The Wonderful World Beyond Today...

How will true peace come to this troubled planet?


Human history is, at its core, the story of wars. We study what led up to them, what weapons were developed and used, who was hurt most by them, who was considered the winner and what was done to prepare for the next one.
The spaces in between wars are often referred to as peace, but too often they are merely times of sorrow and recovery from the war just past or fear and preparation for the war to come. Precious little peace can be found in human history.
After two devastating world wars, the nations gathered in San Francisco, California, in 1945 to found an organization "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind" (Preamble to the United Nations Charter). But in spite of that lofty goal, between 1946 and 2002, there were 226 armed conflicts by one count (John D. Wright, Guide to the State of the World, 2005, p. 80).
Why is man drawn inevitably toward war? Why have our best efforts failed to bring peace?
Causes of war
The Bible reveals that the cause of violence goes all the way back to the rebellion of Lucifer, who became known as Satan (Isaiah 14:12; Luke 10:18). "You became filled with violence within, and you sinned," Ezekiel records about this rebellion (Ezekiel 28:16). Satan is described as a murderer, a roaring lion seeking prey and a dragon making war in heaven and on earth (John 8:44; 1 Peter 5:8; Revelation 12:7, 17).
Satan, humanity's greatest adversary, currently rules this world, and broadcasts his attitudes of hate and violence into the minds of men (2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2). His influence helps amplify our natural selfishness to a fevered pitch as described by James:
"Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war" (James 4:1-3).
And so we find ourselves in a world that desperately needs and desires peace, yet which is far from it. Cries of "peace, peace" are too often wishful thinking, political maneuvering or outright deception (Jeremiah 6:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:3). Paul accurately described the human condition this way:
"Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known" (Romans 3:15-17).
Thankfully the Bible reveals that Jesus Christ will rescue this world from the final throes of the most destructive world war, before we annihilate ourselves (Matthew 24:22). Under His rule the elusive way of peace will finally be taught.
Swords into plowshares
Outside the United Nations buildings today, a famous sculpture of a man beating a sword into a farm implement captures the longing of humanity for peace, and hints at the way it will truly come. The inspiration for the statue—and the true hope for disarmament and peace—comes from a beautiful prophecy in Isaiah.
"Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it.
"Many people shall come and say, 'Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.' For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
"He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore" (Isaiah 2:2-4; repeated in Micah 4:1-3).
What a wonderful vision! Finally disputes between nations will be resolved without resorting to the horrors of war, which only plant the seeds of future conflict. At last nations will be forced to disarm, but they will soon realize they have nothing to fear, since their neighbors will all be disarmed as well.
War colleges will be shut down, and the militaries disbanded. No more will the young, with their bright hopes and great potentials, be used as cannon fodder. Instead of investing the best minds and greatest resources into developing weapons of destruction, nations will be able to invest in making life better for all their citizens.
Today some of the most impoverished nations in the world import inordinate amounts of arms. Weapons make up 33.5 percent of Eritrea's imports and 20.5 percent of Ethiopia's (Wright, p. 87). Gone will be these wasteful arms races, and today's dangerous neighborhoods—like the Middle East, where 40 percent of arms exports go—will be peaceful at last.
The way of peace
Though Christ's rule will begin by halting wars using supernatural force, soon peace will spread through education in the way of peace. Christ's followers are taught to become peacemakers even in this present age (Matthew 5:9), and will teach others in the world to come.
Paul described some of the elements of this way of peace in his letter to the Romans: "Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord.
"On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:16-21, New International Version).
Many other biblical passages detail the attitude and approach of the peacemaker (for example, see Romans 8:5-8; 14:17-19; 1 Corinthians 13:4-7; 14:33; Philippians 2:3-5; 4:6-9; and James 3:17-18).
The way of peace, coupled with the justice and mercy of God's government, will provide effective conflict resolution on the personal and national level. Ultimately, every conflict can have a win-win solution that will benefit all parties for eternity.
Rebuilding and renewal
After the most devastating war in human history, there will be an incredible amount of cleanup and rebuilding to do. But this time people will be able to rebuild knowing that it won't all be destroyed again in a few years by another war.
This time the rebuilding can be done in a sensible and sustainable way. Cities will be clean and safe. Villages and farmlands will be productive and beautiful. Picture these scenes from the words of the prophets:
"I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; they shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them" (Amos 9:14).
"So they will say, 'This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the wasted, desolate, and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited" (Ezekiel 36:35).
Even Jerusalem, perhaps the most fought over piece of real estate in history, will finally live up to the meaning of its name as a city of peace and safety:
"Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each one with his staff in his hand because of great age. The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets" (Zechariah 8:4-5).
A world without war will be incredibly better than today's world. But a world with true peace—resulting from following God's way of peace—will be fantastic almost beyond human imagination! WNP


List of treaties
This is a chronological list of international treaties, historic agreements, peaces, edicts, pacts, etc. incomplete
Before 1300 AD
Year Name Summary
c. 1283 BC
"Ramses-Hattusili Treaty"
Treaty between the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite monarch Hattusili III after the Battle of Kadesh.[1][2][3]

c. 493 BC
Foedus Cassianum
Ends the war between the Roman Republic and the Latin League.

c. 450 BC
Peace of Callias
Ends the Persian Wars.

421 BC
Peace of Nicias
Athens and Sparta end the first phase of the Peloponnesian War.

387 BC
Peace of Antalcidas
Sets the boundaries of Greek and Persian territory.

272–231 BC
Edicts of Ashoka
Establishes a record on the expansion of Buddhism.

241 BC
Treaty of Lutatius
Ends the First Punic War.

226 BC
Ebro Treaty
Establishes the Ebro River in Iberia as the boundary line between the Roman Republic and Carthage.

205 BC
Treaty of Phoenice
Ends the First Macedonian War.

196 BC
Treaty of Tempea
Ends the Second Macedonian War.

188 BC
Treaty of Apamea
Between the Roman Republic and Antiochus III (the Great), ruler of the Seleucid Empire.

161 BC
Roman-Jewish Treaty
Establishes friendship between Judas Maccabeus and the Roman Repbulic.
85 BC
Treaty of Dardanos
Ends the First Mithridatic War.

301
Edict on Maximum Prices
Diocletian attempts to reform the Roman tax system and stabilize the imperial coinage system.
313
Edict of Milan
The Roman Empire ends its government-sanctioned persecution of Christians.

587
Treaty of Andelot
Between Frankish rulers Guntram and Brunhilda; Guntram adopts Brunhilda's son Childebert II.

614–615
Edict of Paris
Attempts to establish order by standardizing the appointment process for public officials across the realm of the Franks.

628
Treaty of Hudaybiyyah
Between Muslims and the Quraish.

651
The Bakt
Between Nubia and Egypt.

713
Treaty of Orihuela[7]
Establishes a dhimmi over the Christian inhabitants of Orihuela.

803
Pax Nicephori
Peace between Charlemagne and the Byzantine Empire; recognizes Venice as Byzantine territory.

811
Treaty of Heiligen
Sets the southern boundary of Denmark at the Eider River.

836
Pactum Sicardi
Peace between the Duchy of Naples and the Principality of Salerno under Sicard.

843
Treaty of Verdun
Partitions the Carolingian Empire.

864
Edict of Pistres
Charles the Bald attempts to thwart Viking raids on French territories.
870
Treaty of Mersen
Further partitions the Carolingian Empire.
878–890
Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum
Between Alfred of Wessex and Guthrum, the Viking ruler of East Anglia.

907
Rus'-Byzantine Treaty
Regulates the status of the colony of Rus' merchants in Constantinople.

911
Rus'-Byzantine Treaty
Between the Byzantine Empire and Kievan Rus.

Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte
Charles the Simple grants Normandy to Rollo.

921
Treaty of Bonn
West Francia and East Francia both recognize each other.
945
Rus'-Byzantine Treaty
Between the Byzantine Empire and Kievan Rus.

1004
Shanyuan Treaty
Establishes relations between the Northern Song and Liao Dynasties.

1018
Peace of Bautzen
Between Holy Roman Emperor Henry II and Duke Bolesław I the Brave of Poland.

1059
Treaty of Melfi
Pope Nicholas II recognizes Norman influence in southern Italy.

1080
Treaty of Ceprano
Pope Gregory VII establishes an alliance with Robert Guiscard and recognizes his conquests.

1091
Treaty of Caen
Ends rivalry between William II of England and Duke Robert Curthose of Normandy.

1101
Treaty of Alton
Robert Curthose recognizes Henry I as King of England.

1108
Treaty of Devol
The Principality of Antioch becomes a nominal vassal of the Byzantine Empire.

1122
Pactum Calixtinum
Between Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor.

1123
Pactum Warmundi
The crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem allies with Venice.

1139
Treaty of Mignano
Roger II of Sicily recognised as king by the legitimate Pope Innocent II.

1141
Treaty of Shaoxing
Ends conflicts between the Jin Dynasty and Southern Song Dynasty.

1143
Treaty of Zamora
Recognises Portuguese independence from the Kingdom of Leon and Castile.

1151
Treaty of Tudilén Recognises the conquests of the Crown of Aragon south of the Júcar and recognises future conquests in Murcia.

1153
Treaty of Wallingford
Officially ends The Anarchy between Empress Matilda and her cousin Stephen of England.

Treaty of Constance
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, and Pope Eugene III agree to defend Italy against Manuel I Comnenus.

1156
Treaty of Benevento
Peace between the Papacy and the Kingdom of Sicily.

1170
Treaty of Sahagún
Between Alfonso VIII of Castile and Afonso I of Portugal.

1175
Treaty of Windsor
Between King Henry II of England and the last High King of Ireland, Rory O'Connor during Norman expansion in Ireland.
1177
Treaty of Venice
Peace between the Papacy, the Lombard League, the Kingdom of Sicily, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa.

1179
Treaty of Cazorla
Defines the zones of conquest in Andalusia between Aragon and Castile.

1183
Peace of Constance
Peace between the Lombard League and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. Reaffirms the Peace of Venice.

1192
Treaty of Ramla
Ends the Third Crusade.

1200
Treaty of Le Goulet
John of England and Philip II of France make peace. Marriage between Blanche of Castile and Louis VIII of France.

1209
Treaty of Speyer
Otto IV renounces the Concordat of Worms.

1212
Golden Bull of Sicily
Determines the rights and duties of the Bohemian monarchs.
1217
Treaty of Lambeth
Between Louis VIII of France and Henry III of England.

1220
Treaty with the Princes of the Church
Between Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and German bishops.
1218
Golden Charter of Bern
Establishes Berne as an independent state.

1222
Golden Bull of 1222
Andrew II of Hungary grants Hungarian nobles the power to disobey the king when he acted contrary to the law.
1226
Treaty of Melun
Forces the counts of Flanders to swear fealty to the French crown.
Golden Bull of Rimini
Resolves disputes over Chełmno Land.

1229
Treaty of Paris
Officially ends the Albigensian Crusade.

1230
Treaty of San Germano
Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II restores Sicily to Pope Gregory IX.

Treaty of Ceprano
Establishes lines of reconciliation between Pope Gregory IX and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.

Treaty of Kruszwica
Konrad I of Masovia grants Chełmno Land to the Prussians and the Order of Dobrzyń.

1234
Golden Bull of Rieti
Recognizes Chełmno Land as subject to the Pope's authority and not as a fief belonging to anyone.
1237
Treaty of York
Establishes a border between England and Scotland.

1244
Treaty of Almizra
Establishes the borders of the Kingdom of Valencia.

Treaty of Jativa
Permits the Moors of Spain to hold on to the Castle of Jativa for two years before relinquishing it to King Jaime I of Aragon.

1245
Al-Azraq Treaty
Between the King Jaime I of Aragon and the Muslim commander Mohammad Abu Abdallah Ben Hudzail al Sahuir.

1258
Treaty of Corbeil
Establishes a border between France and the Crown of Aragon.

1259
Treaty of Paris[16]
Between Louis IX of France and Henry III of England.

1265
Treaty of Pipton
Established alliance between Prince Llywelyn the Last of Wales and Simon de Montford during the Second Barons' War.

1266
Dictum of Kenilworth
Ends hostilities between the supporters of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester and Henry III of England; comes into effect in 1267.

Treaty of Perth
Terms of sovereignty over the Western Isles, the Isle of Man, and the Northern Isles agreed between Norway and Scotland.[17]

1267
Treaty of Badajoz
King Alfonso X and King Afonso III agree to use the Guadiana River as the boundary line separating Castile and Portugal.

Treaty of Montgomery
Henry III of England acknowledges Llywelyn ap Gruffydd's title as the 'Prince of Wales'.

Treaty of Viterbo
Grants Charles I of Anjou claims to the defunct Latin Empire.

1271
Peace of Pressburg[18]
Ends war between Bohemia and Hungary.

1277
Treaty of Aberconwy
Between King Edward I of England and Llewelyn the Last of Wales.

1281
Treaty of Orvieto
Between Charles I of Sicily, the Republic of Venice, and Philip of Courtenay; attempts to recover the Latin Empire.

1283
Treaty of Rheinfelden
Duke Rudolph II of Austria surrenders power to his older brother Albert I of Germany.

1289–1290
Treaty of Birgham
Attempts to end competing claims between the House of Balliol and the House of Bruce for the Scottish throne; never comes into effect.
1291
Treaty of Tarascon
Ends the Aragonese Crusade.

1295
Auld Alliance
Scotland and France forge the first treaty of mutual self-defense against England.
Treaty of Anagni
Reaffirms the Treaty of Tarascon, but fails to diplomatically settle the Sicilian question.
1300–1499
Year Name Summary
1302
Peace of Caltabellotta
Ends the War of the Sicilian Vespers.

1303
Treaty of Paris
Restores Gascony to England from France during the Hundred Years' War.

1304
Treaty of Torrellas[19]
Brought peace to Castile and Aragon and divied up the Kingdom of Murcia between them.

1305
Treaty of Athis-sur-Orge
France acquires the cities of Lille, Douai, and Béthune and Flanders retains its independence.

Treaty of Elche
Modifies the Treaty of Torrellas and grants Cartagena to Castile.

1317
Treaty of Templin
Ascanians surrender the territories of Schlawe-Stolp to the Pomeranians.

1323
Treaty of Nöteborg[20]
Sets the boundary between Sweden and Novgorod.

Treaty of Paris
Count Louis of Flanders relinquishes Flemish claims over Zeeland.

1326
Treaty of Corbeil
Renews the Auld Alliance between France and Scotland.

Treaty of Novgorod
End decades of border skirmishes at the border of Norway and Novgorod.

1328
Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton
Between Edward III of England and the Scots.

1329
Treaty of Pavia
Between Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor and his nephews.

1338
Declaration of Rhense[21]
German princes elect German kings without the consent of the Papacy.

1343
Treaty of Kalisz
Between King Casimir III the Great of Poland and the Teutonic Knights.

1354
Treaty of Stralsund
Settles border disputes between the duchies of Mecklenburg and Pomerania.

Treaty of Mantes
First peace between Charles II of Navarre and John II of France.

1355
Treaty of Valognes
Second peace between Charles II of Navarre and John II of France.

Treaty of Paris
Recognizes the annexation of the Barony of Gex by the county of Savoy.

1358
Treaty of Zadar
The Venetian Republic loses influence over territories in Dalmatia.

1359
Treaty of London[22]
Cedes western France to England; repudiated by the Estates-General in Paris.

1360
Treaty of Brétigny
Ends the first phase of the Hundred Years' War.

1370
Treaty of Stralsund
Ends the war between the Hanseatic League and Denmark.

1373
Anglo-Portuguese Treaty
Treaty of alliance between King Edward III of England and King Ferdinand and Queen Eleanor of Portugal; it is the oldest treaty still in force.
1379
Treaty of Neuberg
Divides Habsburg lands between Dukes Albert III and Leopold III.

1380
Treaty of Dovydiškės
Jogaila signs a secret peace treaty with the Teutonic Knights against Kęstutis.

1385
Union of Krewo[23]
Establishes a dynastic union between Poland and Lithuania.
1386
Treaty of Windsor
Renews the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance.

1390
Treaty of Königsberg
Establishes alliance between Vytautas the Great and the Teutonic Order.

1397
Treaty of Kalmar
Establishes the Kalmar Union; becomes null and void in 1523.
1401
Union of Vilnius and Radom
Reaffirms the Union of Krewo and grants autonomy to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

1411
First Treaty of Toruń
Ends the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War.

1412
Treaty of Lubowla
Between Władysław II of Poland and Sigismund of Luxemburg, king of Hungary.

1413
Union of Horodło[24]
Reaffirms the Union of Krewo and the Union of Vilnius and Radom; permits Lithuania to have a separate Grand Duke and parliament.
1420
Treaty of Troyes
Attempt to pass the French throne to England.
1422
Treaty of Melno
The Teutonic Knights relinquish Nieszawa to Poland and all claims to Samogitia and northern Lithuania to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; Poland renounces claims to Pomerelia, Culmerland, and the Michelauer Land east of Culmerland.

1424
Edict of Wieluń
Outlaws Hussitism in the Kingdom of Poland.

1428
Treaty of Delft[25]
Ends hostilities between England and Flanders.

1431
Treaty of Medina del Campo
Peace between Portugal and the Kingdom of Castile; ratified in Almeirim in 1432.

1432
Union of Grodno[26]
Reinforces the Polish-Lithuanian Union.

1435
Treaty of Arras
Reconciles a longstanding feud between King Charles VII of France and Philip, Duke of Burgundy.

1441
Treaty of Copenhagen[27]
Christopher of Bavaria crushed a great peasant rebellion in Northern Jutland; Baltic Sea is opened to Dutch traders.

1443
Treaty of Gyehae
Between the Joseon dynasty and Ashikaga shogunate; controls Japanese piracy and legitimizes trade between Tsushima island and a Korean port.

1444
Peace of Szeged[28]
Between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.

1454
Treaty of Lodi[29]
Peace between Milan, Florence and Venice.

1456
Treaty of Yazhelbitsy
Establishes peace between Vasili II and the people of Novgorod.

1460
Treaty of Ribe
Defines status of Schleswig and Holstein.

1461
Treaty of Westminster[30]
Divides Scotland between King Edward IV of England and the Earl of Douglas.
1465
Treaty of Conflans[31]
Officially ends the Guerre folle (Mad War).
1466
Second Treaty of Toruń[32]
Ends the Thirteen Years' War between Poland and the Teutonic Knights.

1468
Treaty of Péronne
Between Duke Charles I of Burgundy and King Louis XI of France.

1472
Treaty of Prenzlau
Declares Albert III, Elector of Brandenburg, ruler of Pomerania-Stettin.

1474
Treaty of Utrecht (1474)
Ends the Anglo-Hanseatic War between England and the Hanseatic League lead by Lübeck and Danzig

1475
Treaty of Picquigny
Louis XI pays Edward IV to stay in England and not pursue his claim to the French throne.
1478
Treaty of Brno
Divides Bohemian territories between Ladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary and Matthias Corvinus.

1479
Peace of Olomouc
Ratifies the Treaty of Brno.

Treaty of Alcaçovas[33]
Between the Kingdom of Castile and Portugal; ends the Castilian Civil War begun in 1474.
Treaty of Constantinople
Officially ends the fifteen year war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire.

1482
Treaty of Arras
Between King Louis XI of France and the governments of the Low Countries.

Treaty of Münsingen
Count Eberhard V reunites the divided county of Württemberg and declares it indivisible.

1484
Treaty of Bagnolo
Ends the War of Ferrara (1482–1484) between Ercole d'Este I and Pope Sixtus IV along with his Venetian allies.

1485
Treaty of Leipzig
Divides Saxony between Ernest, Elector of Saxony and Albert, Duke of Saxony.

1488
Treaty of Sablé[34]
Duke Francis I of Brittany becomes a vassal of King Charles VIII of France.

1489
Treaty of Medina del Campo
Primarily a marriage contract between Arthur Tudor and Catherine of Aragon.

Treaty of Frankfurt
Between Maximilian of Austria and the envoys of King Charles VIII of France.

Treaty of Dordrecht
Establishes an alliance between Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and King Henry VII of England.

