Extraordinary attention is paid to how wars are fought—but almost none to how they are avoided.
Last week, at an aging hotel outside of Dublin, 52 negotiators and mediators who have spent decades working to end violent conflicts behind the scenes in Afghanistan, Colombia, Ukraine, Palestine and Sudan, among other places, gathered to answer this question: How could World War III be prevented?
I came, along with everyone else, at the invitation of William Ury, a veteran negotiator who has helped transform some of the most vicious conflicts of the past 50 years. “I feel like we’re sleepwalking toward something,” he said, referencing the intertwined threats of AI, nuclear weapons and climate change. “What can be done to nudge the world’s current trajectory onto a survivable path?”
Two thirds of Americans say it is somewhat or very likely that a world war could break out in the next four years, according to a March poll by Emerson College. This fear is influencing people’s voting behavior, their decisions about whether to have children and their desire to get out of bed in the morning. And yet, precious little is being done to actively prevent such a war. So war feels inevitable, even when it’s not.
On the first day, Ury asked how many of us thought World War III had already begun. About half raised their hands. I expected a debate about this—or about how to define “world war.” None of that happened. Instead, the group, which included former diplomats, current business leaders, a Republican who worked for the first Trump administration, a Democrat who worked with the Biden administration, as well as specialists on AI safety, nuclear disarmament and violence interruption, seemed to share a kind of grim urgency. They were heartbroken by the suffering happening all around the world, and, at the same time, impatient to act.
In anticipation of this gathering, David Lander, a conflict mediator working with Ury, interviewed most of the participants (and dozens of others who couldn’t attend) to capture their ideas about how to prevent a world war. “Tons of people are thinking about the various risks,” he told me. “And yet there are very few people actively working on this question as a whole.”
Approximately 70 million people died as a result of the last world war. What would it be worth to prevent the next one? “What if there was a team that woke up every day thinking about, ‘How do you prevent World War III?’” This gathering was not that team, Lander knew, but maybe it could be the start of something.
The location in County Wicklow, in the green hills on the coast of the Irish Sea, was meaningful. “When I was in college, everyone thought the war in Ireland would never end. It had been going on for decades. People said babies drank the conflict in their mother’s milk,” Ury said. “But starting with the women of Ireland, then the religious leaders and then the business leaders, a path opened up. The conflict didn’t end, but the war did.”
Things can shift, in other words, even when people have hated each other for generations. Everyone at this event had seen those shifts happen in different places and ways. But what could be done now to seize—or better yet create—those openings?
On the second day, the organizers presented a doomsday scenario. Imagine a Russian nuclear bomb strikes a Ukrainian city. It’s a nauseating catastrophe no one wants to contemplate. But don’t stop there. Now imagine it’s three months later and this crisis has not escalated into a full-blown world war.
What would have had to happen to make that slowdown possible? We broke into groups. The politicians and the military brass, the tech leaders, the faith leaders, everyone had a role to play. Then we drifted away to brainstorm answers.
Most of the participants are what are sometimes called “back-channel” or “Track II” negotiators. They aren’t the people you see on TV giving speeches at the United Nations. That’s Track I. Instead, they are people with relationships or influence who set up unofficial conversations across enemy lines. They help people explore creative ideas that public officials won’t openly consider. They learn what all the sides care most about — and what they’d be willing to give up.
This is how societies can communicate and de-escalate even when leaders refuse to negotiate. (Click here to read an example of an effective Track II negotiation in Mozambique, and here to read about the ups and downs of Track II negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis during the Oslo peace process.)
Within three hours, each group had proposals, some more outlandish than others. Roughly speaking, all the interventions fell into two categories: pausing the escalation of violence (immediately) and transforming the conflict (eventually) into something else entirely.
“You have to stop the violence. People want to retaliate, to get revenge, and you get into endless cycles of violence,” said Gabrielle Rifkind, who founded the Oxford Process, an organization that works behind the scenes to cultivate conditions for peace, primarily in the Middle East. “And you have to engage with everybody. You don’t just stick with talking to people who are morally good.”
The more violence that happens, the harder this interruption becomes. “I talked with Hamas for many years,” Rifkind told me. “I’d sit with them, and they would not recognize the state of Israel. But some in the non-military wing were interested in ending the violence—certainly before the 7th of October. Which is hard to imagine now, given where we’re at.”
In this scenario, how could Track II or back-channel negotiators prevent the US and other nuclear powers from responding to a Russian nuclear weapon with another nuclear weapon? From meeting one unconscionable atrocity with another, even bigger one, as we saw happen in Gaza after Oct. 7th and in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11?
There was some cynicism, as you might imagine, particularly in the groups assigned to play the parts of tech executives and politicians. But there were also glimmers of what might be.
