A dove among pigeons. Photo: By Myan Nguyen on Unsplash.
Is peace possible? John Lampen on what to do when the international order breaks down
‘It is not surprising that we feel we are floundering.’
For most of my life I was offered two sources of security at the international level. One was nuclear deterrence (‘the Cold War’) which I profoundly mistrusted because it opposed threat with threat and carried an immense risk of human error. The other was the system of international order, supported by the United Nations, with rules on how nations behaved to each other. This was buttressed by a number of instruments such as international conventions, declarations, treaties and bans; and also by trade agreements, alliances and so forth. The system claimed to be based on morality, and almost every state professed to be bound by it. There was hypocrisy, and there were violations and failures in many instances from arms trading to whaling to human rights, because of the folly of our own leaders as well the malice of others. But the system gave us a fairly stable framework within which states could talk to each other and come to agreement. A common language existed in which peacemakers could negotiate with leaders in conflict in the search for satisfactory outcomes.
