Realpolitik is a term derived from German. It refers to a politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives (Merriam-Webster dictionary). Historically, many political platforms have been based on theoretical, religious, ideological, or moral arguments.

Most visions of ideal societies, as disparate as Plato, Confucius, Jesus, [...]]]> Introduction to December 2009 IJWP

Realpolitik is a term derived from German. It refers to a politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives (Merriam-Webster dictionary). Historically, many political platforms have been based on theoretical, religious, ideological, or moral arguments.

Most visions of ideal societies, as disparate as Plato, Confucius, Jesus, and Marx, all rely on changing basic human behavior. If we can only learn to love one another, to share with one another, to accept a Christian, Muslim, or socialist theory of justice, or change our selfish and exploitative behavior in some way, then we can create an ideal world. As we recently learned from the efforts of the Soviet Union to create a “new man,” one that is rational and scientific, the laws of nature are not easily trumped. Instead of getting a “new man” who gives according to his abilities and receives according to his needs, the Soviet Union got the Nomenklatura, the “old man” in a new bureaucratic class, who used position and power in the Soviet political system for personal and selfish desires.

Realpolitik assumes that everyone is out to maximize their own interest, and that states are out to maximize their interests as well. Post-World War II political philosopher Hans Morgenthau wrote his Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace to promote political realism in international politics. After all, the ideals of the League of Nations and international law had failed to stop Mussolini from invading Ethiopia or Hitler from invading neighboring countries in Europe. The United Nations was created with the idea that the Security Council had to have overwhelming force available to stop such aggression; no social ideals or pious platitudes would stop it. Even Gandhi’s theories of non-violence would only work with men of conscience, not with men like Hitler or Stalin.

The problem with political realism and neo-realism is that it discounted the value of social ideals altogether, treating them as insignificant and as wishful thinking. Hence they urged and assumed a Nietzschean-type of quest for power as the norm or standard of international behavior. The result was a theory of international anarchy that required a balance of power, whether bi-polar as during the Cold War, or as multi-polar after the emergence of the European Union, the rise of China and India, and the reduced influence of Russia and the United States.

While it is correct to assume that many people and states will attempt to maximize their own self-interest at the expense of others, it is wrong to advocate this as a goal. The goal should be to live for the well-being of others and the whole of society. However, we cannot be so naive as to assume that everyone in a position of power will become immune to the temptations of that power through moral injunctions.

Reinhold Niebuhr explained the relationship of love, power, and justice quite well before Morgenthau ever wrote his Politics Among Nations. Niebuhr argued that the ideals of justice can never be realized by norms of justice alone; we will always fall short of justice because human beings will always fall short of perfection. Rather, love completes justice. When you have more people sacrificing for the sake of others than you have people sacrificing others for themselves, then the norm of love can make the goal of justice possible in history. However, the goal of realizing the norm of love universally in history is not possible because some people will always fall short. And, there is no higher norm than love which could complete the amount love falls short, whereas love can make up for the justice that falls short.

Unfortunately, while individuals are capable of love, institutions are not able to manifest this trait. You can find many individuals contributing large amounts of aid to victims of natural disasters, but it is much harder to find social institutions or nations capable of humanitarian aid. This poses a great problem because, in our contemporary society, we frequently look to nations, the United Nations, or other social institutions to reflect compassion and solve problems of injustice. However, we generally find instead that where power is concentrated it is more likely used to exploit and oppress others rather than serve them.

It would be useful for the readers of this issue of International Journal on World Peace to keep in mind the relationship of love, power, and justice as they read the articles in this issue. The first article on “Islamic Realpolitik” in Iran argues that despite the moral ideals of Islam, when push comes to shove, Iranian political leaders can be assumed to behave according to self-interest more than from moral norms. It is useful to note that immediately after the religious revolution in Iran, Iraq saw the political weakness of religious leaders as something to exploit, and Saddam Hussein attacked Iran.

Despite the fact that moral values and altruism are required for a just peace to be realized, international political institutions must be able to check the accumulation and misuse of power. This can only be done with concentrations of power that are rooted in higher principles. This was the philosophy of the original US Constitution. “Diplomacy” is valuable, but, by itself, cannot create the conditions of peace. Goodwill towards other nations is a positive value that must be backed by some form of force that is not based on national self-interest, but rather that is committed to “self-evident truths” that transcend human existence.

Our next article, “Last Resort: Bridging Protection and Prevention,” examines the problems caused by making a system of sovereign, and self-interested, nation-states a norm in the UN Charter. Dave Benjamin notes that the violation of human rights and contests between within-state groups over the institutions of political power have caused severe harm. There is a naive assumption in Article 2(4)(7) that leaders of states will be genuinely concerned with the welfare of their people, or that they are capable of controlling gangs and ethnic groups within their jurisdiction.

Before the establishment of the United Nations, state leadership required legitimacy in the eyes of the ruled. After the creation of the new world order of sovereign states, legitimacy on the international stage became more important to leaders than legitimacy at home. This is because leaders of many poor countries had more opportunity to gain wealth through international aid and loans provided in the name of development, than through taxation of their own people.

Over the years, the General Assembly has come to represent the defense of state sovereignty, because representatives are members of the ruling elite. The Security Council, on the other hand, has usually been the body to intervene in state sovereignty because of its role in preventing war. Benjamin argues that government has a primary duty to protect citizens and that too often this duty takes a back seat to other political pressures.

Finally, we have an article by Solomon Hailu on the attempt in Africa to replace one failed security system, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) with a new system called the African Union (AU). After a very fine explanation of the goals of the African Union and the need for it, Hailu nevertheless sees no way of getting the African Union established without the help of the United Nations or Western countries. This is a tacit affirmation of Niebuhr’s thesis that the norms of justice cannot be achieved without some extra input based on altruistic support that goes beyond justice.

However, is it naive to expect that the United Nations and the Western countries will really act for the benefit of African countries, or will they be more likely to attach strings to their aid in some form of neocolonialism? Realpolitik would argue that it is unlikely aid from international financial institutions, states, or the United Nations will provide the extra support to make African nations self-reliant. Rather, altruistic individuals, whether they be wealthy philanthropists, Peace Corps workers, religious missionaries, school teachers, or doctors are more likely to provide the extra input that can enable African countries to stand on their own, and provide their own security and development.

