Liberalism as a political ideology and a philosophical doctrine has championed individual autonomy, social and political equality, and democratic and inclusive political institutions. Consequently, liberalism is known for its commitment to tolerance and value pluralism. Yet liberalism has been critiqued for being insensitive to claims of culture. Indeed, an attitude of benign neglect toward diversity was once quite common among liberals, as was a general lack of interest in global concerns. Worse yet, according to some critics the liberal tradition—in spite of its purported liberating mission of autonomy and self-determination (quintessential democratic values)—has provided the rationale for imperialism rooted in the liberal assumptions about reason and historical progress. Though these ironies are a clear source of embarrassment for today's liberals, liberalism still displays an uneasy commitment to pluralism. Liberals today are more challenged than ever to look at the dynamics of diversity both at home and abroad.

The bequest for the Church Peace Union—the predecessor of today's Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (and the publisher of this journal)—was given by Andrew Carnegie in February 1914. The Church Peace Union subsequently sponsored the first worldwide gathering of religious leaders, which was held in Constance, Germany, on August 2, 1914. Convened under the shadow of an impending war, not all delegates made it to the gathering. Six months previously, Carnegie had stipulated that the Church Peace Union devote its funds to the deserving poor “after the arbitration of international disputes is established and war abolished, as it certainly will be some day.” This could happen, he noted, “sooner than expected, probably by the Teutonic nations, Germany, Britain, and the United States first deciding to act in unison, the others joining later.” The outbreak of war was a catastrophic blow to such hopes, as the very nations expected to be at the core of this civilized project descended into an orgy of destruction the likes of which the world had never seen.

Peace is normally understood as the absence of war among nations. But that definition presupposes the overarching importance of nations as the key units of human association. There are, however, many other non-national entities, such as races, ethnic communities, religions, cultures, and civilizations. These entities, too, engage in conflict from time to time, as exemplified by the interracial violence and religious antagonisms in various parts of the world today and, of course, that which took place in the past. Yet why do we preserve the terms “war” and “peace” only for interstate relations? This is a very limited perspective, inasmuch as wars are a phenomenon whose appearance long preceded the formation of nations in the modern centuries; and besides, a presumed state of peace among countries can conceal serious hostilities between races or religions within and across national boundaries. Nazi Germany was technically at peace with all countries till 1939, and yet violent acts were committed there against groups of people domestically who were not considered racially acceptable. In today's world, there are no large-scale international wars, but domestic tensions and physical assaults occur daily within many countries. Terrorists wage war against states and their citizens alike, but they are not nations. To counter their threat, war preparedness in the traditional sense may be useful, perhaps, but it is much less effective than the coming together of individuals and groups to create a condition of interdependence and mutual trust. World peace must fundamentally be founded on a sense of shared humanity, regardless of which country people happen to live in. To consider war and peace purely in the context of international relations, therefore, is insufficient, even anachronistic. What we need is less an international than a transnational idea of peace.

Over the next few years much will be made of the hundred-year anniversary of the breakdown of the European peace into a thirty-one-year civil war that did not fully cease until 1945. In 2012 the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of the fact that there has been no war within its borders for the past sixty years, and today the Union stands as a model for regional peace. But the consequences of the “Great War” and the disastrously unsuccessful “peace” of 1918 are still with us. Like Andrew Carnegie, Alfred Nobel recognized that it is essential that political decision-makers and a wider public act with an awakened sense of the everyday significance of world events.

The war in Iraq is over. U.S. troops have withdrawn. Saddam Hussein has been overthrown and replaced with a government perceived to be more democratic and more just to the Iraqi people. In late 2011, concurrent with the U.S. withdrawal, strategists suggested that there was “peace at last” in Iraq, a cause for celebration.

Broad comparisons of international relations across time—of the prospects for peace and of the possibilities for a new ethics for a connected world—typically focus on two dimensions: economic globalization and integration on the one hand, and the character of major interstate relations on the other. One of the most striking features of the pre-1914 world was precisely the coincidence of intensified globalization with a dramatic deterioration in major power relations, the downfall of concert-style approaches to international order, and the descent into total war and ideological confrontation—what T. S. Eliot termed “the panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.” Today's optimists stress the degree to which globalization appears much more firmly institutionalized than it was a hundred years ago, the rather striking success of global economic governance in responding to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 (compared to, say, the Great Depression), and the longer-term trend within international society to move away from major-power war. Pessimists are less sure. They worry that we have had to re-learn just how unstable global capitalism can be, both in terms of the wrenching societal changes produced by economic success and of the political strains produced by slowdown and recession. And they point to the abiding or resurgent power of nationalism in all of the core countries in the system, the return of balance-of-power thinking (above all in Asia), and the renewed salience of major power politics.

The Arab Spring of 2011 is widely viewed today as one of the great historical moments of political transformation. Comparisons have been made to the European revolutions of 1848 and the post–cold war democratic transitions in Eastern Europe, while some have spoken of a possible “fourth wave” of democratization. These analogies make sense given that longstanding dictators who seemed impervious to political change, in a region known for persistent authoritarianism, were suddenly toppled by largely nonviolent protesters invoking the universal themes of political freedom, dignity, and social justice. From the outset, however, the Arab Spring was met by a small chorus of criticism and contempt from prominent intellectuals, writers, and politicians.