– World Leadership Education Foundation (WLEF)
The answer to this question is not a naive “yes” or a cynical “no.” To answer this question you first need to tell what is peace from what is not. Then after rational assessment you can give a more rational answer.
For a long time, war has been considered the antonym of peace. Wherever there is war, there is no peace, and wherever there is no war, there is peace. In the human history, time of war and time of peace alternated. If you attempt to find a time in the history when there was completely no war on this planet, you can not find it. It did not exist. So world peace has not happened before. And you may fairly say it is unlikely to happen in the future, too.
Fortunately, we have seen reduction in war in many regions of the world. The security mechanism established in the European Union seems a prelude to peace in Europe. After the Cold War in the 20th century, even though there are still conflicts among countries, settling disputes by means of war has been gradually reduced due to the technological, economic, and cultural exchanges in the globalization era. Continuing on this path, world peace should be only a matter of time. Or is it?
The problem is, no-war can not be equated with peace. Can we say, we have attained world peace because there is no war today? Can we be certain that tomorrow is also free of war? Even if there is no war, what about the unjust global structure that makes a rich country richer and a poor country poorer? Is this peace? Is the inequity and deprivation of opportunity the kind of peace people envisioned? It probably is not. Even if it is, and we have settled the human issues, there are still other pressing issues such as species extinction and climate change. Does this constitute the so-called human well-being?
World peace is not just the absence of war. It is quite beyond anti-war. Currently, there are many non-governmental organizations (NGO) that dedicate in peace work in different areas. All of their efforts are essential to world peace, and they can generally be grouped into five areas: anti-war, poverty elimination, infectious disease prevention, global warming and environmental protection, and species preservation. Any world peace initiatives will attempt to achieve success in these five areas.
