Peace research

TFF founders & Board January 1, 2026 On January 1, 2026, TFF – The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research – turns forty. In a West where peace has been cancelled in politics, research, and media, we might just as well have used the anniversary to close down. But we shall move on — because peace by peaceful means is not negotiable. It is our compass and a universal principle of the future. Only uneducated or immoral people advocate violence where there are other options. We endure because: – Our founders and about 50 TFF Associates have lived a lifelong commitment to peace by peaceful means. – We are financed only by people, no governments and, thus, don’t have to practise self-censorship or change away from true peace to more or less militarised “security” research. – We are all volunteers — no salaries, no staff, no bureaucracy. This strategic freedom is our strength. It permits TFF to move forward, forty...

To celebrate TFF’s 40th Anniversary, we have re-published – on TFF Substack – two earlier articles that were published here on The Transnational. They are: TFF at 40 #1 – Peace research at Lund University closed down in 1989: Why and how?And why I lived happily ever after. This is a piece of Nordic academic history deserving to be shared – from 2017. TFF at 40 #2 – TFF’s first few years – from 2017. This is the third ◆ Christina Spännar & Jan Oberg Founders December 31, 2025 One measure of good social science is its ability to anticipate the consequences of policies, trends and events. It is not unlike the work of a good doctor: diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment must be grounded in careful observation. If the diagnosis is flawed, the prognosis falters — and the patient’s chances of recovery diminish. Over the past forty years, TFF’s board, founders,...

Jan Oberg November 28, 2025 It is hardly of any importance to the world, but it is to me as a peace scholar, TFF co-founder and director: On September 1, 2025, it was 50 years since I got my first article published in what was the flagship of peace and conflict research, The Journal of Peace Research, JPR, published out PRIO, Peace Research Institute Oslo – both founded by one of my mentors, Johan Galtung (1930-2024). See it here and here. I was 24 at the time, and it meant everything to me to achieve the honour and recognition of being published in that distinguished journal. While I had begun to follow peace studies at Lund University, courses directed by my other mentor, Håkan Wiberg (1942-2010), in 1972 – I had not dared call myself a peace scholar. I was working towards my PhD in sociology, and sociology was still...

The World Is a Sphere, But It Needs Zones of Peace Biljana Vankovska Professor emerita, TFF Board member November 13, 2025 As members of a global intellectual public, concerned not merely with knowledge but with humanity’s survival, we hunger for debates that are as rigorous as transformative, i.e. debates capable of imagining a fundamentally different world order. The latest exchange between two most distinguished US professors, Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer, has proven highly attractive and necessary. Yet, in my opinion, it does not transcend existing paradigms (despite the introduction of the concept of “spheres of security”) and offers no solutions for the structural and deep-rooted problems. As promised, albeit with some delay, here I am, stepping into the arena of intellectual giants in international relations and political economy. My intention is not to challenge their brilliance or integrity but to advocate for a pluralization of voices and perspectives. The small states and postcolonial...

“The future belongs to those who imagine it — not those who declare it doomed.” Silence is unusual for us. But even a foundation devoted to peace and ideas needs a pit stop now and then — a moment to refuel, re‑engineer, and prepare for the road ahead. Because the road ahead matters. On January 1, 2026, TFF turns 40. Four decades of independent research, education, and advocacy for the UN Charter norm that “peace shall be established by peaceful means.” And we are not celebrating with nostalgia — we are rebuilding for the future: We are bringing in new Associates, engaging in conferences across continents, and preparing to do what so few dare: offer solutions instead of despair. Because let’s be honest: describing the world as doomed is easy. It is also lazy, unprofessional, and unethical. Imagine a doctor telling a patient: “You’re dying, I can’t see what can...

People’s criticism without offering any solutions and their focus on the past and present, but almost never on the future, are the two biggest obstacles to real change. And to making peace… Jan Oberg August 21, 2025 This conversation is not about Endless Militarism. The real title of Pascal Nottaz’ and my conversation is the one on top – “If You Want Peace, Be Creative And Focus On The Future.”  Jan Oberg considers it one of his most important online conversations.

Naturally, nobody cares about that fraud in today’s Sweden. Jan Oberg April 15, 2025 SIPRI is the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, established in 1966. Read about it here and see how it has twisted its aims to not include the words ‘peace research.’ Because here is what it should do according to § 2 of its statutes: “…to conduct scientific research on questions of conflict and cooperation of importance for international peace and security, with the aim of contributing to an understanding of the conditions for peaceful solutions of interstate conflicts and for stable peace. (My italics). The rather low intellectual level is indicated by the statement that “SIPRI’s vision is a world in which sources of insecurity are identified and understood, conflicts are prevented or resolved, and peace is sustained.” Sources of insecurity shall not be removed, they shall only be identified and understood. Conflicts shall be ‘prevented’...

Jan Oberg February 17, 2025 Johan Galtung died a tragic death today a year ago. I have taken it upon myself to create a memorial site for one of the greatest social scientists of our time. It is launched today. I have two motives for doing so: One, Johan Galtung was one of my mentors, a colleague, and a dear friend for over precisely 50 years and a TFF Associate since we started in 1986. That is the 80%. The second is that Johan was forced to endure gross human rights violations by the Norwegian health and other authorities as well as by individuals in the last months of his life. So, too, his daughter Irene, who was the only one who cared for him to the end. This human rights story – that Galtung wanted to become public – has been repressed by means that do not belong to...

Johan and Irene Galtung On August 6, Hiroshima Day, 2024, I published a long, very well-documented article by Irene Galtung, the daughter of peace research professor Johan Galtung, about the tragic circumstances surrounding his last months alive and the human rights violations they both had to endure. What is left of that publication now is only my foreword below. As the editor and publisher of The Transnational, I have decided under threat to delete it, and I owe our readers to explain how I came to that decision. The reason is that her mother and Johan’s wife, Fumiko Nishimura Galtung, her two half-brothers, Andreas Galtung and Harald Eide Galtung and her brother Fredrik Galtung, had turned to lawyer Jon Wessel-Aas at the Glitterlind Law Firm in Oslo, asking him to demand that it be deleted in its entirety. The reason behind that demand and warning was that they considered that...

War takes no brain. Everyone can start a fight. Humanity needs civilised conflict resolution now. We’re making intelligent peace through new thinking on this online public education community. In 2025, we’ll serve many more subscribers with new initiatives and build a peace-intelligent community on Substack. And we’ll continue to serve you here on The Transnational. Of course! Now, read about it on TFF Substack Subscribe! Join! Share!

) My friend and solidarity colleague, Biljana Vankovska, has been dismissed as director of the Center of the Global Changes Center where she is a full Professor at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia, in a chilling encroachment on academic freedom. The Center was conceived and brought to life by Biljana a year and a half ago and had already built a reputation for academic excellence mainly on the basis of a stimulating conference devoted to “the emerging cooperative multipolar system” and due to her ability to attract world-class scholars to join the Center’s Board and take part in this inaugural event. As the eloquent explanatory essay below indicates, this action by an educational administrator in her university was based on trumped-up charges. Biljana’s explanation that this punitive action in response to a development that undoubtedly enhanced the academic reputation of this Macedonian rings true—namely, that the government...