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Five ways to protect civilians in contemporary armed conflict
The nature of conflict is changing, and with it the challenges of protecting civilians from harm. In this blog, Dan Mahanty of Stockholm Forum partner CIVIC offers some insights on how to improve civilian protection in this new context.
Arming autocracies: Arms transfers and the emerging Biden doctrine
Observers have voiced concern about what they perceive as a disconnect between the foreign policy rhetoric of the Biden administration and its foreign policy practice. This WritePeace blog explores what light SIPRI data on arms transfers can cast on the discussion.
Peak China, a declining USA and the future of Africa
The next two decades will bring a more complex, multipolar and less Western world, one in which regional rather than global connectedness is growing. What does this mean for Africa? This blog from Jakkie Cilliers, the founder and former executive director of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), explores this question.
Non-violent movements could be key to better people-centred peacebuilding
Throughout this year’s Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development, we heard about a multiplicity of crises afflicting the world. While the war in Ukraine—and its globally destabilizing effects—were front and centre, today’s peace and security is also threatened by our inability to take reasonable steps to mitigate climate change and a global rise in populist nationalism and pushback against human rights and gender equality that is accompanied by 17 years of democratic decline.
The impact of the war in Ukraine on Polish arms industrial policy
This blog explores how Poland is using Ukraine war-linked arms and ammunition contracts in a bid to accelerate the modernization and expansion of its arms industry.
Backgrounders
With acute food insecurity on the rise around the world, this topical backgrounder presents four suggestions for making food security programming more cost-effective in a time of funding constraints, climate change and heightened conflict risk.
With heated rhetoric and intensified military activity along its borders with NATO neighbours, what does SIPRI data reveal about the status of Belarus's military?
To mark the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers, SIPRI is releasing new data on multilateral peace operations in 2022.
A snapshot of the situation and remaining challenges for Iraq, two decades after the invasion.
To commemorate the upcoming 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq on 20 March, SIPRI has prepared this Topical Backgrounder along with an Interactive chronology of security developments in Iraq spanning from 2002 to 2021. These materials are components of a larger collection of new materials that SIPRI is creating to commemorate the anniversary.
Beyond the UN Security Council: Can the UN General Assembly tackle the climate–security challenge?
The wildfires raging in Canada are yet another reminder that climate change is already having an impact on all our lives. As the smoke clears around the United Nations building in New York, we are likely to see a renewed push for the UN Security Council to tackle the security risks posed by climate change, including in the upcoming New Agenda for Peace policy brief from UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Twenty years ago in Iraq, ignoring the expert weapons inspectors proved to be a fatal mistake
In this SIPRI Essay, former nuclear inspector Robert Kelley describes how the case for invading Iraq in 2003 was built on false claims about weapons of mass destruction.
Towards a more secure future through effective multilateralism based on facts, science and knowledge
As world leaders gather in New York for the opening of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, far too many security key indicators are heading in a dangerous direction.
Looking beyond the NPT: Next steps in arms control and disarmament
The latest review cycle of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) reached an unsatisfactory conclusion on 26 August, when the Russian delegation blocked agreement on a final outcome document.
We must strengthen multilateralism in a new era of risk
This essay draws on research under SIPRI's Environment of Peace initiative and on the authors' own experience.