Episode 58 - Steve Killelea and the Quest for Peace

0:03Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:Welcome to the NATO Deep Dive podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Sajjan Gohel, and in this episode, I speak with Steve Killelea, founder and executive chairman for the Institute of Economics and Peace. Steve Killelea has combined a highly successful career in technology with a philanthropic focus on peace and sustainable development. He founded the Institute for Economics and Peace in 2007 as an independent, not-for-profit global research institute, analyzing the intertwined relationships between peace, business, and economic development. As one of the world's most impactful think tanks, IEP's research is extensively used by multilaterals, including the United Nations and World Bank, as well as taught in thousands of university courses around the world.

0:52Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:He's also the creator of the Global Peace Index, the world's leading quantitative measurement of global peacefulness, as well as producing the Global Terrorism Index, which provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism. Steve Killalier, welcome to NATO Deep Dive. Great. It's my pleasure to be here. It's great to have you. we met a couple of months ago at the link ct conference in melbourne i recall it because you and i were trying to work out how the t machine was uh working and we ended up having a brief conversation and it turned into a more substantive contact and uh i found your whole career and your work fascinating and if maybe we start from the beginning that you had a very successful career in tech before turning towards peace research.

1:49Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:What was the turning point that made you dedicate your life to understanding and quantifying peace? Well, I guess it really needs to start with the background. So I basically started off as a programmer, developed two computer programs, launched two companies, one ended up publicly listed on NASDAQ, the other on the Australian Stock Exchange. So I made quite a bit of money out of that. So that set me up in all sorts of different ways. And then I decided to set up a family foundation to work with the poorest of the poor. And so it's done about, it's approaching 300 projects around the world now.

2:28And you've probably got about 4 million direct beneficiaries. But what I didn't realise at the time that the poorest people in the world generally live in conflict zones. And so there's all these different things which go together in conflict zones, like terrorism, for example, that's where most terrorism occurs, the worst poverty, worst ecological degradation. So you've got this vicious cycle. And so there was one point there, I said, northeast Kavu in the Congo, walking through there and just thinking about these cycles. And I'm thinking, well, what's the opposite? What are the most peaceful nations in the world?

3:06Is there anything we could learn about them which we could bring to the projects we were doing in Africa? And it was really a fantasy question, to be honest. So I got back, searched the internet, couldn't find anything. And that's how the Global Peace Index was born. And I guess that creates really quite a profound question. It's if a simple businessman such as myself can be walking through African wonder, what are the most peaceful nations in the world, and it hasn't been done, then how much do we know about peace? If you can't measure something, can you truly understand it? And if you can't measure it, how do you even know whether your actions are helping you or hindering you in achieving your goals?

3:49You simply don't. And so that was the start of my journey on peace. But at that time, then, I was just a one-off project. I was just getting, and I guess this is the entrepreneur of me coming through. And I guess at that stage, it was a one-off project. I was going to put it into a university, fund it a quarter million dollars or something a year and move on. But I couldn't find anyone who'd actually really had the same passion for it as me. And the more I looked at it and studied peace, I realised that we didn't ever really study peace. We mainly studied violence, thinking that it was peace. And peace isn't exactly the opposite of violence.

4:32And the best analogy is, I guess, when you think about health. So we go back to the 60s, great breakthroughs in pathology. None of us are going to die of a heart attack young. We're even curing cancers. Really important. But if we want to stay resilient and we want to stay healthy, then we need right diet, correct mental disposition, good exercise. You're not going to learn anything from studying people on their deathbed. You need to study people who are healthy. And it's a similar thing if we want the resilience to be peaceful. We need to understand healthy societies with high levels of peace.

5:11And that for the Institute for Economics and Peace is really what we're about.

5:18Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:Well, that's absolutely fascinating. And kind of building on that, to some degree, I think you've answered part of it. But when you first began asking the question, what are the most peaceful nations and why, what surprised you most about the lack of existing data on peace? Well, I think what I realised that the peace movement is generally, how can I put it, they're coming from the heart, like good people, really good people. A lot of them are engaged in the concepts of personal peace, which you'll see reflected in a whole range of different areas, particularly in a lot of the major religions within the world.

