Defining war negatively as an evil and a horror does not exhaust its meaning. There is also something positive about war—⁷ not in the sense that it is in itself normal, but simply in the fact that it happens to be a real necessity under the given conditions. This point of view towards abnormal phenomena in general cannot be avoided,⁸ but must⁹ be adopted owing to the direct demands of the moral principle and not in contradiction to it. So, for example, everyone will agree that throwing children from a window onto the pavement below is in itself godless, inhuman and unnatural.¹⁰ However, if in the case of a fire there is no other means to extricate unfortunate infants from a blazing house, then this terrible action becomes not only permissible but even obligatory. Obviously, the rule to throw children from a window in extreme cases is not an independent principle on the same level as the moral principle of saving those who are perishing. On the contrary, the latter moral demand remains here the sole motivation for acting. There is no deviation in this instance from the moral norm. Throwing children from a window is only a direct application of that norm in a manner that, though irregular and dangerous, turns out to be, owing to its real necessity, the only possible one under the given conditions.

[426]Does war depend upon a necessity that makes this in itself abnormal course of action permissible and even obligatory in certain circumstances? This question can be answered by turning to history. Sometimes, however, it is erroneously viewed from the broader perspective of natural science, where the necessity of war is connected with the allegedly universal principle of the struggle for existence.

If, however, such an amicable agreement only rarely took place at the time and, in general, primitive human relations more closely resembled a “war of all against all” (as in the well-known theory of the philosopher Hobbes) ,¹¹ then this was the result not of a necessary struggle for existence but of the free play of evil passions. Envy , not hunger, caused the fratricide with which history opens. The oldest monument of poetry that has been handed down to us—the bloody song of Cain’s grandson, Lamech—speaks not of material need, but of savage spite, revenge¹² and fierce arrogance. “And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold” (Genesis 4: 23–24).

At a time when the human race was few in number and multiplying slowly compared to most other animals, the predominance of such feelings would have threatened humanity with quick ruin¹³ if the war of all against all had not been ­counterbalanced by the gentile connection. This connection, rooted in the maternal instinct, is developed by means of family feelings and relations and is strengthened in the religion of ancestor-veneration. The gentile way of life (in the broad sense),¹⁴, ¹⁵ which resulted from all this, can be considered the primitive stage of historical development, since humanity, properly speaking, never consisted of single, separate solitary individuals¹⁶ in a state of war with each other. The gentile connection [428]existed right from the start and “the war of all against all,” as a general rule, expresses a mutual relationship not between separate units,¹⁷ but only between separate gentile groups. Of course, this does not mean that each gens was in fact in¹⁸ constant war with all the others, but only that no single gens was completely secure or protected from the possibility of war with any other gens. Such a state of affairs, however, could not last forever. Only rarely did a war between gentes end with the destruction of the weaker gens. Achieving a certain equality of power, the outcome of the struggle was a religiously consecrated treaty or agreement. On the other hand, in order to avoid destruction in an unequal struggle the weaker gentile groups either separately joined a more powerful gens, agreeing to conditions of submission, or many of them together formed a union with various rights (a federation). Thus, war itself gives rise to treaties and rights as a guarantee of peace. Such gentile unions are already the embryo of the state.

From the time when we begin to have continuous historical records, a considerable part of the human race was already living under the state system. There are two fundamental types of such states: the Western or Hellenic polity, i.e., a small city community, and the vast Eastern despotism of either one nation (for example, in Egypt) or of many nations (the so called “universal monarchies”¹⁹).

Without the state, it would have been impossible to have human cultural progress based on a complex collaboration (cooperation) of many forces. To a large extent, such collaboration was impossible for isolated gentes living in a state of constant blood feud with each other. In the state, we find human masses for the first time acting in solidarity. These masses already banished war and moved it out to the wider circumference of the state. In the gentile way of life, all (adult males) are always armed, whereas in the state warriors form either a special caste or profession, or finally (with universal conscription) military service forms only a temporary occupation of the citizenry. In the state, the organization of war is the first great step towards the realization of peace . This is especially clear in the history of the vast conquering powers (the universal [429]monarchies). Each conquest meant a dissemination of peace, i.e., an expansion of the circle within which war ceased being a normal phenomenon and instead became a rare and reprehensible accident—criminal civil dissension. The “universal monarchies” strove indubitably, though also only semi-consciously, to give peace to the world by subduing all nations to one common power. The greatest of these conquering powers, the Roman Empire, frankly described itself as the peace—pax Romana.

