Speaker 1: Already and this is this is the Daily OS.
Speaker 2: This is the Daily ohs oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily ODS. It's Thursday,
Speaker 2: the thirteenth of June.
Speaker 1: I'm Emma, I'm sam.
Speaker 2: Global levels of peace deteriorated at historic rates over the
Speaker 2: past year, according to new data from the Institute for
Speaker 2: Economics and Peace. The independent think tank compared levels of
Speaker 2: peacefulness across one hundred and sixty three countries for its
Speaker 2: annual Global Peace Index, and it found global conflicts have
Speaker 2: reached their highest rate since World War Two.
Speaker 1: But how do you actually define peace and how is
Speaker 1: it measured? Well? To understand more about the latest Global
Speaker 1: Peace Index, you're going to hear from Michael Collins. He's
Speaker 1: the executive director Americas of the Institute for Economics and Peace.
Speaker 1: He's going to join Emma in today's But first, m
Speaker 1: what is making headlines.
Speaker 2: Former NROL player Jared Haynes has won an appeal to
Speaker 2: have his sexual assault conviction quashed. It comes more than
Speaker 2: a year after the former Paramatta Eels star was found
Speaker 2: guilty of sexually assaulting a woman in twenty eighteen and
Speaker 2: sentenced to a maximum of four years and nine months
Speaker 2: in prison. The judge in the appeal court ordered a
Speaker 2: new trial. If this happens, it'll be the fourth time
Speaker 2: this case is tried. Haynes continues to deny the allegations
Speaker 2: against him.
Speaker 1: One in seven adults have been the victim of sextortion,
Speaker 1: which is a form of sexual abuse that involves threats
Speaker 1: to share intimate images or videos of a person without
Speaker 1: their consent. R MIT University research has surveyed sixteen thousand
Speaker 1: people around the world. The study found men were more
Speaker 1: likely to report sextortion from a colleague or caerra than women.
Speaker 1: Researchers also found sextortion was common in intimate partner abuse
Speaker 1: as a means to coerce victims.
Speaker 2: Millions of people in America could have their medical debts
Speaker 2: wiped from their credit reports under a proposal by US
Speaker 2: President Joe Biden and Vice President Karmala Harris. According to
Speaker 2: the White House, a raising health debts would impact over
Speaker 2: fifteen million Americans, improving their credit scores to allow them
Speaker 2: a better chance at being approved for bank loans, including mortgages.
Speaker 1: And today's good news, one of the world's biggest Tyrannosaurus
Speaker 1: rex fossils is set to be displayed at the Melbourne Museum.
Speaker 1: The sixty six million year old fossil, aptly named Victoria,
Speaker 1: was discovered in twenty thirteen in the US state of
Speaker 1: South Dakota. At twelve meters long, it's one of the
Speaker 1: most complete t rex fossils in the world and will
Speaker 1: be the first real t rex fossil ever exhibited in
Speaker 1: the state of Victoria. There's also a new discovery from
Speaker 1: the dinosaur world. Actually, they found this dinosaur that started
Speaker 1: saying as many words as possible, Oh, no, Ethosaurus.
Speaker 3: Ah Sam.
Speaker 2: We were on a roll there and you had to
Speaker 2: go and take it to that place. Global conflicts, increased
Speaker 2: military spending, and broader economic pressures are some of the
Speaker 2: reasons behind a decline in overall levels of peacefulness across
Speaker 2: the world. That's according to the Global Peace Index. Now
Speaker 2: since two thousand and eight, this index has been using
Speaker 2: a range of indicators to analyze the country's involvement in
Speaker 2: conflict to quantify levels of peace. The twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: Index was published this week and to talk us through
Speaker 2: the results, trends, impacts, and bigger picture learnings from these findings,
Speaker 2: we're joined by Michael Collins. Michael is the executive director
Speaker 2: Americas of the Institute for Economics and Peace, the think
Speaker 2: tank behind the index. Michael, Welcome to the pod.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much for having Meeama.
Speaker 2: We're talking today about the Global Peace Index. First of all,
Speaker 2: I wanted to understand what is the index.