Hegel’s ideal of the state as the embodiment of the absolute in history has about run its course. Reliance on a state to provide human welfare and happiness has been one of the grandest illusions of the modern period. The power of the state can be used to secure ordered liberty within which people can pursue happiness, but it cannot produce the people it needs to implement that order. It can redistribute goods to the poor through taxes, but it cannot produce those goods. A state is only as good as the people in it. For any state to function, more need to sacrifice for it than those who take from it.

When everyone looks to some external institution like the state as their savior, they may as well be looking for the Lone Ranger to come and provide them an ideal. Such hopeful wishes reflect a denial of personal responsibility, and the end result will be like that realized by Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

The modern desire for democracy and self-rule is largely a reaction against a history of oppression and exploitation following military conquest and imposed rule. World history is predominantly shaped by conquerors, yet most people desire to live their own lives and not serve as a means to someone else’s ends. While [...]]]> Introduction to September 2009 IJWP

The modern desire for democracy and self-rule is largely a reaction against a history of oppression and exploitation following military conquest and imposed rule. World history is predominantly shaped by conquerors, yet most people desire to live their own lives and not serve as a means to someone else’s ends. While self-rule requires the overthrow of imposed rule, it is more difficult than the mere overthrow of a regime and the declaration of freedom and of rule of law. Self-rule requires self-discipline and the willingness to use force, when necessary, against foreign aggression and civil violence.

The end of colonialism and the collapse of the world’s superpowers has left a power vacuum in which much of the world initially had great hopes of freedom and self-rule, but has continually suffered anarchy as warlords, gangs, pirates, and other criminals have seized power by force or through terror. In the developed world, state bureaucracies have often been hijacked and government funds looted for special interests. Preventing the usurpation of power by criminal elements in a post-military world is a serious challenge to peace.

International peacekeeping efforts have been a poor substitute for self-rule. First of all, international troops are often seen as another form of foreign occupation. Secondly, such troops are less likely to be willing to sacrifice themselves for others, as was the case in Rwanda when peacekeepers fled and genocide ensued. Finally, foreign occupations suffer from the lack of regime legitimacy. However, the lack of domestic regime legitimacy is often the reason foreign peacekeepers are sent in the first place.

Our lead article by Waheed Khan drives home the point that political legitimacy is more important than political structure. What people most expect from a political regime is the protection that enables them to conduct their lives without fear of violence and theft. Aristotle referred to the “good king” as a desirable form of government, because good kings actually provided that security in which people could live in peace and pursue their own happiness. While democracy refers to self-rule and is everywhere being sought, he makes the point that legitimacy is more fundamental than democracy. Modern attempts by the United States and the United Nations to impose more democratic forms of government and free elections often fail because the bases of political legitimacy are absent. Regime legitimacy requires both a horizontal dimension—cultural cohesion—and a vertical dimension—trust in the regime.

While Khan’s article focuses on new states and nation-building after war and conflict, I urge readers to also consider his thesis in relation to the modern bureaucratic state. In larger countries, or empires, where cultural cohesion is not unified, can the regime involve itself in the minutiae of cultural decisions related to health care, education, and family planning? Cultural homogeneity may allow such decisions to be viewed as legitimate in countries like Japan or Norway. But in the Ancient Roman Empire, or in modern governments that cover large territories like China, the Russian Federation, the United States, or the European Union, pluralism and relative autonomy of political sub-units is necessary for social stability. However, pluralism is only considered legitimate when it creates a general environment of justice and security and allows families and communities to address the specifics of cultural issues like marriage, abortion, or care for the aged. In the absence of such devolution of power, states are delegitimized and either a police state or anarchy is likely to ensue.

Our second article by Anne Marie Baylouny discusses the fragmentation and anarchy that has developed in the Palestinian West Bank as a result of the Olso Accords that increased borders and decreased mobility. Rather than reducing violence, these changes led to increased and more decentralized violence by increasingly frustrated and independent local groups, or gangs, that arise when the citizens are unable to create self-rule and succumb to intimidation.

The short article by Richard Lappin on “Peacebuilding and the Promise of Transdisciplinarity” hints at the challenges of creating a post-colonial culture that incorporates the values generated by many disciplines and social institutions, rather than relying on the values and approaches generated by the single discipline or institution in which we are trained. “Leadership,” he claims, “needs to harness the promise of transdisciplinarity.” Yet he wonders whether modern leaders can escape the prejudices of their original disciplines. Perhaps culture has to evolve greater integral wholeness before leaders can escape from the prisons of their disciplinary and institutional lenses.

The article on “Children and War in Africa” by Margaret Angucia, and the commentary on “Combating Torture in Africa” by Gima Forje point out the depths of inhumanity that can be perpetrated in the climate of post-colonial anarchy, and grapple with ways that a civil society can stand up to it. It has been ten years since we published “Child Soldiers in Africa” by the late Elliott P. Skinner (June, 1999) and children and women continue to be the victims of anarchy.

In the absence of a generally unified national culture, created “from below” with self-sufficient citizens as was the case following the colonial rule in the Netherlands and the United States, the fear of social anarchy leads to the reluctant acceptance of military rule as a “lesser evil”—or even as a more legitimate system than democracy. Maintaining a genuine democracy or republic requires a citizenry prepared to use force against warlords, gangs, and corrupt governments for the sake of justice and righteousness. The traditional virtues of discipline, courage, honor, and patriotism have to be bred into every citizen.

When asked by a lady upon exiting the Constitutional Convention whether they had created a republic or a monarchy, Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said, “A republic, Ma’am, if you can keep it.” Unlike the prevailing culture at the time of Dutch or American independence, modern liberal culture and education tend to emphasize the softer virtues of love, harmony, and self-esteem, and downplay the traditional virtues of discipline, courage, and honor necessary for maintaining a democratic social order. As such, the modern liberal culture itself undermines the basis of democracy and allows for the rise of a bureaucratic class, which Michael Voslensky termed Nomenklatura.

In his book, Bureaucracy, Ludwig von Mises wrote that once citizens declare that political and economic problems can only be solved by experts, they have relinquished their sovereignty to the bureaucracy. Democracy means self-determination by citizens, not a bureaucracy. Citizen complacency undermines democracy and leads to rule by an elite government class.

