Hamid Mir
Why is the world becoming more dangerous day by day? Is it the failure of public diplomacy? Public diplomacy is an essential tool for resolving conflicts peacefully. Governments use public diplomacy to make narratives by using the media. In the year 2025 we have witnessed the failure of public diplomacy repeatedly. US President Donald Trump made a claim publicly many times that he can end the Russia-Ukraine war in just a few days, but he failed. He made this claim 53 times before coming into White House a second time. He tried his best to fulfil his promise, but his diplomacy failed.
Yes, Trump stopped a war between India and Pakistan in May 2025, but we are still facing a threat of nuclear war in South Asia because Indian leadership is sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan by using Afghanistan. Trump embarrassed Indian PM Modi more than 25 times by repeating that 7 or 8 Indian planes were shot down in May 2025 and that was why the Prime Minister of Pakistan nominated Trump for a Nobel peace prize on June 21st. Trump embarrassed PM Shahbaz Sharif the very next day on June 22 when he ordered an attack on the nuclear facilities of Iran. It was a big blow to the public diplomacy of Pakistan.
PM Shahbaz Sharif again nominated Trump for the Nobel peace prize in Sharmul Sheikh when Israel and Hamas signed a peace deal. Unfortunately, Israel never respected that deal and continued killing Palestinians in Gaza even today. The humanitarian crises in Gaza created a strong public support for Palestinians all over the world and failed the national security narrative of Israel. Now Israel is planning to expel Palestinians from Gaza and want to send them to Somali Land and Indonesia. That was the reason Isreal recognised Somali Land as an independent state in December 2025. Isreal is now the most unpopular country in the world. It’s not only Israel but governments in most parts of the world can no longer control or shape global public opinion according to their own objectives.
A 12-day Israel-Iran war in 2025 was also a failure of public diplomacy. Israel sabotaged the talks between Iran and IAEA by targeting the Iranian negotiators. Look at the massacre taking place in Sudan these days. There are more than a dozen spots in the world today where you can see that humans are more dangerous than animals. The United Nations has failed to implement its resolutions from Palestine to Kashmir and from Ukraine to Sudan. Attack on the life Russian President Vladimir Putin created more threats to international peace in 2026. Growing threat of a third world war in 2026 is a failure of UN. This is not a failure of only the UN. It’s the failure of the whole civilized world. This failure is turning this world more dangerous.
It’s not the only reason making this world more dangerous day by day. What are the main reasons behind the failure of public diplomacy? If you go through the Global Peace Index 2025 you will see a small and less known country, Iceland as the most peaceful country in the world. New Zealand is second and Austria is third in the global ranking. You will not see any nuclear power in the first ten most peaceful countries. Biggest democracy in the world India is at number 115. Super power United States of America is at number 128. The only Muslim nuclear power in the world Pakistan is at 144 and next is Palestine at 145. Israel is at number 155. If a nuclear power cannot provide peace and stability to its citizens, then what is the use of nuclear power? Is it not the failure of all the narratives built through the public diplomacy of these nuclear powers?
Look at the Global Peace Index through another angle. Almost all top ten most peaceful countries in the world are also included in the list of countries with maximum media freedom. Pakistan is ranked at number 158 and India at 151 in the World Press Freedom Index. Both claim to be democratic countries, but the Democracy Index prepared by The Economist declared Pakistan as an authoritarian state and India as a flawed democracy. I want to highlight that if you don’t have media freedom you cannot have political stability and if you don’t have political stability then your public diplomacy is just useless propaganda.
A free media allows peaceful competition of ideas and identifies the root causes of a conflict while censorship can be used to manipulate a narrative based on disinformation and lies. You don’t need to spend millions of dollars on public diplomacy if you have a free media and genuine democracy. What is genuine democracy? A system of free and fair election produces a genuine democracy.
I can say through my own experience that you cannot have free and fair elections if the media is not free. I have seen 10 elections in Pakistan since 1988. I covered nine out of ten elections because in one election held in 2008, I was banned by General Musharraf. I am not happy to confess that 2024 was the most controversial election of my life. Media and judiciary are losing its freedom very fast after this so-called election. Pakistan defeated India in a war this year, but Pakistan failed to defeat instability and uncertainty at home.
Some people say that media freedom and political rights are declining all over the world, but they cannot deny the fact that autocrats and dictators cannot manipulate the public opinion by chest thumping a narrative based on false propaganda. What happened in the election of New York’s mayor? Zohran Mamdani won despite the opposition from President Trump. You can use your ballot as a tool of change if your courts are free. If your courts are not free, then bullets will defeat the ballot. I believe that courts are free in the US but unfortunately the US has the largest number of prisoners all over the world. It’s more than 1.8 million. China is number two, Brazil number three, India number four and Russia number five. Pakistan is at number 23. Sometimes the population of prisons also expose the failure of many official narratives.
Powerful people in Pakistan are fighting against one prisoner. They convicted him in many cases. They claim that he is corrupt. They propagate that he is a traitor. They registered more than 200 cases against him, but he is still very popular among the masses. Censorship in the media and new constitutional amendments have failed to change the public opinion. A direct clash between state narrative and public opinion creates instability and insecurity. This is not acceptable to a big majority of Pakistanis who believe in democracy, but it doesn’t mean that all is bad in Pakistan.
Pakistanis believe in peaceful political struggle. Pakistanis defeated four military dictators in the last 78 years and will do the same in future. The resilience of common Pakistanis is the biggest source of strength for journalists like me who survived assassination attempts but never left Pakistan. World is becoming more unsafe because media freedom and democratic freedom is declining. We can make this world more peaceful only by protecting and promoting freedoms ensured in the universal charter of human rights. This universal charter was approved by UNGA on 10th December 1948. That’s why 10th December is International Human Rights Day. We must fight for the implementation of this charter otherwise we are heading towards a third world war. Policies of US, Russia and Israel are the increasing a threat of third world war in 2026. UN must wake up and stop Isreal to expel Palestinians from Gaza. If Trump and Netanyahu will not be stopped anything bad for the international peace can happen in Middle East and it will definitely affect Europe.
