tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/global-conflict-12577/articlesGlobal conflict – The Conversation2023-01-26T13:23:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1982732023-01-26T13:23:47Z2023-01-26T13:23:47ZPrince Harry’s kill count revelation could spark important discussions about war’s effects on soldiers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506197/original/file-20230124-8245-bm9pg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prince Harry's new book "Spare" is stirring discussion about whether he should have revealed the number of warfighters that he killed.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/prince-harry-presents-12-pilots-from-course-17-02-of-the-news-photo/932885722?phrase=prince%20harry%20pilot&adppopup=true">Anwar Hussein / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>When Prince Harry revealed in his new book, “<a href="https://princeharrymemoir.com/">Spare</a>,” that he killed 25 Taliban fighters as an Apache helicopter pilot, he compared their deaths to “chess pieces removed from the board.” His comments have drawn ire from critics, such as Anas Haqqani, a member of the <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/04/haqqani-network-taliban-relationship-afghanistan-pakistan-terrorism/">Haqqani Network</a>, which is an Afghan Sunni Islamist militant organization and part of the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Haqqani shot back that those slain fighters “<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/implications-prince-harry-saying-killed-235502482.html">were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return</a>.” But others have questioned whether Prince Harry should have spoken about his body count at all.</em></p>
<p><em>Here, <a href="https://www.usafa.edu/facultyprofile/?smid=14215">L. William Uhl</a>, an assistant professor of philosophy at the United States Air Force Academy, provides insight on what airmen are taught and told when it comes to the sensitive topic of taking lives in the line of duty.</em></p>
<h2>1. How often do airmen have to discuss the kills they did in battle?</h2>
<p>Reporting kills is actually a routine part of an airman’s duty. It comes up as part of what is called battle damage assessment. This assessment is necessary to determine how much of the enemy’s physical and functional capabilities remain.</p>
<p>Some airmen’s annual performance reports will include the number of enemy combatants they have killed. These numbers become part of these airmen’s permanent records and are used to demonstrate how they have contributed to their units’ missions. It is possible to determine how many have been killed, for example, if certain weapon imaging systems are used or enemy combatants are out in the open. </p>
<p>Prince Harry himself says, “So, my number: Twenty-five. It wasn’t a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed. Naturally, I’d have preferred not to have that number on my military CV [curriculum vitae], on my mind, but by the same token I’d have preferred to live in a world in which there was no Taliban, a world without war.” </p>
<p>It is one thing to destroy a facility and not dwell on the people inside, another to witness one or more deaths directly or through some form of imaging.</p>
<h2>2. With whom should airmen discuss their kills?</h2>
<p>After airmen deploy to combat areas, they are required to talk to counselors when they redeploy home. But I know from experience that sometimes they cannot wait until then.</p>
<p>While I was deployed to Baghdad International Airport in 2004 – one year after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein – Iraqi insurgents ambushed a convoy returning to Baghdad from Balad. During the firefight, American forces lost one captain but managed to kill some of the insurgents. A friend who was a chaplain told me that from the time these troops had returned to base, many had sought him out for counseling, even into the wee hours of the morning. They struggled with the realization that they had killed people in the performance of their duties. </p>
<h2>3. Is there any reason not to disclose the number of kills during or after one’s service?</h2>
<p>Richard Kemp, a former British Army colonel, has said that Prince Harry’s providing the number of kills could <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/implications-prince-harry-saying-killed-235502482.html">provoke attacks from the Taliban and their followers</a> on the United Kingdom. Tobias Ellwood, a member of Parliament and a former British Army captain, said that “there is the <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/implications-prince-harry-saying-killed-235502482.html">unwritten assumption</a> that nobody publicly discusses kill counts for the principal reason that it can have security repercussions.” They are responding not only to Prince Harry’s notoriety as a member of the royal family but also to his connections with the British military and the <a href="https://www.royal.uk/invictus-games">Invictus Games</a>, the charity he launched to help wounded British service members recover from their injuries. </p>
<p>Few, if any, American service members will rise to Prince Harry’s level of notoriety. Nevertheless, while in service or after leaving the service, those who wish to publish their memoirs in one form or another should contact the public affairs office of their military branch for guidance. Memoirs about wars fought many decades ago, such as World War II, Korea or Vietnam, will most likely not raise as many security concerns as accounts about more recent conflicts.</p>
<p>Discussing numbers of people killed or thought processes about killing can elicit strong reactions from anyone, but especially from those who consider the United States and its allies to be the enemy. Without realizing it, active-duty service members and former service members who have left active duty since Desert Storm may put lives at risk by revealing information about current operations, weapon system capabilities or deployment locations.</p>
<h2>4. How do service members view such disclosures?</h2>
<p>When teaching my cadets about the moral issues of killing in war, I find that these young future officers wrestle with taking on the daunting responsibility: most people their age will never have to reckon with killing if called upon to do so. </p>
<p>In class I teach about what Michael Walzer refers to as “naked soldiers” in his book “<a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/michael-walzer/just-and-unjust-wars/9780465052707/">Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations</a>.” The book recounts five examples from World War I, the Spanish Civil War and World War II. In each example, a soldier refrained from killing an enemy soldier because he realized that the enemy soldier was just like him: another human being.</p>