Gordon L. Anderson
Editor-in-Chief

Introduction to June 2009 IJWP

Our lead article by James Yunker suggests ways in which global governance could be improved, ways that could create a “more perfect union” than the League of Nations, or the United Nations, which he compares to the Articles of Confederation of the United States. This more perfect union would involve three [...]]]>

Introduction to June 2009 IJWP

Our lead article by James Yunker suggests ways in which global governance could be improved, ways that could create a “more perfect union” than the League of Nations, or the United Nations, which he compares to the Articles of Confederation of the United States. This more perfect union would involve three principles not present in the world government proposals of the twentieth century. First, voting principles must be changed so that an involuntary redistribution of wealth could not occur. Second, there should be an inalienable right to withdraw from the Union. Third, each nation should be allowed to keep whatever military power they desire.

These three principles are essential if nations are to retain their autonomy and make their participation in the Federal Union voluntary. The alternative, which many fear would follow from an involuntary Union, would be a tyrannical world government, possibly controlled by a megalomanic like Hitler. These principles particularly resonated with me because in my book, Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, Version 4.0, I advocate similar principles in my suggestions for the reform of the United States, including the restructure of congress, a (conditional) right to secede, and more autonomy for member states. What people fear would happen to world government has been developing over time in the U.S. government: it is less accountable to its citizens and redistributes their wealth in ways they do not support.

Thomas Jefferson was a staunch opponent of consolidated government and sought to create a federal union in which the lower levels of government controlled the higher levels, not the inverse, which becomes tryanny—regardless of its outward structure. Free elections are only genuine if the citizens put forth the candidates, not if wealthy oligarchs or interest groups give the people their choices for whom to vote. In a truly free world, people want to pursue their own destiny. In a truly peaceful world, they must pursue that destiny in ways that do not harm others.

When the Dutch won their freedom from the Spanish Empire, they would not agree to a government unless it allowed religious freedom. When the states of the United States ratified the Constitution, most did so with the understanding they had the right to withdraw from the Union. This is no different than an individual working for a company who wants the right to leave that company if he feels exploited. It is no different than the right to leave a marriage or family if one is beaten and abused. One does not want to have his own destiny involuntarily controlled by others, but wants to experience joy and personal meaning in the one life he is given.

This issue likewise applies to the relationship of tribal and community groups in Pakistan to each other and to their state government. In our second article, Nasreen Akthar discusses the relationship of a national ideal to state government. It was easy for Moslems in India to agree on creating a state in which they could be free to pursue their lives as Moslems. However, after the state of Pakistan was formed it was run by oligarchs and military leaders from the top down. Individual citizens, communities, and tribal groups feel left out of the process. Some groups feel so disenfranchised or zealous in their own pursuit of power that they want to destabilize the regime or destroy the state.

Akthar argues that the modern top-down nation-state is a structure imposed by European colonialism and does not contain the cultural seeds of democracy within its history. She refers to it as being constructed by the “primitive accumulation of power” without political legitimacy. In her view, devolution of power and genuine participation of citizens and smaller political groups  is essential to building a peaceful and more democratic Pakistan. In this respect, she is addressing the same issue as Yunker does with world government. The flow of power must be from the bottom upward, and not from the top down. Central and higher governments can accomplish some functions more appropriately than smaller units, but they must be given their mandate from the smaller units rather than imposing their will or using their position for self-gain.

Akthar points out differences between cultural identity and ideology, between religion and state, and nation and state. The imposition of a particular way of life upon the state becomes the imposition of the state on all its people. Inevitably many feel disenfranchised and view the state as preventing them from equal democratic participation. This is the very reason Pakistan left India in the first place. Thus the state needs to devolve powers related to identity to lower-level communities and focus on territorial security for all people to practice the way of life they choose, so long as they do not deprive others of the freedom to do the same.

Our third article by Pilvi Torsti points to a failure of international organizations to promote peaceful democratic values in Bosnia and Herzegovina  after the “ethnic cleansing” and breakup of the Yugoslav Federation in the 1990s. Ethnic rivalries had been kept in check by the strong military regime of a unified Yugoslavia, even if some groups were favored above others under that regime. There were intermarriages and migrations within Yugoslavia that pitted neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother when the Federation disintegrated, leaving strong animosities. One hope of resolving some of this hatred was through public schools and the education of the next generation.

Torsti argues that, twelve years after the conflict ended, public school textbooks were promoting war-like education with the ethnic biases, and adding continued hatred to the generation that was supposed to overcome it. International organizations charged with monitoring textbook content, failed to do so adequately. One reason for this problem is that the school curriculum was decentralized and residents created textbooks on the local level, reflecting their ethnic biases. It is an example of the devolution of power in a climate of distrust creating what Thomas Hobbes called “the state of nature.”

Perhaps it is natural to retrench totally to the tribal and community relations known through personal interaction when the legitimacy of a larger political regime is lost. Larger political entities, not formed by conquest, arise from a social contract when smaller communities and states realize that it is advantageous for common security or administration of common resources, like rivers, on a larger territory. This idea of a social contract voluntarily entered may eventually arise in the former Yugoslavia, but is as difficult to impose from the top-down as it is for teachers to dictate to students who their friends will be. Neighboring peoples will need to want to work together, and textbooks that view others fairly can improve chances for future cooperation.

The right to secede, or the right to withdraw from a union is the ultimate check and balance on the absolute power of the higher political unit. In the case of a world government, that would be a monopoly on the entire world—the type of domination Hitler would have sought and most people fear. If members withdraw from a union, it shrinks or collapses like any organization based on free association. However, political unions, like marriages, often create new obligations like children and joint property. I might suggest, beyond what James Yunker has written, that withdrawal might need to be contingent upon meeting prior obligations of the contract, in a way that causes minimal harm to other parties.

* * *

Finally, I must point out that in March 2009 we learned of the loss of major grant support for International Journal on World Peace. Since its inception, IJWP has always required grant support to supplement our low subscription price. We have been grateful to those who have provided this support. We need to find additional funding in order to continue the journal at the level of the last two years. As a result, this issue has been shortened from the 160 pages that we had in the March 2009 issue to 96 pages in this one. We have also changed the printer and type of cover used on the journal to reduce production costs.

We hope to find new support that can enable us to bring more articles to our readers and to continue to present articles with viewpoints often not represented in other journals that can help readers understand global issues. Any help will be appreciated, and support is tax-deductible in the United States. We welcome any individual, group or foundation support.

