.
President Jimmy Carter served as the 39th President of the United States. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Carter Center, an organization he founded in 1982. President Carter spoke with Institute for Economics and Peace-USA’s Executive Director, Aubrey Fox, about his views on peace.
AF: With all the conflict and violence in the world, it can be hard to be an optimist about peace. I wanted to ask if you personally felt optimism, and if so why?
JC: That’s a hard question to answer because there are certain countries in which I don't have any optimism at all, such as Yemen and Libya. Also, the so called Arab Spring, or Arab Awakening, which gave me a lot of hope a couple of years ago has pretty well dissipated. On the other hand, I think one of the most notable advances towards peace is the wonderful progress between Colombia and FARC.
The Mideast, Israel and its neighbors, I don’t see the prospects for progress now that I did even five or ten years ago, when the United States was quite deeply involved in trying to promote the peace process. President Obama has announced that we should not expect any further movement toward peace during his term in office, although I think Secretary of State Kerry has done a notable job.
With Syria, for the first time in maybe the last three or four years the United States has modified its previously erroneous position that the first step was for Assad to step down. I have never seen that as a possibility. The United States backing away and forming a partial coalition with Russia is in an important step in the right direction.
China hasn’t had any armed conflict with its neighbors for the last thirty-five years. Although there are some threats in the Far East, they haven’t taken place. North Korea bothers me a lot because of their high and unexpected technological abilities. Even with starvation, people dying, and with all kinds of economic sanctions on them, they are still able to produce some formidable nuclear weapons and inter-space missiles. So it’s a mix around the world.
AF: And speaking a little more broadly, what specific interventions do you think will be most likely to help build peace over the next decade?
JC: No matter where we go in the world, whether it's the Far East or into the Middle East, there’s an overwhelming, overriding need for harmony between the United States and China, and between the United States and Russia. This should be a major consideration, and not let temporary operational events disturb that long-term prospect towards peace.
AF: One of the things that I find really striking about the Carter Center is how successful you’ve been in addressing issues like health. I wonder what that suggests about what it takes to build peace, that we often focus on geo-political diplomacy and circumstances in particular countries, but pay less attention to things like improving access to health and improving education.
JC: I look at peace as one of the basic human rights, along with right of people to have good health, education, housing, and so forth—the basic necessities of life. If I’m not mistaken the United States has been at war with about 30 different nations in armed conflicts since the Second World War. Which is in contrast to say China who hasn’t had a war in the last 35 years. And I think the sapping of our economic capabilities in this country to major war commitments has been a strategic error. I noticed that just in recent months President Obama has announced that we are going to spend probably a trillion dollars on just upgrading our nuclear weapon systems. We should be working with other nuclear powers aggressively as we did back in ancient times when I was President to lower the level of nuclear weapons. And we’ve seen this lack of leadership on part of the major nuclear powers to create disarmament in Iran, which I hope has been solved, but is an unsolved problem in North Korea. I think the slippery slope on which we descended was when we permitted Pakistan and India to escape from a stringent promise of a nonproliferation treaty.
AF: Just to pick on this theme from a minute. I think you are absolutely right that there is a lot of money being spent on munitions and traditional security approaches, and an important goal would be to try to shift some of that money into health and other services. But in a very practical and political way I’m curious, how does one win that argument? How does one get major countries and major politicians to begin not only to rhetorically accept this idea, but also to flow money into these other areas? That’s a tough question I realize.
JC: That is a tough question, but I think the key to it all is the basic policy of the United States of America; we are the world’s leader. And what is a superpower supposed to exemplify? I think we ought to be known in the most remote areas of the world as a champion of peace. So that people know that if they are threatened with a civil war, or a war with a neighbor, they always have that first thought, “why don’t we go to Washington?” It is not enough to have the most formidable weapons system on earth, or the most powerful currency on earth with the dollar, or the most acceptable world language, English. I would say staying at peace would be one of the things that makes a nation great. I think that this is largely a purpose of most Americans and it’s a tone that needs to be set by our leadership and our scholars. And I am thankful for your organization that seeks to keep peace.
