Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1
1 Where are we? 6
Events and realities 6
Presentation and perceptions 11
2 What is war good for? Myth and reality 18
The myth of war 18
War’s causes 22
War leaders and their motivations 29
‘Exhausted alternatives’: the case of Kosovo 32
War’s efficacy for good 38
The negative effects of war 45
Conclusion 50
3 War, violence and human nature 54
Power as domination 55
Violent structures 55
Us and them 59
Violence and human nature 61
The role of culture 63
Gender and violence 65
Nature and nurture: changing gender roles 68
Broader possibilities of cultural change 70
Psychology and moral development 72
4 Peace, war and ethics 78
Ethics, self and society 78
Ethics and war 80
Ethics and power 81
The logic (and illogic) of war 82
War as justice 86
Just War theories 87
The protection of civilians – sliding boundaries 89
Means and ends: consequentialism 92
viii Rethinking War and Peace

Measuring wider consequences 93

Sins of omission 96
Accepting responsibility 98
Strengthening peace ethics 100
5 Opposing evil and standing up for good 103
What about Hitler? 104
Tyranny and ‘people power’ 106
Nonviolent resistance in recent history 109
People power around the world 112
The strength of nonviolence – building peace 117
International solidarity 119
A constructive role for governments in supporting
peace ‘abroad’ 122
An answer to terrorism? 127
People power to resist militarism and demand peace 128
6 Peace, identity and participation 131
From identity to identification 132
Purposes and values 135
Participation 139
Achieving change 142
7 Time for action 150
What needs to be done and why 151
Getting on with the job 155
Reasons for hope 160

Notes and References 166

Index 173
 Introduction

The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people.
But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers,
storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well
in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the
fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities
have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.
David Orr, Earth in Mind

I was born in 1944 to conscientious objector parents who had

held on to their beliefs in spite of the terrible events of World War
II and in the face of much social opprobrium. At the age of about
15, beginning with what I had learned from my parents, I began
to develop my own understanding of pacifism, to some extent
through reading but more through endless conversations and by
listening to speeches and sermons. I became active in the anti-
nuclear movement and in the local branch of The International
Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR, of which I later became
President) – an organisation which supports groups in different
parts of the world that are resisting tyranny and militarism and
working for justice through nonviolent action. The people I met
in IFOR filled out my understanding of what it means to renounce
violence without giving up on the struggle for humanity – indeed,
as part of that struggle.
For the past dozen years I have worked as a trainer and facilitator
in the field of ‘conflict resolution’, in many different parts of the
world afflicted by the violence of war (work that is described in
my first book, People, Peace and Power1). Although this work is
important to me, and seems both urgent and necessary, the events
of 11 September and all that has followed have taken me back to
the point where I began: to the conviction that unless we address
the system of war and the injustice it perpetuates, I and people
like me are doomed to spend the rest of our days in frantic and
ineffectual firefighting, in which one blaze is replaced by another,
or is quelled only to break out again with renewed ferocity. At
the same time the hidden violence of economic exploitation and

