Stable Peace

by Kenneth E. Boulding

The human race has often put a high value on struggle, strife, turmoil, and excitement. Peace has been regarded as a utopian, unattainable, perhaps dull ideal or as some random element over which we have no control. However, the desperate necessities of the nuclear age have forced us to take peace seriously as an object of both personal and national policy. Stable Peace attempts to answer the question, If we had a policy for peace, what would it look like? A policy for peace aims to speed up the historically slow, painful, but persistent transition from a state of continual war and turmoil to one of continual peace. In a stable peace, the war-peace system is tipped firmly toward peace and away from the cycle of folly, illusion, and ill will that leads to war. Boulding proposes a number of modest, easily attainable, eminently reasonable policies directed toward this goal. His recommendations include the removal of national boundaries from political agendas, the encouragement of reciprocal acts of good will between potential enemies, the exploration of the theory and practice of nonviolence, the development of governmental and nongovernmental organizations to promote peace, and the development of research in the whole area of peace and conflict management. Written in straightforward, lucid prose, Stable Peace will be of importance to politicians, policy makers, economists, diplomats, all concerned citizens, and all those interested in international relations and the resolution of conflict.

156 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1978

Reviews

[Samrudha Surana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stable peace: where war is no longer considered a viable policy option. It lies not only in extending the range of non-conflict human action, but also the part of conflict human action which can be dealt with peacefully. The line between war and peace for Boulding is the "taboo line" -- but the state can make discrete jumps from war to peace across the line. How do we think of it as a continuum?

[Mia · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book feels very much entrenched in some sort of ideal world where man's inherent nature ceases to exist. I had to suspend disbelief at certain points, including the concept that the only successful revolution was the American one or that man is peaceful at default.

The concept of the different types of peace and war was interesting, albeit not very fleshed out. It did seem to point towards a person's/situation's/nation's existence on a spectrum, which feels more logical than the binary "you're either at peace or at war."

[Paul Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful meditations on Peace and war and their causes. less accademic than philosphical.