The most devastating conflict in American history, the Civil War, was precipitated by issues of morality and equality arising from the aftermath of the American Revolution. It demonstrated that a united nation needs a united understanding of humanity. The Civil War occurred decades after the American Revolution; likewise, the current civil contention was bred largely by the Sexual Revolution of the mid-twentieth century. The dilemma of our modern political strife is that we cannot have a united nation without a national understanding of morality.

Although the Sexual Revolution has done much to advance the causes of humanity, it has simultaneously eroded the cause of morality by dismantling a common sense of truth and responsibility. Today, truth has become subjective, and responsibility is viewed as oppressive rather than joyful. In such an environment, politics

resolve our nations core issues, because our disjointed beliefs about morality is a problem far deeper than any ballot box.

The Founders wisely designed our government to thrive when the populace is moral, upright, and honest. Benjamin Franklin said, Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters [1]. Thomas Jefferson similarly wrote that a good government requires good people, informed, by education, what is right and what wrong, to be encouraged in habits of virtue [3]. In his 1796 Farewell Address, George Washington proclaimed that religion and morality are indispensable supports for political prosperity [2]. It is not only naive to think our government can thrive in an amoral society - it is also a philosophical contradiction.

The dissolution and ridicule of the family, particularly of our Heavenly family, has been foremost in the advance of moral relativism and the resulting disparity of moral thought [4]. Families have dissolved at the rate at which we have succumbed to believing that responsibility and accountability are undesirable. American society has thus fallen into disarray concerning the most basic tenets of reality. Warned Elder Neal A. Maxwell, a society which is uncertain of its basic values will engage in endless and expensive experimentation [5]. Whereas the initial American Experiment was fundamentally one of liberty

morality, modern societal experimentation is too often foregoing any morality.

Without a common moral standing, there is a rampant spread of pernicious double standards. Paradoxically said President Christofferson, those who claim truth is relative and moral standards are a matter of personal preference are often the same ones who most harshly criticize people who dont accept the current norm of correct thinking [6]. Moreover, without recognizing the truth, we struggle to know ourselves. One author suggests that the signature political movement of our time identity politics is rooted in the post-revolutionary erasure of self, brought on by the shrinkage and implosion of the family [7]. It is vain to think that barbed political rhetoric can be solved by more political dialogue when we no longer recognize what is true and real.

Consider the rise of institutional fact-checking. Its mere existence implies there has been a collapse of honesty and trust. One researcher wrote that the practices of fact-checking share the tacit presupposition that there cannot be genuine political debate about facts, because facts are unambiguous and not subject to interpretation [8]. Such a presupposition is wrong because we are always interpreting reality. In outsourcing our ability to discern truth, we relinquish our own interpretative ability. 64% of U.S. adults report difficulty evaluating the truthfulness of elected officials [9]. Fact-checking can neither fix the issue of honesty nor consistently handle the interpretation of statements that are not black-and-white.

Healthy politics is the negotiation of what should be done, not what is real, true, or right. Politics is necessarily ambiguous to an extent; were it not, it would be a matter of pure morality [10]. Due to poor ideologies exacerbated by the Sexual Revolution, most Americans feel exhausted and angry when thinking about politics [11]. We have discovered that when we disagree on the morals that undergird politics, sharing the same debate stage does not mean we share common ground. This problem has grown so much that there is even extensive infighting, or intraparty polarization, in our two dominant partisan groups [12].

There is also a concerning trend in the remnants of American religious morality. Its dual threat comprises, first, the widely recognized dissociation of religion and morality, and second, the less recognized merging of religion with politics, which binds religious morality to the transient and ambiguous nature of politics. In his book

, Jonathan Ruach argues that the political radicalization of Evangelicalism is corrupting the positive moral force of Christianity [13]. To overcome this, Ruach, though an atheist, pleads for a new religious awakening to reclaim what is being subsumed by politics. To tame our political atmosphere, we must recognize both that religion is essential to American morality and that religion should inform politics, not determine them.

I believe that there are few Americans who wish to see our political landscape immersed in perpetual contention. If we are to avoid another devastating civil conflagration, being politically idle, counter-cultural, or merely non-partisan is insufficient. Rather, we must take responsibility, first in ourselves and then in our local communities, to instigate a moral awakening. We must consolidate with others around fundamental truths and moral principles, as endorsed by the Founders. Only then will we return to real civility.

Come back with me to the early weeks of March, when 25 BYU students are stepping out of airport vans onto dewy green turf in La Mirada, California. The sweeping sunshine and balmy breeze are quite at odds with the tension percolating among the students, of whom the majority are members of the Church of Jesus Latter-day Saintsthey are going as wanderers in a strange land, as the prophet Jacob so neatly puts it, to visit with students at Biola University, an evangelical Christian university [1].

Biola students greet us warmly, inviting us to the beach after a three-day series of interfaith dialogues. Professors guide conversations on both shared beliefs and sharp differencesthe nature of God, the continuation of scripture, prophetic authoritytopics that have long divided our faiths.

In advance of the discussions BYU as well as Biola had long prepped, prayed, and paid hearty lip service towards these interfaith dialogues. And I say

intentionally. In our safe, homogenous classroom at BYU, it was so easy to discuss sky-level issues in which I had no personal stake. But now, all of a sudden, Im back at Biolaand Im sitting across from a Biola student who just

agree with meand my preparation and lofty ideals recede so that all I see in front of me is the evangelical preacher who yelled at me when I was a missionary, or the nondenominational Christian soccer mom who told me I was going to hell. All of a sudden I cant see the student for himself anymore, nor the meal sitting in front of me that Biola prepared; all of a sudden I feel like a brand-new missionary again, locked in a Bible bash, and I want to

until he sees things my way.

