"Right!" I said to Tony and the guide. "My point is that there is no technological solution possible for a problem that isn't a technological problem. War is never a technological problem. It is a human-relationships problem. Technology cannot help us in creating a richer world in terms of relating to one another as human beings. For as long as we address the nuclear weapons issue as a technological problem we avoid looking for the only possible solution. And that is where the danger lies."

      "Why then do we create technologies to fight wars as we have always done?" said the guide.

      "We fight wars because we haven't explored what is necessary to prevent them," I answered. "We have never even learned the simple fact that wars are fought to perpetuate empires. Starting wars is never about money primarily, nor is it about power primarily, it's usually all about protecting and maintaining empires. Empires cannot exist in a highly civilized renaissance world. Wars are fought to preempt the advance of civilization. Wars are designed to kill the very notion of a highly developed humanist renaissance. Wars are fought for no other purpose than to protect empires from the effects of the normal development of humanity."

      Our guide seemed shocked.

      Tony nodded silently, suggesting perhaps that I was right.

      "When the Valkyrie made its last flight to it final resting place in the Air Force museum where it now stands as a monument of this time," said Tony quietly later on, and apparently most reluctantly, "a new round of engineering escalation began. The new escalation began in the early spring of sixty-nine. At this point the technological challenge was to develop low-level penetration superiority. We made good progress in those days with the B-1s and the F117s. Both planes are virtually invisible to radar, but it took us fifteen years of immense efforts to get the stealth project to the point where the technology was effective."

      "And again, this effort didn't get us any closer to peace," I countered Tony. "We now have ballistic missiles that can blanket the Earth, that no one can shoot down. We can destroy all the countries in the world at once in less time than it takes to have a lunch break. Nor can we protect ourselves from being destroyed in return until the SDI system begins to work, possibly in a dozen years from now."

      "They call the SDI our Strategic Defense Initiative," said the guide in a sharp, mocking tone. "But what has it bought us? Mankind now has 65,000 nuclear bombs hanging over its head, and we are still tinkering with technological toys for gaining advantage over one-another."

      "Do you want to know how the Thirty Years War was stopped?" I said to both of them. "It was stopped with an idea, with a principle. That idea and its principle took society in the opposite direction than one we heading in now. Instead of aiming to gain advantage over the other, they said let's promote the opposite. Let's promote what is to the other's advantage. They literally tore up their war plans and said to each other, we have tried for eighty years to gain the advantage without any success. We've destroyed everything. Let's turn this thing around and start with something positive. Let's build peace by promoting what is to the advantage of the other, because that would be to our advantage as well. They realized that if they did this it would be for example to everyone's advantage to have peace. So, they made it a top priority commitment to guarantee each other that peace. On this platform they also forgave each other all war-atrocities, and war-debts, and acknowledged each other's sovereignty, small or tall, weak or mighty. They did this, because they realized that whatever was to the other's advantage was also to their own advantage. That's how they created an active peace, and with it unfolded the greatest renaissance of all times."

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Stories about War from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche