War is the opposite of freedom.

In wars, the powerful want to dominate the weaker; with freedom, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” become possibilities. In war, the defeated must accommodate the victor.

Coming out of World War I and II, creating world peace was a key objective of U.S. presidents. The destruction wrought by these bloody conflicts made finding a way to reduce tensions obvious. President John F. Kennedy insisted that the world choose peace: “Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable.”

Peace requires optimism and patience.  Just because there is a risk today does not mean there will be a problem in five, ten or twenty years

I urge Freedom Democrats to support Kennedy’s policy choice; peace makes “life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women—not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”

Unhappily, in 2024, shooting battles continue in Ukraine, Palestine, Yemen, and Democratic Republic of Congo. [The fighting in the Congo ended in 2024]

World government proposals have a long history. For Woodrow Wilson it was the League of Nations. Franklin Roosevelt and JFK believed the UN might bring peace. In my opinion, the most direct way to start a world government is to turn the United Nations into the preeminent power on the planet, capable of stopping nations and terrorists from starting shooting wars.

Disputes should be settled by lawyers not armies; each side should present its complaints to world government officials who fulfill a judicial function. Far better that Russia could take its objections in 2014 about the replacement of the pro-Russian government in Kyiv to an international commission rather than Western nations deluding themselves into believing that Moscow would peaceably allow pro-NATO and European Union armed forces to take control of Ukraine.

The high hopes that the UN would peacefully settle international disputes under the leadership of the United States have nearly vanished, but in the months after the defeat of the Axis, world leaders had this ideal on their agenda.

The atom bomb and transcontinental airplanes demolished U.S. security after World War II. It was a new world; the Atlantic and Pacific oceans no longer protected the 48 states. Military spending ate into the federal budget. As President Eisenhower turned over his office to John F. Kennedy, the General warned that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence.”  It created a new political force “the military-industrial complex.” This could upset the “balance” between domestic and military spending.  Eisenhower feared that the most powerful nation in the world would face “a recurring temptation” to seek a “miraculous solution to all our current difficulties:” War!

Twenty-two months later President Kennedy confronted this danger when the Soviet Union put missiles in Cuba. The United States was minutes away from a Soviet attack. After hair raising debate among U.S. leaders, President Kennedy rejected the use of atomic weapons and negotiated a settlement. The United States would declare victory; the Soviets pulled back.  In return, but quietly, the U.S. removed missiles from Turkey that left Moscow vulnerable to a surprise attack. The principle of no first use of atomic weapons became the rule in U.S. policy.

Months later, on June 10,1963, Kennedy called for “genuine peace.” His vision, like Eisenhower’s, targeted excessive expenditures on the military. Kennedy stated, “Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles—which can only destroy and never create—is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.”

In my opinion, a more efficient way to avoid the expense of atomic weapons and to stop armed combat is to turn the UN into a World Government compelling combatants to negotiate.

Kennedy’s vision never became policy. It was a different era. Sadly, in the last two years one of Kennedy’s proud boasts about Russian and U.S. relations became obsolete: “Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other.” The proxy war with Russia in Ukraine would be hard to justify if Kennedy’s worldview dominated.

Kennedy fully understood that peace represented a giant step forward. “Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed–that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade—therefore, they can be solved by man.”

Let us read Kennedy’s idea in detail.

“Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace—based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions—on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace—no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process—a way of solving problems.

“With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor—it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.”

Turning the UN into a world government makes the United States, Russia, China, India etc. subordinate to the rule of international law. It is a historic change, but the Constitution made the 13 states into one nation, the Civil War made the states subordinate to Washington, and the reward for making the UN a world government is winning a place in history. The leaders of this movement will become the great women and men of this century. It’s a cause worth fighting for, and the outbreaks of war across the globe demand that we start sooner rather than later.