Hate kills. It is a mental illness. It also sparks civil wars and all wars.

Is war in human nature?  NO. Monkeys will always fight.  Only mentally ill humans mass murder.

Health before peace:   Health is the only bridge to world peace.  And war is not in our nature.  It starts in our minds as a mental construct.  And without mental health there can be no health or peace. 

Through evolution humans were hardwired for aggression, fear, and rivalry but also cooperation.  So our fear of losing resources or status can spark conflict. 

Our tribal instinct is to bond with “us” and distrust “them.”  This difference is our mind’s perception.  Not a biological genetic difference. 

It’s like a family quarrel inside one household. Arguments break out over food, space, or revenge for past slights. These fights can be brutal, but they remain small and usually end with exhaustion or reconciliation under the same roof.

National conflicts are different. Think of nations like massive apartment towers, filled with families who will never meet but believe they share the same “home.” Leaders can rally millions using symbols, flags, or ideologies and direct their anger against another tower across town.  In the real world this means ethnic, religious, or national divisions. Suddenly it isn’t a fight over dinner — it’s an organized assault with bulldozers, bombs, and soldiers capable of toppling whole neighborhoods

This is the danger of our global nation-state system lacking a police force or justice system.  Ordinary disputes transform - or cascade into catastrophic wars of belief or ideology.   Tribal quarrels risk lives. Modern wars risk humanity itself.

Across tribes, kingdoms, and nations, wars usually emerge from six similar root causes:

1.      Resources and survival – competition over land, water, food, or wealth often limited, unevenly distributed, and tied to survival and flourishing both between and within nations fueling resentment and violence.

2.      Security and fear – striking first to prevent being attacked (the “security dilemma”).

3.     Power and ambition – leaders or groups seeking domination, prestige, or expansion.

4.     Identity and belief – wars over religion, ethnicity, ideology, or national pride.

5.     Revenge and memory – cycles of retaliation for past harm or humiliation.

6.     Manipulation – rulers or elites using war to distract, consolidate power, or unify people against an external “enemy.”

Tribes fight over immediate survival needs (grazing land, hunting territory, water, revenge for killings). Nations are more likely to fight over abstract mental concepts (national borders, religion, ideology, prestige, global influence, access to trade routes).

Tribes are kin-based, face-to-face communities with decisions being personal, and conflict is often raiding or feuding. Rarely genocidal.  

Nations are large impersonal states with decisions made by political or religious leaders on behalf of millions, often involving organized armies and logistics.

Leaders sometimes pursue expansion, domination, or legacy, even against the interests of their people.  And when nations seek security, one country’s defense buildup can look like aggression to others. This is the “freedom-security dilemma” because they believe they are independent, and insist on remaining that way...regardless of their interdependence.

 

Identity and belief systems like religion, ideology, and/or nationalism can be deeply held identities that sometimes clash in ways where compromise cannot resolve the conflict.  Add history and memory of past wrongs (colonialism, genocide, occupation) and the revenge cycle is very hard to stop.

Any cyclical fighting requires the persistent expenditure of wealth, resources, lives, and environmental havoc.  

Within our existing anarchy of the United Nations international legal system any nation with nuclear weapons can dominate a conflicts with virtual immunity as long as it benefits them.   Treaties, the UN, and international law depend on nations choosing to comply.

While tribes fight to live; nations fight to prove or preserve what they believe. And now that is with weapon systems that can destroy civilization as we know it. It is past time for humankind to recognize the freedom, security, prosperity and health we lose because of our mental illness believing we must compete on this gifted planet with unpredicted financial wealth and technological capacity to life sustainably with nature’s systems that can keep all life thriving.  

 Truth decay is now humankind’s greatest killer and threat, second on only to pathogens (natures, human engineered, or AI controlled or accidental release.   Thus our polarization tribalism is a function of our mental beliefs...not our DNA.   

Those who want peace need to grasp the fundamental threats we face and put health as humankinds’ highest priority.  Health of our immune systems and nature by putting mental health first.

Our minds are where human failing begins and persists.  Pride, greed, fear, hatred, revenge — these are constants of human behavior mostly driven by mental constructs not our DNA.  And a healthy mind can control them all.