<p>Upon discussing this book, many of my cadets have told me about conversations they have had with relatives who have seen combat. In most cases, my cadets say their relatives leave out the specifics of having killed or don’t talk about their combat experience at all.</p>
<p>In the first few years after the 9/11 attacks, some military units would show, for various purposes, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEbs_0WM2P8">videos</a> that were set to heavy metal music and contained footage from the weapon’s point of view as it was about to impact the target. I would say that these videos were a way of not only expressing Americans’ anger about the 9/11 attacks but also of motivating airmen to take the fight to the enemy.</p>
<p>Cadets I have recently taught have said that while they understood the purposes of the videos they have seen, they were bothered knowing that as these munitions zeroed in on their targets, people were only a few moments away from dying.</p>
<p>Each semester, cadets enrolled in our core philosophy course attend a lecture on an issue related to <a href="https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-just-war/#:%7E:text=Just%20war%20theory%20is%20an,of%20different%20forms%20over%20time.">just war theory</a>, a framework of ethics used to determine when it is permissible to go to war. In 2019, Karl Marlantes, a Marine lieutenant during the Vietnam War, spoke about what it was like for him to kill a young Vietnamese soldier at close range. He also spoke about what he has done “<a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/what-it-is-like-to-go-to-war/">to make peace with his past</a>.” I still recall the dead silence from the audience as they listened to Marlantes’ account. </p>
<h2>5. Should Harry get some sort of consideration because of the public or media interest in his life?</h2>
<p>Many people have criticized “Spare” because they believe that Prince Harry has revealed details about not only his own life but also royal family life that probably should remain undisclosed. In many instances, I tend to agree. But I also think that, given his notoriety, he addresses a very important question: How do service members maintain their moral integrity and well-being after having taken lives in the performance of their duties?</p>
<p>In “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/us/drones-airstrikes-ptsd.html">The Unseen Scars of Those Who Kill via Remote Control</a>,” Dave Philipps discusses the stress that drone pilots experience. These pilots may observe targets for a long time before finally receiving the order to kill them. What bothers many of these pilots is that they come to see these targets as ordinary human beings with families. The difference is when their shifts are over, these pilots go home to their own families and do the very same activities they observed their targets doing with theirs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I am an active-duty Air Force officer assigned to the United States Air Force Academy.</span></em></p>A US Air Force professor of philosophy weighs in on Prince Harry’s decision to disclose his ‘body count’ from his service in Afghanistan.L. William Uhl, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, United States Air Force AcademyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1283842019-12-09T19:08:18Z2019-12-09T19:08:18Z2019 was a year of global unrest, spurred by anger at rising inequality – and 2020 is likely to be worse<p>2019 may well go down as the most disrupted year in global politics since the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50013048">fall of the Berlin wall in 1989</a> and the subsequent <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union">implosion of the former Soviet Union</a>.</p>
<p>However, the likelihood is that 2020 will be worse, and bloodier.</p>
<p>Conditions that spawned global unrest on every continent in 2019 are unlikely to recede. Rather, they are likely to worsen in the face of a <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2019/10/01/world-economic-outlook-october-2019">slowing global economy</a> and little sign of causes of disaffection being addressed.</p>
<h2>Washington as disruptor</h2>
<p>In a word, the world is in a mess, made more threatening by the retreat of the Trump administration from America’s traditional role as a stabilising force.</p>
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<span class="caption">President Donald Trump has moved the US away from its traditional role of global stabilising force.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Kevin Dietsch</span></span>
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<p>If anything, Washington is a disruptor in its abandonment of international agreements. These include: the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">Paris Agreement</a> on climate change and the <a href="https://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/in-force/cptpp/pages/comprehensive-and-progressive-agreement-for-trans-pacific-partnership.aspx">Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership</a>, previously the Trans Pacific Partnership, aimed at liberalising Asia-Pacific trade. The US has also withdrawn from the <a href="https://www.sipri.org/commentary/expert-comment/2019/us-withdrawal-iran-deal-one-year">Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)</a> that froze Iran’s nuclear ambitions.</p>
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<p>Washington’s defenestration of the JCPOA and its reimposition of tough sanctions on Iran has further destabilised the world’s most volatile region.</p>
<p>All this and more, including an unresolved <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45899310">trade conflict</a> between the US and China, virtually guarantees 2020 will stretch the sinews of a fragile global order.</p>
<p>An evolving US-China <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-us-china-who-is-winning-the-tech-war/">technology war</a> and risks of a technological decoupling add to the gloom.</p>
<h2>The world is in worse shape than during the GFC</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/aug/07/global-financial-crisis-key-stages">Global Financial Crisis of 2007-08</a> was a period of intense uncertainty as a global financial system buckled. But, for the most part, that distress was confined to governments, boardrooms and the offices of international lending institutions.</p>
