In 2020, I wrote a report documenting 101 successful efforts to directly reduce armed conflict that took place between 1990 and 2020. The selection encompassed a wide range of initiatives, providing a unique insight into global efforts to build a peaceful world by reducing immediate violence and ultimately demonstrating that war can be stopped. In this article, I provide a brief overview of the cases, highlight some key observations, and raise the most pressing questions that the report raises. I contend that the report adds to a growing body evidence demonstrating that IGOs and peace operations stop wars and should be supported, before considering why I could find so few good examples of local initiatives that directly stopped wars. I conclude the article with a recommendation that future research should focus on developing our understanding of how external and local efforts to reduce armed conflict can cooperate most effectively.

Executive Summary

The 101 cases documented in Stopping War cover several geographic and thematic areas and can be broken down in many different ways.

• Intergovernmental organisations were involved in 80 of the 101 successful efforts to stop war, national governments contributed to 45, 12 were carried out by local people and organisations, and international non-governmental organisations directly contributed to 9 of the cases.

• The report includes 42 examples of peace operations that have stopped wars, 28 successful efforts to mediate the end of an armed conflict, 21 cases in which diplomacy prevented conflict, 18 examples in which third-party mediation has helped to contain a conflict, 12 cases in which civil society or community organisations directly contributed to stopping war, and 10 potentially volatile disputes that were resolved by international mechanisms for arbitration.

• Just 17 cases covered examples of interstate conflict; the other 84 cases were examples of intrastate conflicts that were stopped.

• There are 33 cases of conflict prevention, 33 efforts which ended a war, 19 examples where a conflict relapse was prevented, 9 cases in which a conflict was frozen or contained, and 7 examples of measures that have limited the impact of armed conflict.

• Of the 101 cases, 73 were collaborative initiatives while 28 were carried out by a single organisation.

• Of the 101 cases, 42 were in Africa, 24 were in Asia-Pacific, 16 were in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the 19 were in Eastern Europe and Western Europe and Others combined.

Intergovernmental organisations stop wars. In an era when many historic supporters of these organisations have withdrawn their support, it is imperative to recognise that if funding for these organisations continues to decline and mechanisms that could replace them are not developed, we will be faced with more wars. Future research should focus on:

• What can IGOs with modest resources or a limited institutional history learn from long-standing organisations with a demonstrable record of success?

• What parallel initiatives at the bilateral, national, and local level informed, shaped, or facilitated the successes experienced by IGOs in their efforts to reduce armed conflict?

• Given the evidence demonstrating that IGOs can reduce armed conflict, what are the implications for the apparent decline in international support for maintaining them?

• What can donors and researchers do to encourage cross-party support for maintaining relevant IGOs in the interest of reducing armed conflict?

Peace operations (peacekeeping, observation, verification, special political missions, and multi-dimensional missions) stop wars. Lessons must be taken from past failures, but the evidence does not justify the poor reputation that such interventions have among the media, wider public, and in some policy circles. Future research should focus on:

• What are the main barriers preventing peace operations from receiving the resources they need to fulfil the mandates that they are given?

• Given the mounting evidence demonstrating that peace operations do stop wars, why does peacekeeping continue to be portrayed so poorly?

• How does the sequencing of certain capabilities and mandates impact the success of peace operations?

• Do ad-hoc, single-use peace operations represent an efficient, effective, and sustainable means of stopping wars, or do they threaten to undermine broader efforts to reduce armed conflict?

Despite my best efforts, I was unable to track down more than 12 good examples of successful locally led efforts that directly stopped war. This raises many questions about the role and place of such initiatives in efforts to stop war. Future research should focus on:

• How many good examples of successful local efforts to stop war can be found by a more thorough investigation, how are they documented, and how can this be improved?

• Without parallel international efforts, are local efforts to reduce armed conflict simply too powerless to stop unaccountable leaders resorting to violence to achieve their ambitions?

• Could the multitude of successful IGO initiatives have effectively stopped the wars that they did without the complementary peacebuilding actions of local communities?

• How should different responsibilities within a peace process be divided between the local and the external, and how should this allocation evolve over time?

• How can legitimate and accountable local actors and organisations be identified to work alongside external interventions without doing harm or rushing to potentially destabilising elections?