Gordon L. Anderson
Editor-in-Chief

Introduction to March 2009 IJWP

This issue contains a variety of articles that do not easily coalesce around a particular theme, but all refer to containing the violence wreaked by those with power in the pursuit of self-interested goals, whether they be political, economic, or religious. This violence might appear in the form of a ruthless [...]]]>

Introduction to March 2009 IJWP

This issue contains a variety of articles that do not easily coalesce around a particular theme, but all refer to containing the violence wreaked by those with power in the pursuit of self-interested goals, whether they be political, economic, or religious. This violence might appear in the form of a ruthless warlord raping the economy and natural resources, the kidnapping and murder of NGO workers trying to serve the ravaged and oppressed in such countries, or the unilateral actions of a state to impose its will on others or threaten them with weapons of mass destruction.

Our first article, by George Kieh, examines the roots of civil war in Liberia. He notes that the peace imposed after the first civil war laid the seeds of a second civil war. Too often peace settlements aimed at ending fighting do not contain a process for the resolution of underlying social problems. Thus, they become a temporary cessation of violence rather than a real peace. In Liberia there was scarcely two years between the end of the first civil war and the onset of a second. The lack of  an adequate national security regime led to the competition for state power among warlords.

Throughout this period, little was done to undo the exploitative and corrupt nature of post-colonial rule in Liberia, where the government was as likely to prey on its citizens as serve them. Little had been done to reintegrate traumatized and socially unadapted child soldiers into the society. Real income for Liberians was in decline, and investment in new enterprises is risky when their security is not guaranteed.

The second article by Dave Benjamin discusses security for NGO workers trying to assist people in such devastated social environments. NGO workers trying to aid dispossessed and impoverished people are often taking great risks to their own lives in areas where there is anarchy, warlord turf battles, or unofficial state violence, neglect and genocide. Often such aid workers are viewed as obstacles to the domination of harsh regimes and are targeted by them as meddling. Benjamin argues that such sacrificial and heroic international servants should be provided more international protection, as is the case for diplomats and government officials. Not all NGOs are providing genuine humanitarian service. Some are quasi-political fronts for one party or another, while others may be performing a vital service. Many NGOs are working against a reality in which transnational corporations become linked to warlords for mutual profit at the expense of innocent people who are obstacles to their wealth.

The United Nations Charter has no obligation to protect NGOs because they have no official relation to governments. The UN Charter was a form of imposed international peace between states, but it ignores the issues of warlordism and violence perpetrated within states and fails to define what constitutes a legitimate state. Today this is one of the most serious problems of peace in much of the undeveloped world.

There is a growing notion that state sovereignty is compromised when a substantial portion of a population is dispossessed because of ethnicity, race, or religion. It is a failure of a state to protect its people.

Humanitarian intervention is then considered justified. There is no guarantee that warlords or failed states will protect humanitarian workers. In 1994 the international community watched as UN Peacekeeping troops fled Rwanda and allowed genocide to take place there. The ability of the international community to create an environment of international security everywhere it is needed has been lacking. This continues to be an inadequately solved problem of peace in our time.

In the next article, Filimon Peonidis is concerned with the problems of peace when strong nations or empires flex their muscles on the world stage much the way warlords do within states. He suggests one way to reduce the violence that results from the unilateral behavior of a powerful state towards a less powerful one is through the novel concept of “corresponding citizens.” Such corresponding citizens would be elected by smaller countries, e.g. Greece, to serve within the governments of larger powers like the United States or Britain.

In the September issue of International Journal on World Peace, George Kaloudis wrote about the impact that a diaspora can have on the foreign policy of a state. However, diasporas are less likely to suffer directly from foreign policy towards their state of origin than a corresponding citizen who still lives in another state. Corresponding citizens should be able to provide direct feedback on the implications of the foreign policy of a major power on their own state. Such feedback would constitute a form of international dialogue in a more transparent and democratic international order.

The article by Alon Ben-Meir addresses the insecurity created by states with nuclear weapons, and specifically discusses strategy for negotiating with Iran to prevent it from becoming another nuclear power. Again, one of the chief failures is the inability of larger powers and powers with different cultural expectations to engage in meaningful negotiation rather than using force which causes a greater reaction. Ben-Meir recognizes that at the heart of the matter is the desire of every people to improve their own well-being and that of their society. When threatened, a state, just like a person, reacts defensively. One key to negotiation with Iran is to include, in exchange for agreement to drop its nuclear weapons program, assistance in economic improvement, other guarantees of regional security, and recognition of grievances that have not been addressed.

This article, like the previous one on corresponding citizens, reminds us that the United Nations has failed to prevent the major powers, particularly those with veto power on the Security Council, from behaving much like global warlords. The prevailing doctrines of national self-interest that motivate the foreign policies of larger states are often as inconsiderate of the opinions and lives of others as are the warlords in Liberia or Afghanistan.  In both cases the group on the receiving end of such use of power consider themselves as innocent victims, and that neither a state or international security regime was adequate to protect them from the arbitrary actions of those with greater power. Even if a larger power does not intend to harm the smaller one, it will inevitably be perceived that way unless proven otherwise. It is clear that the United States has not been able to convince Iran that it is not a threat, especially after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Our last article by Leon Miller begins to address the thorny issue of how to create a political culture acceptable to all citizens in the absence of a dominant power. Can a “civil religion” be developed “from below” that will provide enough cultural cohesion for a democratic state in which there is cultural diversity? He writes from the perspective of Estonia where, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there are about 60 percent Estonians and 40 percent Russians and foreign nationals. How can such a country create unified national symbols? Since the time of Rousseau the idea of a civil religion, as opposed to an official state religion like Catholicism, has been widely discussed. However, civil religion has to be a less comprehensive and more open-ended set of beliefs, and must rely on “truths” that appear much more “self-evident” than many religious and ideological doctrines. In a sense, Marxism was a failed attempt to create a “scientific” civil religion. However, it became closed and stagnant when allied to the power of the state. Can any civil religion transcend these problems?

Miller outlines the case for civil religion. In a comment after his article, I have expressed some cautions to those who would embrace the concept too easily. Interreligious dialogue has not proven simple, and the issues of agreement on positive values beyond the protection of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are not easily agreed upon. Miller then concludes the article with more information about the situation in Estonia. One could assume this situation applies to other post-Soviet states, and perhaps in any state where there is not a homogeneous culture—if such a culture were desirable. The creation of a civil religion acceptable to all inhabitants of a land may require jettisoning some of every persons’ particular cultural values or rights, in exchange for a government that can embrace all citizens. Perhaps some of the positive social goods homogeneous cultures have asked governments to provide are more appropriately provided by cultural institutions than governments. In this way government would provide general protection for all people, while each cultural group within a society could shape specific goods that align with their own particular values.

