Introduction
One of the most critical questions in existential philosophy is to determine the potential for a global peace as a system in which all nations live in a commonwealth. In discussing this idea, it is crucial to be particularly precise in the terms used since the state of international peace and the anti-war state are not the same. In fact, the concept of the peaceful existence of nations is a common system of utopian visions and hopes of the community, which necessarily includes the idea of the absence of wars as such. That is, the anti-war state, in which states show no aggression or hostility toward one another, is private in the general system of international peace. At the same time, such a state describes a scenario in which all resources and forces of humanity, regardless of geography, are aimed at achieving the common good. Goods are understood as global economic growth, stimulation of scientific and technological progress, development of public morality.
It is imperative to emphasize that the philosophical idea of international peace, which the researchers of the modern era wrote about, is not equal to the thesis of a complete unification of cultures. The creation of a global community in which linguo-ethnic, cultural, religious, and moral boundaries are blurred, that is, the formation of absolute globalism is not a desirable strategy of peace. The implication here is that the most vital and most adaptive states have been able to absorb the lesser ones by coming to a globalizing state (Buckley and Hashai, 2020). On the contrary, the philosophy of international peace recognizes the differentiality of cultural communities and encourages diversity: only on this ground does the very concept of “international” peace take shape.
This idea was not a sudden discovery by contemporary philosophers, but it has taken a long time to take shape through dozens of generations. From the very beginning of civilizations, the critical focus has been on the formation of separate, independent, and warring states. History knows numerous examples of the Inca ethnic group, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, and the ancient Greek state that expanded their political influence through violence or political stratagems (Adhikari, 2019). However, human thought continued to evolve autonomously, and when the essence of humanity’s state division became the inalienable code of society, reverse forces began to emerge, driving humanity toward political unification. Thus, it is expedient to note that the philosophy of international peace, of which Kant and Wundt wrote, was a reflection of accumulated experience and naturally served to shape the global view of the creation of peace. One of the most striking manifestations of this peace was the creation of the UN as a globalizing but culturally distinctive institution aimed at achieving peace.
It is easy to see that the idea of a commonwealth of states, meaning no wars and a focus on development for all, seems naïve. The pursuit of a state of complete peace reflects internal human fears and desires for a peace of security and opportunity. The current agenda, however, dictates the opposite. Military clashes are still taking place between conflicting states, and the most developed countries are using cheap resources and labor in poor regions, depleting them. Under such conditions, it is to be expected that almost any individual would want to live in an alternative world where friendliness and mutual understanding prevail between countries. Nevertheless, the idea of conflict as a model of development, as described by Karl Marx and brought to a global level in this work, has been embedded in the human mind since the birth of the species.
Rationale
The choice of this topic was due to the personal interest of the author of the master’s essay in the academic study of this existential problem. The issue is more profound than it appears at first glance. In fact, the study of the concept of international peace raises aspects such as justice, public morality, the necessity of wars, and the benefits of political ties between communities. Initially, it might have seemed that international peace is the state of state relations to which one should aspire. The idea of renouncing war, of promoting joint development through the pooling of resources and expertise, and of being able to communicate freely with all ethno-demographic cohorts without a sense of prejudice, rancor, or political propaganda-imposed aggression was highly desirable. It legitimately evoked a sense of security and hope. However, as it was studied the academic literature and delved more seriously into the subject, it became clear that international peace could not be as colorful as it might initially seem.
For this essay, a secondary research approach was chosen, based on the use of available data and knowledge. The rationale for this choice lies in the high advantages of secondary research over primary research. Thus, it solves the problems of bias, confusion, and duplication of data, as well as allows for a comprehensive study of a particular aspect. In other words, the use of the literature review as a critical methodological tool of this essay was fully justified by the advantages available. Moreover, it should be understood that the problem under study does not belong to the field of the technical sciences, in which the existence of absolute truths is permissible. On the contrary, the philosophical question of the achievement of the international peace belongs instead to ethical and humanitarian ideas, so there can be no specific point of view on this issue. For this reason, in order to form the most coherent and comprehensive critical review, it was decided to use not only the academic literature but also transcripts of public debates and topical web materials reflecting non-scientific but, in some senses, interesting views for this essay.
Research Aim
The central purpose of this study was to attempt to theorize the permissibility of international peace and to determine whether the concept is actually necessary for humanity well-being.
