ABSTRACT
This chapter explores peace in the Pacific Hemisphere; the region of the world washed by the waters of that giant ocean and some adjacent waters. Although Europe today, emerging from the divisions of the Cold War, is becoming a much more dynamic place than it was during the lost generations of the “Long War”, 1914-45, and the Cold War, 1949-89, it is hard to beat the Pacific Hemisphere’s racial, cultural, economic and political diversity. Moreover, the Pacific Hemisphere is also the region where the USA was economically defeated, at least for a period, by the structural violence skillfully wielded by the Japanese economic superpower in the 1980s. The Pacific Hemisphere is the region where long-lasting structural violence has been inflicted by the USA on most Latin American countries and many Southeast Asian countries, as well as the Pacific Islands, through economic exploitation and by support to highly repressive regimes.