6:00And I guess in many, many ways, and it's morally based. And so for me, because I've got a quantitative background, I've always been interested in maths, I really wanted to make something which was grounded. And part of it was really to pull peace back to the centre ground. And that's why the Institute's called the Institute for Economics and Peace. You can understand the economics of peace. For policymakers, it's a lot easier then to make decisions which are rational, logical, but peaceful.

6:36Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:You said that peace is not just the absence of violence, but the presence of conditions that sustain it. So what does peace mean to you personally? Yeah. Well, I guess this comes at many, many different levels. And this is one of the traps with peace and the study of peace. Everyone thinks they know what peace is, but we've all actually probably got slightly subtle, different visions of peace. So, for example, like for the military, peace may be when the guns of war fall silent. For an authoritarian dictator, peace is when you've got no opposition. For other people, peace might be a religious experience, the escasee of being with God.

7:31For others, it just might be the absence of afflictive emotion, which is a Buddhist definition of peace. Now, for me personally, we work off a number of different definitions at the Institute for Economics and Peace. So the first one is the absence of violence or fear of violence. And out of that, we built the Global Peace Index. And that consisted of three different domains. One was the internal safety and security, ongoing conflict and militarisation. The second one is positive peace, which is the attitude, institutions and structures which create and sustain peaceful societies. And that we derive empirically, mainly through mathematical modelling and statistics, based around the Global Peace Index and about 50 ,000 data sets, which we then compare it to.

8:26Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:how do you see the relationship between economic stability and peace resilience in the current geopolitical context well i think it's complicated but certainly what we find is there's a strong correlation between strong economic performance and peace obviously it's not the only thing which creates for a peaceful society, but it's an important factor. So if most people can see their lives improving, and most people, one of the big views is economic lens and also personal violence, whether they're exposed to it, but their lives are improving, they're a lot less likely to seek alternatives or resort to violence.

9:16Now, when you start to see countries with the decreasing economic stability and low levels of growth, stagnant growth, or for many, particularly the poor, when it's reversing, then you're likely to see violence arise. So we're just doing a study at the moment. In fact, I've got an interview with Reuters in a few hours on this subject. And so it's about the youth riots which are occurring in different parts of the world. So as we look at that, what we can see is it's all related to a group, to a similar sorts of issues. So one of them is corruption. Two is the lack of opportunity and stagnant economic growth.

10:10And a feeling of isolation. So we're finding those kind of things come together. So that's an example of just how you can see the economic impact of peace.

10:25Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:Very, very interesting. Much of what I look at, Steve, is terrorism. It's why I was in Melbourne for the Lint City Conference where I was giving a presentation. What are the trends in global terrorism, such as with the Global Terrorism Index, that concern you the most at the moment? And do you see any regional patterns that are shifting that we should be paying attention to? Well, I think we've been now producing the Global Terrorism Index probably for about 12 years, and we've got data going back probably about 25 years. And I think the thing which really strikes me is just the shifting nature of terrorism and how fast it can actually change.

11:16The terrorism organisations themselves, particularly the jihadists, are highly fluid groups. So Islamic State, for example, is now active in 22 countries. So I think the area of the world which concerns me the most at the moment would be the Sahel. And it's particularly Bikini, Faso, Niger, and what we can see there in Mali. And what we can see there is that the terrorism in many ways is growing and it's starting to now spread into the west coast of Africa. And I don't think there's enough attention on that. So, for example, Togo had the most terrorist attacks in its history in 2024. And we're currently talking to a couple of governments out there, like Ghana, for example, which are now getting quite worried about their security situation as well.