<p>The GFC did not fuel widespread global unrest as a shell-shocked financial world came to terms with the reality of a regulatory framework that had failed.</p>
<p>In 2019, the story has shifted dramatically.</p>
<p>Mass protests over the skewed benefits of globalisation accompanied by faltering confidence in a democratic model are challenging the assumptions on which a Western liberal capitalist system has rested. Local grievances are fuelling protests against an established order in places as far apart as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/09/bolivian-police-in-la-paz-join-mutiny-against-evo-morales">La Paz in Bolivia</a> and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/02/lebanon-protesters-movement-streets-explainer/">Beirut in Lebanon</a>. <a href="https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018">Endemic corruption</a> is looming larger.</p>
<p>If there is a defining issue that is driving popular unrest more or less across the board, it is that people do not feel they are sharing the benefits of an extended period of global economic expansion.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-richest-people-own-as-much-as-poorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report">In January, Oxfam</a> reported that the world’s 26 richest individuals owned as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population.</p>
<p>Billionaires grew their combined fortunes by US$2.5 billion (A$3.66 billion) a day in 2018, while the relative wealth of the world’s poorest 3.8 billion people declined by US$500 million a day.</p>
<p>A rich-poor gap is widening across the world to the point where it is no longer possible to argue that an economic growth model that advantages the few is lifting all boats.</p>
<h2>Inequality and anger</h2>
<p>Something had to give.</p>
<p>Professor Henry Carey of Georgia State University <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/going-global-reason-behind-urban-unrest-96721">acknowledges differences</a> in causes of localised unrest now sweeping the world, but he also identifies shared characteristics. He writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Each protest in this worldwide wave has its own local dynamic and cause. </p>
<p>But they also share certain characteristics: fed up with rising inequality, corruption and slow economic growth, angry citizens worldwide are demanding an end to corruption and the restoration of the democratic rule of law.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Carey makes the useful point that, as the world becomes more urbanised, overcrowded cities are staging points in a global wave of unrest.</p>
<p>In 1950, there were only two mega-cities with populations of 10 million or more – the New York metropolitan area and Tokyo. Today, there are 25 such megacities.</p>
<p>Of a world population of 7.7 billion people, 4.2 billion, or 55%, live in cities and other urban settlements. Another 2.5 billion will move into cities in poor countries by 2050, <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html">according to the United Nations</a>.</p>
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<p>In other words, poverty, gang crime, drug trafficking and all the other ills associated with an impoverished urban environment will become less manageable as overcrowding gets worse in cities, parts of which have become urban slums. Carey writes:</p>
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<p>Ignored by the municipal government, [overcrowded urban settlements] usually lack sanitation, clean drinking water, electricity, health care facilities and schools […] The injustices of this daily life underlie the anger of many of today’s protesters. From Quito to Beirut, extreme marginalisation of so many people living in big dysfunctional and dangerous places has boiled over into deadly unrest.</p>
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<p>In these circumstances, it is no accident that Latin America, with the world’s slowest economic growth and most glaring inequality, has exploded in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/25/protests-rage-around-the-world-hong-kong-lebanon-chile-catalonia-iraq">longest-lasting violent protests</a>.</p>
<p>In Chile, where economic grievances boiled over into days of mass protests, an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/30/chile-protests-president-sebastian-pinera-protest-unrest">was abandoned</a> because of security concerns.</p>
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<p>In Bolivia, the long-serving populist president, Evo Morales, was <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolivia-in-crisis-how-evo-morales-was-forced-out-126859">forced out of office</a> and the country by days of urban unrest.</p>
<p>In Haiti, protests over corruption, lack of employment and extreme poverty have paralysed the functioning of the state for months.</p>
<p>In countries such as Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, unrest is barely contained in the face of endemic corruption and government failures to provide basic services.</p>
<p>In the Middle East, it is a similar story.</p>
<p>In Lebanon, riven by protests for months, Prime Minister Saad Hariri was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/world/middleeast/saad-hariri-stepping-down-lebanon.html">forced to step down</a> amid growing anger about rising living costs, lack of job opportunities, stagnant wages and corruption.</p>
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<p>In Iraq, bloody protests over government failures to address inequality led to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraqs-prime-minister-steps-down-with-country-on-edge/2019/12/01/8c2d1480-137b-11ea-924c-b34d09bbc948_story.html">resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi</a> amid risks of a resumption of a civil war between the country’s Shia and Sunni populations.</p>
<p>In Iran, days of protests over economic austerity were <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/shot-killed-protests-iran-admits-time-191203072043278.html">put down brutally</a> by a regime that is battling crippling sanctions.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in the Middle East, the Egyptian regime of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is under <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/egypts-latest-protests-are-an-alarm-bell-for-sisi/">immense pressure</a> from an exploding and impoverished population. Jordan has witnessed its own protests recently over economic hardship.</p>
