Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat, FRS, KCMG - A world without war. Is it feasible?

In my talk on a world without war I have posed two questions: is it desirable and is it feasible?

The first question is surely rhetorical. After the many millions of lives lost in the two world Wars of the last century, a world without war is assuredly most desirable, and it has been made all the more desirable by the events that have occurred since the end of the Second World War. Not only is a war-free world desirable, it is now necessary, it is essential if mankind is to survive.

I am referring to the development of the omnicidal weapons, first demonstrated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The destruction of these cities heralded a new age, whose chief characteristic is that for the first time in the history of civilisation, Man has acquired the technical means to destroy his own species, and to accomplish it, deliberately or inadvertently, in a single action. We did not envisage this because we knew that this would require the detonation of a very large number - perhaps a hundred thousand of megaton bombs. Within a few decades, arsenals of that magnitude were manufactured and made ready for use by the then two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.

Ten years after Hiroshima when we began to appreciate the magnitude of the threat arising from the invention of nuclear weapons, a group of scientists, under the leadership of Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, tried to warn governments and the public. We issued a statement which has become known as the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. Let me read one sentence from it:

"Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: shall we put an end to the human race or shall mankind renounce war?"

I am now the sole survivor of the eleven signatories to the Russell-Einstein Manifesto and as such, it is my duty - even mission - to keep on posing these questions to the public. Nuclear arsenals have been somewhat reduced but even if all arsenals of weapons of mass destruction were eliminated, the security of humankind would not be assured.

Nuclear weapons can not be disinvented. We cannot erase from our memories the knowledge of how to make them. Should, sometime in the future, a serious conflict occur between the two great powers of the day, it would not take long before nuclear arsenals were rebuilt.

Moreover, future advances in science may result in the invention of new means of mass destruction, perhaps even more powerful, perhaps more readily available. We already know about advances in biological warfare whereby gene manipulation could change some pathogens into terrifyingly virulent agents. But entirely different mechanisms might be developed. Just as we cannot predict the outcome of scientific research, we cannot predict the destructive potential of its military applications. All we can say is that the danger is real.

The threat of the extinction of the human race hangs over our heads like the sword of Damocles. We cannot allow the miraculous products of billions of years of evolution to come to an end. We are beholden to our ancestors, to all the previous generations, for bequeathing to us the enormous cultural riches that we enjoy. It is our sacred duty to pass them on to future generations. The continuation of the human race must be assured. We owe an allegiance to humanity.

Reaching an agreement on the elimination of the known weapons of mass destruction is very important, because it would remove an immediate source of danger, but in the long run it will not suffice. To safeguard the future of humankind we have to eliminate not only the instruments of waging war, but war itself.

As long as war is a recognised social institution, as long as conflicts are resolved by resort to military confrontation, the danger is that a war which begins over a local conflict, for example over Kashmir, will escalate into a global war in which weapons of mass destruction are employed. The probability of this happening at any given time may be very small but the consequences - should it happen - are so enormous that we must do everything in our power to eliminate the risk. In this nuclear age we can no longer tolerate war, any war. With the future of the human species at stake, this becomes a matter of concern to each of us. A war-free world has become a dire necessity and its achievement must be made our steadfast objective.

This bring me to the second question is a war free world feasible? To most people, the concept of a war-free world is a fanciful idea, a far-fetched, unrealistic vision. Even those who have come to accept the concept of a world without nuclear weapons still reject the notion of a world without national armaments as being unworkable.

Such attitudes are not surprising considering that, from the beginning, civilised society has been governed by the Roman dictum - Si vis pacem para bellum - if you want peace, prepare for war.

We have paid heed to this axiom despite the fact that throughout history preparation for war has brought not peace but war.

Thanks largely to the advance of science and technology, there should be no need for people to kill one another for survival. If properly managed and evenly distributed, there should be enough food and other life necessities for everybody, even with the huge increase in world population. The problem, of course, is that other factors, such as greed, come into play with the result that resources are not distributed equitably and thus many people are still starving and many children are still dying from malnutrition. We have still much to do before the potential for removing the basic causes of war become a reality.

Nevertheless, we are moving towards a war-free world. Even if we do not do it consciously, we are learning the lessons of history.

