Violence, terrorism and human rights abuses across the world are touching epidemic levels. With multiple armed conflicts raging simultaneously, peace is at a historic low since the end of the Cold War. The turmoil demands alternatives to a global system that is reproducing bloodletting. Dr Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general of WHO has summarised the present chaos in the New York Times as follows: “At no time that I can think of in the recent past have we been dealing with such a scale of human misery over such a broad geography due to such a range of hazards.” He cited wars in Syria, Iraq, Central African Republic and South Sudan. Just add Ukraine, Gaza, Nigeria and Afghanistan to this list you’ll see that the cup of woes is brimming. Warfare is so mainstreamed now that déjà vu and numbness are common reactions among audiences of endless atrocities.
In June, UNHCR Antonio Guterres disclosed that the total number of refugees, asylum-seekers and forcibly displaced persons has for the first time in the post-World War II era crossed the 50 million figure. He lamented that “peace is today dangerously in deficit”, and warned that without political solutions, “the alarming levels of conflict will continue”. Likewise, the recently superannuated UNHCR Navi Pillay, has characterised the current age as a “period of global destabilisation” in which unspeakable tragedies like the three-year-long war in Syria are being allowed to drag on. In a parting shot upon completing her courageous and morally upright tenure as high commissioner, she bluntly chided the UN Security Council for failing to muster “greater responsiveness that would have saved lakhs of lives”.
Indicting the highest international body mandated for maintaining peace is justified on two grounds. First, its leaders are inactive or indifferent. Second, and more viciously, its permanent members are themselves ripping apart all norms of decent conduct. Take the case of the US. During the presidency of Obama, it has certainly pulled back from direct invasions and wisely conserved its resources. Mr Obama’s anti-militaristic instincts have kept at bay a pack of wolves itching for attacks on Syria. But the free rein the US has given to its allies like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait and UAE to fuel Sunni jihadism against the Shia regime of President Bashar al-Assad indicates that the US is not disinclined to prolonging the war which has claimed 200,000 lives. The unspoken consensus in Washington is that Mr Assad is unpalatable but his opponents, like Al Nusra (a branch of Al Qaeda) and the Islamic State (previously known as ISIS), are abominable. With no ideal horse to back (the so-called moderate Free Syrian Army has been a resounding fiasco), the US is now settling down to permit a balance of terror to be sustained between Mr Assad’s military and the panoply of Sunni Islamist hardliners.
By directly staying out of Syria but tacitly letting his Sunni allies stoke mayhem there, Mr Obama has hampered chances of negotiations despite championing the concept of political solutions. His announcement of a new 10-nation alliance to take on ISIS at the recent summit of the NATO in Wales does not include any of the Sunni Arab nations which are parties to the seamless conflicts in Syria and Iraq. The US President has now exhorted his Sunni Arab allies to join the effort, but their sectarian bigotry against Mr Assad’s Alawites and Shia Iran offers scanty hope of any change of heart. Hawks in the US and Israeli governments even savour the Sunni extremist show running amok because it keeps Iran under check. Inability to co-opt or work with Iran is a major cause for America’s acts of omission and commission that have left Syria and Iraq in shambles.
Among other UN Security Council members, Russia has dug in its heels in Ukraine to deter Nato’s eastward expansion. Nato’s latest decision to deploy a “spearhead” force of 4,000 rapid reaction troops in eastern Europe is a red rag to the Russian bull. Combined with US and EU sanctions, Nato’s doctrine of containing Russia with a show of military might is not helping chances of a settlement in Ukraine. Nato’s logic of fielding overwhelming counterforce to push back President Putin, who is being demonised in the West as a new Hitler, is a recipe to exacerbate instability. Western Right-wingers’ portrayal of Mr Putin as an arch-villain hungry to gobble up territory and their basic misreading of Moscow’s intentions have widened a big global fault line, paving the way for an externally-aided insurgency and harsh government counter-insurgency right within Europe.
Emerging powers like China, India and Brazil have been sitting out of the conflagrations that are mushrooming in Europe, West Asia and Africa, thereby leaving few options for unbiased actors who can offer different solutions. In light of the abdication of responsibility by key states, what is the way to end the wars? Thanks to the presence of countless committed individuals who believe that more war is not the answer, peace movements and grassroots social activism against militarism are not dead. Unchecked mass murders taking place in different corners of the world can only be overcome by exposing the ulterior agendas of states and corporations which are profiting by perpetuating violence. The first step is to see through the deception of destructive forces. The next move is to organise around principles of non-violence and demonstrate via micro-level interventions in conflict zones that brute power is not the antidote to barbarism. The third and final act would be to establish the eternal linkage between peace and justice by mobilising people to alter the political and economic structures that have wrought so much pain.
The writer is a professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs
