disadvantages of war in essay

Essay on Disadvantages of War

Students are often asked to write an essay on Disadvantages of War in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Disadvantages of War

Loss of human lives.

War often results in a high number of casualties. Soldiers and civilians alike lose their lives, causing immense grief to families and communities.

Damage to Infrastructure

War leads to destruction of infrastructure like homes, schools, and hospitals. This leaves people homeless and disrupts basic services.

Economic Impact

War can devastate a country’s economy. It often leads to increased spending on military, causing a rise in debt and economic instability.

Psychological Effects

People exposed to war suffer from mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder. The psychological impact of war can last for generations.

250 Words Essay on Disadvantages of War

Introduction.

War, as an instrument of national policy, has been universally denounced due to its devastating impact on humanity. Despite the occasional arguments in favor of war as a means of resolving disputes, the disadvantages overwhelmingly outweigh the benefits.

The most immediate and visible disadvantage of war is the human cost. Lives are lost, families are torn apart, and communities are destroyed. The psychological trauma inflicted on soldiers and civilians alike can last for generations, leading to a cycle of violence and despair.

War also has a profound economic impact. The cost of weaponry, logistics, and reconstruction after the devastation can cripple a nation’s economy for decades. It diverts resources from more productive uses, such as education and healthcare, exacerbating poverty and inequality.

Political Consequences

Politically, war can destabilize governments, leading to power vacuums and enabling the rise of extremist groups. It can also strain international relations, leading to a breakdown of global cooperation and peacekeeping efforts.

Environmental Damage

Lastly, the environmental damage caused by war is often overlooked. Bombings and other military activities can cause long-term damage to ecosystems, contributing to climate change and loss of biodiversity.

In conclusion, war presents numerous disadvantages that far outweigh any potential benefits. It inflicts immeasurable human suffering, disrupts economies, destabilizes politics, and harms the environment. As such, diplomatic and peaceful means of resolving disputes should always be prioritized over warfare.

500 Words Essay on Disadvantages of War

War, a state of armed conflict between different nations or states, has been a constant part of human history. Despite its common occurrence, it is a practice that yields numerous disadvantages. This essay delves into the multifaceted disadvantages of war, including the human cost, economic implications, environmental impact, and societal disruptions.

The Human Cost of War

One of the most immediate and devastating disadvantages of war is the human cost. War leads to the loss of human lives on a large scale, causing immeasurable grief and pain to the families of those who perish. Beyond the battlefield, civilians often bear the brunt of the conflict, with widespread displacement, injury, and death resulting from bombings, starvation, and disease. The psychological trauma inflicted on survivors can also lead to long-term mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Economic Implications

War also has severe economic implications. The cost of warfare is astronomical, with funds being diverted from essential sectors like education, health, and infrastructure to fuel the war machine. This diversion of resources not only stunts national development but also leads to economic instability. Post-war economies often face inflation, unemployment, and debt, which can take generations to overcome.

Environmental Impact

The environmental impact of war is another significant disadvantage. Modern warfare methods cause extensive damage to the environment, from deforestation and soil erosion to chemical pollution and biodiversity loss. These environmental damages have long-term effects on the ecosystem, affecting the livelihoods of communities and contributing to global environmental issues like climate change.

Societal Disruptions

Lastly, war disrupts societal structures and norms. It leads to the breakdown of law and order, promoting violence, crime, and human rights abuses. War can also lead to the displacement of large populations, causing refugee crises that strain international relations and resources. Additionally, war can deepen social divisions and breed hatred and mistrust among different ethnic, religious, or political groups, making post-war reconciliation and peacebuilding a daunting task.

In conclusion, war carries with it numerous disadvantages that far outweigh any perceived benefits. The human cost, economic implications, environmental impact, and societal disruptions caused by war make it a destructive and undesirable practice. It is crucial for nations and states to invest in peaceful conflict resolution methods and diplomacy to prevent the unnecessary suffering and devastation that war brings.

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Disadvantage of Wars

War is a conflict between two or more groups that attack each other. Although the meaning of wars has changed, their importance has not. Wars have many disadvantages, such as economic depression, environmental problems, and conflict in social structure. The cost of wars is high because guns and war machines are expensive and many of them are broken during the war, causing damage to cities and buildings. Lack of economic improvement also dramatically decreases production and investment, affecting domestic and foreign trade. War machines harm trees, animals, and people, resulting in epidemic disasters. War weakens democracy, limits freedom, and damages human rights. Social services, such as education, also suffer, resulting in a lack of basic needs. In conclusion, wars make the economy weaker, the environment dirtier, and social structure poorer. Without understanding the meaning of peace, wars will continue in the future.

War is an armed conflict between two or more groups which attack each other. Although the meaning of wars has changed, the importance of wars hasn’t changed. The wars have many disadvantages for people, such as, economic depression, environmental problems and conflict in social structure.