AF: One of the arguments my institution makes is that the world spends too much time analyzing and trying to understand the dynamics of conflict and violence, and less time trying to understand the factors that promote peace.
JC: It does, that’s why the Carter Center uses the phrase “waging peace”. You have to aggressively seek a peaceful resolution of every issue that comes up, from the very initiation of the problem. And this is not the first priority of our government; it is not the first priority of any other government.
AF: And what’s your personal definition of peace?
JC: Living with people who disagree with you in a constructive way. If there is a difference to try and find some accommodation that would leave you both without conflict. I’d say it is a matter of mutual respect for others. It is not just an absence of war, it is a positive—to use a religious phrase—attempt to love your neighbor, and it put that idealistic phrase into practical application in international policy and domestic policy as well.
AF: You’ve said about your Presidential Administration, “we never went to war, we never dropped a bomb, and we never fired a bullet.” I wonder if you think a modern President can accomplish the same given all the pressures they are under. What it would take politically and practically to do so?
JC: An initial and overriding thing is for presidents and leaders is to engender that commitment among the population of country. To try to devise a paragraph or two in every speech on how peace is beneficial to us individually as citizens of the United States, and how war is likely to involve not only our economic sacrifices, but also personal sacrifices. One of the things that makes war so easy now is that we have ways to bomb from 30,000 feet. So it is an attractive way to impose our will on others by using techniques of war that make American causalities minimal.
AF: What comes through strongly in your answers is the need to make a case to the American people and others about the moral and economic value of peace. And I wanted to pick up on that. One of the things the Carter Center does so well is to provide data and tools to policymakers. Do you see communicating through data as being a critical way of making that argument?
JC: I don't have a doubt about that. It’s not just the amount of human lives being lost and ancillary suffering of women and children and older people in war zones, like we see happening so vividly and daily now in Syria. But for the wellbeing of our own people—to devote the same trillion dollars or so that we spend in Afghanistan to helping our own people have a better life, on education and healthcare and things of that kind. I think the general public has to have that message and the impetus coming from the White House on a sustained, genuinely thoughtful and believable basis.
AF: In thinking about the Carter Center’s work on peace, are there things that feel like unfinished business?
JC: I think the most important one for us is to bring peace between Israel and Israel’s neighbors. I think it is very difficult for either the Palestinians or the Israelis to change their ways, unless the President of the United States is personally and deeply committed to the prospect. So I think that is one of the areas in which the Carter Center has been involved, along with North Korea, Haiti and Bosnia Herzegovina. In all three of those cases, it was an absence from Washington that induced me to go into those troubled regions. And I found that when I went to North Korea they were very eager to reach an accommodation with the United States and do away with their nuclear weapons and to have harmony with South Korea and so forth.
AF: Earlier I talked about how the world tends to focus on flashpoints of conflict rather than areas of peace, you had mentioned Colombia as a bright spot in the world right now. I wonder if in your experience there are other countries that come to mind.
JC: We have to remember that places that were filled with conflict in the past are now at peace. I would really include the entire gamut of countries in the Western Pacific region, and that's been primarily because China has decided not use their military force apart from the early foray into Vietnam. I think China is trying as best they can to address the threat from North Korea. They have managed in some subtle but effective ways to avoid any armed conflict. So it is just a matter of national commitment, especially when you have been at war for a couple of centuries.
AF: As you know the United Nations has just passed the Sustainable Development Goals, which includes an explicit peace goal alongside more traditional humanitarian goals. I wonder if you might comment about what that suggests about these two fields that in some ways consider themselves separate.
JC: Well I was really glad to see number 16. If all the children are educated, if all the children are immunized against diseases, if there is adequate housing for poor people—it lowers dramatically the inclination of those people to endanger their own life. So I think that tying peace under the umbrella of other things like human rights is a very good step forward. If you do the same thing for peace that you have done in the past say for child survivability at birth, infant mortality and things like that—that’s making progress. I think that would be a notable achievement.
AF: Are there any final thoughts you’d like to share?
JC: My comments have been critical of the United States but I see the United States as key. If we are committed to peace then the world is going to be inclined to go along with us.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.
