Analysis Of David Barash's Approaches To Peace

In David Barash’s book, Approaches to Peace: A Reader in Peace Studies, he encompasses a large range of entries on the topic of war. In his introduction, he writes, “One of my goals in Approaches to Peace has been to bring together material that has a relatively long ‘shelf life’ that transcends the latest crisis or fad.” From his text, the material sheds different perspectives in explaining how the human race can move towards global peace. His first chapters digs into different elements of war. Like many problems, in order to prevent it, one must look at the cause of the problem. Thus, throughout his first chapter, from the viewpoint of war as a global problem, a few different authors contribute articles on the causes of war. As expected,
Early in the article, he claims war was an acceptable form of settling disputes among states until WWI. After the horrendous and detrimental war, nation-states started to recognize war didn’t have to be the “go to” solution. Today, even though it is more consistent of states realizing the grave effects of war, Howard claims no war is by accident. He sees war as a guaranteed function of state politics. Because governments are for the service of the people, if a nation sees benefit in going to war, than war will be the answer. Additionally, he believes war stems less from pathological leaders but more from stable leaders because it’s a calculated decision. He writes, “Wars begin with the conscious and reasoned decisions based on the calculation, made by both parties, that they can achieve more by going to war than by remaining at peace,”(37). Continually, Howard believes war to nation is a premeditated decision for power. Thus, in recent arm races, weapon production has always been a development in reaction to the nation’s adversary. In order to prevent further development of arm races “arms control become possible only when the underlying power balance has been mutually agreed.” A mutual agreeance of power definitely is a convincing argument to prevent war. Furthermore, his argument about war being a deliberate decision among leaders is definitely true for 20th century wars. However, today, the cause of war has seemed to be more complex. Especially in regards to Islamic terrorist attacks, often time it is less about a calculated decision for the people, but a personal call from their