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Thinking about World Peace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2020

Alex J. Bellamy
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Abstract

For as long as humans have fought wars, we have been beguiled and frustrated by the prospect of world peace. Only a very few of us today believe that world peace is possible. Indeed, the very mention of the term “world peace” raises incredulity. In contrast, as part of the roundtable “World Peace (And How We Can Achieve It),” this essay makes the case for taking world peace more seriously. It argues that world peace is possible, though neither inevitable nor irreversible. World peace, I argue, is something that every generation must strive for, because the ideas, social structures, and practices that make war possible are likely to remain with us. The essay proceeds in three parts. First, I briefly set out what I mean by peace and world peace. Second, I explain why I think that world peace is possible. Third, I examine how the world might be nudged in a more peaceful direction.

Keywords

world peacewarviolencejusticeworld politics
Type
Roundtable: World Peace (And How We Can Achieve It)
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , Spring 2020 , pp. 47 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2020

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Footnotes

*

I am very grateful to A. C. Grayling, Pamina Firchow, Nils Petter Gleditsch, Jacqui True, and the editors of Ethics & International Affairs for their thoughts and feedback, which have contributed immensely to the ideas presented here.

References

NOTES

1 Sontag, Susan, Regarding the Pain of Others (London: Picador, 2004)Google Scholar.

2 See, for instance, Biggar, Nigel, In Defence of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 1Google Scholar; and Coker, Christopher, Can War Be Eliminated? (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity)Google Scholar, p. 97.

3 This is one of the principal messages delivered by Margaret MacMillan in her 2018 series of Reith Lectures (Margaret MacMillan, Reith Lectures, 2018, radio broadcast, BBC Radio 4, www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/player). Also see Margaret MacMillan, “It Would Be Stupid to Think We Have Moved on from War: Look Around,” Guardian, June 24, 2018.

4 This essay draws on arguments advanced in my book World Peace (And How We Can Achieve It) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

5 Caplan, Richard, Measuring Peace: Principles, Practices, and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Keane, John, Reflections on Violence (London: Verso, 1996)Google Scholar.

6 See Hippler, Thomas, Governing From the Skies: A Global History of Aerial Bombing (London: Verso, 2017), pp. 9Google Scholar, 62.

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13 The Arms Trade Treaty entered into force on December 24, 2014. At the time of writing (December 2019), the treaty had 130 signatories and 104 parties.

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