The Strategic Power of Peace: Mediation in an Age of Interstate Conflict

The world is entering an era in which the capacity to prevent conflict may become as strategically important as the capacity to fight one.

The numbers provide a sobering picture.

According to the Peace Research Institute Oslo’s 2026 Conflict Trends report, based on data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 65 state-based armed conflicts were active across 35 countries in 2025, the highest number recorded since systematic records began in 1946. The number of direct interstate conflicts doubled from four in 2024 to eight in 2025, also reaching its highest level since 1946. Around 245,000 people were killed in battle-related violence during 2025. (Peace Research Institute Oslo)

Meanwhile, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported that global military expenditure reached a record $2.887 trillion in 2025, rising for an 11th consecutive year. In real terms, global military spending has increased by approximately 41 per cent since 2016. (SIPRI)

Conflict is also producing historic levels of human displacement. UNHCR recorded approximately 123.2 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2024, including 73.5 million internally displaced people and 31 million refugees under its mandate. (Digital Library)

Against this international backdrop, diplomacy is not ceremonial. It is strategic.

That is what makes United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ recognition of Pakistan’s diplomatic role in the United States-Iran conflict particularly significant.

Speaking in Islamabad on 6 October 2026, Guterres praised Pakistan for helping create the conditions for dialogue between Washington and Tehran. He credited Pakistan’s efforts with contributing to the 17 June Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, the subsequent ceasefire and the framework for further negotiations, describing Pakistan’s role as “pivotal”. (Anadolu Ajansı)

His words deserve attention beyond Pakistan.

They point toward a broader reality: in an increasingly fragmented international system, Pakistan is demonstrating how diplomatic access, multilateral experience and sustained engagement can be converted into practical contributions to international peace.

Pakistan’s mediation role has emerged at a moment when interstate conflict is again becoming a major feature of international politics.

The PRIO data are particularly important.

In 2024, the world recorded 61 state-based conflicts across 36 countries, already the highest number since 1946. By 2025, that number had increased further to 65 conflicts across 35 countries. (Peace Research Institute Oslo)

Even more significant is the return of direct wars between states.

PRIO recorded eight interstate conflicts in 2025, twice the number recorded in 2024 and the highest since the end of the Second World War. (Peace Research Institute Oslo)

These figures make preventive diplomacy increasingly valuable.

Pakistan’s role in facilitating engagement between two major antagonists therefore belongs to a much larger global discussion about how international diplomacy can prevent escalation, maintain communication and create pathways back towards negotiation.

Guterres captured this principle clearly in Islamabad when he called for an end to the conflict and a return to diplomacy.

Pakistan’s contribution offers a practical example of that approach.

The importance of Pakistan’s role becomes clearer when the substance of the diplomatic process is examined.

This was not simply an exchange of political statements.

The 17 June Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding established a framework for moving the United States and Iran away from open confrontation and towards negotiations.

A subsequent official UN Security Council record described the memorandum as covering the cessation of hostilities, reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to shipping and the launch of negotiations. (UN Transcripts)

The framework also extended into one of the most difficult issues in international security: nuclear non-proliferation.

According to the UN Security Council record, the Islamabad Memorandum included agreements concerning the disposition of enriched nuclear material, its on-site downblending under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision, and further discussion concerning enrichment and other mutually agreed questions relating to Iran’s nuclear requirements. (UN Transcripts)

That gives the Islamabad process strategic depth.

Pakistan’s diplomatic contribution was associated not merely with lowering immediate tensions but with creating a framework capable of addressing issues involving military escalation, maritime navigation and nuclear diplomacy.

Few areas of international relations carry greater consequences.

The scale of the Strait of Hormuz makes the diplomatic process internationally significant.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an average of 20.9 million barrels of oil and petroleum liquids passed through Hormuz every day during the first half of 2025. (U.S. Energy Information Administration)

That volume represented approximately:

20 per cent of global petroleum-liquids consumption, and about 25 per cent of the world’s maritime-traded oil. (U.S. Energy Information Administration)

Liquefied natural gas is equally significant.

Approximately 11.4 billion cubic feet of LNG per day travelled through Hormuz during the first half of 2025, equivalent to more than 20 per cent of global LNG trade. (U.S. Energy Information Administration)

The geographic distribution of these flows demonstrates why Hormuz is an international rather than merely regional issue.

The EIA estimates that 89 per cent of crude oil and condensate moving through Hormuz during the first half of 2025 went to Asian markets.

China, India, Japan and South Korea collectively received approximately 74 per cent of all crude oil and condensate transported through the strait. (U.S. Energy Information Administration)

Thus, diplomacy conducted thousands of kilometres away can have consequences extending from the Gulf to East Asia and throughout global markets.

