You want to find interesting analyses, reports, articles and papers on peace and conflict issues from around the world?
We think there are many and important world issues that get far too
Now we do the job for you. This page provides links to a selection of the best critical and constructive materials – the essential stuff we benefit from ourselves and want to share.
Just click below at what catches your interest – read, download or send the whole page to a friend.
Peace & nonviolence
• Peace is the most powerful weapons that we posses, says Mandela“There is danger in military actions such as we saw in the case of Iraq and Kosovo when powerful nations acted unilaterally and in defiance of international convention. To the extent that world peace depends on respect for the authority of our international institutions, such actions are indeed a danger to peace because they undermine that authority. They send a message that the powerful will police the world. From there it is only a step to chaos in world affairs, as power is substituted for the security of collective and democratic decision.”
• Browse this interesting site, with a new exciting CD about Gandhi. Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal – a very comprehensive site. A Multimedia CD on Mahatma Gandhi: Interactive Multimedia, over 550 Photographs, 30 minutes of film footage, 15 minute of Gandhiji’s voice, Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, more than 50,000 pages.
• Militarism – a Facilitator for Globalization A peace organization like WILPF has to renew its commitment to the principles of anti-militarism and at the same time develop further concrete proposals for the establishment of an international peace order. To get involved in the expansion of instruments of peaceful conflict resolution and collective security, so conflicts can be dealt with on an international level in a civil way. The search and demand for a constructive peace, as an integral structure of a sustainable international order, becomes more and more important. It is essential to think about the conditions for peaceful settlements of conflicts within states and on international level.
• The 2000 Review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. A World Conference On nuclear disarmament, at the UN in New York, April 24 – May 29. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom is working through this initiative to support and encourage effective preparation for and participation in the 2000 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty at the UN. This is a comprehensive, very professional site!
• Women and a Culture of Peace The Women and a Culture of Peace Homepage – with links also to many Culture of Peace sites, UN resolutions, Manifesto 2000, news and intercultural dialogues.
• Coalition for Global Solidarity – WSSD+5 For one week in Geneva, June 2000, the World Summit for Social Development+5 will bring together representatives of the UN and other international bodies, heads of state and government, and NGOs and citizens groups in a forum in which people from all levels of society, from all around the world, will come together to address the core challenges to social, cultural, political and economic development and human security at the dawn of the new millennium. Their goal, to work together to seek ways to overcome poverty, unemployment, and social exclusion, globally, and within each country of the world. The Norwegian People’s Aid’s (NPA) site.
Armament and the new Cold War
• The United States WANTS Russia to keep its nuclear warheads Great talking points on the ABM Treaty and the National Missile Defense (NMD) system that Clinton insists on developing. From the highly respected Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists which says: “You would think that 10 years after the end of the Cold War, the United States would be doing everything it could to get Russia to reduce its bloated, aging, and dangerous arsenal of approximately 6,000 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. You would be wrong…”
• India is not the most dangerous in the world The Times of India takes a look at the annual report of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, IISS, in London. “The latest survey has lost some of the earlier optimism of the institute experts who were seeing a glimmer of light after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of one of the two superpowers. Thus if one goes by the assessment, the world as a whole is becoming a more dangerous place.”
• The Weekly Defense Monitor The latest issue of this service from the Centre for Defense Information deals with what the objectives of U.S. foreign policy and military interventionism should be; with the price of a limited missile defence, and reflects on the parallels between the Korea and Vietnam wars.
Globalization – imperialism
• Samir Amin’s turn-of-the century analysis – a must read in the age of “globalization” The ratio used to measure inequality in the capitalist world (1 to 20 toward 1900; 1 to 30 in 1954-48; 1 to 60 at the end of the post-war growth spurt) increased sharply: the wealthiest 20 per cent of humanity increased their share of the global product from 60 to 80 per cent during the two last decades of this century –globalization has been fortunate for some. For the vast majority –notably, for the peoples of the South, subjected to unilateral structural adjustment policies, and those of the East, locked into dramatic involutions –it has been a disaster. (Takes some time to access).
• United Nations Development Programme, UNDP “Governance Tools” An excellent gateway to capacity development, globalization and debt, gender in governance, human rights, conflict-resolution, reconciliation, accountability, global resources network, governance in post-conflict situations, etc.
• Rugova, moderate Albanian leader, warns war and wants Greater Albania Moderate Kosovar leader Ibrahim Rugova warned the Yugoslavian province could find itself again at war if it is not granted independence, in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine. The ethnic Albanian leader also backed the controversial notion of a “Greater Albania.” But:
• British diplomats train elite-in-waiting to take over after Milosevic. British diplomats are training a Yugoslav élite-in-waiting to oversee the country’s transformation to a civil society after the Milosevic regime falls. Senior Serbian figures in professional fields such as the military, law enforcement and academia are being brought to Budapest in neighbouring Hungary to design a blueprint for post-Milosevic Serbia, and prepare for the country’s re-integration into Europe. The New Serbia Forum, an initiative funded by the Foreign Office.
