As Military Power Eclipses Diplomacy, New Peacemakers Emerge to Prevent Conflict

The world that emerged from the ashes of World War II—built on the promise that force would be constrained, that institutions would mediate disputes, that law would bind nations together—is coming apart. In 2025, global military spending reached $2.887 trillion, a sum that reflects not hope but fear: states abandoning the bet that cooperation could keep them safe, turning instead to the oldest logic of all, the logic of arms. The post-1945 order is not dead yet, but it is dying. And with it dies the assumption that war is aberration rather than the default.

The signs are everywhere. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a stunningly brazen violation of the UN Charter. But what made 2026 a turning point was the Trump administration's decision to join Israel in war against Iran in February—not because it was unprecedented, but because it signaled something harder to ignore: the United States, the order's principal architect and guardian, had stopped pretending the rules mattered. When the Security Council took up the matter, it issued a resolution that criticized Iran's retaliation while omitting that the U.S. and Israel had started the war. The message was clear. International law, once the scaffolding of global peace, had become ornamental.

The erosion runs deeper than any single conflict. The UN Security Council, designed to enforce restraint on the use of force, has been sidelined on Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, and Gaza. Regional institutions are fracturing under geopolitical strain. The African Union struggles. ECOWAS, once bold in preventive diplomacy, has seen member states defect. In Latin America, regional integration has given way to polarization. The "peace industry" that flourished after the Cold War—the diplomats, UN officials, scholars, and civil society networks that learned to build peace—is on the wane, starved of funding and political will. Meanwhile, atrocities accumulate without deterrent effect. Israel leveled much of Gaza, where the human toll was catastrophic. Cluster munitions and anti-personnel landmines, weapons the world thought it was moving beyond, are back in use in Ukraine. Artificial intelligence is being deployed to select targets, raising legal and moral questions no one has answered.

Yet the picture is not wholly dark. War, for all its normalization, has exposed its own limits. Russia has failed to achieve its aims in Ukraine after five years of fighting. The U.S. and Israel wound down their conflict with Iran on terms far more favorable to Tehran than either power envisaged. Ethiopia, having imposed a lopsided peace in Tigray, risks being drawn back into war. Sudan's civil war, fueled by outside support, has produced no victor. Even with Russian mercenaries, Mali and other Sahel governments have found it no easier to crush insurgencies than France did. The Myanmar junta has failed to crush its opponents by military means. These are not victories for peace, but they are reminders that military force alone does not settle disputes—and that the costs of trying are mounting.

Into this disorder have stepped new peacemakers. Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Oman have become central to resolving crises that the UN cannot touch. When the U.S. and Iran reached a memorandum of understanding on June 17, it was Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, and the Gulf Arab states that made it possible. Malaysia intervened to end border clashes between Cambodia and Thailand in 2025. These middle powers are not acting from altruism; they are protecting relationships with warring parties, managing regional rivalries, or addressing conflicts on their doorsteps. But they are acting. Qatar has partnered with Norway and Switzerland in mediation efforts. Turkey has brokered talks in Syria, Libya, and the Philippines. These actors have leverage—hydrocarbon wealth, proximity to major powers, access to White House deliberations that sometimes exceeds that of NATO members. They have momentum.

The deals they broker, though, are different from the comprehensive peace agreements that defined the post-Cold War era. The 2016 accord between Colombia's government and FARC rebels was the last settlement on a comparable scale. Today's peacemakers chase ceasefires, confidence-building measures, prisoner exchanges, and agreements to limit spillover—short-term arrangements, often by design. Qatar is trying to forge a lasting agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. The U.S. has nudged Armenia and Azerbaijan toward settlement. But the hallmark of contemporary peacemaking is its short-term nature. Countries emerging from crisis, like Syria, are increasingly finding their own way, with little international stewardship. National authorities sometimes accelerate reforms and sometimes let them drift, leaving social and factional frictions unresolved.

International institutions, for all their faults, retain residual relevance. The UN, despite its paralysis on major conflicts, still oversees some 50,000 peacekeepers and more than a dozen sanctions regimes. When the U.S. tried to launch a non-UN humanitarian operation in Gaza, it degenerated into disaster; Washington has begun restoring funding to UN humanitarian operations because no one else can deliver assistance on the same scale. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Putin and Netanyahu, maintaining global norms even if enforcement remains uncertain. The International Court of Justice has been pressed into service on Myanmar, Gaza, and the West Bank. These bodies cannot stop wars, but they can help sustain the legal architecture that underpins restraint.

What comes next depends on whether peacemakers and policymakers can navigate a world where military power has eclipsed diplomacy but has not eliminated it. The task is not to restore the post-1945 order—that is unlikely—but to identify tools that can reduce bloodshed in an era of disorder. This means combining deterrence with diplomacy: as states arm themselves, they must also develop military-to-military channels to avoid accidents that could spiral into catastrophe. It means exploring political solutions to domestic conflicts, balancing military action with dialogue even when governments see negotiation as taboo. It means strengthening diverse networks of peacemakers, building partnerships between European powers and middle-power mediators. It means improving resilience to regional shocks by managing global supply chains and trade flows, as the Black Sea Grain Initiative did during the Russian-Ukrainian war. It means coordinating influential voices—private-sector actors, insurers, agricultural and energy firms—around the dangers of hard power. And it means defending the core elements of international law and norms, speaking out against breaches, taking collective action where appropriate, and bringing matters to international tribunals that can weave those norms more tightly into the fabric of international law.

None of this will restore the order that is fading. But in a period when new conflicts and escalation cycles seem likely, and wars are exacting a grim toll, these steps offer ways to shore up peace and mitigate deadly violence. They require risk-taking and will produce mistakes. Even good results may rest on shaky ground. But the alternative—allowing disorder to deepen unchecked—is worse. The world is learning, slowly and painfully, that peace is always caused. The question now is whether it can be caused in an age when the causes of war seem to be winning.