Even if we improve environmental systems, it only takes a few bad mental decisions to shatter peace and the sustainability of civilization as we know it.  Uniting in invest in mental Health first...and peace will follow.

In short: Peace requires everyone to cooperate, but war needs only a few to choose violence. That asymmetry makes global peace virtually impossible to sustain forever without a transformation of our thinking.  From reactionary to the deeper systemic thinking most of us are capable of. .

There is reason for hope!   But not with optimism or pessimism.  Both too often lead to inaction.  Finding the right actions and doing these no matter how you think or believe it will turn out diminishes our chance to give our children and grandchildren a life better than they will get going down this same optimism or pessimism of achieving Peace.  Regardless of negative or depressing conditions around us – use them for motivation.  We must lean and act toward a framework, a holistic and comprehensive health path - to sustainable peace, maximizing freedom, security, and prosperity for all.  

Reserve our mental differences and divisions for sports and art. Not our primate inheritance.

Why Prioritizing Global Health Leads to the Greatest Peace and maximum freedom and security.

1.     Health integrates every level of life

o    Mind, body, spirit: A healthy mind resists fear, hatred, and manipulation; a healthy body reduces desperation and despair; a healthy spirit cultivates empathy.

o    Family and community: When people are cared for, they’re less likely to radicalize or turn to violence.

o    Environment and economics: clean air, safe food, jobs, and fair wages remove the survival pressures that breed conflict.

o    Government and culture: Societies that invest in health build trust, which reduces division and unrest.

2.     Health is universal

o    Every person needs water, food, shelter, medical care, belonging, and a greater purpose than self-centeredness.

o    Unlike ideology or wealth, health can’t be hoarded — if your neighbor is sick, your health is at risk too.

o    This universality builds a natural bridge of empathy and shared interest across borders if one understands our irreversible global interdependence.

3.      Health reframes security: Traditional security is about armies and weapons.  True security is about resilient minds, bodies, and societies.  A virus, famine, or poisoned environment kills far more than bombs — so preventing them is the real “defense policy.”

 4.      The evolution of weaponry demands unity:  From knives to nuclear bombs to AI drones, each leap in weaponry raises the costs in blood and treater while adding to human divisions.  Surviving and thriving now depends on acting as a single human family — genetically.  Because we already are.  A global health priority recognizes this interdependence and makes war increasingly irrational.

 Why Mental Differences and Distinctions Cause War:  Labels over humanity: War happens when we divide minds into “us” and “them” — by race, religion, class, nation.  Stories of superiority or victimhood (real or imagined).  Mental narratives convince groups that domination or revenge is justified.  Unlike other primates, humans can picture threats and enemies that aren’t physically present — and then kill over them.

Manipulated by leaders using weaponized mental distinctions are simply seeking power.

When minds deny that we are interdependent they justify harming others as if it won’t harm themselves or their future kin.

 Key Distinction from “just being primates”

• Primates fight for territory, mates, food — basic survival.
• Humans fight over mental constructs: borders, flags, gods, ideologies, historical wounds.
• Our wars are not about bananas or nests; they are about meanings, symbols, and imagined futures.
• This is why the solution is not just controlling aggression but cultivating healthy minds that accepting our interdependence and need to transcend destructive distinctions.

In summary: If health becomes the highest global priority, we align survival, empathy, and interdependence into one agenda we can thrive together.  With the evolution of weapons, our choice is stark: either act as a family - or allow unhealthy minds and false distinctions to push us into self-destruction.

 

(Adopt Project 250/MoM  as a guiding principle?).

 

Health First for Global Peace Declaration: 

We are one human family, bound together by our shared genetics, our shared planet, and our shared destiny.

War is not inevitable. It is not written into our primate biology.  It is born of unhealthy minds — minds that divide “us” from “them,” that cling to illusions of superiority, and deny our interdependence.

 

The foundation of peace is health.

Health of mind, body, spirit.

Health of family, community, and culture.

Health of government, economy, and environment.

 

When health is secure, peace is possible. When health is neglected, fear and violence follow.

 

In an age of weapons powerful enough to end humanity, survival requires that we act as the family we already are. The defense of nations must be redefined as the protection of life, well-being, and the systems that sustain personal, family, community, national and global prosperity.

 

Our choice is to prioritize health everywhere and reject our current path toward more destruction.

