War & Peace

War is a funny thing. Animals have battles and sometimes even fight in groups but only humans are capable of war. That's because you need to have a concept of war and all the necessary social organisation just to begin conducting one.

This is a very apposite time to be discussing war as we have two in the Middle East and one in eastern Europe running concurrently. In fact there are seven full-scale wars across the world at the moment and since 1946 there have been well over 250 wars and never a year free of war in that period — so the proud boast that WWI was the 'war to end all wars' seems a bit hollow now.

War is clearly very natural for humans as we have been fighting the wars since we started organising ourselves into kingdoms. But just because it's natural doesn't mean it's good. Is war a fundamental part of our nature or can we find ways of ending war for good?

We are going to have a look at the Just War theory and discuss whether there can ever be a justification for war given all the pain, suffering and destruction involved. A key requirement of the Just War is that civilians must not be targeted but is that possible given the huge range and destructive capability of modern weapons?

We will be looking at the conflicts in the Middle-east in particular and seeing if there is any way they could be resolved?

If you were President of the US what would you be doing right now to try to make peace? Here are some notes that might help.