1
2 Rethinking War and Peace

oppression, maintained by military might – whose effects are as

dire as those of war – will not only continue but increase.
We are, as a species, at a crossroads: a point where we must
choose. We have probably never felt less secure, more uncertain.
We seem to be caught on a ‘moving walkway’ that has run out
of control and is propelling us along so fast that we can hardly
think, let alone find a way of stopping the conveyor belt while
we collect our wits and see what is to be done. It is my belief
that we need to get off it somehow, and fast, before it hurls us
all ‘together into the abyss’.2
The word ‘pacifist’ has an old-fashioned ring and is associated
by most people with irrelevant idealism. Often, indeed, it is used
as a derogatory term. While some regard pacifists as worthy souls,
to be respected if not taken seriously, others see them as self-
indulgent and dishonest, refusing to face the harsh realities of
the world we inhabit. Because they resist war as a system, it is
inferred that they are unconcerned with the real circumstances
of particular wars.
Yet if we refuse to reconsider the fundamental assumptions that
underlie the justification and acceptance of war, we shall remain
caught in a dynamic of cruelty and destruction that will know
no end, that undermines all that makes for human happiness,
decency and meaning and that could lead to our destruction as
a species.
Saying no to war, on the other hand, could be the first step
in saying yes to a very different future. Why does it seem so
impossible? Precisely because war is an integral part of a historic
and pervasive system within which we are enmeshed, because
we have always seen it as inevitable, and because recent events
make it seem even more so.
Since 11 September 2001, while rejecting the cruel violence of
such terrible assaults, I have joined with others in the struggle
to resist the relentless rhetoric and momentum of the ‘War on
Terror’.3 In so doing I have come to see more clearly than ever that
to protest in an ad hoc way against individual wars is not enough.
The military machine is far too powerful and integral to global
economic domination to be stopped by anti-war movements that
fade once a particular war is over and struggle to get under way
again as the next calamity looms and peak too late to prevent it.
And, as things stand, it seems there are too many vested interests
 Introduction 3

and too much inertia within the current system for particular
wars to be stopped – even when a majority opposes them. Our
‘democracies’ have proved themselves unresponsive to their
people.
What is needed is a massive and sustained movement away
from war as such, and towards constructive approaches to
collective human relationships. This will entail a fundamental
change in the way the world is organised and in prevailing
approaches to power. This is indeed an ambitious project, but
vital nonetheless. War must be seen for what it is: a human
catastrophe, a violation of humanity. It ‘must cease to be an
admissible human institution’.4
It must cease to be an admissible human institution because
people matter. They matter more than wealth or power or
convenience, and they matter unconditionally. As human beings
we owe each other, without question, respect for the dignity and
needs that are inherent in our humanity.
Without this assumption no morality is possible, and morality
is necessary to our wellbeing, as individuals and as a species. Since
we exist in interdependence with all species and indeed all beings,
we must learn to embrace them in our morality. It is our moral
capacity, and our ability to care and suffer, to celebrate and create,
that make us matter so much. Our ability to hurt and to harm is
the other side of that capacity for good. The institution of war is
an expression of our negative capacity and inflicts terrible harm
on people and on the earth itself.
Writing this book has been a struggle. My mind has felt
atomised by the sheer senselessness of what has been said and
done. Much of my time and energy have been consumed by
the need to take action to resist the madness of it all. And the
difficulty I have experienced in finding the mental space to
stop, think and write, while at the same time coping with and
responding to the immediate crisis, is my own small version of a
much wider dilemma. How can we manage the realities of now,
while working towards a different set of realities for the future?
How can we take out the military props when we don’t seem
to have a system that can stand up without them? How can we
disentangle militarism from the terrible inequities it protects and
promotes? These questions are at the heart of the challenge that
I wish to address.
4 Rethinking War and Peace

I believe we have the capacity to choose against war and so to

give peace a chance: that to want to do so is a sign of sanity rather
than madness; that the first step is to understand that there is a
choice, and that we can and should make it. My purpose, then, is
to undertake a radical re-examination of the assumption that war
is either acceptable or inevitable, and to try to suggest some ways
out of the apparently endless cycle of violence. This will involve
reflections on human nature, society and ethics, on alternatives
to war and on the values and nature of peace.
I am aware that my assumptions and perceptions will inevitably
(despite all my travels and cross-cultural friendships) be those
of someone who has grown up in the West. The content of my
arguments and the examples I give will be influenced by my own
context and experience, and by my preoccupation with what I see
as the damaging and fundamentally immoral behaviour of the
world’s most powerful nations. Indeed, I believe that we should
all, wherever we live, focus first and foremost on what is done in
our own society and in our name. But I also know that I am part
of a growing counter-culture – one that has global dimensions
– and that in much of what I say I will be voicing the opinions
of a great many people in very different parts of the world. This
book is for them too.
As the book’s title suggests, I am attempting a fundamental
review of the relationship between war and peace. Nonetheless,
it is a response to the moment in which we live and the events of
the past two or three years will receive a great deal of attention. It
is those events that have brought me to the point of undertaking
a task that I would not otherwise have imposed on myself. And
it is those events that are likely to have prompted you to pick up
this book. I see them as the apotheosis of militarism as a system
and not an aberration.
Events are moving fast and by the time this is published it
will already be out of date – by the time you read it even more
so. It will remain a book of and for our time, but with (I hope)
something fundamental to say about human relationships and
the future of our planet.
Having spent my life being asked hard questions and trying
to find answers to them, I am in no danger of assuming that to
mount and sustain a fundamental challenge to war is an easy
undertaking. In spite of the depth of my convictions, I have
 Introduction 5