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Interview: President Jimmy Carter
June 15, 2016
President Jimmy Carter served as the 39th President of the United States. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Carter Center, an organization he founded in 1982. President Carter spoke with Institute for Economics and Peace-USA’s Executive Director, Aubrey Fox, about his views on peace.
AF: With all the conflict and violence in the world, it can be hard to be an optimist about peace. I wanted to ask if you personally felt optimism, and if so why?
JC: That’s a hard question to answer because there are certain countries in which I don't have any optimism at all, such as Yemen and Libya. Also, the so called Arab Spring, or Arab Awakening, which gave me a lot of hope a couple of years ago has pretty well dissipated. On the other hand, I think one of the most notable advances towards peace is the wonderful progress between Colombia and FARC.
The Mideast, Israel and its neighbors, I don’t see the prospects for progress now that I did even five or ten years ago, when the United States was quite deeply involved in trying to promote the peace process. President Obama has announced that we should not expect any further movement toward peace during his term in office, although I think Secretary of State Kerry has done a notable job.
With Syria, for the first time in maybe the last three or four years the United States has modified its previously erroneous position that the first step was for Assad to step down. I have never seen that as a possibility. The United States backing away and forming a partial coalition with Russia is in an important step in the right direction.
China hasn’t had any armed conflict with its neighbors for the last thirty-five years. Although there are some threats in the Far East, they haven’t taken place. North Korea bothers me a lot because of their high and unexpected technological abilities. Even with starvation, people dying, and with all kinds of economic sanctions on them, they are still able to produce some formidable nuclear weapons and inter-space missiles. So it’s a mix around the world.
AF: And speaking a little more broadly, what specific interventions do you think will be most likely to help build peace over the next decade?
JC: No matter where we go in the world, whether it's the Far East or into the Middle East, there’s an overwhelming, overriding need for harmony between the United States and China, and between the United States and Russia. This should be a major consideration, and not let temporary operational events disturb that long-term prospect towards peace.
AF: One of the things that I find really striking about the Carter Center is how successful you’ve been in addressing issues like health. I wonder what that suggests about what it takes to build peace, that we often focus on geo-political diplomacy and circumstances in particular countries, but pay less attention to things like improving access to health and improving education.
JC: I look at peace as one of the basic human rights, along with right of people to have good health, education, housing, and so forth—the basic necessities of life. If I’m not mistaken the United States has been at war with about 30 different nations in armed conflicts since the Second World War. Which is in contrast to say China who hasn’t had a war in the last 35 years. And I think the sapping of our economic capabilities in this country to major war commitments has been a strategic error. I noticed that just in recent months President Obama has announced that we are going to spend probably a trillion dollars on just upgrading our nuclear weapon systems. We should be working with other nuclear powers aggressively as we did back in ancient times when I was President to lower the level of nuclear weapons. And we’ve seen this lack of leadership on part of the major nuclear powers to create disarmament in Iran, which I hope has been solved, but is an unsolved problem in North Korea. I think the slippery slope on which we descended was when we permitted Pakistan and India to escape from a stringent promise of a nonproliferation treaty.
AF: Just to pick on this theme from a minute. I think you are absolutely right that there is a lot of money being spent on munitions and traditional security approaches, and an important goal would be to try to shift some of that money into health and other services. But in a very practical and political way I’m curious, how does one win that argument? How does one get major countries and major politicians to begin not only to rhetorically accept this idea, but also to flow money into these other areas? That’s a tough question I realize.
JC: That is a tough question, but I think the key to it all is the basic policy of the United States of America; we are the world’s leader. And what is a superpower supposed to exemplify? I think we ought to be known in the most remote areas of the world as a champion of peace. So that people know that if they are threatened with a civil war, or a war with a neighbor, they always have that first thought, “why don’t we go to Washington?” It is not enough to have the most formidable weapons system on earth, or the most powerful currency on earth with the dollar, or the most acceptable world language, English. I would say staying at peace would be one of the things that makes a nation great. I think that this is largely a purpose of most Americans and it’s a tone that needs to be set by our leadership and our scholars. And I am thankful for your organization that seeks to keep peace.
