Concerning shotguns, we can deal with them in two ways. We can take all the shotguns away from everybody. The only ones who have them are the ones who took them away. The question then becomes: Can we trust the ones who took them away? Or, we can teach everyone what a shotgun is, how, and in what circumstances to use it. The question then becomes one of personal virtue and care about accidents. We have noticed recently, in the case of Muslim attacks, that guns or bombs are really not necessary. Trucks, knives, and airplanes will do, as might poisoning the water supply. The question then is asked: Do weapons have that much to do with war?

War issues of various sorts currently occur in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, the Ukraine, and Iran. A dangerous spat flares between Turks and Kurds. Something is always amiss in South Sudan, Nigeria, Egypt, and Somalia. I talked to a Stanford student who was in Rwanda. Memories of that country’s agonies cannot be avoided. Likewise, I read of the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947, that resulted in one of the greatest slaughters of modern times. Meanwhile, ISIS plans for world-wide jihad, while the Chinese navy seeks to control strategic sea routes. And not all is quiet on the western front. Nations there seek to protect their own identity.

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Wars are not caused by weapons. Wars may be delayed or even deterred by weapons. The occasions that begin wars, as Aristotle said, are often trivial. The causes of wars are not trivial. A major cause of war is the utopian notion that we can rid ourselves of them without creating something worse. Pacifism does not prevent wars. It more often causes them by projecting weakness.

The North Korean government affirmed that, if nuclear war breaks out, the U.S. military, South Korea, and “surrounding areas” will be reduced “to ashes.” We presume Kim Jong Un, the country's leader, included North Korea in this calculation. He shrewdly understands that, if he gives up his nuclear weapons, he jeopardizes his whole regime. Nuclear weaponry is the one thing he has that makes him significant. Everyone knows that he can demolish the near-by capital of South Korea in a matter of minutes. He also knows that, should he do so, he would also get rid of the capital of North Korea in about the same amount of time. In the event, we would end up with a world without Koreans.

Von Clausewitz said that war is politics using other means. Matthew 24 reads: there will always be wars and rumors of war. That observation seems empirically true, at least on a global scale over time. Aristotle also said that the end of war was peace, something political. The end of war is politics — how we choose to live.

Can wars be prevented? Hobbes thought perhaps so if we concentrate all power in the hands of a single ruler. Our mutual fear of death would result in no wars. The only trouble with this thesis is that we end up completely subject to an arbitrary state power. But if nothing is worth standing for, why bother? Heroism in battle always meant that some things are worth dying for. War attested to transcendence.

Most people will grant that some wars, however bloody, were worth fighting. Others will argue that, by opting not to enter a war, things got worse for everyone. Most national boundaries have something to do with a war. Again, war is not the real problem. Wars are the result of ideas. Ideas are spiritual, therefore not nothings. Does this position mean that what is most “spiritual” is most warlike? In a sense, yes. Socrates told us that it is better to suffer evil than to cause it.

Does it follow then that if we rid ourselves of our ideas, we will abolish war? We watch the animal channel. The lions are always eating the zebras, never vice versa. And Scripture relates that the relation between Lucifer and Michael is a war. The weapons concern truth, something of the spirit.

Many colleges have courses called “peace studies”. The colleges most devoted to peace are those in West Point and Annapolis.

On April 10, 1778, Boswell and Johnson spoke of war. Johnson said: “Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.” Boswell demurred. Johnson replied: “No, Sir; were Socrates and Charles the Twelfth of Sweden both present in any company, and Socrates to say, ‘Follow me, and hear a lecture on philosophy;’ and Charles, laying his hand on his sword, to say, ‘Follow me, and dethrone the Czar;’ a man would be ashamed to follow Socrates.”

Yet, if we wanted to know whether the war was just or not, we best follow Socrates, himself once a soldier. Once that issue is decided, following Charles the Twelfth of Sweden makes perfect sense.

The Rev. James Schall, S.J., author of “Catholicism and Intelligence,” is professor emeritus at Georgetown University.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.