Can Humanity Create a World Without War? Biology, Evolution, and the Limits of Peace

The biological reasons behind humanity’s engagement in war mirror the complexities of our own thoughts and emotions—so closely, in fact, that separating the two becomes nearly impossible. War is not an external phenomenon imposed upon humanity; it is an expression of us. Our fears, desires, instincts, and survival mechanisms echo across history in the form of conflicts.

Yet if war is woven into our biology, is a world without war even possible?

Throughout human evolution, the imperative for war has been framed around visible forces such as geopolitics, territory, and religion. But beneath those explanations lie far deeper drivers—forces we may not fully understand, even as we enact them. We live in a butterfly-effect world, where no war truly happens overnight. Each conflict is the culmination of countless biological, psychological, and social reactions colliding over time.

To imagine a world without war, we must first understand why war has always been with us.

War as an Evolutionary Inheritance

Humanity’s capacity for conflict has existed since our genesis, but the reasons for conflict have evolved alongside us. In early human history, survival depended on defending one’s community and securing scarce resources. Predators, rival species, starvation, and the brutality of nature itself posed constant threats.

At some point in our evolutionary trajectory, tools shifted the balance. We learned to manipulate our environment. And, eventually, we learned to turn those tools on one another—a dramatic metaphor, perhaps, but not an inaccurate one.

From an evolutionary psychology perspective, aggression is often viewed as an adaptive trait. Under specific circumstances, aggression increases the likelihood of survival. Groups capable of defending themselves, deterring rivals, or asserting dominance were more likely to persist and pass on their genetic legacy.

The troubling insight is this: we have become exceptionally skilled at maintaining those “specific circumstances.” So skilled, in fact, that perpetual tension has become normalized—a way of life, even a way to raise children. Entire generations are born into conflict zones where war is not an event, but an environment. The Gaza Strip is only one visible example of this broader pattern.

We often act as though we cannot stop going to war. But a more uncomfortable question lingers beneath that belief: What if we don’t want to?

The Pleasure of Conflict

This is not an easy truth to admit, but it is a necessary one.

Conflict, in many forms, is stimulating. Dominance, competition, victory—these experiences activate reward systems in the brain. “Kicking ass and taking names,” as inelegant as the phrase may be, speaks to something deeply human. Conflict feels purposeful. It simplifies the world into winners and losers, allies and enemies, right and wrong.

This does not apply only to warfare. It applies to politics, culture, workplaces, families, and online spaces. War is simply conflict magnified, industrialized, and legitimized.

If we are serious about imagining a world without war, we must first acknowledge that many of us are emotionally, biologically, and socially invested in conflict, even when we publicly denounce it.

Hormones, Territory, and the Animal Within

Biology adds further complexity. Hormones such as testosterone have been linked to increased competitiveness, dominance-seeking behavior, and confrontational tendencies. These traits are not inherently negative—they can drive leadership, protection, and innovation—but under conditions of fear and scarcity, they can escalate into violence.

Territorial instincts, shared with countless animal species, also play a powerful role. For much of human history, defending land and resources was synonymous with survival. Whether fighting predators, rival groups, or later, other nations, territorial defense became deeply ingrained.

Over time, this instinct expanded beyond land and food to include ideology, identity, and belief systems. Wars have been fought not only over resources, but over which god is actually God, whose values are legitimate, and whose existence is a threat.

Social Creatures, Divided Minds

Humans are, undeniably, social creatures. We form groups instinctively. Psychologists describe this as in-group/out-group dynamics—a cognitive shortcut rooted in evolution. Identifying who belongs and who does not once helped early humans survive. Today, it divides nations, cultures, races, and belief systems.

Borders may be political, but the divisions they represent are psychological.

The human fear response plays a central role here. When individuals or societies perceive threats—real or imagined—the brain triggers an involuntary survival response. Fear escalates into aggression. Aggression escalates into conflict. Conflict, over time, becomes war.

After humanity conquered much of the natural world, we turned inward. We began conquering each other.

In today’s world, every individual is a perceived threat to someone else. Whether through nationality, belief, identity, or mere existence, there are people who either want you dead—or would not care if you were.

So… Is a World Without War Possible?

If war is biological, evolutionary, hormonal, social, and psychological, then the idea of a world without war may seem naive. Perhaps even impossible.

But biology is not destiny.

The same evolutionary mechanisms that enabled aggression also enabled cooperation, empathy, and complex social bonds. The same brains that fear outsiders are capable of abstract morality, long-term planning, and compassion beyond kin and tribe.

A world without war would not require us to eliminate our instincts—it would require us to outgrow the conditions that constantly activate them.

That means reducing scarcity, dismantling systems that benefit from perpetual conflict, rethinking how we raise children, and acknowledging the parts of ourselves that enjoy domination rather than pretending they do not exist.

World peace will not come from pretending humans are peaceful by nature. It can only come from understanding how deeply we are not—and choosing, consciously and collectively, to build systems that no longer depend on war to function.

The question is not whether humanity can create a world without war.

The question is whether we are willing to evolve beyond the version of ourselves that still needs it.