Speaker 5: So the Global Peace Index is essentially a method or
Speaker 5: a tool to be able to measure changes in peacefulness globally.
Speaker 5: So peace for the most part, at least historically, has
Speaker 5: been sort of thought about, something fuzzy around the edges.
Speaker 5: Everyone has their own definition of peacefulness. So it's very
Speaker 5: much an aim to be able to sort of provide
Speaker 5: a bit of a data driven perspective as it pertains
Speaker 5: to peace and changes in peacefulness around the world.
Speaker 3: So how do you define peacefulness?
Speaker 5: So one of the easiest places to start, or at
Speaker 5: least where we chose to start with this is measuring
Speaker 5: in this instance the opposites, and we start by measuring
Speaker 5: this absence of violence or fear of violence.
Speaker 4: So we take things like homicide measures, for example.
Speaker 5: Numbers of violent demonstrations, the amount of conflict in countries,
Speaker 5: the levels of incarceration, and then we bring all of
Speaker 5: those different metrics together. The premise of this is the
Speaker 5: most peaceful countries are the ones that have the lowest
Speaker 5: measures in all of those different indicators as well.
Speaker 2: So essentially the lower the score, the more peaceful the place.
Speaker 4: That's absolutely right.
Speaker 5: So to make all of this different data comparable, what
Speaker 5: we do is we do go through this process of
Speaker 5: banding scores everything from one to a five. It's a
Speaker 5: bit of a convoluted and complex process, but it really
Speaker 5: helps kind of simplify what are a lot of complex
Speaker 5: sort of dynamics and indicators.
Speaker 4: In a nutshell.
Speaker 5: Yes, if you're living in a five, things aren't so great.
Speaker 2: Right now, we're talking today, specifically about the latest findings,
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty four Index out this week. Can you
Speaker 2: talk me through some of the key insights from this
Speaker 2: year's report.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 5: First off is that peacefulness is deteriorating in particular conflict measures,
Speaker 5: and we're still those conflict measures, you know, or those
Speaker 5: conflicts are essentially becoming more and more difficult to resolve
Speaker 5: over time. So you know, we're looking at the largest
Speaker 5: number of conflicts that we have seen since the end
Speaker 5: of World War II, essentially, so fifty six conflicts around
Speaker 5: the world. Yes, conflicts such as Gaza and Ukraine. Those
Speaker 5: countries in the headlines do weigh significantly on those particular drivers.
Speaker 5: There are lots of other conflicts out there, so the Sudan, Ethiopia,
Speaker 5: Myanmar that we also hear about, but as well as
Speaker 5: many others that we not hearing about at all. The
Speaker 5: last point I sort of wanted to make on that
Speaker 5: is we've dealt in this year a bit on a
Speaker 5: lot of those dynamics.
Speaker 4: We see that a lot more countries are more.
Speaker 5: Readily getting involved in other countries conflict, whether that be
Speaker 5: in direct support of the government in that country or
Speaker 5: alternatively armed groups within that country as well, and that's
Speaker 5: creating quite a mess. So if we look back in
Speaker 5: the days of when there was you know, essentially one superpower,
Speaker 5: when the world was a lot more unique polar we
Speaker 5: could see that in terms of conflicts, a lot more
Speaker 5: conflicts were resolved, a lot more conflicts were resolved bilaterally.
Speaker 5: So looking back in the nineteen seventies, forty nine percent,
Speaker 5: almost fifty percent of all conflicts were essentially resolved by
Speaker 5: one party being victorious. These days that's down to less
Speaker 5: than ten percent. The amount of peace agreements that assigned
Speaker 5: these days has also deteriorated significantly. Then result of this
Speaker 5: is that the whole lot of unresolved conflicts around there
Speaker 5: as well. And it's those smaller unresolved conflict to have
Speaker 5: the potential to be able to sort of beef up
Speaker 5: and to blow up into the major conflicts that we're
Speaker 5: seeing today.
Speaker 2: That figure you mentioned, the highest number of countries engaged
Speaker 2: in conflict since World War Two is pretty staggering. How
Speaker 2: significant is the scale of that number of conflicts and
Speaker 2: why now?
