Part of the GCRI Symposium on World Peace.
The GCRI Symposium on World Peace is an expert conversation on the relationship between world peace and global catastrophic risk. The Symposium began with a private workshop in which a select group of experts exchanged ideas and perspectives. This led to the publication of five commentary articles, as detailed below. This is GCRI’s first symposium and we hope that it won’t be our last.
Note: The Symposium is published during the 2026 Iran war. The timing is purely coincidental.
The Symposium was motivated by the fact that world peace and global catastrophic risk are two large global issues with significant overlap. Some war scenarios could result in global catastrophe, especially nuclear war. Warfighting can also be a significant cause of environmental pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions, as well as a driver of risk-taking on advanced technology, including AI. Furthermore, the geopolitical rivalries that can lead to wars also inhibit international cooperation on a wide range of global catastrophic risks. A world at peace may be substantially more effective at reducing global catastrophic risk. However, this leaves open the questions of whether and how world peace should be pursued, both by people in the field of global catastrophic risk and by society at large. Addressing these questions were the focus of the Symposium.
In my own opinion, the Symposium has succeeded in providing a range of perspectives to advance the conversation about world peace and global catastrophic risk. Last year, I published an article on world peace and global catastrophic risk, but this was more of a question than a comment, asking whether it may be worthwhile to pursue world peace as part of a broader agenda for reducing global catastrophic risk. The Symposium provides some answers.
To summarize, I believe the Symposium finds that world peace is a worthwhile pursuit as long as it is pursued intelligently and responsibly, and as long as it is understood that our efforts may be helpful even if they fall short of achieving the complete absence of warfare worldwide. To that end, the Symposium provides some critical discussion of the idea of pursuing world peace and some practical suggestions for how to go about pursuing it. But first, it begins with a perspective on why, in this seemingly dark era of human history, it may actually be good timing to pursue world peace.
From Danger to Renewal: Rethinking Crisis Through a Cyclical Lens
Jean Dong, an expert in China-West relations at Harvard University and the University of Melbourne, cautions against despair in the face of daunting global crises, including catastrophic risks. It may seem absurd to contemplate world peace in such a desperate time, but she argues that this is the wrong way to look at it. Her article draws on traditional Eastern philosophy, especially from China, which understands the flow of history differently than is common in the West. Whereas Western thinking often imagines history as steadily moving in one direction, Eastern and Chinese thinking tends to take a cyclical view of history. From that perspective, crises are not doomed to get worse, but instead may set the stage for renewal. And so, we should not contemplate world peace despite the desperate nature of this era—we should contemplate world peace because of it.
While I am no expert on Eastern philosophy, I find this perspective quite compelling. Yes, this seems like a dark period of time, in which things are not going well. However, my sense is that, precisely because of this apparent darkness, people are unusually receptive to new ideas, new ways of organizing society. I can see this in US politics: the neoliberal order is clearly on the outs, but it has yet to be replaced by something new. Some people even find the status quo to be catastrophic, effectively saying, “We cannot continue on like this.” Many Americans are also fatigued of war. Why not aim for peace? That doesn’t mean achieving world peace would be easy—it just means we should be open to the idea of pursuing it.
Responsible Cosmopolitan Leadership to Advance Peace and Reduce Catastrophic Risk
Paul Ingram, a nuclear security expert at the University of Cambridge, proposes a paradigm for national leaders to follow to address the dual threats of war and global catastrophic risk. Drawing on his extensive internal experience, he argues that progress on nuclear disarmament will only occur of and when nuclear-armed states get along with each other better. To that end, his paradigm calls for leaders and their respective countries to be (1) responsible in their handling of international affairs, (2) cosmopolitan in recognizing everyone’s common humanity and respecting differences between countries, and (3) leading initiatives to get the ball rolling on important international issues.
I completely agree with this. Nuclear-armed countries have agreed in “the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons”, and yet they are not disarming. Why? I share Ingram’s diagnosis that what’s needed is improved relations between them. His specific prescription, responsible cosmopolitan leadership, seems basically correct to me. I likewise agree that this would be of considerable value not just for nuclear war, but also for peace and global catastrophic risk more generally. In my mind, the big questions are how to get national leaders to adopt this paradigm and, until they do, how to meanwhile manage the various risks.
