The Problems of Lasting Peace

A few days ago, while wandering in Weber State's library, I managed to stumble on an awesome book.  I was in the library for no particular reason, trying to kill time before a meeting of some kind, and somehow I walked right into the peace studies section of our library.

There, in one of those old, ragged book covers, slightly covered in dust and smelling like all old books do, was a book entitled "The Problems of Lasting Peace" by former President Herbert Hoover and his aide, Hugh Gibson.

The book was written in the midst of the second World War.  The allies had begun pushing Hitler's Germany back in the European theater, and countless epic naval battles were no doubt taking place in the Pacific.  In the midst of all this combat and chaos, Hoover and Gibson noticed a pattern; endless cycles of violence in war, followed by brief periods of peace and development, followed again by violence.  This was true even in the case of World War I, the "war to end all wars," which, within 20 years, collapsed into yet another global bloodshed. 

Hoover and Gibson identify 7 "Dynamic Forces" which contribute to war and peace, listed as follows:

1.  Ideologies
2.  Economic Pressures
3.  Nationalism
4.  Militarism
5.  Imperialism
6.  The complexes of fear, hate, and revenge
7.  The will to peace

These forces are not arranged in order of importance, but they all have some varying degree of importance depending on which war is being examined.  It is important to note, however, that the first 6 forces typically act against the 7th; that is to say, the will to peace is broken when the emotions and actions prompted by the first 6 overpower it.

One of my favorite quotes from the book, paraphrased, is "Nations can blunder into war, but they cannot blunder into peace."  This, I think, is a key point which isn't given enough thought much of the time.  We tend to view things in black and white: a friend of mine recently said, "all the world's problems could easily be solved if everyone would just be good."  At face value, this is perhaps true.  But issues arise when the phrase is examined further.  Depending on your culture, your socioeconomic status, your race, your religion, your geographic location, your government, your education, and a myriad of other features, what would you define as "the world's problems?"  More important, what would you define as "good?"

Viewing the world through such a black and white, almost esoteric lens is what causes individuals, families, tribes, and finally nations to blunder out of peace.  Narrow definitions which fail to take into account the literally billions of possible viewpoints are destined to collapse.  They allow no structure or instrumentality for reconciliation, for the promotion of peace, or fundamental problem-solving.

This, in effect, is the key problem to lasting peace: a feeling that expedience, that black and white, are more effective than a structured method of peacemaking.  Expedience destroyed loose-knit peaces like the League of Nations and Kellogg-Briand, and expedience continues to threaten global peace today.

Global problems, however defined, are not so black and white as to be solved immediately.  Consensus must be achieved through arduous and often painstaking dialogue, taking into account a vast array of voices and concerns.  As such, lasting peace can only be achieved through the development of mechanisms capable of almost constant change, reinventing the status quo to meet new demands and changing environments.  The development of - and adherence to - global liberal institutions is, thus far, the greatest success the world has had in this experiment.

This, I feel, is a good enough afternoon rant.  That said, I would strongly recommend this book to any student of international law, or, better yet, any citizen of the world.