War is obsolete?

From: stencil (stencil@bcn.net)
Date: Tue May 09 2000 - 13:33:27 MDT


from NewsScan Daily, 9 May 2000 ("Above The Fold"):

>[...]HAS WAR OUTPRICED ITSELF?
> Military historian John Keegan believes the world may look forward to
>a future of peace because war has reached a point where its costs far
>outweigh its benefits:
> "War, it seems to me, [...] may well be ceasing to commend itself to human beings as a
>desirable or productive, let alone rational, means of reconciling their
>discontents. This is not mere idealism. Mankind does have the capacity,
>over time, to correlate the costs and benefits of large and universal
>undertakings.
> [...] mankind can clearly be seen to have judged that war's benefits
>outweighed its costs, [ ... ] Now the computation works in the opposite direction. Costs clearly
>exceed benefits. [...] The scourge of
>disease has, almost within living memory, been very largely defeated and,
>though it is true that disease had no friends as war has had friends, war
>now demands a friendship which can only be paid in false coin.
> "A world political economy which makes no room for war demands, it
>must be recognized, a new culture of human relations. As most cultures of
>which we have knowledge were transfused by the warrior spirit, such a
>cultural transformation demands a break with the past for which there are no
>precedents. There is no precedent, however, for the menace with which
>future war now confronts the world.
>
>See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394588010/newsscancom/ for John
>Keegan's "A History of Warfare." (We donate all revenue from our book
>recommendations to Literacy Action's adult literacy programs.)
>
>TELL YOUR FRIENDS! -- See http://www.newsscan.com/newsscan/newscup.html
>
>
>************************************************************

Brittle bones and a full tum make much seem endurable.

stencil sends
RKBA!



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:10:55 MDT