A generation raised on war will be quick to agree with the recent findings of the Institute For Economics and Peace that the world is currently a theatre of conflicts. Violence in Syria, South Sudan and Somalia suggests that the findings of its recently published Global Peace Index that claims that there are only eleven countries that are free from conflict may not be far from the truth. The Global Peace Index measures and ranks nations on the basis of their peacefulness.

The institute’s long term goal is to understand what makes societies peaceful and to inform the policies and actions societies need in order to achieve this. The recent publication of The Atlas Network and Students For Liberty entitled Peace, Love, Liberty offers an optimistic view of global peace and presents arguments from psychology, history, philosophy and poetry that libertarianism is making a pacific world possible through mutual cooperation, free trade and tolerance.

The authors argue that only the classical-liberal tradition which espouses free markets, limited government and individual rights can claim the high ground for promoting peace. Wars are fought on behalf of artificial boundaries drawn by the state and only classical-liberals argue that since wars are organized human violence, they can be avoided.

That we are living in the most peaceful century of human existence is corroborated by both the global peace index and Steven Pinker, a psychology professor at Harvard and one of the seven contributors to the book. Majority of conflicts recorded are linked to big governments since wars grow the government like nothing else. Those who want peace must advocate for limited government. Robert McDonald, a professor of history at the United States Military Academy at West Point and contributor to the book traces the use of war as last resort as an idea of the Enlightenment where war was seen as the greatest threat to liberty. Global conflicts, which cost the global economy twice the size of Africa’s economy, do not only destroy lives and property, it makes liberty impossible.

Although inter-state wars are reducing, the report found that internal conflicts are becoming the major impediment to global peace due to a rise in global terrorism and the incidents of civil unrests. Europe, with stable democratic government and the rule of law is the most stable region with fourteen peaceful countries out of twenty ranked. The annexation of Crimea by Russia and the skirmishes in Ukraine gives credence to the arguments of Peace, Love, Liberty that war is the health of the state.

With popular concerns of global inequality leading to violence, Emmanuel Martin addresses the economics of peace and claims that prosperity does not have to create winners and losers. He makes the case for free markets and the promotion of peace through trade which promotes good neighborliness.

The glorification of war and the tendency for conflicts usually occur when a collective of tribe, country, race and religion is given precedence over the rights of individuals. Those who glamorize war are reminded by literature and poetry, and the poems of Wilfred Owen, an English poet who died in the First World War, not to believe the old lie that there is nothing as glorious as dying for one’s country.

Peace, Love, Liberty refrains that to learn how to live in peace is a more noble pursuit; learning, amplifying and organizing for peace will help increase the number of countries that are peaceful in the global peace index.

You can request copies for your group in East Africa here and in West Africa by sending an email here.