Treaty of Redon
Henry VII of England grants Lord Daubeney of Brittany 6000 English troops.
1491
Peace of Pressburg
Defines the future succession of the Austrian and Hungarian kingdoms.
Treaty of Granada[35]
Relinquishes the sovereignty of the Moorish Kingdom of Granada to Spain.

1492
Peace of Etaples
Ends war between England and France.
1493
Treaty of Barcelona
France cedes Roussillon and Cerdagne to Spain in return for Spanish neutrality during its war with Italy.

Treaty of Senlis
France cedes the Duchy of Burgundy, the County of Artois, Picardy and the Low Countries to the House of Habsburg.

1494
Treaty of Tordesillas
Divides the world between Spain and Portugal.

1496
Intercursus Magnus
Resolves some trade wars between England and the Netherlands.
1499
Treaty of Basel
Concludes the Swabian War fought between the Swabian League and the Old Swiss Confederacy.

1500–1599
Year Name Summary
1500
Treaty of Granada
King Ferdinand II of Aragon agrees to support French claims over the Kingdom of Naples.

1501
Treaty of Trente
Austria recognises all French conquests in northern Italy.
1502
Treaty of Perpetual Peace
Ends hostilities between England and Scotland; void in 1513.
1504
Treaty of Blois
Temporarily halts the Italian Wars.

Treaty of Lyons
Louis XII of France cedes Naples to Ferdinand II of Aragon.

1511
Treaty of Westminster
Treaty of alliance between Henry VIII of England and Ferdinand II of Aragon against France.

1516
Peace of Noyon
Divides Italy between France and Spain.

1517
Treaty of Rouen
Attempts to renew the Auld Alliance.

1518
Treaty of London
Establishes a non-aggression pact between France, England, Holy Roman Empire, the Papacy, Spain, Burgundy and the Netherlands.

1522
Treaty of Windsor
Between Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Henry VIII of England; its main clause was the invasion of France.

1524
Treaty of Malmö
Ends the Swedish War of Liberation.

1526
Treaty of Hampton Court
Establishes peace between France and England.
Treaty of Madrid
Temporarily ends French interests in Italy.
1527
Treaty of Westminster
Treaty of alliance between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France against King Charles V of Spain.

1528
Treaty of Gorinchem
Between Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Duke Charles of Guelders.

1529
Treaty of Cambrai
Also known as the Paix des Dames (Ladies' Peace).
Treaty of Saragossa
Specifies the anti-meridian line of demarcation between Spanish and Portuguese imperial territories.
1534
Treaty of Bassein
Sultan Bahadur of Gujarat cedes the Mumbai Islands and other territories to the Portuguese Empire.
1538
Treaty of Nagyvárad[36]
Recognizes John Zápolya as the king of Hungary while Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor retains the western parts of the Hungarian Kingdom.

1543
Treaty of Greenwich[37]
Contains two agreements that attempts to unite the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland.

Treaty of Venlo
Duke Wilhelm of Jülich-Cleves-Berg cedes the territory of Guelders and the county of Zutphen to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

1544
Treaty of Speyer
Establishes peace between Denmark and the Holy Roman Empire.
Treaty of Crépy
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V relinquishes his claim to the Duchy of Burgundy and Francis I of France surrenders his claim to the Kingdom of Naples.

1551
Treaty of Weissenburg[38]
Declares Archduke Ferdinand of Austria king of Hungary and Transylvania.

1552
Peace of Passau
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V guarantees Lutheran religious freedoms to Protestants.
Treaty of Chambord
Maurice of Saxony cedes Toul, Verdun, and Metz to Henry II of France.

1555
Peace of Augsburg
Between Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and the forces of the Schmalkaldic League.

1556
Treaty of Vaucelles
King Henri I of France cedes Franche-Comté to King Philip II of Spain.

1559
Peace of Cateau Cambrésis
Ends the Italian Wars.

1560
Treaty of Edinburgh
Attempts to end the Auld Alliance.

1562
Edict of Saint-Germain[39]
Recognizes the existence of French Protestants and guarantees them freedom of conscience and private worship.
Treaty of Hampton Court
Establishes military and economic ties between Queen Elizabeth and Huguenot leader Louis I de Bourbon.

1563
Edict of Amboise
Ends the first phase of the French Wars of Religion.

1568
Peace of Longjumeau[40]
Ends the second phase of the French Wars of Religion; confirms the Edict of Amboise; expires in August of 1568.

1569
Union of Lublin
Unites the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a single state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

1570
Treaty of Stettin
Ends the Northern Seven Years' War.

Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Ends the third phase of the French Wars of Religion.

1572
Treaty of Blois
Queen Elizabeth of England and Catherine de' Medici of France establish an alliance against Spain.
1573
Edict of Boulogne
Ends the fourth phase of the French Wars of Religion; gives Huguenots the right to worship in La Rochelle, Montauban, and Nimes.

1576
Edict of Beaulieu[41]
Ends the fifth phase of the French Wars of Religion; Henry III of France gives the Huguenots the right of public worship.
Pacification of Ghent
Alliance of the provinces of the Netherlands against the Spanish.
1577
Treaty of Bergerac[42]
Ends the sixth phase of the French Wars of Religion; Huguenots can practice their faith only in the suburbs of one town in each judicial district.
Edict of 1577[43]
Provides for the removal of Spanish troops from the Netherlands; upholds Pacification of Ghent.

1579
Union of Atrecht
The southern states of the Spanish Netherlands express loyalty to the King of Spain.

Union of Utrecht
Unifies the northern states of the Netherlands.

1580
Treaty of Fleix[44]
Ends the seventh phase of the French Wars of Religion; recognizes previous treaties granting religious privileges to the Huguenots.

Treaty of Plessis-les-Tours
François, Duke of Anjou becomes sovereign of the Dutch Republic.

1582
Peace of Jam Zapolski
Ends the Livonian War between Poland and Muscovy.

1583
Treaty of Plussa
A truce between Russia and Sweden; ends the Livonian War (1558–1583).

1584
Treaty of Joinville
Forms a Catholic alliance between the French Catholic League and Hapsburg Spain against Protestant forces such as Elizabeth I of England.

1585
Treaty of Nemours
Revokes previous concessions made to the Huguenots; instigates the War of the Three Henries.

Treaty of Nonsuch
England assists Dutch in the Eighty Years' War.

1586
Treaty of Berwick
Agreement of amity between Queen Elizabeth I of England and King James VI of Scotland.

1595
Treaty of Teusina[45]
Ends the Russo–Swedish War (1590–1595).

1598
Peace of Vervins
The Spanish withdraw from French territory.
Edict of Nantes
Henry IV of France grants French Protestants (or Huguenots) substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic.

1600–1699
Year Name Summary
1601
Treaty of Lyon
Henry IV of France acquires Bugey, Valromey, Gex, and Bresse.

1604
Treaty of London
Ends hostilities between England and Spain.
1606
Peace of Žitava[46]
Ends the Long War between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy.

Treaty of Vienna[47]
Restores all constitutional and religious rights/privileges to the Hungarians in both Transylvania and Royal Hungary.

1608
Treaty of Lieben
Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II surrenders Hungary, Austrian territories near the Danube River, and Moravia to his brother Matthias.

1609
Treaty of Antwerp[48]
Spain and the Netherlands agree to a 12-year truce.
1610
Treaty of Brussol[49]
Establishes a military alliance between Charles Emmanuel I and Henry IV of France against the Spanish in Italy.

1613
Treaty of Knäred
Ends the Kalmar War between Denmark and Sweden.

Two Row Wampum Treaty[50]
Treaty between the Iroquois and representatives of the Dutch government.
1614
Treaty of Xanten
Ends the Jülich-Cleves War.

1615
Peace of Asti
Duke Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy relinquishes claims on Monferrato.

Peace of Tyrnau
Recognizes Gábor Bethlen as the Prince of Transylvania.

1616
Treaty of Loudun
Ends hostilities between Queen Marie de Medici and rebellious French princes led by Henry II, the third Prince of Condé.

1617
Treaty of Pavia
Savoy cedes Monferrato to Mantua.

Treaty of Stolbovo
Ends the Ingrian War between Sweden and Muscovy.

1618
Truce of Deulino[51]
Ends the Polish–Muscovite War (1605–1618); expires in 1632.
1619
Treaty of Angoulême
Ends civil war in France between supporters of Queen Marie de Medici and her son, King Louis XIII of France.

Treaty of Munich
Duke Maximilian of Bavaria allows Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II to use his forces in exchange for territories in the Palatine.

1620
Treaty of Ulm
The Protestant Union ceases its support of Frederick V of Bohemia.

1621
Peace of Nikolsburg[52]
Ends the war between Prince Gabriel Bethlen of Transylvania and Emperor Ferdinand II of the Holy Roman Empire.

Treaty of Madrid
Restores Valtelline to the Grisons and grants Protestants in the region religious freedoms.
1622
Treaty of Montpellier[53]
Between King Louis XIII of France and Duke Henry II of Rohan; confirms the Edict of Nantes.

1623
Treaty of Paris
France, Savoy, and Venice agree to have Spanish forces leave Valtelline.

1625
Treaty of Den Haag
England and the Netherlands agree to economically support Christian IV of Denmark during the Thirty Years' War.

1626
Peace of Pressburg[18]
Ends the revolt against the Habsburgs.

Treaty of Monzón
France and Spain share equal rights in their control of Valtelline.

1628
Treaty of Munich
Recognizes Duke Maximilian of Bavaria as a prince-elector; grants Maximilian control of the Upper Palatinate and the right bank of the Rhine River for thirty years.
1629
Edict of Restitution
Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II attempts to reinforce the territorial and religious settlements made after the Peace of Augsburg.

Treaty of Lübeck
Denmark withdraws from the Thirty Years' War.

Truce of Altmark[54]
Ends hostilities between Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Peace of Alais[55]
Between the Huguenots and King Louis XIII of France; confirms the basic principles of the Edict of Nantes with additional clauses.
1630
Peace of Regensburg[56]
Temporarily halts the War of the Mantuan Succession.

1631
Treaty of Barwald
France and Sweden establish an alliance against Germany.
Treaty of Cherasco
Ends the War of the Mantuan Succession.

Treaty of Munich
France and Bavaria establish a secret "Catholic" alliance.

1632
Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye
England returns New France (Quebec) to France.

1634
Treaty of Polyanovka[57]
Ends the Smolensk War between Poland and Muscovy.

1635
Peace of Prague
Between the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, and most of the Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire.

Treaty of Sztumska Wieś[58]
The Swedish Empire concedes territories to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

1636
Treaty of Wismar
Establishes alliance between Sweden and France against the Habsburgs.

1638
Treaty of Hamburg
Confirms Treaty of Wismar; France pays Sweden 1,000,000 livres.

Treaty of Hartford
Cedes Pequot Indian lands to Connecticut River towns and outlaws Pequot settlement and the use of the Pequot language.
1639
Treaty of Berwick[59]
Ends the First Bishops' War between Charles I of England and the Scots.

Treaty of Zuhab[60]
Ends the war between Persia and the Ottoman Empire.

Treaty of Asurar Ali
Establishes the boundary between the Mughals and the Ahom kingdom.

1640
Treaty of Ripon
Between Charles I of Scotland and the Scots in the aftermath of the Second Bishops' War.

1643
Solemn League and Covenant
Between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians.

1645
Treaty of Brömsebro[61]
Ends the Torstenson War between Sweden and Denmark-Norway.
1647
Truce of Ulm[62]
Forces Duke Maximilian of Bavaria to renounce his alliance with Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II.

1648
Peace of Westphalia[63]
Ends the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War, and establishes the principle of the sovereignty of nations in use today.
Treaty of Concordia[64]
Divides the island of Saint Martin between France and the Netherlands.
1649
Peace of Rueil
Ends the opening episodes of the Fronde, France's civil war.
Treaty of Zboriv
Places three provinces of Ukraine under the control of the Cossacks.

1650
Treaty of Breda
Between Charles II of England and the Scottish Covenanters during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Treaty of Hartford
Establishes boundary lines between New Amsterdam and English settlers in Connecticut.
1651
Treaty of Bila Tserkva
Establishes peace between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ukrainian Cossacks after the Battle of Berestechko.

1654
Treaty of Pereyaslav
Between Muscovy and the Cossacks.

Treaty of Westminster
Ends the First Anglo-Dutch War.

1656
Treaty of Königsberg
Establishes alliance between Charles X of Sweden and Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, against Poland.

Treaty of Labiau
Between Prince-elector Frederick William of Brandenburg and King Charles X Gustav of Sweden.

1657
Treaty of Bydgoszcz
Between King John II Casimir of Poland and Margrave Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia.

Treaty of Paris
Establishes military alliance between England and France against Spain.
Treaty of Raalte
Willem II no longer is viceroy of Overijssel.

Treaty of Wehlau
Between Poland and Brandenburg-Prussia during The Deluge (Polish history).

1658
Treaty of Hadiach
Between Poland and the Cossacks.
Treaty of Taastrup[65]
An accord that preceded the Treaty of Roskilde between Charles X Gustav of Sweden and King Frederick III of Denmark.

Treaty of Roskilde
Denmark-Norway cedes territory to Sweden.
1659
Treaty of the Pyrenees
Ends war between France and Spain.
1660
Treaty of Copenhagen
Restores Trondheim to Norway and Bornholm to Denmark.
Treaty of Oliva[66]
Ends hostilities between Sweden and Poland.
1661
Treaty of Cardis[67]
Ends war started in 1656 between Sweden and Russia.

Treaty of Den Haag
The Dutch Empire recognizes Portuguese imperial sovereignty over Recife in Brazil.

1662
Treaty of Montmartre
Duke Charles IV gives to Louis XIV the throne to the Duchy of Lorraine.

1663
Treaty of Ghilajharighat
Between the Ahoms and the Mughal forces.

1664
Peace of Vasvár
Between the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire after the Battle of Saint Gotthard; lasted until 1683.
1665
Treaty of Purandar[68]
Between Rajput Jai Singh and Shivaji Maharaj.

1667
Treaty of Breda
Ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

Treaty of Andrusovo
Ends the war between Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania.

1668
First Triple Alliance
Alliance between England, the United Provinces and Sweden.
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
Ends the War of Devolution between Louis XIV of France and Habsburg Spain.

Treaty of Bongaja
Sultan Saif-ud-Din of Tidore recognizes the influence of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Indonesian territories.
Treaty of Lisbon
Spain recognizes Portuguese sovereignty after the Portuguese Restoration War; Portugal cedes Ceuta to Spain.
1670
Secret Treaty of Dover
France helps England to rejoin the Roman Catholic Church and England assists France militarily against the Dutch Republic.

Treaty of Madrid
Between England and Spain.
1672
Treaty of Buczacz
Between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire.
1674
Treaty of Westminster
Ends the Third Anglo-Dutch War.

1675
Strasbourg Agreement
First international agreement banning the use of chemical weapons (i.e. poisoned bullets); signed between France and the Holy Roman Empire.
1677
Treaty of 1677[69]
Native American tribes in Virginia swear fealty to the British Empire.
1678
Treaties of Nijmegen
Ends the Franco-Dutch War.

Treaty of Casco
Ends war between the eastern Native Americans and the English settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1681
Treaty of Bakhchisarai
Concludes the Russo-Turkish War, 1676-1681; establishes a 20-year truce whereby the Dnieper River would separate the Ottoman Empire from Russian territories.
1686
Eternal Peace Treaty
Ends war between Muscovy and Poland.
1689
Treaty of Nerchinsk
Ends war between the Russian Empire and the Qing Dynasty of China.

1691
Treaty of Limerick
Ends the Williamite war in Ireland.

1697
Treaty of Ryswick
Ends the War of the Grand Alliance.

1698
Treaty of Den Haag[70]
Attempts to resolve the issue of who would inherit the Spanish throne.
1699
Treaty of Karlowitz[71]
Ends the war between Austria and the Ottoman Empire.

Treaty of Preobrazhenskoye
Denmark, Russia, Saxony, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth divide Swedish territories.

1700–1799
Year Name Summary
1700
Treaty of London[72]
An attempt to restore the Pragmatic Sanction following the death of Duke Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria.

Treaty of Constantinople
Establishes peace between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

1701
Great Peace of Montreal
Establishes peace between New France and the 39 First Nations of North America.

Treaty of Den Haag
England, Austria, the United Provinces, and the Holy Roman Empire establish a defensive alliance against France.
1703
Treaty of Methuen
Between Portugal and the Kingdom of England.

1704
Treaty of Ilbersheim
Removes Bavaria from the War of the Spanish Succession.

1706
Treaty of Altranstädt
Between Augustus II, king of Poland and elector of Saxony, and Charles XII of Sweden.

1707
Treaty of Union
Unites the Kingdoms of England and Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Treaty of Altranstädt
Emperor Joseph I guarantees to Charles XII religious tolerance and liberty of conscience for Silesian Protestants.

1711
Treaty of Szatmár[73]
Ends the Kuruc Rebellion led by Francis II Rákóczi.

1713
Treaty of Utrecht
Ends the War of the Spanish Succession.

Treaty of Portsmouth
Ends Queen Anne's War hostilities between the Abenakis and the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

1714
Treaty of Baden
Ends hostilities between France and the Holy Roman Empire and also ends the War of the Spanish Succession.

Treaty of Rastatt
Ends the War of the Spanish Succession; hostilities between Louis XIV of France and Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI cease.
1717
Second Triple Alliance
Alliance between Kingdom of Great Britain, the United Provinces and France.

1718
Treaty of Passarowitz[74]
Ends the war between Austria and the Ottoman Empire.
1720
Treaty of Den Haag[75]
Spain cedes territories to Italy after the War of the Quadruple Alliance.

Treaty of Frederiksborg
Ends Great Northern War between Sweden and Denmark-Norway.

Treaty of Stockholm
Ends the Great Northern War between Sweden and Hanover, Prussia and Denmark.

1721
Treaty of Nystad
Ends the Great Northern War between Sweden and Russia.
1725
Treaty of Hanover
Establishes a military alliance between Great Britain, France, Prussia, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark against Spain.
Treaty of Vienna
Ends Austrian claims to the Spanish throne; Austria helps Spain to reacquire Gibraltar from the British.
1727
Treaty of Kyakhta
Redefines boundaries between Russia and China.
1729
Treaty of Seville
Britain maintains control over Port Mahon and Gibraltar.

1731
Treaty of Vienna
Verifies the Quadruple Alliance between the Holy Roman Empire, Britain, the Dutch Empire, and Spain.
1732
Löwenwolde's Treaty[76]
Establishes a joint policy between Austria, the Russian Empire, and Prussia pertaining to the succession of the Polish throne.
Treaty of Rasht
Ends Russian claims over Persian territories.
1738
Treaty of Vienna
Ends the War of the Polish Succession.

1739
Treaty of El Pardo
Spain and the United Kingdom settle their respective claims to American navigation and trade.
Treaty of Nissa
Ends the war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
Treaty of Belgrade
Ends the war between Austria and the Ottoman Empire.
1740
Treaty of Friendship and Alliance
Between the Miskito nation and Kingdom of Great Britain.

1742
Treaty of Berlin
Ends First Silesian War.

Treaty of Breslau
Ends First Silesian War.

1743
Treaty of Åbo[77]
Ends the Hats' Russian War.

Treaty of Worms
Establishes political alliance between the Kingdom of Great Britain, Austria and Sardinia.
1745
Treaty of Dresden
Austria confirms the loss of Silesia to Prussia after the Second Silesian War.

Treaty of Fontainebleau
Establishes a military alliance between Louis XV of France and Charles Edward Stuart against George II of Great Britain.

Treaty of Füssen
Ends Bavaria's support of the French in the War of the Austrian Succession.

1748
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
Ends the War of the Austrian Succession.
1750
Treaty of Madrid
Defines the boundaries of the Spanish and the Portuguese colonies in South America, replacing the Treaty of Tordesillas.

1752
Treaty of Aranjuez
Recognizes Spanish and Austrian interests in Italy.
1755
Treaty of Giyanti[78]
Divides the Sultanate of Mataram between Prince Mangkubumi and Pakubuwono III.
1756
Treaty of Westminster
Treaty of neutrality between Prussia and the British Empire.
1757
Treaty of Alinagar
Between the British East India Company and the Nawab of Bengal.

