Link of the day: Johan Galtung, the remarkable Norwegian environmentalist, ruminates on routes to peace in a fascinating recent article

“…the four most belligerent countries in the last centuries, measured by participation in wars divided by number of years of existence, are the United States of America, Israel, the Ottoman Empire and the United Kingdom (England). Their democracies and human rights have not impeded enormous aggression, including, indeed, in the void left behind after the Ottomans.”

“…China has made giant steps forward…lifting 1991-2004 400 million from misery into lower middle class living. They follow the East Asian development theory and practice of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea: first distribution and infrastructure under authoritarian conditions, then economic growth and “opening up”. That is where civil and political human rights enter. China has long been in that phase as evidenced by 30 million traveling abroad annually, and returning. And annually, say, 80 000 open revolts about deficits of many kinds in an incredibly dynamic country.”