often doubted my ability to write cogently enough to be in any

way convincing. I have feared that, however persuasive they are
with me, my arguments would not hold up under the scrutiny of
others. Worst of all, I have been afraid that I might myself come
to find them unconvincing!
Recently, however, I read Jonathan Glover’s brilliant book,
Humanity:5 a compassionate and cogent exploration of human
cruelty and destructiveness on the one hand, and moral resources
on the other. While in more than four hundred pages there is
no discussion of the ethical justification for war as such, the
whole book points to that question. Having been afraid that my
reasoning would prove too weak to stand up in the light of such
a work, I found that in the event it was reinforced by it.
In taking a position so far removed from accepted thinking on
this subject, I shall be expected to provide answers to riddles never
posed to those who justify war. Nonetheless, I choose to make the
attempt. The way the last millennium ended and this one began
has made such an endeavour feel like a human obligation. The
title I have chosen is sweeping, reflecting the scale of the task.
My hope is more modest: to contribute something, at least, to the
wide and profound debate that needs to begin, urgently.
I shall not be arguing that anything can remove the fact
of human frailty, with all its associated dilemmas. I shall be
maintaining that to uphold certain fundamental values, through
personal and collective policy and structures, is of paramount
importance for our wellbeing and our survival, and that war
cannot be part of that. And I shall be echoing Glover’s hope
that, given the belief and commitment of ‘ordinary people’, ‘the
ending of the festival of cruelty may be possible’.6 War threatens
our planet and all its inhabitants; peace will need to embrace
them all and it is our responsibility.
 Index
Compiled by Peter Ellis

Afghanistan, Burundi, 26, 96

counter-insurgency in, 24 Bush, George W., 13, 21, 29, 39,
postwar, 16, 17, 20 57–8, 60, 161
reconstruction of, 49
war (2002), 10, 13, 19, 60, 86, 94 campaigning, 1–2, 17, 100–2,
Agent Orange, 49 139–42, 144–8
Al Aqsa brigade, 91 capital punishment, 86–7
Al Jazeera, 15, 44 chaos theory, 101
Al Qaeda, 10, 19, 20, 86 Chechnya, 9, 49
Algeria, 109 children,
Allende, President, 161 and culture, 66, 134
Amin, Idi, 117 and involvement, 158, 163
Amnesty International, 121 and violence, 9, 65
Amritsar, India, 109 in wartime, 44, 63–4, 68, 84
ANC (African National Congress), 112 Chile, 114, 161
Angola, 24, 58 China, 40, 51, 60–1, 111–12, 115
apartheid, 59, 112, 115 Christian Aid, 58
Argentina, 114, 161 civil liberties, 44
arms industry see arms trade
see also human rights
arms race, 40, 98, 105, 157
civilian-based defence see social
arms trade, 9, 21, 24, 51, 57, 64,
defence
98, 157
Clark, Helen, 51
Ashrawi, Dr Hanan, 124
Clinton, Bill, 60
atom bombs see weapons of mass
Cold War, 6, 23, 24, 40, 93
destruction
Colombia, 24, 91, 114
Aung San Suu Kyi, 32
communications, 12, 83–4, 164
Ba’ath Party, 14, 90 complexity theory, 101
Bali, 46 conflict transformation, 158
Beijing, 111 Congo, 24, 25, 32, 96
Belgrano, 16 consequentialism, 92–5, 98, 101
Bell, Bishop George, 78 Costa Rica, 56, 123
Ben Bella, Ahmed, 109 counter-cultures, 4, 70, 71, 134
Berlin, Isaiah, 96 Cousins, Norman, 150
Bevan, Aneurin, 131 Croatia, 35
bin Laden, Osama, 20, 50 Cuba, 114
Blair, Tony, 13, 16–17, 29, 30, 45, culture, 42, 63–72, 104, 152
50, 161 Czechoslovakia, 110
Bolivia, 114
Bosnia-Herzegovina, 35, 125 Dayton Agreement, 33, 35
Boulding, Elise, 71 democracy,
Brazil, 114–15, 161 and human rights, 128
Buddhism, 64 and militarism, 56, 58
Bulgaria, 110 nurturing, 44, 100, 139–42, 159
Burma, 32, 120 world, 152, 154

