| A |
popular definition of peace is the absence of war or violence. But by that measure, is the world truly at peace as you read this?
According to the Peace Research Institute, Oslo, the year 2024 ranked as the fourth most violent year since the end of the Cold War. In its report Conflict Trends: A Global Overview, 1946–2024, PRIO recorded 61 state-based conflicts across 36 countries, resulting in nearly 130,000 battle-related deaths. Civil war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and the relentless bombings in Gaza all contributed to this grim tally.
In an era marked by geopolitical rupture, economic decoupling, climate collapse and algorithmic polarisation, the classic notion of peace as “the absence of war” feels outdated, if not dangerously naïve. If peace is merely the silence between wars, what does it mean when that silence is enforced by coercion, inequality or sheer exhaustion?
“Peace is a choice. And the world expects the Security Council to help countries make this choice,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres at a recent high-level debate chaired by Foreign Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar. “Peaceful settlement of disputes is not just a moral or legal imperative; it is a strategic necessity,” Dar, who is also the deputy prime minister, told a council debate on “promoting international peace and security through multilateralism and peaceful settlement of disputes,” where a resolution submitted by Pakistan on the issue was unanimously adopted. Pakistan is also the chair of the UN Security Council for the month of July. Noting that the UN Charter provides “comprehensive tools” for settling disputes, Dar stressed that “these mechanisms remain underutilized or selectively applied.” “The Security Council has primary responsibility in this regard. Yet, we continue to witness the persistence, and proliferation of unresolved conflicts - many of which remain on the council’s agenda for decades,” he said, stressing that “selective implementation of council resolutions, double standards, and the politicisation of humanitarian principles have eroded its credibility and effectiveness.” “The ongoing tragedies in Palestine and the Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir are vivid examples of this malaise,” he added.
Yet while such calls for diplomacy grow louder, humanitarian crises deepen — Gaza starves, Ukraine bleeds and new flashpoints flare from Iran to Kashmir.
The United Nations, now in its 80th year, may pride itself on having prevented a third world war but what does that achievement mean when genocide is broadcast live across screens and institutions meant to prevent it remain immobilised? Since October 7, 2023, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, multilateral diplomacy has floundered. Peace, it seems, is no longer the goal — at best, it’s an afterthought.
The United Nations, now in its 80th year, may pride itself on having prevented a third world war. But what does that achievement mean when genocide is broadcast live across screens and institutions meant to prevent it remain immobilised?
The liberal international order that emerged after World War II, based on institutions like the UN, multilateral trade agreements and liberal democracy, was never flawless. But now, that order is visibly crumbling. Stability is often a euphemism for oppression. Order frequently masks frozen conflicts. Watching today’s crises through the lens of 20th-Century peacekeeping only distorts our understanding further.
To survive this age of compounded disruption, peace must evolve. It must become adaptive.
As Dr Cedric de Coning, a research professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, writes in his chapter on Adaptive Peacebuilding: Leveraging the Context-specific and Participatory Dimensions of Self-sustainable Peace, “We need to recognise that international actors do not have the agency to analyze a conflict, design a solution and apply that solution with a reasonable likelihood that such an externally designed intervention can result in a self-sustainable peace. The key to successful peacebuilding thus lies in finding the appropriate balance between international support and local self-organisation, and this will differ from context to context.”
Dr Coning proposes a move away from rigid, top-down interventions toward locally driven, iterative and participatory approaches. He says, “top-down or deterministic approaches to peacebuilding where local, national and international peace builders, together with the societies, communities and people affected by a conflict, actively engage in a structured and collaborative process to sustain peace and resolve conflicts by employing an inductive, collaborative and iterative process of learning and adaptation.”
This framework feels especially urgent today, when the powerful livecast atrocities while preaching about a rules-based order and the vulnerable are left to navigate survival with little more than hope and resilience.
The 2025 Global Peace Index by the Institute for Economics and Peace further illustrates the decline. It reports that the world has grown less peaceful in 13 of the past 17 years, with 87 countries deteriorating in peacefulness this year alone.
As the global balance of power shifts amidst political upheaval, peace remains fractured. The world moves from one conflict to the next, with no resolution in sight for those already burning. Human lives remain at the mercy of time and indifference. Loud voices falling on tone-deaf ears will not bring about a peace fit for the 21st Century. The enablers of genocide must be held accountable or history will remember us not as peacebuilders, but as those who watched the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded as a population perished from famine while food in humanitarian trucks was left to rot. So far, 111 Palestinians have died in the besieged Gaza Strip due to forced starvation.
Real peace is not passive. It is a process that requires justice. Without justice, peace is merely delayed violence. If we are to aim for a refined peace in the 21st Century, we must also redefine what it means to be human.
The writer holds a Master’s in International Relations and is a communications professional. Her writing focuses on global affairs, climate change, and culture. She can be reached on X: mariaamkahn.