Can there be a world without war? Is a world possible without wars, governments and borders? Political and national conflicts

Many decades have passed since the Great Patriotic War ended. Many people died then. But they all died for a just cause. Until now, we have a peaceful sky above our heads.

Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, for some already great-great-grandfathers, shed their blood to defeat an insidious and powerful enemy. This was the Great War. A holy war for all our people. It is not surprising that today a lot of films are being made about the Great Patriotic War. This indicates how strongly the war is etched in the memory of our people. How much grief and troubles

She brought.

Sometimes, watching all these films, it seems that the war ended not seventy years ago, but a year or two ago. The memories of the war are so alive in the souls of our people. It seems like there is a war, and memories of it are transmitted at the genetic level.

The younger generation should not forget about the feat of their ancestors. Remember, preserve the memory of the heroes, and what they did for us, their descendants. The war was terrible and cruel. Many did not even believe that it would ever end. But it ended and peace came.

True, the world is not very reliable. Our Motherland still has many enemies today,

Who want to wipe our beautiful country off the face of the earth. But we will not let our enemies do this.

We, the heirs of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, will do everything in our power to protect our Motherland from modern enemies. They are more technologically advanced. But we also have many modern weapons. Our army and navy are stronger than ever before.

The world needs to be protected. And we will protect it in every possible way. Peace is the main thing a person has. There will be no peace, there will be nothing. There will be no Internet, no social networks, no offices and supermarkets. Everything we are used to will disappear. The very way of our life will disappear. Therefore, we will do everything possible to prevent the skies of our country from being lit up by flashes from shells and rocket explosions.

True, not everyone wants and is ready to defend their homeland. But there are fewer of them. Most young people are ready to go to war at any moment and fight for every five of their sacred lands. We have never given our land to the enemy, and we never will. We will fight until our last breath.

We have a strong army, navy, modern aviation, and an invincible army that everyone is afraid of. We are ready to fight any enemy who decides to attack us. We are not afraid of anyone. After all, whoever comes to us with a sword will die from it. We are worthy heirs of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War.

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Is a world possible without wars? I would like to ask myself this question now. Everyone is afraid of war and does not want to lead it. Why are there so many misunderstandings in the world? This question is difficult to answer. However, I would like to express my opinion.

At the turn of the century we had two world wars. They were the largest and most terrible in history. We must think about whether we should fight with someone. There are many differences and misunderstandings in the world. Life without wars would be carefree, peace would make people kinder to each other. Wars claim the lives of huge numbers of people around the world. This is a huge loss. Often people, especially soldiers, sacrifice their lives to protect their native land. We must not forget that often innocent people die. They die at the hands of the enemy. We must learn to resolve any conflicts peacefully in order to eliminate all these troubles. When states cannot agree peacefully, war breaks out. It's sad because life is getting more and more difficult. You live in fear and you only think about how to survive.

Personally, I cannot imagine a world without wars. The government in each country has its own views on how citizens should live, but in the end it is the people themselves who have to suffer. Every ruler tries to fight for his rights. Often people are unfair and think only about their own interests. To eliminate wars, we must learn to understand each other, that is, the main reason for conflicts between countries, I believe, lies precisely in misunderstanding. We must compromise more often.

Is a world possible without wars? – It’s very difficult for me to answer this question. I can't imagine this at the moment. But I still hope that someday all countries will be able to come to an agreement with each other and resolve all world conflicts peacefully. War is the worst thing that can happen in the life of a country and society as a whole!

Why shouldn't we live in peace?

Virgil

Is peace possible without war?

Probably every mere mortal asked himself this question, not to mention politicians or scientists. You can try to find the answer to this question in a global philosophical context, analyzing the complex human nature and those social processes that lead to conflict in human society. But, it seems to me, it would be more rational to consider the degree of conflict potential of the modern system of international relations and try to figure out whether it can function without armed conflicts. As Oswald Spengler aptly noted: “We did not choose... the timing. ...It all depends on how much we are able to understand this situation, this fate and understand that we can deceive ourselves about it, but not escape from it. He who does not admit this to himself does not count among the people of his generation. He remains a fool, a charlatan or a pedant... Before embarking... on any problem, you should... ask yourself a question... - what a man of our time can do, and what he should prohibit himself.”

In any case, we should start by defining the term “war” itself. Swedish scientists M. Sollenberg and P. Valensteen call war “a prolonged confrontation between the armed forces of two or more governments, or one government and at least one organized armed group, resulting in the death of at least 1,000 people as a result of military action during the conflict " True, other authors put the figure at 500 and even 100 dead. In this regard, it becomes very difficult to distinguish between such concepts as an armed conflict, a terrorist act, or simply criminal squabbles.

Before moving on to the analysis of conflicts as an integral part of the modern system of international relations, it is worth briefly considering the main concepts generated by this problem.

