VIEWPOINTS
More weapons, but less peace The Paradox of our Time by Hadje C. Sadje, Belgium
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Ground Zero, New York City, N.Y. (Sept. 17, 2001) -- An aerial view shows only a small portion of the scene where the World Trade Centre collapsed following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. Surrounding buildings were heavily damaged by the debris and massive force of the falling twin towers. Clean-up efforts are expected to continue for months. Photo by U.S. Navy Chief Photographer's Mate Eric J. Tilford.
side from the emergence of several highly militarised societies, “why do we have more weapons, but have less and less peace today?” After the 9/11 attacks, fear grows (Resnik 2017). When American and its allies withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, it gives the people the impression that a new war is coming soon. While Western mainstream media exaggerate the “Iran-phobia” and “Russophobia”, the American and its allies creating an atmosphere to normalise war of aggression on the world stage. Actually, scholars have seen that these are the days of normalising international crimes of aggression (Lange 2016). The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court articles 8 bis 1 and 2 state: “The crime of aggression means "the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations". Despite being repeatedly asserted by various organisations of civil society, the noncompliance with these norms was widespread. The ideology of no alternatives for a war was pursued. War, specifically, preemptive war, has become standard, usual, or expected. This set of ideology or ideology of no alternative for war was manufactured and maintained by Western policymakers and the Western mainstream media. Miserably, war (over arbitration, the World Court, conciliation, and conference) became a permanent condition for global peace. Ironically, many people believe and embrace that there is no alternative but to accept war. Even without an asserting legitimate right of self-defense. As Rosa Brooks (2016) argues, “...everything became war, and the military became everything”. The normalisation of war, nonetheless, is not striking new. As a matter of fact, the classical view of modern state formation relied on the monopoly of violence, military conquest, oppression, and occupation to constitute nation-building, especially based on the historical experiences of European states (Tilly 1985; Hobbes 1997; Joireman 2004; Taylor 2008). And it has had a long and depressing history (Axtmann 2004). But nowadays, many scholars are opposed to war. They believe war is not the best option to solve international disputes, not because it is the most politically effective or advantageous position (Joireman 2004). Rather, war is a false choice and an indication of a weak state. Lamentably, the twentieth history has, once again, seen a reversal of desire with war culture. It is increasingly becoming normalised in everyday media and social platforms (Farhat 2015). Alongside the normalisation of war, the obsession of some Western and non-Western nations with military culture continues. The militarisation of civil society have become a new normal (DeFrieze 2014; Evans 2017). For instance, according to Global Militarisation Index-Bonn International Center for Conversion (2016), “...ten countries that have the highest levels of militarisation for the year 2015 are Israel, Singapore, Armenia, Jordan, Russia, South Korea, Cyprus, Greece, Azerbaijan and Brunei.” GMI added, “These countries allocate particularly high levels of resources to the armed forces in comparison to other areas of society (2016)”.
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