Truth. Sacrifice. Radical Conviction.

Peace-Building

St. Jude Thaddeus

Small-Scale Peace and Why It Matters

I want to tell you about a pattern that I have observed in every conflict zone I have studied, without exception. While the formal peace process stalls – while the diplomats argue over text, while the mediators shuttle between hotels, while the international community issues statements of concern – something else is happening at the local level that no one is reporting.

People are building peace anyway.

Not with treaties. Not with formal agreements. Not with the machinery of international diplomacy. With schools. With shared wells. With market days where people from opposing communities trade with each other because the tomatoes do not care about the conflict.

Geopolitics
St. Jude Thaddeus

The Ceasefire That Almost Held

There is a pattern in failed peace processes that deserves more attention than it receives. The pattern is this: the ceasefire almost holds. The agreement almost works. The parties almost trust each other enough to take the next step.

And then it collapses, and the narrative becomes “peace was never possible,” and everyone moves on.

But the “almost” is the most important part of the story. Because if peace almost worked, then the analysis should focus not on why the conflict is intractable, but on what specific, identifiable factor caused the near-success to fail.

Geopolitics