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The article is titled “The world on the brink: Why governments must invest in peace, not just arms.” It was originally published on September 16, 2025 and is authored by Jenna Sapiano, Research Fellow, Peace Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa.

Global security indicators suggest a significant deterioration in peace and stability. By most accounts, the world is now more violent and more dangerous than at any point in recent history.
In 2024, the number of state-based conflicts worldwide reached its highest level since 1946. Military expenditures have risen for 10 consecutive years, surpassing $2.7 trillion annually.
A record number of children have been victims of armed conflict, and gains in women’s rights hang in the balance around the world amid record levels of conflict.
The world is confronting converging crises. In September 2024, the United Nations convened the Summit for the Future, an initiative by the UN secretary-general aimed at addressing the collapse of the post-Cold War multilateral system, as well as the increasing number of conflicts and humanitarian emergencies. All of this is occurring in the climate change era.
These crises are interlinked, as violence becomes more likely as a consequence of rising temperatures and drought conditions. Militaries are also responsible for high levels of greenhouse gas emissions and environmental destruction from war amounting, in some cases, to the crime of ecocide.
Increased military spending
The overwhelming response to rising global violence and insecurity has been to boost military funding.
In Europe, this is partly driven by a justified fear of Russian aggression following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The risk of Russia dragging NATO into a conflict remains a constant concern, which was evident when Russia recently sent drones over Polish and Romanian airspace.
At the 2025 NATO summit, under pressure from the Americans, members pledged to allocate five per cent of their GDP annually to core defence needs and defence and security-related expenses by 2035. Most European countries had already increased their military budgets in 2024; so has Russia.
China’s military spending has consistently increased over the past 30 years. The United States, the world’s largest military spender, also boosted spending in 2024 as it continues to send vast amounts of military aid to Israel amid allegations it’s committing genocide against the Palestinians.
The cost of neglect
Meanwhile, organizations invested in peacemaking and peacebuilding continue to face funding shortages. The sector has been described as “being stripped and downsized.”
This was on display when Donald Trump’s administration defunded and shut down the United States Institute of Peace, a congressionally established institution, within months of taking office.
Nevertheless, peace organizations have struggled with funding cuts for some time, experiencing reduced support for core costs and a shift towards more project-based funding, which has increased competition and pressure from donors.
The consequences of underfunding peace are not abstract.
American funding cuts and a global backlash against women’s rights have pushed gender equality off the agenda. Women-led peace initiatives, in particular, face a lack of funding, even as this year marking the 25th anniversary of the United Nations’ Women, Peace, and Security agenda, which highlights the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts.
Nonetheless, violence against women and girls remains severe in places like Afghanistan, where the Taliban has created a system of gender apartheid, and Palestine, where the Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, has called Israel’s deliberate killings of Palestinian women and girls a femi-genocide.
A global crisis of violence
In this more globally fragmented world, international peace architecture is crumbling amid growing tensions between powerful states, and humanitarian needs continue to rise largely due to violent conflicts. So why do governments persist in spending more on their militaries and arms, while investing very little in peacebuilding and peacemaking?
This trend is only making the world more dangerous for everyone. As Chris Coulter, executive director of the Berlin-based Berghof Foundation, a non-governmental and non-profit organization supporting people in conflict, reminds us: “A truly secure world needs dialogue and peacebuilding, not just defence budgets.”
Many others in the peace community have made similar appeals.
The world is still learning how to build sustainable peace. Many of the peace agreements signed over the past few decades have fallen apart, and parties have resumed fighting. Even in places where agreements have held, structural and everyday violence remains widespread, especially for women.
Deal-making rather than solutions
We are also witnessing a concerning shift from peacemaking to deal-making, along with the abandonment of liberal peacemaking norms, such as inclusivity and impartiality.
Further evidence of the failure of peacemaking is the move towards short “tactical pauses” in fighting rather than the negotiation of more sustainable solutions to conflicts.
Unless states rebalance their investments towards peacebuilding, the current trajectory points to escalating insecurity, further undermining international norms, human rights and security. Disproportionately relying on military spending for security purposes fails to prevent conflict and has a detrimental impact on gender equality, human rights and peacemaking.
States must resist the urge to continually increase their military budgets to the excessive levels they are now approaching; instead, they must also invest in peace research, mediation efforts and peacebuilding organizations.