Our dialogue, as many of the other students dialogues, show certain tendencies. Biola students frequently focus on theological differences. BYU students frequently focus on explaining Latter-day Saint doctrine with precise, desperate detail. Again and again, the pattern repeats. Biola students:

BYU students:

As I instinctually dig into my own explanations, I feel something deeper, something another BYU student later puts more concisely than my heart did:

accept

I walk away at the end of the night feeling rattled. Something about the exchanges felt misaligned. We were aiming at different targets.

This tension points to broader challenges in interfaith dialogue. So often, we enter conversations hoping to correct the other sides perception of

while leaving our perceptions of

intact. I walked into Biola carrying a secret hopesecret even to myselfnot to adopt a Biola students viewpoint, but for them to adopt

. Essentially, I came wanting to win.

But in many disagreements, if someone walks away feeling like a winner, someone else is bound to walk away feeling like a loser.

One of the professors facilitating the gathering, Tim Muehlhoff, pointed us away from

. Muehlhoff, a communication scholar at Biola who has spent years studying civil discourse among religious and political opponents [2], urged participants to adopt a demanding but clarifying standard after the conversation ends.

When you return to your own community, he said, commit to speaking well of the people you met. Defend them against caricature. Describe their beliefs in ways they themselves would recognize as fair.

In other words:

The advice sounds simple, but it is surprisingly radical in practice. It asks participants not merely to tolerate disagreement but to become translatorspeople capable of explaining perceived opponents with empathy and honesty. This means merging your opponents idea of a win with

idea of a win. Put another way, it means making a new ingroup with your opponent.

Not everyone welcomes the expansion of ingroups. Muehlhoff has faced criticism from some conservative donors and right-leaning commentators who believe that hosting dialogues with Latter-day Saints risks legitimizing heresy. From that perspective, conversation itself appears dangerous. But meeting with those who see the world differently does not erase the depth of the convictions held by either evangelicals or Latter-day Saints. If anything, such meetings demand clearer thinking and deeper grounding in ones own beliefs.

But more importantly, they require an expansion of love and grace. They require the shifting of goalposts to not

but to become

with opponents. Because the measure of such dialogues is not persuasion, but the creation of peace in

hearts. After all, what does Jesus Christ do? He does not beleaguer or shout, but He comes down to our level in order to understand us

asking us to understand and ascend with Him.

In conclusion, remember my desperate desire

. Yet I, in my pursuit of my own goal, completely failed to comprehend the goal of the Biola student in front of me. In other words, I failed to understand or accept him, and peace does not emerge from two opposite goals, accounting for my dissatisfaction at the nights end. Instead, peace emerges from the contentment of both groups with the other; peace emerges when we understand what peace looks like through anothers eyes.

Dear Reader,

The theme of this edition is War and Peace.

Which feels either incredibly profound or slightly ironic, considering most of the wars Ive witnessed this year have been over comma placement, thesis statements, and whether a sentence is punchy or just unclear. (For the record, those debates can get heated.)

This is the last issue of the year, and thus my last letter as editor. I have tried a few different openings for this. Something reflective, something profound, something that would make it feel like a proper ending. None of them quite worked, which feels appropriate, because this experience has been less like a clean conclusion and more like a series of ongoing conversations that I am now, bittersweetly, stepping out of.

At some point this year, I realized that editing is a very specific kind of job. You spend most of your time telling people that their ideas are good, but could be better, clearer, fairer, sharper, more precise, less repetitive, slightly restructured, and maybe also completely reworked. And somehow, they come back with something stronger every time.

On a more personal note, editing this journal this school year has been one of the absolute highlights of my college experience. Not because everything ran smoothly (it did not), or because every piece was perfect on the first try (also not true), but because the people involved cared enough to keep going anyway.

I will look back fondly on the endless hours spent with our publisher (and soon-to-be editor-in-chief) Rozlyn, sitting in the Poli Sci office until midnight printing each edition. I expect to feel somewhat of a void without having to nag the authors to fix minor details in their pieces, reading some

guest submissions, or discussing politics in the class period.

Every year, someone does this. Every year, someone says goodbye, and then a new editor shows up in the fall and starts the whole thing again. It is a little like being part of a relay race where you finally reach the end of your stretch.

So this is me, passing it off.

To the writers, thank you for being willing to revise, rethink, and occasionally tolerate excessive comments in the margins. To Rozlyn and Dr. Romney, our faculty advisor, thank you for caring about details that most people would not think twice about. And to you, the reader, thank you for being our reason why.

Good luck next year! I cant wait to read the future articles.

Sincerely,

Annie Walker

Editor-in-Chief

Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus

Most people think of peace as the natural state of the world, the condition that exists when nothing disturbs it. Conflict, in this view, is an aberration. Peace is the default.

That assumption is wrong, and the consequences of holding it are

.

Peace between nations does not spontaneously break outit is earned through strength and maintained through resolve.

Such international peace is not a resting state. It does not persist on its own, emerge from goodwill, or survive on the strength of signed agreements. It is claimed and defendedor it collapses.

Every era of sustained international stability in recorded history, from the

to the post-World War II order, has rested not on the absence of conflict but on the presence of a power willing and able to make conflict too costly to pursue.

Remove that power, or refuse to wield it, and peace does not linger. It evaporates.

Thomas Hobbes understood this principle. Without a sovereign power capable of enforcing order, he argued, life defaults not to tranquility but to conflict. Peace, for Hobbes, was never the default. It was an achievement, and a fragile one. It required power to create it and power to sustain it [1].

