19 War, peace and international order
Introduction: war–peace cycle
There are two principal views of war in history. People can be classed either as optimists
or pessimists. Alternative labelling contrasts idealists with realists, or believers in
progress with sceptics. It is difficult to select words that do not carry pejorative baggage.
Optimist-idealists believe in progress. In the context of strategic history this means
progress towards the eventual abolition, at least the major amelioration, of warfare. In
contrast, pessimist-realists believe in constancy and continuity in the challenges to,
and responses of, statecraft. The pessimist-realist is not convinced that the future strategic
history of humankind will produce anything other than a repeat of past history, albeit
in different contexts. Optimist-idealists hold that the human race is improving in its
strategic behaviour, that it has learnt from past mistakes. They point to the growth of
norms, laws and institutions that both flag up and contribute to the taming of politically
motivated violence. In this view, today is the highest point humans have attained in the
long journey towards a war-free world. The contrasting view of pessimistic realists holds
that human behaviour, including behaviour of the political and strategic kinds, does not
change, though it is reshaped by, and adapted to, dynamic circumstances. Peace and war
succeed each other in an endless, though irregular, cycle. Optimist-idealists believe that
war is a problem that could, should and one day will succumb to assault by the proper
weapons. Some conceive of war as a disease that can be eradicated by application of
the right treatment. There is no shortage of optimist-idealist weapons for the vanquishing
of war-proneness, including disarmament; arms control; globalization; democracy; law;
the erosion of nationalism; and the growth of a true global community. The contrasting
view of the pessimist-realist is that war is not a single problem but countless problems,
all unique to particular conflicts. It follows, in this perspective, that there can be no
general solution to the ‘problem of war’, because to frame the issue in that way is to
misunderstand its nature.