<p>Libya is riven by civil war that is both driving and facilitating an asylum-seeker exodus across the Mediterranean, principally to Italy. This is, in turn, fuelling <a href="https://www.voanews.com/europe/italy-anti-migrant-populist-wins-big">anti-immigrant tensions</a> in that country.</p>
<p>In France, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-08/tensions-as-yellow-vests-join-french-retirement-protests/11777418">mass protests</a> over President Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to address the country’s economic malaise show little sign of easing.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in Europe, unrest is barely contained. In Spain, tens of thousands of Catalonian independence protesters have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50194846">taken to the streets of Barcelona</a> in a tense standoff with Madrid.</p>
<p>In Russia, sporadic demonstrations against official corruption have become a feature, as they have elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.</p>
<p>In Eastern Europe, authoritarian regimes such as those in Poland and Hungary carry with them their seeds of confrontation with a disaffected population.</p>
<p>In Africa, all the ills mentioned above are present in spades.</p>
<p>South Africa is struggling to cope with huge economic challenges posed by an influx of refugees and a vast underclass camped in townships on the fringes of its major cities.</p>
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<p>In Hong Kong, a proposed extradition law that would have facilitated the removal of those accused of crimes or misdemeanours to the mainland might have prompted mass protests. But at the heart of the demonstrations are economic grievances. Hong Kong’s wealth disparities are obscene.</p>
<h2>Climate unrest</h2>
<p>Across the globe, unrest over <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49777279">climate change</a> is a common denominator and is likely to become more – not less – challenging to governments.</p>
<p>In Australia, in the midst of what may well prove to be the worst bushfires since white settlement, agitation over climate is exerting enormous pressure on the government of the day.</p>
<p>Whether this is fair or not, the government is perceived to be indifferent to climate concerns.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/democracy-disorder-the-struggle-for-influence-in-the-new-geopolitics/">a study of protest movements</a>, the Brookings Institution found multilateralism flourished, global GDP rose and the percentage of people living in absolute poverty declined steadily after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, this was an era that also sowed the seeds of present challenges. Advances in technology and globalisation, spurred by lower trade barriers, boosted global GDP but also led to the dislocation of middle-class livelihoods in many Western societies. The study concludes: </p>
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<p>Now, in the wake of the global financial crisis, two critical dynamics have unfolded: first, the powerful democracies of the trans-Atlantic community (the bulwark of the Western-led order) are facing political turmoil at home and setbacks in the liberal quality of their own governments.</p>
<p>Second, the democracies find themselves losing ground internationally to authoritarian powers bent on breaking the hold of these democracies on the character of the international order.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is not helped by an administration in Washington that has yielded ground to authoritarian dictatorships at a time of global unrest in which stable Western leadership has hardly been more necessary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Around the world, frustrations about growing inequality and inadequate responses to climate change are fuelling protests – and these are likely to grow bigger and more violent in the next year.Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/970312018-05-24T12:07:23Z2018-05-24T12:07:23ZEconomic and social rights must be addressed to stop violent conflict and sustain peace<p>Violent conflict is surging after decades of relative decline. Deaths in war, refugee numbers, military spending and terrorist incidents have all reached historic highs in recent years, according to a new <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/28337">United Nations and World Bank study</a>. </p>
<p>There has been an eruption of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/14/israel-palestine-defiance-death-gaza-jerusalem-suffers-horrific-day-of-violence-for-four-years">horrific violence in Gaza</a> on top of ongoing conflicts in <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/syria-592">Syria</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rohingya-crisis-this-is-what-genocide-looks-like-83924">Rohingya crisis</a> in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Add to this eight million people on the brink of famine, a million declared cholera cases and over three million internally displaced people in <a href="http://www.refworld.org/docid/5a685fe44.html">Yemen</a> and it becomes clear that the world needs to address the root causes of violent conflict. </p>
<p>Major world powers sat down for a meeting at the UN General Assembly in April 2018 to discuss the new UN initiative, “Sustaining Peace”. Among their number was the UK Minister of State for the Commonwealth and the United Nations, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/minister-of-state-at-the-foreign-commonwealth-office">Lord Ahmad</a>, who gave a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/on-peacebuilding-and-sustaining-peace">statement noting</a> the UK’s support of the agenda of peace – particularly the renewed focus on conflict prevention.</p>
<p>But there is a key element missing from the UN’s peacebuilding plans: the role of economic, social and cultural human rights. When it comes to building peace, the role of human rights has been focused on civil and political rights – such as the right to life, the right to vote, establishing democratic institutions and the rule of law. But the contribution of economic, social and cultural rights has been largely overlooked. That is a mistake which needs to be addressed.</p>
<h2>A root cause of conflict</h2>
