In the space between peace and war that the Gulf crisis has now entered, and from which it may exit at any point, if only for a brief time, maybe this is a convenient moment to think about what has been gained and what has been lost so far.
Continue readingwar deaths
World order §3: The current disorder
The world order is under pressure. For world peace and stability, the core security tasks of the key international organisations such as, above all, the UN and regional organizations such as the African Union (AU) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) are to manage and reduce conflict and to establish and build peace.
The problem is that for the past decade and more, the overall number and longevity of armed conflicts have increased along with their intractability. These armed conflicts that international mediation or conflict management seem unable to reach or influence are, alongside confrontation between the great powers and generally toxic geopolitics, key markers of the current disorder.
Continue readingThe worries of a peace researcher
“How easy is it to talk about peace and disarmament today when the world is busy rearming?”
That’s the question that Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s biggest selling daily paper, asked itself, its readers and me in a recent article. About me, it said, “SIPRI’s director says he is a born optimist, but when DN meets him, he describes the world in black and dark grey.”
And yet at the end, the reporter, Ewa Stenberg, managed to find some light amid the dark.
Continue readingSyria’s death toll
The Syrian death toll creeps ever higher. A new report records that by the end of August, 113,735 civilians and combatants had lost their lives in the war. This figure includes 11,420 children aged 17 years and younger. Continue reading
Take note of every casualty
A new charter has been launched, to recognise every casualty of armed violence. The campaign to get governments to sign up started last week. It needs the support of some major NGOs and a campaigning newspaper or two to get some momentum. But why does it matter? Continue reading
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