A new era of unfolding geopolitics has serious consequences for peacemaking. The rise of multipolarity—once championed by figures like Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and Chinese President Xi Jinping—has now become a broader geopolitical reality. European Union officials and NATO securocrats increasingly use the term to describe geopolitical upheaval as medium-sized states, regional actors, and nonstate entities assert greater power amid intensifying great-power rivalry. After Finland joined NATO in 2023, its president lamented a shift toward a “post-American world.” Newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed this sentiment, acknowledging the return of a “multipolar world” and warning that “the postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us.”
This geopolitical competition extends beyond military posturing and economic influence; it is altering the way in which peace is pursued. Where peace efforts once sought long-term, comprehensive conflict resolution through traditional diplomacy, they have become transactional, short term, politically expedient, and driven by strategic calculations. Peacemaking diplomacy has been repurposed into a tool for short-term gains and geopolitical advantage rather than genuine peace, giving rise to what we call “strategic peacemaking.”
The impacts of this shift are already being felt. Strategic peacemaking, combined with the wider decline in multilateralism and international norms, has contributed to deadlier, more protracted conflicts that are increasingly entangled with broader geopolitical struggles. Some analysts even warn of “the return of total war.” The world now faces the highest number of active conflicts since World War II. This is partly because today’s peace processes are increasingly designed not to resolve conflicts but to secure strategic interests, preserve influence, or manage optics. This trend risks long-term stability, and if no meaningful dividend follows for communities enduring the consequences of conflict, it even risks the erosion of the term “peace” itself.
A spate of recent peace talks and cease-fire negotiations may have given the impression that the international community’s active engagement in conflict resolution is unchanged. The Doha deal in Afghanistan, the Jeddah talks for Sudan, cease-fire efforts in the Middle East, and even tentative discussions around Ukraine all suggest a global system that is still invested in peacemaking. Yet, beneath the surface, many of these initiatives are more about geopolitical maneuvering, tactical gains, and strategic posturing. Instead of forging durable settlements, they often serve as tools to manage optics rather than end wars.
This has been evident in the Israel-Hamas war, where repeated cease-fire talks have been framed as progress but largely function to manage political optics amid increasing global pressure. Each round of talks has followed a predictable cycle: an initial push for humanitarian pauses, carefully choreographed diplomatic meetings, and eventual collapse, all while Israeli leaders continue pursuing a total military victory. The recent cease-fire, reportedly brokered by the Trump administration in the United States, provided a welcome pause in the violence. However, its narrow focus on Gaza was quickly followed by Israel launching a new military operation in the West Bank—underscoring how fragmented peacemaking can displace violence rather than resolve it. This raises questions about whether such cease-fires are merely strategic maneuvers that allow military focus to be redirected elsewhere.
A similar trend is unfolding in Ukraine, where diplomatic statements from the United States, China, and other actors have amounted to little more than political positioning rather than genuine mediation. In Sudan, regional actors involved in mediation simultaneously back rival factions, using peace talks to influence battlefield dynamics and project power. The result is a widening gap between the appearance of diplomatic engagement and the reality of peace processes that fail to deliver.
How did this situation come about, and how is it different from what came before? In the post-Cold War era, a “liberal peace” model was the predominant framework for peace processes, credited for underpinning the comprehensive peace accords that ended violence in Bosnia (1995), Northern Ireland (1998), and Colombia (2016). Its principles emphasize long-term investment in security, as well as social, economic, and institutional development. The model sought to resolve conflict by addressing the underlying causes and harnessing a variety of tools to create space for inclusionary conflict resolution at all levels. It incorporated community peacebuilding alongside the high-level political talks led by mediators and negotiators who were assumed to be unbiased, neutral actors.
That model has steadily retreated over the past decade even as rhetorical commitment to these principles persists. In its place is a spectacle of diplomatic efforts characterized by coercive mediation and transactional elite bargaining that prioritize external interests over genuine resolution.
It was the 2020 U.S.-Taliban agreement, the so-called Doha deal, that helped usher in this new era of dealmaking masquerading as peacemaking. Although framed as a historic step toward peace, it was, in reality, a withdrawal pact cloaked in peacemaking language. The paradox was that “inclusion” became buzzword attached to all Afghan peace efforts, but the eventual deal was a bilateral agreement excluding a primary party: the Afghan government. The agreement legitimized the Taliban without real commitments, while external actors—Pakistan, Russia, China—leveraged the process to advance their geostrategic influence. Rather than laying the groundwork for a peace process, the agreement for “bringing peace to Afghanistan” accelerated the collapse of the Afghan state while enabling U.S. withdrawal. This approach has since become a blueprint for a new kind of diplomacy—one that prioritizes security bargains and seeks short-term strategic gains over long-term stability.
Although different in kind, the Abraham Accords also reinforced this trend. Marketed as a historic peace breakthrough, they were primarily an attempt to restructure regional alliances while bypassing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The accords normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states—states that never actively participated in any Arab-Israeli conflict—while deliberately excluding the Palestinians. The accords offered economic incentives and security pacts to regional countries while touting conflict resolution. The war in Gaza may be a direct consequence of this strategic miscalculation.
Still, none of this is a call to return to an outdated model of peacemaking. Given the competitive geopolitical landscape, the trajectory of strategic peacemaking is unlikely to be reversed. But that does not mean that all pathways for effective peacemaking are closed. Multilateral instruments, though often derided or circumvented in the past decade, remain the most effective means for managing conflict and progressing peace. Strengthening of multilateralism, often posed as the antidote to multipolarism, is essential to contain the worst excesses of geopolitical self-interest and prevent unchecked violence in this new era. Innovation in peace processes offers potential pathways forward, too.
Colombia’s groundbreaking experiment in inclusive peacebuilding seeks to engage multiple armed groups simultaneously rather than negotiating fragmented deals. It recognizes that peace requires sustained dialogue with a range of stakeholders, including local communities. In Somalia, local peace agreements have provided stability at the community and national level, demonstrating that progress is possible even within a fragmented domestic and global landscape.
Creativity will also be required to stem violence, improve conditions for communities, and lay the groundwork for genuine peace alongside strategic peacemaking. The recent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, for instance, followed the logic of strategic peacemaking—a short-term deal that manages optics or provides tactical advantage for primary actors. It demonstrated that strategic peacemaking can still change dynamics locally and could still offer a starting point for deeper international engagement to build toward a more comprehensive de-escalation strategy. This underlines that strategic peacemaking, even with its inherent flaws, can create opportunities at all levels. But that’s only if external actors can commit to moving beyond transactional diplomacy and recognize the risks not just to others, but also to themselves, in prioritizing short-term wins.
If external actors continue to treat peace as a geopolitical tool rather than a genuine process of conflict resolution, the consequences could be dire—prolonging conflicts, deepening rivalries, eroding faith in diplomacy, and poisoning the term “peace” itself. The gravest consequence may be a return of unrestrained warfare, where total military victory becomes the only path to resolution in a multipolar world. The challenge now is not just to critique strategic peacemaking, but to ensure it does not become the only form of peacemaking left.