Pakistan’s contribution to establishing a framework for reopening navigation therefore carried significance well beyond the negotiating table.

The scale of the disruption during the conflict makes this point even more powerful.

According to the EIA’s 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook, crude oil and petroleum-liquid movements through Hormuz averaged only 4.9 million barrels per day during the second quarter of 2026.

Before the conflict, in the fourth quarter of 2025, the corresponding figure had been approximately 21.6 million barrels per day. (U.S. Energy Information Administration)

That represents a reduction of roughly 77 per cent.

The importance of Pakistan’s diplomacy can therefore be understood numerically.

A diplomatic framework associated with restoring navigation involved a maritime corridor through which, under normal conditions, roughly one-fifth of global petroleum consumption and more than one-fifth of global LNG trade passed.

This is where diplomacy becomes global economic statecraft.

Pakistan was helping create space for negotiations around a crisis affecting one of the most important arteries of the international economy.

Hormuz is part of an even larger maritime system.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development reports that more than 80 per cent of international merchandise trade by volume is transported by sea. (UNCTAD)

This makes freedom of navigation an essential pillar of the contemporary international economy.

UNCTAD’s Review of Maritime Transport 2025 provides another striking statistic: the Strait of Hormuz carries approximately 11 per cent of global trade and around one-third of seaborne oil trade. (UNCTAD)

The international shipping environment was already experiencing significant disruption.

Global maritime trade grew by only 2.2 per cent in 2024, while geopolitical rerouting caused shipping ton-miles to increase by 5.9 per cent, nearly three times faster than actual trade volumes. (UNCTAD)

UNCTAD also reported that by May 2025, shipping tonnage passing through the Suez Canal remained approximately 70 per cent below 2023 levels. (UNCTAD)

These statistics demonstrate how geopolitical conflict increasingly affects the physical architecture of world commerce.

Seen in this context, Pakistan’s diplomatic contribution to negotiations concerning Hormuz represents a contribution to the stability of the wider maritime system.

There is also symbolic importance in the name attached to the agreement.

It is the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding.

Diplomatic geography matters.

Geneva has become internationally associated with diplomacy and humanitarian law.

The Hague is associated with international justice.

New York hosts the headquarters of the United Nations.

Doha has established an international profile through mediation.

The Islamabad Memorandum provides Pakistan’s capital with an opportunity to strengthen its own association with dialogue and peaceful dispute resolution.

The agreement was not merely announced in Islamabad.

Its name now appears in formal deliberations of the United Nations Security Council.

A UN Security Council record explicitly referred to the “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding of 17 June” as establishing a framework for de-escalation, sovereignty, territorial integrity and peaceful settlement. (UN Transcripts)

That gives Islamabad a place in the diplomatic record of one of 2026’s most consequential international crises.

The US-Iran mediation effort does not exist in isolation from Pakistan’s wider international record.

Pakistan is currently serving its eighth elected term on the United Nations Security Council, covering 2025-2026.

Its previous terms were:

1952-53,
1968-69,
1976-77,
1983-84,
1993-94,
2003-04,
2012-13,
and now 2025-26. (United Nations)

That represents more than seven decades of recurring participation in the UN body entrusted with primary responsibility for international peace and security.

Pakistan also served as President of the United Nations Security Council in July 2025. (United Nations)

This institutional experience matters.

Security Council membership involves direct engagement with questions of war and peace, sanctions, peacekeeping, conflict prevention, humanitarian crises, international law and multilateral security.

Pakistan’s mediation role therefore complements an extensive history of engagement within the institutions of global peace and security.

Pakistan’s peacekeeping record provides an even stronger quantitative foundation.

Pakistan first entered United Nations peacekeeping in 1960, when Pakistani personnel deployed to the UN Operation in the Congo.

Since then, more than 200,000 Pakistani servicewomen and servicemen have served in 46 United Nations missions. (Peacekeeping)

That represents more than six decades of operational participation in international peace efforts.

UN data currently identify Pakistan as the fifth-largest contributor of UN peacekeepers, with 2,662 personnel deployed across six missions, including 147 women. (United Nations)

Pakistani peacekeepers undertake tasks including civilian protection, medical outreach, responding to life-threatening floods, rebuilding roads and bridges and supporting stability in conflict-affected societies. (United Nations)

The human commitment has also been considerable.

At a UN-Pakistan commemoration in 2023, the United Nations recorded 171 Pakistani peacekeepers who had lost their lives while serving under the UN flag. (The United Nations in Pakistan)

These figures give important historical context to Pakistan’s present diplomatic role.

