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Friday, 28 Feb 2025

Stock photo/da-kuk/Getty images.

Contesting the AI-Cybersecurity Nexus: Lessons Learned from the United Kingdom

In an age where so-called artificial intelligence (AI) seems to revolutionise every corner of our lives, it’s no surprise that its intersection with cybersecurity has become a major focus for governments worldwide. Where cybersecurity and AI were previously seen as separate entities, they are increasingly merging together in policy discourse. ...

PRIO Blogs

PRIO blog posts offer reflections and analyses on peace and conflict research and feature contributions from PRIO researchers and guest writers.

Ukraine War

Research-based comments and analysis on the Ukraine War

PRIO Blogs

Wednesday, 26 Feb 2025

Defender of the Fatherland Day February 23, 2025, in Moscow. Photo: Contributor/Getty Images.

Moscow Changes War Rhetoric but Stays War Course

The whirlwind of U.S.-initiated diplomatic activity in the last two weeks has compelled the Kremlin to alter the tone of its messaging on confrontation with the West and even the substance of its far-reaching propaganda campaign. The cliché of “Anglo-Saxon” hostility, a long-time theme in Moscow’s discourse, has disappeared together ...
Wednesday, 19 Feb 2025
Moscow Seeks to Regain Initiative in the Game of Peace Talks
Wednesday, 12 Feb 2025
Trump’s Logic of Deal-Making Versus Putin’s Logic of War-Making
Friday, 31 Jan 2025
Conversations on Ending the War in Ukraine Grow Louder and Emptier
Monday, 20 Jan 2025
Moscow Sticks to Peace Denials Despite War Exhaustion

PRIO Blogs

Monday, 17 Feb 2025

Doris Salcedo 'Fragmentos' where the symbolic floor of the space is made with the molten metal of the weapons of the extinct FARC on July 13, 2021 in Bogota, Colombia. (Photo by Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images).

How Colombia’s Disarmament Process Transformed Weapons Into Symbols of Peace

In 2016, the Colombian government and the guerrilla group FARC-EP ended their five decade-long war. As part of the peace agreement, FARC-EP’s weapons had to be collected, a process known as disarmament. By 2017, UN observers had received and removed over 8,112 guns, 1.3 million rounds of ammunition, 22 tons of explosives, ...

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PutinRefugeesUSAcoronavirusPeace ResearchTrumpDemocracyDronesIsrael/Palestine CrisisWPSTalibanSurveillanceNATOUnited StatesIsraeli-Palestinian ConflictClimate changeFood securityWomenCOVID22/7All tags ...

Security Dialogue

Posts by authors and editors at Security Dialogue, a journal that aims to combine cutting-edge advances in theory with new empirical findings across a range of fields relevant to the study of security.

Security Dialogue

Thursday, 13 Feb 2025

Lice: Image from Pixabay.

Poison: The politics behind pesticides and chemical weapons

Compounds labelled as chemical weapons and pesticides share common active chemical ingredients, which function as nerve agents to humans and insects whether they are considered a form of warfare or a farming staple. Lice: Image from Pixabay Why are such substances considered acceptable and necessary in the context of agriculture ...
Friday, 31 Jan 2025
Migrant deaths in the name of law
Friday, 31 Jan 2025
Can Videogames Shape Public Understandings of Weaponized Artificial Intelligence?
Monday, 26 Jun 2023
Technopolitics of Security
Monday, 26 Jun 2023
Private Security Contractors and the porousness of International Enclaves

PRIO Blogs

Thursday, 30 Jan 2025

Before the inauguration, there were strangely few signals about the U.S.'s foreign aid policies and priorities. J. Countess/Getty Images

Trump Vol. 2 Will Impact Global Development

The United States is by far the world’s largest provider of foreign aid, but it is completely unclear whether and how this will continue. Trump speaks of quickly achieving peace but at the same time he threatens neighboring countries. One thing is certain, however: Trump will not prioritize climate issues. ...

PRIO Blogs

Friday, 17 Jan 2025

Nanortalik, Greenland. Jim Griffin

Greenland Is Not for Sale

President Donald Trump has provoked strong reactions with his proposition to buy Greenland, not the least because the right to self-determination is a fundamental principle in international law, allowing peoples to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development. Home Rule Greenland has a long ...

