I do not agree with the argument that by looking at history, that one can conclude that humans are somehow destined to barbarism or war. Many profound philosophers have held such a view but I believe that that view is wrong.
The most basic disposition of life is 'lack of reason'. The origin of that 'issue' lays in the fundamental nature of the origin of life. By logic, life cannot find its origin on the level of an individual which means that it derives its 'actuality' (i.e. the root of conscious experience) from an external factor that is independent of empirical reality, which implies a disposition of 'lack of reason' (to be).
Reason enables to overcome that disposition, and thus for example to overcome a choice for war or barbarism.
Reason enables humans to live in the wild with Grizzly bears (
Living with wild Grizzlies). The bears surly see humans as food but a friendship with the wild animal is evidently also possible.
Basic reasoning would enable to demand humans to 'choose' wisely and so to prevent war, rendering the argument by philosophers such as
William James (founder of pacifism), that humans are naturally inclined to war, invalid, because of his attempt to prevent war with 'reason', of which it can be said that it ought to be the natural choice in the face of what reason, and its correlated 'human dignity' or its simple interest for long term prosperity, demands.
In short: in my opinion war is for 'dumb' people with no purpose in life. Ego and emotions appear to serve as a catalyst for progress and while it may be argued that 'it works', it may also be possible to argue that when that specific purpose would be taken over by reason and intelligence that it could enhance human progress to a much higher level.
Modern man may be expected to evolve beyond barbarism if it intends to secure longer term prosperity. Intelligence before practice means overcoming darkness before it was ever present, and thus, to prevent war in favor of reason.
The American philosopher
Henry David Thoreau once said the following about the enhancement of human ethical practice in general:
"
Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized."
Gradual improvement... It would be a task for philosophy to make that go a bit faster so that barbarism and war can be effectively prevented, in favor for what goods that may unlock for human progress.
Some quotes from
PhilosophyTalk.org:
"There is no greater example of mental weakness than the idea that military technology and might is the solution to war. It is this very weakness that fuels our wars. Violence begets violence and nothing more."
--
"A fully mechanized war? The prospect is certainly chilling, especially as adversaries develop the same technology. But maybe this is a reason to question the future of war rather than the current conduct of it. For reasons that have nothing to do with the technology of warfare, war is becoming obsolete. Not only are we too interdependent, but, because of communications, not war, technology we simply know each other too well. It's like the farm animal that has been given a name, you cannot then kill it for food. This is not a technological advancement, it's a human one."
--
"The strongest force is the force that walks the other Way.
To peace,"
--
Being prepared for anything is important when it concerns security as a flaw cannot be permitted. From that perspective, high priority advancement in war technologies may be important.
With modern technologies, preparedness may also be possible with scenario planning, simulation and imagination. When earth works together on the subject 'security' (earth-space security), advancement may go much faster while the weapons would not be used on people.
Project Evergreen and Long View of the U.S. Coast Guard may be an example.
Learning from the future
Humans tend to conceive of time as linear and unidirectional, as moving from past to present to future, with each time frame discrete. We remember yesterday; we experience today; we anticipate tomorrow. But the best scenario planning embraces a decidedly nonlinear conception of time. That’s what Long View and Evergreen did: They took stock of trends in the present, jumped many years into the future, described plausible worlds created by those drivers, worked backward to develop stories about how those worlds had come to pass, and then worked forward again to develop robust strategies.
https://hbr.org/2020/07/learning-from-the-future
https://www.uscg.mil/Portals/0/Strategy ... 20Book.pdf
Can you think of a new place to stage a war 
