Negative peace is defined as the mere absence of organized violence of war.
The Psychological Challenge
● Peace is often perceived as “boring” compared to the excitement, intensity, and group
bonding provided by war movies, martial music, and combat.
The Moral Equivalent of War (William James)
● James argues that war satisfies deep-seated human needs for discipline, community,
and “peak experiences”.
● The Proposal: Instead of military conscription, he suggests a national service program
where youth are "drafted" to work on projects like road-building, mining, and fishing to
pay their “blood tax”
Principled Negotiation (Fisher, Ury, and Patton)
● This method, popularized in Getting to Yes, moves beyond traditional “positional
bargaining” where sides lock themselves into fixed stances.
Huntington…
1. Civilizational identities are real and basic
2. The world is becoming smaller
3. Process of economic and social change
4. Growth of civilization-consciousness
5. Cultural characteristics
What one is has become a source of unity for civilizational conflicts. For instance, “What are you
instead of who are you?" Mixed race, e.g., half black, half white, half Japanese, etc., Catholic
Buddhist cannot be half-Muslim & half-Catholic.
● What one “is” has become a source of unity
Micheal Klare “Resource Scarcity, Climate Change & Global Conflict”
● What are the connections between resources - energy, fish, animals, water, land, food &
critical minerals - and conflicts between groups?
● Climate change - waves of extinctions and supply bottlenecks
● Oil Scarcity vs. Electric cars
● Rising sea levels
● Diminishes rainfall
● Sustained severe storms and intense heat waves
Climate Chnage…
● Chatham House report “Competition and scarcity involving natural resources” is a
national security threat to the U.S. How?
○ Located in London, England
Threat of Climate Change and National Security…
, ● Many countries important to the U.S. are vulnerable to natural resources shocks that
degrade economic development, frustrate attempts to democratize, raise the risk of
regime-threatenting instability, and aggravate regional tensions.”
● “Extreme weather events - floods, heat waves, droughts - will increasingly disrupt food
and energy markets, exacerbating state weakness, forcing human migrations, and
triggering riots, civil disobedience, and vandalism,” and violent conflicts between groups
and states.
Peter Singer “Battle Fields of the Future”
● The Arctic Zone
● Space - satellites & space competition
● cyberspace
1. Norms and Institutions need to regulate the actions and behaviors of various
actors in these domains.
2. Enforcement of such norms will be a challenge
For example, Drones and democratic accountability (in the case of the United States - the War
Power Act)
Andrew Bacevich, “The Revisionist - Imperative: Rethinking 20th Century Wars”
● “Wars are too important to be left to the Generals.” Generals are always planning for the
last war”
● War devastates - even when seemingly necessary or justified, it entails brutality,
barbarism, and the killing of innocents, To choose war is to leap into the dark, entrusting
the nation’s fate to forces beyond human control.”
● War impoverishes, It Coarsens - i.e., it is crude, vulgar, and unpleasant!
Rethinking 20th Century Wars
1. The history of the Cold War - a short 20th Century of Great power competition
2. Less familiar are the story
● Doing nothing to stop ethnic cleansing at the end of the War - instead offered
employment to scientists, engineers, and intelligence officers that previously served the
Third Reich.
● Cheap experiments on peoples’ lives, nuclear weapons, mustards gas, etc.,
● Armenia, Nazi Holocaust, Expulsion of Germans from Poland & Czechoslovakia, Soviet
deportation of ethnic minorities: and
20th Century Wars…
● While the U.S. overseas adventures were sometimes about values, it was always about
politics.
● 1. Freedom & Liberty never figured in the U.S. or Western governments’ engagements in
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the West Bank, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and several other places.
● Hitler’s image continues to be used to fight other wars without serious thoughts about
how our actions undermine our values.
The Psychological Challenge
● Peace is often perceived as “boring” compared to the excitement, intensity, and group
bonding provided by war movies, martial music, and combat.
The Moral Equivalent of War (William James)
● James argues that war satisfies deep-seated human needs for discipline, community,
and “peak experiences”.
● The Proposal: Instead of military conscription, he suggests a national service program
where youth are "drafted" to work on projects like road-building, mining, and fishing to
pay their “blood tax”
Principled Negotiation (Fisher, Ury, and Patton)
● This method, popularized in Getting to Yes, moves beyond traditional “positional
bargaining” where sides lock themselves into fixed stances.
Huntington…
1. Civilizational identities are real and basic
2. The world is becoming smaller
3. Process of economic and social change
4. Growth of civilization-consciousness
5. Cultural characteristics
What one is has become a source of unity for civilizational conflicts. For instance, “What are you
instead of who are you?" Mixed race, e.g., half black, half white, half Japanese, etc., Catholic
Buddhist cannot be half-Muslim & half-Catholic.
● What one “is” has become a source of unity
Micheal Klare “Resource Scarcity, Climate Change & Global Conflict”
● What are the connections between resources - energy, fish, animals, water, land, food &
critical minerals - and conflicts between groups?
● Climate change - waves of extinctions and supply bottlenecks
● Oil Scarcity vs. Electric cars
● Rising sea levels
● Diminishes rainfall
● Sustained severe storms and intense heat waves
Climate Chnage…
● Chatham House report “Competition and scarcity involving natural resources” is a
national security threat to the U.S. How?
○ Located in London, England
Threat of Climate Change and National Security…
, ● Many countries important to the U.S. are vulnerable to natural resources shocks that
degrade economic development, frustrate attempts to democratize, raise the risk of
regime-threatenting instability, and aggravate regional tensions.”
● “Extreme weather events - floods, heat waves, droughts - will increasingly disrupt food
and energy markets, exacerbating state weakness, forcing human migrations, and
triggering riots, civil disobedience, and vandalism,” and violent conflicts between groups
and states.
Peter Singer “Battle Fields of the Future”
● The Arctic Zone
● Space - satellites & space competition
● cyberspace
1. Norms and Institutions need to regulate the actions and behaviors of various
actors in these domains.
2. Enforcement of such norms will be a challenge
For example, Drones and democratic accountability (in the case of the United States - the War
Power Act)
Andrew Bacevich, “The Revisionist - Imperative: Rethinking 20th Century Wars”
● “Wars are too important to be left to the Generals.” Generals are always planning for the
last war”
● War devastates - even when seemingly necessary or justified, it entails brutality,
barbarism, and the killing of innocents, To choose war is to leap into the dark, entrusting
the nation’s fate to forces beyond human control.”
● War impoverishes, It Coarsens - i.e., it is crude, vulgar, and unpleasant!
Rethinking 20th Century Wars
1. The history of the Cold War - a short 20th Century of Great power competition
2. Less familiar are the story
● Doing nothing to stop ethnic cleansing at the end of the War - instead offered
employment to scientists, engineers, and intelligence officers that previously served the
Third Reich.
● Cheap experiments on peoples’ lives, nuclear weapons, mustards gas, etc.,
● Armenia, Nazi Holocaust, Expulsion of Germans from Poland & Czechoslovakia, Soviet
deportation of ethnic minorities: and
20th Century Wars…
● While the U.S. overseas adventures were sometimes about values, it was always about
politics.
● 1. Freedom & Liberty never figured in the U.S. or Western governments’ engagements in
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the West Bank, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and several other places.
● Hitler’s image continues to be used to fight other wars without serious thoughts about
how our actions undermine our values.