PRIO Blogs

Friday, 10 Jan 2025

The traditional sirens for alerting are still there, while alerting on mobile phones is now being tested. Photo: Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection. Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection

This Is What Norwegians Think About Emergency Alerts on Mobile Phones

The mobile phone has become an indispensable part of our daily lives. We carry it with us everywhere, and it’s a crisis when it’s lost. Now it has also taken on a new role: alerting us to emergencies. On Wednesday, January 8, emergency alerts on mobile phones were tested across ...

PRIO Blogs

Friday, 10 Jan 2025

The arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the first against a sitting head of state in a so-called liberal democracy, writes Kjersti Lohne. Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024. Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images.

The International Criminal Court at Risk of Collapse

As many are by now acutely aware, the International Criminal Court (ICC) relies on state cooperation to investigate and arrest individuals charged with international crimes. This is not new. What is new is the seriousness, complexity, and extent of the political resistance that the ICC is currently facing after issuing ...

PRIO Blogs

Thursday, 12 Dec 2024

Photo: Alexey Furman/Getty Images. Alexey Furman/Getty Images

We Need to Talk About Children Born of War

Every day, children are born in war and armed conflict, in Ukraine, on the Gaza Strip, in South Sudan, in Myanmar and elsewhere. Some of these children might have parents who are enemies, that is, parents who are on opposite sides of the conflict. Some of these children might have ...

PRIO Blogs

Wednesday, 11 Dec 2024

A Palestinian sand sculptor commemorating World Refugee Day in Gaza City in June 2020. Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images

An Untested Refugee Theory

From late January 2025, the Israeli ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) will come into effect. What does this mean for the rights of the Palestinian refugees, and who will then take responsibility for helping them? In October 2024, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) ...

PRIO Blogs

Wednesday, 27 Nov 2024

A 32 years old female FARC guerrilla fighter inside a demobilization camp in Colombia in 2017. Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images

Making Women Combatants Visible: Steps Towards Gender-Responsive Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration

In October the Security Council met for its annual Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Open Debate under the theme of “Women Building Peace in a Changing Environment.” Despite the WPS agenda’s goals for including women in all aspects of security and peace-making, their participation in disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR), ...

PRIO Blogs

Tuesday, 26 Nov 2024

Photo: Majdi Fathi/Nur Photo via Getty Images. Majdi Fathi/Nur Photo via Getty Images

Protection of Civilians in Crisis: Geneva Conventions at 75

With the devastating news from Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan among other wars, we witness a crisis of the international regime for protecting civilians in armed conflict. However, this is not a total collapse but a return to the troubling world that the legal protections for civilians in the 1949 Geneva ...

Blog archive

Explore past blog posts in our blog post archive

Research Politics

PRIO Blogs

Friday, 22 Nov 2024

Illustration: Yuichiro Chino via Getty Images.

Authorship and Involuntary Attribution: How and Why Should We Contest AI Manipulation?

Technology is radically changing the work and role of scholars and the function of academic publishing. Fake and fabricated content (data, facts, arguments, claims, conclusions) undermines the foundations of knowledge in a democratic society. Faking publications and citations undermine the way we as a community of knowledge producers have organized ...
Tuesday, 12 Mar 2024
Fake Research Is Threatening Our Democracy
Tuesday, 19 Dec 2023
Optics as Politics: Culture, Language and Learning with UiO ChatGPT
Sunday, 3 Apr 2022
Do Men Really Publish More than Women?
Sunday, 28 Feb 2021
Diversity in Norwegian Academia 2021

PRIO Blogs

Tuesday, 19 Nov 2024

Sacks of flour at a UNRWA distribution center in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, November 2024. Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Israel Has Escalated Its Shadow War Against UNRWA. What Happens Now?

On 4 November, the Israeli Foreign Ministry cancelled the agreement the country signed with UNRWA in 1967. A week earlier, the Knesset had passed legislation banning UNRWA from operating in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Why is Israel doing this, and what could the consequences be? UNRWA a free ...