1758
Treaty of Easton
Native Americans agree not to fight the British during the French and Indian War.

1761
Treaty of El Pardo
Nullifies the Treaty of Madrid.

1762
Treaty of Fontainebleau
A secret agreement whereby France cedes Louisiana to Spain.

Treaty of Saint Petersburg
Ends the Seven Years War between Russia and Prussia.

Treaty of Hamburg
Between Prussia and Sweden after Russia breaks its alliance with Prussia.
1763
Treaty of Hubertusburg
Ends the Seven Years' War.

First Treaty of Paris[79]

1765
Treaty of Allahabad
Mughal Emperor Shah Aalum grants Diwani rights to the British East India Company.

1766
Treaty of Batticaloa[80]
King Keerthisiri Rajasinghe of Kandy recognizes Dutch imperial possessions in Sri Lanka.

1768
Treaty of Fort Stanwix
In North America, the boundary established by the Proclamation of 1763 is moved west.
Treaty of Masulipatam
Confirms the conquest of the state of Hyderabad by the British.

1770
Treaty of Lochaber
The Cherokee relinquish territories to the British Empire.

1774
Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji
Ends Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774.

1776
Treaty of Watertown
Alliance between the State of Massachusetts Bay and the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia.

Treaty of Purandar[68]
Between the peshwa of the Maratha people and the British East India Company.
1777
First Treaty of San Ildefonso
Ends disputes between Portugal and Spain over the territories of The Seven Missions and of Colonia del Sacramento.

Treaty of Aranjuez
Defines Spanish and French colonies on Santo Domingo.

1778
Treaty of Amity and Commerce[81]
Establishes a commercial alliance between the United States and France

Treaty of Alliance[82]
Establishes a military alliance between the United States and France.

Treaty of El Pardo
Queen Maria I of Portugal cedes Annobón, Bioko, and territories on the Guinea coast to King Charles III of Spain.

Treaty of Fort Pitt[83]
Gives the United States permission to travel through Delaware territory, as well as to call upon the Delaware Indians to help American troops fight against the British.
1779
Treaty of Aranjuez
Spain joins the American Revolutionary War against the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Treaty of Teschen
Ends the War of the Bavarian Succession between Austria and Prussia.
1780
Treaty of Aranjuez
Spain cedes territories to Morocco.
1782
Edict of Tolerance[84]
Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II promotes religious tolerance towards Jews.
Treaty of Salbai
Between the Maratha Empire and the British East India Company.

1783
Second Treaty of Paris
Ends the American Revolutionary War.

Treaty of Georgievsk
Establishes the east Georgian kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti as a protectorate under suzerainty of the Russian Empire.
1784
Treaty of Fort Stanwix
The Iroquois Confederacy cedes all lands west of the Niagara River to the United States.
1785
Treaty of Hopewell
Between the United States and the Cherokee Indians.

Treaty of Fort McIntosh
Native American tribes cede to the United States all claims to land in the Ohio Country east of the Cuyahoga and Muskingum rivers; tribes also cede the areas surrounding Fort Detroit and Fort Michilimackinac.

1786
Eden Agreement
Between the Kingdom of Great Britain and France.

Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship
The oldest non-broken friendship treaty between Morocco and the United States.
Treaty of Hartford
Resolves territorial and border disputes between the states of New York and Massachusetts.

Treaty of Hopewell
Between the United States, the Choctaw Indians, and the Chickasaw Indians.

1787
Treaty of Beaufort[85]
Officially sets the all-river boundary between the U.S. states of Georgia and South Carolina.

1788
Third Triple Alliance
Alliance between Kingdom of Great Britain, the United Provinces and Kingdom of Prussia.

1789
Jay-Gardoqui Treaty
Trade treaty between United States and Spain.
Treaty of Fort Harmar
Between the United States government and several Native American tribes with claims to the Ohio Country.

1790
Treaty of Reichenbach
Between Frederick William II of Prussia and Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II of Austria.
Treaty of Värälä
Ends Russo-Swedish War (1788-1790).

Treaty of New York
Between Henry Knox and the Creek people.

1791
Treaty of Holston
Settles disputes between the United States and the Cherokee over the territories south of the Ohio River; proclaimed and amended in 1792.
1792
Treaty of Jassy
Ends the Russo-Turkish War (1787-1792).

1794
Jay Treaty[86]
Attempts to settle post-Revolution disputes between the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain.
Treaty of Canandaigua
Establishes peace and friendship between the United States and the Six Nations of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee).

1795
Pinckney's Treaty[87]
Defines boundaries of the United States and Spanish colonies.
Treaty of Den Haag[88]
The Batavian Republic cedes Venlo, Flanders, and Maastricht to France.

Treaty of Greenville
Ends the war between the United States and a coalition of Native Americans.

Treaty of Basel
Three agreements whereby France made peace with Prussia, Spain and Hessen-Kassel; concludes the stage of the French Revolutionary Wars against the First Coalition.

1796
Treaty of Tripoli[89]
Ends the war between the United States and Tripoli.

Treaty of New York
Between the Seven Nations of Canada and a U.S. delegation led by Abraham Ogden.

Treaty of Colerain
Affirms the binding of the Treaty of New York (1790) and establishes the boundary line between the Creek Nation and the United States.
Second Treaty of San Ildefonso
Treaty of alliance between Spain and France against Britain.
1797
Treaty of Leoben[90]
Preliminary accord to the Treaty of Campo Formio; Austria loses Belgium and Lombardy in exchange for Istria and Dalmatia.

Treaty of Campo Formio
Ends the first phase of the Napoleonic Wars.

Treaty of Tolentino
Between France and the Papal States.

Treaty with Tunis
Peace treaty between the United States and the 'Barbary State' of Tunis, nominally part of the Ottoman Empire.

1800–1899
Year Name Summary
1800
Third Treaty of San Ildefonso[91]
Cedes Spanish holdings in America to France.

Treaty of Mortefontaine[92]
Ends the Quasi-War between the United States and France.
1801
Carnatic Treaty
The Nawab of Arcot cedes territories in India to the British Empire in exchange for two-hundred rupees.
Treaty of Aranjuez
Confirms the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso.

Treaty of Badajoz[93]
Portugal cedes Almeida, Olivenza, and some other fortresses to Spain and agrees to close its harbors to the English.
Treaty of Madrid
Reinforces the Treaty of Badajoz; Portugal also agrees to pay France an indemnity of 20 million francs and surrender half of Guiana.

Treaty of Florence
The Kingdom of Naples cedes some central Italian possessions, the island of Elba, and the Athena of Velletri to France.
Treaty of Lunéville
Ends the Second Coalition against France.
1802
Treaty of Amiens
Ends the war between France and the United Kingdom.
Treaty of Bassein
The Maratha peshwa of Pune cedes territories in western India to the British Empire.
1803
Louisiana Purchase
United States buys Louisiana from France.
Treaty of Surji-Arjungaon
Between the British and Daulat Rao Sindhia, chief of the Maratha people; treaty was revised twice.
1804
Treaty of St. Louis
The Sac and Fox tribes ceded lands to the United States from northeast Missouri through almost all of Illinois north of the Illinois River as well as a large section of southern Wisconsin.

1805
Treaty of Fort Industry
Establishes the western boundary of the United States through present-day Toledo, Ohio.

Treaty of Pressburg
Ends the war between France and Austria.
1806
Treaty of Poznań
Ends the war between France and Saxony after the latter’s defeat during the War of the Fourth Coalition.

1807
Treaty of Detroit
Between the United States and the Native American nations of Ottawa, Chippewa, Wyandot and Potawatomi.
Treaties of Tilsit
Agreements between France, Russia and Prussia creating the Duchy of Warsaw.

Treaty of Finckenstein
Between the French Empire and Persia.
Treaty of Fontainebleau
Agreement between Spain and France that partitions Portugal.
1808
Treaty of Fort Clark[94]
The Osage Nation cedes to the United States large portions of the Missouri Territory.

1809
Treaty of the Dardanelles[95]
Agreement between the Ottoman Empire and the United Kingdom.

Treaty of Hamina[96]
Ends the Finnish War between Sweden and Russia.
Treaty of Schönbrunn[97]
Ends the Fifth Coalition during the Napoleonic Wars.

Treaty of Fort Wayne
Obtains more than two million acres (8,000 km²) of American Indian land for the white settlers of Ohio and Indiana.

1810
Treaty of Paris
Ends the war between France and Sweden.
1812
Treaty of Bucharest
Ends the Russo–Turkish War, 1806–1812.

1813
Treaty of Gulistan
A peace treaty between Imperial Russia and Qajarid Persia.

Treaty of Fulda
Württemberg leaves the Confederation of the Rhine.
Treaty of Kalisz
Russia and Prussia establish the Kalisz Union against Napoleon I.

Treaties of Reichenbach
Establishes a coalition between Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria against Napoleon of France.
Treaty of Töplitz[98]
Augments the coalition between Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria against Napoleon of France.
Treaty of Peterswaldau
Great Britain agrees to support a German legion of 10,000 men for the Russian service.
Treaty of Ried
Bavaria leaves the Confederation of the Rhine and agrees to join the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon.

1814
First Anglo-Dutch Treaty[99]
Between the United Kingdom and the United Provinces (Netherlands).

Third Treaty of Paris
Ends war between France and the Sixth Coalition.

Treaty of Ghent
Ends the War of 1812.

Treaty of Kiel
The king of Denmark-Norway cedes Norway to Sweden in exchange for territories in Pomerania.

Convention of Moss
Armistice agreement and de facto peace treaty between Norway and Sweden.
Treaty of Fontainebleau
Exiles Napoleon Bonaparte as the Emperor of Elba.

Treaty of Fort Jackson[100]
The Creek cede territories to the United States after their defeat at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

1815
Fourth Treaty of Paris
Follows the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.

Congress of Vienna
Conference between ambassadors from the major powers in Europe.
Sugauli Treaty[101]
Ends the Anglo-Nepalese War; goes into effect on March 4, 1816.

Treaty of Springwells
The United States waives all territorial rights over the Genessee County and restores to the Indians all of their possessions.
1816
Treaty of St. Louis
The Council of Three Fires cedes a 20-mile strip of land, which connected Chicago and Lake Michigan with the Illinois River.

1817
Rush-Bagot Treaty
Settles boundary disputes between the United States and the United Kingdom.
Treaty of Fort Meigs[102]
Between the United States and the Wyandot, Seneca, Delaware, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Ottawa and Ojibwa tribes.

Treaty of Titalia
Between the chogyal (monarch) of Sikkim and the British East India Company.

1818
Anglo-American Convention[103]
Resolves boundary disputes between the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; both share the Oregon Country.

Treaty of St. Mary's
Between the United States and the Miami tribe.

Treaty of the Creek Agency
Between the United States and the Creek people.

Treaty of St. Louis[94]
The Osage Nation cedes all territories to the United States beginning at the Arkansas River and ending at the Verdigris River.

1819
Adams-Onís Treaty[104]
Settles a border dispute between the United States and Spain.
Treaty of Saginaw
Native Americans cede land to the United States.
1820
Treaty of Doak's Stand[105]
The Choctaw agree to surrender one-third of their land to the United States.
1821
Treaty of Córdoba
Mexico becomes independent from Spain.
Treaty of Chicago
The Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes cede to the United States all lands in the Michigan Territory south of the Grand River.

Treaty of Indian Springs
Creek Indians cede land to the state of Georgia in return for cash payments totaling $200,000 over a period of 14 years.
1824
Second Anglo-Dutch Treaty[106]
Settles disputes between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, dividing the Malay World.

Russo-American Treaty[107]
Fixes Russian Alaska southern border at 54°40'.
1825
Osage Treaty[108]
The Osage Nation cedes territories to the United States within and west of Missouri and the Arkansas Territory.

Treaty of St. Louis
The Shawnee cede Cape Geredeau to the United States.
Treaty of Hanover
Ends the War of German Dissolution.

Treaty of Indian Springs
Relocates the Creek Indians in Georgia (except the Tokaubatchee) to a parcel of land along the Arkansas River.

Treaty of Prairie du Chien
Between the United States and representatives of the Sioux, Sac and Fox, Menominie, Ioway, Winnebago and the Anishinaabeg tribes.

1826
Akkerman Convention
Forces the Ottomans to retreat from Moldavia and Wallachia; grants autonomy to the Principality of Serbia.

Treaty of Mississinwas[109]
Between the United States and the Miami tribe.

Treaty of Yandaboo
Ends the First Burmese War.

Burney Treaty
British acknowledge Siamese claim over the four northern Malay states of Kedah, Kelantan, Perris and Terengganu.

1827
Treaty of London
Alliance between the United Kingdom, France and Russia to end Turkish action in Greece.

1828
Treaty of Turkmenchay
The Persian Empire loses many of its northern territories to Imperial Russia after its defeat at the end of the Russo-Persian War, 1826-1828.

Treaty of Montevideo
Brazil and Argentina recognize the independence of Uruguay.

1829
London Protocol
Formulates the boundaries of modern Greece.
Treaty of Adrianople[28]
Russia secures the right to protect Greece and control the mouths to the Danube River.

Treaty of Prairie du Chien
Between the United States and representatives of the Council of Three Fires.

1830
London Protocol
Confirms sovereignty of Greece.

Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek
United States grants rights to the Choctaw.

1831
Treaty of the Eighty Articles
Establishes Belgium's borders.
Pacto Federal
Establishes a military alliance between the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos, and Santa Fe.

1832
Treaty of Cusseta
Between the government of the United States and the Creek people.

Treaty of Constantinople
Officially ends the Greek War of Independence and establishes the borders of modern Greece.

London Protocol
Reiterates and ratifies the terms of the Treaty of Constantinople.

1833
Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi
Russia gains use of the Bosporus.

Treaty of Chicago
Native American tribes cede lands west of Lake Michigan to the United States in exchange for a reservation of equal size further to the west on the Missouri River; proclaimed in 1835.

Treaty of Zonhoven
Establishes special regulations over the use of the Meuse River by Holland and Belgium.
1834
Treaty of Desmichels
France acknowledges Abd-el-Kader as bey of Mascara and independent sovereign ruler of Oran in Algeria.

1835
Treaty of New Echota
Between the United States and several members of a faction within the Cherokee nation.
Batman's Treaty
Between John Batman and a group of Wurundjeri elders for the sale of land around Port Phillip Bay.

1836
Treaties of Velasco
Between the republics of Mexico and Texas in the aftermath of the Battle of San Jacinto.

Treaty of Washington
Ottawa and Chippewa Indians cede to the United States the northwest portion of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and the eastern portion of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

1837
Treaty of Tafna
Ends conflict between French and Algerian forces; France cedes territories to Abd-el-Kader.
1838
Treaty of Balta Liman
Commercial treaty between the Ottoman Empire and the United Kingdom.
Treaty of Buffalo Creek
Between the Seneca tribe of Western New York and certain purchasers of rights to the Indians' land.
1839
Edict of Toleration
King Kamehameha III establishes the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.

Treaty of London[110]
Guarantees the neutrality of Belgium.
1840
Treaty of Waitangi
New Zealand becomes a British colony.

1842
Treaty of Nanjing
Ends the First Opium War; cedes Hong Kong Island to the United Kingdom.

Webster-Ashburton Treaty
Settles boundary disputes between the United States and Canada.

1844
Treaty of Tangiers
Ends First Franco-Moroccan War.

Treaty of Tehuacana Creek[111]
Establishes peace between the Republic of Texas and various Native American tribes.
Treaty of Wanghia[112]
First diplomatic agreement between China and the United States in history.
Treaty of Whampoa
China grants privileges to the French Empire.
1846
Oregon Treaty[113]
Establishes the border between the British and American sections of the Oregon Country.

Treaty of Lahore
Ends the First Sikh War.

Treaty of Amritsar
Settles dispute over territory in Kashmir.

Mallarino-Bidlack Treaty[114]
Agreement of mutual cooperation between New Granada (today Colombia) and the United States.
1847
Treaty of Cahuenga
First treaty to end the Mexican-American War.

1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Second treaty ending the Mexican-American War.
1850
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
The United States and the United Kingdom agree not to colonize Central America.
Punctation of Olmütz
Treaty between Prussia and Austria.
1851
Treaty of Mendota
Between the United States and the Sioux tribes of Minnesota (Mdewakanton and Wahpekute).
Treaty of Fort Laramie
United States negotiates safe passage for Oregon Trail settlers with Native Americans.
Treaty of Kulja[115]
A treaty that regulated trade between China and Russia.
Treaty of Traverse des Sioux
Between the United States government and the Sioux Indians of Minnesota.

1852
London Protocol
Signed after the First War of Schleswig.

1854
Convention of Kanagawa[116]
Japan is opened to American trade.

Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty
Japan is opened to British trade.

Kalapuya Treaty
Between the United States and the tribes of Umpqua and Calapooya in the Oregon Territory.

1855
Bowring Treaty[117]
Between Britain and Siam; opened Bangkok to foreign free trade, but guaranteed Siam's independent sovereignty.
Treaty of Hellgate
The Bitteroot Salish, Pend d'Oreille, and the Kootenai tribes cede territories to the United States government.
Treaty of Shimoda
Defines the border between Japan and Russia; three Japanese ports opened to international use.
Treaty of Neah Bay
Between the United States and the Makah Indians.

Canadian-American Reciprocity Treaty[118]
Trade treaty between the colonies of British North America and the United States.
Point Elliott Treaty
United States government and various Native American tribes of the Puget Sound region in the newly-formed Washington Territory.

Point No Point Treaty
Original inhabitants of the Kitsap Peninsula cede ownership of their land in exchange for small reservations in Hood Canal and a payment of 60,000 dollars from the U.S. federal government.
1856
Fifth Treaty of Paris[119]
Ends the Crimean War.

1858
Treaty of Tientsin
Ends the first phase of the Second Opium War.

Treaty of Aigun
Specifies border between Russia and China.

Treaty of Amity and Commerce[120]
Japanese treaty ports opened to commerce.
1859
Treaty of Zurich
Franco-Austrian armistice formalizing the Peace of Villafranca.

1860
Cobden-Chevalier Treaty
Free trade between Britain and France.
1860
Convention of Peking[121]
Ends the Second Opium War; cedes Kowloon Peninsula to the United Kingdom.
1861
Franco-Monegasque Treaty
Grants sovereignty to Monaco.

1862
First Treaty of Saigon
Annam Tu Duc cedes Saigon, the island of Poulo Condor, and three southern provinces (Bien Hoa, Gia Dinh, and Dinh Tuong) to the French Empire.

1863
Treaty of Hué
Confirms the First Treaty of Saigon.

1864
First Geneva Convention[122]
Establishes rules for the treatment of battlefield casualties.
Treaty of London
Britain cedes the Ionian Islands to Greece.
Treaty of Vienna
Ends the Second War of Schleswig between Austria and Prussia.
1866
Peace of Prague
Ends Austro-Prussian War.

1867
Alaska Purchase
The United States buys Alaska from Russia.
Medicine Lodge Treaty
Negotiations between the United States and Native Americans.
Treaty of London[22]
An international accord in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War and the Luxembourg Crisis.

1868
Burlingame Treaty
Establishes relations between the United States and China.
Treaty of Fort Laramie
Ends Red Cloud's War.

Treaty on Naturalization
(U.S./North German Confederation) First recognition by a European power of the legal right of its subjects to become American citizens.
1871
Treaty of Frankfurt
Ends the Franco-Prussian War.

Treaty of Washington
Conducted in Washington, D.C. to settle grievances between the United States and Great Britain.
1874
Pangkor Treaty
Perak becomes the first Malay state to accept British Resident.

Treaty of Berne
Universal Postal Union becomes the second oldest international organization.
Second Treaty of Saigon
Reiterates the Treaty of Saigon (1862); the Red River (Song Hong) opens for trade, as well as the ports of Hanoi, Haiphong and Qui Nonh.

1875
Treaty of Kanghwa
Ends Korea's status as a Chinese tributary state and opens it to Japanese trade.
Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875)
In exchange for the Kuril Islands, Japan relinquishes claims on Sakhalin.

