PEP: Take Action

How to Support and Participate in Project Enduring Peace (PEP)

This page is a guide. It offers you a series of ACTIONS, all focused ultimately on explaining the petition we urge supporters of Project Enduring Peace to sign. It’s best that you work through them in the order listed.

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DONATE (link coming soon) – Promoting PEP’s vision and its goal of securing an effective global peace treaty is going to be expensive. Very expensive. And every little bit will count. This could be your first Action.

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Three Critical Actions – These are essentials

ACTION 1 - If you favor urging world leaders to come to a peace table to negotiate an enforceable, global peace treaty to end wars between nations, and need no further convincing, go directly to the PEP petition page. Action 1 is for people who already know the why’s and how’s about PEP’s goal to push until the global community ratifies a peace treaty that will put an end to international warfare.

SIGN THE PETITION – Here you will find the petition text and a place to sign it. (link coming soon)

At the end of each year the signed petitions will be sent to heads of state of all G-20 nations and to the appropriate individual at the United Nations who can arrange to place a treaty resolution before the United Nations General Assembly. Those two entities—heads of state and the United Nations General Assembly—are where wheels are set in motion to begin international treaty negotiations.

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ACTION 2 – Learn how a new or updated treaty to prevent wars between nations could work.

Perhaps for you, and certainly for people you will talk with as you support PEP, there will come such questions as, ”How would a treaty work? Why would one work now while those of the past did not?”

Action 2 is to read the short essay: How the Treaty Could Work (link https://www.afww.org/pep-how-it-would-work.html]

The essay will explain the fundamental problem with previous treaties and other efforts set up in the last century to end international warfare (e.g., the Kellogg-Briand Pact, The League of Nations, the United Nations.) They fail to prevent ALL international wars (e.g., Ukraine) primarily because they are based on voluntary compliance by world heads of state and are reactive rather than proactive, punishing with sanctions when a war has already begun. Also explained is how a new or updated treaty would work by preventing war proactively.

Time has changed key things in our lives that now allow for and favor success of a well-written treaty:

within the last few decades, we’ve invented sophisticated means of digital spying that make it possible to know in advance when any nation (or nations) is (are) planning an attack, physical or digital, against another nation. This makes it possible for a united global community to act proactively in a way that applies a warning and consequences immediately to the political and military leadership of a potential aggressor. At first these would specifically not affect the innocent people of the would-be aggressor’s nation,
instant global communication makes it possible for citizens across the globe to know immediately what is happening, with the result that they can quickly apply united “people power” to influence even reluctant leaders to take steps necessary to prevent violence or to cease it at once,

within the last two decades there has developed a critical mass of powerful and influential women who are sick and tired of wars, whose voices and perspectives can push forward the movement to end wars of all kinds, including those between nations. A realistic promise of ending warfare, a great killer of children, will be highly motivating to men, but especially so for women, who bear children and generally are their principal caregivers, the mothers of the next generation.

After looking at these issues, the essay also outlines step-by-step how the treaty would roughly function. Here is the link: (https://www.afww.org/pep-how-it-would-work.html]

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ACTION 3 – These easy assignments facilitate self-learning about PEP and its singular goal, which is the ratification of an effective global peace treaty that ends wars between nations, bringing assurance to citizens and leaders of all nations that their country will not be attacked. Such a shift will have vast positive ramifications for the entire global community.

If you want detailed information about PEP’s vision before you sign the Project Enduring Peace petition, or because you are determined and excited to explain PEP and its “good news” goal to others, the following three self-education steps will provide you with knowledge and resource tools. Working through them is your best way to understand PEP’s approach to reaching the goal of getting world leaders to a peace table. The steps  should answer questions you have, and/or will allow you to answer questions your family, friends, or other people you contact may have.

Fundamentally, PEP is an ambitious educational and promotional campaign focused on the single goal of securing an enforceable, global peace treaty signed by all nations on the planet. To be effective, it must be a universal treaty, signed by those nations that have the capacity to start or wage war, but also others whose cooperation with other treaty members in specified actions will be necessary to proactively prevent attacks or bring them to a halt.

