You want to find interesting analyses, reports, articles and papers on peace and conflict issues from around the world?
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 on to a friend.
Peace & nonviolence
• The New Civilization NetworkThe New Civilization Network (NCN) is a global network of people visualizing a better world and working on building it. A world of increased quality of life, freedom, fun and inspiration for all. A world where the needs of all of humanity are met. We work independently or in teams on activities of our choice, and we coordinate and cooperate amongst ourselves when appropriate.
• Practise random kindness and senseless acts of beauty It’s a crisp winter day in San Francisco. A woman in a red Honda, Christmas presents piled in the back, drives up to the Bay Bridge tollbooth. ‘I’m paying for myself, and for the six cars behind me,’ she says with a smile, handing over seven commuter tickets. One after another, the next six drivers arrive at the tollbooth, dollars in hand, only to be told, ‘Some lady up ahead already paid your fare. Have a nice day.’
• (Martin Luther) King Spin He has been made a saint – and that’s exactly the problem, explains a new book.
Armament and the new Cold War
• Russia increases its arms exports Russia’s deputy prime minister for military-industrial affairs said Jan. 31 that Russian arms manufacturers are expecting to export arms valued at more than $4 billion in 2000. This increase will reverse the stagnant trend of Russian arms exports throughout the 1990s, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It will also fit well into Russian moves to boost its economic situation and expand its strategic relationships abroad.
• Russia’s – dangerous – response to Western expansion Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union supported a number of weak, corrupt states &endash; from Angola to North Korea &endash; in order to offset the West. When the Cold War ended, Russia no longer needed or wanted to maintain its global confrontation with the West, and it cut these allies loose. Now, however, after a decade of diplomatic and economic silence between Moscow and its former client states, Russia is reactivating some of its old relationships. This will ultimately help rewrite the rules of relations with the West.
• Chinese Army revises the art of war – with an eye to the West ‘Asymmetrical’ warfare &endash; terrorism, computer hacking, economic sabotage, assassination of U.S. citizens &endash; is the Chinese military’s strategy to defeat the United States. Should U.S. financiers whose trading adversely affects Chinese “red-chip” companies be assassinated? China’s People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, is discussing the concept. Should Beijing covertly fund political-influence operations in the United States? A new PLA book openly asks the question.
• Pentagon finds China preparing for war with the United States Some 600 translations of internal Chinese writings by 200 authors reveal China’s strategy to defeat a superior foe, using both military and nonmilitary means, such as propaganda, deception and covert action. They also reveal the extreme distrust of the United States by China’s military and party leaders. Chinese generals state that the United States intentionally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, last May as part of a long-term strategy to prompt an arms race that will cause China’s collapse.
• Clinton plans to increase the US military budget even further President Bill Clinton’s budget calls for new spending on a wide array of military and foreign affairs priorities, including military equipment, more pay for soldiers, and special funding for a controversial new missile defence programme. The new budget plan for 2000/2001 proposes to allocate $292.2bn to national defence, up $11.3bn from the 2000 level.
• China: We are not Yugoslavia The mouthpiece of the People’s Liberation Army, furious over U.S. legislation to boost military ties with Taiwan, warned the United States on Friday not to mistake China for Yugoslavia. “China is not Yugoslavia. And Taiwan is not Kosovo,” the Liberation Army Daily said in a commentary, referring to the U.S.-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia last year over atrocities against ethnic Albanians in the southern province of Kosovo.
Globalisation
• NATO killed at least 500 civilians in YugoslaviaThe investigation concluded that NATO committed violations of international humanitarian law. Human Rights Watch called on NATO governments to establish an independent and impartial commission to investigate these violations and issue its findings publicly. NATO governments should also alter targeting and bombing doctrine to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch said.
• Galeano’s moving essay on media, culture and globalization Exaggerated though it may sound, I’m convinced the mercantile despotism of the mass-media entertainment industry is inflicting cultural damage on the world at least as devastating as the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, invoked these days as justification for bombing Yugoslavia. From the Media Channel.
Kosovo/a…Chaosovo
• The U.S. in Kosovo: seeking an exit strategyWith no end in sight to the violence in Kosovo, the Pentagon has begun efforts to relieve the pressure on US peacekeepers in the breakaway province. Defense secretary Cohen: “This is a responsibility of the international community,” Cohen said about maintaining law and order in Kosovo. “The Europeans must also bear a fair share of that responsibility and they have yet to do so.”
• NATO killed 500 civilians in YugoslaviaThe investigation concluded that NATO committed violations of international humanitarian law. Human Rights Watch called on NATO governments to establish an independent and impartial commission to investigate these violations and issue its findings publicly. NATO governments should also alter targeting and bombing doctrine to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch said.