In the two World Wars of the twentieth century, France and Germany were mortal enemies. Citizens of these countries - and many others - were slaughtered by the million but now a war between France and Germany seems inconceivable. The same applies to the other members of the European Union. There are still many disputes between them over a variety of issues, but these are being settled by negotiation, by mutual give-and-take. The members of the European Union have learned to solve their problems by means other than military confrontation.

The same is beginning to take place in other continents. Military regimes are on the decline; more and more countries are becoming democracies. Despite the terrible bloodshed in recent years - the tribal genocide in Rwanda, the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo - the number of international wars is decreasing. We are gradually comprehending the futility of war, the utter waste in killing one another.

All the same, for the concept of a war-free world to become universally accepted, and consciously adopted by making war illegal, a process of education will be required at all levels; education for peace; education for world citizenship. We have to eradicate the culture in which we were brought up, the teaching that war is an inherent element of human society. We have to change the mind-set that seeks security for one's own nation in terms which spell insecurity to others.

We must replace the old Roman dictum by one essential for survival in the Third Millennium: Si vis pacem para pacem - if you want peace prepare for peace. This will require effort in two directions; one - a new approach to security, in terms of global security; the other - developing and nurturing a new loyalty, loyalty to humankind.

With regard to world security, the main problem will be preventing conventional wars between nations and the use of military arms by governments in settling internal disputes. This will require some limitation to the sovereignty of nations and perhaps a modification to the Charter of the United Nations, which is based on the notion of sovereign states.

The surrender of sovereignty is highly objectionable to most people, but some surrender of sovereignty rights is going on all the time, brought about by the ever-increasing interdependence of nations in the modern world. Each international treaty we sign, every agreement on tariffs or other economic measures, is a surrender of sovereignty in the general interests of the world community. To this equation we must now add the protection of humankind.

It is a thorny problem but it has to be addressed. One of the main functions of the nation state is to ensure the security of its citizens against threats from other states, which is taken to mean possessing the ability to wage war. A change will be called for in this respect: sovereignty will need to be separated from, and replaced by, autonomy. In particular, the right of the state to make war will have to be curtailed. This means no national military forces and the only legal coercive power on the world scale to be vested in some kind of police force responsible to a global authority. Some form of world governance seems a necessary outcome of the evolution of the United Nations.

We have to acquire a loyalty to humankind. As members of the human community, each of us has developed loyalties to the groups in which we live. In the course of history we have been gradually extending our loyalty to ever larger groups, from our family to our neighbourhood, to our village, to our city, to our nation. I should emphasise that loyalty to a larger group is an addition to, not a replacement of, loyalties to the smaller groups. At present the largest group is our nation. This is where our loyalty ends now. I submit that the time has come for loyalty to another, still larger group: we have to develop and nurture loyalty to humanity.

The prospects for developing a loyalty to humankind are becoming brighter due to the growing interdependence between nations, an inter-dependence not only in the realms of economics, but also in social and cultural matters, an interdependence brought about by the advances in science and technology; the fantastic advances in transportation, communication and information, that have occurred in the twentieth century and which I have witnessed in my own life.

Of particular importance is the progress in information technology, in its various forms. The internet enables us to chat with people wherever they are. It provides access to an infinite source of information and the means to contribute our knowledge or ideas. Information technology has truly begun to convert the world into a global village: we know one another, we do business with one another, we depend on one another, we try to help one another. We are, perforce, becoming world citizens.

In the course of many thousands of years, the human species has established a great civilisation: it has developed a rich and multifarious culture; it has accumulated enormous treasures in arts and literature and it has created the magnificent edifice of science. It is indeed the supreme irony that the very intellectual achievements of humankind have provided the tools of self-destruction, in a social system ready to contemplate such destruction.

In a world aimed with weapons of mass destruction, the use of which might bring the whole of civilisation to an end, we cannot afford a polarised community, with its inherent threat of military confrontations. In this scientific era, a global equitable community, to which all belong as world citizens, has become a vital necessity.

(This is the shortened text of the Annual Remembrance Day Lecture given by Sir Joseph Rotblat at the Imperial War Museum, London, on 11th November 2002)