“Previously world peace used to arise out of extensive wars, now the problem is how to continue peace from one period into another on better lines.”
Modern war is highly destructive, yet countries still fight. World organizations like the UN have tried hard to stop. countries from starting a war, but without much success. The question arises how a country can live in peace when other countries can attack it at any time.
We can live in peace only if we are strong. Naturally other countries, not on good terms with us, will take advantage of our weakness. If we are weak, they will attack us to settle their disputes with us or to take away parts of our country. This has happened so many times. Germany attacked the weaker European countries during the First and Second World Wars and Israel took away parts of Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria from the Arabs in 1967. Later she attacked Lebanon several times only because the Lebanese were not well prepared for war. Another war between the Arabs and Israel in 1973 saw the return of many parts of Arab lands from Israeli hands. Yet the disputes between the Arabs and Israel continued to sour their relations.[the_ad id=”17141″]
The Big Powers, that is, the United States of America, Russia, Britain, France and China, and other powerful countries are all the time trying to become stronger than each other. They have produced weapons of mass (large-scale) destruction like the atom, hydrogen, cobalt and neutron bombs, supersonic (traveling at speeds more than that of sound) warplanes, missiles, etc. They are producing still more dangerous weapons to make sure that no other country can start a war against them. This is also what the less powerful countries in Asia, Africa and elsewhere are trying to do. They are arraying (grouping) themselves with deadly weapons for defensive purposes more than for offensive (that is, for attacks). So, preparation for war is necessary for defense or peace. Even the US. is trying to have a modern defensive system against nuclear (atomic) attacks called the nuclear umbrella.
A country like ours or India or Burma or Turkey cannot easily afford (stand) the heavy expenditure of war preparations. This money can be spent on the betterment of the common people. But these countries are afraid of being attacked from outside, so they continue arming themselves.
War is as much a fact today as it was hundreds of years ago. The sadder fact is that the little peace that we find here and there is because most of the countries are armed to the teeth or armed with nuclear weapons like atomic and hydrogen bombs. An attack by one country on another means a destructive and dangerous war into which other countries may jump (ánd, thus, war may get escalated or enlarged). So, war is postponed for the weaker countries that, of course, does take place someday. For the strongest countries, there is an agreed long or permanent war holiday.
