The two most defensible actions to reduce wars and conflicts are early diplomacy and dialogue, and addressing the root causes of conflict such as exclusion, corruption, impunity, weak institutions, and unresolved grievances. Those two steps do not guarantee peace, but they are the most consistently supported ways to prevent tensions from escalating and to reduce the chance that violence returns after a crisis.
In practice, that means talking before positions harden and fixing the conditions that make conflict more likely in the first place. If you want a simple answer to what two actions can reduce wars and conflicts, those are the best evidence-based choices from the sources reviewed here.
The Two Most Supported Actions That Reduce Wars and Conflicts
There is not one universally agreed “magic pair,” but the research pattern is clear: official and academic sources repeatedly point to diplomacy, mediation, conflict prevention, and structural reform. A summary of conflict-prevention strategies used in political science and international relations notes that arms control and diplomacy are standard tools, while the United Nations emphasizes conflict prevention, mediation, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and disarmament as part of lasting peace efforts. A recent scoping review on preventing war also highlights root-cause research, education, and awareness-raising as part of primary prevention.
1) Use diplomacy, dialogue, and mediation early
Diplomacy is the first action because it can stop disputes from hardening into armed conflict. Dialogue gives rivals a way to negotiate before fear, retaliation, and propaganda take over. Mediation adds a neutral third party when direct talks are not enough. The key point is timing: the earlier the engagement, the more room there is to defuse tensions before violence becomes politically or emotionally locked in.
This is why the search results around conflict prevention keep returning to diplomacy, dialogue, and mediation. They are the practical tools for lowering the temperature between states, groups, or communities. They are also flexible: they can help prevent war between countries, but they can also help resolve internal political conflict before it turns violent.
That said, diplomacy is not automatic success. It works best when there is some political will, enough trust to keep talking, and enough leverage or incentives to make agreement possible. Without those conditions, dialogue can stall. Still, compared with escalation, it remains one of the most consistently supported first-line responses.
2) Address the root causes that make conflict more likely
The second action is to deal with the underlying drivers of conflict, not just the flare-up itself. Live research from the U.S. Department of State describes prevention efforts that target the political drivers of fragility, including exclusionary politics, entrenched corruption, impunity, and capacity deficits. The same strategy emphasizes building durable mechanisms to resolve conflict, strengthening institutions, and supporting locally driven solutions. You can read that approach in the United States Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability.
At a broader level, root-cause work means reducing the conditions that make violence more likely to recur: political exclusion, injustice, weak rule of law, and unresolved grievances. It matters because war is rarely caused by one event alone. In many settings, violence grows from long-running frustration, unequal power, and systems that fail to address disputes fairly. If those conditions remain unchanged, peace is often temporary.
That is also why conflict prevention cannot be only about crisis response. A public-health review on war prevention found that prevention work has to include research on root causes and attention to the health consequences of conflict. Similarly, experts discussing war and public health at APHA emphasized that preventing future wars requires resolving disputes and understanding how to redirect attention toward prevention before crises intensify. In other words, peace is more sustainable when the conditions that fuel conflict are addressed alongside the negotiations themselves.
Why Diplomacy and Root-Cause Work Belong Together
These two actions are most effective when they are used together. Diplomacy and mediation can stop an immediate dispute from escalating. Root-cause work reduces the odds that a similar dispute will return later. One is short-term de-escalation; the other is long-term prevention.
This distinction matters because readers often ask not only what can be done to prevent war, but also what are two ways to resolve conflict. The answer is that resolution and prevention overlap, but they are not identical. Resolution focuses on ending or managing an active dispute. Prevention focuses on removing the pressures that could turn that dispute into violence. Good conflict policy usually needs both.
A useful way to think about it is this:
- Diplomacy, dialogue, and mediation help people keep talking and avoid escalation.
- Addressing root causes helps ensure the same conflict does not keep reappearing.
How human rights and the rule of law support peace
Although they are not the two headline actions in this article, human rights protections and the rule of law are important supporting mechanisms. A recent review on preventing war notes that primary prevention should promote human rights and the rule of law. That makes sense: when people believe disputes will be handled fairly, there is less room for impunity and less incentive to settle grievances through force.
The point is not that law alone prevents war. Rather, strong legal and human-rights systems make it harder for violence to spread unchecked and easier to resolve disputes through institutions instead of weapons. They are part of the infrastructure that makes diplomacy credible and root-cause reform durable.
Where arms control fits
Another recurring theme in the search landscape is arms control and disarmament. Those are important, but they work best as supporting measures rather than standalone answers. Limiting weapons flow, improving responsible arms transfers, and reducing access to high-risk weapons can lower the chance that a dispute becomes mass violence and can reduce civilian harm when conflict does occur.
The live sources support this as part of a broader prevention toolkit. The UN describes disarmament and conflict prevention as part of its peaceful-world actions, and the conflict literature often pairs diplomacy with arms control. But weapons restrictions on their own do not resolve the political and social causes of conflict. They are a useful lever, not a complete solution.
Why conflict prevention has to be ongoing
One reason the evidence points to more than a one-time fix is that conflict often recurs when grievances are left in place. The ICRC has noted that wars can last longer, become more complex, and involve multiple actors, while public-health experts have stressed that resolving disputes that already exist is essential to preventing future wars. That means prevention is not a single event. It is a continuing process of negotiation, institution-building, and grievance reduction.
This is why searches like how can we stop war and violence, solutions to war and conflict, and 5 ways to prevent war tend to lead to the same set of ideas: dialogue, mediation, reform, human rights, and disarmament. The exact mix may vary, but the logic is consistent. Peace is more likely when tensions are managed early and the deeper causes of violence are not ignored.
For readers interested in how conflict and fear affect everyday life, our guide to the mental-health effects of stress and conflict explores a related side of instability. And if your interest is more about communication and empathy in tense situations, you may also find our article on showing care through respectful communication useful.
Bottom line
If you need the shortest possible answer to what two actions can reduce wars and conflicts, it is this: use diplomacy, dialogue, and mediation early, and address the root causes of conflict. Those are the two actions most strongly supported across the supplied official and academic sources. They are not guaranteed to prevent every war, but they are the most practical and widely recognized ways to reduce escalation, support resolution, and make peace more durable.
Put simply: talk early, and fix what is driving the fighting.