"No, War Is Not Inevitable"

 
         

  Comments of a Demented, Out-of-Clue, Naive Person?      

I did a double take. Was Pope Leo okay? What on earth is he talking about? After all, the numbers are brutal. According to Lawrence Keeley in War Before Civilization, 90–95% of societies have engaged in war at some point in history. Hard to argue with those numbers.

But Raymond C. Kelly, in Warless Societies and the Origin of War, challenges that view. He suggests war isn’t universal. Many early societies thrived on peaceful relationships — trade, intermarriage, and shared work. War came later, he argues, once wealth accumulated and fences were built.

So, which is it? Are we born to war, or are we just stuck in the current story?

At first, I dismissed Pope Leo’s sentiment as naïve. “War is not inevitable?” Come on.
But the more I sat with it, the more it gnawed at me.

Maybe he’s not entirely wrong.
Maybe he's saying something we've forgotten — not because it's easy, but because it's necessary.
Maybe I’m just tired of agreeing with the cynics.

1. The Stories We Keep Telling (And Watching)

War isn’t just an occasional glitch in our history. It’s the rhythm we keep returning to.
We’ve made it normal, turned it into an industry, a business model.
Weapons are branded. Airstrikes have names. Our “peace missions” come with bombs.

It’s not just that war happens — it’s that it feels like background noise.
We say, “It’s human nature,” as if we're destined for bloodshed.

But here's the thing: we also wrote War and Peace.
Tolstoy's epic isn’t just about war — it’s about its madness. The ache for stillness.
We wrote Gitanjali too — poems of surrender, not to the conqueror, but to the universal father.
Love without conquest.

Our most cherished epics — The Iliad, The Mahabharata, The Ramayana — they’re all about war.
But beneath it all is the deep futility of it.
This pattern is ancient.
So is the longing to outgrow it.

2. “Peace, Anyway”: Choosing Defiance Over Fatalism

Fatalism is seductive.
That little shrug — “That’s just the way the world works” — is how people stop trying.

But when someone says, “War is not inevitable,” they aren’t denying history.
They’re interrupting its rhythm.

They’re saying: Maybe it doesn’t have to be this way.
Maybe peace isn’t delusion — it’s defiance.

And that’s not weakness.
That’s holding the line when no one else will.

3. Fear, Ego, Scarcity — The Real Reasons We Go to War

War is not a mystery.
It begins, more often than not, in small, familiar rooms of the human heart:

Scarcity.
It starts with a hunger — land, oil, water, labor, control.
“I want what you have” becomes law.

Ideology.
“My truth is superior. Yours must be erased.”
What begins as belief ends in conquest.

Ego.
A wounded leader, a fragile nation.
Peace looks too much like losing.

Fear.
Always fear. Of weakness, of invasion, of letting go.
We armor our hearts before we even meet.

These aren’t ancient evils.
They’re still with us — intimate, persistent, dressed in modern clothes.
But if we can name them, we can confront them.
And if we confront them, maybe we don’t have to obey them.

4. Yes, a World Without Big Wars Is Possible

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
— Arundhati Roy

It sounds dreamy, maybe even absurd.
But so did human flight, until we pulled it off.
So did civil rights, until people bled for it.

A world without massive wars is not fantasy.
It’s a choice we haven’t made yet — and maybe haven’t been brave enough to try.

As Gandhi said:

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”

We’re not there yet.
But maybe we’re tired enough to start trying.

5. Growing Peace in a Jaded Heart

In my own life, I recognize every one of these impulses — scarcity, ideology, ego, fear.
I know them intimately.

But awareness is the first step toward change.
It doesn’t free me from them, but it lets me see myself clearly.
And that is something.

So, I practice peace.
I fail.
I try again.
I won’t quit.

I always remember something a biographer wrote about Gandhi.
It was during a period of Hindu-Muslim riots in Kolkata. Gandhi sat on a dais, facing a restless, angry crowd. (He wasn’t exactly popular in Bengal.)
There was tremendous anger and noise.
In the middle of this chaos, Gandhi whispered quietly to himself in Hindi:

“Shant ho jaiye, shant ho jaiye.”
“Be calm, be calm.”

That image has stayed with me.

Ultimately, before we ever find or create peace in the world, we must first grow it in the rocky soil of our own hearts.
Only then can we say, like the foolish man that I am:

No, war is not inevitable.
Peace, anyway.

I’d genuinely welcome your thoughts — whether you agree or disagree. But if you feel like sharing, I’m especially interested in your personal reflections… how you navigate these questions, if they matter to you. And if this resonates, feel free to share it with others who think or wonder along similar lines.

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