Weekly Blog - 11 January 2025 - Preventing and De-escalating Wars
As tensions rise globally, what are some lessons from previous conflicts on preventing and de-escalating wars?
Preventing and de-escalating wars
As we move into 2025, much of the international situation looks grim. Russia seems set to redouble its efforts to secure victory in Ukraine, and western countries’ support, especially from the US, is fading. The tragic conflict in Gaza drags on, and the wider region remains hugely volatile. The incoming US administration is expressing interest in taking parts of Panama, Greenland and Canada, and not ruling out the use of force, a highly de-stabilising and concerning move, even if it is largely rhetorical. Around the world, after many decades of growing peace, the last few years have seen a dramatic growth in the number of wars. There are currently more than 50 active conflicts, the highest number since the end of the Second World War.
Nations that believe in peace, democracy, human rights and the international rules-based order, will have to do all they can in 2025 to intensify their diplomatic efforts to work for peace, and to prevent new wars erupting. Such wars and international tensions are nothing new. Indeed, they have often been much greater in the past. One of the things Arise’s major report, the Arise Manifesto, looks at in detail is what lessons we can learn from the world’s leading academics who have researched previous international tensions and conflicts about what works best to prevent and defuse them (Arise Manifesto, pg 124 – 129). This week Arise’s weekly blog looks at these lessons, which may well be key for governments and diplomats in 2025.
First, the governments of the world should pursue regular and cordial diplomatic communication, relations, dialogue and meetings (including at the highest levels), especially between powerful nations. No matter how difficult situations may become, it is critical that nations keep talking. This is widely recognised by academics, diplomats, politicians and foreign policy experts, not least the senior British diplomat Robert Cooper, who in his book The Breaking of Nations, stresses, “Personal relations and power relations are inevitably intertwined and it is better that those who hold power should know and understand one another. But they do really have to know each other. That includes some understanding of their different cultural and political backgrounds – which cannot be achieved in a couple of crisis encounters – and it also means understanding their power relationships and their political (and sometimes private) motives. Personal contact is necessary – indeed personal trust is, in the end, essential”, and that “one should break off relations and close down embassies only when there is no other alternative (often it is precisely when a government needs them most that the pressures to withdraw ambassadors are the greatest).” [1]
Nations should work to continually build a broad consensus around shared values, especially between powerful nations, on what good governance, peaceful co-existence, democracy and human rights looks like. The lessons from history indicate that the world has greater stability when the most powerful nations hold a broadly similar common set of values. And crucially they must also stick to these values in all their dealings, if they are to be seen by others as legitimate. Jack Donnelly, in his work Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, spells this out, “Human rights has become a hegemonic political idea in contemporary international society, a widely accepted standard of international political legitimacy. Development and democracy also have a comparable status in the contemporary world. Regimes that do not at least claim to pursue rapid and sustained economic growth (‘development’), popular political participation (‘democracy’), and respect for the rights of their citizens (‘human rights’) place their national and international legitimacy at risk.” [2] At a time when so much of this seems at risk, it is more important than ever that nations hold to and champion these values.
Nations can further foster stability by proactively supporting and constructively engaging with the international institutions such as the United Nations (UN) and regional institutions like the European Union (EU). Such institutions are critical international stabilisation mechanisms. Thus the academics and conflict resolution experts, Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham and Tom Woodhouse write in Contemporary Conflict Resolution, that whilst it is easy to be cynical about the international institutions, “Nearly all those who work in the conflict resolution field take a very different view. While well aware of its shortcomings and its hybrid nature, they nevertheless see the UN both as a manifestation of clear progress having been made over the last seventy years from a conflict resolution perspective and as central to aspirations for further progress in the future.” [3] Where change is needed, these institutions should be continually reformed and updated to make them as effective, as fair and as representative as possible, to reflect the balance of power in a changing world, and so they continue to act as a force for stability.
Nations should abide by, promote and further strengthen international humanitarian law on warfare (as articulated in the Geneva Conventions) and other international standards in the conduct of conflict such as the Charter of the United Nations and the Genocide Convention. This is not because they are naïve enough to believe the mere existence of such standards prevents atrocities in war, but (as with democracy, human rights and good governance) such agreements have a powerful norm setting effect. They establish and advance what is considered normal and appropriate, and provide internationally agreed standards against which nations can be held to account.
Another crucial area for fostering stable and peaceful international relations is for all nations to prevent the further development, and contain the spread, of nuclear, biological, chemical or other weapons of mass destruction. All nations should sign and ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions, and work towards safely reducing existing stockpiles through negotiated agreements with independent verification. In a world where such horrors cannot be uninvented, unilateral disarmament by one side may not be the safest course. However, working together to safely reduce existing stockpiles through negotiated agreements with independent verification has proved to be effective. As the academics Adam Roberts and Philip Towle point out, “advocacy of more modest measures of arms limitation gained much ground, especially from about 1960 onwards” with the passing and successful implementation of the “main international arms limitation agreements”, and in the final years of the Cold War and the decades that immediately followed “the USA and Russia worked together to demobilize many of their nuclear weapons and to prevent them from spreading to other countries.” [4]
When it comes to conventional armed forces, nations should maintain a well-funded, large and professional military for national defence and to help in armed intervention to prevent gross injustice. The existence of such forces and the clear determination to use them if necessary acts as a deterrent to potential aggressors and helps preserve the peace. Nations should consider forming and joining mutual defence partnerships like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but only where this will create greater stability, make wars less likely, and reduce tensions. Not when it is likely to escalate them. In general, nations should avoid acting in an arrogant, high-handed or triumphalist fashion, and should avoid putting other countries in a position where they feel humiliated. Such actions are likely to inflame resentment and tensions. Countries should watch out for significant tensions that are emerging between nations (especially powerful ones) and work proactively through peaceful and diplomatic means to de-escalate them before they become full-blown conflicts, as a matter of high priority. This often means finding the ‘off ramp’, a way that allows both sides to claim a win and de-escalate tensions, without either side losing face or appearing to have backed down.
Conclusion
There are no easy answers to de-escalating existing conflicts, and preventing new conflicts from emerging. Each context is unique and requires skillful handling. However, there are nevertheless some common patterns and lessons. And these lessons may well be key for diplomats and peace-loving nations in 2025. Arise will continue to do all we can to advocate for peace, democracy, justice and human rights in 2025. Let’s all redouble all our prayers and efforts for peace in 2025. They are needed more than ever.
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[1] Cooper, R., The Breaking of Nations, (London: Atlantic Books, 2003), pgs 96, 101
[2] Donnelly, J., Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), pg 217
[3] Miall, H., Ramsbotham, O. & Woodhouse, T., Contemporary Conflict Resolution, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016), pg 321
[4] Roberts, A., Against War and Towle, P., Cold War, in Townshend, C. (Ed.), The Oxford History of Modern War, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pg 329, 164