The appearance of the first armed conflicts dates back to the 7th-6th millennium BC. e. This is quite surprising, considering that the first modern people - the Cro-Magnons - appeared approximately 40 thousand years ago. Although, the latest research shows that for several thousand years the Cro-Magnon man coexisted with the Neanderthal man, and this coexistence could hardly have been peaceful, but for the next twenty thousand years of its history, humanity did not know interspecies conflicts, and, consequently, wars. The first conflicts arise at the stage of formation of the tribal organization of human society, which one way or another proves the assertion of many researchers of this issue (in particular, Clausewitz, Spengler) that war is an integral companion of historical progress. True, the possibility of such a long peaceful existence of human society can be regarded as a prerequisite for the future transition to “eternal peace.” Especially if you remember the theory of the “golden age”, according to which humanity will sooner or later return to a classless, homogeneous society in which there will be no war. Such ideas were shared by one of the outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Thus, in the treatise “Judgment on Eternal Peace”, he writes that wars, conquests and the strengthening of despotism are mutually related and contribute to each other, that in a society divided into rich and poor, into the dominant and the oppressed, private interests, that is, the interests of the rulers, contradict common interests - the interests of the people. He associated the idea of ​​universal peace with the armed overthrow of the power of rulers, because they are not interested in maintaining peace. Although, most likely this is just a utopia that has nothing to do with reality. If we perceive the history of mankind as a continuous path to progress, then a return to the origins would become a clear regressive phenomenon; it is in the heterogeneity of human society and the heterogeneity of the entire system of international relations, in my opinion, that the main incentive for its development lies.

Of course, war as a phenomenon that seems to contradict the very nature of man, bringing with it the death of millions of people, suffering, hunger, poverty, colossal destruction and devastation, could not but cause condemnation among progressive thinkers of all eras. Already in ancient philosophers one can see ideas of peace, however, this issue was considered only as a problem of relations between Greek states. Ancient philosophers sought only to eliminate internecine wars. Thus, Thucydides was the first to propose using a systematic research method, analyzing the causes of the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta. In the plan of the ideal state proposed by Plato, there are no internal military conflicts, but honors are given to those who distinguish themselves in the “second greatest kind of war” - in war with external enemies. Aristotle’s point of view on this topic is similar: the ancient Greeks saw foreigners as enemies and considered them and everything that belonged to them good prey if it could be captured. The reasons for this lie in the slave system existing at that time. Foreign wars were necessary because they were the main source of slaves.

Cicero, in his work “On the State,” divided wars into just and unjust, for the first time emphasized the right of the state to self-defense, nevertheless, he justified Rome’s wars of conquest.

Representatives of the medieval theological school - Thomas Aquinas - called for the construction on earth of a “city of God” based on Christian virtues and, nevertheless, the ideologists of the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages did not consider it shameful to call European peoples to religious wars, thereby violating one of the fundamental Christian commandments - “Thou shalt not kill!”

Representatives of the Renaissance, which accompanied the emergence and development of bourgeois society in Europe, for the most part sharply condemned the war. Thus, the founder of public international law, Hugo Grotius, in his famous essay “On the Law of War and Peace,” first put forward the idea of ​​collective defense of states and insisted on the need for peaceful resolution of conflicts. Erasmus of Rotterdam in his “In Praise of Stupidity” wrote about war: “What could be more stupid than to enter into a competition for whatever reason, during which each side is sure to experience much more inconvenience than it gains? ... But in general, the war, so glorified by everyone, is waged by parasites, pimps, thieves, murderers, stupid louts, unpaid debtors and similar scum of society.”

Although, in parallel with the concept of non-perception of war, the concept developed according to which war was a rational necessity for world development. Heraclitus also wrote: “War is the father of everything and the king of everything, she determined for some to be gods, for others to be people, she made some free, others slaves.” According to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “From Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, Bodin and other modern thinkers, not to mention earlier ones, force has been depicted as the basis of right; thus the theoretical consideration of politics is freed from morality.” And Carl von Clausewitz formulated his famous statement: “War is a policy conducted by other, violent means.”

Interestingly, at the beginning of the 19th century, an English priest put forward a theory according to which the planet's population is increasing in geometric progression, and resources are in arithmetic progression; therefore, wars, as well as epidemics and global disasters are a necessary factor in regulating the world's population. This theory was developed over time by biologists, and it became known as “Malthusianism.” It should be noted that in our time this theory has received a number of confirmations, namely: most often armed conflicts and epidemics occur in the most densely populated regions of the world. True, according to the forecasts of modern researchers, by 2050 the planet's population will stabilize around the figure of 12 billion people and will decrease due to negative population growth in all regions of the planet.

Characteristic of all the above concepts is their dependence on the specific historical features of the era and the characteristics of the system of international relations in which they arose. Thus, the non-perception of war in the works of Renaissance authors was dictated by the interest of the young European bourgeoisie in a stable peace on the continent, which would guarantee the successful development of a market economy, although, of course, these ideas did not extend to colonial conquests. Thus, all concepts that arose before the beginning of the 20th century were quite subjective and often carried rather idealistic ideas about the problems of war and peace. Disputes around this problem are still ongoing between the schools of neorealists, neoliberals, neo-Marxists, neo-Freudians, postmodernists, etc. To date, a single solution has not been found and is unlikely to ever be found.