Two thousand years before him, Thucydides had reached the same conclusion. His account of the Peloponnesian War is not simply a military history; it is a political study on what happens when the balance of power shifts, when established powers grow complacent and hesitant, and rivals grow ambitious and powerful. The strong do what they can, the Athenians told the Melians, and the weak suffer what they must [2].

Brutalbut honest about how the world operates. Neither Hobbes nor Thucydides was advocating for war. They were describing reality. To describe it clearly is not to morally endorse the predatory exercise of power; it is the precondition for understanding the world and being a responsible actor within it.

The lesson for America is

to emulate Athens, a power so confident in its potential hegemony that it discarded restraint and eventually destroyed itself. Americas lesson is also to avoid being Melos, a small power clinging to its neutrality that trusted in the goodness of the world rather than the strength of its walls and was annihilated. Nor should it be Sparta, an established power that let its resolve slip until rivals stopped believing in its deterrence.

Realism does not describe the world as we wish it wereit describes the world as it actually is, and that clarity is the only foundation on which effective foreign policy can be built.

Adversaries do not calculate goodwill; they calculate capability and will. When a nation demonstrates both, the cost of aggression against it rises. When it signals neither, that cost falls, and someone pays it. History is full of examples; so is the present.

That clarity has not always guided American foreign policy. From Wilsonian idealism to the architecture of the United Nations, the impulse to substitute institutions and goodwill for realism in an anarchic world has repeatedly produced predictable failures.

Liberal internationalism is, at its core, a utopian project.

Utopian foreign policythat is, one built on how the world ought to behave, rather than how it doesdoes not produce better outcomes. It produces preventable disasters. President Theodore Roosevelt knew better.

"Speak softly and carry a big stick" was not merely a colorful expression; it was a legitimate foreign policy doctrine. And the doctrine only works if adversaries believe the stick will be used [3].

In 1907, Roosevelt sent sixteen battleships on a world tour, the so-called Great White Fleet. No shots were fired. None needed to be. The message was received. The stick had been shownand everyone understood it would be used. And that is precisely how deterrence worksthrough the credible promise of consequences, and when necessary, their delivery [4].

Ronald Reagan understood the same principle and made it the cornerstone of American foreign policy. Where his predecessors had sought coexistence with the Soviet Union, Reagan chose confrontationnot direct military conflict, but the confrontation of civilizations. He named the Soviet Union an evil empire, rebuilt American military strength, and made plain that the United States would not blink [5, 6]. "We maintain the peace through our strength," he declared, "weakness only invites aggression, [7]."

For Reagan, this was not merely a slogan; it was the philosophical backbone of his entire geopolitical strategy.

The results vindicated his approach. Reagan invested heavily in NATO, pressured allies to meet their defense commitments, and pursued the Strategic Defense Initiativeor Star Warsto render Soviet nuclear deterrence obsolete [8]. He directly confronted the global advance of Soviet power.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it did so not on a battlefield but under the weight of its own inability to compete with an America that had refused to back down, refused to be complacent. The Cold War ended not through diplomacy alonebut through the strength that made diplomacy meaningful and peace possible.

Tragically, the credibility established by men like Roosevelt and Reagan did not survive intact in the hands of their successors.

From Obama's unenforced red line in Syria to Biden's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the message sent to adversaries was consistentour leaders had set limits on American resolve, and those limits could be found.

In 2013, President Obama declared that the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would cross a red line. Assad crossed it. The United States did not act. What followed was not simply a humanitarian catastrophe, it was a credibility catastrophe [9]. Adversaries around the world updated their assessments of American resolve, and they did not update them upward.

President Biden picked the failure up right where President Obama left off. The 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan was not simply a policy failure, it was yet another credibility-damaging signal. By executing in chaos, abandoning allies, and handing the Taliban an entire country in days, it told every adversary watching that American commitments had a breaking point [10]. Beijing watched. Moscow watched. Tehran watched. They drew conclusions. Six months later, Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine.

The Biden administration's approach to Iran compounded the damage further. Rather than facing maximum pressure, the Islamic Republic was met with accommodationclose to $100 billion in sanctions relief and frozen assets returned to a regime that promptly used that money to train and fund groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, who turned around and invaded Israel [11, 12]. A White House that told Tehran "don't" while writing them checks forfeited

claim to credibility [13].

The contrast with the current administration could not be starker. Where prior administrations had drawn lines and retreated, President Trump drew lines and

enforced them. That is the difference between an empty warning and a deterrent.

The results have been swift and unmistakable.

In June 2025, American forces struck Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan under Operation Midnight Hammer, making plain that the administration's warnings regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions were not empty threats [14].

In January 2026, the United States extracted Nicols Maduro from Venezuelaa man wanted for narco-terrorism and fentanyl trafficking who had long believed American enforcement had no teethand brought him to face justice [15].

In February 2026, when Iran did not stand down and slaughtered protesters in open defiance of President Trump's explicit warningemboldened by years of unenforced red lines and American appeasementPresident Trump did not blink. He positioned our forces, and Operation Epic Fury followed [16]. The conflict is ongoingbut the signal it sends is already clear. America has relearned that a red line without consequence is not a red line at all. It is an invitation.

Iran and Venezuela, both heavily dependent on Russian and Chinese weaponry, have offered an instructive case study in the reliability of those arms [17, 18]. America embarrassed both powers through our swift dominance over their client states [19, 20], showing us that Russia is more like a rabbit than a bear, and China more like a panda than a dragon.

Some argue that American military strength provokes Chinathat a show of force gives Beijing justification to move on Taiwan. The

opposite is true. What deters Chinese aggression is not American restraint but American credibilitythe demonstrated certainty that any move on Taiwan would carry painful consequences for the aggressor [21, 22]. America must continue to demonstrate capability and will.