<p>Addressing economic, social and cultural rights is important for tackling violence and building peace because the denial of these rights can be a major contributing factor to conflict. They can in fact be one of the root causes of conflict and a driver of continuing unrest. For example, violations of the right to water caused by poor management or discrimination in access to water can caused violence in 2000 in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Water shortages can also lead to displacement such as that which contributed to the civil war in Syria where <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/ESCR/EarlyWarning_ESCR_2016_en.pdf">tensions caused by four successive droughts</a> in the predominantly Kurdish northeastern region of the country forced two million small scale farmers to migrate into the urban areas of Aleppo and Damascus. So addressing fundamental rights can be a part of the solution and can be a key element of preventing conflict as well as post-conflict peace building and development.</p>
<p>Consequently building and sustaining peace requires attention to the “before, during and after” of destructive conflict, and economic, social and cultural rights are of crucial importance in all of these phases.</p>
<p>Significantly, they provide legal entitlements for people’s basic needs such as food, water, housing and health. Realising such basic rights are essential to preventing violent conflict as “prevention is better than cure”.</p>
<p>If these basic needs and rights can be met then it will help prevent conflict and so reduce the terrible human cost of war and violence – so prevention can be cheaper than the cure, too. In 2016, conflict cost world states <a href="http://interactive.unocha.org/publication/datatrends2017/resources/WHDT2017_Final_Singles.pdf">US$14.3 trillion</a>, or 12.6% of global GDP. Increased focus and expenditure on conflict prevention could save states between <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/infographic/2018/03/01/the-economic-cost-of-conflict">US$5 billion and US$70 billion</a> per year, reducing the economic cost of war as well as reducing the human cost.</p>
<h2>An early warning system</h2>
<p>The monitoring of economic and social rights can also form part of an <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/ESCR/EarlyWarning_ESCR_2016_en.pdf">early warning system </a> when it comes to conflict risk assessment. For example, monitoring the number of violations of rights (such as the rights to food, housing or health), the widening geographical spread of violations, and worsening discrimination against particular community groups can help identify areas where there is an increased risk of conflict emerging, escalating or relapsing. These monitors can also spot worsening poverty which also fuels conflict.</p>
<p>Mapping violations that act as conflict triggers – such as civil and political rights violations – can assist in understanding how to address grievances before they “tip over” into violence. For example, repression of peaceful protests over <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics/banging-on-empty-pots-venezuelans-protest-food-shortages-idUSKBN18U0SO">food shortages can trigger violence</a>. The root cause of the violence is lack of food but the repression of the protest is what tips it over into violence. Tackling both the root cause as well as the freedom to peacefully protest is necessary and so discussion of economic and social rights need to be integrated into mediation and diplomacy efforts.</p>
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<p>But there are some challenges to this process, including definition of “early” in terms of timing for interventions and obtaining, gathering and sharing the required data in conflict zones. Here the role of civil society and particularly human rights defenders is key as they are often the only groups with access to obtain such data.</p>
<p>Ensuring that economic and social rights are included in measures to prevent conflict and sustain peace does not require reinventing the wheel. The existing <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/Pages/HumanRightsBodies.aspx">international human rights framework</a> for such rights already provides a legal basis, clear obligations and indicators for the management and prioritisation of resources to meet basic rights. Such a framework can be used to assist with grievances within a state before violence erupts and certainly as part of any mediation when tensions are high.</p>
<p>The UN must take the lead role here, if asserting and protecting these rights are to really help prevent future wars and destructive conflicts. It needs to mainstream economic, social and cultural rights within all three pillars of the UN - peace and security, development and human rights. Training, leadership and sharing of expertise will be required.</p>
<p>The enhanced focus on prevention within the “sustaining peace” agenda is welcome. But until those tasked with building and sustaining peace start dealing comprehensively with economic, social and cultural rights, a part of the puzzle will remain missing. Without it, sustaining peace <a href="http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/escr-peacebuilding/">will not be possible</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Cahill-Ripley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Those tasked with sustaining peace must address economic, social and cultural rights to stand any chance of succeeding.Amanda Cahill-Ripley, Lecturer in Law, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/332572014-11-20T05:09:32Z2014-11-20T05:09:32ZFixing broken health systems in the aftermath of conflict<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64926/original/image-20141119-7350-xgepd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Crowding in refugee and internal displacement camps create conditions ripe for disease transmission.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Conflict continues to afflict the globe at a seemingly undiminished rate. The world’s attention is focused on Syria and Iraq in an escalating conflict that has <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29772082">resulted in</a> about three million refugees from Syria and nearly two million internally displaced people within Iraq. </p>
<p>Less attention is focused on the many smaller conflicts. Within the Asia-Pacific region, continuing low-level conflicts – such as those between the Indigenous populations of West Papua and Indonesia, and sectarian violence in Bangladesh and Myanmar – attract little attention but continue to cause disruption and hardship, and often death.</p>
<p>Alongside the host of human tragedies, conflicts challenge efforts to ensure health, security and access to basic health care for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations. Such populations are <a href="http://www.chronicpoverty.org/uploads/publication_files/WP06_Goodhand.pdf">disproportionately represented</a> in conflict-affected regions: chronic conflict causes chronic poverty and poverty causes conflict.</p>
