Friday, 17 April 2026
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Up-to-the-minute perspectives on defence, security and peace
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Peace building

By David Hoghton-Carter, Research Associate U K Defence Forum

In 1648, a new world order emerged. The Treaty of Westphalia, putting an end to decades of war in continental Europe, set out the basics of the modern idea of the co-equal sovereign nation-state, and laid the foundations for three and a half centuries of international politics. Academics have waxed lyrical about it, students have been bored to tears learning about it, statesmen and politicians have cleaved to it as the cornerstone of the right to see to the affairs of their disparate nations without anyone else arbitrarily telling them what to do.

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