Introduction: A Time for Peace

Abstract

How is peace made? The conditions believed necessary for achieving peace, as well as the means used to make and keep the peace, are defined by time. The temporalities of peace define international order in two ways. First, the endings of major wars constitute certain moments in time. Moments when conditions for making a peaceful international order are no longer a theoretical question but a matter of the utmost political urgency. The endings of the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War are such times for peace. These wars undid the faith in the pre-war world orders’ ability to deliver peace, and thus left the victors with a commitment to create a world order that would deliver a new and lasting peace. Because of the scale of their victory, the end of the world wars by and large gave the Western governments the power to create an international order that they believed would deliver peace. These times for peace thus offer unique opportunities to study the translation into policy of ideas for how to make and keep peace.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: […] a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3