The main reason for this is the simultaneous lack of perception of war and the awareness of its inevitability.

Freud believed that war is akin to human nature itself, the tendency to violence is inherent in the human subconscious, he always strives to satisfy the death instinct. While the great humanist Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy believed that war was contrary to the very nature of man, he could not understand what unknown historical forces force some people to exterminate others. It is interesting that a man quite far from constructing amorphous idealistic concepts, the French marshal and military theorist of the second half of the 18th century, Moritz of Saxony, wrote: “The heart of man is the starting point in all military affairs; to know them, one must study it.” Of course, the causes of wars lie not only at the level of the psyche of an individual or at the level of interstate contradictions; global military conflicts, as a rule, are caused by failures in the functioning of the system of international relations itself.

Naturally, a heterogeneous system of international relations will always be conflictual. Conflicts themselves perform a number of important functions, without which the functioning of the system of international relations is impossible:

1. Overcoming internal contradictions and incompatibility of various components of the system.

2. Exchange of information between various elements of the system of international relations.

3. Self-organization of the system, since any social system is a set of contradictions, conflict effectively resolves these contradictions.

4. Stabilization of the system, solving internal contradictions of the system, conflicts protect it from self-destruction.

5. Innovative: promotes the rapid pace of development of science and technology.

6. Draws attention to the problem, forces you to look for ways out of the current situation.

Thus, conflicts prevent stagnation of the international system and promote global development. According to the statement of one of the researchers R. Lee: “A society without conflict is a dead society.” So, conflicts are inevitable. The question is whether these conflicts will be armed, because armed confrontation is just one form of conflict resolution; other alternatives can be proposed: dialogue and the search for mutually acceptable solutions. Another thing is that an armed conflict has always been the simplest solution to a contradiction, and it is through the use of military force that actors in international relations expect greater gains. After all, when resolving contradictions peacefully, you have to make mutual concessions, while victory in an armed conflict gives you a chance to satisfy all your claims. Of course, war also has the other side of the coin, in particular for the aggressor: there is never a 100% guarantee of winning; starting a war with an obviously weak enemy, you can always encounter an opposing coalition of powers whose goal will be to prevent you from becoming too strong. (A striking example of this is the Crimean War of 1853-1856, when, starting a war against the Ottoman Empire, weakened by internal contradictions, Nicholas I was faced with a coalition of great powers, which even included Sardinia); Moreover, it is always difficult to correctly assess the relationship between one’s own forces and the enemy’s forces, as well as the relationship between the final goals and the concessions that the victim of aggression must make (Carl von Clausewitz wrote about this in his work “On War” that the more insignificant the concession, the more , it would seem, the more insignificant the enemy’s resistance should be, but the weaker our preparation will be, and, consequently, the easier it will be for us to abandon our demands). In any case, war for both sides means, first of all, human and material losses, which inevitably leads to economic and internal political crises. Wars, as a rule, precede revolutions and other historical cataclysms. And yet, states very often go to war precisely with the aim of stabilizing the internal political situation in the country. An aggressive foreign policy becomes the valve with which one can defuse or, on the contrary, inflame internal contradictions in society to the limit; the main thing here is to correctly assess the situation. Let us at least remember the famous words of Sergei Yuryevich Witte on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War: “A small, victorious war and Russia will be saved,” although everything happened exactly the opposite. But George W. Bush managed to win the 2004 presidential election largely thanks to the “anti-terrorist wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq, just like Boris Yeltsin did in 1999 after the relatively successful second Chechen campaign. True, an important role here is played by whether we recognize the primacy of foreign policy over domestic policy or vice versa.

It turns out that for the states that, from 1648 until the end of the Cold War, remained the leading and, by and large, the only international actors, war, as a way of resolving contradictions, was both beneficial and dangerous. Therefore, starting in 1815 and the creation of the Holy Alliance of Monarchs and Peoples, which was designed to ensure stability and peace in post-Napoleonic Europe, leading states have been striving to create a supranational organization under whose control the peaceful resolution of interstate disputes could occur.

For the first time, the idea of ​​​​creating a supranational international organization, or rather a “union of peoples,” was expressed by Immanuel Kant. In his treatise “Towards Eternal Peace,” he writes that the creation of a world “union of peoples” will become, over time, a conscious necessity, just as in his time the unification of individuals into a state, in order to protect against mutual extermination. States will be forced “to enter into a union of peoples, where each, even the smallest, state could expect its security and rights not from its own forces, but exclusively from such a great union of peoples.” At the same time, the “union of peoples” is not a global state at all. Kant advocates the preservation of national sovereignty by analogy with the observance of civil rights of the individual in a state governed by the rule of law. We can say that Kant to some extent predicted the creation of intergovernmental organizations, the main goal of which would be to prevent global conflicts and regulate regional ones.

