Will War Someday be Wholly Obsolete?

The discussion of Security Communities, and the various theories on what countries or qualities of certain countries create such communities, made me wonder if the international trend is a growing number of states which will not go to war with each other. Will processes like democratization, globalization, and proliferation of non-conventional weapons and information technology continue to progress to the point where no two nations have any incentive to go to war with each other?

The debate seems to have begun with the relative peace between great powers since World War II. In his debate with John Mearsheimer over the issue, Michael Mandelbaum offered a few reasons that great powers now consider war with each other unthinkable. Nuclear weapons, economic ties, and advanced technology for conventional weaponry have made war more costly, and the lack of global power struggle lessen its potential benefits. International norms of democracy and a general consensus that wars must be waged for a just reason, make waging war an out of fashion trend in international politics.

Two processes, democratization and globalization of economic ties, seem to be progressing steadily. While it may be argued that democratization may have not only slowed down, but reversed in recent decades, there is no apparant blowback in the growth of economic ties. These two processes are noted as the basis for security communities like the EU, the Transatlantic alliance, and ASEAN. Therefore, if they continue to progress, these trends will intertwine each state into a global security community.

Two things seem able to shatter this fragile balance; ideology and struggles over natural resource issues. The potential global hotspots today are ideological conflicts waiting to erupt. India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, the Koreas, Israel and just about every one of its neighbors etc. Each is willing to initiate a war which could potentially escalate to include major allied powers because of ideolgical inclinations and their massive domestic political support.

Ideology can eventually fade, however, as generations pass. Competition over natural resources like oil, water, metals, and land, will not. As time passes, resources can only become more scarce. Economic relationships won't matter if the resources that fuel such trade aren't availiable. International norms, practices, and appreciation for democracies will assuredly fall by the wayside to physical needs for food, water, and material wealth. The recipe for persistent stability, therefore, mandates not only the normalization of relations and ties between countries, but addressing their natural needs as population grows.