从当今中国的情况看，和平时间长了，大家已形成一种和平的惯性思维，以为和平会一直永远的延续下去。但是从历史学家更长远的视野看，战争并不是会不会爆发，而是一个何时爆发的问题。天下大势，分久必合，合久必分，这是恒古不变的规律。在威权主义政体下，每个王朝的经历就像是一场场舞台剧一样，演员各不相同，但剧情基本雷同：新王朝初创，大家享受一段和平而又蒸蒸日上的好日子，随后官员们腐败，不公正的行为逐步蔓延滋长，然后是贫富差距，两极分化，官逼民反，最后是造反起义或外敌入侵导致王朝覆灭。每个王朝就像是每一个人一样总要经历生老病死的过程。另一方面由于王朝的生存是仰赖暴力机器维系的，它的死亡通常要以暴力机器的被打败即通过战争的方式加以实现。所以战争是一种周期性现象。在中国历史上，战争动乱状态大约占据30~40%的时间。

以上是从政治的角度看待战争，从技术条件上看千百年来王朝更替是通过刀把子里面出政权实现的（冷兵器时代），到了上世纪三四十年代即毛泽东率领中共造反起义的时代，它变成了枪杆子里面出政权，到了今天如果继续爆发类似的内战，它就有可能演变为原子弹里面出政权。当然核战争将毁灭这个国家。由此可见，科技进步已经把我们大家推送到一个极其恐怖的临界点：再也不能让历史上的战争状态重演，这是一个关系到大家生死存亡的大问题。

为此中国应该尽快走出威权政体。当今世界除威权政体以外还有民主政体。民主确实是一个好东西，民主政体在不少发达国家表现很出色尤其是一些北欧国家。但是在世界的其他国家则总体表现不佳。

一国民主制度运行的好坏要受到诸多因素影响。例如，国民素质的高低、法治是否完善、政治文化是否给力、政治领袖是否优秀、基于种族宗教的冲突是否严重、贫富差距两极分化是否严重、经济发展水平的高低等等。所以在民主政体下获得善治同样很不容易，并且具有高度不确定性。

另外，政体由威权向民主转型的阶段时常会经历动荡混乱和暴力的过程。这方面典型的案例是法国，法兰西民族算得上是世界上最优秀的民族之一。但是在它民主转型的早期阶段，一批一批的人包括前朝皇帝夫妇都被送上了断头台。这也是类似中国这样的威权政府不敢贸然进行民主改革的原因。法国人花了一二百年时间才终于学会如何驾驭民主这匹性情暴烈的野马。期间出现了多次威权主义复辟。冲突战争时有发生。按照塞缪尔亨廷顿的观点，至今为止，全世界出现了三波民主化浪潮，在每一波民主化浪潮后，都会跟进一个退潮期。退潮期中，许多民主转型国家出现了民主崩溃政局动荡和威权复辟的现象。

有一种说法认为，民主政体由于是通过选票而非枪弹来选择国家领导，它可以避免一国内部的战争。这个观点不符合经验事实。民主制国家出现军事政变，爆发内战也是常有的事。连美国这样的民主制超级学霸大家的榜样，在被托克维尔大加赞扬以后的19世纪60年代照样爆发了国内战争。更不用说其他国家呢。由此可见，民主政体在目前情况下，并不能确保一国内部永远不会爆发战争。

以上是就国内战争而言。还有一类是国与国之间的战争。这类战争在当今世界也是时有发生，有时战争还会延续多年。鉴于当前东西方大国及其帮派体系之间在意识形态上的高度敌对性和利益结构上的高度敌对性，加之永远不会改变的人性之战狼本能，第三次世界大战一定会爆发，而且不仅会爆发，在那以后，还会继续爆发第四第五第六次的世界大战。当然，如果你把技术条件加入考虑（即核武器的全面使用），则第三次世界大战意味着人类的末日，此后的战争自然会消停。

由此可见说的难听一点，我们大家现在正处于等待第三次世界大战爆发，而又无所事事的等死状态。很不幸，这就是我们人类当前所处的真实位置。

当然以闲着没事干的方式等死，总是不对的。于是一些聪明的科学家想到要让一部分人类赶在核战争爆发前移民火星。但是这个想法在逻辑上仍有问题：只要人类在政治制度上没有突破性进步，那帮移民火星的人类即便在那里发展起来了，也会像地球上的战狼一样在那个地方发动世界大战，把火星毁灭的。至于其他星球余类推。所以人类要想走得更远，实现长期发展，政治制度的突破性进步是躲不过必须跨过的门槛。