However, there were monarchies at an earlier time that also strove for the same goal. Discoveries in the nineteenth²⁰ century leave no doubt that the Assyrian and the Persian kings considered their true vocation to be the subjugation of all nations in order to establish a peaceful order on Earth, although their idea of this task and of the way to fulfill it was usually too simplistic. The historical plans of the Macedonian monarchy that included the entire world were more complex and productive. It rested on the superior power of the Hellenic culture, which deeply and firmly penetrated into the subjugated Eastern world. The Romans came to a completely clear idea of universal and eternal peace and firmly believed in their vocation to subjugate the entire world to the power of one single law. Virgil, in particular, immortalized this idea. Besides the very well-known expression “tu regere imperio populos”²¹ etc.

You, o Roman, have the right to rule over nations mightily,

To protect humbly, subduing the obstinate by arms ²²

Romulus shall call that people ‘Romans,’ after his own name.

I set no limits to their fortunes and

no time; I give them empire without end.²³

Aeneid I 278–294

The same supreme god tells Mercury that Aeneas, the ancestor of the Romans, is destined to conquer an Italy stirring with war [430]in order to establish the noble²⁴ line of the Teucer, who will “place all earth beneath his laws” (The Aeneid, book IV, pp. 229–231).²⁵

Comparing the four “universal monarchies,” we find in their succession a steady approach to the idea of universal peace, both with respect to their extension as well as with respect to inner principles. The first of these, the Assyro-Babylonian kingdom, did not extend beyond the bounds of the Near East, was supported by incessant²⁶ devastating campaigns and its laws consisted solely of military decrees. The second “universal monarchy,” the kingdom of Cyrus and the Achaemenides, added to the Near East a significant portion of central Asia and extended in the other direction to Egypt. It rested from within on the serene religion of Ormuzd,²⁷ which legitimated morality and justice. In the third monarchy, that of Alexander and his successors, the historical East was united for the first time with the historical West, and not only the power of the sword but also the ideal principles of Hellenic culture welded the two sides²⁸ together. Lastly, the progress represented by the fourth monarchy, the Roman Empire, consisted not only in that the Romans extended the earlier unity all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, but also in that they gave this unity a solid political center and a stable judicial form. War played an inevitable role and armed might served as the necessary support in this whole business of establishing peace. War and peace were accurately symbolized by the two opposed but inseparable faces of the Roman god Janus.²⁹

War proves to be the most forceful unifier of the inner forces within each warring state or union. At the same time, it serves as the condition for the subsequent rapprochement and coming together of the opponents themselves. We see both of these most clearly in the history of Greece. Only three times in its entire history did the majority of  ³⁰ the separate tribes and city-states unite for a common cause and manifest their inner national connection in a practical way. Each of these times, it was due to a war: the Trojan War at the beginning, the Persian Wars at the middle, and the campaign of Alexander the Great as its culminating achievement. It was thanks to the last that the creations of the Greek national genius finally became the common property of humanity.

The Trojan War established the Greek element in Asia Minor, where nurtured by other cultural elements, it first blossomed. [431]Greek poetry (the Homeric epos) was born on the shores of Asia Minor, and it was there that the most ancient school of their philosophy (Thales of Miletus, Heraclitus of Ephesus) arose and developed. The emergence of the united national forces in the struggle with the Persians brought forth a second, even richer blossoming of spiritual creativity, and Alexander’s conquests, which cast the ripe seeds of Hellenism onto the ancient and cultured soil of Asia and Egypt, yielded the great Hellenic-Eastern synthesis of religious and philosophical ideas. It was these ideas, along with the subsequent unification by the Roman state that created the necessary historical condition for the dissemination of Christianity. Without the Greek language and Greek ideas, as well as without the “Roman peace” and Roman military³¹ roads, the preaching of the Gospels could not have taken place so quickly and on such a wide scale. Greek words and ideas entered the public domain only thanks to the militaristic Alexander and his generals. Over many centuries of war, the Roman “peace” was achieved and preserved by the Roman legions, and for these legions roads were constructed and along them the apostles passed. The churches sing, “Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.”³² This “all the earth” and these “ends of the world” are only the wide circle (orbis) that Rome’s bloody sword sketched around itself.