 

 

Use this opinion piece (~ 800 words) in your blog or newspaper.

 

Why Health, Not War, Is the Path to Peace

 

Wars have been with humanity for as long as our memory stretches. Every history book tells us conflict is inevitable, a grim part of our nature.  Nation’s cling to Peace through strength while peace movements lead disarmament protests.  We are primates, hard wired for aggression, and doomed to repeat the same bloody cycle without prioritizing our capacity to corporate and coordinate health for all.

 

The deeper truth is that we don’t wage modern wars over bananas or tribal differences. We fight, kill, and die over ideas. Over labels. Over invisible borders on a map, over gods and flags, over what one group thinks another group represents.  The real cause of war is not our biology. It is our minds.

 

Human beings are the only species that mass murder over mental distinctions.  Over stories we tell about or who belongs and who does not.  Or who is superior and who is inferior, who is chosen and who is expendable.  Wars are fueled not by our genes but by some of our flawed mental beliefs. 

 

And here lies a crucial opportunity. If unhealthy minds create war, then healthy minds can build peace.

 

Health is our foundation:  But when we think of “health,” we picture doctors, hospitals, or exercise. But health is much bigger. It is the wholeness of life itself. It is the well-being of mind, body, and spirit. It is the health of families and communities. It is the safety of our food, air, and water. It is healthy governments that protect rather than exploit.  Cultures that connect rather than divide.  Economies that sustain rather than destroy.

 

Health is the common denominator of peace.  A hungry child cannot learn. A traumatized parent cannot forgive. A polluted river can poison a whole community. A neglected mind can grow bitter, radicalized, and violent. Neglect health, and conflict grows in the cracks. Prioritize health, and the soil for peace becomes fertile.

 

Interdependence is not a choice:  Every epidemic, every environmental disaster, every financial collapse reminds us of the same lesson: we are interdependent. Your health is tied to mine. The air you breathe, the water you drink, the stability of your community — all ripple outward into my life, and vice versa.

 

Yet war thrives on denying this truth. It says: “We can harm them without being harmed.” But this is a lie in today’s world.  Covid showed how quickly a virus crosses borders. A war in one corner of the globe sends refugees and food shortages to another. With nuclear weapons, cyberattacks, and artificial intelligence, the damage of conflict is no longer local. It is planetary.

 

If we want security, it cannot be the old idea of “national defense.” True security is universal health — resilient bodies, resilient minds, resilient societies.

 

The cost of unhealthy minds:  Think of the arguments that start wars. They are always built on destructive mental distinctions. One group claims to be racially or religiously superior. Another insists its historical wounds justify new violence. Leaders exploit fear, spread lies, and convince followers that neighbors are enemies.  No military power can fix his mental illness.  Bombs cannot cure paranoia. Drones cannot prevent hatred. Only a healthy mind — one that accepts our interdependence and sees others as kin — can break the cycle.

 

A new defense policy: Health first:   Imagine if just one tenth of the money spent on weapons were invested in global health instead.

• Clean water systems instead of bombs.
• Vaccines instead of bullets.
• Schools that teach resilience and empathy instead of armies that teach how to kill.

 

This shift would not only save lives directly but also remove some of the root causes of war — desperation, fear, division, and despair.  History shows that when communities are fed, educated, and cared for, they do not start wars. When families are secure, they do not send their children to die on battlefields. When minds are healthy, they do not believe the lies of tyrants. 

The human family choice:  Genetically, we already are one family. Science tells us that the differences between races and nations are tiny compared to what we share. But our survival depends on whether we believe this.  And then act like a family.

The evolution of weapons makes this decision urgent. A handful of leaders, with the press of a button, could now wipe out billions. Humanity can no longer afford the luxury of reactionary Pleistocene minds dividing us into tribes.  The choice is stark. Either we prioritize health — in body, mind, spirit, community, and planet — or we continue stumbling toward self-destruction.

The path forward:   This is not an abstract dream. Nations already cooperate to eradicate diseases. Communities already rally when disasters strike. Families already cross boundaries of race and religion in daily lives.  We have the blueprint. What’s missing is the political will to make health the top priority — not as charity, but as survival.  Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is the presence of health.

And until we recognize this, wars will keep happening. But once we do, once we act like the family we are, peace becomes not only possible but inevitable.