After the First World War, such an organization will be the League of Nations, created on the basis of Woodrow Wilson’s famous “fourteen points”. This program condemned unjust wars, national humiliation, secret diplomacy, and proclaimed the right of nations to self-determination. True, the League of Nations will not be able to cope with its task: exactly twenty years after its creation, the most terrible war in the history of mankind will break out. Perhaps this was due to the organizational shortcomings of the League of Nations (the creators did not even provide for the presence of the organization’s own armed forces), however, most likely not a single international organization was able to cope with those deep-seated contradictions that were initially laid in the foundation of the Versailles-Washington system of international relationships. Was there a peaceful way to resolve these contradictions, was the Second World War inevitable? In any case, the UN is in many respects more advanced than its predecessor. The UN is credited with resolving many regional conflicts, such as the French Indochina War of 1945-1954, the Korean War of 1950-1953, the Suez Crisis of 1956, etc. But was the UN’s influence on the course of the conflict significant? conflict between superpowers? And is the UN today a truly universal international organization for the peaceful resolution of disputes and the prevention of armed conflicts, as long as the five permanent members of the Security Council (in particular the USA, Russia and China, which continue to be antagonistic to each other) will have the right of veto. There is a fairly well-known joke on this topic: “When two small nations argue, the UN intervenes and the dispute disappears; when a small and great nation argues, the UN intervenes and the small nation disappears; when two great nations argue, the UN disappears...” One thing is clear: both the organizational and functional structure of the UN largely reflected the desires of its creators. Although today the authority of the UN cannot be challenged, there are fears that over time it may well turn into an “elite club” of great powers, as happened with the League of Nations. In addition to universal international organizations, whose main goal is “world peace,” there are also regional intergovernmental security organizations, for example the OSCE, which, in my opinion, copes with its functions even better than the UN. For example, the OSCE played a significant role in resolving the conflict in Kosovo. Collective security organizations should also be noted here, for example, NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Thus, the first, possessing significant military power, can exercise a tangible influence on conflict management in the modern world. But no matter how significant the successes of such international organizations are, it is unlikely that in the foreseeable future they will become a guarantor of stable peace on the planet.

Considering the problems of war and peace in the modern world, we are faced, first of all, with the problem of the impossibility of identifying the modern system of international relations. After all, only an analysis of the characteristics of the modern system of international relations would allow us to answer the question about the possibility of its peaceful functioning. It is unlikely that we will be able to predict the possibility of the absence of armed conflicts in the foreseeable future if today science finds it difficult to characterize the modern system of international relations.

With the end of the Cold War, the Yalta-Potsdam system (1945-1991) ceases to exist, as does the Westphalian system (in its expanded sense, 1648-1991). Consequently, we are faced with transformation processes occurring in the modern post-bipolar world. The essence of international relations itself is changing qualitatively. The world of “soldier and diplomat” is being replaced by the world of “tourist and terrorist.”

One of the leading factors determining the emergence and course of armed conflicts at the present stage of the historical development of human society is the presence of nuclear weapons. It is believed that the creation and testing of the first US atomic bomb in 1945 marked the beginning of a new nuclear era in human history. Civilization received weapons of mass destruction, the use of which would lead to the self-destruction of humanity. Consequently, any global conflict involving nuclear powers would be suicide, first of all, for the government that would start this war.

An interesting fact is that on the eve of the atomic bomb test in the Alamogordo desert, the idea was seriously expressed - not to drop a bomb on Japan, but to invite representatives of the Japanese government to the American test site, and, using the psychological factor, force Japan to capitulate. It's a pity that this idea was not implemented. Apparently, it was still necessary to invite representatives of the Soviet Union.

Be that as it may, it was the presence of nuclear weapons that, to one degree or another, prevented the emergence of a global armed conflict between the superpowers during the Cold War. It would seem that the presence of such deadly weapons will be able to prevent major global conflicts forever, and the member powers of the nuclear club will be able to successfully influence the processes of resolving local conflicts. Is it so?

Immediately after the end of the Cold War, the number of armed conflicts actually decreased significantly. According to SIPRI data, if during the Cold War their number was approximately 40 per year, then after approximately 15, which could not but arouse optimistic hopes among both researchers and the world community. True, today this figure is approximately 30 conflicts per year. It turned out that great nuclear powers will not always be able to effectively influence the process of peaceful resolution of almost all conflicts, regardless of their origin, in regions such as the Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan, South Asia, and the Korean Peninsula. According to the statement of American political scientists G. Levin and D. Carlton, “although the use of nuclear weapons can by no means be considered impossible, the majority of non-nuclear states are by no means afraid of their nuclear rivals.” As a specific example, G. Levin and D. Carleton cite the 1982 Anglo-Argentine conflict over the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands, when “London throughout this conflict refrained from threatening to use nuclear weapons, and the Argentine government completely ignored the possibility of their use » .

