Speech on "peace and friendship can avoid the third world war"
Answers
Answer:
Since the ‘war to end all wars’ − as H G Wells so wrongly predicted a century ago − the world has seen the ‘peace to end all peace’ lead to the horrors of the second world war, proxy wars through the Cold War and, today, violent conflicts that increasingly affect civilians disproportionately and cross the red lines laid by the laws of armed conflict. The machinery of war and the available firepower has increased dramatically. The risks of a third world war are enormous. If we add in all the means and methods of warfare − conventional, nuclear, cyber, drones, and so on − we have the military potential to destroy ourselves entirely.
Violence is raging in the Middle East, Europe and Russia are poised on the edge of conflict over Ukraine, the United States is once more engaged in military action in Iraq and, as NATO pulls out, Afghanistan is vulnerable. Other flashpoints over disputed islands in the South China Sea, tensions on the Korean peninsula and over Kashmir are just some of the easily identified points of escalation.
In the past 100 years, we have, however, learned a great deal about how to prevent conflict. After the Second World War, we established the United Nations with the primary purpose of saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war. The European Union grew over decades from a trade treaty to an organization that won the Nobel Peace Prize for its part in transforming Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace. NATO has had its part to play in shoring up the transatlantic alliance that bonded many European countries in a common cause. Today war between Germany and France is almost impossible to imagine.