internal culture of war

abolition of state militaries

Main Topic: Coordinator Comments

This is a topic that cannot be addressed by the United Nations, and hence it was not included in the UN definition on a culture of peace. When the United Nations was established by the victorious powers after World War II, they built into the UN charter, the following clause (Article 7): "Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are esssentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state..."

In other words the nation-state reserves the right to intervene mlitarily within its own borders without any need to justify its actions to the United Nations or other states.

Internal military interventions are frequent, but rarely discussed. In the United States over the past 120 years, there have been, on average, 18 military interventions involving about 12,000 troops per year. During periods of external war, the internal interventions are often intensified and accompanied by large-scale spying, deportations and witch hunts. Data are not available from other countries, but it may be assumed that they would be similar.

The U.S. National Guard was organized after the strike wave of 1877 which was called the "industrial wars." Before it was over, 45,000 militia had been mobilized, along with 2,000 federal troops and the entire US army on alert. To realize the scope of this, there were only 47,000 militia used during the Civil war and the size of the entire US Army in 1877 was 25,000. The National Guard represented the interests of the "captains of industry" against the strikers. Businessmen were not only officers in the Buard, but also provided much of its financing.

Considering the history of the state over the past 5,000 years, an argument can be made that the maintenance of military force by the state for purposes of internal military intervention has been at least as important, perhaps more important, than for external military intervention. If so, it is a key to the transition from a culture of war to a culture of peace.