Research Questions
It is not difficult to notice that the goal stated above is complex and reflects the complexity of the methodological approach for finding solutions. In order to form this essay in a more informatively simplified version and to achieve the conditions of consistency and logical presentation of thoughts, it was decided to fragment this goal into separate tasks and questions. The critical tasks of the essay included searching for relevant literature, critically evaluating the sources found, summarizing, and comparing them, and forming a conclusion. At the same time, addressing the following issues was an absolute priority of the essay in all sections.
- Is the topic academically relevant?
- (If yes) What is the general view of the academic community on the possibility of international peace?
- What conditions need to be achieved in order to form international peace?
- Are the conditions found in the previous paragraph practically and theoretically feasible?
- Finally, what is the author’s conclusion on the admissibility of international peace?
Methodology
The literature review was a central research strategy in this essay, so the issues of searching for reliable literature deserve a separate discussion. The total number of sources used in this essay was twenty-one, of which more than 71% were academic and had citations. This fact stipulates compliance with high standards of master’s quality, which means that this essay deserves the readers’ trust. At the same time, in addition to academic literature, web platforms were used. This decision was justified by the desire to achieve pluralism and ensure the comprehensiveness and criticality of the entire study.
Authoritative materials were searched through virtual databases, which provide access to electronic copies of works. More specifically, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Emerald Scientific, and ResearchGate were used. Scientific sources were searched using textual criteria, namely the use of quotation marks to target keywords in articles, dissertations, and books. The keywords were as follows: “international peace,” “globalizing world,” “conditions of global peace,” and “utopia of peace.” The total number of works found under this criterion was twenty-three, of which only fifteen passed the primary filtering. In particular, the criteria for inclusion of this filter included the English language of writing, the year of publication of the material since 2017, and the author’s or publication’s authority. By authority is an understanding of the correspondence between the problem investigated by a particular source and the educational focus of the author(s).
On the other hand, non-academic sources were searched using Google and Bing search engines. The previously mentioned keywords were used in this case as well, and the exact primary filtering mechanisms were applied. Thus, the total number of non-academic papers for this paper was nine, of which only six were used in the essay. Notably, if the authors’ credibility could not be verified, the web material was still used to form a critical literature review.
This essay follows the high ethical standards of master’s papers. Any web material, articles, books, and dissertations that were used for the paper were obtained honestly from public sources. In addition, the essay does not rely on anyone else’s work or use plagiarism as part of the methodology. All of the following thoughts, which have no in-text citations, were either the personal thoughts of the author of this paper or were legitimately derived from previous endorsements. Moreover, the author has not resorted to substituting facts and relevant data in order to satisfy specific interests. Thus, this essay follows critical ethical standards and reflects the author’s academic honesty and integrity in research.
Findings
An essential question of existential philosophy is the quest to ascertain whether and how humanity needs a state of international peace. In discussing this idea, it is natural to recall the concept of globalization, which has become particularly relevant in recent years. There are no precise interpretations of what globalization is. For example, Gray (2017) describes the phenomenon as a process that significantly facilitates the exchange of resources and human capital across borders. Stiglitz (2017) agrees with this statement, adding that the manifestation of globalization is improved working conditions in all countries, as labor is no longer tied to specific regions. In his book, Gopinath says that “globalization is a good thing by making more goods and services available for consumption” (Gopinath, 2018, p. 10). Finally, Nwogwugwu (2020) reveals the political aspect, showing this phenomenon in terms of the spread of mature democracy into historically conservative parts of the world. Thus, it can be seen that one of the critical features of globalization is the unification of the world and the creation of common geopolitical systems.
Globalization is noticeable not only on a theoretical level. If one pays attention to the surrounding world and the cultural and political agenda of today, it becomes evident that profound integration processes are already taking place. Humanity has the ability to communicate almost seamlessly while in different countries, and any news from any country can be available online for international reading in just a few minutes. Severe manifestations of globalization processes are the formation of a unified Internet network, the emergence of international organizations, and the cultural borrowing of the community.
Nevertheless, it is essential to preliminarily distinguish between globalization as the process described above and the achievement of international peace as a desire for security. Globalization, among others, has a number of serious drawbacks. Among them is the cultural oppression of smaller states through a sovereign takeover by strong powers (Buckley and Hashai, 2020). From this perspective, globalization is not a feature of international peace because it ultimately leads to the imposition of specific values and norms by some parties to the geopolitical arena on others. On the contrary, the principles of international peace are the absolute recognition of the importance of each culture and the impossibility of relations based on self-interest and a blind desire for profit. The United Nations, the pinnacle of its time in the unification of peoples, postulates the importance of international peace as a state in which human suffering is minimized, and military conflict as a form of economic and political pressure is not used (UN, 2020). The main tools of such a peace are diplomacy, cooperation, and the unconditional pursuit of good offices.