AF: One of the arguments my institution makes is that the world spends too much time analyzing and trying to understand the dynamics of conflict and violence, and less time trying to understand the factors that promote peace.
JC: It does, that’s why the Carter Center uses the phrase “waging peace”. You have to aggressively seek a peaceful resolution of every issue that comes up, from the very initiation of the problem. And this is not the first priority of our government; it is not the first priority of any other government.
AF: And what’s your personal definition of peace?
JC: Living with people who disagree with you in a constructive way. If there is a difference to try and find some accommodation that would leave you both without conflict. I’d say it is a matter of mutual respect for others. It is not just an absence of war, it is a positive—to use a religious phrase—attempt to love your neighbor, and it put that idealistic phrase into practical application in international policy and domestic policy as well.
AF: You’ve said about your Presidential Administration, “we never went to war, we never dropped a bomb, and we never fired a bullet.” I wonder if you think a modern President can accomplish the same given all the pressures they are under. What it would take politically and practically to do so?
JC: An initial and overriding thing is for presidents and leaders is to engender that commitment among the population of country. To try to devise a paragraph or two in every speech on how peace is beneficial to us individually as citizens of the United States, and how war is likely to involve not only our economic sacrifices, but also personal sacrifices. One of the things that makes war so easy now is that we have ways to bomb from 30,000 feet. So it is an attractive way to impose our will on others by using techniques of war that make American causalities minimal.
AF: What comes through strongly in your answers is the need to make a case to the American people and others about the moral and economic value of peace. And I wanted to pick up on that. One of the things the Carter Center does so well is to provide data and tools to policymakers. Do you see communicating through data as being a critical way of making that argument?
JC: I don't have a doubt about that. It’s not just the amount of human lives being lost and ancillary suffering of women and children and older people in war zones, like we see happening so vividly and daily now in Syria. But for the wellbeing of our own people—to devote the same trillion dollars or so that we spend in Afghanistan to helping our own people have a better life, on education and healthcare and things of that kind. I think the general public has to have that message and the impetus coming from the White House on a sustained, genuinely thoughtful and believable basis.
AF: In thinking about the Carter Center’s work on peace, are there things that feel like unfinished business?
JC: I think the most important one for us is to bring peace between Israel and Israel’s neighbors. I think it is very difficult for either the Palestinians or the Israelis to change their ways, unless the President of the United States is personally and deeply committed to the prospect. So I think that is one of the areas in which the Carter Center has been involved, along with North Korea, Haiti and Bosnia Herzegovina. In all three of those cases, it was an absence from Washington that induced me to go into those troubled regions. And I found that when I went to North Korea they were very eager to reach an accommodation with the United States and do away with their nuclear weapons and to have harmony with South Korea and so forth.
AF: Earlier I talked about how the world tends to focus on flashpoints of conflict rather than areas of peace, you had mentioned Colombia as a bright spot in the world right now. I wonder if in your experience there are other countries that come to mind.
JC: We have to remember that places that were filled with conflict in the past are now at peace. I would really include the entire gamut of countries in the Western Pacific region, and that's been primarily because China has decided not use their military force apart from the early foray into Vietnam. I think China is trying as best they can to address the threat from North Korea. They have managed in some subtle but effective ways to avoid any armed conflict. So it is just a matter of national commitment, especially when you have been at war for a couple of centuries.
AF: As you know the United Nations has just passed the Sustainable Development Goals, which includes an explicit peace goal alongside more traditional humanitarian goals. I wonder if you might comment about what that suggests about these two fields that in some ways consider themselves separate.
JC: Well I was really glad to see number 16. If all the children are educated, if all the children are immunized against diseases, if there is adequate housing for poor people—it lowers dramatically the inclination of those people to endanger their own life. So I think that tying peace under the umbrella of other things like human rights is a very good step forward. If you do the same thing for peace that you have done in the past say for child survivability at birth, infant mortality and things like that—that’s making progress. I think that would be a notable achievement.
AF: Are there any final thoughts you’d like to share?
JC: My comments have been critical of the United States but I see the United States as key. If we are committed to peace then the world is going to be inclined to go along with us.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.
