Ministry of Peace

Not to be confused with Department of Peace.

The Ministry of Peace (Newspeak: Minipax) is one of four ministries in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Along with the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Love and the Ministry of Plenty, the Ministry of Peace governs in the Oceanic province of Airstrip One. It serves as the militant wing of Oceania's government, and is in charge of the armed forces, mostly the navy and army. The Ministry of Peace may be the most vital organ of Oceania, seeing as the nation is supposedly at war continuously with either Eurasia or Eastasia and requires just the right force to not win the war, but keep it in a state of equipoise.

As explained in Goldstein's book, the Ministry of Peace revolves around the principle of perpetual war. If the citizens of Oceania have a well-defined enemy, Eastasia or Eurasia, then they know whom they hate, and constant homeland propaganda helps to convince them to vent all their unconscious rage for their own country against the opposing one. Since that means the balance of the country rests in the war, the Ministry of Peace is in charge of fighting the war (mostly centered around Africa and India), but making sure to never tip the scales, in case the war should become one-sided. Oceanic telescreens usually broadcast news reports about how Oceania is continually winning every battle it fights, though these reports have little to no credibility.

As with all the other Nineteen Eighty-Four ministries, the Ministry of Peace is named the exact opposite of what it does, since the Ministry of Peace is in charge of maintaining a state of war. As one of the obvious phrases, the meaning of peace has been equalized with the meaning of war in the slogan of the party, which is "War is Peace".

As with the Ministry of Love the name is somewhat accurate just not in the normal sense of the word. The Ministry helps to keep the peace internally by venting the population's rage at an external foe.

References in television

The name and "Minipax" nickname are used in the US science fiction television show Babylon 5 (first used in episode "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum", 1995) for a similarly deceptive organization.