From a wartime spread of antimicrobial resistant disease in Ukraine, to superbugs in China causing ‘white lung’ pneumonia in children, 2023 brought no shortage of new evidence that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) continues to be a pressing problem globally, and this pattern shows no sign of abating in 2024 unless a radical shift occurs. To truly tackle the issue of AMR, researchers with the Global Strategy Lab (GSL) argue it needs to be understood as a socio-ecological challenge that accepts AMR as a phenomenon stemming from natural evolutionary processes. In other words, the war on bugs can’t be won; what’s needed is a major change in how people live with it.