Convention du Mètre[123]
An international treaty that establishes three organizations to oversee the keeping of metric standards.
Reciprocity Treaty
A free trade agreement between the United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom.

1876
Treaty of Ganghwa[124]
Ends Korea's status as tributary state of China; open Korea to Japanese trade.
1877
London Protocol
The British agree to remain neutral in any conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Russia.
1878
Cyprus Convention
The Ottoman Empire relinquishes Cyprus to the United Kingdom in return for military support against the Russians.
Pact of Zanjón
Ends the Cuban Ten Years' War.

Treaty of San Stefano
Ends the war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
Treaty of Berlin
Amends the Treaty of San Stefano.

1879
Treaty of Gandamak
Ends the first phase of the Second Anglo-Afghan War.

1881
Treaty of Akhal
Iran officially recognizes the Russian Empire's annexation of Khwarazm.

Treaty of Bardo[125]
Tunisia becomes a protectorate of the French Empire.
1882
Fourth Triple Alliance
Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.

Kilmainham Treaty
Between the British government under William Ewart Gladstone and the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell.

1883
Paris Convention
Intellectual property systems (including patents) of any contracting state become accessible to the nationals of other states party to the Convention.
Treaty of Ancón
Settles territorial disputes between Peru and Chile.

Treaty of Hué[126]
Cedes Annam and Tonkin to the French Empire.
1884
Treaty of Hué
Confirms the 1883 Treaty of Hué.
1885
Treaty of Simulambuco
Between the Portuguese government and officials in the N'Goyo Kingdom.

1886
Berne Convention[127]
International agreement about copyright.
Treaty of Bucharest
Ends war between Serbia and Bulgaria.

1887
Reinsurance Treaty
An attempt by Bismarck to continue to ally with Russia after the League of the Three Emperors broke down.

1889
Treaty of Berlin
The United States, Great Britain, and Germany recognize the independence of Samoa.

Treaty of Wuchale
Peace treaty between Ethiopia and Italy, subsequently disputed.
1890
Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty[128]
Agreement between the United Kingdom and Imperial Germany concerning mainly territorial interests in Africa.

1891
Treaty of Madrid[129]
Gives France legal protection of the word champagne.
1895
Treaty of Den Haag
Establishes boundaries of British New Guinea.

Treaty of Shimonoseki[130]
Ends the First Sino-Japanese War.

1896
Treaty of Addis Ababa
Abrogates the Treaty of Wuchale, formally ends the First Italo–Ethiopian War, and recognizes Ethiopia as an independent state.
1898
Sixth Treaty of Paris
Ends the Spanish-American War.

Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory[131]
Cedes the New Territories to the United Kingdom.
1899
Hague Conventions
Attempts to formalize laws of war.
Treaty of Berlin
Divides Samoa between the United States and Germany.
1900–1999
Year Name Summary
1900
Treaty of Paris
Ends all conflicting claims over Río Muni (Equatorial Guinea).

1901
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Replaces the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.

Boxer Protocol[132]
Peace agreement between the Great Powers and China.

1902
Anglo-Japanese Alliance
Treaty of alliance between England and Japan; signed by Lord Lansdowne and Hayashi Tadasu.

Treaty of Vereeniging
Ends the Second Anglo-Boer War.

1903
Cuban-American Treaty
The Republic of Cuba leases to the United States the Guantanamo Bay area.
Hay-Herran Treaty
The United States attempts to acquire a lease on Panama.

Hay-Herbert Treaty
Between the United Kingdom and the United States on the location of the border between Alaska and Canada.
Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty[133]
Establishes the Panama Canal Zone.

Treaty of Petrópolis
Ends tensions between Bolivia and Brazil over the territory of Acre.

1905
Treaty of Portsmouth
Ends the Russo-Japanese War.

Treaty of Björkö
A secret mutual defense accord between the German Empire and Russia.
Taft-Katsura Agreement[134]
Japan and the United States agree on spheres of influence in Asia.

Eulsa Treaty
Between the Korean Empire and the Japanese Empire; influenced by the result of the Russo-Japanese War; void in 1965.

1906
Second Geneva Convention
Specifies the treatment of wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea.
1909
Anglo-Siamese Treaty[135]
Formally divides northern Malay states between Siam and the British Empire.

1910
Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty
Begins the de facto period of Japanese occupation of Korea; declared null and void in 1965.
1912
International Opium Convention
The first international drug control treaty.
1913
Treaty of London
Ends the First Balkan War.

Treaty of Bucharest
Ends the Second Balkan War.

Tibet-Mongolia Treaty
Alliance between Mongolia and Tibet.

1914
Bryan-Chamorro Treaty
The United States acquires the rights to any canal built in Nicaragua, to build a naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca, and to lease the Great and Little Corn Islands in the Caribbean; ratified in 1916.

1915
London Pact
Italy enters World War I.

1916
Sykes-Picot Agreement
France and the United Kingdom define spheres of influence in the Middle East.

Treaty of Bucharest
Alliance between Romania and the Entente.

1917
Lansing-Ishii Agreement
Trade treaty between the United States and Japan.
Corfu Declaration
Statement of intention to form a Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

1918
Armistice of Mudros
Ends the Middle-Eastern part of World War I and forces the Ottomans to renounce most of their imperial holdings.
Treaty of Batum
Between the Democratic Republic of Armenia and the Ottoman Empire.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Russia pulls out of World War I.

Treaty of Bucharest
Between Romania and the Central Powers; never ratified.

1919
Treaty of Saint-Germain
Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Treaty of Versailles
Formally ends World War I.

Faisal Weizmann Agreement
Agreement for Arab-Jewish cooperation in the Middle East.
Treaty of Rawalpindi
Between the United Kingdom and Afghanistan during the Third Anglo-Afghan War; United Kingdom recognizes Afghanistan's independence; amended in 1921.
1920
Seventh Treaty of Paris
Union of Bessarabia and Romania.

Treaty of Brno
Naturalizes all populaces within the respective language groups of Austria and Czechoslovakia.

Treaty of Rapallo
Between Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (subsequently the Kingdom of Yugoslavia).

Treaty of Tartu
Establishes border between Russia and Finland.

Treaty of Tartu
Establishes border between Russia and Estonia.

Treaty of Trianon
Regulates the newly-independent Hungary.

Treaty of Sèvres
Peace between the Allies of World War I and the Ottoman Empire.

Latvian-Soviet Riga Peace Treaty
Brings peace between the Republic of Latvia and Russian SFSR.

Treaty of Alexandropol
Ends the war between Turkish nationalists and the Armenian Republic.

Svalbard Treaty[136]
The Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen (now called Svalbard) becomes part of the Kingdom of Norway.
1921
Franco-Polish Military Alliance
Military alliance between Poland and France that was active between 1921 and 1940.
Anglo-Irish Treaty[137]
Ends the Anglo-Irish War and created the Irish Free State.

Peace of Riga[138]
Ends the Polish-Bolshevik War.

Thomson-Urrutia Treaty
Colombia recognizes Panama's independence in return for 25 million dollars.
Treaty of Berlin
Separate post-World War I peace agreement between the United States and Germany.

Treaty of Kars
Friendship treaty between Turkey and the Soviet governments of the Transcaucasian Republics.
Treaty of Ankara[139]
France agrees to evacuate Cilicia in return for economic concessions from Turkey; Turkey acknowledges French imperial sovereignty over Syria.
Russo-Persian Treaty of Friendship
Grants both Iran and the Soviet Union full and equal shipping rights in the Caspian Sea.

Treaty of Moscow
A friendship treaty between the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) and the Bolshevik government of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
1922
Washington Naval Treaty[140]
Attempts to limit naval expansion.
Treaty of Rapallo
Between the Weimar Republic and Bolshevist Russia.

1923
Treaty of Lausanne
Sets the boundaries of modern Turkey.

Halibut Treaty
Canadian-American agreement concerning fishing rights in the northern Pacific Ocean.

1924
Treaty of Rome
Revokes parts of the 1920 Treaty of Rapallo that created the independent Free State of Fiume; Fiume would be annexed to Italy while the town of Sušak would be assigned to Yugoslavia.
1925
Locarno Treaties
Seven treaties between the World War I Western European Allied powers and the new states of central and Eastern Europe.
1926
Treaty of Berlin
Germany and the Soviet Union pledge neutrality.
1927
Treaty of Jedda
Establishes the independence of present-day Saudi Arabia from the United Kingdom.
1928
Kellogg-Briand Pact[141]
Calls "for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy".
1929
Lateran Treaty
The Kingdom of Italy and the Vatican City formally recognize each other.
Third Geneva Convention[142]
Establishes rules for the treatment of prisoners of war.

1930
London Naval Treaty[143]
Regulates submarine warfare and shipbuilding.
1931
Treaty of Westminster[144]
Creates the British Commonwealth.

1932
Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact
International treaty of non-aggression signed by representatives of Poland and the USSR.
1934
German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact
International treaty between Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic; both countries pledged to settle disputes through bilateral negotiations.
Balkan Pact
Between Greece, Turkey, Romania, and Yugoslavia; signatories agree to suspend all disputed territorial claims against each other.
1935
Soviet-French Non-Aggression Pact
Bilateral pact between France and the USSR with the aim of containing German aggression.
Treaty of Establishment, Commerce and Navigation[145]
Reinforces the Russo-Persian Treaty of Friendship.

1936
Anglo-Egyptian Treaty
The United Kingdom withdraws its troops from Egypt except those necessary to protect the Suez Canal and its surroundings.
Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence
France provides independence to Syria.
1937
International Agreement for the Regulation of Whaling
Establishes limitations on whaling practices; protocols signed in 1938 and again in 1945.
Treaty of Saadabad[146]
A non-aggression pact signed by Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.
1938
Munich Agreement
Surrenders the Sudetenland to Germany.
1939
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact[147]
Soviet-German non-aggression pact.
1940
Moscow Peace Treaty
Ends the Winter War.

Treaty of Commerce and Navigation
Reinforces the Treaty of Establishment, Commerce and Navigation between Iran and the Soviet Union.
Treaty of Craiova
Romania cedes territories to Bulgaria.
1942
Anglo-Soviet Treaty
Twenty-year mutual assistance agreement between the United Kingdom and the USSR that establishes both a military and political alliance.
1944
Bretton Woods Agreement
Establishes rules for commercial and financial relations among the major industrial states.
Tito-Šubašić Agreement[148]
Attempts to merge Yugoslavian governments.
Convention on International Civil Aviation[149]
Establishes the International Civil Aviation Organization; ratified in 1947.
London Protocol
Prepares for the division of Germany into three occupation zones.
1945
Treaty of Varkiza[150]
Attempts to officially end the Greek Civil War.

UN Charter
Establishes the United Nations.

Wanfried Agreement
Transfers three Hessian villages to the Soviet Union and two Eichsfeld villages to the United States.
1946
Bermuda Agreement
Bilateral agreement on civil aviation between the United States and United Kingdom.
Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement
Allows South Tyrol and Trentino to remain part of Italy, but ensures their autonomy.
International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling
Replaces the International Agreement for the Regulation of Whaling; governs the commercial, scientific, and aboriginal subsistence whaling practices of fifty-nine member nations.
Lake Success Protocol[151]
Shifts drug control functions previously assigned to the League of Nations to the United Nations.

Treaty of Manila (1946)[152]
United States recognizes independence of the Republic of the Philippines.
Treaty of London
Great Britain recognizes the independence of Transjordan.

1947
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade[153]
Establishes international trade rules.
Paris Peace Treaties
Formally ends World War II.

Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance[154]
A "hemispheric defense" doctrine signed by many nations in the Americas.

1949
North Atlantic Treaty[155]
Establishes NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Fourth Geneva Convention[156]
Establishes rules for the protection of civilians during wartime.
Treaty of Den Haag
The Netherlands grants independence to Indonesia except for the South Molucca Islands and West Irian.

Treaty of London
Creates the Council of Europe.

1950
Liaquat-Nehru Pact
Between Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Treaty of Zgorzelec[157]
Establishes borders between the Republic of Poland and the German Democratic Republic.

1951
Mutual Defense Treaty between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States of America
A mutual defense accord between the Philippines and the United States.

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Defines and outlaws genocide.

Treaty of San Francisco[158]
Formally ends the war between the Allies of World War II and Japan.

Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan
A mutual defense agreement between the United States and Japan; goes into effect on April 28, 1952.

U.S. and Japan Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement
Permits U.S. armed forces to station troops in Japan while encouraging Japan to rearm for defensive purposes only; goes into effect on May 1, 1954.

1952
ANZUS Treaty[159]
Alliance between Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

Treaty of Taipei[160]
Peace treaty between Japan and the Republic of China.

Deutschlandvertrag[161]
Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Western Allies (France, UK, USA) restoring (limited) German sovereignty.
1954
Central Treaty Organization[162]
Alliance of Middle Eastern countries and the United Kingdom.
Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty[163]
Established the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, (SEATO), a defensive alliance between Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, South Vietnam, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
1955
Austrian State Treaty[164]
Re-establishes a free, sovereign and democratic Austria.
Simonstown Agreement
The Royal Navy surrenders its naval base at Simonstown, South Africa and transfers command of the South African Navy to the government of South Africa.
Warsaw Pact[165]
Alliance of Central and Eastern European communist states.
1956
Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration
Reestablishes diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Japan following World War II.
1957
Anglo-Malayan Defence Agreement[166]
Provides a security umbrella for the independent Malaya.

Treaty of Rome[167]
Establishes the European Economic Community.

International Atomic Energy Treaty
Establishes the International Atomic Energy Agency.

1958
1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement
Bilateral treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom on nuclear weapons cooperation.
Convention on the Territorial Sea
and Contiguous Zone
Provides new universal legal controls for the management of marine natural resources and the control of pollution.
1959
Antarctic Treaty System[168]
Sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, establishes freedom of scientific investigation and bans military activity on the continent; comes into force in 1961.
1960
Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security
between the United States and Japan
Strengthens Japan's ties to the "West" during the Cold War era.

Indus Waters Treaty
Water-sharing treaty between India and Pakistan.

Treaty of Montevideo
Establishes the ALA-LC organization or the Latin American Free Trade Association.
1961
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
Strengthens U.S. national security by implementing effective policies of arms control and disarmament.
Columbia River Treaty
International agreement between Canada and the United States on the development and operation of the upper Columbia River basin.

Vienna Convention
on Diplomatic Relations
International treaty on diplomatic intercourse and the privileges and immunities of diplomatic missions; came into force in 1964.
Alliance for Progress
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower attempts to establish economic cooperation between North America and South America.

Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
International treaty against the illicit manufacture and trafficking of narcotic drugs.
Convention on Reduction of Statelessness
International treaty against statelessness; goes into effect on December 13, 1975.

1962
Nassau Agreement
The United States provides the United Kingdom with nuclear-armed Polaris missiles in return for a nuclear submarine base in the Holy Loch, near Glasgow.

1963
Vienna Convention
on Consular Relations
Multilateral treaty that codifies consular practices.
Vienna Convention
on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage
Sets rules of liability for any and all forms of nuclear damage.
Partial Test Ban Treaty[169]
Prohibiting all test detonations of nuclear weapons except underground.
Elysée Treaty[170]
Franco-German agreement for joint cooperation in foreign policy, economic and military integration, and exchange of student education.
Strasbourg Convention[171]
Harmonizes patent laws across European countries.
1965
Merger Treaty
Organizes the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community and Euratom; creates European Commission and the Council of the European Communities; comes into force on July 1, 1967.
Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea
Established basic relationship between Japan and the Republic of Korea (South Korea).

1967
Treaty of Tlatelolco[172]
Keeps Latin American and the Caribbean regions free of nuclear weapons.
Bangkok Declaration[173]
Founding document of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

WIPO Convention[174]
Established the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Outer Space Treaty[175]
Forbids the placing of nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction on celestial bodies and into outer space in general.
1968
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty[176]
Limits the spread of nuclear weapons through non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right to utilize nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
1969
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties[177]
Codifies the pre-existing international customary law on treaties with some necessary gap-filling and clarifications.
Arusha Agreement
Establishes better economic relations between the European Community and the nations of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania; comes into force in 1971.
1970
Patent Cooperation Treaty[178]
Provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions internationally; comes into force in 1978; amended in 1979; modified in 1984 and 2001.
Boundary Treaty
Settles boundary disputes between the United States and Mexico.
Treaty of Warsaw
West Germany and the People's Republic of Poland pledge themselves to nonviolence and accept the Oder-Neisse line; ratified in 1972.
1971
Convention on Psychotropic Substances
Attempts to control psychoactive drugs such as amphetamines, barbiturates, and LSD.

Five Power Defence Arrangements[179]
Security agreement between Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Ramsar Convention
Focuses on the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands; goes into effect in 1975.
IPC Agreement[180]
Establishes a common classification for patents for invention, inventors’ certificates, utility models and utility certificates; goes into effect in 1975; amended in 1979.
Seabed Arms Control Treaty[181]
Bans the placement of nuclear weapons on the ocean floor beyond a 12-mile (22.2 km) coastal zone; comes into force in 1972.
1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty[182]
Limits the use of anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems in defending areas against missile-delivered nuclear weapons (US PL 92-448).
Basic Treaty[183]
Establishes relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic; comes into effect in 1973.
Biological Weapons Convention[184]
First multilateral disarmament treaty banning the production of an entire category of biological weapons (with exceptions for medical and defensive purposes in small quantities).
Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals
Provides protection for Antarctic seals; comes into effect in 1978.

London Convention[185]
Attempts to control pollution of the sea via deliberate dumping by vessels, aircraft, and platforms.
Sino-Japanese Joint Communiqué[186]
Established diplomatic relations between Japan and the People's Republic of China.
Simla Treaty[187]
Normalised relations between India and Pakistan following the Bangladesh Liberation War.

1973
European Patent Convention[188]
Multilateral treaty instituting the European Patent Organisation.

Paris Peace Accords
Formalized American withdrawal from Vietnam.

Vientiane Treaty
A cease-fire agreement between the monarchial government of Laos and the communist Pathet Lao.

1974
Japan Australia Migratory Bird Agreement[189]
Treaty between Australia and Japan to minimise harm to the major areas used by birds that migrate between the two countries; comes into force in 1981.
Threshold Test Ban Treaty[190]
Establishes a nuclear "threshold" by prohibiting nuclear tests of devices having a yield exceeding 150 kilotons.

1975
Treaty of Osimo
Divides the Free Territory of Trieste between Italy and Yugoslavia.
Treaty of Lagos
Establishes the Economic Community of West African States.

1976
ENMOD Convention[191]
Prohibits the military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques; comes into force in 1978.
1977
Torrijos-Carter Treaties
Abrogates the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty and guarantees Panama its eventual control of the Panama Canal after 1999.

1978
Camp David Accords
Agreement between Egypt and Israel.

Treaty of Peace and Friendship between
Japan and the People's Republic of China
Peace agreement between Japan and the People's Republic of China.

1979
Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty
Israel and Egypt agree to mutually recognize each other; Israel agrees to withdraw its troops from the Sinai Peninsula in return for Israeli ships to gain free passage through the Suez Canal.

Moon Treaty[192]
Turns jurisdiction of all heavenly bodies to the international community; goes into effect in 1984.
Treaty of Montevideo
Both Argentina and Chile pledge to a peaceful solution to their border disputes at the Beagle Channel.

1983
Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement[193]
A free trade agreement between the governments of New Zealand and Australia.
1984
Sino-British Joint Declaration[194]
The United Kingdom relinquishes Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
Nkomati Accord
Nonagression treaty between Mozambique and the Republic of South Africa.

Arabic-African Union Treaty
Morocco and Libya establish the Arabic-African Union.

Argentina-Chile Peace and Friendship Treaty
Resolves disputes between Argentina and Chile over the possession of the Picton, Lennox and Nueva islands.

1985
Plaza Accord
The Group of Five agree to devalue the US dollar in relation to the Japanese yen and German Deutsche Mark by intervening in currency markets.
Schengen Agreement
Establishes for the European Community a border system and a common policy on the temporary entry of persons.
Sulphur Emissions Reduction Protocol[195]
Provides for a 30% reduction in sulphur emissions and their transboundary fluxes by 1993; comes into effect in 1987.
Treaty of Rarotonga[196]
Formalizes a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the South Pacific.
1986
China Australia Migratory Bird Agreement
Treaty between Australia and China to minimise harm to major areas used by birds that migrate between the two countries; comes into force in 1988.
1987
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
Eliminates nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (300 to 3,400 miles); ratified and comes into force in 1988.
1988
Nitrogen Oxide Protocol[197]
Provides for the control or reduction of nitrogen oxides and their transboundary fluxes; comes into effect in 1991.
United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances
Enforcing the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.

1989
Montreal Protocol[198]
Attempts to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of a number of substances believed to be responsible for ozone depletion.

Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe[199]
Establishes limits on key categories of conventional military equipment in Europe and mandates the destruction of excess weaponry.
Timor Gap Treaty
Between the governments of Australia and Indonesia; rewritten in 2001.
1990
Malaysia-Singapore Points of Agreement
Treaty regarding the future of railway land owned by the Malaysian government through Malayan Railways in Singapore.

Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany
The Four Powers renounce all rights they formerly held in Germany and Germany renounces all claims to territories east of the Oder-Neisse Line.

1991
Brioni Agreement
Ends ten-day war in Slovenia.

Abuja Treaty
International agreement that creates the African Economic Community.

Asunción Treaty
International treaty signed between Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, served as the basis for the establishment of the Mercosur trading block.
1992
Maastricht Treaty[200]
Establishes the European Union.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change[201]
Attempts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gas in order to combat global warming.

Treaty on Open Skies
Establishes an international program of unarmed aerial surveillance flights over all participants' territories.
CIS Collective Security Treaty
Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan establish framework for the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1993
Oslo Accords[202]
Between the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Chemical Weapons Convention[203]
Outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons.

1994
Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty[204]
Normalizes relations between Israel and Jordan and resolves territorial disputes between them.
North American Free Trade Agreement
Free trade agreement between Canada, the United States of America, and Mexico.
Kremlin accords
Stops the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles at targets in any nation and provides for the dismantling of Russian nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea[205]
Provides universal legal controls for the management of marine natural resources and the control of pollution.

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification[206]
Agreement to combat desertification and to mitigate the effects of drought; comes into force in 1996.
1995
Dayton Agreement[207]
Ends Bosnian War.

General Agreement on Trade in Services[208]
Extends the multilateral trading system to provide services (i.e. tertiary sector of industry).

1996
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty[209]
Forbids all nuclear explosions in all environments for military or civilian purposes.
Khasav-Yurt Accord
Ceasefire agreement that ends the First Chechen War.

WIPO Copyright Treaty[210]
Provides additional protections for copyright deemed necessary due to advances in information technology.

WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty[211]
Establishes rights and privileges for performers and producers of audio-visual works.
1997
Amsterdam Treaty[212]
Substantially revises the Maastricht Treaty; comes into effect on May 1, 1999.
Ottawa Convention on Landmines[213]
Bans all anti-personnel landmines (AP-mines).
Chemical Weapons Convention[214]
Outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons.

Kyoto Protocol[215]
Mandates the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; negotiated in 1997, ratified in 2004, and goes into effect in 2005.
1998
Belfast Agreement[216]
Major political development in the Northern Ireland peace process.

POP Air Pollution Protocol[217]
Agreement to provide for the control and reduction of emissions of persistent organic pollutants; has not yet come into effect.
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court[218]
Establishes the International Criminal Court.

Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty
Replaces ceilings given to NATO and the Warsaw Pact with territorial ones.
East African Community Treaty
Establishes the East African Community between Uganda, Kenya and the Republic of Tanzania; goes into effect on July 7, 2000.

2000–current
Year Name Summary
2000
Cotonou Agreement
Attempts to reduce poverty and integrate the ACP countries into the world economy; came into force in 2002.
Patent Law Treaty[219]
Harmonizes formal procedures such as the requirements to obtain a filing date for a patent application, the form and content of a patent application, and representation.
Treaty of Jedda
Resolves a border dispute between Saudi Arabia and Yemen that dates backs to Saudi boundary claims made in 1934.
2001
Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels
Attempts to prevent the decline of seabird populations in the southern hemisphere, particularly albatrosses and procellariidae.

Cybercrime Convention
Prohibits the use of computers or networks as tools for criminal activity.
Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation Between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation
Twenty-year strategic treaty between Russia and the People's Republic of China.

Treaty of Nice
Amends two founding treaties of the European Union.

2002
ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution
Between ASEAN nations to bring haze pollution under control in Southeast Asia.

Gbadolite Agreement
Attempts to cease hostilities between the warring factions in the Second Congo War; treaty has limited effect.
Pretoria Accord
Rwandan troops withdraw from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in exchange for international commitment towards the disarmament of the interahamwe and the ex-FAR fighters.
SORT[220]
Limits the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States.
2003
ASEAN Free Trade Area[221]
Agreement by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of local manufacturing in all ASEAN countries.

Treaty of Accession 2003
Integrates ten nations into the European Union; came into force on May 1, 2004.
WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control[222]
First public health treaty of the world; came into force on February 27, 2005. Its purpose is to "protect present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke."
2004
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture[223]
Assures farmers' facilitated access to seeds of the world's food security crops; came into force on June 29, 2004.

2005
Energy Community South East Europe Treaty[224]
Establishes the European Energy Community.

Treaty of Accession 2005
Integrates two nations (Bulgaria and Romania) into the European Union; came into force on January 1, 2007.

2006
Tripoli Agreement[225]
Ends Chadian-Sudanese conflict.

Waziristan Accord[226]
Ends Waziristan war.

