# Engineering for Peace and Diplomacy
## 1 Introduction  
Engineers are increasingly being called upon to play an active role in addressing many of the global challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century [1; 2]. Examples of these challenges include climate change; national and global security; population growth and migration; rapid urbanization; security of water, energy, land and food resources; access to shelter, health and education; transportation and communication services; disaster risk and emergencies management; environmental protection and natural resource management; and resource management in transboundary and conflict-prone areas. These issues share many common characteristics. First, all of them are unfolding within a 'complex', open system' rather than a closed system of nation-states [3]. Second, they are ill-defined, messy, constantly changing partly due to feedback mechanisms, and are characterized by different degrees of uncertainty, ambiguity, and unpredictability. As a result, these issues lack clear and unique solutions and cannot be addressed entirely using the deterministic tools applied in science and engineering over the last century. Instead, they require more recent tools derived from the system and complexity sciences. Third, all the issues mentioned above are interconnected, involve different fields of science, technology, and engineering (STE), incorporate socioeconomic and environmental issues, and cut across the STE policy nexus. Fourth, these global issues affect predominately the most vulnerable sections of humanity, many of whom have limited or no voice or representation [4]. Fifth, all these issues present \"significant challenges to the work of international and national actors alike--whether state, intergovernmental, corporate or not-for-profit\" [5] since they transcend national boundaries, and require regional and international collaboration in STE to permit them to be addressed successfully [6; 7]. This, in turn, requires policymakers and strategists to adopt a form of global governance that differs in structural terms from traditional state-centered governance [8]. Finally, unless policymakers and development practitioners bring a new global and integrated mindset to bear on the aforementioned issues, it is hard to envision a peaceful twenty-first century world. The US National Academy of Engineering reminds us that, \"A world divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and hunger, cannot long remain a stable [and peaceful] place for civilization to thrive\" [9]. Since the primary driver of the engineering profession is being of service to humanity, engineers have an ethical and professional obligation to develop solutions to meet the basic needs of all humans,ensure the resilience of critical infrastructure on which populations depend, and contribute to initiatives ranging from local community development ones to global initiatives such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) up to 2030 and beyond. If these needs are met, it is possible to envision a world where all humans have fulfilling and prosperous lives and live with dignity and in peace. This noble vision is worthy of consideration, although it will take many years to realize. With this vision in mind, the engineering profession must embrace a new mission statement for the twenty-first century: to contribute to building a more sustainable, stable, equitable, and peaceful world; to promote a culture of peace; and to establish a peace-industrial complex more beneficial to the global economy and the world's populations than the current culture of war and the war-industrial complex. This new mission statement requires engineers to become more global thinkers and doers and aware of (i) their professional and personal ethical responsibilities; (ii) their role in society as citizen engineers; and (iii) the intended and unintended consequences of their decisions on the design, planning, management, and operation of projects in different socioeconomic, cultural, and political situations.