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World peace
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World peace is an ideal of freedom, peace, and happiness among and within all nations and/or peoples. It is the professed ambition of many past and present world leaders.
d peace is the Utopian ideal of planetary non-violence by which nations willingly cooperate, either voluntarily or by virtue of a system of governance which prevents warfare.
Some see a trend in national politics by which city-states and nation-states have unified, and suggest that the international arena will eventually follow suit.
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Encyclopedia
World peace is an ideal of freedom, peace, and happiness among and within all nations and/or peoples. It is the professed ambition of many past and present world leaders.
Definition
World peace is the Utopian ideal of planetary non-violence by which nations willingly cooperate, either voluntarily or by virtue of a system of governance which prevents warfare.
Some see a trend in national politics by which city-states and nation-states have unified, and suggest that the international arena will eventually follow suit. Many countries such as China, Italy, the United States, Germany and Britain have unified into single nation-states, with others like the European Union and African Union following suite, suggesting that further globalization will bring about a unified world order.
Many interpretations of the concept are not overtly political, however. World peace may simply mean the resolution of global and regional conflict through nonviolent means.
If peace is defined as the absence of hostility, violence and conflict, world peace would imply a worldwide end to violence and thus to institutions which rely on threats of violence to sustain their existence. It follows that there could be no law enforcement, because force is a form of conflict. Without law enforcement, there could be no laws, except those which everyone voluntarily agrees to follow. Finally, there could be no governments of the type that rely on threats of violence to collect taxes, maintain their borders, or govern their citizens. Considered in this light, world peace goes beyond the cessation of nation-state warfare and calls for dramatic changes in most of the political institutions familiar to people worldwide.
Possibility
While world peace is theoretically possible, some believe that it is impossible to achieve.
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 skepticism 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.
World peace theories
Many theories as to how world peace could be achieved have been proposed. Several of these are listed below.
Various political ideologies
World peace is sometimes claimed to be the inevitable result of a certain political ideology. According to former U.S. President George W. Bush: "The march of democracy will lead to world peace."
Leon Trotsky, a Marxist theorist, assumed that the world revolution would lead to a communist world peace.
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. Several researchers find no wars between well-established liberal democracies. Jack Levy (1988) made an oft-quoted assertion that the theory is "as close as anything we have to an empirical law in international relations".
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.
There are, however, several possible exceptions to this theory.
Capitalism peace theory
In her capitalism peace theory, Ayn Rand holds that the major wars of history were started by the more controlled economies of the time against the freer ones and that capitalism gave mankind the longest period of peace in history -- a period during which there were no wars, involving the entire civilized world -- from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
It must be remembered that the political systems of the nineteenth century were not pure capitalism, but mixed economies. The element of freedom, however, was dominant; it was as close to a century of capitalism as mankind has come. But the element of statism kept growing throughout the nineteenth century, and by the time it blasted the world in 1914, the governments involved were dominated by statist policies.
Also, this theory ignores the brutal colonial wars waged by the western nations against other countries and each other. This ignores, for example, the German and Italian Wars of Unification, the Franco-Prussian war, and other conflicts in Europe. Outside Europe, British rule in India caused 100 million deaths, and American settlement of the "old west" caused about 30 million deaths. Colonial wars in Australia and Africa also caused millions of deaths.
The twentieth century happened to be much worse. World War I and World War II alone: World War I claimed over 40 million casualties, including approximately 20 million civilian and military dead. And some 60 million people died in World War II, including about 20 million soldiers and 40 million civilians. (see: List of wars by death toll)
Cobdenism
Some 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, because 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 or that a nation could simply acquire what it needs from a different nation.
More generally, other proponents argue that free trade - while not making wars impossible - will make wars, and restrictions on trade caused by wars, very costly for international companies with production, research, and sales in many different nations. Thus there will be a powerful lobby arguing against wars that is not present if there are only national companies.
Mutual assured destruction
Mutual assured destruction (sometimes known as MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. 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, thereby making wars pointless.
Isolationism and non-interventionism
Proponents of isolationism and non-interventionism claim that a world made up of many nations can peacefully coexist as long as they each establish a stronger focus on domestic affairs and do not try to impose their will on other nations.
Non-interventionism should not be confused with isolationism. Isolationism, like non-interventionism advises avoiding interference into other nation's internal affairs, but also emphasizes protectionism and restriction of international trade and travel. Non-interventionism, on the other hand, advocates combining free trade (like Cobdenism) with political and military non-interference.
Nations like 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 has been depicted as a consequence of local, self-determined behaviors which inhibit the institutionalization of power and ensuing violence. The solution is not so much based on an agreed agenda, or an investment in higher authority whether divine or political, but rather a self-organized network of mutually supportive mechanisms, resulting in a viable politico-economic social fabric.
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.
Religious views of world peace
Bahá'í Faith
With specific regard to the pursuit of world peace, Bahá'u'lláh of the Bahá'í Faith 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 .
Buddhism
Many Buddhists believe that world peace can only be achieved if we first establish peace within our minds. Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, said, “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” 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 and practice altruism.
Christianity
The basic Christian ideal promotes peace through goodwill and by sharing the faith with others, as well as forgiving those who do try to break the peace. Below are selections from two gospels:
"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Matthew 5:44 - 45
"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." John 13:34-35
Hinduism
Traditionally Hinduism has adopted a saying called Vasuda eva kutumbakam which translates to "The world is one family." The essence of this saying is the observation that only base minds see dichotomies and divisions. The more we seek wisdom, the more we become inclusive and free our internal spirit from worldly illusions or Maya. World peace is hence thought to be achieved only through internal means -- by liberating oneself from artificial boundaries that separate us
Islam
According to Islam, faith in only one God and having common parents Adam and Eve is greatest reason for humans to live together with peace and brotherhood. Islamic view of global peace is mentioned in the Quran where the whole humanity is recognized as one family. All the people are children of Adam. The purpose of the Islamic faith is to make people recognize their own natural inclination towards their fraternity. According to Islamic eschatology the whole world will be united under the leadership of prophet Jesus in his second coming. At that time love, justice and peace will be so abundant that the world will be in likeness of paradise.
Judaism
Judaism holds that when the Messiah comes, all nations will be united in peace.
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