These are somewhat old thoughts, but I think they are still relevant.
I frequently read John Robb's Global Guerrillas blog. Robb is a smart guy who often writes about guerrilla warfare, networked organizations, and independent sustainable communities. It's high-level stuff and highly theoretical, but with the way the world is going these days, you gotta stay informed.
Besides reading Robb's stuff, I also like watching shows on gangs and gang violence. I'll watch shows on biker gangs, the Crips, the Bloods, Friends Stand United (can you believe there is a gang that's initials are "FSU"?), or any other motley assortment of related thugs, hoodlums, gangstas, rapscallions, rascals, or droogs, especially those from America. I think the fact that we can't stop these organizations here in America, the land of milk and honey and Budweiser and McDonalds, makes Robb's work that much more relevant.
Sometime ago - not sure when - I was watching one of the many shows/documentaries on the South Central LA gang scene of the 1980-90s. According to a lot of sources, South Central was for all extents and purposes a warzone. However, on April 27, 1992 a peace treaty was signed between the Bloods and the Crips. In the years that followed, gang violence dropped dramatically.
According to Alex Alonso on StreetGangs.com,
In 1992, shortly before the urban unrest of April 29, 1992, a cease-fire was already in effect in Watts, and after the unrest, a peace treaty was developed among the largest black gangs in Watts. Early on, the police started to credit the truce for the sharp drop in gang-related homicides (Berger 1992). Homicides remained relatively stable for the two years following 1993, and in 1996, there was a notable 25 percent drop in gang-related homicides from the previous year. By 1998 gang-related homicides were at their lowest rate in over ten years despite the increasing number of gang members over the same period.If we could get the Crips and the Bloods to sit down and work things out, why can't we get other groups? Why can't we get Israel and Palestine to figure things out? Why can't we get the drug gangs of Mexico, Columbia, and other South American nations to come to the table and declare ceasefires?
We need to focus on the disenfranchised folks. Not the highfalutin muckity mucks in power. They aren't the ones pulling triggers. They are the ones sending people to war. Although the world is slowly slipping from most major governments, those in power can still guide the plane into a less than tragic crash. Unfortunately, those with power are harder to convince that change is not only needed, it is possible. Most of those people are suckers to stacks of financial compensation.
The poor and destitute, however, are the ones whose loyalties are more easily malleable. They are the ones begging for a sense of importance and identity. They are the ones who join gangs, join violent religious movements (to include Al Qaeda). We need to focus on the needs of individuals, not nations.
As the old saying goes, teach a man to fish and he can eat for a lifetime. But when it comes to preventing gang violence, if you give a man a job, he'll stays out of trouble.
Getting people of all classes and organizational structures to talk and then finding the disenfranchised among them and putting them to work is the only answer.
Another of course is building 60,000 more Wal-Marts in conflict areas around the world and putting the remaining global population to work where most of America already does.