Speaker 5: So again, I mean, I think that this is all progressive.
Speaker 5: To put things in contexts slightly. I mean, we are
Speaker 5: talking in terms of overall battle deaths and numbers that
Speaker 5: are a lot lower than what we would have seen
Speaker 5: in a Cold War, for example. So in terms of
Speaker 5: overall battle deaths, that said, we've seen an increase in
Speaker 5: that in the last two or three years.
Speaker 4: So since the inception of the Global Piece Index.
Speaker 5: We're sure that the record in battle deest this was
Speaker 5: back in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three was close
Speaker 5: to this mark. Fifty thousand people have died in the
Speaker 5: first four months of this year, so we're perhaps going
Speaker 5: to hit a new sort of record for the Global
Speaker 5: Peace Index, but going back in time, we're still lower
Speaker 5: on those overall numbers.
Speaker 4: But again, this.
Speaker 5: Really speaks to this broader set of conflicts that there
Speaker 5: was a whole likelihood now that any one of those
Speaker 5: individual conflicts which yesterday was a minor conflict. We think
Speaker 5: about Ethiopia, we think about Ukraine, if we think about Gaza,
Speaker 5: those are all minor conflicts back in twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 5: look where we are today.
Speaker 2: Do you expect to see that trend of what were
Speaker 2: previously minor conflicts becoming major ones? Do you expect to
Speaker 2: see that trend continuing intensifying into more record breaking numbers
Speaker 2: next year?
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 5: I mean it's always a difficult prediction to make, but
Speaker 5: in terms of the law of large numbers and what
Speaker 5: we're seeing in terms of trends, that is definitely what
Speaker 5: we would expect that out of some of those smaller conflicts,
Speaker 5: we would see more major conflicts arise. Unless anything radically
Speaker 5: changes on the world stage, I really don't see that
Speaker 5: happening anytime soon. I think that there's going back to
Speaker 5: the UN again. There's a lot of stagnation. There is
Speaker 5: definitely a breakdown in diplomacy and increase in polarization. The
Speaker 5: same level of polarization that we're seeing in civil society,
Speaker 5: we're seeing very much in diplomatic circles.
Speaker 4: Term there are, of.
Speaker 2: Course dozens of global conflicts at play with the data
Speaker 2: this year, but I think it would probably be remiss
Speaker 2: of us not to dive a little deeper into Gaza,
Speaker 2: the conflict there. Of course, you've been tracking these findings
Speaker 2: over a period of years. How have you seen things
Speaker 2: change and shift given the intensification of that conflict.
Speaker 5: I mean, definitely an intensification in terms of the terrorist attack,
Speaker 5: which was the largest terrorist attack worldwide since September eleventh,
Speaker 5: and then of course the Israeli response in Gaza with
Speaker 5: over thirty thousand Palestinians killed to date. So certainly a
Speaker 5: massive escalation in a very short period of time. But
Speaker 5: if you look at the overall tensions that have been
Speaker 5: building between Israel and Palestine more than one decade. Over
Speaker 5: the last fifteen years, we've seen that overall sentiment and
Speaker 5: negative news and negative stories between one country another has
Speaker 5: progressively been increasing over that time.
Speaker 4: Although it's always.
Speaker 5: A shock when we see this quick acceleration, the underlying
Speaker 5: fabric and the relations in these two countries have been
Speaker 5: deteriorating for quite some time already.
Speaker 2: I'm interested in understanding the scope of military spending in
Speaker 2: contributing towards these results. How does military spending kind of
Speaker 2: stack up compared to peace building or peacekeeping spending internationally.
Speaker 5: So militarization is something that we would track as a
Speaker 5: negative in this instance.
Speaker 4: The exception to that would be precisely what.
Speaker 5: You mentioned, Emma, which is peace keeping or peace building
Speaker 5: contributions primarily through UN frameworks which are more consensus based,
Speaker 5: basically as a proxy to a commitment to peace building. Now,
Speaker 5: whether that's done at the same time or not is
Speaker 5: the or question. And I think a lot of the
Speaker 5: increasing militarization that we're seeing over the recent three or
Speaker 5: four years is in response to specifically this large amount
Speaker 5: of conflict that we're now seeing around the world. So
Speaker 5: it's a batto logical response as well. But ultimately war
Speaker 5: doesn't pay. We do a lot of research around the
Speaker 5: economic value of peace. Over one hundred countries became more
Speaker 5: militarized last year, eighty six of them increased their military expenditure.
