. Many current court cases in this country aim to determine exactly the limits between the sovereignty of the federal government and the sovereignty of the state governments.
5. We obviously have conflicts in our country about what policies should be adopted by the government, but we work these out through the courts and elections rather than in wars. The court cases and the elections are substitutes for military battles in a war. How much do our state governments spend on getting ready to fight wars with other states? None!
G. Another important difference between confederations and federations is that within a federation federal laws can be enforced against individual violators while in a confederation like the U.N. the efforts to enforce the rules is aimed at the constituent governments rather than individual persons, a system that is likely to produce wars (like the Korean War and the First Gulf War) rather than eliminating them. The recently created International Criminal Court which is designed to prosecute individual war criminals is a great step forward on the international level toward getting rid of war. It would be much more successful than it has been if it would receive support from the whole U.S. government and U.S. public rather than just from President Obama and a few others.
H. The gradual but difficult transition from confederation to federation is now taking place in the European Union whose very name indicates the goal of federation. The situation in Europe shows how nationalism and feelings of national identity are powerful obstacles to the integration into a true federation. Success requires developing a feeling of European identity.
I. A more important matter for the whole world and the abolition of war from human society is whether the confederal U.N. can somehow be transformed into a world federation.
1. An important book focused on this issue is THE ANATOMY OF PEACE by Emery Reves first published in 1945 at the end of World War II and at the beginning of the U.N. He says, "[I]f we attempt to reduce the seemingly innumerable causes of war to a common denominator, two clear and unmistakable observations emerge. (1) Wars between groups of social units always take place when these units--tribes, dynasties, churches, cities, nations--exercise unrestricted sovereign power. (2) Wars between these social units cease the moment sovereign power is transferred from them to a larger or higher unit." (pp. 120-21)
2. A new book making the same point but with more attention to current developments is Joseph Schwartzberg's TRANSFORMING THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM: DESIGNS FOR A WORKABLE WORLD (UN University Press, 2013). Near the end of his incredibly detailed study, he writes, "I firmly believe that a democratic federal world government with a built-in constitutional system of checks and balances provides the best of the many conceivable future ways of governing our increasingly interconnected world. Given the existential environmental threats confronting our society, as well as long-recognized threats from our presently anarchic "war-system," we must now plan for and seek to create an essentially new global political order as quickly as possible . . ." (p. 316)
III. Conclusion
A. Experience has shown us that an effective way of ending wars between sovereign social units is to bring them together into a federation where conflicts of interest can be resolved nonviolently by judicial and political means and the rule of law enforceable on individuals.
B. At the global level, so far we have established a confederation called the United Nations.
C. The difficult next step to creating a world with no more war is to transform that U.N. confederation into a world federation. As in Europe nationalism and feelings of national identity are powerful obstacles. Success requires promoting a feeling of world citizenship.
D. At the world level a big obstacle not faced by the European Union is the existence of nondemocratic national governments in the U.N. The transition from a confederation to a federation has always involved democratic governments. An important question is whether that transition from a confederal U.N. to a democratic world federation can be made when many of the constituent governments in the U.N. are not yet Western-style democracies. Perhaps NATO where all members are democratic governments might be a better base for creating a world federation than the U.N. The difficulty, however, is that many nations are not members of NATO while the U.N. includes almost all national governments of the world. But would trying to create a world federation from NATO result in a war between countries which are in NATO and those which are not?
E. It is too optimistic to suppose that a transition from the United Nations (or from NATO) to a democratic world federation will happen very soon. At the same time, the need to make this transition right now is very great. New technology is already producing robotic soldiers and ever more deadly weaponry and new kinds of cyber warfare and new types of biological-chemical weapons which can be produced secretly and inexpensively. Even smaller poorer countries can now get involved in the struggle for power based on coercive military strength.
F. Somehow we must persuade our leaders to pay more attention to our war-and-militarism problem and devote themselves to developing a democratic world federation which will produce a world with no more war.
G. An important first step is for each of us to move beyond our own nationalism and focus on building not only our own land but our whole world.
IV. To get started in that direction let us now join in singing Hymn #121, always changing the word "land" to the word "world." Let us together sing "We'll Build a World."
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