
One aspect of recent world affairs that should cause increasing concern is the increasing possibility that just a few persons with very high power concentrated in their hands, acting largely on their own, can take decisions that will end up killing millions of people.
This worrying possibility consists of three parts. Firstly, a lot of power is concentrated in a few countries. Secondly, within these countries there are frightening tendencies of power to make highly destructive decisions getting concentrated in a few persons. Thirdly, there are increasing signs of non-transparency as well as breakdown of democratic checks and balances leading to more arbitrary decision-making.
Of course, in the course of history, very excessive power has existed at times in the hands of certain persons with strong destructive tendencies, with horrible results. What is new now is that during the last several decades the available weapons have become much more destructive, ultimately acquiring the capacity to destroy the world several times over, so that this possibility of a small number of persons having the capacity to take decisions of huge destructive capacity has been becoming more and more dangerous for the world. Now one cannot rule out a situation in which a small number of persons with destructive tendencies take a highly reckless decision that eventually leads to the destruction of a large part of the world.
What was the decision-making process in response to the 9/11 attack in the USA? As this was the most tragic, high mortality incident of recent times in the USA, there should have been a very thorough and completely truthful and transparent investigation, and after the culprits were revealed there should have been very strong action against them. Instead what happened was that the official investigation was very inadequate and flawed, and even after more than two decades today there are more unanswered questions than reliable answers. However even before this very inadequate official investigation had been completed or had taken even a few steps, a small number of powerful persons had taken a completely non-rational decision with no evidence to back it, to respond with regime change operations, including wars, in seven countries (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, Somalia and Sudan, apart from Afghanistan which was already under attack) over the next five years! As General Wesley Clark revealed later, just a few weeks after 9/11 when he was visiting Pentagon a senior official had shown him a confidential document
reflected later to a significant extent in the so-called War on Terror which in terms of directly and indirectly caused mortality has claimed around 4.5 million human lives, apart from causing enormous other destruction, according to Brown University’s estimates. These estimates do not include all the countries affected by this war.
Now since then many highly disturbing questions have come up regarding how exactly the 9/11 tragedy was caused and what kind of forces were involved. However leaving this aside for the time being, what is completely clear is that there was no evidence at all for implicating the regimes of any of these countries in the 9/11 attack. Despite this Iraq was openly blamed for this to find an excuse for attacking it, and six other regimes were listed alongside as targets, again for no reason at all.
It is a basic precept of peace diplomacy that any provocations that can result in direct confrontation between the biggest nuclear weapon powers should be avoided. However while agreeing to supply increasingly more destructive weapons to Ukraine and by sabotaging the Nord-Stream pipelines the Biden Administration in the USA repeatedly crossed red-lines, and these decisions, as also the decision relating to the Ukraine coup of 2014, were taken by a small group of hawkish persons in highly non-transparent ways.
In Israel as increasingly even several senior members of the Israeli establishment are turning against the ever-escalating aggression in Gaza, a small number of persons close to Netanyahu are involved in escalating aggression in ways that can even result in wider and even more destructive war.
However such aggressive and reckless persons who manage to concentrate the power to take highly destructive decisions in their hands generally do not reflect the will of the people of their countries. If all the facts and evidence of their decisions are placed before the people, most of the people would outright reject such highly destructive decisions.
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The concentration of excessive power in the hands of a few persons to take highly destructive decisions is a recipe for disaster in a world overstocked with life-destroying weapons. Before this can result in even greater catastrophe, strong and continuing efforts should be made to remove such an inherently destructive condition by initiating corrective steps, democratic reform and checks and balances. In fact this is the least that can be done, and actually the world needs many more and deeper reforms towards peace and safety.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and Man over Machine.