how did WWI & II help realizing the importance of political/peaceful negotiations?
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they were so costly and destructive that it made people realize, that on a major scale, war just wasnt worthwhile anymore. For a long time the idea of “total war” like seen in world war 2 didnt really exist, people could live through wars in the past without even realizing it because in many cases, victory could be determined by a handful of battles, as opposed to an endless, years long conflict with constant fighting. in the past feeding and paying a few thousand men for a few months could get a leader vast riches like no other way could.
Now war is way more expensive, it is cheaper and easier to use politics and influence to gain power. One such modern example is China in Africa, unlike european colonizers in the past who directly conquered africa. China has gained massive amounts of influence over many developing nations by offering huge loans to them that allows those nations to modernize, but also put that nation in debt to China, and working in a way that is meant to keep the Chinese investing in them, so they avoid making china mad. This means that china has gained a decently sized backing in those countries and in the UN as well without going to war.
This doesn’t apply to absolutely everything though, war obviously still exists, but in most cases at least one side of that conflict is people who dont have a national government or are fighting against their own, (such as the conflicts in syria and yemen), and are trying to gain one.
heres a video that explains the idea pretty well:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbuUW9i-mHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbuUW9i-mHs)
War never helped in that per se. its the perceoved pain of being on the losing end that motivated people.
However, it’s a cycle… there are generations that endured the hardships of starvation and physical violence during the wars. The memory of such hardships is a great motivator to peaceful negotiations. After that generation dies off, it’s followed by a prosperous generation that thinks war is a simple matter of having more stockpiles and a bunch of spies and stategist with megaphones.
To be fair, there are countries drawn into war as a defensive measure.
In my personnal opinion trade is what motivate people to see the important the political/peaceful negociation. Yes both WW were devastating, but human are pretty selfish. Slavery mostly became extinct because it became less economically profitable in most part of the world, and wars decreased all around the world as trade become more and more important. It’s easy to motivate people for war when there is something to gain, less so when you have more to lose. There is simply more wealth to be gained by peaceful trading than military actions. It’s weird how people suddenly become more progressive toward something AFTER it became more profitable to do so. Weird.
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