This series of diaries will outline my plan for achieving world peace. I have not seen or heard of any such plan described or discussed before, so I will call it “my” plan, and in these diaries I will try to define the necessary elements of the plan, how those elements might be brought about, and what key obstacles would need to be overcome. I suffer no great illusions that this plan would or could ever be followed. However, assuming it is possible and if it were actually tried, I believe it would result in the achievement of world peace.
This of course begs for a definition of what I mean by the phrase “world peace.” Which is the focus of this first diary.
The primary purpose of my plan is the elimination of the use of violence by nation states to achieve any objective other than self-defense. A more humanitarian view, however, would envision the broader elimination of violent conflict between any organized groups of people where eliminating such conflicts is beyond the capabilities or jurisdictions of traditional nation states exercising traditional police powers.
If that is too vague then three examples might be useful.
First, any sovereign nation waging war against another would have to stop. The only exception to this would be waging war in self-defense, but this exception would not include pre-emptive strikes. Countries waging war to defend themselves would have to actually be attacked first.
Second, civil wars within sovereign nation states would have to stop. The only exception here would be something analogous to the self-defense exception above, where a government is in essence waging war illegally against its citizens, and those citizens organize to defend themselves (and perhaps effect regime change in the pursuit of certain inalienable rights, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness). “Illegality” here is a key and difficult concept in the context of regulating the conduct of sovereign governments, and something which would need to get fleshed out in a subsequent diary.
And third, groups operating outside of the context of traditional nation states using violence to attain political or economic objectives would have to stop. This would encompass what are generally considered to be terrorist organizations employing violence, whether against targeted “enemies” or the public at large. Such organizations could be organized around or motivated by religious tenants, tribal relationships or illegal economic objectives (such as drug cartels and other organized criminal groups).
What is meant by “world peace” will become clearer in the context of a high level statement of what I am suggesting we should actually try to do to promote it, but that is the topic of Whirled Peas 2.
I’m a Victim of Circumstance.