With the disintegration of the Soviet Union the end of the cold war was widely heralded, and United Nation agencies published reports on the peace dividend now available as funds could be diverted from military expenses to meet urgent development needs, significantly reducing hunger and poverty.
Not so widely known was another critical development around early 1990s—increasing scientific evidence was becoming available regarding the many-sided environmental crisis now becoming so serious as to threaten essential life-nurturing conditions of the planet.
So the new peace possibilities that had emerged with the end of the widely perceived end of the cold war were especially fortuitous in coming at a time when more resources and international cooperation were needed urgently to check the many-dimensional environmental crisis before things got out of hand.
In fact an even graver existential crisis was posed by the presence of thousands of nuclear weapons, which had remained despite the perceived end of the cold war. Here again the end of the cold war appeared to herald a new era when the prospects of greatly reducing these nuclear weapons, or other weapons of mass destruction, would be much higher and brighter than before.
Unfortunately the great possibilities for peace and for devoting much greater attention and resources to ending poverty and to protecting environment were squandered in extremely careless and reckless ways with the result that today wars and conflicts are causing greater distress than around 1990, the danger of world war and nuclear war has also increased, denial of basic needs to people remains at high levels and the most serious environmental problems are worsening.
The initial discussions held with Gorbachev and his close colleagues around 1990 were cordial enough, also paving the way for the unification of Germany. Unfortunately, sincere follow-up efforts were not made by the west for a new relationship based on friendship with Russia. At a time when the people in Russia were only too willing to accept that they had gone seriously wrong somewhere and were keen to learn from the west to correct mistakes, they were given such ‘lessons’ that Russia experienced the worst ever decline in living standards within the decade of the 1990s and probably also the worst ever robbery in daylight by foreign and local elites. What is worse, the agreement reached at the time of cordial discussions of NATO not expanding even one inch eastwards was breached all too soon as instead NATO expanded hundreds of miles eastwards. In addition there was coup, regime change, placing of dangerous weapons close to Russia, culminating in creation of civil war type conditions in eastern Ukraine, ultimately leading to the Ukraine war.
A phase of much closer and extensive economic linking of the west and China started in ways which even led to the loss of many industrial jobs in the USA creating discontent there while creating new unprecedented export opportunities for China, but as soon as it was realized that China was strengthening itself much beyond playing a junior role, this policy was suddenly reversed to one of extreme hostility towards China and of encircling of China, increasing possibilities of another big war in future.
In the context of several other countries including Iran the possibilities of establishing peace once initiated were squandered all too soon, further accentuating the process of again creating a rival bloc against whom the USA-led west and NATO would be placed to create a situation perhaps even more risky than the cold war years.
The 9/11 attack brought new dangers which could have been contained by first investigating the attack very, very carefully and then punishing only the very carefully identified culprits. Instead one country after another not at all involved in this were attacked in a meaningless but very costly war on terror, which resulted in the death of 4.5 million people directly and indirectly according to Brown University estimates.
Israel’s aggression was supported in highly unreasonable ways by the USA and close allies leading to greatly increasing distress, tensions and discontents in an already volatile region.
Violence relating to plunder of scarce and valuable resources continued in many countries like Congo, adding further to a humanitarian crisis that was already increasing at several levels including adverse weather conditions, disasters and other conflicts.
The ability of the United Nations and any international institutions to end conflicts and clinch peace deals at an early stage of conflicts was greatly reduced by the arbitrary actions of the most powerful countries and forces.
Some of the most important treaties to reduce the dangers of nuclear weapons were discontinued, while the dangers of intentional and accidental use of these weapons increased. The linkages of AI to weapons has increased risks in many ways while at the same time very dangerous steps have been taken towards space warfare. The power, influence, the corruption and the corrupting capacity of the military-industrial-politician-think tank establishment has increased and increased, in direct proportion to the great risks it poses to humanity and all forms of life.
Thus far from the 1990s heralding a new era of peace, humanity has moved in the opposite direction of greatly increasing the threats posed to itself and future generations from war and weapons. In fact so great is the risk that this can be now called the greatest threat to the planet and all its inhabitants and the future of humanity and all forms of life depends on how much success we can achieve in rapidly and significantly reducing these enormous risks and threats.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, Earth without Borders and Man over Machine.
