On War: What Has Humankind Learned?
Sites of on-going armed conflicts worldwide, Wikipedia
What have the people of the world learned from the recent war in Lebanon?
"If we had known that capturing the soldiers would have led to all of this, we wouldn't have done it," the leader of one side in the war said. The leader of the other side has expressed various regrets about the war, too.
It seems to me that each conflict or war has taught humanity something. Even negative experiences can have a positive result as humankind is nudged towards conclusions that no one had the courage to voice before a war. Little by little, humanity being nudged towards...what? Collective security, for one. During the time of the League of Nations, Shoghi Effendi wrote about the principle of collective security enunciated by Baha'u'llah. -gw
"This historic step, however, is but a faint glimmer in the darkness that envelops an agitated humanity. It may well prove to be no more than a mere flash, a fugitive gleam, in the midst of an ever-deepening confusion. The process of disintegration must inexorably continue, and its corrosive influence must penetrate deeper and deeper into the very core of a crumbling age. Much suffering will still be required ere the contending nations, creeds, classes and races of mankind are fused in the crucible of universal affliction, and are forged by the fires of a fierce ordeal into one organic commonwealth, one vast, unified, and harmoniously functioning system. Adversities unimaginably appalling, undreamed of crises and upheavals, war, famine, and pestilence, might well combine to engrave in the soul of an unheeding generation those truths and principles which it has disdained to recognize and follow. A paralysis more painful than any it has yet experienced must creep over and further afflict the fabric of a broken society ere it can be rebuilt and regenerated."
Shoghi Effendi, "Baha'u'llah's Principle of Collective Security," The World Order of Baha'u'llah
So, what are the many lessons the world has learned from the recent war in Lebanon? And what are the lessons to be learned from all of the other unresolved conflicts in the world?
Sites of armed conflicts worldwide
1964–present Colombian Armed Conflict (aka Colombian Civil War, Colombian Conflict)
Late 1960s–present New People's Army insurgency and Islamic Insurgency in the Philippines
1983–present Sri Lankan civil war
1984–present Kurdish Separatist Insurgency, Turkey and Kurdistan
1984–present Free Papua Movement, Western New Guinea, Indonesia
1988–present Casamance Conflict in Senegal
1988–present Somali Civil War 
1989-present Kashmir conflict
1993–present Ethnic conflict in Nagaland, India
1996–present Nepal Civil War
1999–present Ituri Conflict (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
1999–present Second Chechen War (Russia)
2000–present al-Aqsa Intifada, in Israel and the Palestinian territories
2000–present Conflict in Laos involving the Hmong
2001–present United States war in Afghanistan
2001–present Civil War in Côte d'Ivoire
2001–present South Thailand insurgency 
2003–present Iraq War
2003–present Balochistan conflict, Pakistan
2004–present Waziristan War, Pakistan
2003–present Darfur conflict (Sudan)
Chadian-Sudanese conflict and the Second Chadian Civil War, extensions of the Darfur conflict
2005–present Western Sahara Independence Intifada
2006–present 2006 Israel-Lebanon crisis
"On-going wars," Wikipedia
To the Bahá’ís of the World
Dearly loved Friends,
By the grace of a merciful Providence, the month-long crisis that posed a grave danger
to life in this region, and a clear threat to the safety of the World Centre of our Faith, subsided
a few days ago. Our hearts reach out to the innocent victims on both sides of the fiery conflict
it entailed. Their relief from grief is the object of our ardent prayers.
The recent turbulence once again involving the Holy Land was only the latest among
the recurrent upheavals so characteristic of unsettled conditions that have long obtained in
the Middle East; it was only one among a mounting tide of world-shaking afflictions. To the
followers of the Blessed Beauty imbued with a world-healing vision of the Divine Plan in
its current phase, the disquiet intermittently affecting this Land of the Prophets may well be
regarded, beyond all other contexts, as a reminder of - indeed, a spur for - the efforts to be
made, the tasks urgently to be done. Press on then, undeterred by any trouble, confident of
the promised glory of the divinely assured outcome.
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