Interview: Steve Killelea, Creator of the Global Peace Index

In this abridged interview for the Faces of Peace initiative, Institute for Economics and Peace founder Steve Killelea notes deteriorating international security, the amplifying effect of climate change, and three trouble spots.

Stephen Killelea AM is an Australian IT entrepreneur and founder of global think tank the Institute for Economics and Peace. The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) issues the “Global Peace Index” (GPI) annually, which scores 163 nations according to their levels of peacefulness. Aotearoa New Zealand was ranked 2nd overall in the 2021 GPI, and out-peaced only by Iceland.

The overall GPI score for 2021 indicates that the global situation – as a result of COVID-19 and other factors – has deteriorated, which is consistent with New Zealand’s own assessment expressed in Defence Assessment 2021. But will this trend continue?

“The changing economic conditions in many nations increases the likelihood of political instability and violent demonstrations”, said Australian philanthropist and IEP founder, Steve Killelea, during an interview with Sven Lilienström, founder of the Faces of Peace Initiative.

SL: The Global Peace Index (GPI) 2021 registers - as is has for most previous years - a deterioration in global peacefulness. What is the reason for this? What role will climate change play in future?

SK: Measuring peace is contextually rich; in some areas peace is improving, and in others it is deteriorating. This is also true for countries and regions.

Over the last 10 years, peace has deteriorated by 2.4 percent; however, in that time, 86 countries have improved, while 75 have deteriorated. This highlights that when countries fall in peace, they fall at a faster pace than they improve. Peace is built up gradually over time.

The Global Peace Index can be divided into three domains. Two have deteriorated over the decade, namely “Safety” and “Security”, which measure the internal state of peace, and “Ongoing Conflict”. The other domain, “Militarisation”, has improved, but as can be seen from rising tensions in Indo-China and NATO relations with Russia, this trend is reversing.

At an indicator level, “Violent Demonstrations” has deteriorated over the ten years, along with “Number of Refugees”. The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the level of conflict and violence in the world in 2020, with some of these effects likely to last for years to come.

There were over 5,000 pandemicrelated incidents between January 2020 and April 2021 that involved some form of violence, ranging from violent demonstrations and riots in response to lockdown measures, to physical assaults targeted at people of Asian descent.

Global Peace Index 2021 map. Image: Institute for Economics & Peace

There were at least 158 countries that recorded one or more violent incidents directly related to the pandemic during this time. While it is still too early to fully gauge the long-term effects of the pandemic on peace, the changing economic conditions in many nations increases the likelihood of political instability and violent demonstrations.

In terms of climate change, many ecological threats exist independently of climate change; however, climate change will have an amplifying effect, causing further ecological degradation and pushing some countries through violent tipping points. The main finding from IEP’s latest Ecological Threat Register - which combines measures of resilience with the most comprehensive ecological data available to shed light on the countries least likely to cope with extreme ecological shocks - is that a cyclic relationship exists between ecological degradation and conflict.

It is a vicious cycle whereby degradation of resources leads to conflict, and the ensuing conflict leads to further resource degradation. Ecological threats will continue to create humanitarian emergencies and will likely increase without a sustained effort to reverse the current trend. Breaking the cycle requires improving ecological resource management and building socioeconomic resilience

SL: According to the Global Peace Index 2021, Europe is the world’s most peaceful continent. The RussiaUkraine conflict aside, what makes Europe one of the safest regions in the world?

SK: This comes back to Positive Peace. Europe has the highest rates of Positive Peace globally. Eight of the ten countries with the highest levels of Positive Peace reside in Europe.

Positive Peace consists of eight Pillars. These Pillars function as a system with each interacting with all others. The Pillars are: Well-Functioning Government, Strong Business Environment, Low Levels of Corruption, Free Flow of Information, Equitable Distribution of Resources, High Levels of Human Capital, Acceptance of the Rights of Others and Good relations with Neighbors.

However, for some European countries, these measures have been deteriorating and substantial improvements in economic and health indicators were partially off - set by worsening political radicalisation and quality of informed debate. Denmark, Iceland, United Kingdom, Greece and Spain have all deteriorated over the last decade, although they are still rated highly.

SL: In your book “Peace in the Age of Chaos”, published in 2020, you write, among other things, that western democracies need to be revitalised. How do you mean this? What makes reading the book worthwhile?