The overarching end result of creating such a peace system is that human and financial resources now expended on planning for wars, engaging in wars, and cleaning up and rebuilding after massively destructive wars can be devoted to worthy, urgent issues, such as tackling the many causes of civil wars. Those saved resources can also be applied to solve existential challenges such as dealing with climate change and environmental trashing. To be succinct, to continue to wage international warfare is a form of social insanity, and possibly suicidal for civilization as we know it.

So here are the three steps, presented in the optimal order for you to proceed

Step One – A global peace system. Learn the nature of what the nations of Earth could do to produce a future in which peaceful coexistence allows all nations to thrive. Watch an 8.5 minute video entitled “A Path Away From War. The Science of Peace Systems. (link coming soon) It is based on anthropologist Douglas P. Fry’s research on actual peace systems. You’ll learn the positive nature of models we can use to guide us: the first necessary steps we need to take to begin, including the agreement that we will no longer make war on each other, and the shared features that we must put in place as we fashion our peace system to ensure that our peace agreement survives conflicts time always presents to human communities.

Step Two –The critical and necessary power of belief.

      First, if you choose, you can try your own small experiment about belief. Ask ten people at random--who have no previous knowledge of why you are asking—this specific question: “Do you believe humans can ever end war?” Not would they like us to, but do they believe we can. Ask for their immediate simple “gut response,” not a lot of reflection about the question. What you are searching for is their unconscious underlying belief about us, specifically about our ability end this tragic behavior.

You are highly likely to discover that the majority, maybe even a large majority, will say, “No.”

Most people have been conditioned to believe that making war is a facet of human nature, an ugly but inescapable aspect of who we are as a species. For humans, if we don’t’ believe something is possible, it isn’t. Belief in success underlies action to do anything, great or small. Belief also underlies anyone’s willingness to devote financial resources or their time supporting a particular activity, great or small. This skepticism is a major barrier preventing any possibility of getting off the war treadmill. It’s quite possible that many members of the United Nations operate out of this false belief that we actually can never escape from the curse of war.

Consider that to undertake the building of prehistoric structures never before imagined by anyone, structures we even now consider amazing—like the pyramids—or believing that your nation has the wherewithal necessary to send men to the moon and back—at least one person has the idea and persuades others that it can be done. This will equally be true when it comes to thinking about what it would take to end war and secure an enduring peace.

So your second self-education step is to view the xx minute video “Ending War is Possible. The Power of Belief.” (link coming soon) This will provide you as a PEP supporter with examples to share, in person, to dispel the false belief skeptics have that war is an inescapable part of human behavior. You can also refer people who are skeptical to the video.

Step Three – The Petition

Generally there are two kinds of entities that can call for initiation of treaty negotiations: the heads of state of nations and the UN General Assembly. We need to collect signatures to send to both entities to get their attention, to apply pressure for them to take action. We need at least 100,000 signatures, from nations across the globe.

Once each year, for as long as it takes to achieve the goal of initiation of peace treaty negotiations, we will send what we have collected to date.

This is your personal PEP action step. It is also what you can direct others to do who are convinced that the cause is worthy. Go to the petition page. Read it. And sign it. (link coming soon)

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   Three Additional Actions – Useful/powerful but not essential

ACTION A – The Power of Five. After signing the petition, send a brief email to at least five family members, friends, acquaintances, or anyone likely to be receptive to PEP’s vision and goal. Studies show that the spread of a petition happens most rapidly when people who sign a petition recommend the cause to others. Explain in your own words why you signed the petition and provide a link to the PEP website, inviting them to check out the Nav links you found most helpful.

ACTION B –Learn about the critical power of belief to successfully securing a war-free future. If people don’t believe ending war is possible, it isn’t. But if a critical mass of people believe it is possible and want to achieve it, history shows that humans can accomplish almost anything they can dream of. [link coming soon]

ACTION C – Host a PEP Peace Petition Party. This is a way you can actively reach out to people who express interest in the possibility of creating a better, less violent, more just and nurturing future for the children of now and the children to come. It can take place in your home, or at some public venue: a church, your neighborhood rec center, a peace or civic organization meeting room, a library meeting room. Here are some suggestions: [link coming soon]

PEP: Take Action

How to Support and Participate in Project Enduring Peace (PEP)

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