• Anarchy & Madness in Kosovo Timothy Garton Ash’s report on the chaos in Kosovo/a tells the truth – and ends on a funny note about the liberal, Western paradise the locals long to be part of while forgetting that it was this order which did nothing between 1989 and 1999 to help them…But what do you do in a one-dimensional world where “there is no choice”. From the New York Review of Books.
• Report detailing weapons exports to human rights abusersThe Council for a Livable World Education Fund released its new report detailing various weapons sold by the U.S. to selected abusive governments around the world. Entitled “Human Rights and Weapons: Records of Selected U.S. Arms Clients,” this study not only describes the type, number, and dollar value of some of the weapons sold to these countries by the U.S., but also in what kinds of abusive practices the security forces of those nations engage.
• Human rights imperialismU.S. interests are not universal interests; its courts are not World Courts; its law is not international law. But there are indeed universal human rights that have emerged in the global struggle to acknowledge our common humanity. As Uwe-Jens Heuer and Gregor Schirmer argue, they are those rights set out in international law by the treaties and declarations that have obtained the concurrence of the states of the world. We must fight for the recognition in practice of these human rights worldwide.
What was the truth then? What is it today?
• CIA and the Cold War on culture and deceptionThis book provides a detailed account of the ways in which the CIA penetrated and influenced a vast array of cultural organizations, through its front groups and via friendly philanthropic organizations like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The author, Frances Stonor Saunders, details how and why the CIA ran cultural congresses, mounted exhibits, and organized concerts.This piece took us by surprise! How much do you think CIA and similar organisations influence our understanding of today’s wold news, culture and changes?
EU militarisation
• If so, what’s the difference between the EU and NATO?European Commission President Romano Prodi surprised his Latvian audience Feb. 10 by declaring that “any attack or aggression against an EU [European Union] member nation would be an attack or aggression against the whole EU, this is the highest guarantee.” If implemented as stated, this marks a quantum shift in EU policies, states Stratfor.
PhD, Peace & future researcher + Art Photographer, Professor Emeritus and media commentator
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...
Photo above: Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd’s Non-Violence outside UN Headquarters in New York. Kirill Levin, CC BY-NC-SA 2. Jan Oberg November 3, 2026 I am happy to be published in Horizons which is produced by the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development, CIRSD, in Belgrade. My contribution brings out a radical re-thinking of what concepts such as defence, security, deterrence – and peace – may mean if we want to create a more peaceful world. It also summarises a few things I have been working with the last few decades. Please read it here Og her er den på dansk, takket være Johnny Baltzersens lynhurtige oversættelse
UNITE-tillid, DREAM-velstand og andre konstruktive komponenter Normally we publish articles in English here. But this is a translation of a very important TFF document that should reach as many as possible in Denmark since this country’s government has been one of the most hardline in Europe and, up till now at least, has refused to use diplomacy and, instead, spent tremendous sums on arming Ukraine with the express goal of defeating Russia. Thus this – unique – article is in Danish. Vi er Johnny Baltzersen og hans Fælles Sikkerhed – Fælles Fremtid på Substack overmåde taknemmelige for at have oversat og publiceret TFF’s 2025-portfølje for fredsidéer med henblik på Ukraines fremtid. Vi håber den nu kan nå mange flere danskere – som også vil sprede den og skabe debat – nu den danske regerings og folketingspartiernes politik på dette område siden 2022 står nu – forudsigeligt – ved vejs ende....
Jan Oberg TFF director October 28, 2026 Exactly one month has now passed since I published my criticism of the introduction to the special issue on Johan Galtung published by the Journal of Global Security Studies, JoGSS, and of Tor Egil Førland’s chapter about Galtung which serves as a preview to his forthcoming biography of Galtung to be published by PRIO. See the original on The Transnational here and the same article on TFF Substack with many general and critical comments and, in particular, the people who decided to withdraw from the biography project in protest. The special issue itself was extraordinary. It was devoted to the intellectual legacy of one of the founders of peace research and contained a number of strong assessments of his personality, scholarship, intellectual trajectory, and public role. Such assessments are, of course, entirely legitimate. No scholar is beyond criticism, and neither was Johan Galtung....
TFF on Substack
Discover and subscribe to more peace materials on TFF Substack
Photo above: Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd’s Non-Violence outside UN Headquarters in New York. Kirill Levin, CC BY-NC-SA 2. Jan Oberg November 3, 2026 I am happy to be published in Horizons which is produced by the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development, CIRSD, in Belgrade. My contribution brings out a radical re-thinking of what concepts such as defence, security, deterrence – and peace – may mean if we want to create a more peaceful world. It also summarises a few things I have been working with the last few decades. Please read it here Og her er den på dansk, takket være Johnny Baltzersens lynhurtige oversættelse
UNITE-tillid, DREAM-velstand og andre konstruktive komponenter Normally we publish articles in English here. But this is a translation of a very important TFF document that should reach as many as possible in Denmark since this country’s government has been one of the most hardline in Europe and, up till now at least, has refused to use diplomacy and, instead, spent tremendous sums on arming Ukraine with the express goal of defeating Russia. Thus this – unique – article is in Danish. Vi er Johnny Baltzersen og hans Fælles Sikkerhed – Fælles Fremtid på Substack overmåde taknemmelige for at have oversat og publiceret TFF’s 2025-portfølje for fredsidéer med henblik på Ukraines fremtid. Vi håber den nu kan nå mange flere danskere – som også vil sprede den og skabe debat – nu den danske regerings og folketingspartiernes politik på dette område siden 2022 står nu – forudsigeligt – ved vejs ende....