Studies of the literature show that the idea of world peace has been around for a long time. The central essay on the subject is Immanuel Kant’s work, written in the style of German Idealism. In his monumental treatise Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, Kant consistently describes the conditions and forms of creating an eternal peace that will one day become a reality (Eyo, 2019). In more detail, the German philosopher believed that with an overpopulated Earth, war was a destructive form that could not promote cultural progress. At the same time, the predictor of peace is the globalization of politics: any mistakes of the state in the internal sphere acquire discussion on the superficial level. The role of the individual in the system of international peace is not insignificant, in which each individual becomes essential historically and politically.
This idea correlates perfectly with the theses of civil society. As a consequence of this idea, a large number of states have come to accept the vital necessity of a constitution as a guarantor of civil rights. Finally, Kant concluded that the expanding reciprocal ties between states, whether in the realm of commerce or the political field, ultimately lead to international peace. Thus, Kant’s thesis was that military confrontation was unnecessary in view of the development of international law.
In this connection, it is natural to recall the work of another seminal thinker of past centuries, namely Wilhelm Wundt. The founder of the psychology of peoples, he believed that the main driving force of human development, outside the framework of the state, was the people (Pérez-Álvarez, 2021). An important conclusion of Wundt’s thinking was the recognition of the centrality of the people in human history. The natural desire for unity, community, and collectivity are primary in comparison to individualistic psychology. In interpreting this thesis in terms of the interest of this essay, Wundt was pointing to the desire of people to form a unified system, which can be seen as a manifestation of the idea of international peace.
The academic community as a whole has long been interested in exploring the possibility of international peace. Reference to Figure 1 shows that the number of citations containing the key phrases “world peace” and “international peace” grows exponentially every year. It is noteworthy from this figure that the number of published works in the early 1990s was comparably higher than in the following fifteen years. A possible reason for this phenomenon is the emerging fear of the new millennium, one should bear in mind the “problem of the 2000s”, and the threat of a Cold War with the potential to bring the world to nuclear catastrophe. Furthermore, it is a mistake to think that this topic is relevant only to the political sciences. Figure 2 demonstrates perfectly that the problem of international peace is an essential subject of study in the historical, economic, religious, environmental, and even engineering sciences. Consequently, this philosophical question has a fair amount of popularity among the academic community.
By the current moment, some knowledge has been accumulated on the question of the need for international peace. For example, Conca (2018) sees the severity of environmental disasters, whether the threats of global climate change or the emergence of pathogenic infections, as paramount to the need for world cooperation. Garcia (2018) sees the need for peace above all in the critical importance of dealing with wars. One cannot help but notice a certain paradoxicality in such judgments: states will find themselves forced to unite under the auspices of solving the problem of violence. At the same time, Donais and McCandless (2017) show that today’s world is moving toward recognizing the importance of inclusion. Increasingly vulnerable, disadvantaged groups are coming to the public’s attention. Eventually, according to the researchers, this has a chance to move to the international level so that strong states will unconditionally respect and recognize the national freedoms of weaker regions.
The question of the admissibility of the state of international peace is also a cornerstone of much research. In this context, however, the views differ from the optimistic sentiments of authors exploring the march toward perpetual peace. More specifically, Tampio (2019) refutes Kant’s arguments and shows that in the context of the contemporary historical agenda, perpetual peace proves to be an elusive concept. Kirkland (2020) excellently supports this idea, showing that achieving international peace is impossible in the context of disconnected religious values. This is not surprising given the underlying militant sentiments of radical Islamism (Ruud and Hasan, 2021). A good summary of these ideas can be found in Monti (2017), who pointed out the impossibility of international peace in terms of a sense of legal justice. More specifically, the researcher wrote that the actions of one state on the geopolitical scene would, in any case, resonate with other states, which in itself contradicts the philosophy of world peace.
However, it is fair to admit that not all authors are inclined to reject the idea of international peace. In his book, Bellamy (2019) points to such traits of human communities as adaptation and the ability to adjust to change. These, according to the writer, are the driving forces that will one day bring about international peace. It is not hard to imagine it: ongoing wars and conflicts will reach a climax at one point, after which society will be adapted to them. By recognizing the ineffectiveness of military conflicts as a way of solving problems, the world will enter states of international peace. The views of Saeedi (2020), who confidently asserts that world peace is the inevitable outcome, are fascinating. The publicist used the COVID-19 pandemic as an argument, showing the tendency of nations to unite under the pressure of an external threat. External threats, then, would continue to oppress society, which would eventually lead to the formation of world peace.