American strength protects Americans. American dominance protects the world. When America defends itself, it defends its alliesand in so doing, brings order to an anarchic world. That order is not imperialism or exploitation. It is the condition under which the weak are protected, not preyed upon. The alternativean America that retreats, accommodates, and appeasesdoes not produce a more peaceful world. It produces quite the opposite.

America should not shoulder that burden alonebut we

lead.

International peace is more durable when it is not shouldered by America alone. Israel's credible deterrence and strategic alignment with American interests demonstrates what a capable ally looks like. America is far more willing to act alongside allies who have its back and are capable of defending themselves. Traditional allies would do well to take note of the price of partnership. Like Reagan, Trump has pressured NATO allies to step up and meet their defense commitments. Burden-sharing is not optional in a dangerous world [23, 24].

If you want peace, prepare for war [25]. Thucydides recorded it. Hobbes understood it. Roosevelt embodied it. Reagan rebuilt it. Trump restored it. The only question is whether the administrations that follow Trump's have the resolve to sustain itnot just in bursts of action, but as a permanent commitment to the strength that makes diplomacy meaningful and peace possible.

The values of a society are made clear not only by what it celebrates, but also by what it tolerates. Americans have a proud history of instituting protections to shield the rising generation from harmful substances. In the 80s, we created the D.A.R.E program to try to keep hard drugs out of schools, earning the famous title of war on drugs. [1] Even as a child who grew up in the early 2000s, I distinctly remember being educated about the harms of drugs thanks to programs like D.A.R.E in my kindergarten classroom in Detroit, Michigan.

Despite this history of striving to protect children, for far too long, Americans and our government have tolerated the practically unfettered reign and proliferation of the porn industry. Often dismissed from mainstream conversations due to its image as a matter of personal concern, it has instead become a deeply influential public force one that commodifies the human body, erodes cultural understanding of dignity and human worth, and is too easily accessible by our societys young and developing minds. It is time to declare yet another war, not on any nation or people, but rather the porn industry itself.

The failure by many government leaders to excise this mass has brought us to today, where the online adult entertainment industry saw over seven billion dollars in growth between 2023 and 2024, and is expected to top over $118 billion in annual revenue by 2030 [2].

A nation that proudly claims to protect the vulnerable and value families cannot, in good conscience, continue to ignore an industry whose influence has been so far-reaching and destructive. Pornography is not simply a private matter; it is a public problem, and one that, if we fail to place real and effective restrictions on, will lead to the further degradation of our society.

The biggest question many pose is why? Why is the porn industry bad? Is it not a freedom that consenting adults should be able to enjoy? In part due to the limited dialogue around the topic, people are not naturally aware of the dangers of porn as much as they are of things like alcohol or hard drugs.

Unfortunately, porn has higher consumption rates of either of those things while still having just as impactful effects, with nearly 85% of university-aged American males surveyed reporting consuming it at least once a week. [3] The long-term mental health effects are also dire. A study found that when surveying various university students, 17.0, 20.4, and 13.5% of students reported severe or extremely severe levels of depression, anxiety, and stress, respectively, with compulsive pornography use significantly affecting all three mental health parameters in both sexes [3].

Deeper than just mental health, pornography corrupts the vision of society that we all hope for. Happy families, healthy communication, more equality and partnership with friends and neighbors. Unfortunately, pornography consumption has been significantly linked to less egalitarian attitudes toward women and more hostile sexism [4]. A meta-analysis of twenty-two studies focused on pornography and their effects found that porn consumption is linked to acts of sexual aggression (r = .28), including both instances of verbal (r = .3) and physical (r = .2). [9] Porn is damaging, not healing, the relationships that our youth are experiencing. Left unchecked, I see a future where societys young men and women will avoid each other out of fear and a lack of skill in communication.

Now we must evaluate potential solutions. States like Utah and Louisiana have put in place age-verification checks for adult content sites. [5] Refusing to comply with such measures, some of the largest distributors of adult content have pulled their services from these states. Let me be abundantly clear, this is a victory for childrens protections. Companies that refuse to invest in basic and essential protections to keep minors off their platforms do not deserve the right to operate as a legal entity. In other instances, states have tightened restrictions on content being shown to minors at all. Not just stopping at actual adult content platforms, but ensuring that advertisements, video games, and normal websites wont be sexualized and commercialized to students. CIPA, a program that offers cheaper internet to school districts, requires that they have measures in place to block and filter out any content that might be described as obscene. [8]

Currently, the US court system has fought to bring other sources of addiction to some form of reconciliation. A court held hearings on Metas role in designing an effectively addictive model of their social media platforms to hook youth. [6] [7] I am not here to argue whether porn or social media is worse, but I want to point out that if we are genuinely concerned about protecting the youth of America, we need to invest in creating systems that shield them from developing harmful addictions. Just as I once sat in a kindergarten class in Detroit, Michigan, young students can be benefitted through education and guidance on how to avoid addictive behaviors.

The values of a society are made clear not only by what it celebrates, but also by what it tolerates. I choose to believe that America still values protecting our youth.

What happened in Vietnam is no secret. An estimated 3.8 million people died violently during the twenty-year war, including 2 million civilians [1]. To strip the leaf cover from forests, increase visibility along transportation routes and destroy crops suspected of supplying guerrilla forces, the United States dumped 13 million gallons of the herbicide Agent Orange on Vietnam [1, 2]. This exposed roughly 4 million Vietnamese, leading to an estimated 1 million people suffering severe health problems and birth defects, while also exposing 2.8 million U.S. veterans to similar effects [1]. The ecocide caused by Agent Orange devastated agriculture as well, seeping into soil and water supplies and harming nearly everything it touched [2, 3].