Therefore, all the wars of which ancient history abounds merely extended the sphere of peace, and the pagan “bestial kingdoms” ³³ prepared the way for those who would announce the kingdom of the son of man.

However, in addition to this the military history of antiquity shows us important progress in the direction of peace even in another respect. Not only has war achieved peaceful ends, but with the further march of history fewer and fewer active military forces were needed to attain these ends, whereas, on the contrary, the peaceful results became ever the more numerous and important. This paradoxical fact is indisputable. In order to take Troy, an almost universal conscription among the Greeks was necessary for 10 years,³⁴ and the direct result of this terrible exercise of its forces was insignificant. A great catastrophe [432]crowned Greek history, namely, the conquest of the East by Alexander the Great, and the universal cultural consequences of this catastrophe were not slow in coming to light. All that was required on the part of the military was a 3-year campaign with thirteen thousand warriors. Let us, on the one hand, compare the significance of the results and, on the other hand, consider the population of Greece and Macedonia under Alexander compared with the small Achaean population, which sent such a large military contingent (110,000 men) to Troy. We will see, then, in a stark fashion that after these seven centuries the relative number of human lives that had to be sacrificed to achieve historical goals decreased. Another comparison of a more general character leads to the same conclusion. The Persian kingdom, whose millions of soldiers could not ensure military success in the struggle with tiny Greece,³⁵ was barely able to hold up under the protection of such forces for two centuries. The Roman Empire, three times as large and with a population of no less than 200 million, kept at most 400,000 legionnaires under arms for the defense of its vast borders and lasted three times longer than the kingdom of Darius and Xerxes (around six centuries). And how immeasurably more important to humanity were the fruits of civilization³⁶ which these few legions protected compared with that for the sake of which the innumerable hordes of the king of kings assembled!

Therefore, the progress in the business of war represented by the advantages of the Macedonian phalanx and the Roman legion over the Persian hordes expressed itself, generally speaking, in the preponderance of quality over quantity and of form over matter. At the same time, it represented great moral and social progress by enormously reducing the number of the human casualties devoured by war.

From an external historical standpoint, the replacement of the Roman world (and peace) by the Christian did not immediately bring about any essential change in the status of the problem of war. True, in unconditionally condemning all hatred and hostility, Christianity in principle [433]destroyed the moral root of war. However, cutting the root is still not the same as felling the tree. Indeed, the preachers of the Gospels did not want to fell Nebuchadnezzar’s tree,³⁷ for they knew that the Earth needed its shade until the true faith emerged from the small seed that would replace it, “the greatest among herbs”³⁸ in whose shade both people and beasts of the field can safely hide.

The Christian missionaries did not reject the state and its vocation³⁹ to “execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”⁴⁰ Consequently, they did not reject war. The followers of the new faith saw for themselves a great triumph in the fact that two victorious wars gave Emperor Constantine the chance to hoist the Cross of Christ over the old, unaltered edifice of the Roman Empire. Moreover, under this unaltered political exterior the secret work of spiritual forces was hidden. For the Christian, the state, even one blessed by the cross, ceased to be the highest good and the final form of life. Faith in eternal Rome, i.e., in the unconditional significance of political unity, was replaced by the expectation of a “New Jerusalem,” i.e., of an inner, spiritual union of reborn peoples and nations. However, apart from an elevation, a lifting of human consciousness to a higher level, the progress of an external real unification within the body of humanity continued, though slowly at first.

The Christian world (tota christianitas, toute la chrétienté),⁴¹ which in the Middle Ages replaced the ancient Roman Empire, covered a significantly greater expanse. True, wars were not unusual within it. (Just as in the Roman Empire, there were revolts of peoples and mutinous generals.) However, the representatives of Christian principles saw these wars as deplorable internecine conflicts and tried in every way to limit them. Also, the constant struggle between the Christian and the Moslem worlds (in Spain and in the Levant), undoubtedly had a positive cultural and progressive character. For the defense of Christianity against the Islamic offensive saved the pledge of a higher spiritual development for historical humanity instead of being absorbed by a comparatively⁴² lower religious principle.⁴³ Moreover, the interaction of these two fundamentally hostile worlds could not be confined to bloodletting⁴⁴ alone. In time, this interaction would lead to [434]an expansion of the intellectual outlook of both sides. The great epoch of the Renaissance of the arts and sciences and then of the Reformation was thereby prepared for Christianity.

