1.Iceland
2.Denmark
3. Norway
4.New Zealand
5.Japan
6.Ireland
7.Portugal
8.Finland
9.Luxembourg
10.Austria
11.Canada
12.Switzerland
13.Sweden
14.Germany
15.Belgium
16.Slovenia
17.Czech Republic
18.Hungary
19.Chile
20.Slovakia

According to the 2008 Global Peace Index.

switzerland has to be top!

Doesn't the cod war count?

The GPI does look a little flawed to me for example does "Ireland" mean just the republic or does it mean the whole island?

Something doesn't seem right. How can Austria be above Switzerland? Doesn't the First World War count? Ireland's had a low level civil war for eighty years. And Japan! Portugal fought against rebellions in its colonies in the 70s, and Finland had two wars against the Soviet Union. I can't for the life of me see why Sweden isn't at the top, since the last war the Swedes fought was against Napoleon. How is this calculated?

• Number of external and internal confl icts
fought: 2001-06
• Estimated number of deaths from
organised confl ict (external)
• Number of deaths from organised confl ict
(internal)
• Level of organised confl ict (internal)
• Relations with neighbouring countries
Level of distrust in other citizens
• Number of displaced people as a
percentage of the population
• Political instability
• Level of disrespect for human rights
(Political Terror Scale)
• Potential for terrorist acts
• Number of homicides per 100,000 people
• Level of violent crime
• Likelihood of violent demonstrations
• Number of jailed population per
100,000 people
• Number of internal security offi cers and
police per 100,000 people
Military expenditure as a percentage
of GDP
• Number of armed services personnel per
100,000 people
• Volume of transfers (imports) of major
conventional weapons per 100,000 people
• Volume of transfers (exports) of major
conventional weapons per 100,000 people
• UN Deployments 2007-08 (percentage
of total armed forces)
• Non-UN Deployments 2007-08
(percentage of total armed forces)
• Aggregate number of heavy weapons per
100,000 people
• Ease of access to small arms and light
weapons
• Military capability/sophistication

I don't the Global Peace Index measures the time since the last war a country had.

I would assume it is a measure of militarization, military size, etc. in the nation and a perhaps a general description of the global belligerance exhibited by the nations in question.

Even so, the list seems a little odd....

Haha, ok, apparently it was even more sophisticated a measuring tool than I had thought.

what?
denmark?
slovakia?

Some of these criteria seem pretty arbitrary. How can you measure respect for human rights? How can you measure the likelihood of violent demonstrations? It just looks like statisticians at a university somewhere needed something to do to keep getting paid.

oh dear - i really should be more exact when asking for info. I'll try again "Top 20 most peaceful nations on earth - ever!" To clarify - those that have not fired a single bullet in a foreign country. Ranked in order of how long it has been since they fired a bullet in a foreign country.

Most peaceful nations on earth ever? Galapagos islands or somewhere like that where there have barely ever been people.
Having said that, I know the Galapagos islands are not a nation.
Also, do you allow a nation to defend itself if actually invaded. Going and entering into a war on the other side of the planet (which is in no way due to oil) would not count in this, but if hoards of soldiers from a neighbor started flooding into your lands, surely you can do something about it?

Mauritius... unless you count the famous Dutch-Dodo war. =)

If you say never fired a shot... well does that include ancient times or do you consider the missile of a sling as a 'bullet' then again they were never 'fired'/
still bugs me when I hear in the movies people saying to rows of archers :'fire", that was for gunpowder weapons only and then starting with the fusil mechanism.

We don't what nations in History were wholly peaceful because, erm, they were completely destoryed by warlike neighbours.

The countries we see today are (predominantly) survivors of hundreds and thousands of years of brutal warfare. Willy-nilly peacenik nations didn't stand a chance in the Middle Ages.

The concept of 'nation' is rather new.
Even if you used the concept of 'state' that would have certain difficulties.

Granted, but the concept of nation insofar as a people united by language, race, proximaty and often political unity dates back to the Archaic Age mediterranean, and possibly even before that.

For example

The Egyptians 'knew' they were distinct from everyone else and they also (for much of thier history) formed something quite similar to a centralized state apparatus similar to that we see today, in that it emphasized Egyptian language, culture and Gods, and rejected foreign things- Like Mesopotamian Gods and Persian domination.

One could imagine that a group like the Hittites had similar thoughts about themselves, but the culture was so thouroghly destroyed we can never really know.

That is what I meant when I said nation.


Canada then, would be essentially the same 'nation' as England.

great list
wonder about the bottom end of the scale?
iraq,,serbia,iran,libya,north korea, the USA,china,burma??
great company the USA is keeping these days;)

As a Canadian I would not say Canada is the same nation as England... It's currently not England, and before England came it was populated by loose nations of indigenous peoples.

At the bottom? Persians.

According to the soon-to-be-infamous GPI Iraq is.

sure, Iceland never was in a war, but hey, now their are completely bankrupt, because they don't have any economy either

speaking of economies...Lux conducts a silent financial war against other nation states and their tax revenue that dwarfs the GDP of some countries

Sounds like a consiracy theory. Where's the beef?

Switzerland's last war was a civil war 1848, which was decided in a few days, before any serious shooting. What makes us only that low on the list is probably, that we have racists coming up from time to time (still far away from countries like US or Germany) and some football fans fighting each other, if they want to.

The criteria given in the initial description brings in weapon access and other issues rather than just actual warfare. That is why Switzerland is rated down since it has in effect a massive ratio of armed militia.

What this shows is that the concept of peace is sometimes a little shaky.
Then again as Diplomacy players we should all be very much aware of that.

What are you talking about the Swedes fought Stalin in WWII. Switzerland and Iceland I'll believe but... Austria and Ireland?

All depends on whether NI counts as Ireland.

The UN hires people to come up with figures like this all the time - this one seems a lot more purposeless though to be honest...

The HDI is interesting as when you break down its criteria you can reach some very interesting conclusions about where different countries stand within education, PPP ('real' GDP) and the like. The figures used to create the indexes are often from independant UN initiatives and have much less bias as well. Making them more reliable than most other sources.

Position in the "GPI" seems to have little purpose though. The number of conflicts fought in the last five years, political terror scale, the number jailed and heavy weapons per 100,000 people put together mean next to nothing.

i understand that germany and japan actually agreed to finance a share of the Iraq war - if this is the case, I think we should remove them from the list. I know, technically they should be on there based on my original criteria but I think my criteria should be ammended to exclude nations that finance wars. Thanks for all your input by the way. I don't think Ireland should be on the list either - for years they had a part of their constitution that lay claim to Northern Ireland and this was used by republicans to justify their bloody campaign.

PS - as some of you may know "Maniac" and "Me Mad are you insane?" are the same person - well two identities of a person with multiple personalities (who don't ever, ever, ever play in the same diplomacy games) "Me Mad? Are you insane?" will be retiring soon - if anyone wants to contact him please send notes via "Maniac" thank-you.