While these effects are widely known, the American public remains largely unaware of equally troubling consequences in Laos and Cambodia.

In attempts to disrupt North Vietnamese supply chains, the United States dropped cluster bombs and sprayed Agent Orange along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which runs through southern Laos and eastern Cambodia [4, 5]. At the time, Laos was already in the midst of a civil war (19531975). According to President Kennedy, the United States did not want to invade Laos because it wouldnt be favorable terrain for conventional warfare, so the country was bombed secretly instead [4, 6]. Over a nine-year period, the United States eventually dropped the equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day [4]. In total, the United States dropped more than two million tons of cluster bombs on a country roughly the size of Oregon [8]. This was more than all the bombs dropped during WWII combined, making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in human history [4, 7].

The consequences were devastating. Thousands of Laotians died during the bombing campaign, and nearly one-third of the approximately 270 million cluster bombs failed to explode [6]. The bombing contributed to the deaths of roughly one-tenth of Laoss population, and in the decades since the war, at least 20,000 people have been killed or maimed by unexploded ordnance [4]. Areas exposed to Agent Orange in Laos also report birth defects, developmental disabilities, and environmental damage similar to those seen in Vietnam [5]. Communities in heavily bombed regions experience lower economic development and reduced educational attainment [6]. The US public found out via Congressional hearings in 1971, but the bombing continued till 1973 [9].

In 2016, President Obama became the first U.S. president to visit Laos and pledged increased funding for demining efforts [4]. However, at the current pace, clearing unexploded ordnance could take more than a century [6].

Cambodia experienced similar devastation. The bombing campaign began in March 1969 under the code name Operation Breakfast [10]. The Nixon administration used a double-entry bookkeeping system to conceal the operation from Congress [9]; even top officials in the Pentagon were kept in the dark [11]. By May 1969, however, the secret was exposed when a New York Times article revealed the covert bombing campaign [12].

In April 1970, President Nixon ordered a ground invasion of Cambodia. Declaring that the mission was intended to destroy the headquarters of communist military operations in South Vietnam, he ignored substantial military evidence suggesting that no such headquarters existed [11]. Growing public opposition to the Vietnam War soon undermined the effort. Massive protests erupted across the United States, forcing Nixon to withdraw American troops [10, 13].

The bombing campaign continued until August 1973 and left lasting damage similar to that seen in Laos and Vietnam. Approximately 40,900 gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed on southern Cambodian villages [14]. In addition, 26 million cluster bombs were dropped, roughly 25 percent of which never detonated. As a result, about 15 percent of Cambodias land remains too dangerous to farm [14, 15]. Areas exposed to bombing today show lower levels of education and earlier marriage among women [16]. The United States has contributed $220 million to demining efforts in Cambodia, but financial assistance cannot erase the long-term damage [17].

After all this destruction, did the United States achieve its geopolitical goals? Vietnam and Laos remain communist today. In Cambodia, the U.S. bombing campaign helped destabilize the country, fueling a civil war that pushed devastated populations toward the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which ultimately killed more than 2 million people [11, 14]. At home, government deception surrounding these secret wars contributed to a deep erosion of public trust, shaping what some scholars call todays politics of resentment [18].

The secret wars of the 1970s left behind a haunted landscape of unexploded bombs, environmental destruction, and generations of injured civilians. For Americans who have not experienced war on their own soil for generations, the devastation can feel distant. But for communities in Laos and Cambodia, the war never truly ended.

As a sworn officer, my fundamental duty is to serve the community by safeguarding . . . against threats that could. . . impact peace and order. I will uphold the Constitution and honor the rights of all to life, liberty, equality, and justice. I will never employ unnecessary force. I will respect the privacy of people and communities that I serve, and I will fully obey the laws that I am sworn to enforce. [1]

This is part of the first paragraph of the Police Code of Ethics from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, written in 1957. It broadly defines the necessity, purpose, and constraints of officers as they perform their duties both in the field and in the office. Police officers swear to keep the peace and maintain high moral standing, especially while in uniform.

In the last decade or so, several instances of police brutality have been highlighted by the media. In response to some police brutality, people have rioted in protest, pushing for police reform. The medias portrayal of officers has been a disservice to the men and women who serve in uniform to protect domestic peace. Their job is to

peace, and the vast majority of the 750,000 law enforcement officers in the United States do just that [2]. Assuming the system is broken because of certain tragic eventswhich are genuinely awful and should never have happened in the first placeis a far cry from reality.

Calls for Reform and Their Results

A memorable police reform movement occurred after the death of George Floyd in 2020. In response to police brutality, 20 states had riots, resulting in an estimated $1 billion in damages, based on insurance claim reports [3]. With public calls to defund the police and to increase police accountability, Congress drafted a bill to standardize reforms, including lowering the standard for police to be convicted of misconduct, limiting unnecessary use of force, building a national record database for officer misconduct, and allowing the Department of Justice to make standards for police training. This bill barely passed the House and got stuck in the Senate, where it died [4].

Other reforms proposed after George Floyd included body cameras, bias training, restriction of force, and civilian oversight boards. Generally, they were intended to improve peacekeeping, but have had little effect on police behavior and accountability. Body cameras, for instance, have caused little to no substantive difference in the use of force by officers or against officers [5]. Civilian oversight boards have floundered without sufficient power to make changes, and they can even negatively affect trust between police and the public, even though they were created to do the opposite [6]. Bias training programs were already around before George Floyd, with around 70% of large police agencies using them by 2019 [7]. Reforms have only shown that police have already built a system of high-quality training that keeps officers accountable. Any officer who does not follow their respective areas police regulations does so in violation of the training they have already received.