Pakistan’s engagement with international peace is simultaneously diplomatic and operational.

Its representatives participate in negotiations and multilateral institutions, while its peacekeepers have spent decades working in some of the world’s most difficult conflict environments.

The diplomatic approach also aligns directly with international law.

Article 33 of the United Nations Charter identifies negotiation, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement and other peaceful means as mechanisms through which disputes that could endanger international peace and security should be addressed.

Pakistan’s facilitation of negotiations therefore reflects one of the foundational ideas upon which the United Nations was established: international disputes should, wherever possible, be moved from confrontation towards peaceful settlement.

This makes the Islamabad process significant not only geopolitically but institutionally.

Pakistan’s diplomacy translated the principle of peaceful settlement into practical political engagement.

Military capability can be quantified through personnel, aircraft, ships or expenditure.

Diplomatic influence is harder to measure.

One of its most valuable indicators is trust.

Successful mediation requires different parties to believe that an intermediary can communicate seriously with each side and help create political space for negotiation.

Pakistan’s network of international relationships gives it considerable diplomatic reach.

Pakistan maintains strong relations across the Muslim world, deep strategic cooperation with China, engagement with the United States and Europe, close relationships with Gulf states, ties with Türkiye and extensive participation in international institutions.

The US-Iran process demonstrates how such relationships can support constructive international diplomacy.

During a United Nations Security Council discussion on the conflict, Pakistan thanked Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Egypt and China for their trust in and support for Pakistan’s mediation efforts. (UN Transcripts)

Pakistan also reported continued diplomatic engagement with regional and international stakeholders to support implementation of the Islamabad Memorandum.

This is a strong example of contemporary multilateral diplomacy: national leadership supported by international partnerships.

The process also continued beyond the signing ceremony.

Pakistan informed the Security Council that it and Qatar had held separate meetings with American and Iranian negotiators in Doha and reported positive progress on issues connected to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding. (UN Transcripts)

The parties agreed to continue discussions.

This detail is important because effective mediation requires continuity.

A diplomatic agreement creates a framework.

Follow-up diplomacy sustains it.

Pakistan’s continued engagement alongside Qatar demonstrates the transition from crisis intervention towards an ongoing negotiating process.

It also illustrates an important form of international leadership: cooperative mediation.

Pakistan’s diplomacy works alongside regional partners while retaining a central role in helping create space for dialogue.

The nuclear dimension makes Pakistan’s mediation role particularly consequential for students and practitioners of international security.

Nuclear diplomacy involves some of the most sensitive questions in international relations: verification, enrichment, inspection, safeguards, deterrence and strategic confidence.

The Islamabad Memorandum entered this difficult policy space.

According to the UN Security Council record, the memorandum contained agreements concerning enriched material, IAEA-supervised on-site downblending, and negotiations over enrichment and other nuclear requirements. (UN Transcripts)

This transforms the Islamabad process from a conventional ceasefire initiative into a framework touching three major dimensions of international security:

conflict de-escalation, maritime security and nuclear non-proliferation.

Pakistan’s diplomatic role therefore sits at the intersection of several of the most important issues confronting contemporary international relations.

The wider international environment makes this contribution even more relevant.

SIPRI estimates that worldwide military expenditure reached $2.887 trillion in 2025.

That amounted to approximately 2.5 per cent of global GDP, while average military expenditure per person worldwide reached approximately $352. (SIPRI)

The United States, China and Russia alone accounted for approximately $1.48 trillion, or 51 per cent of global military expenditure. (SIPRI)

At the same time, the number of interstate conflicts reached the highest level since 1946. (Peace Research Institute Oslo)

The contrast is important.

The international system possesses enormous military resources.

What it requires equally urgently is diplomatic capacity capable of preventing escalation.

Pakistan’s experience provides evidence that states outside the permanent great-power structure can make meaningful contributions to international security through dialogue, mediation and multilateral engagement.

Pakistan now has an opportunity to build further upon this diplomatic record.

The country already possesses many of the foundations required:

experienced diplomats,
international-law specialists,
peacekeeping expertise,
regional-security scholars,
strategic-studies institutions,
universities and research centres,
and relationships extending across multiple geopolitical regions.

These assets could support an increasingly visible Pakistani contribution to preventive diplomacy.

Islamabad could host greater numbers of mediation dialogues, international peace conferences, Track 1.5 discussions and expert-level negotiations.

Pakistani universities and research institutes could expand partnerships with international institutions studying mediation, maritime security, peacebuilding, nuclear diplomacy and conflict prevention.

