Atanas Paskalev via Unsplash Since the dawn of humankind, war has been a ubiquitous presence in society. Today, citizens around the world continue to be ensnared in these battles – some that have been stretching across decades.
“War, it’s clear, is engineered with extraordinary deliberation if you think about logistics, communications, energy, surveillance, intelligence, supply chains, and weaponry,” said Guru Madhavan, Ph.D., a biomedical engineer and senior director of programs at the National Academy of Engineering. “Yet peace is often framed as a diplomatic achievement, even if engineering is deeply involved in the aftermath through repair and rebuilding.”
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Madhavan wondered: Could engineering, which is so central to war, be just as vital in preventing it? He and his colleagues recently discussed how engineers could foster peace around the world – not only for those living in conflict areas but for all people everywhere. They argue that competence, capability, and character are the foundations of peace engineering.
This discussion resonates, especially today, on the International Day of Peace. First created by the United Nations in 1981, Sept. 21 was designated as a day of nonviolence and ceasefires. This year’s theme, “Invest in Peace – For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day,” honors those who drive local actions and stability and work toward lasting peace from the ground up.
Engineering peace in a world full of weapons
In the January PNAS Nexus journal article “Can Peace Be Engineered?” Madhavan and his fellow authors argue that engineering has always been connected to acts of conflict. Indeed, even something like the seemingly innocuous U.S. highway system has roots in military planning. But the creation – and control – of weapons has important engineering roots.
The atomic bomb was an engineering wonder that generated unimaginable, rippling consequences. As nations created their own nuclear arsenals over the past century, it became clear that government and military officials needed to fully grasp the ramifications of using these bombs.
Part of that understanding came from engineering. Companies like IBM joined with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratories to understand the broader impacts of nuclear weapons. They created sophisticated modeling systems that allowed researchers to test and simulate countless possible scenarios. At the time, nuclear bombs were detonated in the desert or on isolated islands, allowing researchers to document the damages and aftermath of explosions.
The engineered models eliminated this testing, allowing government researchers to run simulations of all nuclear stockpiles – no explosions or fallout required.
“We understood their bombs better than (the weapons researchers) understood their bombs because we could model and simulate them,” said Nick Donofrio, M.S., an IBM fellow emeritus, retired executive vice president of information and technology, and co-author of the paper.
Within the models, Donofrio and colleagues could vary a vast number of factors, changing bomb components and detonation scenarios with ease. The result was a robust picture of what each country’s nuclear arsenal could do.
“This modeling and simulation work transcends threats,” said Donofrio. “It gets you to the truth.”
Their engineered models revealed dire insights into the global impacts of nuclear war: mutually assured destruction of all nations. The result was an uneasy truce of sorts that continues today. “Mutually assured destruction offered a grim version of peace, where war became too costly to contemplate,” said Madhavan.
Peace reaches beyond conflicts
Over the years, the idea of peace has evolved to mean more than the mere absence of war. War-related activities tend to get the most attention, but smaller, community-led efforts for improving daily life can have substantial effects on peace and stability. Peace for everyone includes access to education, healthcare, clean water and air, and equal rights.
Over the past few decades engineers have tackled engineering challenges related to storms and flooding, aging infrastructure, and inequality in developing geographic regions and struggling socioeconomic areas. ASCE has also created the Future World Vision initiative to imagine what cities might look like if they were engineered to meet the environmental, technological, and political challenges ahead.
Finding solutions to future challenges is one part of engineering peace, but Madhavan stresses that thinking about cooperation across borders is critical.
“By designing systems where people are invested in each other’s success and even survival, cooperation becomes something very tangible. But such interdependence alone isn’t sufficient, and it can turn into a source of coercion if one party holds all the power,” Madhavan warned. “The design has to distribute benefits and control in ways that make cooperation the better option than disruption.”
Peace engineering often faces inadequate access to funding. While war funding seems nearly limitless, there is often a gap between peace-themed projects and available financial backing. Madhavan pointed out that peace and prevention efforts often rely on pilot projects or short-term funding, making it hard to sustain them over time.
It can also be difficult to effectively link engineering projects with ever-evolving politics. “Engineers are often told that questions about power and governance are political and not their responsibility,” Madhavan said. “However, building a dam is about power in every sense of the word. The challenge is to make concern for peace strong enough to shape engineering practice rather than depend on good intentions.”
Fostering engineering toward peaceful endeavors
The authors note that engineering peace requires engineers to possess three characteristics: competence in technical skills, capability for systems awareness and recognizing the big picture, and character that holds cultural, ethical, social, and environmental values at the forefront of their work.
The authors encouraged university engineering departments to integrate ethics courses into their curricula. “Students learn very early that safety and quality are part of engineering rather than an optional ‘ethics’ discussion,” Madhavan said. “I’d like us to develop the same instinct about the moral consequences of what we build.”
Donofrio agreed, adding that “it's smart to think about, ‘What is the right side of history as an engineer, and are you on it?’”
He noted that it’s important to look carefully at the consequences of a project – both good and bad – and be forthright about any issues. Years from now, when someone asks what you did during a tumultuous time or situation, Donofrio said, you have to prepare yourself to answer the question. “You can't mumble, you can't pass on this,” he said. “You've got to be able to answer it.”
ASCE and other professional engineering associations can foster engineering endeavors that strengthen peace and equality in all places. An engineering project being planned in an unstable area can easily be derailed by side issues and personal grievances. Established codes and standard engineering practices, defined by organizations like ASCE, can dampen these distractions and lead to better engineering solutions for everyone.
“Professional societies help define codes and professional norms, including what kinds of work are recognized and rewarded,” said Madhavan.
