3.4.3 Roots of peace
In the long run, we can only survive in a disarmed world, where military technology is forbidden ever again to lead us down this path. In such a world, how "policing" and "sanctions" will be managed will no doubt not be difficult to arrange - nations no longer in fear will not find it so difficult to concede sovereignty.
And in the long run, we can only survive in living partnership with natural resources, through sustainable and co-operative technologies and human behaviour. How sanctions and policing will be applied here, too, will be much easier to decide for generations not plagued by poverty and distorted sets of values, but participating in local and global governance.
To define the roots of peace we must redefine security. True security rests on a supportive and sustainable ecological base, on spiritual as well as material well- being, on trust and reliance on one's neighbours, on justice and understanding in a disarmed world. Getting there requires all our present institutions - nations, states, the United Nations, the banks and commercial companies, the major alliances, the superpowers - to take concerted action. Real security is common security.
This redefinition is urgent because the daily survival of people in all countries, their human rights, and the viability of their governments are being jeopardized by problems of local, regional and global scale. The new security recognizes the growth of political, social, economic, and even military interdependences between nations. And it seeks to address the threatening crises of economic collapse, pollution, population pressures, widening poverty gaps, food shortages, climate change, and decline of life systems such as soil, fresh water, genetic material, and forests. Security is also coming to mean security of the foundations of peace - consensus, law, social justice and sustainable development.
Security covering this wide range of elements can no longer be achieved through military force - if it ever was - nor can it be achieved unilaterally, Security for one's own country must take into account that of one's neighbours. Security in the broad sense can, in today's world and tomorrow's, only be achieved with other countries; it can no longer be achieved against them.