Speaker 5: So it's unfortunate that we're seeing that versaal in a
Speaker 5: trend that had actually been improving over the prior ten years.
Speaker 2: One of the interesting findings to me was learning that
Speaker 2: the US has more significant military power than China. Did
Speaker 2: that come as a surprise to you and the team?
Speaker 4: I don't think it came so much as a surprise
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 5: I spent a lot of time living in the US,
Speaker 5: so I spent a lot of time hearing how great
Speaker 5: the American military is.
Speaker 3: Makes sense for context for us here at home. Asia.
Speaker 2: Pacific tensions are you know, a big part of the
Speaker 2: new cycle, and that certainly dominates the dialogue here from
Speaker 2: a defense perspective, and a lot of foreign spending and
Speaker 2: military spending tends to be built on a sort of
Speaker 2: rhetoric about the imposing fear and growth and power of China.
Speaker 5: And again that is totally understandable, Yes, and I think
Speaker 5: Americans would be relieved to see that they have still
Speaker 5: three times the capability at least along those lines than
Speaker 5: China would have. But one of the interesting things I
Speaker 5: should say is actually the significant increase in military capacity
Speaker 5: that China has had over the last five years. So
Speaker 5: although it's still well below the United States, it's growing
Speaker 5: in capacity very very quickly.
Speaker 2: Indeed, I want to talk to you about some of
Speaker 2: the more hopeful findings from the index. Who or where
Speaker 2: was the most peaceful country in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 5: So the most peaceful country in twenty twenty three. Last
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four was Iceland. Iceland has been the most
Speaker 5: peaceful country since the inception of the Global Peace Index.
Speaker 4: In fact, it's so far ahead that it would take
Speaker 4: quite a bit of deterioration for that to actually swap.
Speaker 5: As far as we can see, there's not any magical
Speaker 5: transformative power of being in Iceland. It's just an accumulation
Speaker 5: of circumstances. In fact, Iceland did deteriorate and peacefulness this year,
Speaker 5: including increase in violent demonstrations for example.
Speaker 4: And there are a lot of.
Speaker 5: Other peaceful countries around the world, so Ireland, Austria, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland.
Speaker 5: Australia does relatively well as well. Unfortunately, the United States
Speaker 5: does quite poorly currently run T one hundred and thirty second, so.
Speaker 4: Not great there.
Speaker 5: But one of the most interesting things that the Global
Speaker 5: Peace Index allows us to do is to set that
Speaker 5: sort of benchmark for peacefulness. So this forms the basis
Speaker 5: of our positive peace work, which is essentially a statistical
Speaker 5: analysis to be able to ascertain what are the socioeconomic
Speaker 5: and attitudinal factors that create a sustained peace.
Speaker 3: So what is Iceland getting right?
Speaker 2: I feel like countries like Iceland pop up all the
Speaker 2: time in these global studies.
Speaker 3: What are the Icelandics doing that We're not?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 5: As I mentioned, New Zealand is pretty up there, as
Speaker 5: is Australia. Hanna did us pretty well too, and most
Speaker 5: of the European countries are quite peaceful too. Surprisingly, one
Speaker 5: of the things that I have noted in this particular
Speaker 5: index is that some of the Scandinavian countries have dropped
Speaker 5: off a bit, so perhaps not as true.
Speaker 4: As it once was.
Speaker 5: I mean, if we think back using the same metrics,
Speaker 5: Europe would be one of the least peaceful countries if
Speaker 5: we looked at it back in the days of World
Speaker 5: War II, for example.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: Rather than concentrating on Iceland specifically, I'd love to be
Speaker 5: able to broaden it out to what we see helps
Speaker 5: create sustained peaceful countries over sort of five hundred socio
Speaker 5: economic indicators that we see share a strong statistical correlation.
Speaker 5: As these improve, we see that peacefulness improves on the
Speaker 5: other end, And there's a whole bunch of stuff, so
Speaker 5: you can't really single out an individual one, but we
Speaker 5: can broadly throw them into eight buckets.
Speaker 4: Right. These are what we call the eight pillars of.
Speaker 5: Positive peace, essentially the characteristics of peaceful societies. This includes
Speaker 5: a well functioning government, equitable distribution of resources, free flow
Speaker 5: of information, good relations with neighbors, high loves of human capital,
Speaker 5: acceptance to the rights of others, low levels of corruption,
Speaker 5: and a sound business environment.
Speaker 2: So given that, what does Australia need to do to
Speaker 2: improve its peacefulness?
Speaker 5: We definitely offer something like the Positive Peace Framework as
Speaker 5: a tool for individual countries, societies, communities, neighborhoods and even
Speaker 5: organizations to be able to assess where they fall on
Speaker 5: the peace diagram and to score themselves around these particular pillars.
Speaker 5: And the reason that we often don't participate in direct
Speaker 5: policy recommendations is precisely because of a lot of this
Speaker 5: positive peace building is contextual in nature, so a lot
Speaker 5: of societal norms are radically different. Different countries have their
Speaker 5: own path dependences, their own historical elements, their own purposes,
Speaker 5: their own aims. In that sense, I turn the question
Speaker 5: back to you, Emma, now that I've presented.
Speaker 4: The eight Pillars of Positive Fears. So what do you
Speaker 4: think Australia should do.
Speaker 2: Now that you have presented the pillars? Michael, I'm wondering
Speaker 2: if climate change is disrupting peacefulness perhaps in a country
Speaker 2: like Australia, where our natural landscape seems to bring so
Speaker 2: much pride and joy to a lot.
Speaker 3: Of people's life. I wonder if that has a role
Speaker 3: to play.
Speaker 5: It does in the sense that that is something that
Speaker 5: we can very much validate through our work. So parallel
Speaker 5: to the Global Peace Index. For the last five years now,
Speaker 5: we've been producing a report called Ecological Threat Report.
Speaker 4: Now it doesn't look at climate change uniquely.
Speaker 5: What it does is it looks at levels of food
Speaker 5: and security, water stress, natural disasters, and rapid population growth,
Speaker 5: all of these things other than rapid population growth and
Speaker 5: perhaps quakes, of things that could be and are aggravated
Speaker 5: by climate change. The reason I'm bringing that up is
Speaker 5: because we do see a very close correlation between ecological
Speaker 5: degradation and deteriorations in peacefulness as well.
Speaker 2: I do wonder given that we're in the midst of
Speaker 2: an historic election year global elections around the country, hundreds
Speaker 2: of millions of people casting votes across the year, if
Speaker 2: that will play a role in negatively or positively affecting peacefulness.
Speaker 4: It's a very good question for us.
Speaker 5: It fundamentally comes down to what are the underlying resilience
Speaker 5: measures underpinning that. We often talk about tipping points, right,
Speaker 5: if we see that there is a country the lower
Speaker 5: levels of resilience that may be scraping by and an
Speaker 5: election or the result from an election maybe lights the
Speaker 5: spark of revolt. As you know, this year, most of
Speaker 5: the world is going to the elections, so building on
Speaker 5: the fact that we're seeing this increasing amount of conflict,
Speaker 5: we definitely see additional risk there.
Speaker 2: Michael, thank you so much for joining us on the
Speaker 2: days and thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on the Daily Ohs
Speaker 1: this morning. I really enjoyed that episode. Thank you m
Speaker 1: for that interview. If you learn something from today's episode,
Speaker 1: don't forget to hit subscribe. So there's a tdy eight
Speaker 1: episode waiting for you every weekday morning. We'll be back
Speaker 1: again tomorrow for your Friday episode. Until then, have a
Speaker 1: great Thursday. My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a
Speaker 1: proud Arunda Bungelung Calcoton woman from Gadigol country. The Daily
Speaker 1: oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands
Speaker 1: of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal
Speaker 1: and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects
Speaker 1: to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.