Gordon L. Anderson
Editor-in-Chief

The articles in this issue all relate to the Middle East region from Palestine to Pakistan. This region is perhaps the most resistant to religious pluralism in the world. War and violence are often the result of the attempt by a religious or ethnic group to lay claim on an entire [...]]]> Introduction to December 2008 IJWP

The articles in this issue all relate to the Middle East region from Palestine to Pakistan. This region is perhaps the most resistant to religious pluralism in the world. War and violence are often the result of the attempt by a religious or ethnic group to lay claim on an entire state. A group may want to use the power of the state to redistribute all of the wealth and resources to its own members, or it may fear mistreatment or genocide if another group controls the power of the state.

When a religious group, an ethnic group, or a state claims to have the true understanding of peace and justice, or some monopoly on knowledge, they run into direct conflict with others who make similar claims based on different sacred truths. Within states we find ethnic and religious groups fighting over control of states; on the global level we have the “clash of civilizations.” Here there are transnational religious and cultural claims in competition over the definition of peace for the entire world.

Our first article by Norman Swazo looks at the idea of global jihad and the justifications Osama bin Laden has to claim a right to a holy war against infidels. The claim can be traced back to Islamic jurists such as Ibn Taymiyya who have a historical role in shaping the Islamic doctrines about war and peace. Developing such traditional religious doctrines, members of Al Qaeda can claim they are the true soldiers of peace, a peace in which their version of truth will rule over all people. From their point of view they are not “terrorists,” but the defenders of the true way of life. They believe that the injustice of false Muslims in the Saudi Royal family and the moral degradation of the West are the real threats to God’s kingdom.

Swazo suggests that the use of the word “terrorist” by Western leaders does more harm than good. It might be a way to mobilize U.S. forces on a crusade to oppose the Al Qaeda crusade, but it does not scratch the surface of a comparative understanding of justice that might assist in conflict resolution, respect and peaceful coexistence. Theories of justice and just war have developed in both Islamic and Christian civilizations. These theories may have much more in common than the political and economic interests of those using religion to mobilize soldiers for a crusade.

Our second article, by Nasreen Akhtar, is on “Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.” Written from the perspective of a political scientist in Pakistan, the author provides us with an overview of several competing forces in Afghanistan: ethnic groups within the state, competing interests of neighboring states, and transnational alliances and movements.

Afghanistan is made up of a number of tribal and ethnic groups, with the northern half speaking Farsi and culturally close to its neighbors Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. The groups in the South are Pashtun and have more in common with Pakistan. A landlocked country, Afghanistan has established a legal right of transit through Pakistan to get goods from ocean shipments.

All the conflicts of religion, ethnicity, and the modern state seem to have descended on Afghanistan. After 1978, the country also became a pawn in the geopolitical strategies of the Soviet Union, the United States, and Al Qaeda. Refugees from the fighting fled to the surrounding countries. Pakistan ended up with 3 million. Many were taken into Islamic boarding schools and became strict students of Islam (Taliban).

It is in the interest of all the neighboring countries to see political stability in Afghanistan but, in the absence of a strong centralized power, warlords have ruled various territories. In that situation, Pakistan is concerned about good relations with its warlord neighbors among the Pashtuns. However, after 9/11 the U.S. decided to oust the Taliban and support the creation of a stable national regime. That was also something Pakistan could support.

Akhtar takes the reader through this history in detail and in the end warns that a premature withdrawal of the U.S. coalition from Afghanistan that would lead to destabilization and greater internal conflict could cause another reversal on the part of Pakistan. Worried about political stability on its own borders and the fate of its Pasthun neighbors, Pakistan might be forced to defend them against other groups seeking control of Afghanistan.

Throughout the article, the reader is forced to conclude that the peace of Afghanistan cannot simply be the peace imposed by one of the many political players involved. Rather, there needs to be some broad coalition regime that recognizes pluralism and the rights of all religious and national groups, and at the same time is able to protect them all with equal justice.

Our last two articles propose solutions to the conflict between Palestinians and Jews in Israel. Alon Ben-Meir recommends that Israel look seriously at the Arab Peace Initiative, originally known as the Saudi Initiative, as the basis for a peace settlement. This proposal makes a just peace the overriding principle under which other claims are settled. It includes the idea of an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as the capital. Ben-Meir also emphasizes that Arabs need to recognize Israel’s concerns for security, the Jewish national identity, and normalized relations.

The second article by William Stover and Marina Mankaryous also states that both sides should place peace as the foremost value and recognize the paradox “that only through negotiations toward peace can their other values be achieved.” They argue for a condominium arrangement in Jerusalem to resolve the conflicting sovereignty claims over the holy sites. They analyze other places where condominium arrangements have worked and make a proposal on how this can take place in Jerusalem.

Our senior editor, Morton A. Kaplan, thought both articles are important contributions to resolving differences, but issued the following warning about realizing the security of Israel:

In the 1974 proposal I did with Cherif Bassiouni, Syria did get the Golan back. The problem is whether a Palestinian state will be able to control its radicals. The PLO does not have real support and I doubt even a good solution will restore it. Rockets from the West Bank would immobilize Israeli air communications. Even the Egyptians do not have domestic support for their cooperation with Israel. This is a very difficult issue and one reason I proposed both in the 70s and more recently, a joint Israeli Palestinian force that can operate in both states to control violent groups. Perhaps Syria should get the southern part of Lebanon to prevent the utter disruption of the Lebanese state if the Palestinian refugees are integrated. This is not a very good idea either. At the very least, Israel might need a transition period in which it retains the right to intervene if a West Bank state cannot control its radicals. I think the game was lost in 1974 when Kissinger objected to a global solution. Either someone must come up with something very inventive or we are in the soup. I believe the latter.

All of our authors remind us that the nations surrounding Israel and Afghanistan have a role to play in bringing peace to these countries. The concerns of Syria need to be addressed to gain security in any agreement with respect to Israel. Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian states have a role to play in maintaining peace in Afghanistan. Also, the great powers, especially the United States, have to rethink their understanding of terrorism and strategic interests and make a just peace for all citizens in the region the primary goal of foreign policy objectives in the region.