Yes, there are still officers who do things wrong. And yes, there is an indication that race can contribute to how officers treat civilians [8]. That, however, is not an indication that an already highly regulated system requires more heavy-handed reforms. The public can be outraged by bad cops, but no one hates a bad cop more than the good cops [9].

How Policing Works Today

In the US, cops contact around 135,000 people every day. Of that, fewer than 2% result in any form of physical altercation [9]. While 2,700 physical altercations in the country are nothing to discount, police are generally trained to de-escalate potentially physical interactions, use non-lethal force, and protect peoples lives [10]. They are extensively trained to make split-second decisions intended to maintain peace. Some police are required to undergo the same kind of training they use to incapacitate people who are not compliant or are breaking the law, like tasers and pepper spray [9].

Law enforcement misconduct is treated very seriously. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, for example, systematically handles any sort of misconduct perpetrated by federal officers and even penalizes officers for having knowledge of misconduct and not reporting it [11]. These processes are meant to keep the peace and be respectful to officers, treating them as fairly as possible in court, just like citizens are treated as fairly as possible. They also ensure police are accomplishing their purpose of maintaining peace and order in our communities.

Domestic Peace

Because of the media, we only think of officers who have caused serious problems to citizens and our nation. Those officers are a minuscule percentage of the officers who work to ensure our homes are protected, our streets are safe, our children are looked after, and our families are whole. While some people have had bad experiences with officers, those experiences are not demonstrative of an institutional illness within the ranks of law enforcement, but rather a symptom of individualistic issues. Officers are peopleparents, spouses, siblings, aunts, uncles, sons, and daughters. They do the same things we do, like going to their parents home for Sunday dinner and taking their children to soccer practice. They are an integral part of national order and domestic peace, whether theyre in uniform or not. They build peace in their own homes and in our cities. Working alongside these brave men and women is our responsibility, as are our justice and our peace.

I deleted social media (besides linkedin) three months ago. I have lacked the will to cleanse myself from this vice for years, even though it had often consumed my time, and I could tell that social media was making me angrier and causing poor effects on my attention span. I justified staying online by telling myself that Id be less connected to friends I dont see regularly, less plugged into the news, and miss out on social or local events. Since being off social media, these concerns have proven unfounded or strongly outweighed by the benefits.

The last three months have been among the most peaceful of my life, amidst a busy school, work, and family balance. I am more present with the people I do see regularly and dont miss updates on loose connections. I read better news sources and have a more comprehensive understanding of current events, and I have less FOMO (fear of missing out) on things happening around me. With that context, here is my data-backed pitch to you to delete social media.

I understand that the poor and even dangerous effects of social media have been widely written about, but as Governor Cox has said, however much you hate social media, you do not hate it enough. Social media companies are the large cigarette companies of our day. They profit from a severe public health crisis, and intervention is necessary.

The Facebook Papers, which were leaked internal documents in 2021, cemented the claim that Meta puts profits over the public good [1]. The Wall Street Journal did incredible journalism work to comb through these documents and find what Meta knew internally, and most importantly, what they chose to ignore, or even weaponize.

Researchers at Instagram found and posted to an internal message board that thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. The year before this internal message post, researchers also posted that we make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls [2]. The internal documents prove that Facebook has downplayed these issues to the public and made minimal efforts to address them on the app. Meta used data proving that teen girls were suffering at the hands of their product to continue to monetize their insecurities by keeping them on the app.

The Facebook papers also show that Meta knew about the addictive effects that social media has on kids. We all know, internally, that spending hours scrolling is bad, yet we continue to do it (currently trying to quit YouTube Shorts).

One Instagram researcher said, teens told us that they don't like the amount of time they spend on the app but feel like they have to be present They often feel 'addicted' and know that what they're seeing is bad for their mental health, but feel unable to stop themselves." These researchers also concluded that teens regularly reported wanting to spend less time on Instagram, but lacked the self-control to do so. In reaction to this section of the Facebook papers, Senator Richard Blumenthal said, Facebook seems to be taking a page from the textbook of Big Tobacco targeting teens with potentially dangerous products while masking the science in public."

Teens are currently spending an average of 4.8 hours per day on social media. The average teen spends 31% of their average waking time on social media [3]. This excludes other forms of screen time, like watching TV, gaming, etc. This will always be extremely profitable. Last quarter, Meta made over $59 billion in revenue [4]. Meta knows that many of us want to quit, but because we are their cash cows, they continue to push addictive algorithms. They feed us rage bait, targeted advertising based on extremely specific and data-mined information, and utilize bottomless short-form videos to keep us hooked. Quitting is especially difficult for adolescents and children, whose brains are particularly malleable.

Another critical aspect of child and adolescent health and development is attention span. I have felt these effects personally. I remember being at a social function and feeling like I needed to take a scroll break to recharge. I believe my social attention span has been damaged, particularly by short-form video content like TikTok and Instagram Reels.

Many share this sentiment and have experienced similar attention span issues. The research also shows this. Short-form videos are technologically programmed to addict adolescents because of their bottomless design and targeted algorithms. The list of causally related harms from short-form content includes: poor vision, decreased physical fitness, emotional regulation problems, and reduced feelings of well-being [5]. Academic procrastination is directly affected, and student attentional control is indirectly affected by short-form video content [6]. Short-form video addiction has even been found to cause suicide [7].

This doomsday-type list comes from peer-reviewed, academic studies. Its not just a list of hypothetical correlations- its causational relationships between short-form video addiction and negative health outcomes.

Meta is Marlboro repackaged. Today, everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, and cigarette use is astronomically down since its peak in the 60s. But people just didnt

smoking. It was preceded by research that linked smoking to lung cancer, and was then followed up with litigation, legislative excise taxes, and regulation. We must pull all of these levers to protect the public from what research shows to be serious harms caused by social media.

