Epicurus believed that war and conquest invariably bring with them unexpected consequences. While nations wage war in the name of “security”, very often everything is going to hell (so to speak) in a handbasket at home. Epicurus was against wars, especially those of choice. Often they are promoted by those with an agenda. He didn’t mention this agenda because in his days a soldier had only a sword or a spear, armour and maybe a horse, but today (were he alive) he would no doubt point to the war profiteers who have a vested interest in more and more armaments , and having them used, of course (they wouldn’t go into the field of battle themselves, oh no!).
Perhaps Epicurus was as trapped as we are by violent systems which now seem beyond our remedy. He walked through his garden gate long before Voltaire’s mythical one appeared and, in a way, exiled himself with friends inside his military-based society.
Remember in grade school how we were supposed to protect ourselves from nuclear incineration? “duck-and-cover” under our desks. Garden walls, desks, small chats in coffee shops — many ways to keep at what Epicurus was bravely trying to do.
No civilised person would, and I suggest, could disagree with these sentiments. St Augustine opined that there is such a thing as a ‘just’ war – I suggest WW2 was, from the rest of Europe’s point of view. But then that would beg the question that the word ‘just’ is a matter of opinion where war is concerned.
The problem, in the US and to a lesser extent, the UK, is that there is such a large proportion of the working population who depend on arms sales. There is an incentive toward war. Soldiers and sailors get rapid promotion in wartime, and bullet and shell manufacturers don’t make profits unless their product is used. If you add to that the people who want to export “our way of life” and generally boss the world around, it is a daunting task to keep the peace. I read somewhere that the US has had over 60 armed confrontations, large and small, since the end of the Second World War. Democracies are more peaceable than autocracies? By the way, why do we no longer hear about war profiteers?
I know that Ike warned against the mil-ind complex and he knew more than I, but the only place I know much about, the ME, has the drums beaten by ideologues, not connected to the mil-ind complex. In fact, the MIC sells more to the Arabs than is given to the Israelisl!
Some part of a war may be foreseen (we did get rid of Hitler), but it is a crap shoot for the most important result. Amin Maalouf’s (the name I couldn’t remember on Sunday) point about the end of the struggle with a secular ideology giving way to a mark-of-Cain struggle where sides are determined by ethnic/tribal identity. A worse outcome because a consensus is actually impossible.