3 Ideas To End War Or At Least Reduce How Much War There Is: Introduction

The following few posts will form a mini-essay giving more or less what the title says.

During my time I’ve had several ingenious - or at least innovative* - ideas for ending or reducing the amount of war that takes place on this planet we call Earth. Remember that earth is also the name of the substance that people end up covered with if they pursue war through to its logical conclusion, which is death. While helping to 'kill ' the planet (figuratively) they are ironically offering themselves up as fertiliser at the same time. But do soldiers ever think about that before sacrificing their lives?

The Earth could aptly be renamed ‘Mars’, after the Roman warrior god, despite the confusion this may cause. The other planet currently called ‘Mars’ could also be re-named, but I see no real need for this.

In these modest proposals I have discounted ideas which may be impractical, such as sending all soldiers off into space to conduct warfare on our moon, or some other environment where they will cause no harm to non-warring parties. However, I believe such fantastical ideas have potential for future development.

What will end war? Some people promote peace talks. Some said ‘flower power’. Still others would form a noble League of Nations, debating world problems and finding solutions.

The deterrent value of ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’, facilitated by huge stocks of nuclear weapons, is believed to have helped keeping one half of the planet from trying to destroy the other half during the Cold War. MAD may have postponed war, but it certainly hasn’t made it impossible.

Then there have been the protesters – shouting and waving banners at politicians, sometimes making token actions such as smashing jet fighter aircraft before they leave the factory, or camping outside military bases. They have made their mark on the collective memory, but we can’t really quantify any real difference they’ve made.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat, and 3 ideas. The ideas follow in the next posts to this blog.

*Another way of saying I can't be sure that no one else already thought of these ideas, but I haven't found any evidence of that.