Description

General

The endeavour for global peace at the end of the Cold War, has largely given way to the current rise in vicious intra-state conflicts. While the world was grappling with the challenges of unresolved intra-state conflicts mostly in the African region, addition of the Ukraine and the Gaza wars have added new dimension to global violence and human suffering. As the UN Security Council remains deadlocked in political polarisation, conflicts have expanded in both scope and intensity.

The ongoing conflicts have highlighted disturbing trends of deliberate targeting of civilian population and indiscriminate bombing of civilian social support facilities, leading to large scale deaths and forced displacement resulting in an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. The operational techniques being applied, in ongoing conflicts, defy agreed protocols of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) with minimal accountability.

Conflict has remained a constant feature of Social Darwinism exhibited in state behaviour. However, the traditional drivers have been over ridden by emerging disruptive technologies. Apart from cyber, AI driven advanced and autonomous weapon systems have changed the face of the battlespace. The conflicts now involve multi-domains, politics, diplomacy, technology, economy, information and cognition. The lines between classic war and peace are blurred with multitude of State and Non-State actors at play in a grey zone environment.  Understanding and addressing these challenges requires a multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary approach, as well as reforms in laws of war, governance architectures and International Institutions.  How to foster cooperation in a contested World-Order is the biggest challenges. Some of the specific issues that merit reflection are laid out in the succeeding paragraphs.