United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres while making his first address to the Security Council after taking office called on the Security Council to take more action to prevent conflicts rather than just responding to them as he vowed to strengthen the world body’s mediation capacity. Guterres said, “People are paying too high a price,” adding, “we need a whole new approach.”

War has existed since prehistoric times, and terrorism goes back at least to the days of the Old Testament (e.g., when Samson brought down the temple of the Philistines in an act of suicide that also killed scores of Philistines). Given their long histories, war and terrorism are not easy to prevent. However, theory and research by sociologists and other social scientists point to several avenues that may ultimately help make the world more peaceful.

Diplomacy is widely considered to be the weakest way to deal with insurgencies and armed conflicts, followed by tough sanctions. Military action is generally thought to be the real deal to end a civil war. However, it turns out that order of effectiveness is precisely backward. A meta analysis of all movements for self-determination that looked like or actually became civil wars between 1960-2005 and led to resolutions by the United Nations Security Council revealed that using the UN troops had almost no effect on stopping a civil war. Sanctions were better, but diplomatic initiatives succeeded far more often than either of the other approaches.

The usual strategies suggested by political scientists and international relations experts to prevent war include arms control and diplomacy. Approaches to arms control and diplomacy vary in their actual and potential effectiveness. Regardless of the specific approaches taken, suffice it to say that arms control and diplomacy will always remain essential strategies to prevent war, especially in the nuclear age when humanity is only minutes away from possible destruction.

Beyond these two essential strategies, the roots of war must also be addressed. War is a social, not a biological phenomenon and arises from decisions by political and military leaders to go to war. There is ample evidence that deceit accompanies many of these decisions, as leaders go to many wars for less than noble purposes. To the extent this is true, citizens must always be ready to question any rationales given for war, and a free press in a democracy must exercise eternal vigilance in reporting on these rationales. To prevent war, then, the press and the public must always be ready to question the assumptions about the necessity of war. The same readiness should occur in regard to militarism and the size of the military budget. History shows that social movements can help prevent or end armament and war and limit the unchecked use of military power once war has begun. While activism is no guarantee of success, responsible nonviolent protest against war and militarism provides an important vehicle for preventing a war or for more quickly ending a war once it has begun.

As we think about how to prevent a war, we must not forget two important types of changes that create pressures for war: population change and environmental change. Effective efforts to reduce population growth in the areas of the world where it is far too rapid will yield many benefits, but there is a less likelihood that certain societies will go to war. Likewise, effective efforts to address climate change will also yield many benefits, and in the same manner these is a less likelihood of war and ethnic conflict in certain parts of the world.

Finally, efforts to prevent war must keep in mind the fact that ideological differences and prejudice will sometimes motivate decisions to go to war. It might sound rather idealistic to say that governments and their citizenries should respect ideological differences and not be prejudiced toward people who hold different religious or other ideologies or have different ethnic backgrounds. However, any efforts by international bodies, such as the United Nations, to achieve greater understanding along these lines will limit the potential for war and other armed conflict. The same potential holds true for efforts to increase educational attainment within the United States and other industrial nations but especially within poor nations. Since prejudice generally declines as the level of education increases, measures that raise educational attainment promise to reduce the potential for armed conflict in addition to the other benefits of enhanced education.

In addition to these strategies to prevent a war, it is also vital to enforce a limit on the total spending of the nations on military. This is indeed a very tall order but military spending makes up most of the budget of almost all countries around the globe. The large sums saved in this way can be used for development, education and health facilities all over the world especially in the developing and poor countries.

We all must ponder over what was ever gained and lost in all these conflicts as Eleanor Roosevelt once said:  “When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it.”

A number of methods have been proposed by the diplomats and researchers for preventing wars:-

Military Approaches

• Restraints on use of armed force.
• Threat or use of armed force.

Non Military Approaches

• Coercive diplomatic measures (without the use of armed force).
• Non-coercive diplomatic measures (without armed force or coercion).

Development and Governance Approaches

• Policies to promote national economic and social development.
• Promulgation and enforcement of human rights and democratic standards.
• National governing structures to promote peaceful conflict resolution.