~たいとする grammar/meaning?

Question

平和を保ちたいとする利己的な意志が戦争を起こし

So, I'm rewatching Naruto and I'm finally able to understand more than 70% of the words and grammar. I'm currently on the war arc and Madara said the above sentence.

I'm not sure what たいとする means. I know として (I work AS a teacher) but とする？

Ok, so I searched a bit by myself and what I found at Weblio.jp got me thinking.

‐とする

regard 《A as B》

consider [assume] 《A to be B》

treat 《A as B》

So would the literal translation be: Wanting to preserve peace regarded as a selfish desire causes war. ?

Answer 1

I think there is really a break between 平和を保ちたいとする and 利己的な意志が戦争を起こし. There is also a topic that is not stated which is probably something along the lines of 人. The definition of とする used here is the second one you listed: ２ …と考える, which is used generally like this to indicate some distance from a thought and or in a hypothetical situation. For example, I looked at 毎日新聞's articles from today and found:

医療提供体制の警戒レベルも最も深刻な「体制が逼迫（ひっぱく）している」とした

which is used to indicate some distance from the decision of being at the highest level of caution.

Then the literal translation in this case would be something along the lines of:

平和を保ちたいとする = 『人は平和を保ちたい』と考える = If we consider that 人want to protect the peace

利己的な意志が戦争を起こし = 人's selfish intentions cause war

So perhaps something like: There are people who want to protect the peace and people whose self interested intentions cause war.