Peacemaker 2020 A System for Global Conflict Analysis and Resolution; A Work of Fiction and A Research Challenge
Kirstie L. Bellman · Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks · 2006
Abstract Our knowledge of physics, chemistry, engineering, even psychology have all been used to develop weapons and approaches for winning armed conflicts. Especially the information sciences have been developed with a tremendous amount of funding and much of the initial motivation stemming from military needs and later developed with its funding. Robert Trappl has posed to the wider research community a fascinating question: Have our technologies and scientific approaches grown to the point that they can be applied to the much more difficult question of supporting the peaceful resolution of conflicts among nations? He has dubbed such technology “peacefare”. Sometimes it is easier to design a complex system by starting with a solution and working backwards. Hence I wrote a story. Since I am a computer scientist and technologist, my story is about the technology that could provide some enhanced basis for analysis of growing international tensions and possible mediation. This story also is a way of eliciting from our broad research community our goals, our assumptions, and the success criteria for a system like “Peacemaker 2020.”