<h2>Dysfunction and disruption</h2>
<p>Health systems are disrupted by conflict and insecurity in multiple ways. Health workers flee conflict zones where they are often prized assets, liable to be captured and put to work by rebel armies. Infrastructure is damaged. Records are lost and destroyed. </p>
<p>Injuries from the violence itself may only be the tip of the iceberg of ill health caused by conflict. Infectious disease thrives amidst population disruption. People come into contact with unfamiliar disease vectors to which they have not developed resistance. Crowding in refugee and internal displacement camps creates conditions ripe for disease transmission. Conditions in such camps are also often associated with domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, drug abuse and alcoholism, and mental health problems. </p>
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<span class="caption">Conditions at refugee camps can exacerbate mental health problems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/search?text=refugee%20syria&sort=relevance">IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>In many cases, conflict arises in areas where health systems have long been dysfunctional or barely functional. Take <a href="http://econpapers.repec.org/article/eeesocmed/v_3a19_3ay_3a1984_3ai_3a3_3ap_3a199-208.htm">Sierra Leone</a>, which is struggling to contain Ebola. In 1980, 20% of local government areas had no government facilities. Public health expenditure then declined by 60% between 1980 and 1987. This occurred before, and perhaps contributed to, the outbreak of civil war in 1991. </p>
<p>In Syria and Iraq, in contrast, conflict has devastated previously functional health systems. Syrian health statistics had been improving steadily for decades but the conflict has had a <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00038-014-0586-2#page-1">severe effect</a> on resources available in the system. The numbers of health staff and hospital beds available have been reduced by more than half. </p>
<p>The Assad regime has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/14/assad-regime-targets-syrian-health-care">reportedly</a> systematically attacked health facilities in opposition-held areas, resulting in the deaths of health professionals and the destruction of infrastructure. The country’s pharmaceutical production system has been badly damaged. </p>
<p>The Iraqi system has continued to function but a once excellent system has been eroded by the first Gulf War, international sanctions, the second Gulf War and now the effects of displaced populations. </p>
<p>Such conditions affect people with all kinds of health conditions and medical needs. The disruption of the drug distribution network sends those dependent on regular medication to the black market. Those with acute conditions may lose all access to services.</p>
<h2>Rebuilding health systems after conflict</h2>
<p>Once peace is re-established, there is a window of <a href="http://jae.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2009/04/16/jae.ejp006.short">opportunity</a> to construct a health system that is less constrained by entrenched political interests. I’m researching these processes as part of the <a href="http://www.rebuildconsortium.com/">ReBuild consortium</a>, which is building the evidence base to support health-system development in conflict-affected states. ReBuild works with partners in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zimbabwe. </p>
<p>A number of countries including Afghanistan and Cambodia <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/332/7543/718">have used</a> contracts between their health ministries and non-governmental organisations to deliver primary care. There is some evidence that this has enabled a more accessible and effective primary health system to operate when government capacity was weak. </p>
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<span class="caption">International health strategies have to be adapted for local communities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/5815109843">DFID - UK Department for International Development/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>In Cambodia, for instance, international non-government organisations have been able to manage staff to focus on outputs such as immunisation rates and protocols of care for children. Governments of states that are unaffected by conflict, by contrast, are often unwilling to give up direct provision and the associated degree of control of resources. </p>
<p>Getting investments right in the potential window of opportunity may set the direction of the system for some time. However, the task is formidable. In the immediate post-conflict period, countries are often swamped by multiple humanitarian agencies, presenting challenges for often weak government actors to manage. The agencies’ sheer numbers and diversity require complex co-ordination. </p>
<p>Staff members of these organisations tend to be internationally experienced but locally inexperienced, requiring that their strategies are well-adapted to local realities. The ReBuild consortium is helping to build local capacity to translate internationally sponsored visions for the future health system into feasible and well-adapted reform programs. </p>
<p>The complexities of health system development in the aftermath of conflict can be daunting. Aid to conflict-affected countries has <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000090">historically been lower</a> than to others like them, presumably because of the conflict. However, the post-2015 development agenda will not tackle the issues affecting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable if it neglects conflict-affected states.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barbara McPake is Research co-Director of the ReBuild Consortium which is funded by the UK Department for International Health and Development. </span></em></p>Conflict continues to afflict the globe at a seemingly undiminished rate. The world’s attention is focused on Syria and Iraq in an escalating conflict that has resulted in about three million refugees…Barbara Mcpake, Director, Nossal Institute for Global Health, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/321432014-09-29T05:07:41Z2014-09-29T05:07:41ZIs a vulnerable world teetering on the edge of a new Dark Age?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60242/original/spj6xtph-1411957768.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Communities everywhere are feeling more vulnerable and the planet is suffering stresses too.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-99260396/stock-photo-dramatic-sky-over-old-lonely-tree.html?src=egaqdGOCaQZpoxoZbh_hFQ-1-1">Shutterstock/Nejron Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We appear to have reached one of those extraordinary moments in history when people everywhere, communities and even entire nations, feel increasingly stressed and vulnerable. The same may be said of the planet as a whole.</p>
