This article originally appeared in the Financial Post. Below is an excerpt from the article.
By Jack Mintz, December 20, 2024
As we enter the holiday period, “peace” is very much top of mind. The Finnish celebrate “Christmas Peace” each year to formally announce the beginning of the season. Dating from the 13th century, the tradition encourages people to be respectful and kind: harsher penalties were once imposed on criminals for offences during the Christmas Peace. It is too bad that only one part of the year is used to remind us of the importance of peace. It should be something we pray for all year round.
Since the end of the Second World War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the world has been enjoying a “peace dividend” — a shift in resources from national defence to peaceful activities. Putting it simply, countries have been able to put fewer resources into producing “guns” and more into “butter.”
Wars did not disappear entirely, of course. There was Korea in the 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960s and seemingly never-ending confrontations in the Middle East, Asia and Africa (Sudan being just one of the latest place to be devastated). Despite these conflicts, most countries have been able to reduce their defence commitments since World War II.
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Jack Mintz is the President’s Fellow at the University of Calgary’s school of public policy and a distinguished fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