One of the decisive blows dealt to the theory of the stabilizing factor of nuclear weapons was the impossibility of limiting the number of nuclear powers. An attempt to create a closed club of nuclear powers through the signing of a number of treaties on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, the last of which, signed in Moscow in 1968 and limiting the “lucky” owners of the nuclear club to the USSR, USA, Great Britain, France and China, finally failed in 1998 together with the creation of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan. In 2005, North Korea also acquired an atomic bomb. According to unofficial data, back in 1979 Israel conducted its nuclear weapons tests in the South Atlantic. And of course, there is the pressing problem of Iran creating a nuclear bomb, which today does not allow George Bush to sleep peacefully. In general, any developed state will need no more than three years to create a nuclear bomb. Consequently, it is almost impossible to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons. And with its spread, the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorist organizations or even criminal structures increases, which naturally can lead to very disastrous consequences. James Mueller, founder of the international alliance Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, wrote: “Are we to passively wait for the moment when the accidental formation of a critical mass of plutonium, drug addiction, alcoholism, psychological or computer errors destroys us and everything we value?”

True, the issue of “nuclear terrorism” is quite controversial today; American political scientist Ted Greenwood believes that the use of nuclear weapons will not meet the ultimate goals of terrorist organizations and will alienate from them those masses of the population that support them. But even taking this factor into account, one must understand that the threat of “nuclear terrorism” is a significant destabilizing factor in the modern world.

Of course, nuclear weapons in the modern world are both a guarantor of peace between the leading actors in international relations and, at the same time, if in the hands of irrational players, they can lead to a global catastrophe. Hans Morgenthau believed that nuclear weapons should not be regarded as weapons at all in the usual sense. It is clear that in modern conditions complete nuclear disarmament is practically impossible. Humanity will have to learn to live with nuclear weapons, maximizing their benefits and minimizing the possibility of their use in real military operations.

Although, of course, the nuclear factor is not decisive in determining the conflict potential of the modern system of international relations, it played an important role in the fact that today, for the most part, large global conflicts (like the Napoleonic wars or two world wars) have given way to local ones ( regional) conflicts. But this is not just about the presence of nuclear weapons.

If the fundamental principle of the functioning of the Westphalian system of international relations (1648-1991) was the principle of a national sovereign state as the main player in the international arena. In the post-bipolar world, this principle is being eroded both from above and from below. New players are emerging, which are TNCs, international organizations, as well as international terrorist organizations and criminal structures. Public interests and the interests of individual citizens often stand above the interests of the state.

The erosion of the sovereignty of states could not but affect the qualitative changes in the conflicts themselves, from interstate to intrastate, among which the following can be distinguished: conflicts between central authorities and ethnic/religious groups; conflicts between different ethnic or religious groups, conflicts between state(s) and a non-governmental (terrorist) structure.

All of the above types of conflicts are so-called identity conflicts. If during the period of the Westphalian world an individual identified himself as a citizen of a certain national state, then in the post-Westphalian world self-identification occurs on the basis of ethnicity or religious affiliation. Napoleon also wrote that “on the battlefield, moral and physical factors are correlated three to one.” Naturally, in the modern world this proportion has increased significantly in favor of the first component.

According to the American politician S. Talbott, less than 10% of the countries of the modern world are ethnically homogeneous, therefore, only ethnic conflicts can be expected in more than 90% of countries. Although the problem of national self-identification is not a key one in the modern world, the religious or civilizational (in addition to the religious, includes historical and cultural aspects) factor is even more significant. According to Samuel Huntington, the major conflicts of the future will take place along “civilizational fault lines.”

Another feature of internal conflicts is that the state, as a sovereign, is no longer able to guarantee the protection and security of its citizens; moreover, in the fight against internal threats, such as the threat of terrorist attacks, states are forced to limit civil liberties of the individual, they themselves act as a guarantor of preservation.

As already mentioned, the causes of internal and interstate conflicts are different. In the first case, it is quite difficult, and often simply impossible, to come to a compromise, which determines the duration and permanence of modern conflicts. Internal conflicts involve a large number of participants, both external and internal, which invariably leads to the impossibility of finding an optimal solution to the conflict that satisfies all parties. They can be various international organizations of a humanitarian or legal nature, influential states in the international arena. The latter include internal political movements or formations with their own leaders and goals.

In conditions of a protracted internal conflict, control over the situation is weakened both on the part of the state and on the part of the leaders of anti-government groups themselves, who are unable to maintain internal discipline for a long time.

Participants in internal conflicts, instigated by ethnic or religious motives, are usually determined and go to the end in their struggle. At the same time, very often using terrorist methods of struggle, hostage-taking, etc., they do not stop at any casualties among the civilian population. It should be noted that war is currently losing its component of rationality.

Of course, in addition to intrastate conflicts, classic interstate conflicts continue to exist. In general, analyzing the modern system of international relations, we can distinguish three structural levels of conflicts:

1. Top: conflicts between developed countries. At the present stage, they are practically absent, which is due to a number of factors. Firstly, the inertia of Cold War-era relations remains; secondly, high interdependence and stable development of countries; thirdly, it is on the top floor of the structure that it is easiest to regulate conflicts.

2. Middle: a number of countries of the former socialist camp and the so-called “newly industrialized countries”. Occupying an intermediate position, they experience the greatest contradictions in their internal development, while at the same time they encounter the strong positions of developed countries with which it is difficult for them to compete. According to many analysts, this is where the main sources of future conflicts are concentrated, since China, Iran, Arab countries and large Latin American countries remain here.