Over 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits to hold Meta accountable for the harm that they have caused. It was the lawsuit in California that compelled the release of the Facebook Papers and proved that Meta acted against the interests of the public while withholding information.

I am writing this article just a day after New Mexico won its lawsuit, with a jury concluding that Meta had violated state law by harming childrens mental health and enabling child predators. Meta was ordered to pay $375 million in damages. The jurors heard testimonies from whistleblowers and former executives, and reviewed internal correspondence that glaringly proved that Meta failed to adequately protect children from predators and sextortion [8]. Utah is part of a broad coalition of states suing Meta for its harmful effects on kids [9]. As these internal documents have been made available via litigation, it has become strikingly clear that social media, and particularly Meta, is a public health and safety issue.

Regulating social media companies can be extremely difficult. The First Amendment largely prevents regulating speech on social media, and something like the social media ban in Australia for kids under 16 would likely be found unconstitutional here in the U.S. Age verifications have been successfully passed in some states, but minors can often easily bypass these verifications. The thing thats so savvy about the Australian ban is that social media companies are the ones found liable for minor social media use, not the kids or parents themselves. They are subject to a fee if minors are using their platforms, thus incentivizing them to create sufficient barriers to entry [10]. This Australian law is the best-case scenario, but a ban of this nature faces a serious uphill constitutional battle.

Excise taxes were incredibly effective in deterring smoking and could be used in the context of social media. The Internet Tax Freedom Act (IFTA) prevents taxing digital advertising differently from other types of physical advertisements [11]. Numerous states, including Utah, have started taxing targeted advertising [12]. This type of advertising can apply to specific physical types of advertising, but also applies to the data-mined, targeted advertising that social media platforms profit from. While I would support repealing ITFA, targeted advertising taxes are a reasonable starting point. Without the constraints of ITFA, however, social media companies could be subject to large excise taxes that could reduce profitability and make this exploitative business less lucrative.

I am hopeful that the government and the private sector will pull the necessary levers to hold big social media companies accountable. But what can lay people do? Most of us don't hold political office, run huge social media platforms, nor are we lawyers in a capacity to sue for change. But I still think there are things we can do to fight the harmful effects of social media. It starts with getting off social media ourselves. Sincerely ask yourself if there are any genuine, legitimate reasons for you to be on a platform that carries such loaded effects. For a small group of business owners, being on social media really is necessary. Im sympathetic to that. But content can be limited to business purposes only. As parents or future parents, we can also create strict social media limits (or bans) with our kids. Their development will be much healthier, and we can be the enforcers that the government cant be.

My last argument is that we need to stop idolizing influencers. I argue that influencers are not creating positive change, even if they genuinely want to do so. I used to find myself listening to faith-based content creators more than the time I actually spend in the scriptures or praying. Lifestyle influencers often showcase a beautiful but idyllic and totally unrealistic lifestyle that promotes comparison and robs joy. Clothing influencers promote overconsumerism instead of contentment and sustainability. And lastly, influencers that keep it real puzzle me.

We really should all know less about each other. I understand the sentiment that some influencers want to capture a more realistic version of their lives, rather than an exclusive highlight reel. But I think that sharing ones most difficult and vulnerable experiences with the masses causes them harm. Personal matters and trials were never meant to be shown in real time to strangers. It exploits their own pain, typically to keep audiences watching and invested. This ruins the sanctity and holiness that I think adversity is meant to bring to our lives. There is certainly purpose in communal suffering, but grief is meant to be shared in real communities, not the online abyss. Obviously, influencers arent the crux of the problem with social media, but they are complicit in its harms. They also monetize off addictive algorithms and the harm that social media perpetuates.

In an issue about peace, I want to emphasize the importance of personal peace. Social media sows seeds of rage bait and comparison. The fruit of these seeds is internal and external conflict. I am angry when I think about what social media has taken from me over the years. It has robbed me of time, attention span, and connection. It has often replaced peace with unnecessary anger. Since unshackling from social media, Ive read more, journaled, spent more time with family and friends, and gotten better sleep. Contributing to a more peaceful world starts by cultivating peace within ourselves. This is only truly achieved by unplugging from social media.

When global conversations are framed by lexicons of war and peace, it is easy to imagine conflict as something that happens only between states or armies. Yet the logic of conflict begins much closer to home. Interpersonally, conflict occurs everyday. In conflict resolution, conflict can be defined simply as

. The key word is perceive. When people believe their differences are irreconcilable, they can quickly reach an impasse, making productive conversation or collective decision-making nearly impossible.

This is where mediation may provide some practical advice. At its best, mediation is forward-thinking. Rather than adjudicating who is right, it asks what might be possible moving forward, looking ahead, and in the future. Effective mediation also requires creating what practitioners call a brave space. This is not to be confused with a

space where every opinion must be validated. Instead, a brave space is a setting where people are willing to engage difficult ideas and explore disagreement without letting it paralyze the conversation. As such, a brave space requires a willingness to be proven wrong.

One of the first steps mediators take is distinguishing between positions and interests. A

is what someone says they want: their initial demand. An

, by contrast, reflects the underlying need or motivation behind that demand. For example, a parent in a custody dispute might insist, I want to drive the children to every practice. That is the position. The deeper interest might be, I want to maximize time with my children. Once interests are identified, the conversation can shift from rigid demands to creative solutions that could, might, or would address both parties needs.

Another key distinction is between mirroring and reframing.

involves reflecting back what someone has said, often repeating their words or emotions to show that they have been heard. This matters because emotion is part of the conflict; ignoring it often allows the issue to resurface later.