• How it is done: Taking over the Trepca mines: Plans and Propaganda Comparison of two documents, a November 1999 International Crisis Group (ICG) paper on the Trepca mining complex, and a February 2000 article in the Toronto Star by ICG consultant Susan Blaustein, provides an exceptionally clear glimpse into the workings of the “international community.” By Diana Johnstone (2-28-00).
• Doubts over UN ‘blending zone’ plan for Mitrovica The United Nations hopes to create an “ethnic-blending zone” in the centre of the divided city of Mitrovica in the latest attempt to overcome the hostilities between Serbs and ethnic Albanians. Deep divisions: ethnic tensions run high in the city of Mitrovica The initiative is part of an ambitious plan that envisages returning ethnic Albanians to the Serb-held north and constructing a new footbridge across the front-line River Ibar.But leaders of the city’s Serbs gave warning that there would be “war” if any Albanians returned, and a Nato officer said the plan was unworkable. By Julius Strauss in Mitrovica.
• West abandons dream of unified Kosovo and coexistence A year after Nato’s intervention, the West’s dream of Serbs and Albanians living together in Kosovo is dead. Diplomats openly concede that monoethnic cantons are the only solution to the province’s intractable hatred.
• Stratfor’s eminent “Kosovo One Year Later” Analysis Nine months after the war, the West faces a choice. It can increase its grip on Kosovo, committing more troops and confronting the KLA, or the alliance can resign itself to losing control of Kosovo.
What was the truth then? What is it today?
• Media Channel’s “Covering Vietnam” – the media’s role then.The a Channel has brought together an excellent selection of authors on “Vietnam: Perception, Revisited” – Philip Knightley, Danny Schechter, Edward Herman, Gilbert Manda, Peter Arrnett. How do they look back upon what happened and what we were told happened? What is war reporting then and now? What do you think we will say 25 years ahead about what we were told about, say, the bombing of Yugoslavia?
• Virtual lessons of the bombing of Yugoslavia One year on, what are the lessons of Kosovo, asks Michael Ignatieff? If future wars are virtual wars, requiring not mobilization and sacrifice, but virtual consent in the name of virtual values, then increasingly democracies may be willing to fight. This is why we need proper checks and balances to ensure the legitimacy of such wars.
The US as a world order problem
• Edward Said reflects on American injusticeIt is the organized, legalized cruelty and injustice of the American system that many of the country’s citizens actually cherish and, in this electoral season, want their candidates to defend and support, not just the cynical machismo of its random acts of violence like the gratuitous bombing of Sudan or last spring’s sadistic offensive against Serbia. Consider the following: a recently released report reveals that, with five per cent of the world’s population, the US at the same time contains 25 per cent of the world’s population of prisoners. Two million Americans are held in jails, of whom well over 45 per cent are African American, a number that is disproportionately higher than the black population itself…
• Oscar Arias’ Harsh Words for the US I tell my friends in Washington that it is time for the United States not only to be the military superpower it is, or the economic superpower it is, but also the moral superpower that it should be. . . . And it is not [a moral superpower] because its value system is wrong. That is for the U.S. to deal with: . . . so much greed, so much cynicism, so much hypocrisy, so much individualistic values. These values need to be replaced by more solidarity, by more compassion, by justice. . . . I don’t think we can really enjoy a more peaceful 21st century with the value system of the 20th century. Certainly, if you want to be that city up on the hill for the rest of the world to look at you with admiration, you need to change your value system.
Humanism, human rights and “humanitarian” intervention
• Compassionate killing. Can wars be fought for humanitarian reasons? Somalia 1992 . . . Haiti 1994 . . . Bosnia 1996 . . . Kosovo 1999 . . . The “humanitarian” military campaign has become a distinctive feature of U.S. foreign policy in recent years. But is it really humanitarian? Not at all, writes Noam Chomsky in his new book, The New Military Humanism (Common Courage Press).
• Sudan – The human price of oil Massive human rights violations by Sudanese security forces, various government allied militias and armed opposition groups, are clearly linked to foreign companies’ oil operations, Amnesty International stated as it released its report Sudan: The human price of oil today. “The civilian population living in oil fields and surrounding areas has been deliberately targeted for massive human rights abuses — forced displacement, aerial bombardments, strafing villages from helicopter gunships, unlawful killings, torture including rape and abduction,” said Maina Kiai, Amnesty International’s Director for Africa. “Foreign companies* are turning a blind eye…”
• It could soon affect the whole world… Falling water tables in China May soon raise food prices everywhere. Alert from the Worldwatch Institute’s director Lester R. Brown. Ask yourself how many more people around the world would NOT be able to buy more expensive food…
LONDON – So far so good, at least on the wider level. While internally Iraq seems on the edge of chaos, the much heralded clash of civilizations between the Muslim and Judaeo-Christian worlds has yet to become apparent. We have anger and despair aplenty in the Arab and Muslim worlds. But very little rushing to the standard and there was no great pilgrimage of warriors to join the fight, as happened when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan twenty years ago, and then, having driven the Red Army out, were left to ferment in that mountainous redoubt. With the armaments supplied by the CIA the mujahidin were transformed into Al Qaeda that became, for a relatively brief moment as these things go, ‘the greatest threat to the homeland that America has ever known.’ Nevertheless a ‘Cold War’ between much of the Muslim world and the West is certainly in full swing. Winston...