Such initiatives would reinforce an international image already supported by decades of Pakistani participation in UN peacekeeping and multilateral diplomacy.

There is also considerable potential in connecting Pakistan’s peacekeeping experience with its diplomatic role.

More than 200,000 Pakistani personnel across 46 UN missions represent an extraordinary reservoir of practical experience. (The United Nations in Pakistan)

Peacekeeping personnel encounter the realities of conflict at ground level.

They work with civilian populations.

They observe the consequences of failed political agreements.

They participate in stabilization.

They help rebuild infrastructure.

They operate within multinational environments.

That experience can contribute valuable knowledge to diplomacy and peacebuilding research.

Pakistan therefore possesses not only diplomatic experience at the governmental level but decades of institutional knowledge accumulated through participation in international peace operations.

Integrating these forms of expertise can further enhance Pakistan’s contribution to conflict prevention.

The most compelling aspect of Pakistan’s diplomatic role is perhaps its compatibility with multilateralism.

The Islamabad process involved Pakistan.

It involved Qatar and other supportive regional actors.

It engaged the United States and Iran.

It involved issues relevant to the IAEA.

It became part of discussions within the United Nations Security Council.

And it received explicit recognition from the United Nations Secretary-General.

This is precisely what twenty-first-century multilateral diplomacy increasingly looks like.

Complex crises rarely belong to one institution or one state.

They require networks of diplomatic engagement.

Pakistan has demonstrated an ability to operate effectively within those networks.

Pakistan is frequently described in terms of its strategic geography.

It connects South Asia with the Arabian Sea.

It lies alongside Iran and Afghanistan.

China is to its northeast.

The Gulf lies immediately beyond its maritime approaches.

Central Asia is within its wider regional neighbourhood.

But the US-Iran mediation process points toward something even more important than geographic connectivity.

It demonstrates diplomatic connectivity.

A country’s position becomes internationally valuable when it can connect political actors as well as physical regions.

Pakistan’s relationships across Asia, the Gulf, the Muslim world and major global powers create precisely this possibility.

The Islamabad Memorandum demonstrates how Pakistan can translate diplomatic connectivity into practical peacebuilding.

Guterres’ remarks on 6 October should therefore be understood within a much larger context.

The world recorded 65 state-based conflicts in 2025.

Direct interstate conflicts reached their highest level since 1946.

Global military expenditure reached $2.887 trillion.

More than 123 million people had been forcibly displaced worldwide by the end of 2024.

More than 80 per cent of international merchandise trade by volume depends on maritime transportation.

Hormuz alone normally carries approximately 20.9 million barrels of petroleum liquids every day, one-quarter of global maritime-traded oil and more than one-fifth of global LNG trade. (Peace Research Institute Oslo)

Against that backdrop, helping two adversaries move towards negotiations is not a minor diplomatic achievement.

It is an example of the kind of statecraft the international system increasingly requires.

Pakistan brings substantial credentials to that role.

It has served eight terms on the UN Security Council.

More than 200,000 Pakistani personnel have served in 46 UN peacekeeping missions.

Pakistan remains among the world’s leading peacekeeping contributors.

Its capital now lends its name to a memorandum addressing ceasefire arrangements, maritime navigation, negotiations and nuclear questions.

And the Secretary-General of the United Nations has publicly described Pakistan’s role in creating conditions for dialogue as pivotal. (United Nations)

These are not simply symbols of diplomatic visibility.

Together, they constitute evidence of a substantial Pakistani contribution to international peace and security.

Pakistan’s involvement in the US-Iran process demonstrates that influence in international affairs does not depend exclusively on coercive power.

There is also the power to convene.

The power to communicate.

The power to maintain channels between adversaries.

The power to support negotiated solutions.

And the power to transform diplomatic relationships into opportunities for peace.

In an era defined by a record number of conflicts, rising military expenditure and growing geopolitical fragmentation, these capabilities have exceptional international value.

Pakistan has already demonstrated them through decades of UN peacekeeping, repeated service on the Security Council and its continuing commitment to multilateral diplomacy.

The Islamabad Memorandum adds another important chapter.

Pakistan helped create conditions in which confrontation could give way to dialogue, a ceasefire could become possible and negotiations could address issues extending from maritime navigation to nuclear security.

That is a meaningful contribution to the international system.

The strongest measure of Pakistan’s diplomatic achievement, therefore, is not simply that its role has received international recognition.

It is that Pakistan has demonstrated the practical value of dialogue at precisely the moment when the world needs it most.

In an international order increasingly defined by conflict, Pakistan is showing the strategic power of peacebuilding.