How do wars end?
How do wars end? There are a million ways to start a war. History is rife with ridiculous ones ranging from pig war to war over a stray dog to war for bird shit. But can two warring countries conjure up peace and become allies? Or are they relegated to a permanent purgatory of truce? Israel & Gaza are on top of my mind these days. They didn’t push down, rather elbow aside the other popular war between Ukraine & Russia.
Until Ukraine war last year, I’d been nowhere close to a war, not even as a memory passed along by my ancestors. Kerala, being farthest from India’s hostile borders, hadn’t been affected by the horrors of any wars. Partition of India, which triggered the largest & bloodiest migration of any people, shaped the minds of northerners, particularly in the west. India had several more wars with Pakistan to brush up the memory of that partition. India considers itself to be the winner, and so does Pakistan. So it might be safe to assume that the two countries are just relegated to a purgatory of permanent truce.
People on the north-east had a different neighbor to worry about; the stronger and manipulating China. Nehru has been ridiculed even beyond the grave for having trusted China with a bromance policy of Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai. But even Nixon can join the ranks of Nehru for having trusted China. So ultimately when all pretensions were off, and the war began in 1959, it was a slam-dunk for China. The war ended, and India was defeated. But the disputes remained unsolved, and they still trigger battles between the unequal neighbors. And yet, all this happened thousands of kilometers away from Kerala.
Then there was the Bangladeshi war of Independence. India aided & abetted the inexistent Bangladesh against Pakistan and fought in comradeship. All three parties have a different interpretation of who won; India thinks it won, Bangladesh similarly thinks it won, and Pakistan thinks it yielded gracefully. But all are clear that Bangladesh was born. More importantly, India successfully broke its hostile neighbor in two. Even then, Kerala saw none of the refugees or other collaterals of the war, with Bangladesh being another thousands of kilometers away.
And then there was the civil war in Srilanka. Happening less than 400km away, there must have been a real possibility of Kerala being pulled in to support the refugees. However, the refugees had no interest in Kerala. They were victims of the fight for Tamil. And they aimed to seek refuge in the only Indian state which spoke that language, and Kerala wasn’t that.
Only one of these wars truly ended; with Bangladesh becoming independent, Pakistan didn’t pull a Putin on them. None of these wars affected Kerala in any sense. We didn’t have a refugee crisis. We didn’t constantly argue about where our next tea-bags would come from. We didn’t have to consider a spectre of inflation or recession. It was as if these wars were fought in a different country altogether.
So, until it started in Ukraine, wars remained a theoretical concept in my mind; something of which I had only read a lot. With over 6000km between me & the battlefront, the war wasn’t in my vicinity. But unlike the wars in India, there was a real possibility of this one escalating beyond the 6000km. And unlike the inexistent refugee situation in Kerala, those from Ukraine flew regularly to Berlin. So, there I was, in Hauptbahnhof, watching those unfortunate people fleeing the war in droves, stepping into a country where they knew none, whose language they didn’t speak, carrying their belongings in a backpack, and leaving their life, the only life they must have known, behind. Majority of them were women & children, for their husbands must have stayed back to fight. Would they ever meet again? Would they ever see their home again? Would they ever feel at home again? And would the helpless Russians stuck inside an isolated country under a ruthless dictator ever breathe freedom again? Can they ever get on with their lives without worrying about being drafted for a war they didn’t choose, to kill those who might as well be their friends and family from across the border? With 600 days and counting, the war continues to ebb and flow just as I continue to wonder, how would this end?
“We’re Prisoners of War”, Chacko said. “Our dreams have been doctored. We belong nowhere. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough. To matter” — Arundhati Roy, God of Small Things
Ukraine war had been dictating foreign policy, economic outlook and budget planning of numerous powerful & wealthy nations since 2022. From gas to grains, people to weapons, governments and societies have been discussing, arguing, and lamenting about the war. It would also have influenced who the next US president would be; until another war came raging along, one that can trace its roots back to biblical times.
In some sense, Israel & Palestine have been at war for as long as the former formally came into existence. World, along with Israel, and its Arab neighbors, had grown complacent in the invincibility of Israel, until Hamas soldiers barged into the fortified fence. It is eerily reminiscent of 9/11 when a similarly invincible US was attacked in its soil. And just like the US, Israel has been retaliating with all its might. It took the US an entire decade to eliminate Bin Laden; but countless nameless, faceless innocents across the continent were swept away during that decade. Like the little kid following the footsteps of their big brother, Israel is razing down Gaza without mercy. But when it all ends, who emerges the winner? Innocent lives of both Palestinians & Israelites will be destroyed. People on neither side of the border can live a day in peace as long as there’s a war. With all the history between Jews & Muslims, Israel & Palestine, BiBi & Hamas, how will this war end?
“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..” — Churchill, 1940.
Global trade allowed us to seek alternate means to deal with tensions without resorting to a complete annihilation. Diplomatic dialogues, trade embargo, and sanctions became the bloodless weapons. But if the rogue actor no longer cares about any of these, what else do we have in our arsenal to stop or end a war? Are these even effective weapons?
Global trade made sure nations had skin in the game at the outbreak of wars. It made sure countries could reason with each other, inflict real pain without spilling blood or destroying lives. But it also made sure that there were no longer any localized conflicts. Every conflict, battle or war had implications on our fragile global economy. So, if Bangladeshi war had happened in 2022, we would have been discussing the impact to the textile industry and its ripple effects in rest of the economy.
Iran has been under sanctions since their revolution in 1979, and it had been the most sanctioned country until 2022, when Russia seized the record. And yet, we’re considering the possibility that Iran funded Hamas for the latest attack on Israel. So, what do these sanctions achieve other than making the lives of innocent Iranians miserable, depriving them of food, education & medicines? How do we determine who is a rightful recipient of the sanctions? Iran was sanctioned, but Pakistan or Saudi Arabia was not. North Korea was sanctioned, but Israel was not. Russia was sanctioned, but US was not. So, are sanctions the lightsaber which works only against the opponents of the US? In any case, what do we achieve from the sanctions if Russia is still able to continue the war into its 600th day, and North Korea still holds the nuclear warheads, and Iran can still fund terrorist activities?
History has been wars punctuated by lulls of peace. Perhaps we had been witnessing the most anomalous epoch in the history of time, and we grew complacent with peace. But if, with all the wisdom of past generations of humans, we cannot humanize ourselves out of tribal divisions and war mongering, what’s the point in civilization? Just like the pope calling for a crusade, nations call for wars, with no regard for the lives of commoners on both sides. If we still fight over territory, race, and religion, what did we gain out of 6000 years of lived, spoken & written wisdom?
Stopping short of complete annihilation, how do wars end?