Three general facts in modern history have the greatest significance for our problem:

(1) the emergence of nationalities, (2) the corresponding emergence of international relations of all sorts, and (3) the dissemination of cultural unity around the entire globe.

After breaking out from under the tutelage of the Catholic Church and rejecting the impotent claims of the Holy Roman Empire, the European nationalities segregated themselves into autocratic⁴⁵ political units. Each national state viewed itself and was viewed by others as a perfect body, i.e., as having supremacy or absolute and full power within its borders and consequently as not being subordinate to any outside earthly tribunal. The direct consequences of this national segregation were not favorable to the cause of peace. In the first place, war even among Christian states thereby became a regular occurrence, for it served as the sole means of resolving conflicts between separate unconditionally independent⁴⁶ units, which had no arbiter above them to settle disputes. In the Middle Ages, the arbiter was always in principle and sometimes in fact⁴⁷ the Roman pope (and in part also the emperor). Second, when it was taken as the supreme principle of the life of nations the national idea, naturally, degenerated into national pride, the true character of patriotism became distorted and active love for one’s nation was transformed into an idolatry of the nation, conceived as the supreme⁴⁸ good. This, in turn, changed into hatred and contempt for other nations and led to unjust wars as well as to the capture and oppression of other nationalities.⁴⁹

However, hidden behind these negative aspects lies the positive significance of nationality. As the living organs of humanity, nationalities must exist and develop with their peculiarities. Without these organs, the unity of humanity would be empty and dead, and such a dead peace would be worse than war. The true unity of humanity and the longed-for peace must be based not on weakness and the suppression of nations, but on the highest development of their powers and on the free interaction of nationalities, which complement one another.⁵⁰ [435]Despite all the efforts arising out of national selfishness,⁵¹ which strives for the hostile estrangement of nations, positive interaction between them exists and constantly penetrates deeper and increases in breadth. Previously established international relations have not disappeared, but have intensified internally, and new ones have been added. Thus, although it has lost its external power, the spiritual authority of the Roman church in the West has significantly increased. It has cleansed itself of many of⁵² its crude medieval abuses, and the damage that the Reformation inflicted on it deservedly has been recompensed by other spiritual⁵³ conquests. Alongside this church and in a struggle with⁵⁴ it, there arose the powerful brotherhood of freemasons but with the same broad embrace. Everything in it is mysterious except its international and universal character. Relations of another kind were established on an unprecedented scale in the economic sphere: The world market appeared. There is not one country today⁵⁵ that is economically self-sufficient. Not one country today produces everything it needs without getting something from others and not giving them something in return. In this way, in this fundamental respect, the idea of an independent state as a “perfect body,” i.e., as an unconditionally independent social organism,⁵⁶ turns out to be the purest fabrication. Furthermore, constant cooperation between all educated countries in scientific and technical work, the fruits of which are now becoming public property; inventions that eliminate distances; the daily press, which brings continuous news from everywhere; finally the striking increase in the international “exchange of goods” by new means of communication—all this makes civilized humanity into a single whole, which actually, even though involuntarily, lives one common life.

This, the civilized portion of humanity, is becoming more and more all of humanity. From the start of the modern era, Europeans have extended the sphere of their activity in all directions. Having seized America in the west, India in the southeast and Siberia in the northeast, the greater part of the globe with its population has already come under European control. We can now say that this power embraces the entire globe. The Islamic world is surrounded and permeated throughout with strands of European culture. Only in the tropical deserts of the Sudan can it still defend its savage independence (the Kingdom of the Dervishes)—and then without any hope⁵⁷ of success. [436]The entire coastal circumference of Africa has already been divided among the European powers, and the center of the black continent has now become the arena for their rivalry. Beyond the frontiers of European influence still remains Mongolian Asia—China and Japan. However, before our very eyes this last partition in humanity is being removed. With amazing haste and success, the Japanese have in a quarter century assimilated the entire material side of European civilization⁵⁸ as well as its positive-scientific side and then, above all, tried in a convincing manner to prove the necessity of such assimilation to their Mongolian brothers. The Chinese, whose self-confidence was already shaken by the English but were still slow in understanding these foreigners, understood at once their fellow tribesmen. Now, the notorious Chinese wall is no longer a symbol of enduring isolation, but only a monument to the irretrievable past.⁵⁹