Unfortunately, most people in militarily powerful nations still believe that their own well-being depends to some extent on their nation's military strength. In writing this book I came to realize that groups, like individuals, experience tension between the desire to cooperate with others and the fear of destruction by others. To some people, political holism is the appropriate ethical response to globalization, because of its commitment to democratic governance in which minority interests are respected. Political holists do not regard cultural homogenization as desirable, recognizing that in any system diversity is natural and beneficial to the whole. What matters to political holists is that all parts of the whole remain healthy.
Social injustice stimulates the desire for weapons and provides motivation for war. . . .
While making groups threatened by irreversible change belligerent, globalization may ultimately be a force for peace among nations. Global trade connects the largest economies of the world to the smallest, establishing interdependencies that may render international warfare self-defeating. Because, in the holistic model, a system does not function well if all its constituents are not healthy, leaders of the wealthy and powerful nations may come to recognize the advantages of strengthening the nations that are now poor and powerless. Eventually, the present dominance order may give way to a new global organization of cultures and nations governed by international law in which the voices of all are heard. The injustices and outbreaks of war occurring during the transition to a global community ruled by law should not be mistaken for effects of international law itself.