Thus any political or military leader considering aggression must consider the strong chance that outside parties with superiour force will intervene and reduce their benefits of war. These multinational peace keeping forces are the fastest growing and the largest part of the UNs current operations. While they are often mismanaged, they tend to defuse tensions and are another major brake to war. At the same time, military spending world wide is slowly starting to decrease, with the most dangerous weapons systems, nuclear weapons, being cut the most drastically. Virtually every democracy promotes tolerance of different races and ethnic groups.
Women play a central role in moving our societies away from militarism.
This kind of mentality is also moving thru both government and corporations as women slowly gain greater power in these institutions. There is still much work to do. The plans to expand NATO into eastern Europe are a termendous misallotation of resources, offering virtually no additional security. And as militarism fades, we need to be sure it is not replaced with economic globalization, with its social and environemntally destablizing effects. We should however celibrate another new year without a major war.