We understand the importance of history and culture, the role of gender and the ways in which different political systems exacerbate or diminish the risks of conflict. No approach or system is perfect, of course, but we understand how resource scarcity, environmental change, economic stress, refugee flows and racism all fuel the engendering of conflict. Although nuclear weapons possession or use, outlawed for most countries, are yet to be globally forbidden, international law has proscribed the possession and use of devastating weapons systems such as chemical and biological weapons, antipersonnel landmines, cluster munitions and blinding lasers.Īcademic disciplines that study war and peace have developed a rich body of research that helps us understand how wars start and how they can be prevented or ended. The laws of armed conflict and human rights laws along with the international criminal court, war crime tribunals, economic and military sanctions and domestic justice commissions serve to protect civilians. Over recent years, despite common perceptions, we do seem to have learned how to create, keep and enforce the peace. Six peace agreements were signed in 2013 and four were agreed in 2012. Research by the Human Security Report demonstrates that peace negotiations and cease-fire agreements reduce violent conflict even when they fail. Many factors have supported the reduction in armed conflicts including the withering of proxy wars, UN sponsored peace processes and economic development. Of the 33 armed conflicts listed in 2013, only seven were classed as wars – a 50 per cent reduction since 1989. Since the end of the Cold War, the numbers of armed conflicts have dropped dramatically. International bodies have been established to implement disarmament and security treaties and civil society expertise has been channeled through universities and think tanks − including Chatham House, conceived in 1919 with a view to preventing future wars.Īccording to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 254 armed conflicts have been fought since 1946 of which 114 are classed as wars (defined as more than one thousand battle-related deaths per annum). Other regional organizations have been established in Africa, Asia, the South Pacific and the Americas. Today war between Germany and France is almost impossible to imagine. NATO has had its part to play in shoring up the transatlantic alliance that bonded many European countries in a common cause. The European Union grew over decades from a trade treaty to an organization that won the Nobel Peace Prize for its part in transforming Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace. After the Second World War, we established the United Nations with the primary purpose of saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war. In the past 100 years, we have, however, learned a great deal about how to prevent conflict. Other flashpoints over disputed islands in the South China Sea, tensions on the Korean peninsula and over Kashmir are just some of the easily identified points of escalation. Violence is raging in the Middle East, Europe and Russia are poised on the edge of conflict over Ukraine, the United States is once more engaged in military action in Iraq and, as NATO pulls out, Afghanistan is vulnerable. If we add in all the means and methods of warfare − conventional, nuclear, cyber, drones, and so on − we have the military potential to destroy ourselves entirely. The risks of a third world war are enormous. The machinery of war and the available firepower has increased dramatically. Since the ‘war to end all wars’ − as H G Wells so wrongly predicted a century ago − the world has seen the ‘peace to end all peace’ lead to the horrors of the second world war, proxy wars through the Cold War and, today, violent conflicts that increasingly affect civilians disproportionately and cross the red lines laid by the laws of armed conflict. I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images. Names of missing soldiers at the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in Ypres, Belgium.
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