12:11So I think that's the area of the world which is most concerned to me. If we come back over and we look at the rise of Islamic State's caution chapter, I think there's a concern with that because that's now moving out into Eastern Europe and further beyond out into the Stan states. So that's, I think, the rise of them because they've got exceptionally good social media skills and propaganda skills. and they produce their content now in a whole range of different languages. They do do it in English, but, for example, they don't do it in French or Spanish because their focus is out in that direction.

12:57So I think that's another area of concern. Pakistan, I think we need to worry about Pakistan. I've actually got the issues between Pakistan and India, which have resulted in two wars, if we go back over the last 60 years, and we can see a eruption again last year and there was a bombing in uh delhi just in the last couple of days which just again brings back to the worry of it but you've then also with pakistan you've got afghanistan as well you've got the issues which are flowing through there with pkk and so i think that that's another area of concern but one of one of the things i would say is just this it's so fluid so if we went back to let's say 2015 2016 at the height of islamic state and 11 you find then that iraq was the most country most affected by terrorism but today terrorism deaths in iraq are one percent of what they were a decade ago now we went back a decade ago and we went over to the sahil there are virtually no terrorist deaths and this just gives you an idea of just how the fluidity with which it can change and i guess that's probably my biggest concern is just it's a bit like whack-a-mole you hit it somewhere and it comes up somewhere else again.

14:31So you used a couple of times the word fluidity, and the world has been

14:38Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:seeing this rising instability from Ukraine to the Middle East, to tensions in South Asia. You mentioned Pakistan, as well as the fact that Pakistan is now having tensions with Afghanistan and the Taliban, which I don't think many people could have predicted before. Based on the data by your institute, are we witnessing a long-term global decline in peacefulness or is this just a cyclical turbulence? Well, that's an excellent question. I guess to some extent it's the timeline you look over, isn't it? So if we look over a much broader and longer timeline, we've just been through an age of exceptional peacefulness.

15:28We did have the Cold War, but the emphasis was on cold, wasn't it? Then with the breakup of the USSR, and it stayed fairly static. We did have the rises, wars in the Middle East with Afghanistan, and then followed on with Iraq. Mark. So, but we're looking at it at the moment and let's look at the data. What we can see is over the last 17 years, there's only been three years where peace has actually increased. In fact, it hasn't increased since 2017. It's just fallen off slightly each year. But having said that, we've looked at it last year, and these are just roughly the figures, There was about 96 countries which deteriorated in peace, but about 79 which improved.

16:20And so you can see by that, it's quite finely balanced. So the key issue really, and this is my take on it anyway, is what we're finding is that we're not able to solve the existing war. So we all talk about concept of forever wars, and it's an accurate statement. So just to support that, if we went back to the 1970s, let's say, 23 % of all conflicts finished with a peace agreement. In the 2010s, that was down to 4%. So if we went back to the 1970s, 49 % of conflicts finished with a victory, mainly for the government, but sometimes for the rebels. And if we now move forward to the 2010s, that's down to 9%.

17:08So the issue really is how can we as international community come about really trying to solve some of these conflicts? Because there's a huge economic benefit if we can actually decrease the levels of conflict and then decrease the money we have to spend to war against conflict.

17:32Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:we build on this um how do you interpret the data on militarization and authoritarian uh resurgence and what does that suggest for global peace trajectories because we've seen that in sub africa there has been a rise um in in military strongmen rule we've seen in pakistan that they are trying to pass the 27th Amendment, which will give unprecedented powers to Pakistan's chief of army staff. How does this impact on global peace trajectories? Yes, look, it's a complex and difficult question. So one of the facts which very, very few people realize, so if we're looking at the militarization up to the start of the Ukraine war, so I'll say 2022, the average militarisation within countries had been actually declining.

18:37More countries were spending less percentage of their GDP on the military. The number of soldiers they have were going down as well. And so that reversed with the start of the Ukraine war, And that's mainly because of just the number of European countries which are now increasing their expenditure for very, very good reasons. So as we look at it, it's a lot more complex than what looks. So for most countries, for weapons, they have to import the weapons. There's only a few countries which can really globally compete in the arms manufacture globally. Obviously, the obvious nations like the US, Russia, China, UK, France and India to a lesser degree.

