In the context of your comment about the quote itself, people do need to work together that is the only way to harmony. But human nature leads to people wanting to be (even believing they are) better, more important and more valued than others which in its extreme leads to conflict and eventually war.

War as you say does not bring freedom, it brings conflict, chaos and death. Those in power on the losing side seek retaliation and so the cycle repeats. War is brought about by leaders and not the people. The people have the power to change this cycle and move towards peace, but they have been taught to believe this is not possible.

If we are not to posit a war-like alien race, what smaller communities should we break up into? Perhaps UKIP, who I see might include your friend Andi (this is from a cursory webcheck so the shared name could be a coincidence) could give us some ideas on how to resist being conglomerated and such always leave options for a ‘healthy’ and ‘formative’ intra-group friction.

Me? I think there is a chance that, with a successful community of all peoples working together, and no outside forces to disrupt the resulting homeostasis, there can indeed be both peace and freedom. War does not win freedom, it only wins death.