In 1932, Albert Einstein wrote to Sigmund Freud with what he called a life-or-death question for civilization: can people ever escape war? Freud’s reply was stark. He argued that no technology could secure peace without confronting violence at its core, warning that conflict grows from human impulses that do not disappear with new tools.
Nearly a century later, engineers are revisiting that question with renewed urgency. In a recent Perspective article, Guru Madhavan of the National Academy of Engineering, Nicholas M. Donofrio, formerly of IBM, and Asad M. Madni of the Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, ask whether peace itself can be engineered. Their answer is cautious but direct: while engineering cannot erase conflict, it can help reduce its causes and limit its spread by shaping systems that support cooperation and stability.
Their argument begins with a clear reality. Engineering does not exist outside war. It often sits at its center.
The profession’s split identity is not new. Even the term civil engineering emerged to distinguish civilian work from military applications, yet the line has always been thin. Many everyday technologies, including the internet and GPS, began as military projects before moving into civilian life.
That dual role becomes especially visible during global crises. The Manhattan Project produced nuclear weapons, but it also laid foundations for nuclear medicine and power generation. Radar began as a way to detect enemy aircraft and later became essential for weather forecasting and safe navigation.
Modern conflicts highlight this tension even more clearly. Power plants, rail lines, water systems, and data networks are no longer just public services. They are strategic assets and frequent targets. Digital tools designed for education or commerce can suddenly become battlefield infrastructure. Protective systems can save lives, but they can also reshape escalation dynamics.
The authors do not argue that defense engineering is unnecessary. Instead, they stress that the social impact of any technology depends on how it changes incentives for violence or restraint. A system can stabilize a region or deepen mistrust, sometimes both at once.
Madhavan, Donofrio, and Madni do not propose a new discipline with strict boundaries. They describe peace engineering as a way of practicing engineering with civic intent. The goal is not only to make systems function, but to make societies more resilient under stress.
They draw on a long-standing idea from peace studies that distinguishes between negative peace, the absence of direct violence, and positive peace, the presence of conditions that allow societies to endure without returning to conflict. A ceasefire may stop fighting. Stable institutions help prevent it from restarting.
For engineers, the authors frame peace-oriented work around three linked qualities: competence, capability, and character. Competence means building systems that perform reliably, even in extreme conditions. Capability means anticipating how designs might be repurposed, misused, or weaponized. Character means accepting responsibility for the social effects of what is built.
You can see this logic in basic infrastructure. Reliable access to water reduces conflict during drought. Stable electricity lowers daily tensions that can quickly turn political. Public transit connects communities that might otherwise remain isolated. Even sanitation systems matter. When waste disposal harms one group while benefiting another, resentment grows.
Peace engineering also spans stages of conflict. Prevention focuses on reducing vulnerabilities before violence erupts. Peacemaking supports communication and shared resource management. Peacekeeping favors systems that can be repaired, monitored, and trusted by all sides.
The authors warn that conflict exposes hidden costs engineers often accept in calmer times. They describe two kinds of debt that can quietly accumulate and later prove disastrous.
The first is technical debt. This is the cost of choosing a quick or cheap solution instead of a resilient one. Infrastructure designed for normal conditions may fail under attack or prolonged disruption. Digital networks built for everyday threats may collapse under state-backed cyber pressure. Weak points become critical once systems face sustained stress.
The second is ethical debt. This builds when designers fail to consider who controls a system and who depends on it. Concentrated control points can turn infrastructure into leverage. Unequal access can turn public services into sources of grievance. In fragile regions, these choices harden into political risks.
These debts interact. A brittle system invites sabotage. An unfair system invites justification for it. Short-term decisions can lock societies into cycles of instability long after construction ends.
Engineering has transformed its culture before. Safety became formalized after disasters made risk impossible to ignore. Quality control became routine once organizations learned to track defects and failures. Enterprise software reshaped how institutions operate by making processes visible and accountable.
Peace-oriented design has not reached that stage. There are no widely accepted standards that treat conflict risk the way safety codes treat physical hazards. In many organizations, asking who controls infrastructure is seen as political, not technical. As a result, such questions are often avoided.
Economic pressure reinforces this silence. Engineering firms compete on cost and speed. Contracts reward low bids, not long-term social resilience. Designing for peace can appear expensive, even when it prevents far greater costs later.
There is also a history of fragile efforts. Peace-focused projects often rely on short-term funding. When support ends, momentum fades, leaving frustration behind. Without durable institutions, the work struggles to scale.
Security arguments complicate matters further. Governments invest heavily in defense systems, and engineers play central roles in maintaining national security. The authors do not deny this reality. Instead, they point out the imbalance. Conflict prevention rarely receives comparable, sustained support.
The Perspective outlines three changes that could make peace-oriented engineering part of routine practice.
First, procurement rules could reward designs that reduce conflict risk, not just those with the lowest cost. Safety and environmental requirements already shape contracts. Similar expectations could apply to governance, access, and resilience.
Second, engineering education could place greater emphasis on consequences. Students learn design and teamwork, yet often lack training in asking how their work shapes power, access, and stability. Developing foresight alongside technical skill prepares graduates for real-world complexity.
Third, peace-focused engineering needs steady institutional support. Long-term programs, professional roles, and accountability systems could make conflict-risk assessment as routine as safety reviews.
The authors emphasize that tools themselves do not choose their ends. Intent does. They compare an autonomous vehicle and a guided missile. Both rely on similar navigation and sensing technologies. One is designed to avoid harm. The other accepts harm as part of its mission.
Freud once argued that humanity cannot erase aggression, but it can redirect it away from warfare. The authors suggest that engineering choices play a quiet but powerful role in that redirection.
Research findings are available online in the journal Perspective.
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