“What Constitutes the Legitimate Use of Force?” is a thorny and much debated question in modern political theory and just war doctrine. Under what conditions is the use of force moral? When is it immoral? How much force is enough? What is excessive use of force? Do some types of governments, [...]]]> Introduction to IJWP, March 2008

“What Constitutes the Legitimate Use of Force?” is a thorny and much debated question in modern political theory and just war doctrine. Under what conditions is the use of force moral? When is it immoral? How much force is enough? What is excessive use of force? Do some types of governments, by virtue of their structure, have a greater right to use force than others? How much force against individuals should be allowed to secure some greater good?  The articles in this issue each address this issue of the legitimate use of force, directly or indirectly, from a variety of perspectives.

Use of force by peacekeepers
Since World War II, and especially after the Cold War, intra-state conflicts have escalated as tribal, national, cultural, and ideological groups have sought to commandeer the power of the state for their own purposes. This has led to increased pressure to send in United Nations peacekeeping forces into areas of conflict within states to prevent violence and genocide. The United Nations is a relatively recent creation and its international peacekeeping, where soldiers from third-party states are sent to keep peace between warring groups, is a non-traditional role for soldiers.
Our first article, by Paolo Tripodi looks at the moral responsibility of soldiers in peacekeeping operations. He examines two serious abandonments of that responsibility—Srebrenica and Rwanda. In Srebrenica, peacekeepers allowed killing of those they were supposed to protect. In Rwanda, peacekeepers evacuated, knowing thousands of civilians they were protecting would be killed. He argues that the peacekeepers had a moral obligation to defend those depending on them, even though commanders ordered them out. When small detachments of peacekeepers are put in areas where there are stronger forces, as was the case in Srebrenica, there must be a clear signal that the peacekeepers are backed up by a greater international military force.

Teaching about the use of force in religious and social institutions
Religions, schools, and other institutions are in the position to teach about the use of force to members and students. Too often such institutions adopt positions that are not in the interest of peace and justice, for example by teaching doctrines of absolute pacifism as one extreme or by advocating holy war on the other. In the case of pacifism one ends up with morally justifying standing by while human beings are slaughtered. In the case of holy war, people are killed in the name of God by those who claim a favored status with God, yet are violent in the eyes of the world. Yet if the taking of human life is wrong, as most people believe and most religions teach, then both of these positions are unjustifiable.
The Christian Churches, throughout the last two millennia, have oscillated between these extremes. Early Christianity in the Roman Empire promoted pacifism. Christians were often forbidden to join in military service and often willingly went to their deaths as martyrs, singing praises to God. After the Catholic Church became the official church of the Roman Empire and commanded great power, it did not continue to behave the same way. It often attempted to use that power to force others to conform to the “truth” and practices it promoted. The Crusades and pogroms of the Middle Ages are historically remembered as a dark period in the history of the Catholic Church. In our second article, “Saint Peter Sheathes His Sword,” Peter Huff describes a reaction against this mode of operation as his analysis of the teaching of the Catholic Church shows a swing back toward pacifism.

Force necessary to keep peace treaties
Signing a peace treaty makes a lot of people happy, but making it work requires enforcement. Old hatreds die hard and the killing will not stop simply because a treaty is signed. New states cannot be created unless there is enough force to defend them from aggression by their neighbors, and keep warring groups at bay. In his article, “Why Plans for a Two-State Solution in the Middle East Have Failed,” Morton A. Kaplan argues this is  one reason for the failure of peace in the Middle East. The creation of a Palestinian state, while desired by many, has not been possible because no Palestinian government has been strong enough to either prevent violent attacks by Palestinians on Israel, or to prevent intervention of militant groups from neighboring countries.

The force to maintain legitimate sovereignty
Legitimate sovereignty refers to sovereignty that is recognized, not imposed. Most imposed regimes claim sovereignty based on their control by force. However, such regimes are inherently unstable. A stable regime is rather one in which those under its rule view it as legitimate. Inasmuch as most people have an innate desire to live their own lives and pursue their own dreams, they see legitimate sovereignty in the social institutions that enable people to live out those dreams. This leads to the conclusion of Yossef Ben-Meir’s article, “National Sovereignty through Decentralization: A Community-Level Approach.”
Ben-Meir argues that a strong state is a decentralized state, a state built upon the smaller building blocks of family, community, and lower level institutions that can personally assist individuals and communities in their employment and welfare. Attempts to create states from the top-down, through plans developed from outside, like most international or regional plans for development, are doomed to fail. Despite the fact that many people desire states to care for them, centralized states are inherently weaker and less able to do so.
Decentralization advances local and national self-reliance, which is, in turn, associated with increases in independence from external control. “Issues of national sovereignty are the very reason for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the continuing warfare in Iraq, and the conflict in the Western Sahara involving Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania.” Ben-Meir argues that strategies for development and peace in these areas must emphasize bottom-up, rather than top-down solutions, or marginalized groups will view the imposed sovereignty as illegitimate.

The force of structural violence
Structural violence is a term developed by Johan Galtung to explain indirect violence to people that results from social structures that prevent people from living harmoniously. This type of violence is often related to the imposition of unjust social structures by those in power, or by laws that favor some groups of people over others. In the 1980s it was common for socialists to point at the structural injustice inherent in the international order in which the West constituted a “center” and the rest was on the “periphery.”  Regime leaders in many Third World countries were considered as representatives of the center placed in the periphery, rather than genuine representatives of the people living in the nations they ruled.
While many peace activists recognized the power of Galtung’s analysis, they advocated various forms of revolution designed to impose other centralized structures of governance that they would lead. They devised plans in which they claimed to know what was better for those on the periphery. Such forms of regime change inevitably contained hubris, blindness, and structural violence themselves. They were also guilty of imposing foreign ideals and illegitimate sovereignty on local peoples. As Ben-Meir’s article argues, the freedom of individuals and local community groups that comes with decentralization is a more legitimate basis for state sovereignty.
Lisa Reber’s article, “Building Cultures of Peace in The World: One Peace Center at a Time,” argues that we must transcend the attacks on structural violence and develop structural peace. She argues that some of the older peace rhetoric, like “fight for peace,” contains conceptual violence. Any fight means winners and losers and does not lead to a way for opponents to live together with one another.  Citing the “Seville Declaration” of 1986 (International Journal on World Peace, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 90-92), she argues that “peace begins in the minds of men” and that it is important to develop peaceableness as a quality of thought and culture. She advocates the creation of local peace centers as places where peaceableness can be developed from the bottom up by creating centers for education and dialogue.