Global security indicators suggest a significant deterioration in peace and stability. By most accounts, the world is now more violent and more dangerous than at any point in recent history.
In 2024, the number of state-based conflicts worldwide reached its highest level since 1946. Military expenditures have risen for 10 consecutive years, surpassing $2.7 trillion annually.
A record number of children have been victims of armed conflict, and gains in women’s rights hang in the balance around the world amid record levels of conflict.
The world is confronting converging crises. In September 2024, the United Nations convened the Summit for the Future, an initiative by the UN secretary-general aimed at addressing the collapse of the post-Cold War multilateral system, as well as the increasing number of conflicts and humanitarian emergencies. All of this is occurring in the climate change era.
These crises are interlinked, as violence becomes more likely as a consequence of rising temperatures and drought conditions. Militaries are also responsible for high levels of greenhouse gas emissions and environmental destruction from war amounting, in some cases, to the crime of ecocide.
Increased military spending
The overwhelming response to rising global violence and insecurity has been to boost military funding.
In Europe, this is partly driven by a justified fear of Russian aggression following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The risk of Russia dragging NATO into a conflict remains a constant concern, which was evident when Russia recently sent drones over Polish and Romanian airspace.
At the 2025 NATO summit, under pressure from the Americans, members pledged to allocate five per cent of their GDP annually to core defence needs and defence and security-related expenses by 2035. Most European countries had already increased their military budgets in 2024; so has Russia.
China’s military spending has consistently increased over the past 30 years. The United States, the world’s largest military spender, also boosted spending in 2024 as it continues to send vast amounts of military aid to Israel amid allegations it’s committing genocide against the Palestinians.
Read more: Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza? International court will take years to decide, but states have a duty to act now
The cost of neglect
Meanwhile, organizations invested in peacemaking and peacebuilding continue to face funding shortages. The sector has been described as “being stripped and downsized.”
This was on display when Donald Trump’s administration defunded and shut down the United States Institute of Peace, a congressionally established institution, within months of taking office.
Nevertheless, peace organizations have struggled with funding cuts for some time, experiencing reduced support for core costs and a shift towards more project-based funding, which has increased competition and pressure from donors.
The consequences of underfunding peace are not abstract.
American funding cuts and a global backlash against women’s rights have pushed gender equality off the agenda. Women-led peace initiatives, in particular, face a lack of funding, even as this year marking the 25th anniversary of the United Nations’ Women, Peace, and Security agenda, which highlights the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts.
Nonetheless, violence against women and girls remains severe in places like Afghanistan, where the Taliban has created a system of gender apartheid, and Palestine, where the Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, has called Israel’s deliberate killings of Palestinian women and girls a femi-genocide.
A global crisis of violence
In this more globally fragmented world, international peace architecture is crumbling amid growing tensions between powerful states, and humanitarian needs continue to rise largely due to violent conflicts. So why do governments persist in spending more on their militaries and arms, while investing very little in peacebuilding and peacemaking?
This trend is only making the world more dangerous for everyone. As Chris Coulter, executive director of the Berlin-based Berghof Foundation, a non-governmental and non-profit organization supporting people in conflict, reminds us: “A truly secure world needs dialogue and peacebuilding, not just defence budgets.”
Many others in the peace community have made similar appeals.
The world is still learning how to build sustainable peace. Many of the peace agreements signed over the past few decades have fallen apart, and parties have resumed fighting. Even in places where agreements have held, structural and everyday violence remains widespread, especially for women.
Deal-making rather than solutions
We are also witnessing a concerning shift from peacemaking to deal-making, along with the abandonment of liberal peacemaking norms, such as inclusivity and impartiality.
Further evidence of the failure of peacemaking is the move towards short “tactical pauses” in fighting rather than the negotiation of more sustainable solutions to conflicts.
Unless states rebalance their investments towards peacebuilding, the current trajectory points to escalating insecurity, further undermining international norms, human rights and security. Disproportionately relying on military spending for security purposes fails to prevent conflict and has a detrimental impact on gender equality, human rights and peacemaking.
States must resist the urge to continually increase their military budgets to the excessive levels they are now approaching; instead, they must also invest in peace research, mediation efforts and peacebuilding organizations.

The world on the brink: Why governments must invest in peace, not just arms

September 16, 2025 • My Project Name

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