in Esperanto
Chapter 10: Towards the World Commonwealth
4. Permanent peace is established.
4.1. Abolition of armaments
As mentioned in the previous section, the culmination of the United Nations Deconstruction Plan is the renunciation of war and the establishment of permanent peace on a global scale. This will probably be the most difficult hurdle.
In this regard, the current UN Charter has "abandoned" the renunciation of war from the beginning, and focuses exclusively on "collective security." In fact, in some cases, the UN itself does not deny the possibility of organizing a UN force and starting a war. Here, the essential limitations of the existing UN system are exposed.
The limit lies in the fact that the UN is nothing more than a federation of sovereign states. Moreover, since national sovereignty traditionally includes the right to engage in war and the right to maintain standing armies to physically secure it, a sovereign state system from a military perspective is a truly bizarre system where peoples of each country intimidate each other with thier own tanks, battleships, and fighter planes.
In contrast, upon its founding, the World Commonwealth prohibits each zone that constitutes the Commonwealth from possessing armaments and standing armies in accordance with its Charter. As a result, each zone is obligated to completely dismantle the military and similar armed organizations it had when it was called a nation. In this way, a system of permanent peace cannot be built unless all armaments, including not only nuclear weapons but also conventional weapons, are abolished.
However, even under the communist World Commonwealth, it may be difficult to completely eliminate conflicts between and within zones. This is because, even if the World Commonwealth abolishes sovereign states and realizes world integration, it will not be completely omnipotent to the extent that it can wipe out all the discord and conflict between peoples.
4.2. Judicial resolution and conflict mediation/peacemaking
It is clear from the UN's historical experience that using force to deal with conflicts that may inevitably arise will not essentially resolve them. Therefore, the World Commonwealth will provide a system of conflict resolution that does not rely on force. The system is two-tiered.
The first stage is a judicial resolution. Specifically, it is an transnational judicial system consisting of a first trial by the Judicial Committee of the grand-zonal Commons' Convention and a second trial by the World Commonwealth Judicial Council.
The reason why judicial resolution itself has such a two-stage approach is that it is appropriate for regional disputes to be resolved first within the five grand zones that encompass the disputed area, and for the World Commonwealth to be responsible for the appellate hearings.
This judicial resolution has the power of enforcement, so it should normally settle the matter. But in the unlikely event that the issue is not resolved and is resurfaced, or if a highly urgent conflict occurs that cannot wait for a judicial resolution, the next step is to engage in conflict mediation/peacemaking by the World Commonwealth Peace Council.
Recognizing the occurrence or imminent danger of a dispute occurring, the Peace Council first appoints the Emergency Mediation Team made up of dispute resolution experts who belong to neutral zones that are not the parties to the dispute (including potential parties), and strive to resolve disputes promptly.
Even if this mediation is successful, in order to prevent recurrence and monitor the implementation of the mediation, the Peacemaking Group consisting of personnel who have received specialized training under the Peace Council will be kept in place. They will be able to be dispatched to conflict areas at any time based on the resolution of the Council.
A certain amount of armed personnel may be required to ensure the safety of Peacemaking Group's activities, but it is sufficient that they are not soldiers but specially trained security personnel. A peacekeeping police force called the World Commonwealth Peacekeeping Patrol will be established as such a special security organization.
4.3. The Peacekeeping Patrol and the Aerospace Guard
The above-mentioned World Commonwealth Peacekeeping Patrol has the status of a subordinate organization of the Peace Council and carries out its duties under the direction of the council. Although it is similar in character to the existing United Nations peacekeeping force, it is not organized for individual conflicts, but is a permanently established armed organization.
Moreover, unlike the United Nations peacekeeping force, which is assembled from the militaries of each country, the World Commonwealth Peacekeeping Patrol is a formal standing organization with a uniform number of full-time personnel. The training of personnel will be entrusted to each zone accordingly, and training schools will be established in major zones. Candidates who complete the training school are commissioned as officers, but in order to become senior officers they must undergo a separate education and training course. However, unlike the military, there is no rank designation, only a hierarchical relationship based on the position of each unit or department.
