Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum.

Jesus was crucified and spawned one of the most vile institutions in human history.

Gandhi thought Britain should surrender to the Nazis.

Very naive blokes indeed.

There are still those that believe they're fulfilling some patriotic duty, but that only feeds back into my original statement. The "bad apples" only serve to highlight part of the problem. Culling and replanting the "orchard" is a magnitude of order more difficult.

It would have to be global otherwise someone realizes "hey I'm the only one with an army" and marches it into whatever they claim as theirs.

Ahhh, that sounds nice to hear, if only it was that easy.

There was a conscientious objector from WW2 that became a medic and eventually won the medal of honour.

Soldiers need medics and no one can say they are cowards or anything negative.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacksaw_Ridge

Honestly not sure how easy it is to actually stay out of the military when there’s compelled service in any country.

Don't know about other countries, but in Apartheid-South Africa it was a very difficult thing if you were male, white and not rich. When I was a kid in small-town South Africa there was a conscientious objector living on our street. He was disabled - they had beaten him to such an extent that he was brain-damaged.

For the rich it was pretty easy - just ask Elon.

The fact that the west was, and still is, the most prolific war mongerers of the post-Enlightenment era blows your hypothesis out of the water as soon as it tries to float.

How about we talk about the last 30 years then. What wars have europeans participated recently? Yugoslav wars? Afghanistan? Iraq?

Yugoslav wars were about ethnic cleansing between different ethnic groups who wanted to go their own ways. Afghanistan was because of 9/11, the taliban refusing to offer Bin Laden and the american thirst for revenge. Iraq was extremely controversial in Europe, pretty much every state opposed it, even if some european governments supported it, the majority of their people opposed it(huge protests).

Even the US, the imperium, which is usually doing imperial things, havent been doing much imperialism recently, after Afghanistan. And because of Afghanistan and Iraq, meaningless and immoral wars for most people, the US has trouble recruiting military personnel nowadays. Thats how democracies work, eventually the truth rises to the top.

The Ukraine war is one of the most clear cut wars since the Iraq invasion. And the West has the opportunity to be on the right side for once. Let me remind you that historically neutral countries like Sweden, joined NATO and countries like Germany are quickly re-arming for the first time in almost 100 years.

Because till recently, Europe was "let's all hold hands together", living in their own dream bubble about how war is not only bad but also insane. Putin reminded them that "sanity" is not a requirement for governance.

If the West is so war mongering, why did the West not spend more on military in the last 20 years? Why did the West wait till the Ukraine invasion to start pumping untoled trillions into the military industrial complex?

The only event with bigger impact on military spending was the collapse of USSR. For decades, Europe(and even the US) was taking advantage of the peace dividend. That doesnt sound too war mongery to me. And suddently, with just 1 Ukraine invasion, the West doubled and trippled its military budget.

So is the West war mongering or is Russia that caused an insane re-armament because of the Ukraine invasion?

And in before "nato expansion", blah blah. Sovereign countries have the right to join any alliance they want. Nato didnt invade those countries and force them to join, those countries literally "blackmailed" to join. Poland threatened to get nukes if they werent allowed into NATO.

If Mexico joins an alliance with China, would you approve an invasion of Mexico by the US? I wouldnt.