Abstract
A hundred years after the extraordinary congress of the Second Socialist International in Basel on 24/25 November 1912, the balance with regard to war and peace is highly ambivalent. On the one hand, the congress was followed by two world wars and between 300 and 400 local and regional wars, which cost over 35 million lives, as well as countless mass murders of civilians and prisoners of war, with well over 170 million murder victims. There can be no possibility of disarmament; quite the contrary, the capacities for destruction have constantly been increased and refined. On the other hand, several important goals of the workers’ and peace movement have been achieved: the creation of a global organisation of states in the form of the United Nations and a European Union that makes a war between the European member states extremely unlikely, the universal condemnation of wars of aggression since 1928, the extension of national self-determination and own statehood, the departure from territorial expansionist policies, the extension of the rule of law and democracy, and an increased aversion towards war as a form of conflict among the global population. Even so, the movement against war and armament and in favour of peace has hardly become any stronger, and is only able to mobilise several millions of people sporadically. At the same time, it separated out into numerous currents, in some cases with opposing goals and methods. A multi-dimensional peace policy could make it easier for these currents to coordinate their efforts.
Overall, in recent decades, the risk of a third world war and inter-state wars has decreased significantly, while the potential for civil wars remains high. However, it is by no means appropriate to talk of unstoppable progress towards a lasting world peace. It is also unlikely that a world peace party or world peace movement of any historical impact will emerge in the future.
Peace should be understood solely as non-war, in order to enable a partially coordinated, partially unconscious collaboration between those who wish for peace of all socio-political orientations. This does not preclude the fact that those who work to achieve peace can also advocate other goals and values which are contentious among each other. Peace will probably only come about as a result of the activities of the governments of the national states and organisations capable of waging civil war, those who are primarily responsible for war and peace, as well as numerous other actors in society. The function of peaceful, non-violent movements is primarily to overthrow regimes that are regarded as being intolerable. However, they are hardly in a position to eradicate the reservation of support by the majority of people for national wars of defence, so that for the time being, world peace can only be envisaged as an armed peace.
Lecture given on 10.12.2012.
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Notes
- 1.
The figures for older people and men were 71.1 and 69.1 %, and for students and women, 46.2 and 61.3 %.
- 2.
The corresponding percentage figures in this non-representative survey for the older respondents are 71.1 %, 18.6 % and 9.3 %. Five participants, all of whom were women, were unable or unwilling to answer this question.
- 3.
The corresponding percentage figures were 70.1, 22.4 and 5.7 %.
- 4.
The assertion that “the first two world wars were a consequence of the growing intertwining of human society and as a result of globalisation, a third world war is highly likely to occur in the twenty-first century, probably already within the next 50 years” was endorsed by 24.4 % of those questioned. At that time, the respondents in Mannheim were more optimistic in this regard. The corresponding percentage figure was 18.1, while 74.7 % regarded a third world war as being highly unlikely.
- 5.
Braunthal (1974, pp. 275–283).
- 6.
Karl Holl notes that the continental European version of history uses the terms “peace movement” and “pacifism” synonymously, while in the Anglo-Saxon region, pacifism is frequently only used to denote unconditional opposition to war (Holl 1988, p. 18 et seq.), while by contrast, pacifism in international law is referred to as “internationalism”. It probably makes more sense to use shared terminology, for which the differentiation between (unconditional) pacifism and conditional pacifism, or simply “pacificism” (in accordance with its use by Martin Ceadel) is appropriate. See also Ceadel (1980, p. 3).
- 7.
See Degen et al. (2012, p. 128).
- 8.
The differences in the figures in standard war statistics are a result rather of different terms used to denote war than from unclear empirical findings regarding the use of political force, see Ferdowsi (1996, p. 308).
- 9.
- 10.
On the doubts regarding the relative comparative figures of other centuries, see Pinker (2011, p. 296).
- 11.
See the letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy of 26.10.1962 and Kennedy’s comment that an error made by him could cost 200 million people their lives, quoted in Beschloss (1991, pp. 516–520, 523).
- 12.
Thus for example the “German Peace Cartel”, which only existed from 1920 to 1929, however, and which broke up as a result of its internal contradictions, see Holl (1988, pp. 189–196).
- 13.
Thus for example the International Peace Bureau, the International Reconciliation Coalition, the War Resisters’ International, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
- 14.
There can be no question of a general prohibition of violence by the UN, which is frequently falsely claimed. Only a specific form of violence is prohibited according to Article 2, Paragraph 4 of the UN statutes. Articles 51 and 42 legitimise both national wars of self-defence as an inherent right, as well as international sanctions wars of the UN Security Council, even if the word “war” is avoided.
- 15.
- 16.
Riesenberger (1985, p. 160).
- 17.
- 18.
Otto (1979).
- 19.
- 20.
See Brock (2006).
- 21.
The term “democide” was introduced by Rudolph J. Rummel. On the difference in meaning between the three forms of democide: genocide, sociocide and politicide, see Jahn (2005, p. 199).
- 22.
On the history of slavery see Everett (1998).
- 23.
On the genesis of war see the summary in Jahn (2012, pp. 54–60).
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Jahn, E. (2015). A Century of Wars and Striving for Peace Since the Peace Congress of Basel in 1912. In: World Political Challenges. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47912-4_5
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