Humanisation of warfare

Express Tribune

a day ago

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Humanisation of warfare is an interesting subject, and it is in the context of the lack of development of international morality that this subject can be discussed and understood. Currently, conclusions about humanisation of warfare can be drawn from the two ongoing wars — the war in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East, more specifically, the war against the people of Palestine. I outright reject viewing the war in Gaza as a model to draw any conclusions because it is as inhuman as any war can get, and it is not even a war but a genocide and a deliberate extermination of unarmed and innocent people at a scale that the modern world has not seen before.
History remembers the 16th and 17th century wars as religious wars; the 18th century wars as dynastic wars, and the 19th and 20th century wars as national wars. Following 9/11, Samuel P Huntington's theory of the clash of civilisations was validated, and if anything, the 21st century has been a century of civilisational wars. Today, the war is not about the unconditional surrender of a state but the death of all those who adhere to a different ideal, a different way of life, false and evil in the eyes of the West. Today's war is not about the territory; it is about the people.
Understanding the world view of the other two great powers can help us understand these push-button wars being fought in the 21st century that continue to lead to dehumanising the world. In an anarchic international system where no two states can be certain about each other's intentions, there has to be a method to ensure that the relations between them remain peaceful and less anarchic. This can only be ensured by keeping promises, building trust, executing fair dealings, protecting minorities and condemning the use of the worst instrument of power in implementing a foreign policy. Military being used as an instrument of power to settle political questions, both in the case of Iran and Gaza, is a point of concern for the other two great powers.
To answer the question of this ongoing process of dehumanising the world, the alternate perspective and the world view of both Russia and China, the other two great powers in a multipolar world, need to be clearly understood. Both Russia and China have repeatedly endorsed the idea of allowing each nation state to choose its destiny and future in line with the UN Charter, which guarantees the equality and sovereignty of the states. T
he United States' democratic experiment failed in Afghanistan because it ignored the centuries-old customs, traditions and ways of life of that country. A civilisational war was imposed on Afghanistan, and the people of Afghanistan stood up to fight. As did many Muslim countries during the Arab Spring, to push back the American idea of democratising them, overruling their centuries-old traditions, and bringing about a societal change that could be viewed in the American image.
Russia is persistent with its demand and insists that the Americans and their allies in Europe must first view the root causes of the conflict before deciding on any approach or initiative to address the Ukraine crisis. Russia's stated position is that the West is misguided when it accuses Russia of fighting the war for the acquisition of a territory. The war that Russia fights, it believes, is not for the territory but for the people.
Territories are important only because the Russians live in them. President Zelensky, in an August 2021 television interview, explicitly addressed residents of the Donbas region, urging those who feel Russian and want Donbas to be part of Russia to voluntarily relocate to Russia. It was against the Ukrainian State-directed oppression against this minority that Russia initiated the special military operations in February 2022 to protect the lives of these people and to oppose the Ukrainian State tyranny unleashed against them.
The Russian press reports that President Trump agreed with President Putin during a telephonic conversation that NATO's eastward expansion created an existential security threat for Russia. In the words of the foreign minister of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, the importance of Ukraine for Russian security is many times more than of Greenland for the United States' security. Russians believe that even if Trump wants an end to this war, the Europeans don't want it. Russia draws this conclusion from how the European countries warmly received President Zelensky after he was asked to leave the White House after his spat with President Trump in February this year.
The employment of a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine is how the French President sees a step forward to end this war. Russia doesn't consider that any force or group that at the outset was part of aggression against Russia can keep peace in the region. Russia considers that at best, such a force can only protect the interests of President Zelensky and his regime, which Russia considers illegitimate, representing martial law and not the people of Ukraine.
In the words of Sergey Lavrov, "the Chinese are never in a hurry, they always see over the horizon." In the 1990s the United States allowed China to become part of the international system under a policy of engagement. It allowed China to become powerful, hoping that as China hooked up to capitalism, it would become a responsible stakeholder in the international system.
China's ideology of Confucianism and peaceful rise during the unipolar moment challenged the American dominance and control of the world. It created the classic security dilemma and generated Thucydides' propagated fears in the American mind.
Today China, in the words of Professor Mearsheimer, has become a goose that lays the golden eggs and thus a security competition and a cold war between the United States and China persists with very few scholars imagining the future possibility of a hot war between them as the world cannot afford the death of a goose that lays golden eggs from which the entire world benefits.
If wars fought in the 21st century are civilisational wars, then the world must treat the subject of morality also as not individual or national but as civilisational. All civilisations reflect humanity's shared progress. Russia and China represent two great civilisations, and in a multipolar world, they would continue to demand respect and be treated as competitors and not foes to be aggressed against.