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PRIO Comments

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

Comment series
Ukraine War

Research-based comments and analysis on the Ukraine War

Comment

Tuesday, 28 Oct 2025

Putin had hoped to strengthen the positive momentum from the telephone conversation with Trump by meeting in person. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Putin returns to brinksmanship after new U.S. sanctions

With hopes for a personal rapport with Trump fading, Putin has returned to nuclear brinkmanship.
Tuesday, 21 Oct 2025
Putin–Trump call stalls Tomahawks but reactivates ceasefire discussions
Wednesday, 15 Oct 2025
Russia ignores global peace developments to focus on Putin’s war
Tuesday, 23 Sep 2025
Putin raises the stakes of rejecting peace deal
Tuesday, 16 Sep 2025
Moscow downplays drone incursion on Poland

Comment

Friday, 24 Oct 2025

Sustainable Development Goal 16. Photo: United Nations

Peace and sustainability – two sides of the same coin

The world is severely off track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the rise in armed conflicts a major cause.

Comment

Thursday, 23 Oct 2025

A sign warns about a no-fly zone including civilian drones. Copenhagen, Denmark during the EU summit in October 2025. Photo: Kristian T. L. Berg/NurPhoto via Getty Images

What do the recent drone sightings in Denmark and Norway mean?

The intensity of the response to the recent airport shutdowns of Oslo’s and Copenhagen’s main airports was unprecedented.

Tags

Explore comments by recent popular tags

PutinIsrael/Palestine CrisisNATOUnited StatesIsraeli-Palestinian ConflictWagner groupGazaTrumpRefugeesPrigozhinAIUNRWAFood securityNuclear threatsBRICSThucydidesHezbollahGreen CursesUS electionBurmaAll tags ...

Comment

Thursday, 16 Oct 2025

Participants at the Religious Dimensions of Peacemaking workshop, held at the Vatican in July 2025. Photo: Gabriella C. Marino/PASS

Religious and secular mediators need each other

Faith leaders bring unique credentials to peace mediations.

Comment series
Nobel Peace Prize

Comment

Wednesday, 15 Oct 2025

Vladimir Putin visits Tajikistan on the day of the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize, 10 October 2025. Photo: Getty Images

Russia ignores global peace developments to focus on Putin’s war

Extraordinary international attention was focused on the Nobel Peace Prize announcement on October 10. Anxiety was palpable in Moscow, where official skepticism had dominated since the award of the 2022 prize to the Memorial Society.
Monday, 13 Oct 2025
María Corina Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize captures the spirit of our age
Thursday, 9 Oct 2025
Why Trump is unlikely to win the Nobel Peace Prize
Thursday, 18 Sep 2025
Trump says he has ended six wars in six months. As a peace researcher, I’m scratching my head
Tuesday, 15 Oct 2024
Unwinnable Wars, Risks of Escalation, and the Nuclear Taboo

Comment

Wednesday, 1 Oct 2025

Putin enters the Global Atomic Forum at the World Atomic Week on September 25, 2025 in Moscow. Photo: Getty Images

Putin attempts to shift nuclear brinkmanship

Russian President Vladimir Putin is shifting from overt nuclear brinkmanship to using Russia’s nuclear energy program as a “peaceful” tool of influence.

Comment series
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.

Comment

Tuesday, 30 Sep 2025

A visual representation of neurodeterrence and cognitive warfare, capturing the essence of advanced neuroscience merged with technology on the battlefield of cognitive conflict. Illustration: AI-generated image

Imagining War in the Neurotechnological Age

According to neuroscientist Rafael Yuste, founding member of NeuroRights Foundation, “We are entering a world, where technologies no longer simply threaten our bodies. They are directly affecting our minds”.

Wednesday, 3 Sep 2025
Translation: How Securitization of Islam travels from Right-wing to Left-wing Political Parties
Wednesday, 3 Sep 2025
Communal life systems and security in the face of invasive infrastructures
Thursday, 13 Feb 2025
Poison: The politics behind pesticides and chemical weapons
Friday, 31 Jan 2025
Migrant deaths in the name of law

Comment

Friday, 19 Sep 2025

Academic work. Photo: Pablohart/Getty Images

Cover letters – what are they good for?

Some advice on cover letters for submission to academic journals from the Desk Editor of Journal of Peace Research.

Comment

Thursday, 18 Sep 2025

Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin in Beijing, September 2025. Photo: Anadolu / Getty Images

Three parades and four perspectives on history

Three autocrats that do not make an alliance, but join forces in setting for the apparently disunited West and to US President Donald Trump a set of hard challenges.

Comment

Monday, 15 Sep 2025

Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the Israeli parliament in 2022. Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images

Israel is not a democracy

Can we continue to call Israel a democracy? The answer is no, and paradoxically enough, neither electoral defeat for Netanyahu nor a halt in the Gaza war will change this.

