In recent weeks, we’ve witnessed the escalating militarization of American cities, deadly violations of the Gaza ceasefire by Israel, genocidal atrocities in Sudan, and the killing of democracy activists in Tanzania. These crises share a common thread: systems of war and authoritarianism are mutually sustaining and undermine true security for people around the world.

This offers a sobering backdrop to the 25th anniversary of the women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda. It should also create a renewed sense of clarity and urgency for feminist organizing in this moment of violent authoritarian consolidation.

Feminists have long understood that militarism—and the broader war systems that sustain it, including the economic, political, and patriarchal interests underpinning the military-industrial complex—form the backbone of authoritarian governance everywhere. Feminist champions of peace have also insisted that true safety, prosperity, and security for women—and for all people—depend on a demilitarized understanding of security that prioritizes creating conditions where everyone can thrive. This insight motivated many women’s civil society groups to mobilize for the WPS agenda in the first place.

As formal spaces for WPS advocacy shrink under the weight of authoritarianism worldwide, advocates must turn to alternative arenas where anti-war activists are mobilizing and strengthen their alliances with them. Doing so offers a crucial opportunity to expand the coalition behind WPS and connect the dots between gendered insecurity, authoritarianism, and climate risks.

Moving beyond Women’s Inclusion to Redefine Security

There is a clear need for a renewed, principled feminist peace movement. This movement must go beyond strategies to ensure women’s inclusion in all efforts along the peace and security continuum and instead target the systems of war-making that underpin authoritarian politics and distort our understanding of security. This will require revisiting, yet again, one of the most contested components of WPS: its tendency to focus on “making war safe for women” rather than pursuing peace through demilitarization.

The Trump administration offers a chilling blueprint of what feminist peace advocates worldwide are up against. US security and military institutions are being restructured around a vision of “peace through strength.” In practice, this means focusing on warfighting, military buildup, and lethality while hollowing out diplomacy and eliminating essential welfare programs that constitute a core element of security for many Americans. For instance, the administration has threatened offensive military operations against Venezuela, announced the potential resumption of nuclear weapons testing, renamed the Department of Defense the “Department of War,” and attempted to shutter the US Institute of Peace. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has also stated that “pacifism is naive” and “the only people who actually deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to defend it.” This approach recasts peace as a product of dominance and security as the capacity to destroy.

Feminists and WPS champions know this approach is dangerous. Trump’s approach to security is inspired by the approaches taken by autocrats across the world, from Nayib Bukele in El Salvador to Viktor Orbán in Hungary. It is also emboldening these autocrats to double down. To confront this trend, WPS champions must look beyond the network of familiar “gender champions” toward movements directly confronting authoritarians and the war system itself.

In the US, groups such as Win Without War, the People over the Pentagon Act, the National Priorities Project, the Cost of War Project, and About Face: Veterans Against the War are focused on challenging the US war system by calling out the ways militarism seeps into our lives and how high military expenditures detract from our collective wellbeing. Other groups take a more global approach to champion nonviolent resistance and counter weapons buildups, from War Resistors International to War Prevention Initiative to ICAN. These efforts also include our own work alongside the Feminist Peace Initiative to develop the Feminist Peace Playbook—a framework for shifting US policymaking away from militarism. The playbook identifies a wide range of allies across sectors, from grassroots movements to media, policy, and philanthropic initiatives. What unites many of these efforts is the belief that genuine security must be collective and rooted in meeting people’s basic needs for safety, housing, healthcare, and education.

These efforts offer more expansive definitions of security and critical analyses of militarism’s gendered and societal harms that should inform WPS strategies going forward. Peace movements have long echoed WPS mechanisms in calling for the prevention of violence, protection of women and civilians, and participation for all in formal and informal negotiations for peace. As formal arenas for WPS advocacy close, these organizations chart a path for WPS advocates to expand their partnerships and root into broader struggles for peace.