The Challenge of Nuclear Weaponsin the Twenty-first CenturyA Path Forward The peoples and governments of the world face an urgent challenge relating to weaponry of mass destruction and particularly to nuclear weaponry. At the crossroads of technology, terrorism, geopolitical ambition, and policies of preemption are new and potent dangers for humanity. Despite ending the nuclear standoff of the Cold War era, nuclear weaponry is again menacing the peoples of the world with catastrophic possibilities. We recognize the need for any government to pursue its security interests in accordance with international law; and further, we recognize that distinctive threats to these interests now exist as a result of an active international terrorist network having declared war on the United States and its allies. Nonetheless, we reject the assessment of the current US administration that upgrading a reliance on nuclear weapons is in any sense justified as a response. We find it...
By Karin Wegestal MP, the Social Democratic Partyon behalf of the Swedish Committee for Solidarity with the Yugoslav People During the last decade, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has received more than 500,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia, and another 300,000 internally displaced persons, mainly from the province Kosovo and Metohia. For a country with about ten million inhabitants, such an influx of homeless people is obviously a very heavy burden – even under peaceful conditions. But in addition to that, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been the subject to sanctions from the western powers for close to ten years and its infrastructure was badly hurt through Nato’s intense bombardment during 78 days in 1999. The result of all this is that Yugoslavia, once the most developed industrial country in Eastern Europe, is today the poorest country in Europe. In Serbia excluding Kosovo, with about ten million inhabitants and...
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...
Johan Galtung 1930-2024October 2015 Published here on October 3, 2026 Let us focus on Civilization for conflict analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots. National Evangelism, the US Protestant Christian civilization– more national than evangelical–justifies US warfare as exceptionalism of a people chosen by God, with a manifest destiny to run the world. Orthodox Judaism justifies Israeli warfare to conquer and expand from Nile to Euphrates as a religious right and duty to the Eternal One. The third most belligerent country, the UK, no longer believes it is God-chosen but chosen by the USA; not quite the same but something. But the root cause of global disorder lies in the Occident–with Islam–seeing itself as the single, universal civilization valid for all at all times, all others being...
TFF on Substack
Discover and subscribe to more peace materials on TFF Substack
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...
Johan Galtung 1930-2024October 2015 Published here on October 3, 2026 Let us focus on Civilization for conflict analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots. National Evangelism, the US Protestant Christian civilization– more national than evangelical–justifies US warfare as exceptionalism of a people chosen by God, with a manifest destiny to run the world. Orthodox Judaism justifies Israeli warfare to conquer and expand from Nile to Euphrates as a religious right and duty to the Eternal One. The third most belligerent country, the UK, no longer believes it is God-chosen but chosen by the USA; not quite the same but something. But the root cause of global disorder lies in the Occident–with Islam–seeing itself as the single, universal civilization valid for all at all times, all others being...
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...
Johan Galtung 1930-2024October 2015 Published here on October 3, 2026 Let us focus on Civilization for conflict analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots. National Evangelism, the US Protestant Christian civilization– more national than evangelical–justifies US warfare as exceptionalism of a people chosen by God, with a manifest destiny to run the world. Orthodox Judaism justifies Israeli warfare to conquer and expand from Nile to Euphrates as a religious right and duty to the Eternal One. The third most belligerent country, the UK, no longer believes it is God-chosen but chosen by the USA; not quite the same but something. But the root cause of global disorder lies in the Occident–with Islam–seeing itself as the single, universal civilization valid for all at all times, all others being...
Jan ObergPhD, director, The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFFLund, Sweden October 2, 2026 This is my full original manuscript. The Chinese Academy of Social Science, CASS, makes two publications out if it. 1. China’s Five-year plan emphasized the capabilities of basic research and original innovation. It is regarded as the goal of the future social development, which, as required, should be significantly enhanced. Can you comment on the importance of original innovation in research and academic study? I believe it is easier to define “original innovation” in the natural sciences than in social sciences. The breaking points of what constitutes something new, or innovative, are not quite as sharp in the latter. But in both fields it is about opening up something that was closed, unseen, unexplored before – making manifest what was earlier latent. Innovations come in many forms and shapes – naming something that was not...
The agreement is catastrophic both because of what it says and what it doesn’t mention. It reduces further the major asset of security policies: Freedom of action. Jan Oberg TFF director September 25, 2026 A couple of hours before the agreement was signed on September 22, 2026, I published the following 13 hypotheses about what it would most likely contain on TFF Substack (in English). I was wrong on only the first point. Contrary to what Trump had written on his Truth Social platform, it does not appear to come into force immediately. In fact, it turned out to be worse than even I had anticipated. After these hypotheses now come a number of reflections in light of what the agreement actually contains, and does not contain, as well as the way in which it has generally been presented by major media outlets and by the public-service broadcaster DR. My...
Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...