An idea surfaced: President Trump and Xi Jinping, the leader of China, have many irreconcilable differences, but they both want to be seen as statesmen of the world. They both crave economic prosperity. And Trump, as we all know, wants a Nobel Peace Prize—something that is sometimes handed out to pairs of enemies who work together, against all odds. That is what happened with Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel in 1978 and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk in 1993.
A global crisis like this could, conceivably, if you squint your eyes and say a very clever prayer, be an opportunity for Trump and Xi. Together, in their shiny blue suits, they could announce a history making deal: a Trump-Xi doctrine could commit both countries to work to end the wars in Ukraine and Iran immediately. Both countries could agree there will be no wars among major powers. And they could immediately begin cooperating on new agreements on nuclear weapons, AI and cybersecurity. They would be the heroes, the great men they’ve always believed themselves to be.
Sounds naïve? Maybe, but Elon Musk just agreed with rival Dario Amodei about the need to slow down the pace of AI development. Tucker Carlson is defending a Muslim Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan. In times of great anxiety and tumult, weird things can happen. But it requires nudging people to shift out of the zero-sum mindset that keeps us trapped in destructive conflict. You have to upend the usual dynamics. “Every war that’s ever been ended has ended because people have changed the game,” Ury said.
More ideas started flowing on the third day: To cement their unprecedented deal, Trump and Xi could announce the Partnership for Prosperity, a grand global convening in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. “Trump likes a show,” Ury said. “This would be the biggest show on earth.”
By the end of the gathering, the group had created teams to continue scheming and strategizing, each with their own to-do lists and WhatsApp groups. Trump and Xi were not in the room, of course, but there were people who know people who can reach them. That’s what back channels are for. Wars get prevented—and stopped—through long, slogging conversations of humans who are audacious enough to try.
As people said their goodbyes, I sensed as much despair as optimism in the room. Still, as Rifkind said, “it’s a great relief to be with a group of people who are thinking how important it is to avoid war.” It’s a radical idea, for reasons no one can understand.
Do something
Traditional news stories tell you all about a problem—and then give you nothing to do about it. You read it, and then you feel powerless and miserable, which is not healthy (or useful).
At The Understory, we are done with that tradition. We know from decades of researchthat people need to take action in order to live full lives and solve hard problems.
So if you’d like to take action (or find out what other people are doing) to try to avoid and prevent violent conflict, keep reading:
- The Third Side:
Usually, we think about two sides in conflict: Democrat versus Republican, Russia versus Ukraine. But in every society on earth, conflict has always had three sides. “There are always others around—relatives, neighbors, allies, neutrals, friends or onlookers. Every conflict occurs within a community that constitutes the ‘third side,’” Ury has written. The “third side” is us, and we are the most underappreciated force for peace.Here are 10 roles that Ury has found regular people can play to prevent and reduce violent conflict. In your case, you may not be in a position or headspace to be a bridge builder, but you might be in a position to be a healer or a witness.“If you’re not a world leader, you might not think you’re allowed to step up,” one Latin American business leader from the Ireland gathering told me later. “People don’t understand that they need to step up. The people in this room can have so much more impact if they have more people stepping up with them.”
2. A Case Study:
In 2003, after years of civil war, child exploitation and sexual violence that had killed some 250,000 people, a group of seven women gathered in a makeshift office and launched the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace campaign. They were not powerful officials or military leaders. They were mothers, street vendors, daughters and sisters, led by Leymah Gbowee, a social worker, a Christian and a mother of five. The women held prayer groups and healing circles. Then a Muslim policewoman named Asatu Bah Kenneth linked arms with Gbowee. The movement grew. Dressed in white, the Christian and Muslim women began to sit in protest every day, regardless of the weather, at a fish market along a road used by Liberian President Charles Taylor’s motorcade. The women prayed, sang and demanded peace. They eventually won a meeting with Taylor and extracted a promise that he would attend peace talks.“The women of Liberia,” Gbowee told Taylor, “are tired of war. We are tired of running. We are tired of begging for bulgur wheat. We are tired of our children being raped. We are now taking this stand, to secure the future of our children. Because we believe, as custodians of society, tomorrow our children will ask us, ‘Mama, what was your role during the crisis?’”During stalled talks between Taylor’s government and the rebel factions, the women held a sit-in outside the negotiating room, refusing to let the delegates leave until they reached an agreement. When security forces tried to arrest Gbowee, she threatened to strip naked, which in the local culture would have brought a curse upon the men. A peace agreement was signed in August 2003. Taylor went into exile, and Gbowee shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.This is how the third side works. Everyone has a stake in peace and a role to play.
3. Keep Going:
To learn more about how regular people can end or prevent war, check out Ury’s most recent book, Possible or watch Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which chronicles the women’s nonviolence campaign in Liberia. Or, for a shorter option, check out Gabrielle Rifkin’s 13-minute TED Talk How to Prevent—or Stop—a War.Finally, for a good read on how this all relates back to interpersonal, everyday conflict, check out Rifkind’s new book, How to Agree to Disagree.