行文至此我要引述一段我在另一篇文章中所写的文字，以便再重申一下问题的严重性：

“本人阿刚严重不才，但是会模仿外星人的“笔迹”，给人类撰写一篇墓志铭。具体如下：

人类墓志铭

我们来到这里时，这里已经成为一片核废墟。除少量没有灵魂的机器人还活着（其实它们正处于无电的休眠状态），而所有有灵魂的活人都已死亡。我们没有做过任何缺德的事：他们（自称人类）不是被我们杀害的，而是自我毁灭。

事情是这样的，他们人类拿到了一手好牌，却因为这么多好牌，而令自己粉身碎骨。这已经是我们遇见的第九颗行星了，情况都是一样一样的：他们人类在还没有能力处理好相同地域内不同人群之间的关系以及在还没有能力处理好不同地域人群之间关系的情况下，过早地拥抱了先进的科学技术。科学技术可以改善高级动物的生活条件和幸福水平，这是科技进步的原动力。但是科学技术本身是一把双刃剑，只要稍一转弯转到军事领域，如原子弹氢弹这样的大规模杀伤性武器便水到渠成地生产出来了。在政治智慧（政治学理论）还处于非常落后的状态下，在政治制度政治心智尚远未发育成熟的情况下，大国之间会情不自禁疯狂的卷入核军备竞赛并最终走向核毁灭。一旦进入这个轨道，大家会沿着路径依赖完全失控地滑向灾难。

人类想要发展文明，这本没有错。但是错就错在他们把发展文明的先后顺序搞颠倒了。他们应该首先发展政治文明，待政治文明发展到相当先进的水平以后再来发展科技文明。但现在为时已晚，一切已皆成往事，这根本不是人类智慧所能认知的问题。所以我们尊敬的人类朋友们，一路走好，请安息吧！”

所以解决政治制度问题具有高度紧迫性，我们是在跟战狼赛跑。你不能马后炮，那等于放空炮，必须赶在核战争爆发前就解决这个问题。

那么这个问题能不能快速予以解决？有什么好办法吗？今天天色已晚，聊天就聊到这里。我要使劲地好好休息一段时间啦，大家都洗洗睡吧。欲知后事如何，且听下回分解。

 Bringing the world out of the shadow of war as soon as possible and forever with institutional innovation (I) Zhu Gang

Looking at the situation in China today, we have been at peace for a long time, and we have formed a kind of peace inertia, thinking that peace will continue forever. But from the longer-term perspective of historians, war is not a question of whether it will break out, but a question of when it will break out. It is an unchanging law that the world will be divided for a long time and united for a long time. Under the authoritarian system of government, the experience of each dynasty is like a stage play, the actors are different, but the plot is basically the same: the creation of a new dynasty, everyone enjoys a period of peace and prosperity, and then the corruption of officials, the gradual spread of unjust behavior to grow, and then the gap between the rich and the poor, polarization, officials forced the people to rebel, and finally, the rebel uprising or invasion of foreign invaders leading to the collapse of the dynasty. Every dynasty is like every human being who has to go through the process of birth, old age, sickness and death. On the other hand, since the survival of a dynasty depends on the maintenance of a violent machine, its death is usually realized by the defeat of the violent machine, i.e., by means of war. So war is a cyclical phenomenon. In the history of China, the state of war and turmoil occupied about 30-40% of the time.

The above is the political perspective of war, from the technical conditions of the thousands of years of dynastic change is realized through the sword inside the power (cold weapon era), to the 1930s and 40s of the last century that is, Mao Zedong led the Chinese Communist Party rebel uprising era, it becomes the barrel of a gun inside the power, to the present day, if continue to break out in similar civil wars, it may evolve into the atomic bomb inside the power. Of course nuclear war will destroy this country. From this we can see that technological progress has pushed us all to an extremely terrifying tipping point: the state of war in history can no longer be allowed to recur, and this is a major issue that has a bearing on the survival of all of us.

For this reason, China should get out of the authoritarian regime as soon as possible. In today's world, apart from authoritarian regimes, there are also democracies. Democracy is indeed a good thing, and it has performed very well in many developed countries, especially in some northern European countries. However, in the rest of the world, it has generally performed poorly.

The functioning of democracy in a country is affected by many factors. For example, the quality of the people, the rule of law, the strength of the political culture, the excellence of the political leaders, the severity of conflicts based on ethnicity and religion, the seriousness of the polarization between the rich and the poor, the level of economic development, and so on. Therefore, good governance in a democracy is also difficult and highly uncertain.