173
174 Rethinking War and Peace
depleted uranium, 49, 83
determinism, 61–2
Donne, John, 131, 139
dual effect theory, 90–1
East Germany, 110
East Timor, 32
economics, 57–9
Ecuador, 114
Einstein, Albert, 103
Eisenhower, Dwight, D., 50, 150
Eisler, Riane, 68–9, 71, 72, 73, 75
11th September 2001,
and Afghanistan war, 86
reactions to, 19, 131
results of, 10, 11, 13
shock of, 1, 6, 46, 51
Estonia, 125
ethics, 78–85, 94, 100–2, 159, 164
see also consequentialism,
Just War theories, justice,
utilitarianism, values
EU (European Union), 123
Fair Trade, 72, 152
Falklands war, 16, 30, 67
Falun Gong, 115
FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia), 91, 114
Fénelon, Bishop Francois, 132
Ferguson, Brian, 25, 29, 71
Freud, Sigmund, 62–3
Galtung, Johan, 63
Gandhi, Mohandas, 109, 121, 136
gender, 65–70, 73, 84, 155, 158,
162
see also masculinity, sexual
violence, women
Geneva conventions, 87
Georgia, 111, 125
Germany, 41
Ghana, 24
Gilligan, Carol, 73
Glover, Jonathan, 5, 67, 72, 164
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 31, 110–12
Grass, Gunther, 15
Guantanamo Bay, 44
Guatamala, 114, 122
gun culture, 72, 95–6
Hague conventions, 87
Hague Tribunal, 43
Hamas, 91
Hiroshima, 40, 91
Hitler, 40, 82, 95, 104–6
Hoffman, Eva, 138
Holocaust, 40, 82, 104
Honeker, Erik, 110
Hong Kong, 115
Hughan, Jessie Wallace, 18
human rights,
in Afghanistan, 20
and economic rights, 159
in India, 59
in Kosovo, 35, 36
and torture, 94
and war, 32, 43–4, 88–9
Humphrey, Nicholas, 131
Hungary, 110
Hussein, Saddam, 16, 45, 83, 87,
107, 121, 126
identity, 132–6, 142
India, 58, 59, 60–1, 109, 115
Indonesia, 24
International Criminal Court, 6,
43
International Fellowship of
Reconciliation (IFOR), 1
international law, 43, 51, 94
International Monetary Fund (IMF),
23
International Red Cross, 78
international solidarity, 119–22
Iran, 24
Iraq war (1991), 47, 49, 80
Iraq war (2003),
consequences of, 94
cost of, 8, 49–50
and nonviolence, 105–6, 122
opposition to, 10–11, 160–1, 163
reasons for, 9, 18, 19, 20, 60, 86
reporting of, 14, 15–16
Islamic Jihad, 91
Israel, 90, 113, 117–18, 122, 124
Japan, 41
Jesus Christ, 64, 87
jihad, 20, 87
John Paul II, 78