3. Lower: the poorest countries in Asia and Africa. The most conflict-ridden region, there is no clear interest of leading countries, as well as international organizations, in resolving the numerous conflicts in this region.

Of course, when talking about the causes of modern conflicts, we should not forget that the modern interdependence of leading developed countries does not exclude the possibility of conflict between them. Although today this is manifested primarily in economic and raw materials wars, which are waged not so much between states as between transnational corporations. An example of which could be Gazprom’s gas wars with leading European energy corporations. The question is, will they ever escalate into armed confrontation? If we take into account the fact that today Gazprom has received official permission from the Russian government to use weapons (including military equipment) and create its own armed units, we can conclude that such an outcome is quite possible.

As for the middle level of the system, which, by the way, includes Ukraine, this is one of the most conflict-prone regions of the modern world. Suffice it to recall the conflict in Kosovo. Many states in this region exist solely due to external factors, thanks to the interest of leading international players in their existence, who deliberately create them as a buffer between the two poles of the modern North-South confrontation.

It should be noted that today the leading Western countries have also encountered the ethnic and religious factor of conflict, which was to a much greater extent characteristic of the last two floors of the system than the first. This is due, first of all, to a significant number of emigrants, in connection with which the term “settler type” countries appears, which include France and Germany. Thus, ethnic and religious conflicts seem to spread from one level of the system to another. To confirm the thesis that they can escalate into open armed confrontation at any moment, we can cite the example of last year’s protests in France. Moreover, the response to these processes is the revival of neo-fascist ideas in Europe. Which cannot but threaten in the future the foundations of the democratic system of the Western world. But according to many hypotheses, the process of democratization of the modern world is one of the prerequisites for eliminating war as a way to resolve international contradictions.

This concept was first expressed by Immanuel Kant. Kant believed that wars are fought either between authoritarian governments or between authoritarian and democratic governments. Consequently, as a result of the spread of democracy and the republican system, wars will disappear, as will confrontations within states. And, indeed, this concept is quite difficult to refute. So throughout history there have been only two cases of conflict between democratic states. The occupation of Rome by French troops in 1849 and Finland's participation in World War II on the side of Hitler's Germany.

True, it seems to me that the importance of democratic processes for maintaining peace should not be universalized. Democracy cannot be viewed as an absolute good. Many societies independently choose the path of authoritarian development and at the same time achieve greater success than democratic ones. It is at least too early to say that the world will ever become absolutely democratic. In any case, the process of globalization, and with it the spread of “universal” values ​​of democracy, is not clear-cut. Simultaneously with the universalization of various cultures, there is also a process of isolation and opposition of their traditional values ​​to those imposed by globalization. Of course, I in no way diminish the importance of democracy for the progressive development of the individual and society as a whole, but it is not a fact that the Western-style liberal democratic regime takes into account the mental and cultural-religious characteristics of all civilizational groups.

Having analyzed the processes that are taking place in the modern world, we can conclude that no matter how regrettable it may be, there are no special prerequisites for the peaceful and stable development of human society. The system of international relations is becoming more and more heterogeneous even in comparison with the Yalta-Potsdam one. Many researchers note that, as in the Middle Ages, it is dominated by chaos and anarchy. Globalization processes lead to an increase in the colossal gap between developed and developing countries, as well as to an increasing role of ethnic and religious motivation for conflicts. Conflicts are becoming even more dangerous transnational in nature. Originating, as a rule, on the periphery, they can, as a result of migration flows, cover the advanced countries of the West.

At the same time, the problem of conflict resolution has become significantly more complicated compared to the Cold War. So, if the peripheral conflicts of this stage were resolved through the intervention of superpowers. At the present stage, there is only one superpower, which regulates only those conflicts in which it is interested in resolving. Moreover, if during the nineties it was possible to seriously talk about a monopolar world, today this is quite problematic. Many researchers believe that the world does not need a “policeman” who would regulate international relations at his own discretion. And the role of which the United States has been claiming since the time of Teddy Roosevelt. On the other hand, it is unlikely that one power will be able to cope with the task of systematizing international relations.

The world community placed great hopes in resolving and preventing conflicts in international organizations such as the UN or OSCE. But in the post-bipolar world, it is almost impossible to find examples of successful UN intervention in conflict resolution. Having successfully coped with its role as the main peacemaker and universal arbiter during the Cold War, the UN clearly lost its position after its end. Today, leading powers prefer to resolve their differences within the framework of the G-8 rather than the UN.

Of course, without a return to a homogeneous society it is impossible to achieve “eternal peace.” As long as society, starting from the level of individual individuals and ending with the entire system of international relations, is heterogeneous in nature, conflicts will be inevitable, and the most elementary and accessible solution to them will be armed confrontation.

