Armed conflicts and wars as traditional threats
In the history of human society, armed conflicts and wars represent
a very significant and frequently utilised method of solving disputes
between and within countries. War generally involves the use of what
is essentially extreme armed force to solve existing disputes in
combination with control over a territory or a struggle for political
authority, which causes an exceptionally large number of human victims
and great material damage. We cannot deny the fact that the great
majority of states arose through violent paths, and that until 1919
wars of aggression were one of a number of fully normal and legally
sanctioned methods of solving disputes at the international level. The
League of Nations then proclaimed aggression an international crime,
although war as a means of ensuring security was not completely
forbidden. The League's member states were obliged to make use of
other means of peacefully resolving disputes before they could
initiate a war. The founding Charter of the United Nations prohibits
not only wars of aggression, but also any threat or use of force
against the territorial inviolability and political sovereignty of any
country. The first goal of the UN is to prevent and avert threats to
peace, as well as to suppress aggressive acts or other violations of
the peace (Article 1 of the UN founding Charter). Such a centrality to
preventing the occurrence and escalation of armed conflicts in a
modern system of collective security therefore shows the significance
of the military threat to security in human history.
However, the phenomenon of military threats to national and
international security has not disappeared with the prohibition of
wars of aggression. Many wars of aggression have been started on the
pretext that they were defensive wars. On the other hand, there have
arisen many more internal military conflicts that are difficult for
the international community to regulate. Today, intervention by
forcible means continues to have its origin in the choices of
political leaders and the population, and this happens when these
persons believe that force will attain their goals or that the use of
force is necessary for their survival (see statistics on armed conflicts around the
world). In each case it is the most destructive form of
annihilation of all the gains of human civilisation and a threat to
human lives.
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