St Andrews Agreement
Resolves outstanding grievances in the Northern Ireland peace process, enabling devolved power-sharing government to resume.
Sorrows of Empire: Dr. King's Speech on War and Peace
Published on Thursday, January 8, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
Thirty-six years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech that changed my life. I was a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York city in 1967, during the peak of the Vietnam war. Almost by accident a friend invited me across the street to hear Dr. King deliver a comprehensive anti-war address at Riverside Church.
It is not the drama, the excitement of the occasion, nor King's mellifluous voice passing over the hushed sanctuary as he described the holocaust of Indochina. It is not even the way history later vindicated king's teachings on war--everything he predicted came to pass--that makes his 1967 address so memorable to me. It is the vitality of his teachings for our own lives, the immediate relevance to the arrogance and jingoism of our time, that compels me to recall and reread the Peacemaker's masterpiece once again.
The economic and moral crisis we are facing today--the ubiquity of violent crime, the endemic clutch of drugs, the growing poverty of the working poor, the ruin of the Bill of Rights, the suffocation of millions of decent lives in the ghettos of our cities--all date back to that fateful turn when American leaders, pressured by big corporations, chose war over peace, empire over civil rights and social progress.
Dr. King saw our crisis coming. "A few years ago," he began from his well-lit pulpit, speaking in reference to the anti-poverty programs, when America was moving forward--"A few years ago, there was a shining moment in our struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched the programs broken. I was compelled to see the war as the enemy of the poor."
As Dr. King analyzed the hope-wrecking nature of war, I put down my pen, stopped taking notes, and listened with my heart, as he described, not only the devastation abroad, the injuries and scarred lives of the working class youth returning home, but the spiritual costs of imperialism--the mendacity of our leaders, the disillusionment of youth. "A nation," he said, "that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
King reminded his listeners that U.S. lawlessness abroad breeds violence within the United States as well. "As I walked among the desperate, rejected angry men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. But they ask--and rightly so--what about Vietnam? Wasn't our own nation using massive doses of violence to solve its problems? Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly against the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today--my own government." King never used the term "blowback," but his message was clear. When America sows the wind, it will reap the whirlwind in due time.
The Vietnam war is past. The cold war is over. But King's teachings about the sorrows of empire, the moral and social costs of militarism, are as timely today as they were 36 years ago. There is still no Marshall plan for our cities, no jobs program for our youth yearning for hope and direction. The near-400 billion dollar military budget is a mockery of social justice. Americans pay more for "defense" than all potential adversaries combined. According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal deficits over the next five years will hit $1.08 trillion, a military induced deficit that is robbing our children of housing, education, health care and chances for a better life.
U.S. corporations now globalize weaponry and violence for profit, and the U.S. has become the primary font of arms proliferation in the world. Subsidized by American taxpayers, U.S. corporations--Lockheed-Martin, General Electric, General Dynamics, Mcdonnell Douglas, Boeing, Hughes Aircraft, to name a few--sell lethal weapons to more than 40 countries. Assault helicopters, tanks, 50-caliber machine guns, hellfire anti-armor missiles, land-mine dispensing pods, Stinger missiles, fighter jets, rifles, guns--mechanized violence has become the main currency of American foreign policy. U.S. companies, along with France, helped Iraq build its arsenal of poison gas and chemical weapons in the 80s. Dr. King once described the sale of weaponry on a world scale as one of the great social crimes of the modern age.
King's 36-year old speech still sears my soul because my own country is till "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." We are all victims, in King's words, of that "deadly western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long."
I left Riverside Church inspired by the intensity of the event. The following day, King's patriotic address caused an outcry in the Media. TIME magazine called it "demagogic slander, a script for Radio Hanoi."
Nevertheless I can still hear our teacher reciting the words of James Russell Lowell: "Though the cause of evil prosper, yet 'tis truth alone is strong."
War and peace, bells and whistles at Dwinelle
Nimitz lecturer Thomas Barnett says our best weapon against terrorism is increased globalization
By Barry Bergman, Public Affairs | 17 March 2005
Generals, the axiom goes, are forever fighting the last war. Thomas Barnett thinks that’s putting it mildly.
The former U.S. Naval War College professor (and in-demand author of The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the 21st Century) warns that the American military’s mindset remains frozen in the Cold War, and that its reluctance to adapt leaves the nation ill-equipped to deal with terrorist threats and other modern-day global challenges.
In an era of unconventional wars, Barnett, an “economic determinist” who views globalization as the best hope for tamping down terrorism, seems a fittingly unconventional war strategist. (“Deep down,” he confesses in his blog, “I consider myself a peace strategist.”) A proponent of the 2003 Iraq invasion, he’s a self-described “Tony Blair Democrat” — a Democrat on domestic issues, but hawkish on foreign affairs — who voted for Al Gore in 2000, and advised the Kerry campaign in 2004.
He has also delivered controversial briefings to an impressive array of military brass and intelligence VIPs, armed with a PowerPoint presentation that, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “more resembles performance art than a Pentagon briefing.” Barnett brought that presentation to campus on Wednesday, March 9, for the first of two Chester W. Nimitz Memorial Lectures in National Security Affairs, under the aegis of the campus Military Affairs Program. With his crewcut and clipped, gravelly bark, and framed by an ever-changing backdrop of loopily animated slides, he suggested a younger, civilian-clad George C. Scott in Patton, with PowerPoint standing in for the Stars and Stripes. The packed house at Dwinelle Hall, including dozens of blue-uniformed members of the Air Force ROTC, was dazzled.
Barnett began by noting he’d recently left the War College, a career shift that hasn’t affected his message, he insisted, but that does mean “I have to apologize less for what I say.” Over the next two hours he fired off unapologetic shots at Colin Powell, Richard Clarke, the United Nations, Michael Moore, Condoleezza Rice, Ann Coulter, the Department of Homeland Security, and the CIA, among others, and described the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by al Qaeda as “the first live-broadcast snuff film in human history.”
“First chance I ever got to watch about three dozen people I knew fairly well die, live on national television,” he said. “I was meant to be impressed, and I was impressed.”
The events of 9/11 were what Barnett calls “system perturbations,” shocks emanating from the “lesser includeds” — military-speak for less-developed countries that U.S. forces are presumed capable of keeping in check, and thus that are implicitly “included” in any strategy to stave off threats from great-power countries like Russia and China. In fact, said Barnett, demands on the U.S. military since the collapse of the Soviet Union have had almost nothing to do with great powers but have centered more and more on discretionary deployments in hot spots like Somalia, the Balkans, and Haiti.
Yet while the global challenges have evolved, he added, the American military remains too small, and too focused on the likelihood of great-power war, to deal with the new global reality.
“If you want an explanation for Abu Ghraib and every other snafu that’s happened in this [Iraqi] occupation,” he said, “you can find it in our response to this rising demand curve across the 1990s, and the Pentagon’s refusal to get off the Big One, in terms of contingency planning, and adjust itself to a world of lesser includeds.”
What 9/11 showed, according to Barnett, is that the most serious threat is not from so-called great powers but from groups of “super-empowered individuals,” a phrase coined by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, another staunch advocate of globalization. Where we once had to worry about the Soviet Union “blowing up the world,” today “it’s all about killing bad guys,” said Barnett. “If you don’t pay attention to that kind of change, you’re going to be deeply confused — as so many in the Pentagon are.”
The Core and the Gap
“Disconnectedness defines danger,” Barnett declared. “That’s my mantra.” He breaks the world into two categories: the Functioning Core, characterized by financial opportunity, stable governments, and rising standards of living; and the Non-integrating Gap, where political repression, widespread poverty and disease, and chronic conflicts create breeding grounds for terrorists.
“One-third of the world is still outside the global economy, noses pressed to the glass, unable to join,” he said, adding that “terrorism is not caused by poverty,” but by “disconnectedness.” The reason a father in the West Bank straps on an explosive vest, said Barnett, is that “he sees no better future. He thinks that’s the next best step. That is disconnectedness.”
Calling Osama bin Laden “a latter-day Lenin,” Barnett insisted the way to defeat him is to cause “system perturbations” of our own — the Iraq invasion being a good example — while simultaneously shrinking the Gap and expanding the Core.
“What he’s going to try to do is drive the West out of the Middle East and hijack the Middle East out of the global economy,” said Barnett. “If we want to defeat that purpose, we’ve got to connect the Middle East to the global economy faster than he can disconnect it.”
Such a strategy, he made clear, includes war — but war, as he sees it, “in the context of everything else.”
“What we’re searching for in many ways is a new definition for not just the American way of war,” he said, “but a new definition of the American way of peace, which frankly we do better than any other military on the planet, and we still suck at it — as we’ve seen in Iraq.”
Turning to the Bush administration’s lack of preparedness for the postwar occupation, Barnett sniffed, “Condi Rice? Everybody said we’re not gonna do nation-building, we’re not gonna do any of that peacekeeping crap, none of it. Condi said, ‘The 82nd Airborne isn’t gonna escort any children into kindergarten on my watch’ — words she has yet to eat.”
He also dismissed the views of pundits on the right (“Ann Coulter says ‘hell, let’s kill ‘em all’”), the left (Michael Moore takes a “soda-straw view of history”), and in the middle, such as former anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke (“If he had his way he’d put a big fence around America. Trust me, I know this guy — you don’t want to live in his country.”).
As for the Department of Homeland Security, Barnett called it “a strategic feel-good measure” and “mostly a waste of money.” Its creation, he added sarcastically, was “a transformative event — especially for those poor bastards that actually have to work there.”
“Americans do not want to hear this,” Barnett wrote in the March 2003 Esquire magazine article on which he based his book, “but the real battlegrounds in the global war on terrorism are still out there.” If we want to ensure our security, he told his Nimitz audience, we need a military nimble enough to complement our economic and diplomatic efforts to bring more of the world’s people from the Gap into the Core.
“Direction is critical, not degree,” he maintained, observing that the People’s Republic of China today is ruled by a communist party “whose ideological mix is about 30 percent Marxist-Leninist, 70 percent The Sopranos.”
While he views Iran as a country that could be brought into the Core, he was far less charitable toward North Korea, condemning dictator Kim Jung Il as a mass murderer and “the tailbone of the Cold War.” By offering China stronger incentives to work with the U.S. toward “truly global” globalization — for example, rescinding our longstanding defense arrangement with Taiwan — we could, said Barnett, “build an East Asian NATO on that idiot’s grave.”
Will there ever be a chance for world peace?
It appears very idealistic to believe that one day there will be world peace. Ever since the beginning of human civilization, we have had war, genocide, territorial disputes and occupation. One only has to look at the world today to see the reality. A few areas of conflict include Sri Lanka, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Chechnya. It does not appear that they will end any time soon.
The reason world peace appears so distant is that there is so much distrust and animosity among people and world leaders. For example, many observers suspect that Chechnya is oil-rich. Though Chechnyans may desire independence from Russia, Russia is not about to give it to them for three main reasons: 1) it fears that by letting Chechnya secede, it could fuel a desire for secession from other parts of the country; 2) it does not wish to give up the valuable oil resources which Chechnya may possess; 3) it does not want to see a rise in Islamic fundamentalism which could be started by the creation of another Islamic state.
War is often for reasons of resources, territorial control and power. If humans did not have such a strong desire to demonstrate their power, control others and dominate them, it is possible that the desire to wage war would go away. But until that happens, it is likely that war will continue to be as common as it is today.
Also often forgotten is the financial benefits of war. As inhumane as it may seem, arms manufacturers increase their business when there is war and thus create a greater demand for arms. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, there is great profit for armsmakers. The Iran-Iraq war, a war which lasted about ten years, never should have lasted as long as it did. The western world, though, was largely responsible for such a long war. The reason is simple. Both sides kept arming the two enemies with enough arms so that the war would be dragged out as long as possible. As immoral as that may sound, it was an extremely good business practice and resulted in large profits.
In an ideal world, we would share our resources with one another and we would see a high level of cooperation among all the nations of the world. Reality paints a very different picture, though. Sometimes the hatred among nations is so great that they want to destroy one another, and at other times, the hunger for power is so strong that leaders will stop at nothing to increase it. Only if the desire for territorial domination and control, power, control of resources and desire for profit in the case of armsmakers can be eliminated is there a chance that one day we will see world peace. Realistically speaking, though, it is difficult to envision.
New WorId Disorder
War is peace. So now we know.
As darkness deepened over Afghanistan on October 7, the U.S. government, backed by the International Coalition Against Terror (the new, amenable substitute for the United Nations), launched air strikes against Afghanistan. TV channels lingered on computer-animated images of cruise missiles, stealth bombers, tomahawks and bunker-busting missiles. All over the world, little boys watched goggle-eyed and stopped clamoring for new video games.
The U.N., reduced now to an ineffective acronym, wasn't even asked to mandate the air strikes. (As Madeleine Albright once said, "The U.S. acts multilaterally when it can, and unilaterally when it must.") The "evidence" against the terrorists was shared amongst friends in the coalition. After conferring, they announced that it didn't matter whether or not the "evidence" would stand up in a court of law.
Nothing can excuse or justify an act of terrorism, whether it is committed by religious fundamentalists private militia, people's resistance movements- or whether it's dressed up as a war of retribution by a recognized government. The bombing of Afghanistan is not revenge for New York and Washington. It is yet another act of terror against the people of the world. Each innocent person that is killed must be added to, not set off against, the grisly toll of civilians who died in New York and Washington.
People rarely win wars, governments rarely lose them. People get killed. Governments molt and regroup, hydra-headed. They first use flags to shrink-wrap peoples' minds and smother real thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to cover the mangled remains of the willing dead. On both sides, in Afghanistan as well as America, civilians are now hostage to the actions of their own governments. Unknowingly, ordinary people in both countries share a common bond-they have to live with the phenomenon of blind, unpredictable terror. Each batch of bombs that is dropped on Afghanistan is matched by a corresponding escalation of mass hysteria in America about anthrax, more hijackings and other terrorist acts.
There is no easy way out of the spiraling morass of terror and brutality that confronts the world today. It is time now for the human race to hold still, to delve into its wells of collective wisdom, both ancient and modem. What happened on September 11 changed the world forever. Freedom, progress, wealth, technology, war-these words have taken on new meaning. Governments have to acknowledge this transformation, and approach their new tasks with a modicum of honesty and humility. Unfortunately, up to now, there has been no sign of any introspection from the leaders of the International Coalition Against Terror. Or the Taliban.
When he announced the air strikes, President George W. Bush said, "We're a peaceful nation." America's favorite ambassador, Tony Blair (who also holds the portfolio of British prime minister), echoed him: "We're a peaceful people."
So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is Peace.
Speaking at FBI headquarters a few days later, Bush said, "This is our calling. This is the calling of the United States of America. The most free nation in the world. A nation built on fundamental values that rejects hate, rejects violence, rejects murderers and rejects evil. And we will not tire."
Here is a partial list of the countries that America has been at war with-overtly and covertly-since World War 11: China, Korea, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, the Belgian Congo, Peru, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Sudan, Yugoslavia. And now Afghanistan.
Certainly it does not tire-this, the most free nation in the world. What freedoms does it uphold? Within its borders, the freedoms of speech, religion, thought; of artistic expression, food habits, sexual preferences (well, to some extent) and many other exemplary, wonderful things. Outside its borders, the freedom to dominate, humiliate and subjugate-usually in the service of America's real religion, the "free market." So when the U.S. government christens a war "Operation Infinite Justice," or "Operation Enduring Freedom," we in the Third World feel more than a tremor of fear. Because we know that Infinite Justice for some means Infinite Injustice for others. And Enduring Freedom for some means Enduring Subjugation for others.
The International Coalition Against Terror is largely a cabal of the richest countries in the world. Between them, they manufacture and sell almost all of the world's weapons, and they possess the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction-chemical, biological and nuclear. They have fought the most wars, account for most of the genocide, subjection, ethnic cleansing and human rights violations in modem history, and have sponsored, armed and financed untold numbers of dictators and despots. Between them, they have worshipped, almost deified, the cult of violence and war. For all its appalling sins, the Taliban just isn't in the same league.
The Taliban was compounded in the crumbling crucible of rubble, heroin and land mines in the backwash of the Cold War. Its oldest leaders are in their early forties. Many of them are disfigured and handicapped, missing an eye, an arm or a leg. They grew up in a society scarred and devastated by war. Between the Soviet Union and America, over 20 years, about $40 billion worth of arms and ammunition was poured into Afghanistan. The latest weaponry was the only shard of modernity to intrude upon a thoroughly medieval society.
Young boys-many of them orphans-who grew up in those times, had guns for toys, never knew the security and comfort of family life, never experienced the company of women. Now, as adults and rulers, they beat, stone, rape and brutalize women; they don't seem to know what else to do with them. Years of war have stripped them of gentleness, inured them to kindness and human compassion. They dance to the percussive rhythms of bombs raining down around them. Now they've turned their monstrosity on their own people.
More than a million Afghan people lost their lives in the 20 years of conflict that preceded this new war. Afghanistan was reduced to rubble, and now, the rubble is being pounded into finer dust. By the second day of the air strikes, U.S. pilots were returning to their bases without dropping their assigned payload of bombs. As one pilot put it, Afghanistan is "not a target-rich environment." At a press briefing at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked if America had run out of targets. "For one thing, we're finding that some of the targets we hit need to be re-hit," he said. "Second, we're not running out of targets, Afghanistan is." This was greeted with gales of laughter in the Briefing Room.
On the ground in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance- the Taliban's old enemy, and therefore the coalition's newest friend-is making headway in its push to capture Kabul. (Let it be noted that the Northern Alliance's track record is not very different from the Taliban's.) The visible, moderate, "acceptable" leader of the Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was killed in a suicide-bomb attack early in September. The rest of the Northern Alliance is a brittle confederation of brutal warlords, ex-communists and unbending clerics. It is a disparate group divided along ethnic lines, some of whom have tasted power in Afghanistan in the past.
Among the global powers, there is talk of "putting in a representative government." Or, on the other hand, of "restoring" the kingdom to 89-year-old Zahir Shah, who has lived in exile in Rome since 1973. That's the way the game goes-support Saddam Hussein, then "take him out," finance the mujahedin, then bomb them to smithereens; put in Zahir Shah and see if he's going to be a good boy. (Is it possible to "put in" a representative government? Can you place an order for democracy-with extra cheese and jalapeno peppers?)
Reports have begun to trickle in about civilian casualties, about cities emptying out as Afghan civilians flock to borders that have been closed. Main arterial roads have been blown up or sealed off. Those who have experience working in Afghanistan say that by early November, food convoys will not be able to reach the millions of Afghans ( 7.5 million according to the United Nations) who run the very real risk of starving to death during the course of this winter. They say that in the days that are left before winter sets in, there can either be a war, or an attempt to reach food to the hungry. Not both.
As a gesture of humanitarian support, the U.S. government air-dropped 37,500 packets of emergency rations into Afghanistan. It says it plans to drop a total of 500,000 packets. That will still add up to only a single meal for half a million people out of the several million in dire need of food. Aid workers have condemned it as a cynical, dangerous, public-relations exercise. They say that air-dropping food packets is worse than futile. First, because the food will never get to those who really need it. More dangerously, those who run out to retrieve the packets risk being blown up by land mines. A tragic alms race.
Nevertheless, the food packets had a photo-op all to themselves. Their contents were listed in major newspapers. They were vegetarian, we are told, as per Muslim dietary law. Each yellow packet, decorated with the American flag, contained: rice, peanut butter, bean salad, strawberry jam, crackers, raisins, flat bread, an apple fruit bar, seasoning, matches, a spoon, a towelette, a napkin and illustrated user instructions.
After three years of unremitting drought, an air-dropped airline meal in Jalalabad! The level of cultural ineptitude, the failure to understand what months of relentless hunger and grinding poverty really mean, the U.S. government's attempt to use even this abject misery to boost its self-image, beggars description.
Put your ear to the ground in this part of the world, and you can hear the thrumming, the deadly drumbeat of burgeoning anger. Please. Please, stop the war now. Enough people have died. The smart missiles are just not smart enough. They're blowing up whole warehouses of suppressed fury.
With all due respect to President Bush, the people of the world do not have to choose between the Taliban and the U.S. government. All the beauty of human civilization-our art, our music, our literature-lies beyond these two fundamentalist, ideological poles. There is as little chance that the people of the world can all become middle-class consumers as there is that they will all embrace any one particular religion. The issue is not about Good vs. Evil or Islam vs. Christianity as much as it is about space. About how to accommodate diversity, how to contain the impulse toward hegemony-economic, military, linguistic, religious, cultural and otherwise. Any ecologist will tell you how dangerous and fragile a monoculture is. A hegemonic world is like having a government without a healthy opposition. It becomes a kind of dictatorship. It's like putting a plastic bag over the world to prevent it from breathing. Eventually, it will be tom open.
It is important for governments and politicians to understand that manipulating these huge, raging human feelings for the* own narrow purposes may yield instant results, but eventually and inexorably will have disastrous consequences. Igniting and exploiting religious sentiments for reasons of political expediency is the most dangerous legacy that governments or politicians can bequeath to any people-including their own. People who live in societies ravaged by religious or communal bigotry know that every religious text-from the Bible to the Bhagavad Gita-can be mined and misinterpreted to justify anything, from nuclear war to genocide to corporate globalization.
This is not to suggest that the terrorists who perpetrated the outrage on September 11 should not be hunted down and brought to book. They must be. But is war the best way to track them down? Will burning the haystack find you the needle? Or will it escalate the anger and make the world a living hell for all of us!
At the end of the day, how many people can you spy on, how many bank accounts can you freeze, how many conversations can you eavesdrop on, how many emails can you intercept, how many letters can you open, how many phones can you tap? Even before September 11, the CIA had accumulated more information than is humanly possible to process. (Sometimes, too much data can actually hinder intelligence small wonder the U.S. spy satellites completely missed the preparation that preceded India's nuclear tests in 1998.) The sheer scale of the surveillance will become a logistical, ethical and civil rights nightmare. And freedom-that precious, precious thing-will be the first casualty. It's already hurt and hemorrhaging dangerously.
Every day that the war goes on, raging emotions are being let loose into the world. The international press has little or no independent access to the war zone. In any case, mainstream media, particularly in the United States, have more or less rolled over, allowing themselves to be tickled on the stomach with handouts from military men and government officials. Afghan radio stations have been destroyed by the bombing. The Taliban has always been deeply suspicious of the press. In the propaganda war, there is no accurate estimate of how many people have been killed, or how much destruction has taken place. In the absence of reliable information, wild rumors spread.
Bush recently boasted: "When I take action, I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive." He should know that there are no targets in Afghanistan that will give his missiles their money's worth. Perhaps, if only to balance his books, he should develop some cheaper missiles to use on cheaper targets and cheaper lives in the poor countries of the world. But then, that may not make good business sense to the coalition's weapons manufacturers.
Then there's that other branch of traditional coalition business-oil. Turkmenistan, which borders the northwest of Afghanistan, holds the world's fifth largest gas reserves and billions of barrels of oil reserves. Enough, experts say, to meet American energy needs for the next 30 years (or a developing country's energy requirements for a couple of centuries). America has always viewed oil as a security consideration, and protected it by any means it deems necessary. Few of us doubt that the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf has little to do with its concern for human rights and almost entirely to do with its strategic interest in oil.
For some years now, Unocal has been negotiating with the Taliban for permission to construct an oil pipeline through Afghanistan to Pakistan and out to the Arabian Sea. From here, Unocal hopes to access the lucrative "emerging markets" in South and Southeast Asia. In November 1997, a delegation of Taliban mullahs traveled to America and even met with State Department officials in Washington and later with Unocal executives in Houston. At that time, t4 Taliban's taste for public executions and its treatment of Afghan women were not made out to be the crimes against humanity that they are now. Over the next six months, pressure from hundreds of outraged American feminist groups was brought to bear on the Clinton administration. Fortunately, they managed to scuttle the deal. But now comes the U.S. oil industry's big chance.
In America, the arms industry, the oil industry and the major media networks-indeed, U.S. foreign policy-are all controlled by the same business combines. It would be foolish to expect this talk of guns and oil and defense deals to get any real play in the media. In any case, to a distraught, confused people whose pride has just been wounded, whose loved ones have been tragically killed, whose anger is fresh and sharp, the inanities about the "Clash of Civilizations" and the "Good vs. Evil" discourse home in unerringly. They are cynically doled out by government spokesmen like a daily dose of vitamins or anti-depressants. Regular medication ensures that mainland America continues to remain the enigma it has always been-a curiously insular people administered by a pathologically meddlesome, promiscuous government.
War and Peace
LDS ideas about war and peace are complex. They synthesize a number of basic values. First are the ideals of finding peace in Christ (John 14:27), turning the other cheek and loving one's enemies (Matt. 5:39, 44), repeatedly forgiving one's enemies (D&C 64:10; 98:23-27, 39-43), and renouncing war and proclaiming peace (D&C 98:16). Next are the goals of establishing a perfect community of righteous, harmonious people (see Zion) and of welcoming the millennial reign of Jesus for a thousand years of peace. Third is a fundamental aversion to any use of force or violence that denies personal agency (D&C 121:41-44). Next is the recognition that war was the tactic Satan used in the premortal existence (see War in Heaven) and that he continues to reign with violence on this earth (Moses 6:15). Then there is acknowledgment that it is appropriate and sometimes required to take up arms in defense of one's family, religion, and freedom (Alma 43:45-47; 46:12). Next are the ethical and legal distinctions between deliberate murder and the killing of opposing soldiers in the line of combat duty. There is an obligation of all citizens to honor and obey the constitutional law of their land (see Civic Duties), together with the belief that all political leaders are accountable to God for their governmental administrations (D&C 134:1). And finally, there is the role of the United States of America as a nation of divine destiny with a mission to lead the way in establishing international peace and individual freedom on earth. Under the extreme pressures and agonies that may arise from differing circumstances, an individual must have personal faith, hope, charity, and revelation to implement all these principles in righteousness.
Countries may define their interests differently and hence make reliance on force more or less salient, with various political and ethical consequences. For example, a group may adopt a radical pacifist position, but its survival then depends on the attitudes of others. Thus, in the Book of Mormon, the survival of the converted Lamanites who vowed never to shed blood was vouchsafed by the Nephites and by their own sons, who were not bound by their oath of pacifism (Alma 27:24; 56:5-9).
War also has some legal status in international law: "War is a fact recognized, and with regard to many points regulated, but not established by International Law" (L. Oppenheim, International Law, London, 1952, p. 202). In the exercise of their sovereignty, states may limit the initiation or conduct of war, but the present political system of self-help grants the right to make war as one's safety, vital interests, or sense of justice may dictate. Over time peaceful conditions may emerge, but as long as separate independent entities exist, the likelihood of resort to armed conflict remains, and in any sovereign state wherein LDS citizens reside they are pledged to "being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, etc., obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law" (A of F 12).
TEACHINGS OF THE BOOK OF MORMON AND THE DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS. The LDS response to the political realities of war is largely conditioned by the concept of the justification of defensive war provided in the Book of Mormon and in modern revelation. The main statements come from accounts of Moroni1 (a Nephite commander, c. 72-56 B.C.), from the prophet Mormon (final commander of the Nephite armies, c. A.D. 326-385), and from guidance given to the Church in 1833, when persecutions were mounting in Missouri (see D&C 98).
Captain Moroni raised a banner on which he laid out the principal Nephite war aims: the defense of "our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children" (Alma 46:12). Legitimate warfare is described here in defensive terms. Moroni established a forward defense perimeter, constructed protective fortifications for some cities, and deployed his main armies as mobile striking forces to retake captured towns. His purpose was "that they might live unto the Lord their God" (Alma 48:10), giving no support for war as an instrument to expand territorial or political control (Morm. 4:4-5). He taught the Nephites to defend themselves but "never to give an offense, yea, and never to raise the sword except it were against an enemy, except it were to preserve their lives. And this was their faith, that by so doing God would prosper them in the land" (Alma 48:14-15). They sought the guidance of prophets before going to battle (Alma 16:5; 43:23; 3 Ne. 3:19-20). Moroni "glor[ied]" in this position—"not in the shedding of blood but in doing good, in preserving his people, yea, in keeping the commandments of God" (Alma 48:16). Even in the conduct of war itself, indiscriminate slaughter, plunder, and reprisal were prohibited (see CWHN 8:328-79).
Four centuries later, when the Nephite forces "began to boast in their own strength, and began to swear before the heavens that they would avenge themselves of the blood of their brethren who had been slain by their enemies" (Morm. 3:9), Mormon, their leader, withdrew from command. Vengeance belonged only to the Lord (Morm. 3:15). When Mormon's sense of duty caused him again to lead the armies, he knew that the Nephite turn to aggression and bloodthirsty reprisal betrayed a deeper corruption that ultimately spelled their doom. As his people drifted into barbaric acts of torture, rape, and enslavement, Mormon lamented the depravity of his people: "They are without order and without mercy" (Moro. 9:18); and they were destroyed (see Book of Mormon, History of Warfare in).
Even if the sword is taken up in self-defense, it is a fearful choice. It should be undertaken only if God commands (D&C 98:33) and after "a standard of peace" has been offered three times (98:34-38). Great rewards are promised to those who warn their enemies in the name of the Lord, who patiently bear three attacks against themselves or their families, and who repeatedly forgive their enemies (98:23-27, 39-43). If an enemy "trespass against thee the fourth time,…thine enemy is in thine hands, and if thou rewardest him according to his works thou art justified"; but if forgiveness is again extended, "I, the Lord, will avenge thee of thine enemy an hundred-fold" (98:31, 44-45). Accordingly, in the Missouri persecutions (see Missouri conflict) and in Nauvoo at the time of the 1844 martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, the posture of the Church was strictly defensive; likewise, the 1857 military threat of the Utah expedition was defused without the occurrence of bloodshed.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES. In several respects, the LDS response to the subsequent historical realities of war has paralleled the experience of Christianity in general. As long as the early Christians had no responsibility for government, they were obliged only "to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work" (Titus 3:1), to render unto Caesar "the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" (Matt. 22:21). Paul saw the real battle as being one with evil spiritual forces (Eph. 6:12). Once it became clear in early Christianity that the second coming of Jesus was not at hand and that the Roman Empire had become Christian, responsibility for political order became a Christian duty. There then developed a theory of war culminating in the doctrine of "just war" formulated by theologians such as Thomas Aquinas.
Likewise, millennial enthusiasm initially focused Latter-day Saints more on the gathering of Israel than on accommodation to the world. An early and continuing LDS theme was that the hour was drawing near for the end of worldly states. With the collapse of "Babylon" would come intense conflicts and the wrath of God (D&C 63:32-33). Bloody war would arise at home and abroad (D&C 38:29). The civil war prophecy in 1832 foretold increasing turmoil until the "full end of all nations" (D&C 87:6). War in this perspective is the harbinger of the apocalyptic end of the world, and the Church is to raise the voice of warning "for the last time" and gather the faithful together to "stand in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come" (D&C 88:74-88; 87:8).
Animated by this vision, President Brigham Young counseled the Saints to "flee to Zion…that they may dwell in peace" (MFP 2:107). Little hope was given for the reclamation of the secular society. This tendency toward withdrawal, however, was counterbalanced by the LDS perspective on the divine inspiration undergirding the Constitution of the United States and the fact that the Church was inevitably drawn into national politics (see United States of America; Church and State). Although the attempt to establish Zion attracted the hostility of many politicians, Church leaders took an active role in national affairs, supporting the Mexican War (see Mormon Battalion), immediately responding to a request by President Lincoln to protect the mail and telegraph route east of Fort Bridger during the Civil War (1862), and proving their loyalty in the Spanish-American War (1898). After the manifesto of 1890, the division between the Church and the larger society declined, leading to a reconciliation with the existing political order.
World Wars I and II impelled the Church to speak about the religious duties of citizens of warring states, balancing the condemnation of war with statements about civic duties and the relative justice of the causes and conduct of particular combatants. In 1939, the First Presidency asserted that the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" (Ex. 20:13) applies both to individuals and to political entities and condemned the notion of war as an instrument of state policy (MFP 6:88-93). Later in 1940 and 1942 they warned against the self-righteous justifications of the belligerents, which could cloak genocidal acts of mass destruction (MFP 6:115-17), putting distance between the Church and the state: "The Church itself, as such, has no responsibility for these policies, as to which it has no means of doing more than urging its members fully to render that loyalty to their country and to free institutions which the loftiest patriotism calls for" (MFP 6:156). The combatants are "the innocent instrumentalities of the war," who cannot be held responsible for their lawful participation (MFP 6:159). At the same time, reference to "free institutions" and the observation that "both sides cannot be wholly right; perhaps neither is without wrong" (MFP 6:159) point out that there are other grounds on which to evaluate one's participation in war, just cause and just conduct.
Echoing the concerns of the Book of Mormon for just war, the First Presidency warned people not to convert a legitimate war of self-defense into a bloody search for vengeance or the killing of innocent civilians. President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., held that "to be justified in going to war in self-defense, a nation must be foreclosed from all other alternatives" (Firmage and Blakesley, p. 314). President Joseph F. Smith identified wickedness in the whole system of states as the root of world war: "I presume there is not a nation in the world today that is not tainted with this evil more or less. It may be possible perhaps, to trace the cause of the evil, or the greatest part of it, to some particular nation of the earth; but I do not know" (MFP 5:71). At the same time, he also affirmed "that the hand of God is striving with certain of the nations of the earth to preserve and protect human liberty, freedom to worship him according to the dictates of conscience, freedom and the inalienable right of men to organize national governments in the earth" (MFP 5:71). Accordingly, the Church supported the war "to free the world from the domination of monarchical despotism" (MFP 5:71).
Although some used the global threat of nazism, fascism, and communism to justify war beyond a reaction to direct and immediate threat to American territorial integrity or political independence, others such as J. Reuben Clark in the 1940s continued to plead for a neutral, unarmed United States: "Moral force is far more potent than physical force in international relations. I believe that America should again turn to the promotion of peaceful adjustment of international disputes" (cited in Firmage and Blakesley, p. 298).
Since World War II, the LDS stance toward just cause and just conduct in war has provided guides by which to evaluate participation in specific conflicts without departing either from the obligation of civic obedience or the generalized condemnation of war. These attitudes accommodate the cross-cultural and millennial aspirations of a worldwide church and the demands placed on citizens in a world of competing secular states whose ultimate demise is inevitable.
Bibliography
Berrett, William E. "The Book of Mormon Speaks on War." In A Book of Mormon Treasury, pp. 275-84. Salt Lake City, 1959.
Blais, Pierre. "The Enduring Paradox: Mormon Attitudes toward War and Peace." Dialogue 17 (Winter 1984):61-73.
Firmage, Edwin Brown. "Violence and the Gospel: The Teachings of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Book of Mormon." BYU Studies 25 (Winter 1985):31-53.
Firmage, Edwin Brown, and Christopher L. Blakesley. "Clark, Law and International Order." BYU Studies 13 (Spring 1973):273-346.
Garrett, H. Dean. "The Book of Mormon on War." In A Symposium on the Book of Mormon, pp. 47-53. Salt Lake City, 1986.
Oaks, Dallin H. "World Peace." Ensign 20 (May 1990):71-73.
Packer, Boyd K. "The Member and the Military." IE 71 (June 1968):58, 60-61.
Roy, Denny; Grant P. Skabelund; and Ray C. Hillam, eds. A Time to Kill: Reflections on War. Salt Lake City, 1990.
Walker, Ronald W. "Sheaves, Bucklers, and the State: Mormon Leaders Respond to the Dilemmas of War." Sunstone 7 (July-Aug. 1982):43-56.
War or Peace
Neither doomed to violence nor peaceful by nature, we are shaped by the civilizations we create. Modern society spends a good deal of time, effort, and scientific resource on finding better ways to wage war. What if we directed just a fraction of that energy toward finding a better way to wage peace?
I am sometimes asked what I consider to be the most important unsolved scientific problem. I used to rattle off pure science’s major mysteries: Why did the big bang bang? How did life begin on Earth, and does it exist anywhere else in the cosmos? How does a brain make a mind? Sometime after 9/11, however, I started replying that by far the biggest problem facing scientists—and all of humanity—is the persistence of warfare, or the threat thereof, as a means for resolving disputes between people.
Skeptics might object that war is not a scientific issue. Certainly, it is a dauntingly complex phenomenon, with political, economic, and social ramifications. But the same could be said of problems such as global warming, population growth, and AIDS, all of which are being rigorously addressed by scientists. Moreover, I believe that the problem of warfare— unlike mysteries such as the origin of the universe or life or consciousness, which may prove to be intractable—can and will be solved.
Research has already revealed enough about warfare to dispel two persistent, contradictory myths. One is the idea of the noble savage, which blames warfare on civilization and holds that humans in their primordial state were peaceful and loving. This is the implicit theme of Margaret Mead’s classic bestseller Coming of Age in Samoa. Mead describes the Polynesian island as a blissful utopia, whose inhabitants make love, not war. Actually, as critics of Mead have pointed out, Samoa has historically been wracked by warfare.
Indeed, as far back as anthropologists have peered into human history and prehistory, they have found evidence of group bloodshed. In War Before Civilization, Lawrence Keeley, an anthropologist at the University of Illinois, estimates that up to ninety-five percent of primitive societies engaged in at least occasional warfare, and many fought constantly. Tribal combat usually involved skirmishes and ambushes rather than pitched battles. But over time, the chronic fighting could produce mortality rates as high as fifty percent.
Unfortunately, these revelations about the ubiquity of warfare have led some scholars to perpetuate a much more insidious myth: Warfare is a constant of the human condition that can at best be controlled, but never eradicated. Fatalists who take this position often describe war in Darwinian terms—as an inevitable consequence of innate male ambition and aggression. “Males have evolved to possess strong appetites for power,” Harvard University anthropologist Richard Wrangham contends in Demonic Males, “because with extraordinary power comes extraordinary reproductive success.”
As evidence for this hypothesis, Wrangham cites studies of societies such as the Yanomamo, a tribe scattered across the Amazonian region of Brazil and Venezuela. Yanomamo men from different villages often engage in protracted feuds, marked by lethal raids and counterraids. Like most tribal societies, the Yanomamo are polygamous. Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, who has observed the Yanomamo for decades, found that killers had, on average, twice as many wives and three times as many children as nonkillers.
But Chagnon, significantly, has rejected the notion that aggressive instincts compel Yanomamo warriors to fight. Truly compulsive, out-of-control killers, Chagnon explains, are quickly killed themselves, and don’t live long enough to have many wives and children. Successful warriors are usually quite controlled and calculating; they fight because that is how a male advances in their society. Moreover, many Yanomamo men have confessed to Chagnon that they loathe war and wish it could be abolished from their culture—and, in fact, rates of violence have recently dropped dramatically, as Yanomamo villages have accepted the laws and mores of the outside world. History offers many other examples of warlike societies that rapidly became peaceful. Vikings were the scourge of Europe during the Middle Ages, but their Scandinavian descendants are among the most peaceful people on Earth. Similarly, early twentieth-century Japan was extremely belligerent; even Zen Buddhist leaders such as D.T. Suzuki, who later helped to popularize Buddhism in the West, encouraged attacks on China and other countries. But since its traumatic defeat in World War II, Japan has embraced pacifism.
In fact, hard as it may be to believe, humanity as a whole has become much less violent than it used to be. Despite the massive slaughter that resulted from World Wars I and II, the rate of violent death for males in North America and Europe during the twentieth century was one percent. Worldwide, about 100 million men, women, and children died from warrelated causes, including disease and famine, in the last century. The total would have been 2 billion if our rates of violence had been as high as in the average primitive society.
These statistics contradict the myth that war is a constant of the human condition. But they also suggest, contrary to the myth of the noble savage, that civilization has not created the problem of warfare; it is helping us solve it. We need more civilization, not less, if we wish to eradicate war. Civilization has given us legal institutions that resolve disputes by establishing laws, negotiating agreements, and enforcing them. These institutions, which range from local courts to the United Nations, have vastly reduced the risk of violence both within and between nations. They are what keep us from succumbing to the chronic violence that afflicts societies like the Yanomamo.
Obviously, our institutions are far from perfect. Nations around the world still maintain huge arsenals, including weapons of mass destruction, and war keeps breaking out. So what should we do? Maybe we need more drastic measures to abolish war once and for all. One possibility would be to tinker with our physiologies to make ourselves less aggressive. Scientists have linked various genes and neurochemicals to violent tendencies. For example, many violent criminals have low levels of serotonin. Should we try to curb our aggressive instincts by altering our neurochemistry or genes?
Or maybe we should all have electrodes implanted in our brains, zapping us when we act or even think aggressively. This idea was actually proposed back in 1969 in Physical Control of the Mind, a book by Yale University neuroscientist Jose Delgado. To show his scheme’s feasibility, Delgado implanted electrodes in the brains of psychiatric patients and manipulated their limbs and emotions with a remote-controlled device. He also carried out a demonstration—reported on the front page of The New York Times—with a bull that had electrodes embedded in its brain. When the bull charged, Delgado pushed a button on a remote control, and the bull stopped in its tracks. The question is: Who gets the electrodes in the brain, and who gets the remote control?
In his classic book On Aggression, biologist Konrad Lorenz acknowledges that it might be possible to “breed out the aggressive drive by eugenic planning.” But that would be a huge mistake, Lorenz argues, because aggression is a vital part of our humanity. It plays a role in almost all human endeavors, including science, the arts, business, politics, and sports. In my hometown in upstate New York, a bunch of friends and I enjoy venting our aggression every winter by playing pond hockey. Aggression can even serve the cause of peace. I’ve known some extremely aggressive peace activists.
Moreover, one of the most positive findings to emerge from recent studies of warfare is that few men relish lethal combat— and not just because they fear being wounded or killed. In On Killing, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, a psychologist, military science expert, and former U.S. Army ranger, asserts that most men abhor killing, even when it is sanctioned by their society. As evidence, Grossman cites military surveys, which reveal that during the American Civil War and both World Wars, as many as eighty percent of men in combat deliberately avoided firing at the enemy.
After World War II, Grossman notes, the armed services revamped its training to make soldiers less reluctant to kill. As a result, most American soldiers who saw combat in Vietnam fired at the enemy. But Grossman contends that U.S. soldiers in Vietnam paid a heavy price for being transformed into more effective killers; a majority of combat veterans are thought to have suffered some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including nightmares, flashbacks, panic, depression, and guilt. Mental health experts are already predicting that American soldiers fighting in Iraq will experience similar rates of posttraumatic stress disorder.
Even if warfare is at least in part biologically based—and what human behavior isn’t?—we cannot end it by altering our biology. Modern war is primarily a social and political phenomenon, and we need social and political solutions to end it. Many such solutions have been proposed, but all are problematic.
One perennial plan is for all nations to yield power to a global institution that can enforce peace. This was the vision that inspired the League of Nations and the United Nations. But neither the United States nor any other major power is likely to entrust its national security to an international entity anytime soon. And even if they did, how would they ensure that a global military force does not become repressive? One encouraging finding to emerge from political science is that democracies rarely, if ever, fight each other. But does that mean democracies such as the United States should use military means to force countries with no democratic tradition to accept this form of governance? If history teaches us anything, it is that war often begets more war. Religion has been prescribed as a solution to war and aggression. After all, most religions preach love and forgiveness and prohibit killing, at least in principle. But, in practice, religion has often inspired, rather than inhibited, bloodshed.
Many feminists have predicted that as women gain more political power, we will evolve toward a more peaceful world. Females in all societies engage in violence much less than males do. In his book War and Gender, political scientist Joshua Goldstein estimates that females have accounted for fewer than one percent of all those who have fought in wars throughout history. But he notes that women have also helped to perpetuate war throughout history by favoring warriors as mates and shunning cowards. During World War I, for example, women in Britain and the United States organized a campaign to hand out white feathers to men not wearing a uniform, shaming them for avoiding military service.
Moreover, those few women who have risen to positions of great power in the modern era—notably Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, and Indira Gandhi—demonstrated that they could be just as aggressive as their male counterparts in leading their countries into war. Goldstein concludes that women “do not appear to be more peaceful, more oriented to nonviolent resolution of international conflicts, or less committed to state sovereignty and territorial integrity than are male leaders.”
In his new book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond argues that many wars, both ancient and modern, spring from mismanagement of environmental resources. He notes, for example, that ethnic conflicts are only the proximate causes of the hostilities that have ravaged Rwanda, Somalia, and other African nations in the last decade. The ultimate cause is that overpopulation has led to deforestation, overgrazing, and soil depletion, and, hence, a Hobbesian struggle over dwindling resources. But resource scarcity has not played a significant role in other modern conflicts, such as the civil war that raged in the Balkans during the 1990s.
War, it seems fair to say, is overdetermined—that is, it can spring from many different causes. Peace, if it is to be permanent, must be overdetermined too. Given the enormous complexity of the problem of war, I would like to see the United States establish a kind of Manhattan Project aimed at solving it once and for all. The project could be administered by the United States Institute of Peace, a low-profile federal institution that Congress quietly created in 1984. Just as a percentage of the budget for the Human Genome Project is allocated to ethical issues, so too should part of the Department of Defense’s budget be allocated to peace studies. One tenth of one percent— or $500 million, roughly twenty times the institute’s current budget—should be sufficient.
The institute could support and coordinate the efforts of other research programs. The Correlates of War project, founded at the University of Michigan by political scientist J. David Singer, has stockpiled statistical information about more than 1,000 conflicts—ranging from small-scale civil wars up to the World Wars—that have occurred since 1815. Even broader in its scope is the Human Relations Area Files, based at Yale University, which has compiled ethnographic reports on more than 1,000 different societies around the world, from the Navajo to the African !Kung. These databases can help researchers formulate and test hypotheses linking war to, say, child-rearing practices, women’s rights, criminal punishment, education, freedom of the press, environmental management, economic policies, and religious beliefs.
Through grants and publications, a generously resourced Institute of Peace would encourage ambitious young scientists to see peace as a challenge at least as worthy of pursuit as a cure for AIDS or a cheap, clean, renewable source of energy. War research would be the ultimate multidisciplinary enterprise, drawing upon such diverse fields as game theory, neurobiology, evolutionary psychology, theology, ecology, political science, and economics. The short-term goal of peace researchers would be to find ways to reduce conflict in the world today, wherever it might occur. The long-term goal would be to explore how nations can make the transition toward permanent disarmament: the elimination of armies, arms, and arms industries.
In his recent book The Blank Slate, Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker argues for what he calls a “tragic” view of human nature, which accepts that we are limited by our biological heritage. Pinker uses the term “utopian” to describe the belief that we can transcend human nature and create a perfect world. By utopian, Pinker means hopelessly naive. Many scientists no doubt dismiss the goal of global disarmament as utopian in this sense. These skeptics will argue that we will always need some military force to protect us from our own aggressive instincts; at the very least, some transnational organization should always retain a military force, perhaps equipped with nuclear weapons, to deter or suppress attacks from outlaw states or organizations, such as North Korea and al-Qaida.
Certainly, total disarmament seems a remote possibility now. But can we really accept armies and armaments, including weapons of mass destruction, as permanent features of civilization? As recently as the late 1980s, global nuclear war still seemed like a distinct possibility. Then, incredibly, the Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold War ended peacefully. Apartheid also ended in South Africa without significant violence, and human rights have advanced elsewhere around the world.
Just in the last century, we humans have split the atom, landed spacecraft on the moon and Mars, and cracked the genetic code. Deep down—perhaps because I have two young children—I have faith that we will solve the problem of war. If the capacity for war is in our genes, as many seem to fear these days, so is the capacity—and the desire—for peace. Even our most hawkish leaders claim that peace is their ultimate goal. As an agnostic, I have a hard time believing in God, but I believe in humanity’s common sense, moral decency, and instinct for self-preservation. We will abolish war someday. The only question is how, and how soon.
War and Peace in the 20th Century
For the early part of the century, people and governments thought of war as related to courage, patriotism and national pride. Today, however, public and international perception thinks of war in terms of diplomatic failure or unimaginable disaster. In countries all over the globe, the "War Office" has in general become the "Ministry of Defence"; the greatest destructive weapons ever invented have become deterrents.
Many factors have helped to change public attitudes to war and peace, but organised peace movements have certainly played a major role. For decades movements have been set up to campaign for the ending of war as a means of solving disputes between nations. The growth of such movements and of public support for them has been one of the key developments of this century.
Today, a typical family story anywhere in the world involves male relatives fighting in one of the century's great wars, or civilian predecessors perishing in land conflict. Hardly anyone has been untouched.
The inventor of dynamite at the end of the nineteenth century believed that his invention would outlaw war, since the devastation it could produce would make any major outbreak destructive beyond imagination. After 1918 the same view was held about aerial warfare. The childhood of a whole generation growing up in the Cold War period was contaminated by the conviction that a major war would end up wiping out the cities of the industrial world. Since 1945, the possibility of nuclear annihilation has seemed to make war between the great powers an act of collective suicide because of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), which means that any nuclear attack was sure to produce a devastating counter-attack.
These factors alone have led to a general, widespread revulsion towards any large-scale military activities. However, there are still numerous national, ethical and political causes whose supporters see armed violence as the only means of achieving their goals.
International peace movements unrelated to religion are a development unique to the twentieth century. For many centuries there have been religions and sects which denounced violence. There have also been anti-military ideologies, such as the belief of the nineteenth-century free-traders that trade between nations was a better way of establishing control and spread "civilisation" than military conquest.
Bu the first real peace movements arose out of protest militarism and imperialism in Europe and North America in the early years of the twentieth century. Many people thought war between the great imperial powers was impossible because this would benefit only capitalist profit. The outbreak of European war in 1914, however, proved that it was never an impossibility.
The grim experience of the First World War led to a worldwide determination to make another such conflict impossible. This determination influenced the world in three different ways. The first was the presence in mainstream politics of people who believed in the possibility of resolving conflict through negotiation. The hopes of these people became vested in the League of Nations (an international body similar to the United Nations).
The second key influence on opinion came from the creative arts, which produced a wealth of plays, poems, novels, films and paintings which depicted the horror of war. From works such as John Singer Sargent's Gassed to R.C. Sherriff's Journey's End, the public learned about the wasteful, nature of war and the appalling conditions endured by troops engaged in trench warfare. From poet Wilfrid Owen to painter Pablo Picasso, artists everywhere were addressing the same cause the peace movements were.
The third influence was in the work of the organized peace movements themselves. In the West, organizations supporting international negotiation developed in the inter-war years. Gandhi's practice of non-violent civil disobedience had a particularly powerful effect. For example, the Peace Pledge Union, founded in the early 1930s, institutionalized support for non-violence. All members of the Union signed a personal pledge to refuse to take up arms in any cause, in the belief that any violence would elicit counter-violence.
Eventually, however, the numbers of pacifists (people who believe in non-violence) declined as people were convinced by events such as the invasion of Poland by Germany that war was unavoidable.
The Second World War shattered nearly every country in the world. The victors as well as the vanquished suffered enormous loss and destruction. The collective memory of the world was now indelibly marred by memories of wholesale destruction and of actions which shamed humanity. Saturation bombing, nuclear devastation, the destruction of whole communities and millions of human lives. By now the world was more determined than ever to prevent such a universal conflict from ever occurring again. Certainly, the admiration which people had previously held for military virtues had vanished completely.
However, soon after the end of the Second World War the shadow of the Cold War cast its shadow across the world. Conflict broke out in Vietnam and many parts of Central America and Africa. By then, the peace movement was gaining strength and confidence. The emergence of two superpowers, each armed with nuclear weapons, convinced the world that a clash between these two powers would inevitably lead to the total destruction of the bulk of what we call civilization.
Of course, such a clash has not occurred, and it has been suggested that this is one of the major achievements of our century. Nevertheless, there has not been a single year since the end of WWII in which wars were not fought in some part of the globe. These "lesser" wars are only relatively lesser when compared to the probable global destruction of nuclear war. However, all modern conflict still involves weaponry far more sophisticated and destructive than anything used in Europe in either 1914-18 or 1939-45. Wars have disrupted the production of food and have spread famine and disease as well as left areas of the world uninhabitable because of buried landmines. There are no small wars in the modern world.
So exactly how far have post-1950 peace movements helped to reduce or avoid war? Probably very little. But non-violent forms of civil disobedience have been used to great effect by major peace movements in the past half-century. For example, the vast, non-violent demonstrations of the US campaign against the Vietnam War gained worldwide prominence and actually had some success in ending hostilities. More importantly, they educated youth against the ideology and rhetoric of militarism. Other successes of the peace movements are the declaration of nuclear-weapons free zones (like those in New Zealand and South Pacific nations in the 1980s) and the unilateral abandonment of nuclear weapons by the "minor" nuclear powers, both of which involved millions of people all over the planet.
Today, however, the rhetoric of military action seems to have made a comeback amongst the liberal democracies. An example of this would be the optimistic and "macho" stance adopted by the US and Britain towards Iraq. It has been said that perhaps each generation needs to personally experience war in order to see through political fictions. Today, situations that allow the rationalizing of war abound. Punishing dictators or terrorists, re-establishing legitimate boundaries. In dealing with these situations, the lengthy and often difficult processes of negotiation and non-violent resolution of conflict seem woefully inadequate.