In addition, the transition from authoritarianism to democracy is often characterized by turbulence, chaos and violence. A typical case in point is France, where the French nation is considered one of the best in the world. However, in the early stage of its democratic transition, a group of people, including the former emperor and his wife, were sent to the guillotine. This is also the reason why authoritarian governments like China dare not make democratic reforms hastily. It took the French a century or two to finally learn how to ride the wild horse of democracy. During that time there were many authoritarian restorations. There were wars of conflict. According to Samuel Huntington, there have been three waves of democratization around the world so far, and after each wave of democratization, an ebb period followed. The ebbing period has been characterized by the collapse of democracy, political instability and the restoration of authoritarianism in many countries in transition.

There is an argument that a democracy, because it chooses its national leaders by votes rather than by bullets, avoids internal wars within a country. This argument is not consistent with empirical facts. It is not uncommon for democracies to have military coups and outbreaks of civil war. Even the United States, which is a superb example of democracy for everyone, had a civil war in the 1860s, even after being praised by Tocqueville. Not to mention other countries. It is thus clear that democracies, under the present circumstances, do not ensure that wars will never break out within a country.

These are domestic wars. There is another category of wars between countries. Such wars also occur from time to time in today's world, and sometimes they last for many years. Given the current high level of ideological hostility and interest structure hostility between the great powers of the East and West and their gang systems, coupled with the never-changing human instinct of the wolf of war, World War III will surely break out, and not only will it break out, but it will continue to break out for a fourth, fifth, and sixth time after that. Of course, if you add the technical conditions into consideration (i.e., the full-scale use of nuclear weapons), then the third world war means the end of mankind, and wars thereafter will naturally subside.

It follows that, to put it bluntly, we are all now in a state of waiting for the outbreak of World War III while waiting to die with nothing to do. Unfortunately, this is the true position in which we human beings currently find ourselves.

Of course waiting to die with nothing to do is always wrong. So some clever scientists thought of having a portion of the human race immigrate to Mars in time for the outbreak of nuclear war. But this idea is still logically problematic: as long as human beings do not have a breakthrough progress in the political system, that group of immigrants to Mars, even if the development of human beings there, will also be like the war wolves on the Earth in that place to start a world war, the destruction of the planet Mars. As for other planets Yu analogous. Therefore, if human beings want to go farther and realize long-term development, the breakthrough progress of the political system is a threshold that must be crossed.

At this point I would like to quote a paragraph I wrote in another article in order to reiterate the seriousness of the issue:

“I, AGong, am seriously untalented, but I will imitate the “handwriting” of the aliens and write an epitaph for mankind. The details are as follows:

Epitaph for Humanity

When we arrived here, it was a nuclear wasteland. With the exception of a few soulless robots that are still alive (they are actually in a dormant state without power), all living people with souls are dead. We have done nothing unethical: they (the self-proclaimed humans) were not killed by us, but self-destructed.

The thing is, they humans were dealt a good hand, but they pulverized themselves because of so many good cards. This is the ninth planet we've met, and the situation is the same and the same: they humans embraced advanced science and technology too soon, before they were able to deal with the relationships between different groups of people within the same geographic area, as well as before they were able to deal with the relationships between groups of people in different geographic areas. Science and technology can improve the living conditions and happiness level of advanced animals, which is the driving force of scientific and technological progress. But science and technology itself is a double-edged sword. With a slight turn to the military field, weapons of mass destruction such as the atomic and hydrogen bombs are produced. In the political wisdom (political theory) is still in a very backward state, in the political system of the political mind is still far from mature, the great powers can not help but frantically involved in the nuclear arms race and ultimately to nuclear destruction. Once on this track, everyone will follow the path of dependence and slide completely out of control towards disaster.

Human beings want to develop civilization, which is not wrong. But the mistake is that they have reversed the order of development of civilization. They should have developed political civilization first, and then developed scientific and technological civilization after political civilization had reached a fairly advanced level. But now it is too late, and everything has already gone, and this is not a problem that human wisdom can recognize at all. So our honorable human friends, go well and rest in peace!”

That's why solving the problem of the political system has a high degree of urgency; we are racing against the war wolves. You can't be a horse's ass, that's the same as shooting blanks, you have to solve this problem before the outbreak of a nuclear war.

So can this problem be solved quickly? What's the best way? It's getting late today, so I'll stop here. I'm going to take a well-deserved break, so let's all go to bed. We'll see what happens next.