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.
nl · 1h ago
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 · 2h ago
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 · 1h ago
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.
No comments yet
dopa42365 · 1h ago
> 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 · 1h ago
Croatia is currently very peaceful. What exactly do you take issue with?
tlogan · 1h ago
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 · 28m ago
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 · 1h ago
if anything that’s great. it’s cool to hear about a place that has swung that dramatically during my lifetime.
tptacek · 1h ago
Can anyone speak to any practical policy decision any organization or state has ever made in response to this particular index?
aeon_ai · 1h ago
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 · 1h ago
At only 163 entries of ca. 200 countries, a whole bunch of stuff is missing. Andorra as well, for example.
SapporoChris · 1h ago
Not an omission, Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark. Denmark is listed.
aeon_ai · 1h ago
Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark that, at least as rendered on my screen, is missing from the map entirely.
richardfeynman · 1h ago
I live in New Zealand. Very peaceful. Funny to see Ireland above it.
magnio · 2h ago
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 · 1h ago
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 · 24m ago
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 · 1h ago
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 · 1h ago
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 · 1h ago
It's funny how you can tell the bias of their sources just judging by the skewed results.
notepad0x90 · 1h ago
That's just last week though. outliers don't dictate the average.
manquer · 1h ago
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 · 1h ago
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.
dudus · 1h ago
Bolívia is a crazy scary place
stavros · 1h ago
Apparently not as scary as 80 other places.
renewiltord · 1h ago
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 · 1h ago
You should watch Patlabor 2.
narrator · 1h ago
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 · 1h ago
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 · 1h ago
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.
XorNot · 1h ago
Have you even read any news reports from PNG? Checked out any local papers?
nwhnwh · 29m ago
:yawningface:
captn3m0 · 1h ago
Seems to be a lagging indicator. Nepal sits at 1.99 (and yellow, middle of the range).
itake · 1h ago
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.
1270018080 · 1h ago
A funny one is the "Positive Peace Index"
"Positive Peace is defined as the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies. The Positive Peace Index measures the level of societal resilience of a nation or region according."
And the United States scores very high. Losing a bit of credibility there.
koiueo · 1h ago
Ukraine is right near the russia at the bottom.
The russia had started over a dozen wars and committed multiple genocides, one of which is globally recognized, all in just the last hundred years. Ukraine had only been defending in at least the last three centuries.
This rating is bs, because the methodology doesn't make sense.
ipnon · 1h ago
This is the NGO equivalent of vibe coding. The methodology is wrong, the results don’t make any sense, but it feels right. Ship it!
js8 · 1h ago
Most of the composite indexes of this kind are similarly meaningless. It's certainly not just the domain of NGOs.
But to be fair, if it makes people to stop and look why they have different preconceived ideas, I think it's a positive. For example I didn't know that Norway is so militaristic.
bryanthompson · 1h ago
as long as it gets those blob dollars!
dang · 1h ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
Well, I’m simply making the point that until recently programming required a certain amount of rigor and precision that is no longer necessary because of AI. And that now we can do the sort of hand-wavy, p-hacky work that has been available to social scientists for decades.
armadsen · 1h ago
Hard to take this too seriously when the US is way below war torn countries in Africa.
United States is nearly always in conflict to the point that it is difficult to find a year where USA is not involved in a conflict.
SchemaLoad · 1h ago
The raw data behind the index is available. Which points in the scoring do you believe not accurate and why?
makeitdouble · 1h ago
"the country I live in can't be that bad" is a feeling that can be hard to shake. Even taking into account selection bias.
armadsen · 1h ago
I’ve spent significant time in Africa. South Africa is higher than the US despite being a place where everyone has razor wire topped walls around their houses, and having the 5th highest murder rate in the world.
The US has problems. I myself was the victim of a violent robbery 15 years ago. But the idea that it’s less peaceful than South Africa, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, and only marginally more peaceful than Haiti? Come on…
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.
That's why unsafe but underdeveloped nations rank higher than some countries that are often considered domestically safe.
What exactly is this list supposed to represent?
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.
No comments yet
I'm very happy that Slovenia is 9th safest. And wondering wtf I'm doing in USA which is rapidly falling to the bottom.
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 …
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.
The recent protests would have not been covered in this edition.
> Those who ‘abjure’ violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf
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.
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.
"Positive Peace is defined as the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies. The Positive Peace Index measures the level of societal resilience of a nation or region according."
And the United States scores very high. Losing a bit of credibility there.
The russia had started over a dozen wars and committed multiple genocides, one of which is globally recognized, all in just the last hundred years. Ukraine had only been defending in at least the last three centuries.
This rating is bs, because the methodology doesn't make sense.
But to be fair, if it makes people to stop and look why they have different preconceived ideas, I think it's a positive. For example I didn't know that Norway is so militaristic.
"Don't be snarky."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
United States is nearly always in conflict to the point that it is difficult to find a year where USA is not involved in a conflict.
The US has problems. I myself was the victim of a violent robbery 15 years ago. But the idea that it’s less peaceful than South Africa, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, and only marginally more peaceful than Haiti? Come on…