I'm the author of several books on this topic and work on this topic as executive director of a nonprofit organization. I see war as one of the dumbest things that we could easily stop doing and as one of the most damaging things we do. It's the reason we are at risk of nuclear apocalypse, the leading cause of homelessness, a leading cause of death and injury, the justification for government secrecy, one of the most environmentally destructive activities, the major barrier to global cooperation on non-optional crises, and one of the main pits into which massive resources are diverted that we all desperately need for useful things.
What is NATO? What role is played by its members and partners? Does the largest military alliance ever to exist serve the cause of peace or the causes of weapons sales and war-mongering? NATO has remade itself repeatedly, as its past purposes have disappeared. In the last 35 years, it has been part of wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
With pointed investigations of how NATO’s decisions are made, the widely misunderstood question of its funding, its relationship to international law, and the available alternatives to it, my book is an indispensable primer on an organization that not only confronts expanding military conflict but, the authors contend, plays an active part in its escalation.
This was one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. Its conclusions will be vigorously resisted by many and yet, in a certain light, considered perfectly obvious to some others.
The central conclusion—that ending the institution of war is entirely up to us to choose—was, arguably, reached by (among many others before and since) John Paul Sartre sitting in a café utilizing exactly no research. But Horgan is a writer for “Scientific American,” and approaches the question of whether war can be ended as a scientist. It’s all about research.
He concludes that war can be ended, has been ended in various times and places, and is in the process (an entirely reversible process) of being ended on Earth right now.
War is a fact of human nature. As long as we exist, it exists. That's how the argument goes.
But longtime Scientific American writer John Horgan disagrees. Applying the scientific method to war leads Horgan to a radical conclusion: biologically speaking, we are just as likely to be peaceful as violent. War is not preordained, and furthermore, it should be thought of as a solvable, scientific problem—like curing cancer. But war and cancer differ in at least one crucial way: whereas cancer is a stubborn aspect of nature, war is our creation. It's our choice whether to unmake it or…
The possibility that Costa Rica did something significant and hugely beneficial by abolishing its military is generally dealt with by ignoring it, but sometimes by making excuses for it—by claiming that Costa Rica secretly really does have a military or claiming that the U.S. military defends Costa Rica, or claiming that Costa Rica’s example is unlike and unuseful for any other country.
We would all benefit from reading this fantastic book. Here, I learned not to ignore what Costa Rica means and learned that Costa Rica does not secretly have a military, that the United States military does not serve any function for Costa Rica, and that many of the factors that probably contributed to Costa Rica’s abolition of its military, as well as many of the benefits that have probably resulted, are probably subject to duplication elsewhere, even though no two countries are identical, human affairs are highly complicated, and the nations that have done exactly what Costa Rica has done make up a data set of 1 . . . so far. This book makes me want to change that.
Costa Rica is the only full-fledged and totally independent country to be entirely demilitarized. Its military was abolished in 1948, with the keys to the armory handed to the Department of Education. Socially, Costa Rica is a success story. Although 94th in the world for GDP, it is in the top 10 on various measurements of health and well-being. Citizens enjoy high standards of living that include universal access to healthcare, education, and pensions. In addition, the country practices sustainable resource management, such as reforestation and the development of solar and wind power, and it expects to be carbon neutral…
What would we do in a world lacking police, prisons, surveillance, borders, wars, nuclear weapons, and capitalism? Well, we might survive. We might sustain life on this little blue dot a little longer. That—in contrast to the status quo—ought to be sufficient. We might, in addition, do a lot more than sustain life. We might transform the lives of billions of people, including each person reading these words. We might have lives with less fear and worry, more joy and accomplishment, more control and cooperation.
But, of course, the question might be asked in the sense of “Wouldn’t the criminals get us, and the forces of law and order be imperiled, and evildoers take away our freedoms, and sloth and laziness deprive us of updated phone models every few months?” As a way to begin answering those concerns, I recommend this tremendous resource of a book which surveys seven candidates for abolition.
ABOLISHING STATE VIOLENCE is an urgent and accessible analysis of the key structures of state violence in our world today, and a clarion call to action for their abolition.
Connecting movements for social justice with ideas for how activists can support and build on this analysis and strategy, this book shows that there are many mutually supportive abolition movements, each enhanced by a shared understanding of the relationship between structures of violence and a shared framework for challenging them on the basis of their roots in patriarchy, racism, militarism, settler colonialism, and capitalism.
This book argues that abolition is transformative.…
The history of militarism isn't one of goodness and glory marred by a "few bad apples," one or two misguided wars. Here is an avalanche of examples. If your mind doesn’t go numb, you will feel—as I did—an urge to take a shower after closing this book.
This is the naming and shaming of names. The author admits that he’s only scratching the surface. But he’s scratching it in many different places, and the result ought to be persuasive for most people, but it was not for me. Sorensen demonstrates how corruption and sociopathic destruction feed off each other, generating the real problem: organized and glorified mass homicide.
Stunning in its research and analytical perspective, Understanding the War Industry exposes how the war industry commands the other two sides of the military-industrial-congressional triangle, and is consuming the American economy in the process.
This book lays bare the multiple levers enabling the vast and proliferating war industry to wield undue influence, exploiting financial and legal structures, while co-opting Congress and the media. Spiked with insights into how corporate boardrooms view the troops, overseas bases, and warzones, it assiduously documents how corporations profit by providing a myriad of goods and services to such sectors of war-making as design, production and…
This book makes a powerful case that humanitarian war no more exists than philanthropic child abuse or benevolent torture. I’m not sure the actual motivations of wars are limited to economic and strategic interests—which seems to forget the insane, power-mad, and sadistic motivations—but I am sure that no humanitarian war has ever benefitted humanity.
This book makes that very clear. It does not take the approach so widely recommended of watering down the truth so that the reader is only gently nudged in the right direction from where he or she is starting. There’s no getting 90% reassuringly wrong to make the 10% palatable here. This is a book for either people who have some general notion of what war is or people who aren’t traumatized by jumping into an unfamiliar perspective and thinking about it. Refreshing!
"Kovalik helps cut through the Orwellian lies and dissembling which make so-called 'humanitarian' intervention possible." -Oliver Stone
War is the fount of all the worst human rights violations including genocide and not its cure. This undeniable truth, which the framers of the UN Charter understood so well, is lost in today's obsession with the oxymoron known as "humanitarian" intervention.
No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using 'Humanitarian' Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests sets out to reclaim the original intent of the Charter founders to end the scourge of war on the heels of the…
I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, I am uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption.
The history of adoption, reframed through the voices of adoptees like me, and mothers who have been forced to relinquish their babies, blows apart old narratives…
Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women's reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, Rebecca C. Wellington is uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption. Wellington's timely-and deeply researched-account amplifies previously marginalized voices and exposes the social and racial biases embedded in the United States' adoption industry.…
