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Throughout history "diplomacy" has been the poor stepchild of warriors. Virtually every society and culture on earth has elevated warriors to positions of political power. Diplomats are almost universally seen somewhere around the level of the modern used car salesman. There are notable exceptions, but typically warriors who saw and mastered the art of diplomacy.
In many cultures that contain a class structure, a way to change classes is to become a warrior of some sort. Even today, in the US, we use the military as a methodology of socio-economic advancement. We recruit members of the military by offering them a chance to obtain college funding. We have military academies where citizens can get a college degree in exchange for a period of service. Attendance at these academies has become politically and economically advantageous as well.
To change this will require a very long an complex effort, almost on a cultural level. It's going to start with the institutionalization of pacifism. Right now, pacifists rise up and organize when there are threats of war. And then after the time passes, they put their signs in the recycle bin and get in their SUV's and go home from their marches and protests. Pacifists need to create areas of study, degrees in universities and colleges, and they need to create "jobs". Predominately of course they would be in the State Department. But, properly educated, degreed pacifists could also become the preferred candidate for customer service organizations, Human Resource, and to some degree jobs such as hostage negotiators for various civilian police departments.
But we need to start filling our State Department with pacifists. The number of Sec Def's that have openly complained that the biggest hawks all work over in the Department of State is long. A collegiate academy on the order of West Point that would educate people in the ways of pacifism and diplomacy is how we can get started. Those people then need to start populating the embassies and various state department offices. Ultimately, these are the people who should be considered for positions as ambassadors, not contributors to campaigns and captains of industries.
But it will go further than that. We need to start to create the concept of "defending our freedom" without a gun in your hand. This isn't just some peace corps idealism, but the very real concept that people risk their lives all over the world defending freedom from jails and confronting injustice. We have "memorials" for many wars, but where are the memorials on the national mall to the civil rights movement, or the Peace Corps, or Marshall Plan? It is going to take a major, long term, effort to change the national consciousness away from "peace through greater threats of war" to "peace through the pursuit of justice". We need to get to a point where we think in terms of "waging law enforcement" and away from "waging war".
When you plan for war, and hope for peace, you usually get war. We have to start planning for peace.
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