How can humanity reliably target the peace that almost all of us we wish to see? The absence of conflict, expressed in terms of such objective measures as numbers of deaths or serous injuries caused by violence, or people made homeless sounds like a desirable goal. But I think it points to a qualitative difference between short- and long-term goals, and why we must have a policymaking system that targets the latter.
A short-term peace can be the precursor to a long-lasting peace, but it can also be a period within which opposing sides of a conflict merely pause to catch breath, re-arm and prepare for another bout of hostilities. Current policymaking, in conflict reduction as in many other policy areas, is mostly geared toward the ceasing of current hostilities. There are groups doing heroic work that looks at the longer term (see here and here, for lists of such organisations), but their influence is vastly outweighed by those powerful bodies, in governments and elsewhere, that think only in the short term and for whom conflict is just another tool that they can deploy for in their own interests. As well, organisations working for long-term peace or their employees are rarely financially rewarded for success.
Which is why I suggest that we issue Conflict Reduction Bonds, or some variant, that would explicitly target peace sustained for at least, say thirty years. The bonds would create a protean coalition of interests, all aiming at long-term peace. Their motivation would come from the increase in the value of their bonds that would result from their successful reduction in the probability of future conflict. Rewards would not only take the form of paying hard-working, dedicated employees more: efficient peace-building bodies would attract more funding and so be able to achieve far more. I've written extensively about Conflict Reduction Bonds and their variants; all my writing is downloadable free of charge via links here.
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