It isn't merely getting people to want world peace.

First, what are we in now? It isn't world conflict or world war. No one wants that. Conflict occurs because two people want the same thing or think they're entitled to the same thing. Palestinians and Israelis don't fight each other because they think it's fun. There's a conflict there over things like access to/control of land. Heck, in non-violent ways there are conflicts on the web all the time. Facebook "controls" a lot of our online identity and I'm sure a lot of us are unhappy with that order and, should a viable and open alternative come around, we might all throw in with that new option to re-arrange the order of the web.

So, in a sense, peace requires everyone to accept an order - or at least accept it enough to forgo any violent attempts to change the order. That's easy to accept when you're on top. I'm guessing none of us on here are likely to want much violence and non-peace, but we're likely on top on a global scale. We fit into that group of people that are #2 in the article - the Americans (or any first-world people) who just don't want to be attacked, but will use things like an army to prevent attack.

I mean, it's easy to say that people just need to want peace, but everyone kinda wants a different peace. Not that I love talking about Israel and Palestine, but it's easy to get up and say that Palestinians just need to want peace. But they do want peace - just a peace where they have something they don't have right now (and for different Palestinians, it'll be a different thing). When we think of peace in the US, we probably think of it in terms of the current order of the world just without conflict and war - with the US on top. However, it's always nice to be on top and there are people who would like a stable system where they maintained that top position.

The problem is that the world is not egalitarian or fair. Worse, even when it is fair, some perceive it as unfair. When you perceive great injustice, you might see violence as a possible avenue to correct that injustice. That could be ugly capitalists spreading disease and poverty to the poor; that could be G-dless communists oppressing freedom and imprisoning people for basic human rights; that could be religious infidels who think they're on top and use their might to deny your true G-d.

But what is fair and righteous varies by person. I think that as we make our world more fair, the level of conflict will lessen. More and more people will view participation in the system as good and that violence against it is more unfair than fair.

Think about it this way: you're a police officer in a community. If you're in a community where people perceive the system as fair and good, people violating the system are likely to be reported, people are likely to be helpful in your investigations, etc. That's a good situation. It means that, for the people in your community, the system is fair enough that people think flagrant disregard for the rule of law is a bad thing. However, it isn't hard to imagine the other side - disenfranchised people who don't see the system as fair. In that case, even the non-combatants (so to speak) aren't jumping to help the system. Combatants are seen as somehow justified - or at least that the system is just as bad as the combatants against it.

I think that there are likely to always be combatants against the order. The key is to make the order so fair and so just that onlookers aren't neutral. In those cases, many would-be combatants would be discouraged from the lack of support from their surroundings and combat just wouldn't work. I mean, one of the biggest problems that forces in Afghanistan and Iraq face is figuring out who is a combatant. If all the non-combatants ratted out the combatants (because they saw them as fighting an unjust fight against justice), it would be easy. But, there's the potential that many might see them as fighting a just fight - or a neutral fight - in which case, you might not want to inform on them since they aren't the unjust.