People assume that alternatives to wars do not exist or have already been tried. Both assumptions are wrong.

War is economically costly, and spending on war is going up.

A surprising range of alternatives exist, but no government body is in charge of implementing them.

Popular depictions systematically misrepresent war, contributing to misunderstandings about alternatives.

Chances are you’re not a bloodthirsty maniac. Most people aren’t. Research suggests that even torturers and mass murderers don’t usually do what they do just for the fun of it. Instead, overwhelmingly, people who cause tremendous harm to others tell themselves stories that rationalize and justify their actions. One powerful story that helps us support killing other people is that “there is no alternative” (made famous with the acronym TINA).

One study asked a group of participants if they supported a war.

A second group was asked the same question, but was also told there were no good alternatives.

A third group was asked the question of whether or not they supported the war, and was told that all alternatives had not yet been exhausted.

Unsurprisingly, this third group was far less likely to support the war. What may surprise you is that the responses of the first two groups were the same—they both supported the war about equally.

Think about that for a moment. The finding suggests that unless people are told explicitly that alternatives to war exist, they simply assume that such alternatives do not exist, or that they’ve already been tried and failed.

Both of these assumptions are false.

There are always alternatives (many in fact)

In researching my........

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