Signals in Turbulence, Leverage in Upheaval

Peace|Signs is a new project from the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice that asks a deceptively simple question: In an age of noise and distortion, can peacebuilders learn to read the signals that actually matter?

As the second quarter of the 21st century begins to unfold, we are living into a period of systemic instability, acceleration, and flux: intensifying geopolitical rivalry, chain-reaction wars, climate disruption, democratic convulsions, rapidly expanding illicit networks, accelerating technological change, and deepening political polarization.

This moment also challenges how we think about peace itself. “Peacebuilding” has often implied the gradual construction of stable institutions and durable structures. It presumes stable ground. This project begins from the recognition that, at present, the ground itself is shifting. Indeed, underlying dynamics outpace the speed at which our traditional institutions are able to adapt and respond. They evolve in ways that—from our point of view—are much less predictable than we have grown accustomed to.

In periods of convulsion, peace is less something that can be built in a linear fashion than something that must be navigated, adapted, and reconfigured in real time. It emerges through processes that are provisional, iterative, and often ephemeral—shaped as much by timing and positioning as by design.

As systems convulse, they also emit turbulence: smoke, dust, and distortion that make it harder to see what is actually changing. So it is that while the volume of available information has never been higher, meaningful interpretation has become more difficult.

The Peace|Signs project begins from a simple premise: The central challenge for peacebuilders today is to distinguish signal from noise amidst a deluge of information. Only with that ability can we effectively plan our next moves and navigate faster than the ground moves beneath our feet. And perhaps begin to discern, prepare for, or even bring about, the shape of things to come.

Convulsion

It has become common to describe the present as a time of overlapping crises (or “polycrisis”). But “crisis” suggests discrete events—bounded disruptions that can be managed, resolved, or overcome.

What we are experiencing now is something different.

We are living through an age of convulsion: a period in which multiple systems—geopolitical, economic, technological, ecological—are not simply under stress, but interacting in ways that are reshaping one another. As they do, they unsettle not only institutions, but perception itself. Their feedback loops amplify instability, blur boundaries, and produce effects that are difficult to isolate, let alone predict.

At one scale, these dynamics resemble tectonic processes. Plates shift. Fault lines slip. Structures that once appeared stable are thrust downward, while others rise unexpectedly into view. It is not yet clear what will become coastline, what will become mountain, and what will disappear into the mantle altogether.

But this geological metaphor is only partially useful.

Because unlike in plate tectonics, human activity is not just affected by, but also potentially influences, these larger processes. Interacting systems may generate fractures, openings, and pressure points. And it is at these points that human action can matter, sometimes disproportionately. In stable systems, interventions dissipate. In unstable ones, they can redirect trajectories.

The challenge is knowing where to look.

The Danger of Coherent Pessimism

The prevailing interpretation of the present moment is not entirely wrong.

The risk of large-scale interstate conflict has returned. Energy systems and material constraints have reasserted themselves as central drivers of geopolitical strategy. Climate change is no longer a distant threat but an active force multiplier. Institutional architectures that once mediated conflict—multilateral frameworks, humanitarian systems, democratic norms—show visible signs of strain. Transnational criminal networks have expanded in scale and sophistication, operating across and through the very systems meant to regulate them. Political rhetoric, in many contexts, has shifted from competition to existential antagonism.

Taken together, these trends form a compelling narrative of decline.

The coherence is what makes it persuasive.

But it is also what makes it dangerous.

Because when systems destabilize, they do not simply deteriorate. They become plastic. The same processes that produce breakdown also produce recombination. Ideas that once had no traction can suddenly take hold. Institutions that appeared immovable can shift or fragment. Marginal practices can become central.

Periods like this are not just moments of risk. They are moments of reconfiguration.

Signal Detection as Method

This blog series approaches the present not as a collection of crises, but as a field of signals—of signs.

A signal, in this context, is not a single event. It is a pattern:

• something that repeats across contexts

• something that intensifies over time

• something that connects domains that are usually treated separately

• something that is overlooked because it does not fit dominant narratives

Some signals point toward escalation and fragmentation. Others point toward adaptation, innovation, and unexpected forms of coordination. The task is not to choose between these interpretations, but to understand how they interact—and which are likely to shape what comes next.

Knowledge in Motion

The contributors to this volume bring experience from across institutions that are themselves undergoing rapid transformation—humanitarian organizations, development agencies, governance systems, and rights-based initiatives.

In some cases, their own professional trajectories have been shaped by the same dynamics they analyze here.

The Kroc Institute itself has not been immune to these dynamics. Its own recent restructuring reflects, in microcosm, some of the same processes of strain, adaptation, and recomposition explored in these pages.

This proximity is not incidental. It reflects a broader shift in how knowledge is produced and distributed in periods of instability. In more stable times, expertise tends to accumulate within durable institutional structures. In periods of convulsion, that expertise becomes more distributed—dislodged from its traditional homes, but not diminished.

If anything, it becomes sharper.

Freed from certain institutional constraints, and shaped by direct encounters with systemic change, these perspectives offer a form of insight that is at once analytical and experiential: an ability to see how large-scale transformations register not only in policy and discourse, but in the reconfiguration of organizations, practices, and lived realities.

This volume draws, in part, on that redistributed expertise.

Leverage in Unstable Times

If this is a period of convulsion and recomposition, then it is also a period of leverage.

In stable systems, pressure dissipates. In unstable systems, it can accumulate—and, when applied at the right point, produce effects that are disproportionate to the effort expended.

The question then becomes:

• Where are the fault lines?

• Which systems are becoming more tightly coupled?

• Where are small interventions likely to cascade?

• Which strategies, once effective, are now misaligned with the structure of the system as it is becoming?

Peacebuilding, in this context, is less about scaling known solutions and more about identifying where the system is most susceptible to change.

An Invitation to See

The essays that follow are not comprehensive accounts of global conflict. They are attempts to identify signals—early, partial, sometimes ambiguous—that may prove consequential.

Each asks: What is changing beneath the surface? What are we misreading because it is too loud—or too quiet? Where might new forms of action become possible?

Taken together, they do not resolve the uncertainty of the present moment.

They map it.

And in a time like this, the ability to see—even imperfectly—may be the most practical contribution we can make.

Abeyance and the Work of Seeds

There is another way to read the present.

Not as a moment of imminent transformation, but as a period of abeyance: a time when visible progress stalls, when dominant systems persist despite evident strain, when the conditions for change are not yet fully realized.

In such periods, the work is different.

It is less about immediate impact and more about seeding:

• ideas that are not yet actionable

• relationships that are not yet instrumental

• capacities that are not yet in demand

Much of this work will not register in conventional metrics. It may not produce short-term results. It may not even be recognized as relevant until after the fact.

But when systems do shift—as they eventually do—it is often these latent structures that determine the shape of what follows.

The question, then, is not only where leverage exists now, but what should be cultivated for a future that is not yet legible.