Daily Times

When I first defined ‘WAR’ as ‘Waste of Available Resources,’ few people reacted to it by calling me an idealist or liberalist or even constructivist. However, most of them did understand what I meant.

Warfare remains the most ancient form to resolve disputes, whereas rest everything has been transformed. Bilateral Treaties, Agreements, Multilateral Treaties, League of Nations, and United Nations have not been able to avoid or prevent wars between states with territorial disputes. However, most painful military engagements are between Unequal Military Powers (UMPs), even if they are not for the territorial disputes, particularly in modern times.

The end of Cold War deprived the sole superpower of the time, United States (US) an enemy but Saddam Hussain readily provided a battleground in the Middle East by invading Kuwait and inviting the US and its allies to begin a new era of wars and conflicts between UMPs. Iraq was destroyed even if Saddam survived after the First Gulf War, only to be demolished again a decade later.

Likewise, Osama Bin Laden’s presence in Afghanistan at the time of 9/11, provided enough justification to destroy an already war-ravaged state completely and its people to ruins forever, perhaps.

The realists’ world view manifests wars and conflicts in all its forms in pursuance for power and security by respective states, primarily in their best ‘national interests.’ Historically, the most common reasons for wars between states have been for territory, independence, resources, and support for allies etc. However, the modern wars have had differing causes; rights, freedom, Right to Protect (R2P), preventive, pre-emptive, and against a state to crush the Non-State Actors (NSAs) of that state. What is interesting is the outcome of any such wars and conflicts, whether in the far past or the near past or even in the ongoing wars and conflicts.

A cursory look at the major wars of the twentieth century reveals horrendous results in terms of destruction of lives and property of the warring states. Lost lives obviously were irrecoverable, but the destructed property also cost even more than the spent effort

A cursory look at the major wars of the twentieth century reveals horrendous results in terms of destruction of lives and property of the warring states. Lost lives obviously were irrecoverable, but the destructed property also cost even more than the spent effort.

The two World Wars alone left over 100 million dead and some fifty million injured. Other wars and conflicts of twentieth century needs a mention include: The Korean War (1950-1953), Kashmir Conflict (1947- till date), Arab-Israel Conflict (1948- till date), The Vietnam War, Afghan War-I and II, Gulf War-I and II, Iran-Iraq War, so on and so forth.

A critical review of causes, losses, and the results of each war and conflict reflects that only a little was achieved by the warring states. The Korean War was first military engagement of the Cold War. It was relatively short but highly destructive and cost nearly five million lives. The result: Korean Peninsula remains divided with constant fear of military engagements between North and South Korea, with former having nuclear capability.

The Vietnam War (1959-75) fought between the two communities: communists and non-communists with western allies’ support, mainly the US. More than three million people lost their lives with immense destruction of Vietnam, which fortunately became one under a communist regime.

The Soviet-Afghan War (1978-92), which perhaps laid the foundations not only for the collapse of Soviet Union and end of Cold War, but also for a long war on Afghan soil with much wider consequences for the entire world. Most of the modern wars involving NSAs have their origins in this war. The material losses of this war cannot be accounted for easily because of immense destruction of Afghanistan. Millions displaced than have not been able to return home even after the passage of over three decades. Dead also cannot be correctly counted because of conflict continuation till date.

India-Pakistan Wars over Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and Arab-Israel Wars on the Palestinians issue are with definite purposes which are just and defendable, yet the deaths of civilians cannot be justified. These two protracted conflicts have ideological connotations besides being political and territorial.

I must mention the famous dictum of erstwhile Soviet leader Andre Gromyko that, “Ten years of talk is better than one day of war.” Gromyko was the longest serving Foreign Minister of USSR during the Cold War and his precepts about war and its terrible consequences support this author’s definition of ‘WAR’ as the ‘Waste of Available Resources.’ Because each major war is usually followed by some Treaty, Agreement, or a Marshall Plan to rebuild the destroyed state. However, giving some weight to realist paradigm, I would encourage competition between rival states for the sake of development in science and technology, education and health services to their people, culture and sports, tourism, and interconnectedness, but not WAR, at any cost or reason.

The writer is the author of the book ‘Nuclear Deterrence and Conflict Management Between India and Pakistan’ published by Peter Lang,

New York