One of the greatest humanists, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, once said: “People who recognize war not only as inevitable, but also useful and therefore desirable, these people are terrible, terrible in their moral perversity!” It is not “rationality” and “usefulness” that I accept, but rather the inevitability of war. The war was initially not rational: a person who voluntarily participates in a war puts his own life on the line; today, political leaders who start a war risk a nuclear disaster (after all, it is not a fact that nuclear weapons will not be used only out of a sense of self-preservation, as history shows, the sense of self-preservation often fails humanity). But a person very often proceeds precisely from irrational motives, therefore, war is an irrational phenomenon, but quite characteristic of human nature.

“Eternal peace” is an ideal picture like a “welfare society”.

Humanity will never achieve it, just as it will never create an engine with 100% efficiency, but it will always strive for it. And in this endeavor, of course, more advanced methods will be found for resolving and preventing armed conflicts, which should reduce the number of victims and disasters caused by these conflicts. Perhaps the increase in the number of armed conflicts today is only a consequence of the transformation processes taking place in the modern world and the final formation of a new system of international relations. Be that as it may, the fact that the transformation of the Yalta-Potsdam system was not accompanied by a global armed conflict, as the Thirty Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars and two World Wars were for previous systems, is already a kind of proof of the diminishing role of war as a solution to systemic contradictions in international relations.

Essay on a free topic (grade 10)

"A world without war"

Many decades have passed since the Great Patriotic War ended. Many people died then. But they all died for a just cause. Until now, we have a peaceful sky above our heads.

Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, for some already great-great-grandfathers, shed their blood to defeat an insidious and powerful enemy. This was the Great War. A holy war for all our people. It is not surprising that today a lot of films are being made about the Great Patriotic War. This indicates how strongly the war is etched in the memory of our people. How much grief and misfortune she brought.

Sometimes, watching all these films, it seems that the war ended not seventy years ago, but a year or two ago. The memories of the war are so alive in the souls of our people. It seems like there is a war, and memories of it are transmitted at the genetic level.

The younger generation should not forget about the feat of their ancestors. Remember, preserve the memory of the heroes, and what they did for us, their descendants. The war was terrible and cruel. Many did not even believe that it would ever end. But it ended and peace came.

True, the world is not very reliable. Our Motherland even today has many enemies who want to wipe our beautiful country off the face of the earth. But we will not let our enemies do this.

We, the heirs of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, will do everything in our power to protect our Motherland from modern enemies. They are more technologically advanced. But we also have many modern weapons. Our army and navy are stronger than ever before.

The world needs to be protected. And we will protect it in every possible way. Peace is the main thing a person has. There will be no peace, there will be nothing. There will be no Internet, no social networks, no offices and supermarkets. Everything we are used to will disappear. The very way of our life will disappear. Therefore, we will do everything possible to prevent the skies of our country from being lit up by flashes from shells and rocket explosions.

True, not everyone wants and is ready to defend their homeland. But there are fewer of them. Most young people are ready to go to war at any moment and fight for every five of their sacred lands. We have never given our land to the enemy, and we never will. We will fight until our last breath.

We have a strong army, navy, modern aviation, and an invincible army that everyone is afraid of. We are ready to fight any enemy who decides to attack us. We are not afraid of anyone. After all, whoever comes to us with a sword will die from it. We are worthy heirs of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War.

Is a world possible in our era without war and the ideological sabotage of imperialism? If so, what new conditions ensure the transformation of this possibility into reality?

I. Sidorov, Moscow

ANSWERS WILL GIVE LIFE

WHEN ANSWERING these complex questions, one should take into account the statements of M. S. Gorbachev in his speech at the February (1988) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee and in the report “October and Perestroika: the Revolution Continues.”

The question is whether capitalism will be able to adapt to the conditions of a nuclear-free and disarmed world, the conditions of a new, fair economic order, the conditions of an honest comparison of the spiritual values ​​of the two worlds? These are far from idle questions.

Life will give you answers. The correctness of the program for a nuclear-free and safe world itself will be tested not only by the impeccability of its scientific justification. It will be tested by the course of events, which is subject to the influence of very different and new forces.

In the system of arguments in this regard, attention is drawn to a very important historical aspect of the scientific substantiation of the questions posed - the manifestation of a certain general sociological pattern or trend of change in international relations.

It is noteworthy that the system of international relations, representing an old, outdated socio-economic formation, leaves the historical arena much earlier than the new mode of production has become established everywhere. The modern era of transition from capitalism to socialism is an obvious argument in favor of this process. But even in the era of transition to slavery, when the primitive communal system had not yet left the historical arena and public property existed, nevertheless, as F. Engels noted, war - raiding for the purpose of robbery - became widespread.

Today, when the issue of disarmament as a result of Soviet-American agreements has been brought to a practical level, it is useful to remind its opponents and skeptics that before the Bronze and Iron Ages there was, figuratively speaking, a “golden age”, a period in the life of a society where weapons were specialized for killing people there was none at all. This is worth recalling once again, since apologists of militarism persistently and in every possible way talk about some kind of primordial belligerence and “genes of aggression” in man, “the eternity of wars and weapons.”

