Comment archive
Displaying 65 comments posted in 2026
September 2026
The return of interstate war should change how we think about conflict
The rise in interstate conflict signals a dangerous shift that demands new thinking in prevention, peacebuilding, and global governance.
Predicting conflict fatalities with temporal fusion transformers
Introducing a performant, yet interpretable deep learning algorithm for conflict forecasting.
Russia remains absorbed with Europe amid BRICS summit
Russian state media regularly presents the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS as embodiments of a multipolar world order replacing Western dominance.
Escalation and the size of wars
The war in Ukraine underscores the severe human impact and economic consequences of large wars, but there has been remarkably little attention to why wars differ so much in severity in the first place.
China isn’t winning the digital order – yet
In Southeast Asia, Beijing is building the digital infrastructure, but not (yet) writing the rules.
Putin’s Eastern voyage highlights Russia’s setbacks
Russian President Vladimir Putin has lately visited at least seven cities in Russia’s Siberian and Far Eastern regions.
Is Europe up to Putin’s challenge – and vice versa?
For Europe, the challenge may no longer be only to deter Russia, but also to overcome the internal divisions that Russia seeks to exploit.
Civil wars cluster around the Equator – but why?
Civil war events are overrepresented around the Equator.
August 2026
Yes, we must create jobs, but not to prevent migration
An objective of curbing migration pressure is a poor guide for development policy.
Is US patience with Israel running out?
Israel’s military campaigns in the Middle East depend on support from the United States. But how long will that support last?
Echoes of Partition: Migration, borders and shared humanity
Mid-August marks the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, but also the mass migration and violence that followed in the wake of Partition.
How to make sense of the new world disorder
With two ongoing regional wars, a crumbling humanitarian architecture and a number of smaller, often ignored, crises, it is tempting to pronounce an end to the liberal international order as we have known it since the end of the Cold War. But is this really the case? And what, if anything, might be replacing it?
Only Moscow lacks new ideas for ending war against Ukraine
The July 23 meeting in Manila between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lasted only 35 minutes and produced no new momentum, according to the Kremlin (The Moscow Times, July 23).
The Ukraine War takes new turns in the Black Sea theatre
Wars of attrition are supposed to be static and predictable, but the Ukraine War definitely departs from this pattern. Its transformation is constant, and during this summer, new surprises have come, delivered primarily by Ukraine, which puts priority on neutralization of Russian capacity to generate mass of manpower by technological innovations.
When the deadline looms: political crises, displacement and the clock
In January 2017, the streets of Banjul, the tiny capital of The Gambia, fell silent. Shops shuttered. Families packed bags. Tens of thousands of people streamed across the border into Senegal – not because war had broken out, but because a deadline was approaching.
July 2026
Seeing 22 July through transitional justice: what have we learned?
The new book After 22 July: Transitional Justice and Terror focuses on forms of accountability, reconciliation, and remembrance that have emerged in the years since the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway. Bringing together perspectives from multiple disciplines, the edited volume examines criminal trials, inquiry commissions, policing reforms, victim recognition, and memorialization after 22 July as interconnected processes of transitional justice.
Ukraine ramps up drone strikes in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea
Since early July, Ukraine has expanded its middle- and long-range aerial and naval drone strikes from isolating the Crimean Peninsula to also disrupting Russia’s maritime traffic in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
Putin intensifies missile attacks against Kyiv ahead of NATO summit
The Kremlin paired the July attacks with exaggerated battlefield claims and messaging aimed at the July NATO summit.
Ukraine’s expanding strike campaign undercuts Putin’s claims of steady progress
Russian President Vladimir Putin has a reputation for lashing out when cornered. According to some analysts, Putin’s pattern of responding to setbacks with escalation has made many Western leaders hesitant to supply heavy-impact weapon systems to Ukraine.
June 2026
Shadow of Anchorage no-deal looms over Ukraine peace no-talks
The long-deadlocked Ukraine war has from the start of 2026 changed quite drastically in the tactical, strategic and geopolitical dimensions, but has remained immobile on the diplomatic track.
Does ‘ceasefire’ still have any real meaning?
We're seeing an incredibly dangerous development where ceasefires are changing character, as conflict parties accept high levels of violence within the label ‘ceasefire’.
How the G7 can reset global finance
When G7 leaders arrive in Evian-les-Bains this month, France will host more than another summit. It will host a test of whether rich-country coordination can still solve problems that no country can manage alone.
Norwegian peace diplomacy - is it facilitation or mediation? And why this matters.
It is a tradition in Norwegian peace diplomacy to say they are “only facilitators”, and theories on mediation are seen as of little relevance.
AI is neither the autocrat’s silver bullet nor democracy’s death sentence
AI does not map neatly onto a spectrum running from democratic vulnerability to authoritarian advantage.
Do we need peace research when Norway is threatened by war?
War once again threatens Norway’s security. One might ask what we need peace research for at this moment.
SPIEF’26 highlighted Russia’s growing economic troubles
Russia’s business elites went through the motions of demonstrating loyalty to Putin by attending SPIEF’26 amid mounting economic and security challenges.
Russia hits strategic ceiling with attacks, strikes, and bluffs
Each attempt at nuclear blackmail exposes the disarray in Russian elites and society.
May 2026
The war in the shadow of Iran
While global attention is focused on the Iran conflict, the war between Pakistan and Afghanistan continues.
Surge in nuclear brinksmanship cannot regain Russia’s position of strength
The accumulation of setbacks in Russian economic, military, and foreign policies this spring has reached such a scale that the pattern of deadlocked war is beginning to shift toward the prospect of defeat
Putin’s Beijing visit promises few rewards
Putin’s one-day working visit is set to be a much plainer affair than Trump’s summit.
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