Thus, several critical conditions must be met for international peace to exist. The most important of these is the formation of a common idea that will bind the population together. It is not difficult to see that the ideas that are most popular with people are COVID-19, climate change, terrorism, and the problems of violence and oppression of vulnerable minorities: these categories refer to threats. It is not just threats, though, that have the potential to unite. According to Google Trends, the most popular international queries of 2020 are elections, sports, and electronic technology, whether Zoom or Google Classroom (Google Trends, 2020).
Notably, for 2019, such queries are the deaths of famous actors, sports, and the release of innovative technology, such as the iPhone 11. From this data, it can be concluded that the public is willing to join together informationally if a valid reason for discussion exists. Moreover, an essential condition for the existence of international peace is the recognition of the unconditional nature of human and national rights, regardless of the political framework. It is crucial to achieve conditions under which the average American in the economically developed United States is not inferior to the average Filipino in poor Southeast Asia. Moreover, current conflicts over nuclear capabilities, religion, cultural values, and territory must be fairly resolved so that each side is satisfied with the outcome.
It seems evident that such conditions are impossible to achieve. The existence of international peace is a theoretical concept that reflects the human desire for complete security and certainty of stability. In contrast, in practice, the conditions described above seem utterly meaningless. For example, religious differences are a historically established norm, and it is impossible to imagine a world in which Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and Christianity could unite. Even within Christianity, there is a severe divide that has only increased over the years. Wars also do not tend to stop: in the past decades alone, the most significant military confrontations have been Russo-Ukrainian, Iraqi, Turkish-Azerbaijani, and Chinese-Hong Kong ones.
Turning to Figure 3 makes it clear that over the past 75 years of human history, the number of victims of military violence has not tended to decrease but has increased and decreased in leaps and bounds over time. These data can be extrapolated to understand that wars in the future will not cease to be part of the worldwide practice of international relations. These approximations are well supported by scientific evidence: Cohen et al. (2020) report that the military agenda will persist over the next decade, although the balance of power will change. As a consequence, discussions about an imminent international peace seem inappropriate.
In discussing wars as a contradiction in the conditions of international peace, it is important to emphasize their significance. Taking into account all the cruelty and anti-humanity of military conflicts, leading to the loss of life and the loss of cultural heritage, it is essential to be open-minded and to emphasize some of the benefits of wars. First, war as a phenomenon is a manifestation of human nature, and millennia of history have constantly confirmed this. Initially, the human lived in a primitive community, where war had to be fought over resources and territory. The idea that violence is a form of conflict resolution is deeply rooted in human DNA. Second, the proven effectiveness of warfare is revealed in issues of scientific and technological development. Fighting always leads to the need to develop better forms of weapons, which drives science forward. Third, war promotes cultural exchange since, during violent confrontations, there is a natural transfer of experience and knowledge about war strategies, life lessons, and culture. All of this leads to the idea that war is an integral part of human nature, and it is impossible to imagine a world in which this form of state relations does not exist.
Conclusion
The question of the potential for the existence of international peace as a form of interstate development is a cornerstone of the humanities and technical sciences. The desire for complete security and an environment in which each individual is rendered unconditionally important reflects the desire to achieve international peace. In such a framework, every individual contributes positively to overall societal development, and military conflict is not used as a form of problem-solving. It has been observed that the academic community is divided on issues of international peace. At the same time, there are problems of knowledge as to whether the world can one day come to such peace. At the same time, critical conditions for the formation of international peace appear to be theoretically acceptable, but in practice, it is impossible to rule out existing contradictions and conflicts between states completely. Finally, wars that lead to the destruction and oppression of cultures must be seen as a natural form of human reason, which contradicts the idea that international peace is possible.
This essay reflects a completed, formed opinion, supported by a literary review, that international peace is impossible and unnatural to human culture. The essay has several important implications. First, it shows that although the preconditions and desires for peace exist, a plurality of views and opinions will not produce the fully just peace Kant and Wundt wrote. Second, it forms an important critical review of the literature, creating useful material for public debate. Third, it encourages the academic community to continue to explore the issue further.
A key recommendation for further work is to attempt to substantiate the findings statistically. This can be accomplished by researching war statistics, conducting public surveys, and testing hypotheses about the possibility of international peace. In addition, it is recommended to conduct a study of the biological predisposition of the human species to war. It is assumed that aggression and competition for resources are predetermined by genes. Finally, an essential recommendation of the essay is to encourage intensification of public and academic debate in order to bridge the existing knowledge gap.
Reference List
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