19:29So a lot of countries then we've tried to redirect their money to things like health, education, business development and such. And so that may come back. It may come back. But if we're looking now at the rise of the... Sorry, yeah, that may come back. but that'll be dependent on whether we're able to solve a lot of these ongoing conflicts and get more creative and better ways of being able to create peace the authoritarianism globally is on the rise and that's a concern so we can see that there's a number of models now which are rising and they're very different types of authoritarian states which are attractive to others so for example, you've got the Singapore model, you've got the UAE model, and they're quite benevolent types of authoritarian models.

20:23But on the other hand, you've got China, which is militarily aggressive, incredibly suppressive of its people. It's even down to trying to control the way they think. And then obviously, we can see the rise of Russia. And obviously, you can see the concepts of the forever dictators, which you can see in Africa as well. So I think really a lot of these people would be looking at the West, where in the past, the Western models of democracy seemed the only way to which you could actually get economic progress. But that's not true anymore. So I think in many ways, there's a need for democracies, to western democracies in particular to re-look at themselves understand better what they need to do to actually improve their own internal economic performance and then they've got a model which they can push out to the rest of the world

21:26Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:the economic cost of violence steve is a powerful figure in your reports they make for sobering reading and compelling. Do you think policymakers, though, are taking those numbers seriously enough, or is peace still seen as idealistic rather than economic? And I hope I'm not coming across as cynical in that. No, no, you're not coming across cynical at all. So the economic cost of violence of the global economy was roughly$20 trillion last year. So try and put that in perspective. That's about 11.6 % of global GDP. And if we look at it on a per capita basis, you'll have 40 countries in the world which have a lower per capita income than the cost of violence per capita globally and those countries would be the poorest in the world so if you could literally stop violence there you'd probably be able to double the per capita income in those countries and in the process you'd alleviate a large portion of the poverty in the world so that just to look at and look at underneath i think it varies uh yeah yeah depending on whom you're speaking to and each vary from country to country.

22:56So I think people are getting a lot more cognizant and a lot better understanding the costs of violence. And I think some of the modern wars, when you see the destruction, which you can see what's happened in the Gaza Strip, for example, or what's happened in Lebanon recently, I think governments are more and more understanding just the massive cost to infrastructure. If you get a modern war, it really destroys infrastructure quicker than any time in the past. So I think at that level, there's a reasoning and a rationale around it. Without naming any countries, we'll see there are a number of other countries, they want to keep the peace at home, but they're quite happy to try and exploit violence in another country if they think it's of economic, rational benefit to them.

23:49So I think it's a complex issue. You've got to look at the individual country, you've got to look at the individual leaders, you've got to look at the empathy, I guess it's the collective empathy of a country too, and the way it views, the way it should deal with the rest of the world in terms of the way it deals with its influence. So I think those things all come into it as well. But I think as we're moving on, I think certainly if you look at the Trump administration, for example, A lot of people will be highly critical. I think they do understand just the economic perils of war. You look at how much the Iraq war cost the US for an outcome where Iraq is probably closer to Iran than it is the US.

24:41Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:so as you know this is a NATO podcast and in the context of NATO and defense education which I'm myself involved in what role do you think data literacy plays in shaping peace building and also deterrence strategies look I think it's essential for people to understand the data, the meaning of data and how to use it. Now, certainly, organisations like NATO are pivotal to the security of Europe, and we certainly can see that through the invasion of the Ukraine. And so people need to really understand the trade-offs and the values between what's the appropriate level military expenditure to guarantee security and also just the other things the softer things which actually create for resilient peace so that we so that peace can be maintained within cultures and society so if we're looking at that it comes around to sort of number of different different things so if we're looking at first up it's a well-functioning business environment which we've spent time on, well-functioning government, equal distribution of resources, low levels of corruption, high levels of human capital, which in many ways you can see is education, good relationships with neighbours, you can see the issues with that, let's say through Europe at the moment, acceptance of the rights of others.

