A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war (or all wars), minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace. Means to achieve these ends include advocacy of pacifism, non-violent resistance, diplomacy, boycotts, moral purchasing, supporting anti-war political candidates, creating open government and transparency tools, demonstrations, and national political lobbying groups to create legislation. The political cooperative is an example of an organization that seeks to merge all peace movement organizations and green organizations which may have some diverse goals, but all of whom have the common goal of peace and humane sustainability. A concern of some peace activists is the challenge of attaining peace when those that oppose it often use violence as their means of communication and empowerment.

Some people refer to the global loose affiliation of activists and political interests as having a shared purpose and this constituting a single movement, "the peace movement", an all encompassing "anti-war movement". Seen this way, the two are often indistinguishable and constitutes a loose, responsive and event-driven collaboration between groups with motivations as diverse as humanism, environmentalism, veganism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, decentralization, hospitality, ideology, theology, and faith.

An anti-war movement (also antiwar) is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements. Anti-war activists work through protest and other grassroots means to attempt to pressure a government (or governments) to put an end to a particular war or conflict.

Many groups call themselves anti-war activists though their opinions may differ: some anti-war activists may be equally opposed to both sides' military campaign; in contrast, many modern activists are against only one side's campaigns (usually the one they see as most unethical).

Pacifist and anti-war movements are similar, but not the same. Pacifism is the belief that violent conflict is never acceptable and that society should not be ready to fight in a conflict (see disarmament); the anti-war movement is not necessarily opposed to national defense. Pacifists oppose all war, but anti-war activists may be opposed to only a particular war or wars.

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Texas's 14th congressional district, which includes Galveston, since 1997, and a three-time candidate for President of the United States, as a Libertarian in 1988 and as a Republican in 2008 and currently 2012. He is an outspoken critic of American foreign and monetary policies, including the Military–industrial complex and the Federal Reserve, and is known for his libertarian-leaning views, often differing from his own party on certain issues.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Paul is a graduate of Gettysburg College and Duke University School of Medicine, where he earned his medical degree. He served as a medical officer in the United States Air Force from 1963 until 1968. He worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist from the 1960s to the 1980s, delivering more than 4,000 babies. He became the first Representative in history to serve concurrently with a child in the Senate when his son Rand Paul was elected to the United States Senate for Kentucky in 2010.

Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author and journalist whose career spanned more than four decades. Hitchens, often referred to colloquially as "Hitch", was a columnist and literary critic for New Statesman, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Mirror, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. He was an author of twelve books and five collections of essays. As a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, he was a prominent public intellectual, and his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure.

Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, as well as for his excoriating critiques of various public figures including Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Diana, Princess of Wales. Although he supported the Falklands War, his key split from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left to the Rushdie Affair. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face." His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind", and his friend Ian McEwan describes him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.

George Stanley McGovern (born July 19, 1922) is a historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election.

McGovern grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota, where he was a renowned debater. He volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Forces upon the country's entry into World War II and as a B-24 Liberator pilot flew 35 missions over German-occupied Europe. Among the medals awarded him was a Distinguished Flying Cross for making a hazardous emergency landing of his damaged plane and saving his crew. After the war he gained degrees from Dakota Wesleyan University and Northwestern University, culminating in a Ph.D, and was a history professor. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956 and re-elected in 1958. After a failed bid for the U.S. Senate in 1960, he was elected there in 1962.

As a senator, McGovern was an exemplar of modern American liberalism. He became most known for his outspoken opposition to the growing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He staged a brief nomination run in the 1968 presidential election as a stand-in for the assassinated Robert F. Kennedy. The subsequent McGovern–Fraser Commission fundamentally altered the Democratic presidential nominating process, by greatly increasing the number of caucuses and primaries and reducing the influence of party insiders. The McGovern–Hatfield Amendment sought to end the Vietnam War by legislative means but was defeated in 1970 and 1971. McGovern's long-shot, grassroots-based 1972 presidential campaign found triumph in gaining the Democratic nomination but left the party badly split ideologically, and the failed vice-presidential pick of Thomas Eagleton undermined McGovern's credibility. In the general election McGovern lost to incumbent Richard Nixon in one of the biggest landslides in American history. Re-elected Senator in 1968 and 1974, McGovern was defeated in a bid for a fourth term in 1980.