This chapter addresses global security as a building block for a culture of peace. Unfortunately, the current world situation may more accurately be described as global insecurity. International treaties are threatened by non-adherence and selective adherence, elections in many countries are anything but “free and fair,” and wars are being fought over resources, borders, and ethnicity, among other causes (Freedom House 2007). The US government continues to prosecute a “global war on terrorism,” seemingly unaware that fighting a war over a concept is unlikely to be a successful undertaking. It will be impossible to build a global culture of peace without relative stability on the international front.
At the same time, however, the Human Security Group, now at Simon Fraser University, points out that there is good news. According to the 2005 Human Security Report, in 1992, 50 conflicts involving at least one government were underway around the world. By 2003, there were 29 such conflicts. There were similar reductions in the total number of conflicts worldwide. Between 2002 and 2005, the period covered in the 2006 brief updating this work, there was little change with respect to the number of conflicts that involved a government. However, there was a large drop in the number of conflicts for which a state was not one of the parties at war, dropping from 34 in 2002 to 25 in 2005.
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Goldring, N.J. (2009). International Security. In: de Rivera, J. (eds) Handbook on Building Cultures of Peace. Peace Psychology Book Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09575-2_14
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