Britons are pessimistic about the prospect of peace on Earth, the YouGov Big Survey on NATO and War finds
In 2023 the United Nations warned that the world is experiencing “the highest number of violent conflicts” since the Second World War. According to the Geneva Academy for International Humanitarian Law, there are currently more than 110 armed conflicts going on in the world.
The YouGov Big Survey on NATO and War finds that merely one in ten Britons (10%) think the world will be more peaceful 50 years from now, with 42% anticipating that the world will have become less peaceful. Three in ten (29%) predict that the world will be as (un)safe as it is now.
When compared to the results of the study we conducted in 2022, the percentage of those who think the world will become a less peaceful place has increased from 35% to 42%, while the number of optimists remains the same.
When it comes to the issue of whether global peace can be achieved, only 8% think that there will come a time when there will be no more military wars on the planet (which was the same result in the 2022 study). Eight in ten (85%) think the opposite, including 41% who say that a war-free future will “definitely will not” come to pass.
When it comes to those who believe that there will be a time when there will be no wars, six in ten (61%) think that will happen within the next 100 years, while around a quarter (26%) think it will take longer than that.
