Our peace plan was simple: kill everyone

We had a straightforward strategy for peacekeeping. Our top brass spent day and night working it out. We ordered lunch to the office and called to say we’d be home late or not at all, that kind of thing. We assumed that the remedy we were searching for was full of complexities—minutiae that’d make even the most obsessive bean counter’s head spin. All that came out in the wash. In the end, we decluttered the old ways of thinking. Scratched out the chalkboard full of ideas. The answer had been in front of our eyes the whole time. It was straightforward. Elegant. Like a perfect mathematical proof. Our plan for peace was simple: kill everyone.

The problem, we reasoned, was when it came to any conflict, people were the constant. People, our experts realized, are what all violence has ever had in common. Remove them from the equation, and what remains? A light breeze. A bird call. The sound of rushing water.

We’ll be the first to admit that our rollout was anything but smooth. When it came to a peace plan that involved killing everyone, there was widespread disagreement over who “everyone” was. Of course, peace must be enjoyed by someone—otherwise, is it really peace at all, or just the absence of turmoil? This was our first philosophical hurdle, one we only discovered once we’d set our plan in motion. It was a riddle. An enigma. If a tree falls, that kind of thing. The ouroboros of peacemaking was that, to achieve it completely, we had to destroy completely—and this left nothing for peace.

We needed to make decisions, fast. We concluded the most appropriate avenue was to protect the peacemakers. Those who created peace were meant to enjoy their creation. Who could argue with that? No one, soon. Not once we were the only ones left. For if we’d found one thing to be true, it was this: To guarantee the enjoyment of our eventual, collective peace, we had to make sure the others didn’t outlast us. This was crucial. In fact, it remains a top priority as we head into another year of making peace.

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