There's a major problem with the "If you want peace, prepare for war" adage: I don't want peace, I want a cessation of the use of violence or threat thereof. Assuming the adage holds true and my goal were peace, then sure.
However, while better weapons might reduce the enactment of violence (either through lack of willingness or through sheer effectiveness) one must ask how it is that such weapons reduce the enactment of violence. For the lack-of-willingness argument it is through the threat of violence, whether direct or indirect. Nations don't make nukes to use them; they make nukes to threaten to use them. Nuclear weaponry, and indeed any superweapon, is the diploma requisite for an entry-level position at the bargaining table of world politics. Considering how many there are out there, it's worth considering why not one has been used since WWII.
As for the decisiveness argument, that is causing violence to prevent violence. There's another adage that violence only breeds violence. While I think that adage is equally poorly researched, it seems both intuitive and plausible. Sure, this outbreak may be stopped with fewer units violence than without the superweapon, but what about next time? and the time after that? Even if causing one death prevented causing thousands, there's a diminishing return. There's no way to cause no deaths with that method: either you kill everyone (no deaths after that, though the point seems moot) or you keep killing indefinitely.
Either of these is directly counterindicated by my goals of eliminating violence (or its threat) as a means of conflict resolution. And that's assuming the adage is true. There is anecdotal evidence for it not being so. If the cost of going to war at all is total annihilation, then once provoked to war one must fight it to the extreme. This was the fear of the Cold War which never materialized for numerous reasons, though the constant state of fear from the threat of violence had repercussions that are still felt today. However, that fear is also the actuality of "warfare" against terrorist nations and organizations. When they've nothing left to loose, what do you threaten them with? How do you stop them when they'd rather bring you down with them than to survive themselves since survival is a denied option? The reason any "war on terrorism" can never be won is because terrorists aren't fighting a war, they're fighting a crusade no matter their cause. Tis better to die a martyr than to die worthlessly.
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However, while better weapons might reduce the enactment of violence (either through lack of willingness or through sheer effectiveness) one must ask how it is that such weapons reduce the enactment of violence. For the lack-of-willingness argument it is through the threat of violence, whether direct or indirect. Nations don't make nukes to use them; they make nukes to threaten to use them. Nuclear weaponry, and indeed any superweapon, is the diploma requisite for an entry-level position at the bargaining table of world politics. Considering how many there are out there, it's worth considering why not one has been used since WWII.
As for the decisiveness argument, that is causing violence to prevent violence. There's another adage that violence only breeds violence. While I think that adage is equally poorly researched, it seems both intuitive and plausible. Sure, this outbreak may be stopped with fewer units violence than without the superweapon, but what about next time? and the time after that? Even if causing one death prevented causing thousands, there's a diminishing return. There's no way to cause no deaths with that method: either you kill everyone (no deaths after that, though the point seems moot) or you keep killing indefinitely.
Either of these is directly counterindicated by my goals of eliminating violence (or its threat) as a means of conflict resolution. And that's assuming the adage is true. There is anecdotal evidence for it not being so. If the cost of going to war at all is total annihilation, then once provoked to war one must fight it to the extreme. This was the fear of the Cold War which never materialized for numerous reasons, though the constant state of fear from the threat of violence had repercussions that are still felt today. However, that fear is also the actuality of "warfare" against terrorist nations and organizations. When they've nothing left to loose, what do you threaten them with? How do you stop them when they'd rather bring you down with them than to survive themselves since survival is a denied option? The reason any "war on terrorism" can never be won is because terrorists aren't fighting a war, they're fighting a crusade no matter their cause. Tis better to die a martyr than to die worthlessly.