<p>Whether intellectually or intuitively, many are asking the same question: Where are we heading? How do we explain the long list of financial, environmental and humanitarian emergencies, epidemics, small and larger conflicts, genocides, war crimes, terrorist attacks and military interventions? Why does the international community seem powerless to prevent any of this?</p>
<p>There is no simple or single answer to this conundrum, but two factors can shed much light.</p>
<p>The first involves a global power shift and the prospect of a new Cold War. The second relates to globalisation and the crises generated by the sheer scale of cross-border flows.</p>
<h2>Is a new Cold War in the making?</h2>
<p>The geopolitical shift has resulted in a dangerous souring of America’s relations with Russia and China. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26248275">dispute over Ukraine</a> is the latest chapter in the rapidly deteriorating relationship between Washington and Moscow. In what is essentially a civil war in which over 3,000 people have been killed, the two great powers have chosen to support opposing sides in the conflict by all means short of outright intervention.</p>
<p>The incorporation of Crimea into Russia, Moscow’s decision to use force in Georgia in 2008 and its support for the independence of the two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are part of the same dynamic.</p>
<p>The conduct of Russian governments in the Putin era has been at times coercive and often clumsy at home and abroad. But the United States has also much to answer for. For the last 25 years its foreign policy has been unashamedly triumphalist.</p>
<p>In his 1992 State of the Union address, President <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=20544">George Bush senior declared</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>By the grace of God, America won the Cold War.</p>
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<p>Since then we have seen the bombing of Serbia without UN Security Council approval, US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the US invasion of Iraq in defiance of UN opposition, overt support for the colour revolutions on Russia’s doorstep (Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan), and the Magnitsky Act singling out Russia for human rights violations. Western military intervention in Libya, which contrary to assurances brought about regime change, dealt a further blow to the relationship. </p>
<p>And now the Ukraine crisis has led to steadily expanding US and European <a href="https://theconversation.com/sanctions-are-taking-russia-back-to-the-worst-days-of-the-ussr-32104">sanctions against Russia</a> and renewed efforts to ramp up NATO deployments and joint exercises in Eastern Europe.</p>
<p>Are we seeing the emergence of a new Cold War? Though ideology is now less conspicuous, the underlying structure of the conflict is remarkably similar. The trans-Atlantic alliance is once again seeking to contain and erode Russian power and influence, this time round by reaching ever <a href="http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/nato-expansion.jpg">closer to Russian borders</a>.</p>
<h2>Mishandling China’s rise</h2>
<p>Simultaneously, through President Barack Obama’s “<a href="https://theconversation.com/obamas-key-message-in-asia-if-china-wants-a-fight-weve-got-your-back-26147">strategic pivot to Asia</a>”, the US is committed to redeploying 60% of US air and sea power to Asia by 2020. It has supported the Philippines in its maritime dispute with China, strengthened the security commitment to Japan, allocated troops to the Philippines, Australia and Singapore, and agreed to supply Taiwan with advanced weapon systems.</p>
<p>These and other measures are part of a wider strategy designed to thwart China’s rise as a major centre of power and so maintain US supremacy in the Asia Pacific.</p>
<p>In response China has vigorously asserted its position in maritime disputes with the Philippines and Japan, pursued an economic charm offensive in Central Asia and Southeast Asia, proposed the establishment of two new “silk roads” and expanded relations with Russia, the most dramatic development to date being the $400 billion gas deal signed in Shanghai in May this year.</p>
<h2>We face rising risks and uncertainties</h2>
<p>Put simply, a new Cold War is in the making; perhaps the Cold War never ended. </p>
<p>Both the United States and Russia are modernising their nuclear forces, making them more lethal than ever. Of their combined arsenal of over 15,000 nuclear weapons, about 1,800 warheads are on high alert, ready for use at short notice. Should even a tiny fraction of these weapons be used, the humanitarian <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-day-to-demand-that-the-world-wake-up-and-avert-nuclear-doom-32158">impact would be catastrophic</a>.</p>
<p>The nuclear risk is compounded by US efforts to retain global supremacy just as Russia is reasserting itself after two decades of humiliating decline. China’s virtually irreversible rise, the Sino-Russian marriage of convenience and the emergence of new centres of influence, notably Brazil, India and Iran, add to the high levels of risk and uncertainty.</p>
<p>All of this is happening against a backdrop of failed and costly Western military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Africa and proxy wars, notably in Syria. These have unleashed demons that may take decades to tame.</p>
<p>Given these fault-lines and their religious and cultural overlays, it is no surprise that the UN Security Council has been unable to function effectively in discharging its security mandate.</p>
<h2>Cross-border flows prove overwhelming</h2>
<p>There is another element to our predicament. That is our inability to manage effectively the unrelenting application of science and technology to war, industry, commerce, finance, education and the media. The sheer volume, speed and intensity of cross-border flows has transformed the way we trade, produce, consume, travel and communicate. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://josephcamilleri.org/content/worlds-transition-governance-across-stressed-planet">great transition</a> is under way – this much is clear. What is less clear is whether we can develop in timely fashion the political institutions and agreements we need for a relatively soft landing. </p>
