A war cannot achieve what peace can.

The strength of peace can rule over

ignorance and superstition, over illiteracy and immortality, over disease and
physical suffering over poverty and governmental oppression. The conquests of
peace are nonviolent and bloodless. They cause no grief to humanity and do not
donate life or property.

War causes streams of blood and untold havoc. Only the victories of peace leave
no maimed limbs or multilated bodies no ruined cities or searched fields. Even a
superficial glance at the course of the two world wars will tell us that their victories
were gained at an incalculable cost. The triumph of the First World War proved to
be of a short duration.

The victories of peace, however, are everlasting. They do not rankle in mind of any
nation and their fruits are enjoyed by all people. The example is the occupation of
Germany and Japan by the forces of the allied countries. If the Axis Powers had
won the war, they would have exploited the allies in the same, if not in a worse
way.

Thus victory of war is gained at a heavy cost of life, and also implies the
annexation and enslavement of many territories and the exploitation of many more.
The victories of peace, on the contrary, involve no butchery of human beings and
are, besides, of value to the entire world.

Only peace can bring about social reforms. During the war, men are too busy in
militaristic activities to think of social improvement. It is only during peace that a
literacy campaign can be stated that the standard of living of the masses can be
raised, that better houses can be built for the poor, that more schools and colleges
can be opened. Those prisons can be formed, that crime can be effectively
checked.

Even the proper working of democracy itself is possible only in times of peace.
There can be no elections, no government of the people when a country is the
throes of war. Peace promotes democracy. In short, it is during peace that a general
improvement is possible in cleanliness and decency, in refinement and taste, in
habits and morals, in manners and speech.
In peace, too, lies opportunity for sports, for horse-racing, skiing, tennis, cricket,
football and hockey tournaments and athletics of all kinds. It is often said in favor
of the war that it brings out the best in man by creating an opportunity for human
beings to display their great powers of endurance, their courage and capacity for
self-sacrifice and their patriotism.

No doubt war is an evil, the greatest catastrophe that befalls human beings. It
brings death and destruction, disease and starvation, poverty, and ruin in its wake.

One has only to look back to the havoc that was wrought in various countries not
many years ago, in order to estimate the destructive effects of war. A particularly
disturbing side of modern wars is that they tend to become global so that they may
engulf the entire world.

But there are people who consider war as something grand and heroic and regard it
as something that bring out the best in men, but this does not alter the fact that war
a terrible, dreadful calamity.

This is especially so now that a war will now be fought with atom bombs. Some
people say war is necessary. A glance at the past history will tell that war has been
a recurrent phenomenon in the history of nation.

No period in world history has been the devastating effects of war. We have had
wars of all types long and short. In view of this it seems futile to talk of permanent
and everlasting peace or to make plans for the establishment of eternal peace.

We have had advocates of non violence and the theory of the brotherhood of man.
We have had, Buddha, Christ and Mahatma Gandhi. But in spite of that, weapons
have always been used, military force has always been employed, clashes of arms
have always occurred; war has always been waged.

War has indeed been such a marked feature of every age and period that it has
come to be regarded as part of the normal life of nations. Machiavelli, the author of
the known book, THE PRINCE, defined the peace as an interval between two wars
Molise, the famous German field marshal declared war to be part of God’s world
order.
Poets and prophets have dreamt of a millennium, a utopia in which war will not
exist and eternal peace will reign on earth. But these dreams have not been
fulfilled. After the Great War of 1914-1918, it was thought that there would be no
war for a long time to come and an institution called the League of Nations was
founded as a safeguard against the outbreak war.

The occurrence of another war (1939-1945), however, conclusively proved that to

think of an unbroken peace is to be unrealistic and that no institution or assembly
can ever ensure the permanence of peace.

The League of Nations was collapsed completely under the tensions and stresses
created by Hitler. The United Nations Organization with all the good work that it
has been doing is not proving as effective as was desired.

Large numbers of Wars, the most recent ones being the one in Vietnam, the other
between India and Pakistan, or indo-china War, Iran-Iraq war or Arab Israel war
have been fought despite the UN. The fact of the matter is that fighting in a natural
instinct in man.

When individuals cannot live always in peace, it is, indeed, too much to expect so
many nations to live in a state of Eternal peace. Besides, there will always be wide
differences of opinion between various nations, different angles of looking at
matters that have international importance, radical difference in policy and
ideology and these cannot be settled by mere discussions.

So resort to war becomes necessary in such circumstances. Before the outbreak of

World War II, for instance, the spreading of Communism in Russia created distrust
and suspicion in Europe, democracy was as eyesore to Nazi German, British
Conservatives were apprehensive of the possibility of Britain going Communist.

In short, political ideology of one country being abhorrent to other times was
certainly not conducive to the continuance of peace. Add to all this, the traditional
enemities between nations and international disharmony that have their roots in
past history.