SK: When looking at Positive Peace, many western democracies are slipping. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) recently published their Democracy Index which found that democracy had fallen globally, and for most western democracies.

There are three domains within the Positive Peace Index - Attitudes, Institutions and Structures. The attitude domain has fallen in most western democracies. This domain consists of factors such as group grievances, corruption, quality of information and fractionalised elites. The latter being where the elites of a society fight amongst themselves. All of these factors have been falling for the last decade.

“Peace in the Age of Chaos” has four themes running through it. The first is my personal journey to peace and time spent in some of the more violent places in the world. The second is the entrepreneurial journey of creating a global think tank, while the third covers the research on what creates and sustains peace.

The fourth theme, which is the most important, explains why Positive Peace, combined with systems thinking, provides a transformational approach to reinvigorating western democracies and building a more peaceful world. Humanity is on a tipping point, and unless we do something differently, we will never get the levels of trust, cooperation or inclusiveness necessary to solve our global problems, including climate change, bio-diversity, lack of food, to name a few.

In these Anthropocene environments that we humans are creating, two aspects become critical - our capacity to deal with rapid change and our ability to manage the ecosystems of the planet. Adaptability and resilience will be the key. Positive Peace is both the measure and the solution for these. It provides a mechanism to understand which countries are most at risk. These future shocks could be financial, biological, ecological or societal.

Given the right severity of shock all countries will implode, but with an understanding of the likely shocks and levels of resilience, development can be better targeted. Through building up the Positive Peace factors a country’s resilience can be enhanced, thereby improving its adaptability and responsiveness when shocks do occur.

SL: What three trouble spots are in your opinion currently the most dangerous and what measures do you suggest to de-escalate conflict and stabilise peace? SK: The first is the Ukraine, which has everyone’s attention currently. But the issue is more than the Ukraine, because given the deceit that Russia has shown in the lead up to the war, what other aspirations does the President have in building back the greater Russia.

This can only be dealt by realisation that war does not work. This can be accomplished by sanctions, although Europe is unlikely to put in place sanctions that are truly crippling on Russia. The other is a long-protracted campaign that saps Russia’s military resolve. It is likely to create regime change, but it would appear that an insurgency campaign would then ensue. We have seen the effects of this in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The second is the Sahel in subSaharan Africa. It has the fastest growing Islamic militias in the world and the fastest growing rate of terrorism globally. The problems here are systemic and complex and so need a truly systems thinking approach. Weak governments, lack of adequate food and water, the highest rates of population growth in the world and a large number of refugees. The starting point is a thorough systems analysis and then building international agencies that match the systemic nature of the problem.

The third is North East Asia. The rising power of China and the clash of values with democracies, especially the US. This conflict is going to be played out over decades, especially as China uses more coercive methods to achieve goals. Taiwan is a flashpoint and could easily start a regional war.

The scale of the issues confronting humanity is truly daunting, and our current approaches are simply not working. Systems thinking provides a solution, a new way of conceptualising our world, our societies and how politics should function.

At the heart of this view is that complexity cannot be understood by breaking problems down into ever smaller and smaller bite-size chunks. The application of systems thinking to societies is a recognition that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and that emergent phenomena like peace or climate change are irreducible. Positive Peace provides the vision of where to take the system.

This is an abridged version of an interview originally published on 04 March 2022 at www.faces-of-peace. org/steve-killelea/. Republished with permission.

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Qualification Requirements

Semester One, 294.741: Intelligence in the International Security Environment A critical examination of intelligence theory and practice, focusing on key concepts and methodologies of intelligence collection and analysis, analytical tools, frameworks and concepts applied to investigations and operations in the contemporary international security environment. Course Controller: Dr Rhys Ball, Centre for Defence and Security Studies (Auckland) Semester Two, 294.744: Intelligence Operations A comprehensive grounding in the operational intelligence environment in the second half of the 20th century, into the 21st century. Participants will consider the development of intelligence practices both in New Zealand and around the world, and the evolution of intelligence contributions from the end of World War Two, to the intelligence challenges of the 2020s. Intelligence operations are critically reviewed, including intelligence success and intelligence failure, espionage against friends and allies, policing and private intelligence formats. Course Controller: Dr John Battersby, Teaching Fellow, Centre for Defence and Security Studies (Wellington)

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