The Possibilities of War Prevention in the Post-Cold War Era: Myth and Reality

Abstract

It is the expectation of people and scholars alike that the end of the Cold war would usher in peace in the international system. However, the reverse has been the case, for instead of conflict attenuating in the globe, conflicts is said to have reached an alarming proportion which must be nipped. There has been thesis and antithesis on the possibilities of war prevention in post-Cold war world. The post-Cold war era and moments of disquietism is a creation of the satisfied powers. This is evidenced in the accusation and counter-accusation of the various schools of thoughts on failures of peaceful international relations. The US liberal imperialist project in the world has snowballed into more global conflicts by destroying the peace that it seeks to establish, especially in a bid to install democracy and other liberal principles, which has been harsh and hostile to the receiver nations. The realist theory which emphasizes on power politics provided the theoretical basis for this paper. The paper used qualitative data from secondary sources to argue that previous studies dwelt on things that are pertaining to war prevention in the globe but yet war kept increasing. The paper revealed that; the post-Cold war tension according to this paper is a creation of the major industrialized powers as evidenced in the not too stringent modalities on arms deals. For it took these military powers less than a year of the post-Cold war world to change their policy on arms transfer to other countries by reviewing it down ward of less than a year for approval. When it comes to legitimate purchase and demands by countries, the US begins to dilly dally and would prefer dealing with third parties. The paper concludes that for international peace to be realistic there must be attitudinal change among the major powers, if not, peace would remain elusive. The paper recommends inter alia that the great powers should be transparent on issue concerning international peace and war prevention rather than playing politics with them.