Abstract

The problem of war has occupied some of the best minds of humanity throughout history. Having been described as one of the major scourges of the world, war has risen to the top of the global agenda of unresolved issues. This dramatic rise has accompanied the quantum leap of war's destructive potential in the latter half of the twentieth century, and there is still no end to its threat in sight.

Along with many other concerned people, social scientists have looked at this problem from different angles for some time now. It is only lately, however that the new science of future studies has entered this field of research. Systematic work in social forecasting and policy planning has only begun to tackle the problem of war, so there remains a lot to do for joint work in peace and future studies.

It is to promote this interdisciplinary field that this article was prepared. The work presented here takes its content from peace research and its method from policy studies, thus combining the two in a systematic assessment of peace plans.