What could replace War?

[Eliam_Dar]

a drinking contest?

 

[Datalord]

Ok, so all we need is a star trek holodeck or some giant arena of death, all the nuclear powers send one soldier to the arena with any weapons they want, and the last one standing wins the UN presidency for their country.

Or, they start with nothing and have to build weapons with the stuff they find, McGuyver style

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

A good game of Chess. The leaders of each respective country play Chess, and whoever wins gets whatever they all want.

 

[Datalord]

Actually there is a Star trek TNG episode about two planets that have had war going for 500 years without using actual weapons, the bombs are computer based and when a target is designated as "bombed" everyone in the area has to report to a suicide chamber in the next 24 hours

 

[Datalord]

A good game of Chess. The leaders of each respective country play Chess, and whoever wins gets whatever they all want.

Better ye, blitzkreig

 

[War Penguin]

Gambling. I have no clue why I think this but it seems the most realistic replacement to me.

 

[historybuff]

Break-dancing competitions. That would be awesome.

 

[TheEndlessGrey]

OP: You've just described the entire concept of the Olympics.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

A good game of Chess. The leaders of each respective country play Chess, and whoever wins gets whatever they all want.

Better ye, blitzkreig

OR
Risk

 

[Lord_Panzer]

Nothing.

Can you think of one thing the human race is better at than kicking the shit out of each other?

 

[Skeleon]

Well, as a big fan of Lem's "Peace on Earth", I'd say let's do that.
I mean, it didn't turn out that great but whatever!

 

[Deathkingo]

Plastic figures, and dice rolls. Defender wins ties, but attacker gets up to 3 dice, as long as he can move more than 3 armies into the other country off the battlefield.

 

[llew]

Technically, the Nuclear Bomb ended war. with it's creation and first time use, people were scared shitless. Sure, we've had conflicts in the past (Vietnam, Korea) but nothing that would classify as a full-scale war. So now instead of fighting, we created the UN to talk things out.

so iraq, iran and afghanistan dont class as a war? so guns shooting and killing people in one country with 2 or more armies fighting each other every day doesnt class as war?

 

[anthony87]

This thread is useless.......

War......

War never changes.

(I don't actually think this thread is useless, I just wanted to use the "war never changes" line).

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

I searched expecting to find something like this but actually couldn't.

As I read "The Men Who Stare at Goats" and rested after my 600m race (close 3rd place, second beat me by .2 of a second) I looked up from my reading about revolutionizing warfare and though "This could replace war, country with the fastest runner wins whatever debate the war is over." Then I went on to think that all the war fought over territory wouldn't work, and in the case of revolution the country could simply ignore the revolutionaries challenge. So my wonderful thinkers of the Escapist what do you think could replace war?

The problem is that you could 'officially' replace war with some kind of game of sport or good old debate, there would be no way to enforce it. It'd only last as long as noone really wants a war, because the moment someone wants to use force to get their way they will do so anyway, and you'd have no choice but to defend yourself and thus fight a war.

Say you replace war with go-kart racing. One country gets into some kind of disagreement with another and loses the ensuing race fair and square. Since they conflict was apparently serious enough to go to war over in the first place (after all, the go-kart race was nothing but a replacement for actual war), there would be nothing stopping them from going to war for real this time to get their way despite having lost.

That's kind of the problem with war. Even if you're the most peace-loving nation ever who wants to end all wars and never start one of their own, as soon as another no-so-peaceful nation decides to go to war you've got no choice but to defend yourself. It gets even more complicated when you factor in stuff like alliances that can drag other nations into the fight as well. A plan like this would only work if everyone involved agrees never to go to war and actually keeps their word, which simply won't happen even if there was an alternative everyone could agree on.

 

[lvl9000_woot]

Simple ...Dodgeball.For extra fun ..Played in total darkness and replace balls with hedgehogs

Add some spiked walls and trap doors and you got yourself a game!

 

[AkJay]

Technically, the Nuclear Bomb ended war. with it's creation and first time use, people were scared shitless. Sure, we've had conflicts in the past (Vietnam, Korea) but nothing that would classify as a full-scale war. So now instead of fighting, we created the UN to talk things out.

so iraq, iran and afghanistan dont class as a war? so guns shooting and killing people in one country with 2 or more armies fighting each other every day doesnt class as war?

Nope. It's a conflict, as I've stated earlier. If you care to read what I said past the first sentence you might have known that.

 

[guyroxorz]

We should replace war with diving competitions. Or Call of Duty tournaments.

haha my thoughts exactly, massive gaming tournaments to solve war, though i hate to think that might actually make japan/china/korea and maybe america total overlords, actually thinking about it if it was CSS then germany would take it hands down, they can't gett enough of that chocolaty counter strike goodness!