Global Peace Index 2025
51 comments
·September 17, 2025nl
Worth noting that "peace" here doesn't mean "safe to live in". Instead it includes both internal conflict, but also things like military preparedness and access to heavy and nuclear weapons.
That's why unsafe but underdeveloped nations rank higher than some countries that are often considered domestically safe.
tlogan
I have to say, this is a very strange list. Croatia as one of the most peaceful countries? More peaceful than Norway?
What exactly is this list supposed to represent?
travisgriggs
I too found Norways placement on the list interesting. I lived there for 2 years. It doesn’t come much more chill than that.
Looking at the indices, while Norway is generally low on all the indicators, it’s maxed out on weapons exports and weapons imports. Not sure why that is? Because NATO traffics through there a bunch?
Meanwhile, next door Sweden ranks lower in these categories, even though Saab makes air fighters and the like. Weird numbers indeed.
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dopa42365
> Norway experienced the largest deterioration in peacefulness in the region, which was primarily caused by a substantial deterioration on the Militarisation domain. The military expenditure (% GDP) indicator deteriorated by 31.1 per cent and the weapons exports indicator deteriorated by 145 per cent. In 2024, the government unanimously adopted a new long-term defence strategy that will substantially increase the total defence budget over the next 12 years.15 The Safety and Security domain saw a slight improvement of 0.08 per cent while all the indicators in the Ongoing Conflict domain had no change. Despite its fall in overall peacefulness, Norway has the second most peaceful ranking in the world on the Safety and Security domain.
dismalaf
Croatia is currently very peaceful. What exactly do you take issue with?
tlogan
Croatia is a great country, and so are the others from the former Yugoslavia. But Croatia’s “peacefulness” depends very heavily on the of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.
Swizec
Croatia is in the EU so it's beyond unlikely that BiH and Serbia will cause any shenanigans.
I'm very happy that Slovenia is 9th safest. And wondering wtf I'm doing in USA which is rapidly falling to the bottom.
randall
if anything that’s great. it’s cool to hear about a place that has swung that dramatically during my lifetime.
tptacek
Can anyone speak to any practical policy decision any organization or state has ever made in response to this particular index?
aeon_ai
I don't know if this is happening for anyone else, but Greenland is missing, which is deeply and darkly amusing for many reasons, least of all the size of the omission.
eqvinox
At only 163 entries of ca. 200 countries, a whole bunch of stuff is missing. Andorra as well, for example.
SapporoChris
Not an omission, Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark. Denmark is listed.
aeon_ai
Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark that, at least as rendered on my screen, is missing from the map entirely.
nwhnwh
:yawningface:
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richardfeynman
I live in New Zealand. Very peaceful. Funny to see Ireland above it.
magnio
How the hell is Nepal more peaceful than China or Bolivia? Last week the country has had extremely violent protests, with widespread vandalism and arson leading to inadvertent murder of political leaders, as well as many prison breakouts.
seer
I was right there during the protests (as a tourist) and it was such a bizarre situation.
The thing started with the police _killing_ more than 10 children. And after that the crowd went after places like police stations, some palaces and the parliament. Most politicians fled, but the ones that were caught up were mostly bitten up, not killed.
As someone from Eastern Europe, who lived through the fall of the Soviet Union, it all seemed remarkably chill and peaceful - people were really after justice, not vengeance.
Prisons were mostly filled by political prisoners, though some bad apples took advantage to escape as well.
Being just a few kilometres away from the epicentre of things, it all felt very chill, people on the streets were very happy, police were ok, military was smiling and chatty - they were giving people water and trying to “look helpful”
Just the media wants to portray chaos cause that’s what’s driving the clicks, but the situation on the ground was quite ok.
The people did a quick *discord* vote, chose an interim president - who is someone everyone in the country agrees is one of the few incorruptible and honest people, and they will apparently have a proper election at some point when things settle down.
As “revolution” goes this seems like the most sane one I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few …
wodenokoto
Protest are often like this. Where it’s going on it is very intense but just on a side street people can be sitting quietly sipping latte like nothing special is happening.
c54
The police also killed 19 people but your comment doesn’t mention that.
In addition the military has not taken over, but currently seems to be honoring the demand of the protestors for new leadership and addressing the widespread corruption in the nation.
It’s too early to call, to be sure. But I’m hopeful that there can be a peaceful transition from here towards something better for Nepal.
recursivecaveat
The components of the index are all sourced from stuff like various UN agencies or Amnesty reports, so even if the report is compiled instantly, it probably trails by 6 months on average.
yard2010
It's funny how you can tell the bias of their sources just judging by the skewed results.
notepad0x90
That's just last week though. outliers don't dictate the average.
manquer
I cannot comment on the methodology, but this report was published in June 2025 and the report appendix mentions it covers 2024 (presumably calendar).
The recent protests would have not been covered in this edition.
Stevvo
If you click on a county it gives you a breakdown. China scored 5/5 for Nuclear and Heavy weapons, 4.5/5 for political terror, and 4/5 for neighboring country relations.
renewiltord
Considering America polices the waves, George Orwell’s quip comes to mind
> Those who ‘abjure’ violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf
ipnon
You should watch Patlabor 2.
narrator
Papua New Guinea more peaceful than the United States, huh? Even experienced travel vloggers barely visit that country because of how much violence there is.
TheDong
Sure Papua New Guinea scores 5/5 on the "Violent Crime" assessment (to the US's 2/5), but the US incarceration rate is 5/5, while Papua New Guinea only scores 1.5/5.
The US also has much more weapons exports, and external military involvement.
People deciding where to travel are largely thinking about "violent crime" levels moreso than "how many fighter jets does this country sell"
This report tries to also take into account things like "Military size, expenditure, and weapon exports", which surely indicates a non-peaceful nation, even if on the ground citizens can live peacefully.
If the definition of "peace" includes nation-level involvement in conflict, then I think it's very fair to argue that the US isn't a peaceful country. Papua New Guinea is not providing significant military support to multiple wars at once. The US certainly is.
yreew
Do you realize how much violence there is in the US? The assassination of Charlie Kirk, stabbing of ukrainian refugee in the subway, the beheading of an indian man in Dallas. And those are just this month.
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XorNot
Have you even read any news reports from PNG? Checked out any local papers?
captn3m0
Seems to be a lagging indicator. Nepal sits at 1.99 (and yellow, middle of the range).
itake
yeah, and Thailand and Cambodia currently have a border dispute with military engagements resulting in death of soldiers and attacks on civilian buildings, with both sides activating their military in response.
and yet they are more peaceful than the USA.
The border dispute has been going on for decades though, but just recently escalated to deaths.
Such reports should drop the idea of ranking countries and instead focus on the rise or fall in per-country scores relative to their previous scores.
Whenever countries are ranked against each other, discussions inevitably focus on the relative ranks and ignore the underlying causes of any drop in scores.
When a country moves up in rank mostly because some other countries moved down, it feels odd to the people there who wonder why they ranked higher without any improvements on the ground. Nationalist governments tend to claim the higher rank is because of their policies, knowing that their people most likely won't study the changes in score components of previous years.