PRIO Blogs

Thursday, 14 Nov 2024

Trump and Putin meet in Helsinki in 2018. Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Perplexed Vladimir Putin Reckons With Outcome of US Elections

The Kremlin had confidently expected confusion and turmoil following the US presidential election. Instead, a definite outcome and the commitment to a smooth transition of power are set to shape the US political environment for the next couple of months. The significant majority of Russians preferred Donald Trump as the ...

PRIO Blogs

Thursday, 31 Oct 2024

Children in displacement camp in Somalia. Save the Children

473 million Children Live in Conflict Zones

The world is suffering from escalating levels of conflict. The Civil war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the bombing of Gaza have all significantly contributed to dramatic increase in battle deaths in recent years. Moreover, 2023 witnessed the highest number of state-based conflicts – 59 ...

Nobel Peace Prize

PRIO Blogs

Tuesday, 15 Oct 2024

Hiroshima after Atomic Bomb strike in 1945. Photo: Prisma Bildagentur/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Unwinnable Wars, Risks of Escalation, and the Nuclear Taboo

The announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize on October 11 coincided with a dangerous phase in two long wars — Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine — that are both poised for escalation. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Hiroshima ...
Wednesday, 9 Oct 2024
Can We Award a Prize for Peace in a World Full of War?
Friday, 13 Oct 2023
Does the Situation in Iran Call for a Second Nobel Peace Prize?
Thursday, 8 Dec 2022
Civil Society Faces an Uphill Struggle to Defend Democracy
Wednesday, 12 Oct 2022
No Escape for Putin from His Lonely and Tight Corner

PRIO Blogs

Thursday, 19 Sep 2024

Electoral boards with posters from the parties 'Reconquête', 'La France Insoumise (LFI)', 'Rassemblement National', and 'Les Ecologistes' for the European Elections on May 28, 2024, in Lyon. Photo: Robert Deyrail / Getty Images

Anti-Globalist Alliances?

The far right and far left have partly overlapping views on issues of global economic cooperation. Why don’t they unite? “We have moved from ‘we the workers’ to ‘we the French,’” said the French sociologist Didier Eribon to Libération recently, to explain the working class’s support for the populist party Rassemblement ...

PRIO Blogs

Wednesday, 18 Sep 2024

Putin greets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Photo: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Moscow Takes the Measure of Western Vacillations

Since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the US-led Western coalition has demonstrated remarkable determination in supporting Kyiv. Yet, every practical step in providing military support to defiant Ukraine has involved protracted deliberations (Kuzio, “Crimea: Where Russia’s War Started and Where Ukraine Will Win,” July 8). Moscow has sought to exploit and ...

PRIO Blogs

Thursday, 12 Sep 2024

Pakistani soldiers and Chinese staff during the opening of a trade project in Gwadar port, west of Karachi in 2016. This port was a key part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Photo: Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Is China Truly a Neutral Development Actor? 

China presents itself as a different kind of development actor compared to Western donors — more equal and with less imposition and interference in national affairs, based on the belief that economic development leads to peace. However, many doubt this is the case. A look at Pakistan shows that local ...

PRIO Blogs

Tuesday, 10 Sep 2024

Soldiers from the United Wa State Army (UWSA) g. Photo: Thierry Falise/LightRocket via Getty Images

The Silent Winner of Myanmar’s Northern Conflict

From the chaos of the conflict in Shan State, the United Wa State Army has emerged as a potentially decisive force. On the morning of July 28, a convoy of soldiers from the United Wa State Army (UWSA) drove through Lashio, the capital of the northern Shan State and home ...

PRIO Blogs

Wednesday, 14 Aug 2024

Photo from fieldwork in the TRUST project at PRIO.

Community Initiatives to Mitigate Group Tensions: Reflections from Uganda

Forced displacement places increased pressure on host communities. Refugees are often hosted in resource-scarce areas with high unemployment and poverty. Local, national and international collaboration is therefore crucial to mitigate social conflict and prevent instability from traveling with those fleeing war. Uganda, with its progressive refugee policies, is often presented as a ...

