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AlterNet reports:
Most peaceful countries"We are living in the most peaceful century in human history; however, the 2014 Global Peace Index shows that the last seven years has shown a notable deterioration in levels of peace."
So begins this year's peace index [script heavy site], an annual report released by the nonprofit Institute for Economics and Peace. The study ranks 162 countries (covering 99.6% of the world's population) according to a complex set of indicators that gauge the absence of violence and political instability. These include a nation's level of military expenditure, its relations with neighboring countries and the percentage of the population held in prisons.
Check out this infographic [pdf] to see which countries are the most and least peaceful, and access the IEP's full report here [pdf].
1. Iceland
2. Denmark
3. Austria
4. New Zealand
5. Switzerland
6. Finland
7. Canada
8. Japan
9. Belgium
10. Norway
Least peaceful countries
1. Syria
2. Afghanistan
3. South Sudan
4. Iraq
5. Somalia
6. Sudan
7. Central African Republic
8. Democratic Republic of the Congo
9. Pakistan
10. North Korea
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday August 10 2014, @03:27PM
Very disappointing to see the security and police factor in Canada drop in the last couple of years. It now matches the US and is below Somalia.
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Sunday August 10 2014, @04:18PM
At least you haven't burnt anyone's capital city to the ground in a while.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:46PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:15PM
Some days I'm not entirely sure it would be a bad thing.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday August 10 2014, @11:49PM
If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by EETech1 on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:13PM
Don't tempt them AY.
Dooontcha-noo...
(Score: 1) by arslan on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:41PM
Think in terms of peacefulness to the world population. I was gonna comment about a few 3rd world countries I've lived in as well, but then realized, well for whatever crime rate and problems that country has, it is actually pretty peaceful at the world stage or at least its immediate surrounding regional area. So this Index really is a Global Index. Most countries have its own internal horror stories, loonies and problems, its whether that spills over its borders, which is what this seems to try to indicate. From that perspective it looks pretty accurate.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Justin Case on Sunday August 10 2014, @03:34PM
There's nobody there, so no fighting. Seriously: living creatures require resources, and when the population expands beyond the supply, there will be contention for those resources. It is inevitable. Of course you could impose population controls... enforced by people with guns AKA government. So, fighting again: the powerful vs. the rest of us.
The king who does not prepare for war will be killed by the king who does.
The only permanent peace is death.
A few things to think about when you're done marching around in your tie died tee shirts.
(Score: 5, Informative) by geb on Sunday August 10 2014, @04:46PM
Antarctica isn't a country. It's solid land, but it has a legal status similar to that of international water.
It retains that status because a large number of nations agreed through peaceful discussion to keep it so.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:22PM
And that agreement has held because there's nothing there worth fighting over.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by geb on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:26PM
There's an entire continent of untapped mineral resources. There is oil, metal ore, and coal. There's no transport infrastructure, so it's difficult to access, but it's not a worthless wasteland.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday August 11 2014, @12:17AM
The cost to retrieve those resources would exceed their value, so right now they have negative value.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday August 11 2014, @12:58AM
Russia seems to think they have a positive value [www.cbc.ca] ..
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday August 11 2014, @03:38AM
Interesting, but we were talking about the Antarctic.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Sunday August 10 2014, @06:00PM
I'll make sure to inform my Swiss friends that they reek of corpses since 160+ years ago [wikipedia.org]; they are so dead not even Hitler managed to resurrect them.
Like I don't have anything better to do than to think on junk rate pretences of "morals and natural philosophy" (or, for the matter, marching).
Mate, I'm too old (and grumpy), don't try to sell me shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:24PM
The reason the Swiss have enjoyed so much peace is that they've been so well prepared for war that no one wants to attack them.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 11 2014, @03:47AM
LoL. You joking, right? You must be joking.
(fact: in 26 November 1989 ,they considered abolishing the armed forces altogether. Almost got there [wikipedia.org]).
Usual definitions:
* brigade [wikipedia.org] - 3-6 batalions, min 3 brigades/division.
* division [wikipedia.org] - between 10,000 and 30,000 people.
Swiss army [wikipedia.org]:
* 8 land brigades (including army reserves)- equiv. max 3 divisions, equiv max 100,000 persons.