Comment

Wednesday, 10 Sep 2025

Putin in Vladivostok at the Eastern Economic Forum, September 2025. Photo: Getty Images

Putin’s Vladivostok Forum underwhelming and alarming

The outcomes of wars of attrition are typically decided by the capacity to mobilize material resources. The Kremlin appears to believe, however, that impressions matter more than real capabilities and the depth of public support.

Comment series
Research Politics

Comment

Wednesday, 10 Sep 2025

Researchers discussing. Photo: Hinterhaus via Getty Images

Security policy for globalized science

Research security is a new concept in research policy. Donald Trump introduced it in a National Security Presidential Memorandum in 2021. Other NATO countries soon followed up.
Monday, 24 Mar 2025
What Now for Humanitarian Studies?
Friday, 22 Nov 2024
Authorship and Involuntary Attribution: How and Why Should We Contest AI Manipulation?
Tuesday, 12 Mar 2024
Fake Research Is Threatening Our Democracy
Tuesday, 19 Dec 2023
Optics as Politics: Culture, Language and Learning with UiO ChatGPT

Comment archive

Explore and dig into past commentary in our comment archive

Comment

Tuesday, 2 Sep 2025

American astronaut Tom Stafford shaking hands with Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov in the tunnel connecting the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft. Photo: NASA

Carving out space for peace – in space

Fifty years ago, two spacecraft met in space as part of a unique mission: After nearly two decades of intense space rivalry, the Soviet Union and the USA joined forces. We have much to learn from that landmark event today.

Comment

Monday, 1 Sep 2025

Palestinian civilians wait in line for hours for the distribution that could only serve a small number of people, in Nuseirat Refugee Camp, central Gaza, on September 01, 2025. . Photo: Moiz Salhi/Anadolu/Getty images

The starvation of Gaza is a deliberate policy

In recent days, Israel has commenced new attacks on Gaza, with humanitarian aid playing a key role in its forced expulsion of Palestinians.

Comment

Monday, 21 Jul 2025

Memorial of 22 July 2011 at the government headquarters in Oslo. Photo: PRIO / Marit Moe-Pryce

Commemorating the terrorist attack July 22, 2011: a memorial map from below

Every year since 2011, from the middle of July, survivors, the bereaved, and the rest of Norway prepare for yet another commemoration of the July 22 terror attack.

Comment

Friday, 18 Jul 2025

AI-generated image by Prachatai via Flickr. Photo: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Adding a new piece to the puzzle: How the UN Peace and Security Data Hub can support peace and conflict research

By offering structured, publicly accessible and regularly updated data on various aspects of UN peace support, the UN Peace and Security Data Hub opens new avenues for empirical research and policy-relevant analysis – not least for forecasting platforms like VIEWS.

Comment

Wednesday, 2 Jul 2025

Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, attending a funeral for those killed in Israeli attacks in June. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Moscow ponders reconfigured Middle East, finding few openings

The cessation of hostilities in the Gulf on 25 June was as surprising for Moscow as Israel’s strike on Iran on 13 June. Russia’s attempts to assess the consequences of the surge of the air war have to take into account apparent analytical miscalculations.

Comment

Thursday, 26 Jun 2025

Vladimir Putin speaks during Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum SPIEF in June 2025. Photo: Getty Images

Putin’s preemptive maneuvering around NATO summit is cut off

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, investors from most parts of the world have stopped coming to Russia, so the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum has turned into a show of fake innovation.

Comment

Wednesday, 25 Jun 2025

Oslo street in June 2022. Photo: PRIO / Marit Moe-Pryce

Commemorating the 25 June 2022 terror attack against Oslo Pride: a chronology

As a political event the June 25 attack is remembered both in the context of domestic terror attacks and in the context of terror attacks against queer communities globally.

Comment

Tuesday, 24 Jun 2025

Security Council members at meeting on Liberia. Photo: UN Photo / Rick Bajornas

How do women ambassadors reshape diplomacy at the UN Security Council?

On the occasion of the International Day of Women in Diplomacy, 24 June.

Comment

Monday, 23 Jun 2025

Tracer rounds and defense flares in the night sky over Tehran as Iran's air defense systems respond to incoming drones and missiles launched by Israel on June 14, 2025. Photo: Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images

Preventive war is wrong: Why recent attacks on Iran fail an important moral test

Can there be just cause for purely preventive military action – action that aims to impede or destroy an adversary’s capacity to wreck future harm?

Comment

Saturday, 21 Jun 2025

På rett kurs

Norske fregatter i Stillehavet er ingen avsporing, men en framtidsrettet norsk sikkerhetspolitikk.

Comment

Friday, 20 Jun 2025

Migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea. Photo: Vincenzo Circosta/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The asylum paradox – yes. But what now?

