SIPRI-Studie, 8.6.2026 (engl. Original)
The most recent decade has fundamentally altered the strategic environment. The distinguishing feature of this current phase of great power competition relates to two overarching drivers: the resurgence of large-scale interstate war between technologically advanced states and the erosion of the United States’ alliance frameworks. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine marked the return of an East-West divide in Europe and the collapse of hopes for integrating Russia into a post-cold war European security order. At the same time, China’s rise and its intensifying rivalry with the USA have transformed the global balance of power. In addition, the three foundations of global nuclear order have eroded: the strategic nuclear arms control framework has collapsed; the global non-proliferation regime is under stress; and US extended deterrence commitments are diminishing in credibility. The erosion of these foundations is being exacerbated by emerging disruptive military technologies and coercive competition between major states.
Over the course of the past two decades, there has been a gradual shift away from the liberal paradigm of peacemaking that previously dominated conflict resolution efforts towards a more power-based and transactional approach. This was characterized by US ‘peace diplomacy’ under the second administration of Donald J. Trump in 2025. The retreat of multilateral peace frameworks, the severe erosion of the various constraints on the use of force and the resulting increase of conflict-related threats to human security are converging to constitute a manifold interlocking crisis.
A future peace research agenda could be centred on four broad thematic issues: stabilizing great power competition; developing new arms control frameworks suited to emerging technologies and geopolitical fragmentation; understanding and addressing the human insecurity drivers of conflict; and anticipating the implications of future battlefields and new military technologies. Peace research will need to avoid being pulled in limiting directions: towards serving narrow national security agendas, towards being absorbed into defence research or towards abandoning human security in favour of ‘hard security’ alone. Peace research needs to be preserved as an independent, holistic field whose purpose is not just to study conflict, but to help stabilize adversarial relations and ultimately support more durable forms of peace.
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