Current Status
The world is a turbulent place. Until a historically short while ago, acts causing pain and suffering were accepted as a natural part of life. If a regent decided to massacre innocents by the hundreds, it would be considered little more than a political tool to those not among the victims. But during the last century, such acts have become abominations, largely thanks to some of the worst acts of their kind. Pain and suffering have become an enemy.
The United Nations and, before that, the League of Nations, has become somewhat a symbol of this fight, along with other institutions, some of them a part of its network (World Health Organization, UNICEF etc.), some "merely" brothers in arms, such as the Red Cross/Red Crescent Moon, Amnesty International and NATO. These institutions fight a seemingly neverending battle to remove war, disaster, disease and other horrors from our world. To some extent, they are succesful. But there is still a long way to go.
International armed conflict
International armed conflict can roughly be described as one autonomous government deciding upon weakening or even destroying another through the use of troops and weapons. The motives vary, from a feeling of unsafety to a desperate need for resources to shear religious or political hatred. Some wars continue to fuel themselves, sides attacking each other to avenge previous attacks. With many of these, it is hard to find the actual original cause.
This sort of conflict not only does material damage, it also forces other countries to step up military spending, creating distrust and diplomatic unrest between nations. The constant improvements made in rocket science worsens this, as some countries actually have the capability to strike nations far away. Fear and distrust makes otherwise beneficial cooperation impossible. Arming nations excessively takes up enormous resources.
The benefits of reducing such conflicts, even just the distrust involved, should be evident: The populations involved will be allowed more secure lives, and a large amount of resources can be used for other purposes. At current, certain areas of the globe are more prone to these conflicts than others. But as shown in the gulf war, tensions spread easily once a conflict occurs.
Domestic armed conflicts
The various situations sorted under this catagory involve armed rebelions against governments, armed conflicts between two or more groups in one country, and ethnic (or other) "cleansings" of a country. In short, any armed conflict that does not cross a nations border.
The motives are similar to those of international armed conflicts: Unsafety, resources or pure hatred. The problem with domestic conflicts is that of legitimacy of intervention, especially if one side is the established government or just the armed forces. Consequences are much the same, too: Loss of resources and internal distrust. Since it is more complex to isolate an internal conflict, governments tend to use some degree of martial law instead, restricting freedom of movement and action of the population.
Ever since the Sovjet Union dissolved, its former member countries have been at risk of domestic conflicts, some armed, some not. Certain african nations seem cursed with constant internal conflicts, and parts of asia are starting to show the signs of revolution. Several south american countries are quite used to rebelions and even uprising worker unions. Europe and north america, too, are seeing increasing tensions between population groups, often ethnic ones.
Terrorism
Both in the international and domestic form, terrorism works by a small group commiting quick, focused strikes against targets often chosen for easy access and publicity purposes. While the motives of armed conflict are also used in terrorism, terrorists need not be from numerically large groups; small religious groups have used terrorism on several occasions. This makes the spectrum of motives wider, including very confusing ones (the prize might go to the "militant vegetarians" who worked briefly in Sweden some time ago).
Tactics are very different. The best known is bombings, such as the World Trade Center bombing or fundamentalist suicide bombers. However, burning buildings, kidnappings or assinations, plane hijacking and several more are commonly used. While security aganst terrorism is less draining than full military arming, it is also less effective, due to the apparant randomness. The fact that it can strike anywhere, at any time, makes public fear more widespread; wars at least focus on territorial borders.
Mass expropriation
Unlike the groups involved in civil unrest and terrorism, some population groups are too weak to fight back. Many of these are simply chased from their homes with highly inadequate or no resettlement. In addition causing tremendous suffering and crushing the general potentials of large groups, this also creates public unrest and overcrowded or plain hazardous areas of habitation. This often either spreads or explodes into civil unrest, even rebelions.
While governments have definately made use of mass expropriation, industry has also used it to gain areas with valuable resources. In some cases, governments ignore it, expecting financial gains from a bigger industry. In others, the authorities are succesfully kept ignorant, or are outright forced to accept it. But whether governments are responsible, colaborators, or bystanders, the effects are the same for the victims.
Democracy and autocrats
While it is a rather black-and-white generalization, the worlds countries tend to be either democratic, using public vote to form government, even take certain decisions, or autocratic, having one supreme leader holding power often for life. In this last century, democracy has spread at a suprising speed, but tensions have also arised between democratic and autocratic leaders, either considering (and portraiting) the other to be decadent and corrupt, even "evil".
