“Peace on Earth.” It is each year’s Christmas wish and indeed the great wish of the world’s religions across history.
Of course, any realist or cynic can tell you that this wish is an empty hope that will never come true. And oddly, the idealists who march in the streets for peace seem to agree — the world is awash in war, from atrocities in remote provinces of the Congo to drone attacks in Yemen to suicide bombings in Afghanistan. Whether you blame the military-industrial complex, the clash of civilizations, competition for natural resources, or human nature itself, peace on earth seems further away than ever.
Except, actually, it isn’t. While TV images will always show us the most horrible parts of the human experience, the big picture has changed dramatically in our lifetimes. Peace on earth as a complete cessation of violence may never arrive, but the distance between the dream and the reality has been shrinking for decades. Worldwide, wars today are fewer, smaller and more localized than at any time in living memory.
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