Many of the key issues of our turbulent age are presented in this issue of IJWP. It contains hints of the outline of how a post-Westphalian, post-bipolar world is shaping up. We have not come close to creating a world of peace, but we are learning a few things that [...]]]> Introduction to IJWP, December 2007 Issue

Many of the key issues of our turbulent age are presented in this issue of IJWP. It contains hints of the outline of how a post-Westphalian, post-bipolar world is shaping up. We have not come close to creating a world of peace, but we are learning a few things that I hope we can collectively remember to come closer to the end of a history of abuse of power.

The end of a Westphalian World
In the September issue, Morton A. Kaplan argued that “the EEC, Russia, and the United States are not insulated from each other or from the non-Westphalian aspects of the world in which we live. We have a common interest in preserving our civilization, our mutual economic relations, and an environment that we share.” And, Evelin Linder argued that Realpolitik in our globalized world no longer means what it did in the bi-polar world or in the Westphalian world.

Great powers, empires, and ideological blocs were attempts by strong leaders or national elite groups to control the world through some type of plan that would give them peace on their own terms. However, such plans have always left out others; both the other states and empires they cannot control, and many of the people they rule, who also would like to pursue life freely on their own terms.

Thus, at the end of World War II when the great powers of the time created the United Nations to prevent war between states, they did not create the conditions of “peace” from the standpoint of those people who were unable to influence policy and often suffered marginalization or oppression at the hands of those who could.

The result of changes in the world that led to the breakdown of the power arrangements of the post-World War II period is a period of international turbulence and a quest for self-determination. However, the quest for self-determination has come in two very different and competing forms of ideals of governance which papers in this issue discuss; the quest for national self-determination, and the quest for democracy.

The Quest for National Self-determination
The first article by Muzaffer Ercan Yilmaz is about “Intra-State Conflicts In The Post-Cold War Era” (p. 11). It discusses the reasons for increased intra-state conflicts in the present era, the problems caused by ethnic rivalry and competition for state resources, possible ways to help prevent such conflicts in the future, and suggestions at resolution of conflicts where they exist.

The charter of the United Nations talks about “national sovereignty” and the “self-determination of peoples” (plural). In traditional societies, the loyalty of individuals is given to others in leadership positions in exchange for some measure of group co-prosperity. Such loyalties were not given to a large, impersonal, and bureaucratic state, but to family, tribal, ethnic, and national groups. These loyalties trump individualism and democratic values and the individual pursuit of happiness—ideas not generally tolerated by the elites of such groups. These loyalties lead to the desire for a “nation-state” as opposed to a democratic state.

In a “nation-state,” the values of a particular national group impose the form of order of government. However, such a state cannot remain at peace unless all people living in that state subscribe to the beliefs and values of the ruling national group. Like democracy, the ideal of a nation-state has immense appeal in the world today, as it reflects another way to achieve one’s desired end. Unfortunately, nationalism, almost by definition, is intolerant of other values. The values of no national group have ever been considered universal values that all people can ascribe to.

The elites of national groups and the guardians of national theology and ideology assert their own versions of cultural “truth” as a form of power and control. Popes, priests, ayatollahs, sheiks, official interpreters of Marxism, Supreme Court justices, and judges all act as arbiters of truth when they issue pronouncements of what people may or may not freely do. Religious wars and wars of nationalism are both symptoms of intolerance of another group’s version of the truth. And, when truth is pronounced as totally contained in sacred documents of the group, it becomes closed-minded, and a way for the leaders of such groups to deny freedom to subordinates.

The resurgence of fundamentalism after the collapse of the bi-polar world is a return to traditional forms of knowledge control associated with the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages after the Bible was canonized and Church Councils defined official doctrines. It manifests itself in Islam among those who teach that all truth is contained in Islam and Mohammad is the last and final prophet of God. It was present among the Marxists that forbade the teaching of sociology in Russian universities in 1924 because “Marx and Lenin had given the final word in sociology.” And, it manifests in Protestant biblical fundamentalists who quote from the end of the Bible, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book” (Rev 22:18). In the modern liberal democracies, scientistic doctrines like evolution are often promoted by persons with a similar psychological closed mindedness and desire to control knowledge, even though their faith might be grounded in non-theistic beliefs.

In all these cases, the elite guardians of group faith attempt to control God, confining Him to the existing text they control, and forbidding God from revealing any new truth or speaking directly to people. They define enemies as those not in their in-group who ascribe to the same teachings, and they attempt to prohibit believers from entertaining thoughts that stray outside the boundaries of prescribed official truth.

A secular state—one that is neutral with respect to national and cultural values and truth, one that allows people to pursue happiness as they see fit, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others to do so—is a form of state in which a genuine liberal democracy can eventually emerge. However, national feelings are very strong because historically human loyalty to various social groups has provided them with the opportunities for sustenance and security.

Nevertheless, no group that promotes a truth that was defined in ages past, in a pre-industrial, pre-globalized world, is going to be blindly accepted by people who have observed or experienced other possible ways of life that look more prosperous, more fulfilling, or allow more freedom. Thus, the quest for national self-determination based on a closed truth is an attempt to create a political system that defies the laws of human history.

The Quest for Democracy
The result has been continually growing pressure to expand personal freedom, and to create political systems based on individual self-determination, where one is not coerced into a life of the prevailing orthodoxy. The idea of democracy is one of the most compelling ideas for people who have been oppressed or left out of planning, or who have a different belief about “truth,” because it symbolizes a route to the realization of their personal dreams. In the West, the Renaissance that promoted arts and sciences beyond the scope of the Church, and the Reformation which argued that individuals were personally accountable to God, led to the development of modern political thought, with an emphasis on checks and balances of power, and separation of Church and State. The Reformation emphasized personal self-control and self-direction, something which democracies require to function.

However, few, if any, states in the modern world are really democratic in the sense that they give all people a full opportunity at self-governance. There have been two approaches to the development of democracy, one is from the top down and the other from the bottom up. In England the monarchy gradually ceded enough freedom to the people to appease their own desire to pursue happiness. It is called a “liberal democracy” today even though its political structure is a democratized monarchy. Thus, the highest priorities of government are still “control,” “order,” and “peace,” and freedom and justice are given only to the extent they aid the maintenance of the institutional order.