The apparant incompatibility between the two forms of government has hindered cooperation tremendously. Distrust on both sides have only wosened this. Apart from the UN, very few colaborations of scale exist between the two, and only very basic trade exists. Neither side seems capable (or willing) to help the other improve its situation, mostly due to lack of common ground. Many international conflicts and several incidents of terrorism can be traced back to democratic/autocratic friction.
The United Nations
For all its faults, the UN is the worlds best shot at a safe and stable future. It has never been an actual "world government", nor does it seem ever to have aimed for it. Today, consisting of just below 200 nations (nearly the entire world!), it is an invaluable diplomatic center, making multi-national agreements far easier to achieve.
But it does have faults, some of them severe. For one, it is highly dependent on the goodwill of its members; nearly any treaty can be broken with minimal consequence. Also, the complaints from member nations of a heavy internal bureaucracy are not without merit, as large parts of donations to the UN get eaten by intermediate administration, before anything reaches the needy.
Finally, the existence of the Security Council has, not without reason, been accused of being a hinderance to efficiency, and of making much of UN business a bickering between the permanent members, especially the US and Russia. While this is of course less obvious after the demise of the USSR, it still occurs on vital topics. Certain UN-reformists have voiced interest in disbanding the Security Council and transfering its power of decisions to the General Assembly (which encompasses all member nations).
Apart from this, the United Nations still has many vital roles to play, not the least of which is as a symbol of global unity (even if it is not an entirely correct appearance). Its peacekeeping forces do avert many conflicts and ease many others, and the treaties signed by its member nations do have profound effects. It is a good system. But it is far from perfect.
More on the United Nations
International military alliances
Temporary alliances of military nature constantly appear all around the globe. But a few more durable ones also exist, such as NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Other than securing (to a varying extend) the safety of member countries, they also bind them closer together in fields of diplomacy, trade, development and similar areas. Without being an actual "government" with legislative powers (i.e. the right to write laws), such alliances create a national partnership across the board.
The current problem with such alliances is mainly, that they tend to form against a specific outside threat. Two problems spring from this: Firstly, tensions between member nations are replaced with tensions between the alliance and the "opponent". Even today, Russia shows signs of distrust towards NATO (which was originally an alliance against the USSR). Secondly, the alliance becomes difficult to justify once the threat disappears.
In spite of this, military alliances have the important role of creating a unity between nations. While this does create other problems, it allows the member nations to stabilize many internal affairs, improving themselves enough to deal with the new problems. It is a complex balance.
More on NATO
Status quo and the first objective
So, there are a row of problems and a handful of solutions in the world. How does that affect Terra? Naturally, the problems mentioned are what Terra aims to fight. But there are some more intricate speculations made on the connections between these, and the peace agreement mentioned in Objectives.
Dealing with the Devil
If military threats are removed as a political tool, nations will have free hands to do as they will, theoretically. The "safety clause" of allowing UN intervention does present an obstacle to the more ruthless authorities, but with the burden already put on that organization, many will not fear it enough to play fair. Furthermore, terrorism is not affected to any serious degree, for two reasons: It is rarely committed by standard armed troops, but by special "agents", making detection a problem, as well, and it is committed far more often by rogue groups than by actual nations.
A very brutal fact in this matter is, that we are already losing the battle on these fronts. The Rwandan massacre was a textbook example of two demographic groups inhabiting the same country clashing together, and the world community could do nothing. Terrorists continue to bomb, kidnap, murder and destroy, the targets impotent to do anything about it. It will require very thorough cooperation and mutual trust to effectively combat these problems.
What we can do is prevent the worst of consequences. By preventing military aggression, we avoid the unfortunate incidents of nations invading each other as "payback" for terrorist activity (which often is something the accused nation has little control over). But, the avid reader notes, the absence of military threat will allow nations to step up terrorist and/or domestic military activities! Sadly, some will think along these lines, mainly those who would use military aggression out of political or religious hatred. With resources freed from military defenses, as mentioned above, there will be a better chance of preventing this, however. In addition to this, a new diplomatic state of increased trust, springing from reduced fear of military confrontation, opens the way for extensive colaboration across borders, something usually monopolized by the terrorists.
Divide and conquer
A familiar military strategy, this concept gains a new meaning in a militarily stable world, as the problems of each country get isolated within that country. The reduced risk of conflicts spreading across borders (aggressors attacking enemies in neighbouring nations) makes it possible to target a few countries at a time and truly rooting out the problems. It also allows the luxury of focusing on the countries easiest to help, instead of focusing on those threatening special neighbours.