, however, restates a comment in a way that highlights the underlying concern and promotes resolution. If one party says, Theyre trying to shut us out completely, a mediator might reframe it as, It sounds like youre worried about being excluded from the decision-making process. Reframing shifts the conversation from accusation to understanding. Both are instrumental to effective mediation, depending on whether the initial goal is to validate or be focus more on moving forward.

Consider a politicized example: a debate over immigration policy. One sides position may be stricter border enforcement, while another demands expanded humanitarian protections. Through mediation, the conversation might reveal deeper interests such as security, dignity, economic stability, or fairness. By adopting a language of possibility, using phrases like not yet, up to this point, would you be willing, or what might a future solution look like? participants move from confrontation toward collaboration.

Peacemaking is often associated with passivity. At best peacemaking is specious and at its worst reinforces the status quo. Active peacemaking, however, depolarizes. One need not love someone in order to live rightly by them. At its core, peacemaking is a question of conduct: how we listen, how we speak, and whether we believe dialogue can still open paths that once seemed closed.

At nineteen years old, one of us was serving a mission in Guatemala, navigating questions about faith, culture, and what it meant to share belief across lines of language and history, as the only blonde girl in Doc Martens and a nametag in sight.

The other was called an imperialist crusader for a white Jesus in inner-city Black America. As I tried to wrap my head around what that meant, a man stood in my face close enough I could smell his lunch, between the showers of his yelling slobber hitting my face. In his mind, my faith and I were a threat to his culture, the nature of God, and his way of life.

Pondering these experiences, the quiet skepticism of one place and the open hostility of another, we began to learn a shared secret about peacemaking: we had both reasoned at times that our church and faith were truer than any other, leaving little room to recognize truth elsewhere.

Conflict is a choice. Peace is a better one. Interreligious dialogue and the true teachings of different faiths invite diverse societies and foreign powers to choose the latter every time. The choice of peace is enabled by the preventative security of religious pluralism.

The security of proactive peacemaking is not limited to Christians turning the other cheek, Muslims spreading the greeting of

, or Jews actively pursuing

in their communities. Many more faith traditions teach doctrines of peacemaking and bridge-building; the barrier to peace lies in the failure to seek understanding.

Consider the systematic persecution and violence against Yazidis in Iraq, whose communities have been viewed and feared as devil worshippers. When given the chance to explain their faith in their own words, they found meaningful healing as government and other faith leaders accept[ed] them into the community [1]. Interfaith coalitions hold the key to pluralistic understanding, opening the door to peaceful coexistence.

Pluralistic understanding does not solely take place on a national stage, but it can set a precedent for critical work. At Brigham Young University, we are part of a student body that is 99% Latter-day Saint [2]. Because of this, it is not uncommon for individuals to question why interfaith work is necessary in a homogeneous community.

Ithe blonde former missionary in Guatemaladistinctly remember advertising an interfaith event on social media, only to have a friend from back home respond, Whats the diversity? Yall got some Catholics? While we do, in fact, have some Catholics, we also have a number of other faiths and spiritual journeys represented. And it is just as important that the 1% feel they belong as it is for the 99%, because national peace begins with local belonging and interfaith coalitions.

Within the global order, social hostilities and restrictions on religious freedom arise when governments and their people choose the ease of anger over the labor of understanding [3]. Social hostility toward religion is most prevalent in states with national religions that are intolerant of interfaith engagement and in authoritarian regimes [4]. Securing a more peaceful and stable global community begins with the work of interfaith coalitions that view interfaith engagement as a policy of peacemaking.

International interfaith coalitions like Religions for Peace challenge realist international relations theory, which assumes that might makes right, by reimagining power. Consider the impact if we had all religious leaders together, echoing and speaking together. Can you imagine that power? What the world needs right now is cooperation and inclusivity among all religious leaders and voices to help our world [5]. Interfaith coalitions believe in the power of cooperative peace through religious solidarity.

International NGOs like the G20 Interfaith Forum seek to institutionalize the power of peace by uniting religious voices through interfaith dialogue and presenting faith-informed policy on issues of intrastate and international violence, as well as humanitarian efforts [6]. Interfaith institutions prevent violence by proactively pursuing peace and international security, fostering interreligious solidarity and understanding rather than mobilizing religious communities against one another.

The better choice of peace is an interfaith choice, a choice that must first take root in the hearts of religious individuals, then be secured in the policies of communities, nations, and the global order. Mitigating conflict in pursuit of peace and security through interreligious understanding begins with the choices of individuals.

Reflecting on those naive missionaries determined to share their faith, a valuable lesson emerged. As I turned my cheek to avoid offense, I began to hear the sincere concern and devotion of a son of God. His words were not barbs of hate or contempt; rather, they expressed a misunderstood fear of missionary work. He worried about the eternal welfare of the souls of his brothers and sisters in his community and was unafraid of conflict in their defense.

We parted ways with a handshake of peace and a prayer at his request, following our face-to-face conflict after I helped him understand my religious motivations for proselytizing. Our interreligious dialogue of peace began with my acknowledgment of him as a child of God, followed by my explanation that, as missionaries, we serve Gods children and seek to help them find answers to the questions of the soul, but never impose values or violate the right of agency.

That man walked away confident in the eternal security of his community, with a greater understanding of the work of Latter-day Saint missionaries, and, most importantly, without violence. Peace is achieved through the collective choice of understanding over the ease of violence. Interfaith perspectives offer compelling narratives for peace and model dialogue for constructive conflict resolution amid differences.

Security policies and peace rarely begin in conference halls, debate floors, or international forums. More often, they begin with ordinary, cross-cutting interactions that lead to understanding, reminding us that peace is unlikely without belief, and nearly impossible when believers think arguing louder somehow makes them holier.