Stating that the asylum system in Europe is dysfunctional, is hardly a novelty. It’s even been described as contributing to what has been referred to as an “asylum paradox.”

Comment

Thursday, 19 Jun 2025

US military personell maintaining an intercontinental ballistic missile. Photo: Senior Airman Daniel Brosam

The US nuclear umbrella over Europe was a myth

Is it possible to imagine that one state would risk its own destruction in defence of another state?

Comment

Tuesday, 17 Jun 2025

Israeli forces struck the Iranian state television building in Tehran, Iran on June 16, 2025. . Photo: Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images

Russia’s influence in Middle East takes hit from Israeli strikes

Israel’s decision to launch a series of missile and bomb strikes on Iran on June 13 was a shocking surprise for Moscow, where the working assumption had been centered on the presumably protracted U.S.-Iranian talks on the limitations of the nuclear program.

Comment

Tuesday, 10 Jun 2025

International Court of Justice, the Hague, in April 2024. Photo: Getty Images

Lawyers and the resilience of the liberal international order

In times of political crisis and attacks against the foundations of political liberalism, can we put our trust in lawyers and other legal occupations to fight for our freedoms, when they are under attack?

Comment

Monday, 2 Jun 2025

Peace sign. Photo: Alvaro Medina Jurado / Getty Images

Peace research is not defense research: Time to insist on tougher questions

It requires greater engagement from us as a peace research community to show why peace itself is important — indeed, the most important — public good of our time.

Comment

Thursday, 22 May 2025

Researcher at work. Photo: Pablohart/Getty Images

Crisis and deglobalization: Contributions of research and the role of researchers

Humanitarian aid, development cooperation, migration governance and multilateralism have long been declared to be ‘in crisis’, but are currently experiencing unprecedented systemic shocks.

Comment

Thursday, 22 May 2025

Peace symbol on a wall with bullet holes. Photo: Getty Images

National Security and Defense Research: The Imperative of Academic Freedom and Open Debate

What kind of peace and security is to be established, nourished and preserved through the collaborative efforts to support and develop the Norwegian military?

Comment

Thursday, 15 May 2025

Palestinians deprived of basic necessities due to the ongoing Israeli blockade in Deir al Balah, Gaza on May 14, 2025. Photo: Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty Images

Hunger, Displacement, and Occupation in Gaza

Outside Gaza, aid convoys are lined up. Food. Water. Medicine. The trucks are not allowed into Gaza because Israel is using humanitarian aid as a political tool to force Hamas into submission.

Comment

Tuesday, 13 May 2025

Norwegian tanks. Photo: Trygve Hongset / Forsvaret

Defense Procurement and Democratic Debate: From Depoliticization to Repoliticization

Public deliberation on defense procurement could have focused on regulations, reform, or corruption. It has not.

Comment

Tuesday, 13 May 2025

Star Wars Photoshoot. Photo: Darryl Moran / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0

Why Would Humans Do Anything Boring, Difficult or Dangerous in Star Wars? Science Fiction’s Reluctance to Embrace Its Own Technology.

This blog post contains spoilers for the first series in Andor, and other science fiction shows.

Comment

Thursday, 24 Apr 2025

Nuclear icebreaker in the Arctic. Photo: Sepp Friedhuber / Getty Images.

The Hype, Delusions and Risks of the Arctic Geopolitics

The surge of political attention to the Arctic may appear counter-intuitive to the experts overtaxed with assessing the consequences of the global trade war, perplexed by the deadlock of the Ukraine War, and frustrated by the deepening indifference to the Gaza war. No notable power shifts are indeed registered in ...

Comment

Friday, 11 Apr 2025

Global Trade Wars: All Against All — But Where is Africa?

The trade war, unilaterally launched by Donald Trump on April 1, 2025, will go down in global history as a hostile act against globalization and international rules — rules that were once defended by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United States themselves. This act also marks one of ...

Comment

Monday, 7 Apr 2025

Illustration: Getty Images.

The Transatlantic Rift in the Global Disorder of Trumpism

We are currently experiencing a transitional phase between the world order established after 1945 and a new, yet undefined global order.

Comment

Monday, 7 Apr 2025

Illustration: Getty Images.

Africa in the Global Disorder of Trumpism

Africa is not a homogeneous entity. Unlike the United States or China, it does not have a unified political power capable of defending a common interest.

Comment

Friday, 28 Mar 2025

Protesters in Istanbul during a protest in support of arrested Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on March 25, 2025. Photo: Mehmet Kacmaz/Getty Images. Photo: Mehmet Kacmaz/Getty Images

How Should Europe Respond to the Demonstrations in Turkey?

All across Turkey, a battle is being waged over the country’s future. For more than a decade, the country’s democratic institutions have steadily deteriorated and now thousands have taken to the streets in an attempt to save the remains of its democracy and restore the rule of law. One of ...
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