What Is "Peace"?

Peace is not the absence of conflict. Conflict (ethnic, racial, religious, ideological) is the nature of the species, as it slowly evolves. The challenge is how to achieve some workable structure, or context, in which to permit “conflicts” to occur, without endangering life itself.

When the UN was established it was assumed that “conflicts” would be between autonomous sovereign states. The trade off was clear: protection of sovereignty for agreement to follow the rules of conflict. The major powers, who had most to lose from unstructured conflict, would have veto power. That veto was for the protection of international checks and balances, requiring frequent compromise while giving the appearance of ineptitude. Making peace was the responsibility of sovereign states. Keeping the peace was supposed to be the province of the U.N. Peace cannot be kept, if it cannot be made first. Those were the old days. Where now can peace be made?

In the post W.W. II heady days, when we saw states being created, not failing, we did not perceive that the economics of technology would give relatively small groups, with ideological destructive missions, the destructive powers previously reserved for states. We never imagined that the world’s largest producer and dealer in weapons would be waging a Third World War against “terrorism,” with many of its own instruments of destruction, sometimes facing each other.

As George Will has recently carefully argued, the problem is that we have been trapped by our own vocabulary. We have assume that IF there is a “war” on terrorism, then we must fight it with the victorious strategy of W.W. II, as we would tame a rogue state…with massive air and fire power (Shock and Awe). If the Hezbollah is not a state, then we will make it into one, if only to “destroy” it. And if it refuses to behave like a state, then surely we can blame Iran or Syria and hold them “accountable”.

I fear that such twisted logic will only lead to further entrapment and wasting of our limited human and material resources. The instruments of war are not fungible. While we produce a majority of the world’s instruments of destruction and consume a majority of its resources, China builds its technological and economic infrastructure and waits.

There is no satisfactory answer to the search for peace unless we find a way and place where we can agree to disagree and stop the endless supply and build up of weapons of both mass and “limited” destruction. We have now been at war in Iraq longer than we were at war with Germany in WW II. States are best preserved and protected by effective internal security (police) and not by external war. If you trust our President, who wants us to believe that the focus of the “war on terrorism” has not shifted from Iraq to Lebanon, then we are surely doomed. No matter how much many would wish that we just forget Iraq and blot it from our nation’s memory, its lessons are too vivid to forget, and its aftermaths will be with us for decades, if not centuries.

Please let me know what you think!

Our Best Hope?

Are we any worse or better off than at any other time of cultural conflict, war and human tragedy, when the poor suffer most? The first decade of the 21^st century gives promise of only the continuing human suffering and tragedies of the 20^th century, the bloodiest on record. We refuse to learn.

So what is there in the future?

I see this century as the war of monotheisms and the decline of western modernism. The only bright spot is the rise of China, a non-monotheistic culture based on ethics, not religion. In the ultimate struggle between China and Islam (Ethics vs. Religion) perhaps China. It may be our best hope.

Please let me know what you think.

Merle