Peacemaking Is Power Politics Again

Peacemaking Is Power Politics Again | International Crisis Group

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**Op-Ed** / Global Order and Peacemaking25 August 2026**1 minute**

Peacemaking Is Power Politics Again

Originally published in Foreign Policy

The post-Cold War model of institutionalized peacemaking has waned. But influential capitals are still looking to end and avoid conflicts.

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International peacemakers and peace activists have little to cheer about these days. Multiple indicators confirm that we are in an era defined by hard power and deadly violence. The number of conflicts between states rose to a post-1945 record of 65 last year. Global military spending grew by 41 percent over the last decade. The United Nations Security Council, supposedly the guarantor of international peace, has failed to deal effectively with crises in Ukraine, Myanmar, Gaza, Sudan, and the like. Militaries and armed groups are resorting to tactics such as starvation and mass atrocities with impunity.

Despair, however, is not a strategy. It is necessary to look for factors and actors on the international scene that can contribute to preventing and containing today’s conflicts. To understand potential drivers of peacemaking today, it is necessary to reconsider—and, in some cases, discard—some of the institutions and ideas that have been central to conflict resolution for the last few decades.

*The full article can be read on the**Foreign Policy**website.*

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