The Success in Violence

"Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. breed that forget this basic truth have always paid fot it with their lives and freedoms." -- Starship Troopers, p. 27


There is a huge difference in settling an issue effectively and settling an issue in a way that is fair for all parties involved. It's great when these two concepts -- effectiveness and equality -- can coincide, but this is rarely the case. When an issue is solved, the more powerful party gets most all of what they want.

People have tried to solve things peacefully in the past. Keara mentioned in her blog how they talked about the faults of the United Nations for two whole classes in World Politics. During high school, I was part of the Model United Nations club where we went to a college and participated in a mock version of the Model United Nations Security Council. Though its likely a bit more intelligence and efficiency is involved in the actual United Nations, the process was highly inefficient; the only resolutions that were passed were "fluffy" resolutions that didn't really do anything because there wasn't enough material for conflict to arise. Resolutions that would actually acomplish something did not get passed because there were too many people that were trying to get their beliefs and needs met.

Let's just look at a list of the situations in the past that have been effectively solved with violence:
1. World War 2 was ended with Atomic Bomb
2. Civil War
3. State using Police as Defense
4. Removal of Indians - Trail of Tears

One of these situations using violence, the state using police as defense, seems pretty fair to most parties involved while the rest of them seem pretty pointed toward one party. Kicking Native Americans off their land and forcing them to march toward undesired lands isn't really moral, but the issue was solved. Solving the battles between the North and the South was pretty effectively solved through the Civil War; afterall, the United States is still a union. The ending of World War 2 with the Atomic Bomb was even successful use of violence; firstly it was predicted that less people would be killed using the atomic bomb than with continued invasions and secondly the atomic bombing caused the war to end abruptly. Though I'm sure there are examples of peaceful attempts to solve issues (i.e. Gandhi), using violence and the fear that accompanies it has been the single most consistantly successful strategy to solve large scale conflicts.