I.  Introduction:  The month of March is named for the Roman god of war, so it seems an appropriate time to address the issue of war that has been of great interest to me for the last 30 years.

        A.  In fact, I think that many of you know that I initiated a course on the problem of war at SIUE in 1974 as well as a Peace Studies program a couple of years later, and that I served as Coordinator of that program until I retired (except for one year when I was on sabbatical leave).

        B.  Related to that effort I helped get the University Senate and University President John Rendleman to agree to have the U.N. flag fly at the center of our campus as an indication that we are a part of the world community.  It still flies there along with our national flag and our state flag as well as our campus flag.

        C.  After having taught the course about war and peace for several years, in 1982 I decided to write a textbook for the course called Confronting War:  An Examination of Humanity's Most Pressing Problem.  The second edition was published in 1987 and the third edition in 1994, and I am now working on the fourth edition.  Most of what I will say this morning is available in more detailed and expanded form in that book as well as my book on "World Federation" published in 1993.

        D.  I have also been active in the World Federalist Association since 1967.  I have been Chair of the St. Louis chapter since 1967, and I also serve as First Vice President of the national organization.  (Our national President is John Anderson, the same John Anderson who ran as an independent candidate for President on the U.S. in 1980 after serving 20 years in the House of Representatives.)  The World Federalists advocate obtaining "World Peace through World Law" by converting the present confederal United Nations into a world federation.  Such a change would be a matter of extending to the global level the same transition that our own country made 212 years ago when we adopted the Constitution leading us from the Articles of Confederation to the federation called the United States of America.  I view that as the main move which must be made in order to end war.  But today I will also discuss other things that must be done.

 II.  To solve any problem, the first step is to get a very clear and definite idea of exactly what the problem is.  If we are going to try to end war, we should begin by defining what "war" is.  Once we do that, we will see immediately that many misconceptions about the war problem and how to deal with it will be exposed.

        A.  Unfortunately, many people, especially writers and media people, focus attention on the horrors of war.  Doing that is a good way of drawing attention to the urgency of the problem, but it does nothing to help us solve the problem.

        B.  Suppose that those concerned about the problem of disease should focus almost all their efforts on the disastrous consequences of disease, on how many people suffer from disease and how horribly they suffer.  That will not help us at all to get rid of disease.  In fact, it will distract us.  It will direct our attention to the consequences of disease rather than the causes of disease.

        C.  That is what our literary people and movie-makers have done with us with regard to the problem of war.  We have had our attention focused on the effects rather than on the causes.

III.  Here is my definition of "war," which I regard as one of the major accomplishments of my book:  War is (a) large-scale violent conflict (b) between organized groups (c) which are seeking political power (that is, they are governments or groups seeking to become a government) (d) over some territory.

        A.  Note that not all conflict is war.  This is one major misunderstanding which people have about war.  When I say that one of my aims is to end war, I often get the response, "But you will never be able to get rid of all conflict."  My response is, "Who said anything about getting rid of all conflict.  I'm not opposed to all conflict.  In fact, I believe that conflict is often an important step in making progress, whether in our thinking or in our behavior."  But here is one big mistake people make in thinking about war.  They believe that all conflict is war, but war is only that kind of conflict which engenders large-scale violence. We don't need to get rid of all conflict.  We need to focus rather on how to manage conflict so that it does not grow into large-scale violent conflict.

        B.  Note next that war is group against group and not individual against individual.
                1.  This fact is one reason that war is so immoral.  People aim to kill or harm one another not because of anything about that individual but simply because they belong to "the enemy group." Whether we are talking about war between country and country or between religion and religion or between race and race or between rich and poor,
the tragedy is that people are not being judged or treated according to what they have done.  All other personal qualities are viewed as irrelevant, and people are attacked simply because they are members of that other group.
                2.  This fact also is overlooked by people who believe that the best way to over-come war is to get individuals to commit themselves to a nonviolent life-style.  In war violence is committed mainly out of motivations of patriotism and obedience to superiors, not because of a desire to deliberately harm some particular person.  Why did the atom bomb
get dropped on Hiroshima?  Did those in the plane feel some desire to do violence to the total strangers living in that Japanese city?  Not at all. They did it out of loyalty to their country and a desire to do their duty to help their own country win the war.
                3.  Certainly, it is possible that some persons would refuse to participate in any kind of war because of their adoption of the principle of nonviolence.  But what would happen if a large number of persons in one group refused to participate in war while those in another group are ready to follow the orders of their leaders to use violence?  It is not difficult to see who would win such a war.  If it were generally agreed that conflicts between groups were not going to be decided by violence, then individuals committed to nonviolence would not be a liability to a group.  But that is to say that if war could first be eliminated as a way of working out group conflict, then individuals who refuse to participate in war would no longer be a liability to their group. Note, however, that the elimination of war must come first, not the
commitment to a nonviolent lifestyle.

        C.  Third, note that the aim of warfare is the gaining of political power, that is the right to make and enforce laws and policies for the larger group.
                1.  Wars can be fought internationally (one country against another country) or intranationally (between opposing groups within a country).  The issue to be decided is, Who will make the laws and policies for the whole society within some territory?  Con-sider World War II and then the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo.
                2.  Why a democratic political system is the alternative to war:  in the definition of "war" replace the one word "violent" with the word "nonviolent."  Something (what is it?) is (a) large-scale nonviolent conflict (b) between organized groups (c) which are seeking political power (d) over some territory.  That seems to be a pretty good definition of
politics within a democratic society.  Different groups want to make the laws and policy, and they fight it out by means of a nonviolent election rather than a violent war.  They use "ballots" instead of "bullets" to determine who will have political power until the next election.
                3.  Consider the abortion issue as a beautiful illustration of this point.

        E.  Fourth, note that there is always some territory which is to be governed by that government.  Consider the Basques in Spain or the Chechnyans in Russia.

IV.  Kinds of actions needed to diminish the likelihood of war.

        A.  Change the attitudes of individuals:  more skeptical and tolerant, better informed about social issues and different ideologies, less ready to use violence to resolve conflict, replace nationalism with globalism (humatriotism, world citizenship)
                1.  The link between nationalism and language & the need for Esperanto.  Esperanto is the language for the global community as a whole.
                2.  Whoever wishes to be a world citizen has as a major obligation the learning of Esperanto, the world language.

        B.  Change the structure of national governments:  Institute democracies to control conflict within countries and also to reduce readiness to use violence against others.

        C.  Change the policies of national governments:  Rely less on force and threat of force and more on negotiation, third party mediation, and views of outsiders plus instituting international institutions for conflict resolution and collective problem solving (the U.N. system and other international organizations)

        D.  Change from an international system where war and threats of war are primary to an international system where conflicts are worked out by political and judicial means as occurs within many countries.
                1.  Note need to hold individuals accountable in order to stop wars, even though wars are fought between group and group.  The problem is how the individual leader manages to get the whole group involved in wars against other groups.  The permanent International Criminal Court as a giant step forward.
                2.  We need to move from a "Pax Americana" based on superior U.S. economic and military power to a democratic world federation based on extending our principles to the global level.  Does everyone in the world need to become an American before they can participate in the global political and economic system?  We should rather extend our ideals and political system to the global level.

V.  Will we ever have a democratic world federation?

        A.  Yes, for sure, eventually.  We virtually already have a world government (called the government of the U.S.A.) but only people in this country get to vote for the leaders and the policies to be implemented.

        B.  We need to shift from thinking about what will happen (predictive mode) to thinking about what should happen (prescriptive mode). Let us decide what should happen and then exert all our effort to make it happen.