Just War theories, 80, 87–9, 100
justice, 32, 86–7, 152
Kant, Immanuel, 78, 79, 94
Karadzic, Radovan, 35
Keegan, John, 71
Kelly, Raymond, 71
Kenya, 115
King, Martin Luther, 116, 165
Koran, the, 87
Kosova Liberation Army (KLA), 36
Kosovo, 16, 17, 25, 32–9, 120
landmines, 49
Lasar, Rita, 131, 135
Lester, Muriel, 150
Liberia, 120
Lorenz, Konrad, 62–3
LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam), 10, 31, 124
Lula da Silva, Luiz Inacio, 100
Luthuli, Albert, 112
Lynch, Tim, 67
Mandela, Nelson, 112
Manila, 111
Mao Tse Tung, 40
Marcos, President, 111
masculinity, 42, 64, 65–8, 157, 158
Maslow, Abraham, 103
media,
and culture, 64, 66
and Iraq war, 14, 15–16
and propaganda, 44, 45
and responsibility, 159
and spin, 83–4
and young people, 34
see also communications
Merton, Thomas, 30
militarism, 3, 4, 8, 77, 98, 99
and ethics, 81, 94
and nonviolence, 104, 128–9
overturning, 152, 155, 157, 159
military industrial complex, 57, 162
Milosevic, Slobodan, 27, 33–5, 37,
116, 125–6, 136
Mindanao (Philippines), 9, 24
Mobutu, President, 25
Mohammed, 64
Mugabe, Robert, 115
Index 175
Muller, Dr Robert, 150
multilateralism, 100
Nagasaki, 40, 91
nationalism, 133–4, 155
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation), 33, 34, 37, 38,
39, 77
Nazism, 81, 106
see also Hitler
Nepal, 115
NGO (non-governmental
organisation), 120–1
Nicaragua, 114
Nietzsche, 81
Nigeria, 115
Nkrumah, President, 24
Non-Proliferation Treaty, 8, 127
nonviolence,
examples of, 34–5, 105–11, 113–
18
fostering, 129–30, 151, 152, 153,
158
and terrorism, 127
see also pacifism, peace, people
power
Northern Ireland, 27, 120, 126
Norway, 124
nuclear weapons see weapons of
mass destruction
oil, 6, 19–20, 21, 58
Orr, David, 1
OSCE (Organisation for Security
and Co-operation in Europe),
36–7, 124–5
Oslo Peace Accord, 113
pacifism, 2, 96–7, 100
Palestine, 91, 113, 122, 123, 124
Pancevo (Serbia), 49
Patten, Chris, 32
peace,
building, 18, 53, 104, 139–42,
142–9, 155–60
and ethics, 79, 100–2, 103
and governments, 122–7
and identity, 132
negative, 38, 39–40, 42, 43, 50
and nonviolence, 117
176 Rethinking War and Peace

