Judith Eve Lipton - Strength Through Peace: How Demilitarization Led to Peace and Happiness in Costa Rica, and What the Rest of the World Can Learn from a Tiny, Tropical Nation

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lipton, Judith Eve, author. | Barash, David P., author.
Title: Strength through peace : how demilitarization led to peace and
happiness in Costa Rica, and what the rest of the world can learn from a
tiny, tropical nation / Judith Eve Lipton, David P. Barash.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018002133 | ISBN 9780199924974 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Costa RicaPolitics and government19481986. | Costa Rica
Politics and government1986 | National securityCosta Rica. |
Costa RicaMilitary policy. | Quality of lifeCosta Rica.
Classification: LCC F1548.2 .L57 2019 | DDC 972.8605dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018002133

Youd be surprised. Theyre all individual countries.President Ronald Reagan

Our Hero Protagonist: Costa Rica

Youd be surprised. Theyre all individual countries.

President Ronald Reagan (just after his first official trip to Latin America)

Tolstoy famously began his great novel, Anna Karenina, with the observation that all happy families are alike, whereas each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. He was half right: Although there doubtless are many roads leading to unhappiness, there are fewer paths to happiness (or, as we prefer to call it, well-being) because happiness is fragile. It is also true, nonetheless, that each happy family is likely to have followed its own particular route to happiness, and by the same token, certain countries can be described as experiencing more happiness or well-being than others. Notable among these is Costa Rica.

Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948 and has had a zero military budget ever since. It is the largest independent fully fledged country in the world that is totally demilitarized and that did so on its own volition rather than under compulsion. The purpose of this book is to explore how and why this happened, its political and social implications, and what, if anything, the rest of us can learn from the Costa Rican experience. We think its demilitarization has played a significant positive role in the distinctive well-being of the Costa Rican people, and we shall make the argument that peace and demilitarizationa zero military budgethave enabled that nation to thrive in a manner disproportionate to its size and circumstance.

The familiar English phrase is, of course, peace through strength. But, Costa Rica has turned this aroundhence, strength through peace.

Costa Rica is a small country with a medium-sized economy in an unstable region. Yet, by most national assessments, its people are happy and healthy. When it comes to life satisfaction, physical and mental health, education, and other measurements of social progress and mobility, Costa Rica is more like Canada, Norway, or Sweden than like other Latin American countries, notably its less fortunate Central American neighbors.

Costa Rica is, quite frankly, an outlier. Based on its surroundings and economic situation, most people would predict it to be like Nicaragua, its northern neighbor, or other Central American countries. But the truth is otherwise. Although Central American countries typically have significant problems with violence and at best mediocre quality of life for the majority of their citizens, Costa Ricans enjoy remarkably good lives.

It is a paradox, and one that deserves attention, maybe even demands it.

Here is the paradox: Costa Rica, geographically small (about the size of West Virginia) and with a comparably small population of 4.8 million people in 2016 (fewer than Kentucky) punches far above its weight when it comes to the well-being of its inhabitants. Or, to put it less pugilistically, Costa Ricans are much better off than their economic ranking would predict. Their neighbors in Central America are known for political instability, crime, and drug problems. Honduras holds the dubious distinction of having the second highest homicide rate in the world, just behind Venezuela. Nicaragua has been at war, with its neighbors or within itself, since the Spanish occupation, most recently the Contra War, largely sponsored by the United States, that ended in 1987. Haiti was occupied, on and off, by the United States from 1915 to 1995 and is also formally demilitarized, but once again as a result of US arm-twisting. Although Panama, to the south, is now demilitarized, this is a recent development subsequent to the US invasion to remove the thug and dictator, Manuel Noriega, in 1989. After he was forcibly deposed, Panama abolished its military, following insistence by the United States. Then came an enormous money laundering industry, complete with huge law firms dedicated to the creation of shell companies and offshore banking, with luxury hotels and resorts for their clients. One such hotel complex is the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower, not only owned and managed by the Trump Family, but with condos sold to Russian and Eastern European elites as well. Who needs an army with patronage by both US and Russian oligarchs?

By contrast, Costa Rica is a member of many social and economic organizations but is not associated with anything like NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and it has no bilateral security agreement with the United States. This does not seem to have done the country any harm. Since its discovery by Europeans, notably Christopher Columbus on September 8, 1502, Costa Rica has really had only two wars (1857 and 1948), and both resulted in fewer than 3,000 direct casualties. We have searched in vain for a country with a similar long-term history of peace.

Thus, Costa Rica ranks number 1 in the Happy Planet Index

In terms of other models of well-being, in 2015 Costa Rica was not in the top 10, but it did quite well. Average life expectancy was 34th in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), tied with the United States. Japan is #1. In 2013, Costa Rica was placed 51st in the United Nations list of infant mortality. In maternal mortality, it was 67 of 182 in 2010 according to the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency Factbook). The WHO noted that although maternal mortality had decreased dramatically in many countries, Costa Ricas rate remained stable and low at 38 maternal deaths per million, slightly higher than China at 32, but significantly lower than Nicaragua at 100.