Where the Evidence Leads

This book’s synthesis of peace research and security studies shows, ironically, that US security can be better served by turning away from the national security paradigm of political realism and toward a broader human security paradigm of “empirical realism.” US security benefits are likely to be greater from maximizing the correlates of peace than from maximizing US military power. Tempering narrow nationalism with increased respect for human dignity can help implement the correlates of positive reciprocity, equity, human security, enhanced international law, and democratic global governance. Progress in these areas would enable transforming the existing militarized-balance-of-power system into a more complex global governing system that empowers transnational political, economic, environmental, religious, and other influences to move all states’ conduct toward serving the common good. A global grand strategy for human security, which would include US security within it, can succeed where a national grand strategy for US security is likely to fail.