The opposite approach, a bottom up approach to democracy, is symbolized by the United States and French revolutions against monarchy. In the United States, a Constitution was shaped by the philosophy of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It was designed as the minimum government necessary to keep social order and peace, while the freedom and justice of the individual citizen had the highest priority. While the United States is also called a “liberal democracy” today, its citizens have gradually ceded a good portion of their freedom to the new groups of economic and political elites that have gradually arisen. The states in the United States have also gradually ceded more power to the Federal Government.

These mixed forms of government from above and government from below reflect social conditions in which some people are more driven to pursue a life of their choosing, and others are more content to work for others, if they promise to care for them. Democratic freedom entails responsibility for self-sufficiency and public service. Nearly all people want freedom, but the number willing to accept such responsibility is less, and the number of those willing to accept the corresponding responsibilities, but are capable of them are fewer still. Hence, a truly liberal democracy remains only an ideal in the present world.

Our second article by Shah M. Tarzi discusses democracy and develops a distinction between “liberal democracies” and “illiberal democracies” (p. 35). Illiberal democracies tend to have democratic elections, but little else that represents democracy. They are likely not to have other freedoms, like freedom of the press, or allow citizens much influence over the political process once election occur. They are likely not to have an economically self-sufficient middle-class majority made up of self-directed citizens, knowledgeable about the political challenges of their government. Illiberal democracies are democracies in name only.

Young democracies, such as those emerging from colonialism, are often unstable and do not conform to the democratic peace theories that democracies do not go to war. Further, the democratic peace theory breaks down when we look at the history of democracies interfering in intra-state developments, when there is no natural check on their power.

We are reminded in the article, “Real Men Kill and a Lady Never Talks Back” by Lesley Pruitt (p. 85) that even in the United States, one of the historically most liberal democracies, individuals with more power in one form or another tend to use it to control national discourse, and to control other groups of people, in this case the continued promotion of cultural values in which the opinions of men are considered more relevant than those of women.

The Quest for Economic Justice
No discussion of self-determination, self-sufficiency, and human happiness can take place without developing our knowledge of the economic dimension of life. In the book review section three current books on capitalism are reviewed in detail (p. 111).

The review of Robert Reich’s Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life shows how undeveloped the modern understanding of the relationship between the government and corporate life really is. Society is composed of three sectors: the State, Commerce, and Culture (religion).

The U.S. Founding Fathers recognized serious problems associated with an official state religion. Indeed, the freedom of religion in America led to more vibrant churches and more relevant and useful religion, based on the principle that the success of a religion would depend on its own service to the people, not on the imposition of official religion through state coercion.

However, the King of England had had a monopoly on both religion and the economy. The framers of the U.S. Constitution disestablished religion, but in the area of the economy they simply outlawed the national companies of foreign governments, e.g. the Hudson’s Bay Company and the East India Company.

In early America the economy was primarily based on family farms and businesses. Each family unit was both a voting unit and an economic unit. Thus the wealth of the nation was represented by the vote. In such a world an “invisible hand” seemed to guide the economy because of the multiple checks and balances on market power. However, over time economic power was able to consolidate and there were no rules to guide its growth.

There was no serious federal involvement in the commercial sector until the development of railroads, large capital intensive corporations that crossed state lines, and the steel industry and heavy industry that followed at the time of the Civil War. Similar to the way religious and cultural leaders have attempted to exert power over others through the control of knowledge, the captains of industry and government have attempted to control the economic power that developed with capitalism for their own social ends at the expense of others.

The relationship between large businesses and government that developed in the United States has seen attempts by corporations to use economic influence to secure government favors that would further enhance their power, attempts by government officials to tax corporations, or create state controlled businesses that would enhance their own power, and the collusion between government officials and specific corporations and industries—at the expense of the general population. Incidentally, Thomas Jefferson wanted such protections written into the Bill of Rights but lost them in negotiations with the Hamiltonians.

There has never developed a genuine impartial disestablishment of commerce with fair laws that keep industry at arm’s length from government, as was the case for religion. We have a situation analogous to a football game in which the rules are made up play by play and many of the referees are on the take.

Robert Looney’s review essay of The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein provides us with a glimpse of how the “haves” and the “have nots” continue to view the world through spectacles that reflect their own position in the world, rather than seeing from a perspective that would lead to the amelioration of the complaints against the stereotypes held by both sides.

Economic capital, like knowledge, is essential to the development of self-sufficiency upon which prosperous societies can be built. Economic power, like political power, is something that can either be consolidated and used to control others for one’s own ends, or it can be organized for the freedom of all to pursue their own ends through fair rules of the game.

The amount of lobbying by churches and corporations is proportional to the amount their lobbyists believe they can influence government to give them some preferential treatment. In a nutshell, clear and fair rules would greatly reduce corporate lobbying, and would give elected representatives more time to spend on real issues of concern to all citizens. In a football game, one can challenge the referee’s decisions through an instant replay. So too, the judicial system ought to allow a review of government decisions; but like referees, the judges must understand the rules and enforce them evenly.

The Quest for Peace
No political problems are more difficult than building states where none have existed, or rebuilding them after bitter war and genocide. Peace in the Middle East is the subject of Mark Barry’s essay on William B. Quandt’s Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967 (3rd ed.). Peace on the Korean peninsula is the topic of Vipan Chandra’s commentary titled “Korea for Koreans” (p. 107). Both of these conflicts were created as a result of international actors and actions taken from outside supposedly “for” the well-being of the inhabitants. They both discuss recent major international meetings: the inter-Korean Summit of October 4 and Annapolis Mideast conference of November 27.

As is the case for many attempts by a minority group to create peace on behalf of all, the road to hell can be paved with good intentions. A system whereby the actual citizens, stakeholders, and objects of such decisions are allowed feedback about their own future is important. Of course, as discussed above, they may not be agreed upon whether they seek a nationalist or a democratic ideal.

Quest for a sustainable environment
Finally, is a very interesting article from Hall Healy on the very unusual situation where natural wildlife habitat in the Korean DMZ has been allowed to develop without human presence for the last 50 years (p. 61). A peaceful world is not possible without a natural world that can provide human necessities. The official state of war that has existed between North and South Korea since 1953 has allowed an important ecosystem to develop and to become pristine. It may provide clues to the development of a sustainable world and, he argues, should be preserved before peace on the Korean peninsula returns the area to human occupation.