Wars became an inevitable companion of humanity both under slavery, and under feudalism, and in the era of capitalism. The number of victims of imperialist war crimes is growing day by day, and the facts on this matter are well known. But today, to the question whether, despite the invariably aggressive nature of imperialism, it is possible to ensure peace and achieve disarmament, there is reason to give an affirmative and, most importantly, reasoned answer.

The main arguments in favor of the possibility and reality of this great undertaking are as follows:

* a new balance of forces in the international arena in favor of progress and socialism;

* peace initiatives of the CPSU and the Soviet government;

* positive changes in Soviet-American relations and improvement of the overall climate of the planet;

* growing cohesion of the protest movement against aggression and the arms race;

* growing criticism of imperial ideology and militarism and many other factors.

CONTRAIN THE FORCES OF AGGRESSION

ALL THIS IS SO, but imperialism is fraught with war, like a cloud with a storm. Therefore, it is so important to ideologically debunk and expose militarism, the policy of aggression, ideological sabotage against peace and disarmament, and false arguments of opponents of the agreements between the USSR and the USA. The explosion of disinformation is especially dangerous in the thermonuclear age. In addition to other harmful consequences, this is, first of all, a psychological war against socialist countries, the organization of “crusades” of anti-communist campaigns against them. The “free flow of information,” which the West loves to talk about, turns out to be the dictate of three international news agencies, which have concentrated in their hands up to 90% of the volume of messages. In the way of positive information about the way of life of socialist countries, a lot of barriers, restrictions, and prohibitions are created as part of “hushing up tactics.” There is also an obvious distortion in favor of stereotypes of the “enemy image” in the psychological war of the NATO intelligence services and the Pentagon against peace and disarmament.

To find out the real meaning of a phenomenon, scientists often conduct a “thought experiment.” Its essence is generally simple. It is enough to imagine that this phenomenon has disappeared without a trace, and then imagine what social consequences this disappearance will entail.

Using a similar method, we invite readers to imagine such a picture. In the blink of an eye, the noisy and vocal disinformation carried out by political reaction, militaristic propaganda, racism and Zionism would disappear. Many newspapers in the West would have published blank spots instead of anti-communist articles. The insinuating voices of those who are guided by the recipe: “the best kinds of lies are made from half-truths” would fall silent on the air. Thick multi-volume tomes of professional anti-Sovietists would shrink to that barely discernible share of authenticity in the form of the names of the libelists, however, even in this they are not always real.

In these conditions of the new information order, the voice of ordinary people on the planet would have an additional chance to be heard. The democratic potential of new political thinking would gain new strength and possibilities for its implementation. The voice of those healthy forces that exist in every country would become even louder.

Consequently, it is necessary to seek and widely use more and more new opportunities for progressive forces to overcome the negative manifestations of the nature of capitalism in the modern world, curb the forces of aggression and war, and establish relations of good neighborliness and peace that exclude the incitement of hostility and hatred.

Humanity has literally suffered and carried the idea of ​​peaceful coexistence through eras of countless wars. War and piles of weapons have always been in the throats of ordinary people. The reactionary “romanticism” of military adventures is deeply alien and hostile to the working man.

Recently, President Reagan often in his speeches dwelled on episodes of the Allies' struggle against fascism. Let's give one more. They say that when, after the storming of the Reichstag, a high-ranking SS rank handed over his personal weapon - a gift from the maniac Fuhrer, he angrily said: “We taught you how to fight.” To which the soldier-worker standing next to the officer who accepted the surrender simply remarked: “And we will wean you off.” The answer - regardless of whether it is a legend or a real fact - has a deep meaning, and it is worth thinking about it.

“Weaning off” the fascist state from war came at the cost of incredible sacrifices and was already behind us. Then no one could even think that in a few years fascism would again dare to raise its head, the military-industrial complex would become a formidable danger, and its imperial ambitions would increase. The verb “we will wean” is future tense. K. Marx and V.I. Lenin always noted the ability of workers to look to the root. And then the worker was right. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the era of “weaning off” imperialism from war began, mainly through peaceful means.

The main thing among them is the strengthening of the positions of the socialist countries, their increased moral and political authority, and the ability to defend themselves in conditions of military-strategic parity.

It is also the growing strength of world public opinion, the political mind of the masses in the fight against madness, the debunking and overcoming of the ideology of militarism, the crushing in the struggle of ideas of the imperial prejudices of militarism and the aggressive tendencies of reaction.

The example of the implementation of the peaceful initiatives of socialism erodes the “image of the enemy” created by “information imperialism” during the decades of the Cold War as a malicious absurdity. The adventurism of imperial ambitions in the thermonuclear age becomes obvious to anyone with a grain of common sense. Today, more and more people on our planet understand the idea expressed by M. S. Gorbachev in a speech at the February (1988) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee: “Without preserving peace, there will be no progress at all, and talking about anyone’s interests is beyond the decision this task is pointless."

In a word, the prejudices of militarism and imperial thinking showed their first deep cracks. However, the main struggle for their complete ideological debunking and overcoming lies ahead.

N. KEYZEROV, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor