Herb

Perhaps extreme cynicism, but my view on
the EOW is this: War, like so much else, is a BUSINESS, possibly an INDUSTRY.Too many entities and individuals to list
have financial or career motives for supporting military action wherever
opportunity exists.

Jennifer

No, absolutely not. But power structures and class structures nationally and internationally have to change first.

Sherie - Roosevelt Island

When you were talking this morning about Europe finally "eliminating" war among it's member countries, you forgot that with the fall of Yugoslavia there was a very bloody war that led to much damage and terrible repercussions on the civilian population. Remember Serbia, Kosovo, and Srebenica.

And please don't forget what has been happening in so many African countries with the kidnapping and drugging of young children for the purpose of turning them into "soldiers" (pure cowardice on the part of the adult male "soldiers"), the chopping off of limbs, and wholesale, mass rape as a coercive weapon; there was also mass killing by one group by another in Rwanda, (Hutus and Tutsis), Sudan, etc...This was over which tribe was seen as "in favor" over the other...base reasoning and yet...if someone's foot is on or perceived to be on another's neck...

I agree with those who put much of the fault of war on the corporate military industrrial COMPLEX, which Eisenhower warned this country and the world of. There's money to be made and those people in the business of making and selling weapons are not going to stop just 'cause we want it so. The need for weapons needs to be curtailed but the lust for power (and money) at all cost is a tough nut...

When countries cannot get weapons, perhaps the fighting will not cease, but the dimensions of the attacks and killing (especially upon civilians) can be more controlled and lessened. But stopped...??? Not so sure of that.

Syria is a current lesson of carrying out war upon its own people as tribe/religious group driven (Alawites vs.Sunnis) and with supplies of weapons being never-ending, so far. When the UN had an opportunity last week to send a unified message to the Syrian leader, neither China or Russia would vote with their fellow countries, and it was later reported that they were busy selling arms to Assad. I rest my case!

The "Cabaret" song said it perfectly: "Money makes the world go 'round..."

Nat Johnson

The "End of War" as a concept is an unproductive reductionist framework which obscures more then it illuminates. It is a complex part of a dynamic process subject to interactive feedback and homeostatic elements in the universe of human behaviors. Peace and war are just part of the dynamics of group interactions that shape and are shaped by cultural and environmental influences. It needs to be approached in an interdisciplinary way. Whether primates, ants or other organisms engage in war are wholly misdirected approaches to examining the human issues around conflict.

Litsa Binder

War is not inevitable. It is up to each one of us to work to make an end of war a reality. When we realize we love our children more than we hate our enemies we will not want our children to kill or be killed. So, instead of being helpless and victims to the war is inevitalbe mentality to the sake of our children let us work tirelessly to make war a relic of the past. It is up to the US to lead the way to put an end to the war, since it is our country that is waging wars and has a military presence all around the world right now. And, because we are a democracy, it is up to us citizens to participate, to lead, to influence the direction our country is taking. I am retired and spend much of my time in doing just that. I refuse to be fatalistic. "When the people lead, the leaders will follow".
Thank you for airing this series; I look forward to the future segments.

Albert Chu

This may sound politically incorrect, but consider this: Should there had been no wars since the beginning of humanity, and people had been living and multiplying merrily, how would the world have looked like today?

Litsa Binder

War is not inevitable. It is up to each of us to work to insure that we as a country lead the world in putting an end to war. Because the US has an annual defense dept. budget that is larger than the combined military budget of the next ten countries and because we fight wars and have a military presence all over the world, the responsibility is ours to reverse this course of violence. Someone said when we realize we love our children more than we hate our enemies we will put an end to war. Let's think positively and work tirelessly to promote an end to war. I am retired and spend a good portion of my time promoting the war is not inevitable position. I applaud you for airing this series and I look forward to the upcoming segments.

Ron Butkiewicz

War is inevitable. If anyone thinks that war can be eliminated from society I would ask them one question.

Can violent crime be eliminated from human society? If the answer is no then their war argument is fatally flawed.

Yvonne from Park Slope

Looking at our own country first, we in the USA have surrendered control to a minority for whom war serves positive functions ... for them. Our economy requires a certain level of unemployment which would be significantly higher without our military misadventures.

As long as our own wars provide profits for some and employment where employment would not otherwise be easily available and as long as the wars of others are, also, a source of profit for some and as long as men are running the show and there is all the cowboy mentality of a teenage boy (the ones who are about to serve and die for war) and this cowboy mentality is confused with patriotism and as long as so many in this country are misinformed and this ignorance is deliberately manipulated by politicians who do the bidding of others who profit from war, this country will always be at war.

The inevitability of war may be somewhat different in different cultures and countries. Here in the USA, there is too much invested in it's perpetuation.

Peaceful cultures have existed and so it could not be universal and inherent in all human beings. If it is possible even for a small culture to be peaceful, then it should be possible for all. We need to better understand what has made peacefulness possible where it has existed!!

If there was already no wars now, what would our unemployment rate look like?? How much worse would it be. Is politics of this country willing and able to address this??

I was struck by someone in a previous show who called our wars "welfare conservative style" and I am pessimistic about the readiness of the American culture to honestly face the forces that perpetuate war here including the corporations who feed off these wars.

Jon

I would hope that it is something that we will outgrow, but in the short term I think it is an inevitable product of human nature. I think the driving forces are at the individual level and start with Greed and the sociopathic impulse to take from others or monopolize resources; and what I call the impulse towards Fascism - when a person feels that they are not only right but that everyone else should do and believe their way. There are only a certain number of possible reactions to people who behave like that - join, knuckle under, or resist. Some percentage of people will do some of each. This behavior at the individual level is extrapolated at the level of politics, the state, or non-state groups. Conflict becomes inevitable. In some portion of the cases it will escalate. I forgot who said it but war is the absence of law. Since I do not expect human nature to change radically very soon, I think the only hope is rule of law and justice at an international level. But even this is undermined. I wish I was more optimistic.

Natalie Burrows

War is not inevitable. We are animals who seek to survive and pass pm pir gemes/ At the moment, we are influenced by the 1percent v. 99 percent struggles worldwide. When the 99 percent dominates, as it eventually will, war will be seen as destructive to their goals. In the U.S., at the moment, we are dominated by a war machine that works against peace. We must see that it is not in our long-term interest to continue on this path.
Tribalism is the force that I most fear in our effort to achieve peace worldwide and within our own borders.

Gretchen Goethner

Women's Campaign School at Yale presents conferences to encourage women to enter politics. 50/50 by 2020. Pat Russo, President(geeshap@hotmail.ccom

ggoethner@aol.com

Mary Carroll

I'd like to believe that we can evolve as one commenter said. I'm not sure. Like John Horgan I teach at the college level. One of my self-designed courses is "American War in Fiction and Song." To be honest, it's a cover for an anti-war course. We look at propaganda as our way in to discussing several American wars. Like Horgan's students, mine also seem to think war is inevitable. Some of them have actually come from war-torn places like Bosnia and the Middle East. As an American born and bred, even post 9/11, I remain an optimist in that I want to believe that the good in man trumps evil. And war is evil.

Bob in Long Valley, NJ

I think the war in Iraq had more to do with proving America was still Top Dog than in avenging 911, stopping weapons of mass destruction or protecting our national and corporate interests (oil).

Our aggressive nature is a constant force - from the schoolyard bully to the need to win in sports, from labor negotiations that end in strikes to hostile political 'campaigns' that preclude rational discourse to resolve differences or intelligent compromise. Ultimately - everything simply deteriorates into the need of one Alpha group to dominate their adversary and prove they are Top Dog. This is not a gender aspect - there is a pecking order for males and females - and just as many wars begun by women leaders, from Margaret Thatcher to Cleopatra, just to name two most people know.

Nat Benchley

As long as humans insist on dividing themselves along religious lines and proclaiming vast theological differences -often over tiny disagreements of interpretation- they will feel the need to fight and either impose their will on others or defend against perceived incursions on their freedoms. How can we even dream of the end of war when religions fight among themselves with such violence?

nellaalamanni@aol.com

On today's show your guest talked about. Costa Rica with not military,that. Is great, but he fail to talk about the USA military bases in CR

Christine Sotmary

There are skills that need to be learned to create peace. Rotary gives Peace Fellowships so that qualified scholarship winners can go on to get advanced degrees in creating Peace. Just as there are skills to be good parents, or in my field, good Caregivers, there are skills that bring people together, create empathy and eliminate the desire to wage war on each other.

Giuseppe

The short answer is NO.
I believe one of the reasons war is perceived as inevitable is that throughout history, war has been used by the establishment as "instrumentum regni" (just like religion), that is a tool to maintain the socio-political status quo. In modern time, the economic component, the military-industrial complex, has made the warmongering even more powerful.

The link between war on the one hand and patriotism and ultimately self-preservation on the other is ancestral and bleeds the socio-political domain into primal biological urges. However, I find it perfectly believable that this connection arose from human history (the preservation of the first agrarian organized societies) rather than biological evolution.

Susan

The optimal word here is MATURITY. If we compare humans to apes or our own human children, the most aggressive periods in life are early childhood, teenage and early adulthood. War is only inevitable if the Human Race as a whole does not mature. It is based on the level of maturity of the Human Race, which is a matter or evolutionary maturity. We can educate people, but, not everyone matures at the same time, although it could happen, eventually.