The Peacekeeping Patrol is basically a ground force, but it should also have a limited marine force. This is not a so-called navy; its role is maritime patrol, which involves cracking down on pirates and conducting maritime rescues on the High Seas, which are beyond the jurisdiction of each zonal coast guard.
On the other hand, peacekeeping operations cannot use war methods such as air strikes, so it can be said that an air force is unnecessary.
However, there are many challenges such as dealing with meteorites coming from space, and dealing with contact and attacks from higher intelligent life forms that may be living on other planets - although this is probably limited to the realm of science fiction imagination at this point. It may be worth considering forming the World Commonwealth Aerospace Guard specializing in aerospace defense functions, separate from the Peacekeeping Patrol, to provide vigilance in outer space in anticipation of such possibilities. In terms of its equipment, organization, training of personnel, etc., it will largely conform to those of the Peacekeeping Patrol, some parts may be similar to the current Air Force.
4.4. Breaking away from the munitions economy
By the way, some may think disarmament will be possible in the future even under the current United Nations system. But that is not possible. Why can't the world take steps toward disarmament?
None of the major countries in the world today has embarked on a complete demilitarization policy. This is not because each country is bellicose in its sentiments, but rather because of the structure of capitalism.
A capitalist economy provides a munitions economy that responds to the nation's military needs. The military-industrial complex, a joint public-private sector, is responsible for this munitions economy. The munitions economy constitutes the second economic sector to the civilian economy, which is the first economic sector of capitalism.
There is a black market for contraband goods such as drugs and counterfeit goods as the third economic sector of capitalism, if weapons were flowing on the black market, there would be an underground connection between the second and third economic sectors.
Now, the products handled by this second economic sector of capitalism, the munitions economy, are special items called weapons that are used to efficiently kill and injure large numbers of people. This high-value item, which has an immoral use value but is in demand regardless of boom or bust, serves as a safety valve and complements the private demand economy, which is the unstable primary economic sector that is directly affected by business cycles. In other words, the "goods of life" is supported by the "goods of death" from behind the scenes.
In addition, from the perspective of the labor economy, the standing army that supports armaments replenishes personnel regardless of the economic situation, so it can also serve as a kind of adjustment valve for unemployment measures that absorbs unemployed or potentially unemployed people.
In this way, the capitalist economy has internalized the munitions economy as an inseparable component. This second economic sector, the munitions economy, achieved dramatic growth during the Cold War era when East and West were engaged in a frenzied arms race, but even with the end of the Cold War, rather than shrinking, it has proliferated.
As weapons become more high-tech, the scope of the military industry has expanded from the narrowly defined munitions industry, which manufactures weapons themselves, to the high-tech industry that develops information and communication technology that is installed in weapons and constitutes command systems. In addition, in recent years, with the aim of improving the efficiency of military services themselves, the outsourcing of some military services, including combat, to the private sector has become widespread, and service industry-type military demand, such as private military service companies, has also emerged.
In the post-Cold War world, where the crisis of world war between major powers has receded for the time being, business opportunities for the military industry are expanding due to the increasing number of dispatches of troops to localized regional conflicts. For munitions capital, even small wars are an opportunity to test the performance of its products, so they need their customers, the sovereign states, to go to war from time to time. War is also a business. War is also a business. It may be a very unscrupulous phrase, but this is the reality of "goods of death."
It can be said that nuclear weapons, which are the ultimate "goods of death," are another face of capitalism, along with automobiles. It is no coincidence that automobiles and nuclear weapons are the specialties of the United States, the capital of capitalism. From here, the unreality of all peace theories and movements that are not based on the capitalist economic structure becomes clear. This is because the idea of renouning war and abolishing standing armies without touching the capitalist economic structure ends up being an idealism like Kant's theory of permanent peace.
In order to establish the permanent peace, which Kant rightly speculated on, as not just an idealistic idea but as a real world order, it is essential to break free of the shackles of the munitions economy by transitioning from capitalism to communism.
