Jan 01, 2025 09:24 PM IST
What is obvious to everyone is the resurgence of serious inter-State conflict with an overhang of nuclear war
Last year was a violent year, and the new year threatens to be worse. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) initiative indicates that global conflicts doubled over the past five years, with a domino effect in multiple areas. The regions around India did not fare well. Pakistan moved from “high” to “extreme” levels of violence in 2024, while Myanmar remained in the high violence zone. Bangladesh has moved into the extreme zone for the 2025 forecast after remaining in the low violence category for years. When combined with other trends, the forecast is worrying, with the end effects filtering down to the ground. No one will likely remain untouched unless sense prevails or a new movement for peace emerges. As of now, there is not even a serious mediation effort anywhere. In fact, all concerned seem to be intent on fuelling the hatred and divisions.
The related statistics have only got worse. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, civilian deaths in these wars rose 37% to reach 200,000 globally, and that’s only till mid-year. Then, there is the tsunami of displaced people and refugees. UN agencies estimate that one in every 69 persons is now forcibly displaced. “This is nearly double of those displaced a decade ago,” the UN says.
Along the same lines, the refugee population has tripled to more than 43 million. It is not just about the total number. Each digit in this total represents a life in misery, with many (as in Ukraine) uprooted from relatively stable lives. And here’s an ugly reality: The global purse for humanitarian aid is drying up. The UN will end 2024 having received less than half the aid it had targeted. That effectively means having to make terrible decisions on whom to leave out. Some 117 million won’t get any aid at all. And here’s worse: In many conflict zones, there is a deliberate denial of aid to achieve military goals. United States (US) President Joe Biden, for instance, has refused to pressure Israel into allowing food convoys through a land route. Instead, aid was airdropped — 38,000 packets for 1.4 million in Rafah — with many drowning as they plunged into the sea to retrieve precious food. That is only one example. There are others in this surge of indifference worldwide that the UN calls “shocking”.
Meanwhile, broken infrastructure — particularly health facilities — means that conflict zones are prone to disease. A review of some 51 studies showed that outbreak of diseases such as ebola, hepatitis-b, acute bacterial meningitis, and diphtheria is seen even in conflict areas of Europe. Even more worrying is the emergence of new viruses, such as a circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus in Gaza. The lack of security for vaccine teams in the violence-torn tribal areas of Pakistan has led to the death and paralysis of many a child. New strains are visible in the area that could threaten the entire subcontinent.
Now consider the fact that even rich nations are skimping on aid to conflict-ridden areas, most of which were the result of attempts at regime change. Worldwide defence expenditure went up to some $2.443 trillion last year, the steepest year-on-year increase since 2009. As wars progressed in 2024, defence stocks rose by 48% even as major countries such as the US, Russia, and China increased their defence budgets. This is a good time to be in the defence business, as long as you’re not on the receiving end of the weapons now flooding the market. As defence spending rises, financing for action to mitigate the climate crisis predictably remained pathetic, exemplified by the disbursal of a “record” $46 billion by the World Bank. Unsurprisingly, it is the countries in conflict that are least able to cope with climate-induced disasters. Afghanistan, for instance, virtually collapsed, with 28 of its 34 provinces hit badly by multiple disasters.
And finally, what is obvious to everyone is the resurgence of serious inter-State conflict with an overhang of nuclear war. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s veiled threats extended to tactical nuclear weapons drills in May. The US has now restarted its own low-yield gravity bomb. A decade ago, dire warnings of an India-Pakistan nuclear war, though with relatively minuscule arsenals, were rife in academia. Now, the seriousness of a nuclear war threat has magnified a hundred-fold. All of the combatants, unlike India, see nukes as a war-fighting weapon. That encapsulates the most grievous outcome of wars — a collapse of value systems, where suffering, death, and starvation are not news, even as wars are directly linked to staggering inflation and a deepening climate crisis. There has to be a strong pushback against this complete moral collapse. This voice could be India’s, which has only once been forced to fight a dirty war in Sri Lanka and regretted it. Elsewhere, we delivered and got out. That’s quite a record. It is time to pull out the stops in both moral and military philosophy and take the lead.
Tara Kartha is director (research and analysis), Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal
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