World Peace

Information about World Peace

World peace is an ideal of freedom, peace, and happiness among and within all nations. It is the professed ambition of many past and present world leaders.

History

Some historians identify a long-term trend where nation-states stop fighting and become united. For example, old Europe with wars culminating in World War I and World War II, compared with the European Union; warring Chinese states compared with the modern Chinese nation. Certain historians theorize that the whole world will eventually follow this pattern as well.

Dr. Frank Laubach, an American missionary to the Philippines in 1935 saw poverty, injustice and illiteracy as impediments to world peace. He developed the "Each One Teach One" literacy program which taught about 60 million people to read in their own language.

World peace is often claimed to be the inevitable result of some political ideology. Thus, communist thinkers such as Leon Trotsky assumed that the world revolution would lead to a communist world peace, and neoliberal thinkers such as Francis Fukuyama assumed that the rise of liberal democracy will inevitably lead to the "end of history".

The plausibility of world peace tacitly relies on the assumption of rational agents that base their decisions on future consequences, which is not self-evident. Bertrand Russell once expressed his scepticism regarding world peace:

After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it has generated Neros, Genghis Khans, and Hitlers. This, however, I believe is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.¹

The utopian ideal of conflict-free interaction between all humans (or even all sentient beings) is seen by some as highly improbable, due to the wide range of behaviour and personal circumstances that exist. Some people, acting in some manner, in some circumstances, are likely to get into a conflict over one thing or another. Indeed, the case can be made that if we did not conflict in any way with others, we would either be totally independent from them (rendering the issue moot) or we would have none of the individuality that makes us human.

Most interpretations of the concept are not so extreme, however. For one thing, there are many kinds of conflicts. If we only include armed conflicts, world peace may simply entail the resolution of all minor conflicts through nonviolent means (and possibly, the strong guarantee that this will always remain so—whatever is required for that). If, on the other hand, we interpret world peace as the total absence of things like trade conflicts or border disputes, achieving it becomes quite a bit more difficult.

Even if world peace (in whatever sense it is taken) is unachievable, this does not imply that striving for it is not a worthy (personal) goal. In this sense, among others, it is much like perfection, for which people strive despite it being unattainable.

The most suitable progress toward world peace is a step-by-step improvement of current processes. Doing one more peaceful thing today than one has previously done is a truly attainable goal. Also, all people would benefit at taking a long look at history and learning the triggers of armed conflict. In each war which has occurred since the beginning of time, many of the same lessons can be found. Unfortunately, as a whole, our species is slow to learn each of those lessons. These lessons may include a strict arms ban, peace negotiation, a global and collective security agreement, a minimum food supplies and foreign aid to stabilize necessities.

The democratic peace theory

Proponents of the controversial democratic peace theory claim that strong empirical evidence exists that democracies never or rarely wage war against each other. One possible exception to this is Britain's reluctant declaration of war against Finland in December 1941 due to pressure from Stalin; however, this formal declaration was not followed by any battle. An increasing number of nations have become democratic since the industrial revolution. A world peace may thus become possible if this trend continues and if the democratic peace theory is correct.

Cobdenism

Proponents of Cobdenism claim that by removing tariffs and creating international free trade, wars would become impossible, because free trade prevents a nation from becoming self-sufficient, which is a requirement for long wars. For example, if one country produces firearms and another produces ammunition, the two could not fight each other, since the former would be unable to procure ammunition and the latter would be unable to obtain weapons. Critics argue that free trade does not prevent a nation from establishing some sort of emergency plan to become temporarily self-sufficient in case of war.

Mutual Assured Destruction or MAD

It has been noted that the number of deaths due to wars between nations as a fraction of world population has declined dramatically since the development of nuclear weapons. Proponents of the policy of mutual assured destruction during the Cold War attributed this to the increase in the lethality of war to the point where it no longer offers the possibility of a net gain for either side. This is why the cold war was never likely to get hot, though close calls were many and of wide variety throughout the "war". Author Tom Clancy states MAD very simply, with eight words- "You kill our innocent civilians, we'll kill yours."

World government

There are many different kinds of world governments that have been proposed. An argument often brought up in support of world government is that such an institution could have the power to prevent wars and establish world peace. Critics tend to focus on the question of whether world peace under the authority of a single government is a desirable goal. The biggest difficulty with a world government is that for the entire world to be truly controlled by a Ruling council or ruling party, then every country, every government, every person must submit to the idea. Naturally, there will be those strongly opposing the entire idea. This means that in reality, World peace via world government would only be possible if a true War to End all Wars took place , taking anyone opposed to the World Government idea out of the picture, and then enabling true world peace, since the war would eradicate any and all opposition to anything, meaning there would no longer be any reason to have a war, or indeed anyone willing (or left) to fight the war. This idea, however, even poses more problems, dealing with what the World Government would see as terrorists. Those still opposed to the idea would form a militia and Civilian Army, and acting with a similar pattern to Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups against this supposed "Enemy". This would cause a likely never-ending war of Attrition, one that these "terrorists" would fight in Guerilla patterns. These groups would use the Just War, citing the world government as a great and terrible evil, one that needs to be taken down. Similar principles are what the Jihad and terrorist groups use to justify their "Holy War" against the United States within the Middle East. In the end, World Government is a very unlikely option for world peace, one seemingly possible, just to prove impossible.

Isolationism

In contrast with world government, proponents of isolationism claim that a world made by many nations can survive as long as they each establish a stronger focus on domestic affairs and not try to impose their will on other nation's. Nations like China, and Japan are perhaps the best known for establishing isolationist policies in the past. The Japanese Edo, Tokugawa, initiated the Edo Period, an isolationist period where Japan cut itself off from the world as a whole. This is a well-known isolation period and well documented in many areas.

Self-Organized Peace

World Peace as seen as a consequence of local self-determined behaviours which inhibit the institutionalisation of power and subsequent violence. The solution is not so much based on an agreed agenda, let alone investment in higher authority, whether divine or political, but rather a self-organised network of mutual supporting mechanisms whose emergent phenomenon is a sustainable politico-economic social fabric. Such a realisation can only be brought about through a shared thought experiment by all participating subjectivities, inclusive of diversity, and is similar in significant ways to the formation and maintenance of Wikipedia.

Religious view of World Peace

Baha'i Faith

With specific regard to the pursuit of world peace, Baha'u'llah prescribed a world-embracing Collective Security arrangement as necessary for the establishment of a lasting peace. The Universal House of Justice wrote about the process in The Promise of World Peace.

Buddhists

Many Buddhists believe that world peace can only be achieved if we first establish peace within our minds. The idea is that anger and other negative states of mind are the cause of wars and fighting. They believe we can live in peace and harmony only if we abandon the anger in our minds and learn to love each other.

References

External links

Notes

1: Cited by Judy Toth, Bertrand Russell Quarterly, February 2003.

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''For other uses, see Peace (disambiguation).