Is WAR the only thing that makes us great?

Check the inventions by the Europeans, the enormous and wonderful monuments, discoveries, technologies all these developed under empires or resisting empires (America flourished when pushing against the USSR now its just a pathetic, obese pig lost in meaning). So does this mean that war triggers something in our DNA or psychology that makes us more productive? Wealth and ease doesn't seem to do humans a lot of good. Even democracy was developed out of Socrates resistance for the Imperial ideals of Athens. So... what can we do?