Where We Are Now—and What Is Required to Achieve a Peaceful Global Civilization

Even when a sheer rock face looms before us, we should refuse to be disheartened, but instead continue the patient search for a way

forward. In this sense, what is most strongly required of us is the imagination that can appreciate the present crisis as an opportunity

to fundamentally transform the direction of history. —Daisaku Ikeda

(2010 peace proposal, “Toward a New Era of Value Creation”)

Th e current state of global relations is in a state of global crisis. Th ere are a variety of sources from which a crisis of this kind of magnitude arose. Some key examples include the aggressive and exploitative practices of the US global empire. In the twin areas of war and fi nancial sector dominance, the United States has held a virtual monopoly on the use of force and the employment of military violence-as exemplifi ed by the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq since 2003, Afghanistan since 2001, and its planned war of aggression against Iran (Chossudovsky 2005, 114-24; Mittelman 2010).