Is Ukraine showing War is past its sell-by date?

An excerpt from an essay by Yuval Noah Harari, historian, philosopher and author

At the heart of the Ukraine crisis lies a fundamental question about the nature of history and the nature of humanity: is change possible? One school of thought firmly denies the possibility of change. It argues that the world is a jungle, that the strong prey upon the weak and the only thing preventing one country from wolfing down another is military force.

Another school of thought argues that the so-called law of the jungle isn’t a natural law at all. Humans made it, and humans can change it. Contrary to popular misconceptions, the first clear evidence for organised warfare appears in the archaeological record only 13,000 years ago. Even after that date there have been many periods devoid of war. 

Unlike gravity, war isn’t a fundamental force of nature. Its intensity and existence depend on underlying technological, economic and cultural factors. As these factors change, so does war.

Bertrand Russell, Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare (1959)

I have never been a complete pacifist and have at no time maintained that all who wage war are to be condemned. I have held the view, which I should have thought was that of common sense, that some wars have been justified and others not. What makes the peculiarity of the present situation is that, if a nuclear war should break out, the belligerents on either side and the neutrals would be all, equally, defeated. This is a new situation and means that war cannot still be used as an instrument of policy. It is true that the threat of war can still be used, but only by a lunatic. Unfortunately, some people are lunatics."

My response to a correspondent arguing Russia's case* 

Sir -

Your correspondent Themba Sono either misses the point or cannot be serious (“The Problem in Ukraine”). It is 2022, not 1922. And it is Russia that looks prepared to invade an independent European country at this point, not America or NATO an independent Russia.

Arguing who is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in the present situation won’t settle the difficulties both sides face but stoke and inflame them. While we continue to think in obsolete terms - that is, of states ultimately having war as a legitimate course of action - we’ll never be at the end of deadly conflict in, most deadly of all, a nuclear age.

Nationalists and ideologues on both sides should be exercising maximum discretion, urging one course and one course only at this time: that war is no longer an option for governments and that diplomacy must deal with this crisis and secure the peace of the world.

*Sunday Times South Africa, February 13