Study: The U.S. May Be Much Less Peaceful Than We Think

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This post was co-written with Larry S. Liebovitch, Ph.D.

For decades, international peace researchers have relied on comprehensive indices like the Global Peace Index and Positive Peace Index to measure national stability and social cohesion. These well-established metrics typically rank the United States as a moderately peaceful nation—not at the top, but certainly not at the bottom of global rankings. Currently, the U.S. is ranked 27th out of 163 nations on Positive Peace (“the attitudes, institutions, and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies”), and 132nd of 163 on Global Peace (“the absence of violence and the presence of positive factors that enable and sustain peaceful development”). However, new research from our team at Columbia University and the Toyota Research Institute suggests these traditional measures may be missing a critical dimension of peace: how different groups within society actually treat each other.

Using advanced artificial intelligence to analyze 700,000 media articles containing 58 million words, we developed a novel approach to measuring what we call Positive and Negative Intergroup Reciprocity (PIR/NIR)—essentially, how members of different groups treat each other when they interact. Our findings are startling: When it comes to how American media portrays interactions between different social groups, the United States ranks near the very bottom globally, with only 2 percent of coverage aligning with positive intergroup dynamics. This places America below countries like Bangladesh, Ghana, and Tanzania—nations that traditional peace indices would rank as significantly less peaceful.

Our team employed an AI model — Retrieval-Augmented Generation, which used peace research to inform its analysis — to analyze media representations of intergroup relations across 18 countries. Rather than focusing on traditional metrics like military expenditure, governance quality, or economic stability, we examined something more fundamental: how media narratives portray the day-to-day interactions between different groups within a society.

PIR was defined as "intergroup tolerance, respect, kindness, help, or support," while NIR encompassed "intergroup intolerance, disrespect, aggression, obstruction, or hindrance." The AI system scanned media coverage to identify which type of reciprocity was more prominently featured in each country's news landscape.

The results paint a sobering picture of American social dynamics. While New Zealand achieved 100 percent PIR alignment and Singapore reached 98 percent, the United States languished at just 2 percent, tied with Kenya at the bottom of the rankings. This suggests that American media predominantly portrays intergroup relations negatively through the lens of conflict, division, and mutual antagonism rather than cooperation and mutual support.

The discrepancy between these findings and traditional peace measurements reveals a crucial blind spot in how we understand and measure societal peace. The Global Peace Index and Positive Peace Index excel at measuring institutional factors—democratic governance, rule of law, economic opportunity, and absence of violent conflict. These are undoubtedly important components of peace, and by these measures, the United States performs reasonably well despite its challenges.

However, these indices may be overlooking the vital social fabric that binds communities together. A country can have strong institutions and economic prosperity while simultaneously experiencing deep social fragmentation. The PIR/NIR analysis suggests that America's peace may be much more fragile than traditional metrics indicate, built on institutional foundations rather than genuine social cohesion.

Consider the contrast with Singapore, which achieved 98 percent PIR alignment. The researchers highlighted media coverage of Singaporeans actively participating in each other's religious festivals—Muslims and Hindus celebrating Chinese New Year, people of different faiths visiting each other during Deepavali and Hari Raya. This represents a fundamentally different social dynamic than what appears to dominate American media coverage.

Critics might argue that media coverage doesn't necessarily reflect social reality—that American journalism's adversarial tradition and "if it bleeds, it leads" approach naturally emphasizes conflict over cooperation. This is a fair point, but it misses the deeper implications of the research.

Media doesn't just reflect social reality; it shapes it. The stories we tell ourselves about our society influence how we see each other and how we behave toward one another. If American media consistently portrays intergroup relations as zero-sum conflicts rather than opportunities for mutual benefit, this narrative can become self-reinforcing.

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Moreover, our research found significant variation between countries in similar media environments. Canada, sharing many cultural and journalistic traditions with the United States, achieved 76 percent PIR alignment—dramatically higher than America's 2 percent. This suggests that the difference isn't simply about media culture but reflects genuine differences in intergroup dynamics.

These findings should serve as a wake-up call for American leaders, policymakers, and citizens. While the United States may appear peaceful by traditional measures, the social foundation of that peace may be more precarious than we realize. A society where different groups primarily interact through conflict and competition is vulnerable to rapid destabilization when external pressures mount.

The research also highlights the importance of developing more sophisticated measures of peace that capture qualitative dimensions of social life. Traditional indices, while valuable, may be too institutional in focus to capture the lived experience of peace within diverse societies.

Moving forward, American society might benefit from deliberate efforts to foster positive intergroup reciprocity, creating opportunities for different communities to support and celebrate each other rather than just competing for resources or political influence. The Singapore example suggests that such efforts can succeed when societies commit to moving "beyond tolerance" toward active appreciation and mutual support.

The peace paradox revealed by this AI analysis reminds us that true peace isn't just the absence of conflict or the presence of good institutions—it's the quality of relationships between the different groups that make up our society. By that measure, America has significant work to do.

Larry S. Liebovitch is a physicist and Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict and Complexity in the Climate School at Columbia University.