The Link between Authoritarianism and Militarism

WPS advocates can further strengthen their coalitions and advocacy by focusing on the links between militarism and authoritarian politics. Across the globe, autocrats are naming domestic “enemies” to justify expanding surveillance architectures and mandates to use force under the guise of national security. In the US, this has taken the form of expanding cooperation between ICE, local police, and the FBI, as the administration digs up old legal precedent to label opponents as terrorists. In Tanzania, opposition leaders were banned from contesting the elections, and an estimated 1,000 democracy protesters have been reportedly killed by the state after being cast as  foreigners and criminals.

These instances around the world are deeply interconnected—militarism abroad and repression at home sustain one another in a reinforcing cycle. Foreign wars often boomerang back home in the form of domestic repression. Military technology developed for war is routinely deployed in domestic policing and border control. For instance, the same military drones sold to Israel have also been used on US campuses to surveil students protesting the genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile, major defense contractors—including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing—profit simultaneously from the Pentagon’s foreign military contracts and domestic border militarization. The same war system that fuels overseas intervention also profits from the securitization and criminalization of migration through the expansion of private prisons and ICE detention facilities.

These links between militarism and globalized authoritarianism have long been made by peace-oriented diaspora organizations in the US—such as the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Women Cross DMZ, the National Iranian American Council, Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, and Justice is Global. These organizations bring a razor-sharp critique of war systems rooted in history, lived experience, and attention to its generational impacts. Migrant justice organizations have similarly pointed to how US wars overseas displace millions, while the militarization of borders keeps out those fleeing the resulting violence. These types of organizations offer possible allies for WPS advocates seeking to tackle militarism and authoritarianism simultaneously.

 Militarism and the Climate Crisis

Climate groups are also increasingly making the links between militarism and the growing climate catastrophe. Within the WPS community, climate change is often treated as an ancillary security concern—an aggravating factor or security risk rather than a core threat to human survival. Yet, as Carol Cohn and Claire Duncanson have argued, the same economic forces undermining peace are driving environmental and climate breakdown. Militarism both drives climate change and diverts resources away from climate solutions and human security at an astonishing rate.

The Pentagon remains the single largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels and emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. US desire for control of oil and rare-earth minerals has been a driver of military intervention, alliances, and base expansion overseas, from the Middle East to the South China Sea. Meanwhile, military emissions are exempt from international climate reporting requirements. And while the US has contributed roughly $2 billion to the Green Climate Fund over the past decade, this is dwarfed by the $79 billion it has spent aiding foreign militaries to purchase US-made weapons.

In the US, climate justice movements are strategizing and building coalitions to shape how the economy can transition from extractive industries like fossil fuels to a regenerative economy. Many feminist climate justice organizers—such as the Women’s Environment & Development Organization, Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network, M4BL’s Black Hive, and The Chisholm Legacy Project—are integrating racial justice and anti-militarist perspectives into climate advocacy. Groups such as the National Priorities Project, the Poor People’s Campaign, and Grassroots Global Justice Alliance have articulated the possibility of redirecting military spending toward social investment. These groups show that a just transition—from an extractive, militarized economy to one that promotes the wellbeing of workers, protects the environment, and allows ethical transitions from harmful industries—isn’t a pipe dream; it is both necessary and achievable.

Toward a Renewed Feminist Peace

As growing authoritarianism and militarization shrink formal spaces for advancing WPS commitments, feminists must refocus on challenging the war systems that make these trends possible. This requires building coalitions with movements and grassroots activists that have been working to redefine security and tackle the entanglements between militarism, authoritarianism, and climate collapse.

At this precarious moment, WPS advocates need to build on the past 25 years of organizing to sustain the pursuit of feminist peace in the long run. They need to directly confront the war systems that prop up authoritarian politics, accelerate climate change, and drain vital resources from efforts to promote human security. Failure to do so risks eroding decades of progress and undermining the work of the activists who mobilized for the WPS agenda in the first place.

Marie Berry is Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs at the University of Denver and the Director of the Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative (IGLI). Carly Paul is a Program Assistant at IGLI.