The Long Peace

14 August 2012, 0027 EDT

Global Trends 2030 has a virtual roundtable on the “Long Peace” and whether or not it will persist. As Allan Dafoe notes in his introduction: “we live during an era of historically unprecedented peace. Whether we look over timescales of decades or centuries, wars have become less frequent.” He continues:

To probe the persistence of this Long Peace, it would be helpful to know what factors have made the world more peaceful, and the extent to which these factors are likely to persist into the future. Potential causes of the peace include increases in trade, democracy, the difficulty of coercing wealth, global empathy, Great Power stability, the empowerment of women, and the deterrent effects of nuclear weapons. Global Trends 2030 identifies a number of other factors pertinent to the future probability of war, including power transitions, declining US military superiority, resource scarcity, new coercive technologies (such as cyberweapons, precision-strike capability, and bioweapons), and unresolved regional conflicts.

Wars are rare, but when they occur they alter the course of history. Any projection of what the world will be like decades into the future needs to evaluate the probability and character of war, and especially Great Power war. This week we can look forward to a set of eminent scholars sharing their thoughts about whether the Long Peace will persist. Contributors include: Erik Gartzke, (UC San Diego), Benjamin Fordham (Binghamton), Joshua Goldstein(American), Steven Pinker (Harvard), Jack S. Levy (Rutgers), Richard Rosecrance (Harvard), Bradley Thayer (Baylor), and William Thompson (Indiana).