War and Peace in the 21st Century
THE NEW WORLD Order proclaimed in 1991 by US president, George Bush, was supposed to bring peace and prosperity to all corners of the world. Yet during the 1990s, the first decade of the post-Stalinist era, millions of people have died in wars and millions more have become refugees.
In the twelve months to August 1999, ten international/regional wars and 25 civil wars were fought. At least 110,000 people were killed in those armed conflicts. Several countries have entered a vicious circle of civil war, disintegration and chaos, which is threatening the very existence of a number of nation states. This is particularly so in Africa - the weakest link in the global capitalist chain. Three-quarters of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa are engaged in armed conflicts or are confronted by a significant threat from armed groups.
These civil wars are caused by social, economic and political crises, and national oppression: "When the cold war came to an end, civil conflicts in the developing world did not. On the contrary, they redoubled in intensity. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) more than 23 situations of internal warfare have appeared, or been reactivated - with more than 50 armed groups involved". (Le Monde Diplomatique, June 1999)
Of the 61 major armed conflicts fought between 1989 and 1998, 58 were civil wars. These have been described as 'new wars' in the new period of globalisation.
Mary Kaldor's book deals in depth with the characteristics and origins of the new type of conflict in the post-Stalinist era. She describes the fall of Yugoslavia - in particular, the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina - as "the archetypal example, the paradigm of the new type of warfare". She argues that this new type of war has replaced the 'old wars': "Old wars between states may have become a thing of the past". According to Kaldor, this is because of the present level of economic integration and international military co-operation, at least in the advanced capitalist world: "The new wars can be contrasted with earlier wars in terms of their goals, the methods of warfare and how they are financed. The goals of the new wars are about identity in politics in contrast to the geopolitical or ideological goals in earlier wars". And it is not only a new type of war but also new methods of warfare, where battles tend to be avoided and the "strategic goal... is population expulsion by getting rid of everyone of a different identity".
Kaldor's claim that the new warfare has radically displaced old-style wars, however, is very one-sided, to say the least. In reality, the aim of most of the new wars is still to gain territorial control in order to exploit the people and natural wealth that exist in a particular area. 'New' conflict does not arise spontaneously from 'identity' aspirations. It is invariably initiated by nationalistic, ethnic, religious or communalist elites who aggravate and reinforce 'identity' differences, grievances and aspirations for their own ends. The leaders often mobilise forces based on a minority of the population. By deliberately polarising and ghettoising communities - often through force, by sponsoring paramilitaries or by drawing armed support from neighbouring regimes - they can become the decisive force.

