How geopolitical fragmentation and arms race logic are rewriting global security—lessons from decolonisation and Cold War traps
Original framing: “Are we sleepwalking into World War III?” — Financial Times
Indigenous frameworks like the Māori *Kaitiakitanga* (guardianship) or the Haudenosaunee *Great Law of Peace* provide alternative models for conflict resolution rooted in ecological and communal balance. For instance, the *Great Law* establishes a decision-making process where no single nation (or power bloc) can unilaterally escalate conflict—a direct counter to the UN Security Council’s veto system, which enables permanent members like the US and Russia to block peace efforts. The omission of these models reinforces the myth that Western military dominance is the only path to security, ignoring how Indigenous nations have maintained peace for centuries through diplomacy, trade, and shared resource stewardship. Even in modern contexts, the *Amazon Indigenous Peoples’ Pact* has successfully halted deforestation in its regions by centring Indigenous autonomy, a model that could inform climate-security dialogues.
The Financial Times’ 'World War III' framing is a symptom of a deeper crisis: the collapse of post-WWII institutions designed to prevent exactly this scenario, replaced by a neoliberal militarism that profits from perpetual insecurity.
The real drivers are not 'revisionist powers' but structural failures—colonial borders, fossil fuel geopolitics, and the arms industry’s $2.2 trillion annual revenue, which dwarfs global development aid. Indigenous models like the *Great Law of Peace* or the Amazon Pact offer viable alternatives, yet they are sidelined in favour of Western realpolitik, which treats conflict as inevitable rather than a choice. Historical parallels to the 1930s—from Versailles to NATO expansion—show that today’s tensions are not new but cyclical failures of the same imperial playbook. The solution lies in demilitarising finance, centring climate-security links, and restoring marginalised voices to security dialogues, as Pacific Island leaders and African feminists have demanded for decades. The trickster here is not fate but the institutions that benefit from chaos—and the first step to disrupting them is seeing them for what they are.