PRIO Blogs

Tuesday, 6 Aug 2024

Protestors continue their demonstration for the abolition of the quota system in government jobs, on August 05, 2024 in Barishal, Bangladesh. Photo: Niamul Rifat/Anadolu via Getty Images

Victory for the Civilian Uprising in Bangladesh: What is Next for the ‘Second Independence’?

It was an unprecedented and historic moment that unfolded in Bangladesh on 5 August 2024 when Prime Minister Sheik Hasina hastily fled the country in a military helicopter. The protesters had demonstrated in the streets for several weeks, and that moment marked a ‘second independence’. This was not an independence ...

PRIO Blogs

Wednesday, 31 Jul 2024

Vladimir Putin meets Bashar Al-Assad in Sochi in 2018. Photo: Kremlin Press Office / Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Russian Intrigues in Middle East Surge

On July 24, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was summoned to Moscow for a secret meeting in the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the US Congress. The visit was announced only the following day when al-Assad ...

PRIO Blogs

Thursday, 30 May 2024

The Ramallah Municipality Building with flags of Spain, Ireland and Norway following their formal recognition of the State of Palestine, on May 24, 2024. Issam Rimawi/Anadolu via Getty Images

The Importance of Recognition – Even in Occupation

Norway, Spain, and Ireland recognized a Palestinian state that does not yet exist. This is why it still matters. On Wednesday May 22. Norway, Spain and Ireland declared that they would recognize Palestine as a state on May 28. The recognition has now become official. During a 22 May press ...

PRIO Blogs

Wednesday, 15 May 2024

Cathedral of the Saviour, Moscow. Hans Nelemann / Getty Images

Week of Ceremonies Marks Wobbly Start for Putin’s New Presidential Term

The Christian Orthodox Easter service in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral on May 5 began a week of pompous performances for Russian President Vladimir Putin (Vedomosti, May 5). It continued with his inauguration ceremony on May 7, followed by a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Council (EEC) the next day ...

Beyond the COVID Curve

PRIO Blogs

Tuesday, 14 May 2024

Stock photo from July 2020, by Tempura / Getty Images.

Pandemic Aftermath: Reflecting on the Value and Compensation of Essential Workers

After the first confirmation of a COVID case in Norway in late February 2020, the Norwegian government found itself in a difficult situation where the prevention of the virus was urgent, while the functioning of public institutions was necessary. Therefore, the Norwegian government categorized certain workers as especially important or ...
Monday, 14 Feb 2022
What Happens to Childhood Vaccine Rates in Conflict Zones? This Analysis Found Some Surprises
Thursday, 13 Jan 2022
Even at Times of Crisis, Children Must Go to School
Thursday, 30 Sep 2021
Corona Apps – Going Global
Monday, 26 Jul 2021
Myanmar’s Pandemic: The UN Must Act!

PRIO Blogs

Tuesday, 30 Apr 2024

Palestinians in Rafah, Gaza, queue to receive food distributed by aid organizations in March 2024. Photo: Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu via Getty Images

Chasing a Mirage Amid a Famine

The recurring refrain that there is a route to a two-state solution diverts attention from what is truly urgent: ending the famine and securing a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. It is difficult to believe, but after more than 200 days of war, there is still no ceasefire between Israel ...

PRIO Blogs

Friday, 12 Apr 2024

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib shake hands after cutting a commemorative cake during the alliance's 75th anniversary celebrations at NATO Headquarters on April 04, 2024. Photo: Omar Havana/Getty Images

NATO’s New Activity Makes Russia Anxious and Angry

Every Russian stereotype about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been disproven by the alliance’s surge of activity in its 75th year. Moscow portrays NATO as an aggressive and indecisive institution, rigidly controlled by the United States, and disunited. As NATO takes steps to increase its solidarity, Russian propagandists ...

PRIO Blogs

Tuesday, 9 Apr 2024

From the photo exhibition launched by the Australian law firm Maurice Blackburn.

The AI Dilemma: Can Artificial Images of War and Suffering Stir Empathy?

Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert explores the pitfalls and potentials of the use of AI to provide windows into humanitarian crises and human rights abuses. AI-generated images have already been used by charities and human rights organizations to illustrate mass suffering and abuse. A lot is potentially at stake as we become ...
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