<p>As the following examples show, the record to date is not encouraging.</p>
<p>Financial flows: Over the last 25 years a string of financial crises, often triggered by large and sudden flows of speculative capital, have brought many economies, including seemingly robust ones, to their knees. Despite much talk, an effective system of global financial regulation remains elusive.</p>
<p>Arms flows: Authorised international <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/A-Yearbook/2012/eng/Small-Arms-Survey-2012-Chapter-8-summary-EN.pdf">transfers</a> of small arms, light weapons, parts, accessories and ammunition are estimated at about $8.5 billion annually. The illicit trade probably comes to $1.5 billion. Taken together these transfers account for 60-70% of annual casualties in today’s conflicts.</p>
<p>Population flows: By the end of 2013, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees calculated that the number of refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, stateless people and others of concern had reached an unprecedented <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/5399a14f9.html">42.9 million</a>. Permanently resettling the displaced, let alone preventing such displacement, does not appear within reach.</p>
<p>Atmospheric flows: In its fifth Assessment Report the International Panel on Climate Change <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/unfccc/cop19/cop19_pres_plattner.pdf">concluded</a> that the earth’s surface in each of the last three decades has been warmer than any preceding decade since 1850. It is “extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause”. Global greenhouse gas emissions during 2000-2010 have grown more quickly than in each of the three previous decades. Many doubt that next year’s world climate change summit in Paris will yield the requisite agreement.</p>
<p>Pathogenic flows: The current Ebola scare is just one of many infectious diseases (e.g. tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, influenza) ravaging the world. In 2012, 8.6 million people contracted tuberculosis and 1.3 million died from it. Though HIV/AIDS deaths have been declining, an estimated 1.6 million died from the disease in 2012 and the AIDS <a href="http://www.avert.org/worldwide-hiv-aids-statistics.htm#sthash.J8zny55G.dpuf">epidemic</a> has cost nearly 30 million lives since its inception.</p>
<p>Information flows: The Snowden revelations and other leaks tell us that states and corporations, working independently or in tandem, have developed sophisticated surveillance programs. These target not just would-be terrorists but presidents, prime ministers, corporate managers and the millions of computer and social media users.</p>
<p>In all of this the problem is governance failure. National institutions are struggling in advanced industrial states as well as in failed states.</p>
<p>Parliaments, governments and political parties, buffeted by volatile transnational markets and rapid technological change, lack the competence, resources and legitimacy to manage complex cross-border flows. To hide their irrelevance, they resort to short-term fixes, political spin and security hysteria.</p>
<p>Multilateral institutions have limited room for manoeuvre, UN reform barely rates a mention and civil society organisations are often lacking in direction or organisational capacity.</p>
<h2>All is not lost</h2>
<p>Yet not all is bleak. High-intensity conflicts between states have become less frequent since 1989. A contributing factor is the UN’s steadily expanding peacekeeping effort – 17 current <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/">peace operations</a> involve over 117,000 military and civilian personnel and contributions from 122 countries.</p>
<p>In other policy arenas, including health, environment, development and human rights, the United Nations and its various agencies, despite limited resources, are performing equally useful functions. The G20 now offers a more meaningful framework than the G7/8 for reviewing the complex challenges facing the world economy. </p>
<p>Civil society remains active. The scientific community has provided an authoritative account of the dangers posed by climate change and of the actions needed to arrest it. A growing body of informed opinion is questioning the intrusiveness of the surveillance state.</p>
<p>We nevertheless still lack the appropriate institutions and forums that can mobilise human energies and resources and convert them into effective political agency.</p>
<p>A few steps readily suggest themselves. Small and middle powers that aspire to good international citizenship can do more to encourage collective action. The successful coalitions that led to the Cluster Munitions Convention (2010), the establishment of the International Criminal Court (2002) and the Land Mines Convention (1999) involved constructive collaboration between governments, multilateral institutions and civil society organisations.</p>
<p>This model can be applied to the resolution of other pressing problems.</p>
<p>Inter-civilisational dialogue involving intellectuals, business, professional, political, community and religious leaders can facilitate the transition from unilateralist impulses and interventions to acceptance of a truly multi-centric world. </p>
<p>Those in leadership positions in multilateral institutions can call great powers to account and help create new spaces where the energies of civil society can combine with the resources of philanthropy to address the challenges of the Great Transition.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="http://www.josephcamilleri.org">Joseph Camilleri</a> OAM will deliver a series of four lectures on “<a href="http://www.stmichaels.org.au/programs/wellbeing-programs/rethinking-the-future-lecture-series">Rethinking the Future</a>” at St Michael’s on Collins in October.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article draws from a four-part lecture series, Rethinking the Future, to be given by Joseph Camilleri at St Michael's on Collins next month. </span></em></p>We appear to have reached one of those extraordinary moments in history when people everywhere, communities and even entire nations, feel increasingly stressed and vulnerable. The same may be said of the…Joseph Camilleri, Emeritus Professor of International Relations, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.