peace, continued Shakespeare, William, 54

positive, 39–40, 41, 42, 50, 101, 118 Sharon, Ariel, 113, 123
values, 135–8 Sharpeville, 112
Peace Brigades International, 121–2 Sherman, General, 18
peace movement, 11, 144, 147, 156, Shevardnadze, Eduard, 111
163 Sierra Leone, 23, 26, 96, 115, 119
people power, 11, 105–6, 111, 112– social defence, 106
16, 128–30, 161–3 Solidarnosc, 110
Peru, 91 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, 74
Philippines, 9, 24, 111 Somalia, 115
power, South Africa, 32, 59, 112, 115
benign, 71–2 sovereignty, 139
and democracy, 101 Soviet Union, 8, 23, 24, 86, 110,
economic, 56–7 118
and ethics, 81–2 Sri Lanka, 9–10, 31, 59, 115, 119,
military, 55–6 124
and nonviolence, 117 Star Wars, 8
relations, 59–61 Straw, Jack, 41
see also people power
Prabhakaran, Velupillai, 31 Tajikistan, 125
Prague, 110
Taliban, 19, 20
proportionality, 88, 92, 95
terrorism,
protest see people power
causes of, 98, 127–8
psychology, 72–7, 164
effects of, 47, 51
intrastate, 28
racism, 59–60
responses to, 7, 20, 52, 86, 90–1
Ramos, General, 111
Thatcher, Margaret, 30, 31
rape see sexual violence
Tiananmen Square, 111–12
Reagan, Ronald, 31
Tolkien, J.R.R., 74
religion, 74–5, 137, 138
Robertson, George, 77 torture, 94–5, 164
Robertson, Rob, 109 transnational corporations, 57
Robertson, Field Marshal Sir Trocme, André and Magda, 106
William, 18 Tudjman, Franjo, 27
Rotblat, Joseph, 78 Turkey, 21
Roy, Arundhati, 44, 58–9, 83, 150
Rugova, Ibrahim, 34, 36 Uganda, 26, 117
Rwanda, 67, 96, 119 Ugresic, Dubravka, 27
Ryan, George, 59 Um Qasr, Iraq, 83
United Kingdom,
St Augustine, 87 and arms trade, 9
St Paul, 64 Global Prevention Fund, 123
Sassoon, Siegfried, 165 laws, 95–6
Saudi Arabia, 9, 21 and Northern Ireland, 27, 120
Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), 91 opposition, 163
September 11th Families for soldiers, 12, 80, 85
Peaceful Tomorrows, 160 and US bases, 6
Serbia, 16, 33, 35, 38, 44, 49, 116 and war, 8, 10, 40, 58
sexual violence, 21, 47–8, 65–8 United Nations, 8, 21, 37, 43, 88,
see also women 94, 159, 161

United States,
bases, 6, 25
Civil Rights Movement, 116, 136
and international law, 43, 44, 86,
128
and Kyoto agreement, 6
nuclear weapons, 8
oil, 19–20, 21
opposition, 10, 11, 160–1
world strategy, 6, 21, 23, 24, 51,
58, 60, 107, 161
Uruguay, 108, 114
Ustinov, Peter, 51
utilitarianism, 92, 95
values, 77, 135–8, 154
Vietnam, 40, 49, 76
violence, 55–9, 61–3, 98
Walker, Alice, 165
Walzer, Michael, 91
war,
casualties of, 7, 14, 16, 32, 80,
89–90, 99
destructiveness of, 12, 22, 24, 33,
38, 40–1, 45–50, 52, 151
environmental costs, 48–9, 52,
55
and ethics, 5, 12, 38–45, 79–82,
119
financial costs, 49–50
and human nature, 61–3, 68–70
interstate, 22, 28–9
intrastate, 22, 23–27
motives for, 22–9, 31, 29–32
myths about, 11, 18–19, 21–45,
53, 151–2, 157
poets, 12, 165
Index 177
and propaganda, 16, 19, 39, 42,
44–5
and society, 2, 4, 18, 82–5, 151
vocabulary, 13–17, 19, 64, 82–3,
91, 100, 155
see also arms trade, ethics, gender,
masculinity, sexual violence
‘War on Terror’, 2, 10, 19, 41, 50,
86, 160
weapons of mass destruction, 7–8,
20, 21, 61, 86, 92, 93, 94, 127
Wilding, Jo, 121
women,
in Afghanistan, 20
in Guatemala, 122
in Iraq, 42
and participation, 158
and religion, 75
in Sierra Leone, 115
in wartime, 84, 85
and violence, 9, 47–8, 65–70
Wordsworth, William, 54
World War I, 12, 29, 67, 104
World War II,
comradeship in, 117
effects of, 40–1
and pacifism, 96
reality of, 12, 47
reasons for, 28, 104
Wren, Brian, 103
Yeltsin, Boris, 111
Yugoslavia, 24, 27, 33, 37, 96, 116
see also Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Croatia, Kosovo, Serbia
Zimbabwe, 115
Zinn, Howard, 103, 131