>We strive for peace today with conviction and intensity, for great wars must cease if we are to pursue further the path of progress.
As soon as you stop striving with all your might, you could be screwed.
There's still too many people who are greedy, hateful, and power-seeking. That kind cannot be allowed to gain power and run amok, that's what war is.
Every decade, as more of those who were alive then have passed, the less force remains of the kind that's needed to prevent running amok at large scale.
The standard today for world leaders now, as we have seen, is much lower than needed. The whole of society has declined in lockstep so it can't be perceived as an outlier. There are now such defective chains of command all over the place where those with false leadership ability are most likely to rise through the ranks. And these are ones who would have never been worthy of consideration after World War II, whether it was the winning or losing side rebuilding afterward. Everybody wanted real prosperity, not that fake leadership thing any more. Now too many people can't tell the difference again.
Everyone who went through World War II knew instinctively they had to keep up even more challenging work (non-military instead) under peacetime every year for the rest of their lives, just to avoid another war. Even though "total world peace" had not 100% been achieved, the effort must strongly be concentrated on avoiding another world-destroying war first and foremost while some of the same efforts will help to top off peace on their own.
>And our striving is by no means hopeless.
Speak for your own generation kind sir, I remember what you're talking about, it's difficult to be so sure any more :(