Iceland Named Most Peaceful Country—Again—as US Ranking Steadily Declines. The United States has fallen 10 spots in the last three years in the Global Peace Index, driven by a high degree of militarization and a rising homicide rate. Iceland was named the most peaceful country in the world for the 15th consecutive year in the annual ranking compiled by the Institute for Economics & Peace on Wednesday, while the organization warned that militarization in the United States is steadily making the wealthiest country in the world less peaceful. In its 2023 Global Peace Index, the group ranked 163 countries where 99.7% of the world's population lives, determining how countries compare based on the level of "societal safety and security," "ongoing domestic and international conflict," and the degree of "militarization." The change from 2022's index "was driven by a deterioration on the safety and security domain," reads the report, "particularly in the perceptions of criminality and homicide rate indicators." The U.S. homicide rate is "now above six per 100,000 people and more than six times higher than most Western European countries," according to the IEP. The nation's epidemic of gun violence—and policymakers' refusal to impose strict regulations on gun ownership—has become well-known throughout the world, with Amnesty Internationalissuing a travel warning due to the crisis in 2019. Gun violence replaced vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death in children in the U.S. in 2022.The U.S. ranked close to the middle of the 163 countries in terms of societal safety and security. Its lowest ranking was in the category of militarization, a pattern that has been evident in the IEP's previous Global Peace Indexes.The country was behind only Russia and Israel in terms of its degree of militarization this year.      https://www.commondreams.org/news/iceland-most-peaceful-country#:~:text=Iceland%20was%20named%20the%20most,in%20the%20world%20less%20peaceful.