* air - approx 230 fixed and rotary-wing aircraft
* no real navy [wikipedia.org]
(yes, I know, army reserves and conscription and all that: what good are soldiers if you don't have enough resources [nationsencyclopedia.com] to build them internally when under attack)
No, mate. They can and could afford long-lasting peace because they are living in a geography with low strategic value and very high cost to conquer.
The fact they act as "the Gringotts of the muggle world" also helps (and their geography is suitable for their Gringotts role).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 11 2014, @03:54AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by bugamn on Tuesday August 12 2014, @03:32AM
No army of clockwork soldiers then? For a moment I thought the Swiss had some new assets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 11 2014, @04:05PM
I think a bigger factor is that the leaders of all potential attackers have their money there.
(Score: 2, Informative) by CRCulver on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:26PM
While neutral, Switzerland does prepare for war. The country has compulsory national service for males, and after their service many of them are placed on reserve status and maintain a weapon at home.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Jiro on Sunday August 10 2014, @03:44PM
Coming up with a single number to "rank" countries in terms of peacefulness is about as sensible as coming up with a single number to rank how good television shows are. You can add together numbers that measure other things, such as number of viewers, you can weigh them based on your idea that a TV show that airs at 1 AM and has not been cancelled is better than a show which airs at 8 PM but has the same number of viewers, you can say you subtract two points for every Kardashian that appears on the show, but ultimately, you're just making it up and you can get any result you want depending on how you measure it. Perhaps the best analogy is managers in employment, who love totally useless measures of employee productivity and such because they're numbers that can be compared, and by golly, everyone knows which number is larger than another number.
On top of that, many of the factors that go into the ranking are just misleading. How much of the US's ranking is affected by high crime rates among inner-city minorities or Mexican immigrants, when higher-ranking countries just don't have those?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:30PM
Racism! Mods! Mods! Delete this post and ban the user for life!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @06:03PM
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:30PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Funny) by EETech1 on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:20PM
Everyone loves you.
Until they inevitably turn on you.
For not being one of them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:32PM
Some major reasons the United States ranks much lower than Europe:
1. The highest, by far, military expenditure in the world. This has nothing to do with high crime rates among inner-city minorities or Mexican immigrants.
2. Involvement in lots of wars in the last decade (Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya), and covert actions in Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Ukraine, and just about everywhere else. Also nothing to do with inner-city minorities or Mexican immigrants.
3. The largest prison population in the world. This one is mostly about the War on Drugs, because the vast majority of prisoners in the US are there for non-violent drug offenses, typically pot possession.
4. A murder rate that is 5 times that of Europe. This one is only partially caused by the specific populations you refer to: almost half of murders are committed by white people, and lots of murders and other violent crimes happen in rural areas.
So yes, it matters that there are still serious problems of violent crime among non-white people in the inner cities, but if you completely solved that problem you'd still be seeing the US ranking something like 105th overall.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Jiro on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:25PM
I didn't say that all the figures are caused by minorities, I used that as an example of what was wrong. The *main* problem is simply that the whole thing is completely arbitrary. You want the uS to score low? Then just pick the things you don't like about the US that can be connected to peace and weigh them highly.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:28PM
I'm really curious what standards of peace you would use that would cause the US to be ranked highly as a promoter of peace.
You can argue that the wars waged by the US were fully justified, or that they prevented a greater war from happening. But to claim that a nation that is fighting a bunch of wars right now is more peaceful than Switzerland (who last fought a war in 1847) is simply silly.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:34PM
If you look at the first link, you have quite a few individual numbers to select (in total 22, if I counted correctly). Just click on "Specify indicator".
Particularly in the jailed population the U.S. are second worst, with only North Korea being worse. On the other hand, surprisingly the U.S. are ranking first place for violent crime (that is, less violent crime than any other country in the world).
Note that the site offers also an U.S. peace index. The least peaceful U.S. state is Lousiana, the most peaceful state is Maine.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday August 10 2014, @03:47PM
Reminds me of a story (probably apocryphal) of a disillusioned man who fled Europe just after World War I. Looking for somewhere to go that was peaceful and isolated, he settled on the island of Guam.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @04:02PM
Narrator: By his own approximation, Bob assassinated Jesse James over 800 times.