An International Dialogue among Catastrophic Risk Researchers
Matthew Rendall, a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham, suggests that global catastrophic risk researchers may be able to help by engaging in dialog with peers from other countries, especially from geopolitical rivals. For example, American researchers could connect with researchers from China and Russia. The article describes how US-USSR expert dialog during the Cold War helped reduce nuclear war risk and geopolitical tensions. Similar work today would face challenges, such as limited contacts between the US and China/Russia, but may nonetheless be worthwhile as a simple, low-cost way to exchange ideas, advance cross-border work on global catastrophic risk, and lay the foundations for peace.
To my eyes, this seems like a good idea. Expert dialog isn’t going to singlehandedly solve the problems of geopolitical rivalry and global catastrophic risk, but it has clear potential to help while being relatively easy to do. This is even something I could see GCRI becoming active in. GCRI already has international networks of global catastrophic risk researchers. We haven’t made a point of recruiting experts from across geopolitical rivalries, but we could certainly try. More generally, I think it’s important for analysis to identify specific, actionable ideas like this, and so this is a welcome contribution.
A Critique of the Goal of World Peace
Zachary Kallenborn, a Ph.D. candidate in Risk Analysis at King’s College London, provides a critical perspective on the pursuit of world peace, arguing that it should not be pursued. The article defines world peace as the complete absence of war, so even a single small war anywhere in the world would mean no world peace. Major academic theories of peace—including democracy, international institutions, and interdependence—all fail to achieve peace in every instance. Furthermore, the article contends that pursuing world peace could actually be harmful, such as by enabling an oppressive world government. The article argues that instead of pursuing world peace, the global catastrophic risk community should focus on (1) reducing the risk of catastrophic wars, such as nuclear war, (2) facilitating international cooperation on catastrophic risks, and (3) advancing research on the role of catastrophic risks in international politics.
While I appreciate the value of bringing a critical perspective into the conversation, and I do agree on some specific points, overall I disagree with the article’s argument against the pursuit of world peace. It depends on an “all or nothing” view of world peace, in which a single small war ruins the whole thing. As I explain in my own article, I think it’s more appropriate to treat world peace as a desirable end goal and organizing framework in which progress towards the goal is also valuable, analogous to, for example, the UN Sustainable Development Goals of ending poverty and hunger, or the climate change goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, in my view, the mere possibility that pursuing world peace could be harmful is not enough to abstain from pursuing it; instead, it’s a reminder that we should pursuit it intelligently and responsibly. The same holds for many other goals we might have. That said, I do agree that it’s important for the global catastrophic risk community to be attentive to the perils of world government. World government is a major theme in discussions of world peace, and it’s the sort of big, sweeping idea that many people in the field of global catastrophic risk may find compelling. I also agree with the specific suggestions for the global catastrophic risk community to focus on catastrophic wars, international cooperation, and catastrophe politics research. It’s not any one community’s responsibility to solve the entire problem of world peace, and these are among the specific activities that are a good fit for our field.
Finally, in my own contribution to the symposium, I draw on prior research literature to map out 17 concepts for advancing peace. The concepts cover theoretical ideals, national and international governance structures, military affairs, international relationships, and culture. The article finds that no concept could on its own achieve world peace. Instead, the focus should be on studying the full breadth of concepts and using them as appropriate on a case-by-case basis. That said, the article also sees particular value in concepts aimed at persuading people to want peace, such as raising awareness about the harms of war and spreading a cosmopolitan cultural orientation. Perhaps peace would be more durable if people actually wanted it.
While I do like my own article and I’m glad to see it published—it contains a fair bit of research on an idea I’ve long wanted to pursue—I can’t help but underscore its big limitation as a short overview of a large set of complex topics. There is just so much important detail that I couldn’t cover. For example, some of the concepts are in direct conflict with each other. One concept is to spread democracy, on grounds that democratic countries are less militaristic; another concept is cosmopolitanism, which calls for being accepting of differences between countries, including different forms of government. So, should we seek to spread democracy? Perhaps in some cases, but this is beyond the scope of the article. This one example speaks to the article’s limitations as a broad-but-shallow overview of a very complex subject domain. I hope that, despite this, it still serves as a helpful survey of concepts for advancing peace.