Jan Oberg TFF director October 28, 2026 Exactly one month has now passed since I published my criticism of the introduction to the special issue on Johan Galtung published by the Journal of Global Security Studies, JoGSS, and of Tor Egil Førland’s chapter about Galtung which serves as a preview to his forthcoming biography of Galtung to be published by PRIO. See the original on The Transnational here and the same article on TFF Substack with many general and critical comments and, in particular, the people who decided to withdraw from the biography project in protest. The special issue itself was extraordinary. It was devoted to the intellectual legacy of one of the founders of peace research and contained a number of strong assessments of his personality, scholarship, intellectual trajectory, and public role. Such assessments are, of course, entirely legitimate. No scholar is beyond criticism, and neither was Johan Galtung....
Photo above: Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd’s Non-Violence outside UN Headquarters in New York. Kirill Levin, CC BY-NC-SA 2. Jan Oberg November 3, 2026 I am happy to be published in Horizons which is produced by the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development, CIRSD, in Belgrade. My contribution brings out a radical re-thinking of what concepts such as defence, security, deterrence – and peace – may mean if we want to create a more peaceful world. It also summarises a few things I have been working with the last few decades. Please read it here Og her er den på dansk, takket være Johnny Baltzersens lynhurtige oversættelse
UNITE-tillid, DREAM-velstand og andre konstruktive komponenter Normally we publish articles in English here. But this is a translation of a very important TFF document that should reach as many as possible in Denmark since this country’s government has been one of the most hardline in Europe and, up till now at least, has refused to use diplomacy and, instead, spent tremendous sums on arming Ukraine with the express goal of defeating Russia. Thus this – unique – article is in Danish. Vi er Johnny Baltzersen og hans Fælles Sikkerhed – Fælles Fremtid på Substack overmåde taknemmelige for at have oversat og publiceret TFF’s 2025-portfølje for fredsidéer med henblik på Ukraines fremtid. Vi håber den nu kan nå mange flere danskere – som også vil sprede den og skabe debat – nu den danske regerings og folketingspartiernes politik på dette område siden 2022 står nu – forudsigeligt – ved vejs ende....
Jan Oberg TFF director October 28, 2026 Exactly one month has now passed since I published my criticism of the introduction to the special issue on Johan Galtung published by the Journal of Global Security Studies, JoGSS, and of Tor Egil Førland’s chapter about Galtung which serves as a preview to his forthcoming biography of Galtung to be published by PRIO. See the original on The Transnational here and the same article on TFF Substack with many general and critical comments and, in particular, the people who decided to withdraw from the biography project in protest. The special issue itself was extraordinary. It was devoted to the intellectual legacy of one of the founders of peace research and contained a number of strong assessments of his personality, scholarship, intellectual trajectory, and public role. Such assessments are, of course, entirely legitimate. No scholar is beyond criticism, and neither was Johan Galtung....
An aspect of Iran’s culture and civilisation you’ve probably never heard about. Don’t be surprised if the US and Israel also try to bomb them. Jan ObergTFF director October 26, 2026 Today – under the “USraeli” threat of new “annihilating” bombings – opens the 7th International Conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution at Tehran’s University. As far as I can tell, this is the only permanent, advanced peace research institution in West Asia/the Middle East. Perhaps more countries in that region could be inspired? I mean, how many military “security” institutes and military academies do they have? Many peace research institutes and university departments have been established since the 1950s in the West. They are now all under attack; some have closed down, some have gone mainstream, yet others kept the name but do nothing to research peace and disseminate results or advice; instead, they cooperate with militarism’s platforms such...
Let’s discuss using AI to create peace – in contrast to boring geopolitics devoid of creative healing and visions. Jan Oberg TFF director October 15, 2026 I asked VEED to create a short video exemplifying how peace is preferable to war, then chose the lady as a template. Simple as that. In less than a minute, it produced this video, which any peace-loving person would appreciate. The only problem is that human intelligence (HI), at least the one that exists among Western decision-makers, isn’t half as moral or smart as AI. I have used AI to dialogue about peace and peace plans, creative conflict resolution and visions of a better future for humankind. It so happens that I am having more stimulating, intelligent, creative and moral discussions with AI than I could possibly have with any EU or NATO leader today. Yes, AI has very problematic and dangerous aspects; used...
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...
