Peace Movement in USA—Integrating Peace at Home and Abroad with Peace Within

Peace USA

While strengthening peace movements is important in all countries, it is of the highest importance in the USA as this would have a highly beneficial impact on the entire world.

In fact in world-level discussion on peace movements and strengthening of peace efforts in the USA, it is the external aspects or foreign policy aspects which are emphasized the most. The highly aggressive (and often irrational) external USA policies have been linked to many avoidable wars that turned out to be highly destructive. The Brown University’s estimates of the direct and indirect mortality caused by the USA led war on terror tell us that during 2001-2022 as many as 4.5 million persons died in these wars or due to these wars (even though not all affected countries are covered in these estimates). Then there is also the previous, perhaps even more tragic history of Vietnam, Korea, Iraq etc. (not to mention the huge loss of life in covert interventions—over half a million are estimated to have died in Indonesia alone in the coup that ousted Sukarno).

On this basis a very strong case has been made for peace movements in the USA which can lead to a more peaceful external (foreign) policy of the USA, guided by an understanding of the urgency of world peace and disarmament, based on defensive strategic approach rather than highly aggressive quest for dominance.

While the need for such peace movements is widely recognized, the need for movements for internal peace and non-violence within the USA is voiced much less frequently. However it should be recognized that the costs of internal violence in the USA in terms of crime and imprisonment, domestic violence, violence against women etc. are extremely high. The homicide rate in the USA is higher than double of what is the average for OECD countries. According to the Department for Justice data, in 2022 there were 5.4 million violent assaults in the USA, 694,000 robberies and 531,000 rapes and sexual assaults. In the case of some of this data, the actual number of crimes may be much higher than the reported ones.  According to the National Centre for Injury Prevention and Control, in a year women in USA experience about 4.8 million intimate partner related physical assaults and rapes. If peace movements can significantly reduce all this distress, it will be a great contribution to reducing distress and stress in the US society.

What is more, there is a strong case for achieving better results by integration of internal concerns with external concerns, particularly as the same aggressive trends in society provide the base support of internal and external aggression.

However there is a third level of peace which is peace within, or peace within the self. As the shocking statistics of mental health in the USA reveal, this is a nation in turmoil. This also leads to many acts of self-harm or self-violence, causing several hundred thousand serious injuries every year. According to official data, in 2022, 13.6 million people in the USA seriously thought about committing suicide while 1.6 million made suicide attempts. If peace movements can also contribute significantly to reducing the internal turmoil by promoting in various ways peace and non-violence within the self, then this can contribute in a big way to reducing distress in USA society and bringing relief to distressed people. This can be achieved by promoting the importance of peace and non- violence in daily life with continuity in thoughtful ways at various levels, particularly at the level of community and family. Spiritual organizations can also contribute much to this.

Hence strong and broad-based peace movements which reach out to all sections of people and strive to integrate peace abroad with peace at home and peace within can make a very important contribution to reducing distress within the USA as well as at the world level. As peace and justice are closely linked, it should be understood that the peace movement essentially means peace with justice and there should be very close linkages between peace and justice movements (and both these movements should also have close links with the movements for environment protection and for real democracy, because of the close relationships).


Conceptualizing, spreading and strengthening such a broad-based and integrated, comprehensive peace movement in the USA (as well as in other countries) can be one of the most creative, relevant and useful tasks of our times. It is very important for us as well as for future generations. Women and youth should have a leading role in this.

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign for Saving Earth Now. His recent books include Saving Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, Man over Machine, Earth without Borders and A Day in 2071.       

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