Why Is There Peace In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four?

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In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell famously wrote that war was peace. The internal security of Oceania was able to be sustained only through consistent conflict. It appears that the United States has taken this message to heart after World War II through the expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex. During the second half of the 20th century, America was fully devoted to the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The opening of the 21st century has seen the rise of perpetual conflict with the amorphous Radical Islam. The United States, it seems, requires an enemy to function as a coherent state and maintain economic spending. This view then leads to the questions of whether a government is needed to have peace. Since the government appears to be in a state of continual conflict, would the world order be better without such intervention? Can peace be reached through …show more content…
This remote period of prehistory must, therefore, be subject to certain assumptions. Hobbes assumed that the natural order was one of complete conflict and that men collectivized, formed government, and began to order themselves into society. The closest approximation to a pre-governmental society would be that which is called, in modern terms, a failed state. A failed state is “characterized by a breakdown of political, civil, and economic structures” where commercial activity “is often diminished to subsistence level” (Helman 68).
One of the most glaring examples of a failed state in modern history is that of Iraq following the 2003 American invasion. The confusion unleashed in the outcome of the offensive was certainly one of “continuall feare and danger of violent death.” The government installed by the United States had little authority beyond the capital of Baghdad, and “large parts of the country are governed with little reference to the central government” (Helman
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