Even the Bosnian war had a broader aim than purely that of 'identity'. It involved economic interests, as well as factors such as the prestige of the Croatian and the Serbian regimes and their regional geopolitical interests. The war was fought by regular army units from Serbia and Croatia, local armies and murderous gangsters, with the involvement of Western and Russian imperialism (financially and militarily) through local client forces.

What is really new in the post-Stalinist era, however, is the global scenario under which all armed conflicts arise. In the old world order, every major conflict or civil war was part of the struggle between two superpowers - the United States and Soviet Union. The superpowers' effective equality of destructive potential for a period (Mutually Assured Destruction - MAD) ruled out the establishment of absolute US hegemony through military means (except in the fantasies of the ultra-right). At the same time, this rivalry gave some poorer countries an opportunity of balancing between the superpowers, thereby gaining some advantages, such as economic and military aid.

This international balance of power was reflected in the fact that there was no major war on European soil between 1947-89. This balance of power obviously crumbled away after the collapse of Stalinism in 1989-91.

The history of the last century illustrates that every tendency towards increased integration of stable nation states can be reversed and replaced by a tendency in the opposite direction when world capitalism is running out of steam. A backlash against the present phase of globalisation and neo-liberalism is inevitable in the context of a new world-wide crisis of capitalism. Harold James, a historian from the US, wrote: "The stakes could hardly be higher. World depression destroys political stability. In the past deflation and depression have frequently led to a vicious circle of nationalism, xenophobia, the disintegration of states and even wars". (International Herald Tribune, 26 October 1998)

This vicious circle leading to the fragmentation of nation states, a basic unit of capitalism, is already evident in the weaker and less-developed capitalist states in Africa, Asia, the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. A similar process could start to develop even in the more advanced capitalist countries if the working class is not able to put its mark on the future.

The end of 'cold war restraints'
KALDOR'S DEFINITION OF 'new wars' in the aftermath of the collapse of Stalinism is another expression of post-modernism - a post-historical or a-historical approach based on superficial features which rejects an analysis of underlying forces or international relationships. Wars and civil war are not analysed from a class point of view and the present stretches on forever.

In fact, there is a complex interaction between the 'new wars' and the "old barbaric wars between states": 'new wars' can develop into wars between states, and outside states can intervene to expand their influence. No 'local' conflict remains local for long. For example, in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), nearly every neighbouring country has been involved in the carve-up of the country. The various countries have intervened for their own geopolitical reasons and to get their hands on the Congo's great mineral wealth. As the Le Monde Diplomatique noted, "rebel troops with the support of Rwandan officers spent more time and energy on capturing and exploiting the mining areas than tracking down the enemy". (October 1999)
"There is a deadly new pattern to the world's armed struggles, in which civil wars are escalating into regional conflicts while the international community is increasingly reluctant to intervene", wrote the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in its 1999 annual report. The power and security vacuum left after the collapse of Stalinism has given room for smaller imperialist nations to try and establish dominant regional positions, for example, South Africa and to some extent Zimbabwe and Uganda in southern Africa. The US's role as the global policeman is limited by mainly domestic, political factors which constrain any military action which would incur potential US casualties. Some areas of the world are not worth any risk, until a major crisis undermines US credibility as world peacekeeper, or unless its interests are directly affected. The actual role the US plays therefore varies from case to case.

Russia's wars against Chechnya - 1994-96 and today - include elements of new and old wars. They have taken place in the context of the severe economic collapse and disintegration of the former Soviet Union. Russia, still the world's second-biggest military power, is prepared to use a significant part of its military capacity to ensure that Chechnya and the Caucasus remain part of the Russian Federation. This is 'old-fashioned', naked imperialist aggression and is part of a wider battle for control of this oil-rich region. On the other hand, the armed Chechan groups are without any clear aims apart from that of driving out the Russians. This lack of ideology, political ideas and aims is a recipe for the rapid degeneration of the armed resistance into gangster organisations ruled by warlords. (This is pointed to by Kaldor as a 'new feature', although armed movements unable to win active and lasting support from the population and becoming new oppressors is, in fact, a very old feature.)
The New World Order has given rise to persistent instability and insecurity in many areas of the world. More and more countries have access to weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear arms. A new twist in the arms race seems to be on its way. Not even US imperialism can contain the spread of nuclear arms, as was shown in 1998 when India and Pakistan both conducted nuclear tests.

The Kashmir flashpoint could develop into a new and more dangerous full-scale war between India and Pakistan. It cannot be ruled out that in the face of an impending defeat, an unstable, desperate regime in one of those states would be tempted to play its last and most devastating card. Obviously, nuclear exchanges would be suicidal - politically and possibly physically - for any regime. The social and political crises of India and Pakistan, however, mean that both regimes are extremely unstable. There is always a possibility that they could go out of control, especially as there is no strong, unified bourgeoisie in either country capable of exerting a more sober influence - based on more long-term interests.

Kashmir is just one of many trouble spots in Asia. IISS director, Gerald Segel, commented in August 1999: "North Korean missiles, China-Taiwan sabre-rattling, India-Pakistani tensions... These conflicts have high thresholds in part because they take place in environments with nuclear weapons. If the threshold of conflicts is indeed reached, the stakes could not be higher... The real risks lie elsewhere, primarily in domestic political uncertainties that could lead to irrational calculations about the use of war. It is then that nuclear risks make all three of these conflicts so dangerous. A collapse in North Korea, rapid nationalism in Beijing, independence-driven hot heads in Taiwan, or a collapsing Pakistani government, are the kinds of forces than can take these countries across the high thresholds of war". (My emphasis - PO)
Karl von Clausewitz's explanation in 1832 that 'war is a continuation of politics by other means', is still valid, as the above quote shows. The same holds true for civil wars. Kaldor, however, does not agree. She argues that geopolitical interests do not play a role in the new wars because they "arise in the context of the erosion of the autonomy of the state and in some extreme cases the disintegration of the state. In particular, they occur in the context of the erosion of the monopoly of legitimate organized violence". In short, the ruling classes are no longer conducting wars through their state machines.

The situation, indeed, has changed. The breakdown of the bi-polar, cold-war order has led to greater instability. Neo-liberal policies have accelerated economic and social crises and the fragmentation of states. Since 1989 wars have been conducted by those unstable states, no longer restrained by the cold war alignments. Wars are also being conducted by states in the process of formation. And the emerging states are being fought over by elites before a stable bourgeois class has been formed. Wars are therefore being fought by states - as well as by warlords, minorities, etc - but under the new world disorder: states are different from the immediate post-war period and the whole international context has changed.

The bloodiest century
THE DEVELOPMENT OF monopoly capitalism - imperialism - in the late 19th century intensified all the contradictions and conflicts inherent in capitalism. This, together with the defeat and delay of the world socialist revolution, explains why the 20th century became the bloodiest in history. As many as 200 million people perished in the vicious wars of the last century. Many more suffered.

This took place despite the hope that the 1899 International Peace Conference in The Hague would mark the beginning of an era where all states would strive to make 'the great idea of universal peace triumph over strife and discord'. This optimism was backed-up by the rapid expansion of the world market and the openness that characterised the international economy in 1880-1913 - a period of globalisation.

However, that phase of world capitalism did not ease the tensions and rivalries between the major imperialist powers for long. The mounting contradictions and conflicts created the conditions for the first world war, the Great Depression in the 1930s, and the second world war. The wars were fought with ever-more deadly and destructive weapons thanks to the development of the productive forces. An estimated 26 million people were slaughtered in the first world war's many killing fields: single battles inflicted casualties as large as those suffered in entire wars of earlier eras.

The first world war was an inter-imperialist war: a struggle between rival imperialist powers for spheres of influence (markets, finance, strategic power, political hegemony, etc). It was preceded by world-wide colonialism - the greatest robbery and land-grab in history - and intensified competition on the world market. The imperialist powers went to war against each other in order to safeguard the interests of finance capital, and to rob and oppress colonial and foreign countries.
The ending of the first world war in 1918, under the impact of the victorious Russian revolution in October 1917 and social ferment across the world, resulted in an uneasy and unstable peace. Tragically, the defeat of the international socialist revolution - particularly in Germany - and the subsequent isolation of the Russian revolution, paved the way for the rise of the totalitarian regime under Joseph Stalin and the coming to power of Adolf Hitler's fascists in Germany in 1933.

The defeat of the German working class brought the world closer to war. Leon Trotsky pointed out as early as 1933 that "Nazism raises itself over the nation as the worst form of imperialism... the true mission of fascist dictatorship means preparation for wars. The date of a new European catastrophe will be determined by the time necessary for the arming of Germany... It is not a question of months but neither is it question of decades". (The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany, p407 Pathfinder edition)

The defeat of the German working class, together with the defeat suffered by the heroic Spanish proletariat and peasantry in the civil war against General Francisco Franco (1936-39) and the derailing of the revolutionary movement in France, paved the way for the outbreak of second world war in 1939.

The horrors of the war were felt across the world. It was an all-out war waged against rival military forces, civilians and countries' economy and infrastructure. Up to 60 million people perished. That figure includes the genocide of six million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators. Between 10%-20% of the population in the Soviet Union, Poland and Yugoslavia were killed.

Dropping the atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also heralded the nuclear age and cold war. After this, a new world war would no longer be a 'war to end all wars', as the imperialists said of 1914 and at the start of the second world war, but more likely a war to end all civilisation.
The world relations created by the outcome of the second world war meant that US imperialism became the dominant power in the capitalist world and the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union was strengthened as it took control of Central and Eastern Europe. The national liberation movements and the smashing of the old colonial order in Asia and Africa in the 1950s and 1960s also gave a boost to the Soviet Union. Although ruled by a brutal totalitarian bureaucracy, the Soviet Union had recorded remarkable economic progress. It represented, albeit in a very distorted way, an alternative to the capitalist system. The delay of the socialist revolution in the West reinforced this process. By the mid-1970s, Stalinist regimes had been established or were being formed in a wide range of countries covering 28% of the world and one-third of the world's population.

This division of the world, with the US and Soviet Union involved in a constant struggle to maintain and expand their respective spheres of influence, cast its shadow over the world between 1945-1990. This rivalry gave way to a destructive nuclear arms race - the biggest military build-up in history. An influential military-industrial complex was formed, that is still putting an enormous burden on society. After 1945, the world hardly experienced one day of peace. In fact, the number of armed conflicts surged from twelve in 1950 to 51 in 1992.

The last superpower

THE COLLAPSE OF Stalinism and the ending of the old world relations meant that all the subsequent social, political and military conflicts have developed in the context of a new, more fluid international situation.
While globalisation was gaining momentum, the Stalinist bloc, despite its grotesque character, acted as a counterweight to capitalist and imperialist exploitation - in political and social terms as well as militarily. The fall of Stalinism allowed the capitalist ruling classes to turn the screw on the working class internationally and on the poorer countries even further. The massive military onslaught on Iraq - a country supported by imperialism in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war in which one million people died - served as a warning to all other countries trying to pursue their own agendas.

US imperialism led a 40-country 'coalition' against Iraq, pulverising one of the world's oldest civilisations. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed. The Gulf war never really ended: further bombing raids and sanctions have killed at least another 1.2 million defenceless people since 1991. In spite of all the propaganda about fighting the 'evil' Saddam Hussein, the dictator was given a free hand to brutally crush the uprising of Shia Muslims in southern Iraq and the Kurds in the north soon after the 'coalition' halted its war against Iraq.

Former US Republican foreign advisor, Samuel Francis, admitted: "The wars we have fought, the bombs and missiles we have dropped and fired, the people we have killed, the rights and principles we have already violated or ignored have not brought either peace or stability... The wars in the Persian Gulf have accomplished nothing". (Independent on Sunday, 15 November 1998)
What the Gulf war did show, however, was that US imperialism was the only superpower left in the world. The US was shown to be way far ahead of any other country in terms of military technology and capacity, even though the precision of 'smart' weapons used in the Gulf and in last year's war against Serbia have been exaggerated. The collapse of Stalinism and the fragmentation of the Soviet Union meant a relative strengthening of the position of US imperialism, which has been bolstered by the longest cyclical economic upswing in US history. But the world is hardly on the eve of a 'Pax Americana'. As the IISS pointed out in its 1998 annual report: "Globalisation has created conditions within which crisis breeds with increasing speed, but also initially with uncertain impact".

The legacy of US imperialism's defeat in Vietnam, together with the current instability in the world and the existence of many potential trouble spots, are holding the US in check. It had been claimed that the Vietnam syndrome had been overcome by the Gulf war. But the Gulf conflict took place at an exceptional conjuncture. Immediately afterwards, US forces had to beat an ignominious retreat from Somalia to avoid casualties. Even more importantly, the Balkan/Kosova war proved that the US electorate is still not prepared to sacrifice bodies where they do not see that vital and immediate national interests are at stake.

Bill Clinton & Co want to preserve at least the appearance of a multi-national approach (through the United Nations, etc). But there is domestic political pressure for unilateral foreign policies: that US interests are paramount and should prevail over the heads of the EU and Nato allies. This has had an impact on Clinton's policies and has provoked resentment from the European powers. This is reinforcing the divisions inside the imperialist camp. New contradictions will emerge. The US Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and Clinton's determination to develop a new anti-missile programme - a sequel to Ronald Reagan's 'Star Wars' - will trigger a new arms race that could "undermine the long-standing non-proliferation treaties now in force". (Le Monde Diplomatique, December 1999)
The Balkans - unravelling the New World Order
NATO'S 50TH ANNIVERSARY last year coincided with its first and, to date, only war. Mainly an American operation, Nato's war against Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia and its aftermath, illustrate the limits of military intervention by Western imperialism. It is one thing trying to act as a global policeman with cruise missiles. But what is to be done after a military victory is secured? Nato's war means that Western imperialism has no choice but to maintain a military presence in Kosova for many years to come - as in Bosnia. It marks a new phase in the bloody collapse of Yugoslavia.

Kaldor devotes a large part of her book to the fall of Yugoslavia, in particular the war in Bosnia between 1992-95. The Bosnian conflict was a defining moment in the history of modern Europe. It was preceded by a short and disastrous invasion of Slovenia by the Serbian army (the 'Yugoslav People's Army') in the summer of 1991 and a devastating war in Croatia in 1991-92. The break-up of Yugoslavia meant war in Europe for the first time since 1945. The conflict in the former Yugoslavia escalated into international wars.

The emergence of a new form of nationalism paralleled the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Kaldor contrasts this to an earlier, "modern nationalism which aimed at state-building and that, unlike earlier nationalism, it lacked a modernising ideology".

This 'new form' of nationalism in former Yugoslavia was rooted in the failure of the Stalinist regimes to overcome ethnic and national divisions, along with the absence of an independent, socialist movement of working-class people. This phenomenon arose in other Stalinist states as well. The formation of 15 new national states in Europe since 1989 illustrates that breaking free of the Soviet Union's structure, or from Yugoslavia, was seen as the quickest route to democracy and prosperity by the working class. This process, however, developed in the context of an international capitalist counter-revolution after the working class had been defeated and pushed back. This meant that the rise of nationalism in Yugoslavia, for example, became part of a reactionary, bourgeois and chauvinist backlash. Only at the expense of weaker nationalities could the reactionary dreams of a capitalist 'Greater Serbia' or 'Greater Croatia' be fulfilled. This was the road to war and ruin.
As Kaldor states, "The international reaction was at best confused and sometimes stupid, at worst culpable for what happened", although she harbours a vain hope that Western imperialism may have learnt something from this failure. Nato's war against Serbia neither protected the Kosovar Albanians nor did it seriously weaken Milosevic's military machine. Instead, it further destabilised the region and sent Kosova on its way to becoming an ethnically pure Albanian state ruled by gangsters in and around the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA/UÇK).

However, the rise of this type of nationalism and the division of the working class was not an inevitable process. It was no accident that Milosevic started to play the nationalist card at a time when Serbia was rocked by workers' strikes and protests against unemployment and social hardship in 1987-88. As Micha Glenny observed in his book, The Fall of Yugoslavia - still the best book on the horrifying events that shook ex-Yugoslavia in the early 1990s - "Bosnia could have been saved if a political party which spanned the three communities together had emerged as the most powerful after the collapse of communist power". Leaving aside the reference to the misnamed 'communist power' - we describe these regimes as 'Stalinist', rather than 'communist', to highlight their brutal, totalitarian nature - this judgement is correct. But such a party would have had to be a genuine democratic socialist party - a revolutionary party based on the strength and solidarity of the working class.

Kaldor misses that essential point, although she does refer to the pockets of multi-ethnical resistance that existed. Unfortunately, the lack of that clear class alternative - or the capacity for armed self-defence - in the context of a severe setback for the working class, made it impossible for those groups to stand up against the forces of far-right nationalism and sectarianism.

The war in Bosnia was fought by armies and paramilitaries. The agreement between the then president of Croatia, Franjo Tudjman, and Milosevic for carving-up Bosnia at the expense of the Muslims (who were the majority), meant war: the war became a continuation of politics by other means. The Bosnian Muslims were the least prepared for war and the first to become the main victims of 'ethnic cleansing' - the driving-out of whole populations through the use of summary executions, systematic rape and terror. The war changed after Western imperialism gave full recognition to the Croatian state on the condition that it formed an alliance with the Bosnian Muslims. Following that, it was the Serbs - as in Kosova today - who became the main victims of 'ethnic cleansing' in both Croatia and Bosnia.

In the words of Carl Bildt, former Swedish prime minister and the West's highest representative in Bosnia at the time, the peace agreement reached in 1995 was, "an agreement which the political leaders regarded as a continuation of the war, but with other means". Bosnia today is an imperialist protectorate. Kosova is on the way to becoming the same.

What alternative to the 'new barbarism'?

KALDOR SKETCHES OUT what she sees as the way forward in the final chapter. The main theme is that a lasting peace has to be based on alternative politics: "The politics of civility" and the "development of cosmopolitan forms of governance". This means that the rich countries have to devote more resources to what she calls 'reconstructing' and "abandoning some of the neo-liberal assumptions". Why just 'some' is never explained.

Given the decline of capitalism and the exploitative and class nature of imperialism, this is a utopian dream. The fragmentation and marginalisation inherent in globalisation, and the super-exploitation of the masses and the poorest countries, are creating tensions which are tearing society apart - not only in less-developed countries but increasingly also in the advanced capitalist world.
Moreover, globalisation is neither the final stage in the development of world capitalism nor has it made it possible to break down the national frontiers, as Kaldor seems to imply. The capitalist world is still divided into rival countries and this rivalry will come more and more to the fore as the productive forces come up against the barriers of private ownership and the nation state.
The only road to lasting peace and a "cosmopolitical policy in the interests of humanity", to quote Kaldor, is to build an international working-class movement uniting the oppressed masses in a common struggle against capitalism and imperialism, against the horror of wars and inequality. The struggle for world socialism is a struggle for peace and a society based on human solidarity.