Without Far Reaching Reforms, the World Moving from Crisis to Crisis Remains Vulnerable to Catastrophic Ruin

In recent times our deeply troubled world is best described as moving from one crisis situation to another without the top leadership having any clue to transcending to a safer situation.

Of course from time to time there may be a bright diplomacy move here, there may be another hope-giving spark there, creating optimism for resolving some crisis situation. While we should certainly wish good luck to any such efforts, these should not lead to obscuring the bigger and frightening reality that in a world that is overloaded with weapons to destroy the entire world many times over, the persistence over a long period of such a situation of unresolved multi-crises can lead also to the kind of catastrophic destruction that no one really wanted but which just ‘happened’ in the course of very dangerous games being played too long in reckless ways.

Once the world acquired nuclear weapons, it needed a new governance system to ensure that mass destruction can be avoided come what may. Very unfortunately, however, no such world-level reforms to guarantee avoidance of mass destruction were considered seriously. There were some leaders who had the capacity to move in this direction. The names of Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. come to mind more readily. All three were assassinated.

Some other leaders of wisdom moved at least a few steps in the direction of avoiding mass destruction. Some not-so-wise leaders could also contribute, when they were assisted by very capable diplomats. Hence despite all the tensions of the cold war years, nuclear war could be avoided. Some important treaties to reduce somewhat the threats from the most destructive weapons were signed. The dissolution of the Soviet Union ending the cold war could be secured peacefully. At the same time highly unjust and costly wars fought with increasingly destructive ‘conventional weapons’ claimed millions of lives year after year in the post-world war period 1945-1990.

With the voluntary dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war a new era began which could have been potentially an era of peace generally but more specifically it could have become an era of wider reforms which could take various forms but would eventually be aimed at ensuring that there are no possibilities of the kind of catastrophic destruction that can be caused by nuclear weapons or other existing or future weapons of mass destruction. Instead some western leaders intoxicated by a perceived further increase of their dominant power launched a further series of reckless,   avoidable, highly destructive wars again resulting in killing millions of people year after year. Other avoidable highly destructive wars and civil wars also continued.  

This was happening at a time when available scientific evidence had already made it amply clear that a number of serious environmental problems had become serious enough to threaten basic life-nurturing conditions of earth and a very well planned effort involving sustained international cooperation was needed to prevent this ecological collapse, the kind of effort that is possible only in conditions of peace and stability. Despite such warnings of top scientists, the wars, weapons race and the accompanying destruction continued, worsened by AI and steps towards space warfare.

In recent times, the situation has been steadily worsening. During the last 4 years or so, there have been more warnings by senior experts regarding the world getting close to nuclear war and third world war and to direct confrontation between nuclear weapon powers (including the biggest ones) than in any other comparable period. In Gaza genocidal actions and eliminating life-sustaining conditions have been openly carried out in recent times by Israel with weapons supplied by bigger powers like the USA, Germany and others. Norms of a rules based international order have been increasingly violated and very serious humanitarian crisis situations fueled by avoidable, stoppable conflicts have been allowed to worsen over long periods, even as humanitarian aid efforts have been starved of essential funds. While all this happens, those charged with great responsibilities to prevent all this issue statements, and sometimes watch silently.

Some top world leaders think they are being very smart when they move from one conspiratorial plot to another to promote very narrow interests, forgetting their wider responsibility to the peace of the world and the safety of its people and all life-forms. By their education, upbringing, thinking, training and their alignments over the years, despite being world’s top leaders, they seem to be incapable of thinking beyond very narrow paradigms and concerns. In their relentless pursuits in narrow self-made boundaries they are often contributing, perhaps without realizing this, to worsening the prospects of world peace and safety.

Hope can still arise if an adequately large number of people particularly in the younger generation, who have their entire life before them, can commit themselves to a different and wider paradigm of peace, safety and protecting the essential life nurturing conditions of earth. On the one hand they have to move towards and choose from the various available possibilities, relating to governance reform and restructuring, which can ensure that basic life-protective conditions are protected (by avoiding the third world war and nuclear war, by preventing space warfare, by resolving most serious environmental problems before it is too late and in other ways) and on the other hand they to create and sustain mass movements to promote those social values among more and more people that are in conformity with this objective.

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Saving Earth for Children, A Day in 2071, Man over Machine and Earth with Borders.