An Academy of Peace: What a Novel Idea
by John Lawrence
We have several academies of war - the US Naval Academy, West Point, the US Coast Guard Academy, the US Air Force Academy. Is there a US academy of peace? We spend a trillion dollars a year on the military. How much do we spend on the peace industry? Congress has completed its work on a budget for fiscal year 2022, passing a $1.5 trillion spending package. ... Unfortunately, for a seventh consecutive year, instead of providing new resources to better meet the needs of a changed world, it keeps Peace Corps' baseline funding flat at $410.5 million. We spend a pittance on peace, a fortune on war. As the world's leading super power, we spend our money on what we value most - war. Do the big wigs in the American government even have an idea of what it would take to create a peaceful world? What would be the steps that should be taken to prevent war before it starts. One thing is to work toward eliminating poverty and disease in the world. We should have a world in which everyone has at least the basics for a decent life. That means adequate sanitation, adequate clean water supply, adequate shelter, adequate nutrition, adequate health care.
Fact: Over 1.5 billion people still do not have basic sanitation services, such as private toilets or latrines. Of these, 419 million still defecate in the open, for example in street gutters, behind bushes or into open bodies of water. There is much work to be done here. Does the US have anything in its budget to upgrade the sanitation level for the rest of the world? No, they are too much concerned with fighting the next war, spending billions on the most advanced military systems. Such a simple thing as improving sanitation in the world is something the US as a country is not really concerned about. Yet there is a connection between personal well being and peace. People that are at least basically well off are not inclined to go to war. War seems like a good alternative if the alternative is poverty. Throughout history the war making class has always been more prosperous than the peasantry. It's stlll true today.
So do our leaders have the faintest ideas about how to create peace ... or only how to win wars. There is never enough money to do the things that might result in a more peaceful world, but there is plenty of money for fighting wars. What would be some good ideas for creating a more peaceful world? Maybe citizen to citizen interchanges with countries who are deemed to be out "enemies." Maybe spending more money on creating diplomats and diplomacy. Maybe not characterizing any country as an "enemy"? Maybe creating the conditions for peace. Maybe two years of required national service in the Peace Corps as an alternative to the military with the same benefits? There's a song, "I'm not going to study war no more." Maybe creating more peace workers than soldiers, sailors and airmen. I think more results could be realized by spending less money on war. Peace should not really cost that much. What is costly is war. More money has been spent on it over the years than any other thing. It's the main thing that tax money has been spent on for millennia. It's what bankrupted France in the reign of Louis XIV. And after all the wars, France's boundaries remained the same as they were at the beginning of Louis' reign.