26:21These eight different pillars come together to form a systemic way of being able to view how to develop societies so they're highly resilient. But when we're looking at this, and this is what we call positive peace, that also strongly correlates with a lot of other things we think are important. So the same things which build peace also build the building blocks of all these other things we think are important, like higher GDP growth. For example, countries improving in positive peace compared to countries deteriorating, have twice per annum GDP growth rates. Measures of well-being and happiness are highly correlated, as are performance on ecological measures and development and a whole range of other things.

27:11So in many ways, positive peace can describe an optimal environment in which human potential can flourish. So I think for NATO, and we're seeing this picked up and many other areas, being able to sort of now try and help create these background conditions, which create for the kind of resilience so that the countries are strong when they're hit with external shocks. I think it's incredibly important as being able to clearly articulate and within the societies they operate, the trade-offs between military expenditure and social expenditure. You see many of the European countries at the moment as they increase the level of military expenditure, that comes at the cost of education, social support, and particularly when the economies are struggling, this can now be a double-edged sword.

28:13Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:double-edged sword absolutely it makes me want to go back to how you started and see how that impacts on the future and what i mean by that is technology um how is that contributing to global peace or is it harming it what's good and in your opinion what's bad about it Yes, well, it's an interesting question. It's a question which quite often comes up, actually, to be honest. But technology is like a knife. It's a tool. You can use it to cut up your food. You can use it to craft and shape carvings of your life so you can create something of beauty, or you can use it to kill someone. And technology is pretty much the same.

29:04So it's really sort of the use of technology which determines its goodness or its badness, I suppose. So there's so many different areas of technology, isn't there? So many different areas of technology. So if you're looking at, let's say, artificial intelligence, for example, It has the capacity to free human beings up, create much more productive environments, providing you get that productivity and the outcome of it spread. We'll all be a lot more wealthy and have a lot more free time to be able to choose and do what we want. On the other hand, you can use it to create propaganda, which will be more compelling.

29:51in the area of terrorism, they can create more compelling propaganda than we've ever seen before. So at the Institute for Economics and Peace, for example, we've just produced a series of videos, so it might at least take a couple of hours to produce, where we've got an avatar, an excellent-looking person, much better than me and with a much better voice, and it just pulls off the data we've got as persons speaking It's highly charismatic and the presentation's filled with all these graphics explaining the story. And so that's a positive example of how to use AI. But on the other hand, we can see Kishojin State, Kishojin Chapter of Islamic State, for example, using it to produce highly influential and very, very dangerous videos.

30:51So I guess the use of technology, it's so vast, it comes back to what technology you're looking at and where do you use it. So, for example, another one would be like, let's say, CRISPR technology so we can actually splice DNA. Great, we're going to come up with all sorts of things which will cure all sorts of issues we've got at the moment into the future. But on the other hand, you can now take it in splices and create new viruses. So again, it's back to the usage. Now, how do you bring all this together? I don't think anyone's doing it in a comprehensive way to really understand which technologies, the various technologies, and how they're used.

31:38When is it good? When is it bad? So if we look at the development of drones, it's been great for the defence of the Ukraine. Excellent, excellent, excellent and really commendable. And you've got to really admire the advances made. But on the other hand, as that technology now gets picked up and is used by Ellen, with the drug cartels down in Colombia, they've now got the ability to better survey the jungles, the military may come in. They've also got the ability now to stage attacks remotely like they could never do before. So again, the technology depends how you use it.

32:29Dr. Sajjan M. Gohel:so i like the the part of what's good and positive because the the bit that's negative and bad scares me um in in many regards and i feel like um it's it's one of those challenges with we'll keep talking about but i want to sort of as we reach the the near end of our discussion I want to try and stay on that positive dynamic. And one question I always wanted to ask you is, what is the most peaceful place you've ever been, other than my podcast, of course? Well, obviously, this is the most peaceful place. The two of us are most peaceful men. No, no. So Iceland's actually the most peaceful place in the world.