He suspected no one in history had ever so often or so publicly recapitulated an act of betrayal.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @04:09PM
Jesse James was a lad that killed many a man,
He robbed the Glendale train,
He stole from the rich and he gave to the poor,
He'd a hand and a heart and a brain.
Well it was Robert Ford, that dirty little coward,
I wonder how he feels,
For he ate of Jesse's bread and he slept in Jesse's bed,
And he laid poor Jesse in his grave.
(chorus)
Well Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life,
Three children, [now] they were brave,
Well that dirty little coward that shot Mr. [Mister] Howard,
He laid poor Jesse [Has laid Jesse James] in his grave.
Jesse was a man, a friend to the poor,
He'd never rob a mother or a child,
There never was a man with the law in his hand,
That could take Jesse James alive.
Jesse was a man, a friend to the poor,
He'd never see a man suffer pain,
And with his brother Frank he robbed the Chicago bank,
And stopped the Glendale train.
It was on a Saturday night and the moon was shining bright,
They robbed the Glendale train,
And people they did say o'er many miles away
It was those outlaws, they're Frank and Jesse James
(chorus)
Now the people held their breath when they heard of Jesse's death,
And wondered how he ever came to fall
Robert Ford, it was a fact, he shot Jesse in the back
While Jesse hung a picture on the wall
Now Jesse went to rest with his hand on his breast,
The devil will be upon his knee.
He was born one day in the County Clay,
And he came from a solitary race.
(chorus)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @04:31PM
Study claims that Ukraine is more peaceful than Russia.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Sunday August 10 2014, @04:53PM
The U.S. isn't on either of those lists! Outrage!
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:17PM
In the complete list, the USA are on place 101.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:51PM
Ya, but the US created the entire top 10 list of least peaceful countries.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:36PM
Where's Vatican City and similar on the rankings?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Vatican_City [wikipedia.org]
p.s. AFAIK the child abuse cases were mostly out of Vatican City.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday August 10 2014, @06:08PM
Those secretive bastards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by Open4D on Wednesday August 13 2014, @03:49PM
Vatican: Former Ambassador To Dominican Republic Covered By Diplomatic Immunity In Abuse Investigation - http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/01/11/vatican-former-ambassador-to-dominican-republic-covered-by-diplomatic-immunity/ [foxnews.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by Kunasou on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:34PM
10. North Korea.
This guys don't do anything, just throw the trash (old missiles) to the ocean every few months. No one cares except their own people.
There are other countries who should be higher in the rank.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:01PM
Threatening war and destruction is not something peaceful nations do.
So, yeah, they are on the correct list.
(Score: 4, Funny) by kaszz on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:16PM
Democratic nations tend to not incite wars.
(Score: 2, Funny) by tftp on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:38PM
Democratic nations tend to not incite wars.
Indeed, it was President Milosevic(a dictator, of course) who attacked the democratic USA. It was certainly the dictator Saddam Hussein who attacked the democratic USA after 9/11. It was also the theocratic Afghanistan that sent an army across the oceans to fight the USA. It was Muamar Gaddafi who attacked France and killed Nicolas Sarkozy.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:51PM
It's more of a probability than an absolute. Anyway US is corpocraty or oligarchy depending on how you view it. Even threating to arrest OSCE election monitors [examiner.com].
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday August 11 2014, @10:24PM
One cannot call the USA an oligarchy and at the same time allow it to declare itself a democratic republic. It'd be like both having a pie and eating it. This is what causes so much anti-american feelings. On TV you see US officials proclaiming democracy, and at the same time in back rooms the same officials are ordering extrajudicial killings and mass murders and infinite imprisonment of foreign captives from a country that the US invaded - the stuff that not every bloody dictator would consider proper.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Monday August 11 2014, @07:47AM
Not sure why the parent post is marked as flamebait - it was the inevitable reply. The US has a record of intervening in foreign military conflicts, and occasionally attacking sovereign nations. Why is it flamebait to notice this?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rivenaleem on Monday August 11 2014, @04:24PM
I think it's source of great pride that Ireland is 13th on the list, considering how we've put the trouble in the north behind us and committed to a lasting peace there.