In the future, war will (hopefully) be history

In a brilliant pamphlet for two London-based think-tanks, Demos and the Foreign Policy Centre, Robert Cooper, a British diplomat, defines the results as “the post-modern state”. The building block of relations between such states is the individual, not the individual state. Through international law, each person is protected from the predatory behaviour of his own state and others. In this view, it is truer to say that the European Union exists because war amongst European powers is unthinkable, than the opposite.

Unfortunately, the “democratic peace” is far from a global phenomenon. Mr Cooper contrasts his post-modern world with the “modern” and the “pre-modern”. In the former,states are like those of the European 19th century; industrialising and jealous of their sovereignty. In the latter, bandits vie with governments for control over resources. Modern states control their societies. Pre-modern states do not.

Among modern states traditional territorial wars are still a threat. The likelihood is hugely increased where dictators can ignore the costs borne by their people. Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait was a traditional example of bellicose predation. Many territorial conflicts are the product of the messy collapse of empires. Yet there is hope that the high cost of war and the spread of democracy — one of the most significant features of the past two decades — will limit resort to war among states everywhere.

Certainly, war is today largely an affliction of the poor. Of the 40 poorest countries in the world, 24 are either in the midst of armed conflict or have recently emerged from it. In Africa, 20 per cent of the population live in countries affected by conflict. These are civil wars, even though they often spill over national boundaries. They occur because states are too weak to maintain a monopoly of internal violence. There is, instead, competition among organised predators, with government itself often just another gang of thieves.

Even if greed is not the cause of insurrection, resources are need to turn a grievance into rebellion. Where rebellion is well funded — by diamonds, for example, as in Sierra Leone, for drugs, as in Colombia — fragile pre-modern states may be unabled to end it. Those responsible for such low-intensity civil wars gain from them. The organised criminal parasites of wealthy countries turn into effective armies in poorer ones.

If there is to be peace on earth, these civil wars must end. Since the advanced countries provide both the weaponry the gangsters use and the money that funds them, they bear moral responsibility for the results. Peace-making needs to be more effective. Well trained and well equipped armies could shift the balance of power decisively. The cost could be modest and the benefits for hundreds of millions of ordinary people enormous. In many places economic development is inconceivable without restoration of civil order.

Excerpted from the `Financial Times’ editorial of December 23