Western Europe is by far the world's most peaceful region according to the Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Peace Index. Most countries in the region rank in the top 20, though not France and Britain. They both score relatively well on the domestic measures of peace but their relatively high levels of militarisation, sophisticated weapon industries and arms exports push them lower down the ranking. Britain's battlefield troop losses in Afghanistan and Iraq—and its involvement in those conflicts and in Sierra Leone—reduce its ranking further to 49th place overall.

The average score for all the countries in the Global Peace Index is two (based on a 1-5 measure) with countries relatively evenly spread around the mean, although there is an exceptional tail on the countries at the bottom of the ranking. While the index has a broad level of country and regional coverage at 121 separate nations (encompassing around 95% of the world's population and over two-thirds of the planet's land mass), data paucity has resulted in the exclusion of a number of less-developed countries. It is likely that these countries would, on average, score less well, so the overall global picture is probably worse.

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