One of the main disadvantages of wars is economic depression. Cost of wars is very high because guns and war machines are very expensive. During the war a lot of guns and war machines are used and many of them are broken. Also, the city, which is in war, gets big damage. For instance, many buildings are destroyed by bombs. Not only cost of war is important but also lack of economic improvement is very important. Production and investment dramatically decrease. Thus, the trade of country, such as foreign trade and domestic trade, get nearly stopped. A second disadvantage of wars is environmental problems. Many war machines are

used in war. War machines also harm trees, animals and others. A lot of animals and people are died, so scattered bodies will be in everywhere such as near drinking water sources. After people drunk this water, they most probably are infected by epidemic disasters such as Phthisis and Yellowness. The final disadvantage of wars is conflict in social structure. While war is lasting, the democracy gets weak. People have limited freedom. Military juntas are very harmful for democracy. Also military junta damages human rights. Moreover, some social services become slower. For example, education gets very important damage at school and family. Wars result in lack of basic needs. In conclusion, wars make economy weaker, environment dirtier and social structure poorer. A war has many disadvantages, but in the history many wars were made by a lot of countries. In contrast, many wars are lasting at present. In my opinion, if we don’t understand meaning of peace, these wars will last in the future.

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Pros and Cons of War

Post author: Amos Gikunda
Post published: July 19, 2021
Post category: Weapon
Post comments: 0 Comments

Is it possible for any sense to return from War or loss of lives? There are continuous casualties of War, together with some innocent lives that get caught amid assault. War is massive scale combat involving tons of thousands of troopers fighting for his or her country, freedoms, spiritual liberty. Of course, meaning War features a larger impact and should be rigorously thought-about and even before tried. It is troublesome to induce a stance on War. This paper can discuss the professionals and cons of War.

Pros of War

1. Stimulates economic growth: War creates job opportunities, particularly in weapons-producing industries. In War, additional weapons are bought, resulting in several changes. The folks’ commercialism weapons profit, and therefore the economy is boosted.

2. Technological advancement; The competition in wars ends up in innovation as Countries aim to raised their technology to defeat their enemies. The technology is additionally helpful once the War.

3. Social benefits; In some cases, War has a light-emitting diode to burdened folks’ liberation and, therefore, remove dangerous governments that oppress folks.

4. Land gain: War might cause countries to amass offshore territories of alternative nations. Betting on the war outcome, the land gained remains beneath the captors’ management, increasing the country’s territory.

5. Gain political prestige: Sometimes, Nations involve themselves in War as an illustration of their power and how to prove their superiority over their enemies. Winning a war additionally earns countries respect within the international community

6. Population control: In times of War, folks are united with the common goal of defeating the enemy, and that they focus their attention on the sector.

7. Independence: War will offer freedom to a different country through gaining independence from their country of origin.

8. Countries will defend themselves: In War, Nations will defend themselves against the aggressor or potential aggressors. This can be necessary to countries in defensive their territories and protective their voters. Countries additionally defend themselves against foreign invasion.

9. Peace is achieved;

war and, therefore, the threat of violence are the essential building blocks for peace and stability. Out of destruction comes a brand new starting.

10. History is written: You get to play your half in history. History is written once conflict happens, and those who participate in wars play a job in shaping the course of history.

Cons of War

1. Casualties: The flipside of War is that the range of lives lost. The character of War is that it’s not discriminatory within the lives lost. Innocent folks are fixed within the scenario and lose their lives within the method

2. Emotion and propaganda: War breeds emotion among folks and discrimination among sure teams that’s not sensible. Info is additionally used as a tool to rile folks up against their enemy or a particular cluster of individuals.

3. Environmental damage: The application of weapons, the destruction of structures and oil fields, fires, military transport movements, and chemical spraying are all samples of the destroying impact war might wear the setting. Severe pollution incidents are caused once industrial, oil or energy facilities are deliberately attacked, unknowingly broken, or continuous. In some cases, deliberate attacks on oil or industrial facilities are used to weaponize massive dirty areas and unfold terror. Most weapons utilized in warlike guns cause air and sound pollution. Fashionable warfare weapons cause intensive environmental harm to the air and soil.

4. Debt increase: Wars are costly, and Countries borrow cash to finance the wars. This features a terrible toll on the economy as cash that would be used for development is redirected to wars. This additionally means that countries might fall under Debt.

5. Loss of territory: Losing a war might mean losing territory happiness to a nation.

6. Liberty takes a back seat to patriotism: When in War, Countries expect their folks to support the War, and anyone United Nations agency that doesn’t support the war is viewed as a traitor and might be treated gratingly.

7. The toll on the economy : In most wars, Debt, inflation, and tax rates increase consumption and investment decrease, and military payment displaces additional productive government investment in high-tech industries, education, or infrastructure—all of that severely affect the semi-permanent economic process rates. Several resources are lost in War, from infrastructural harm to loss of lives that we’re productive to the country. The aftermath of war demands countries rebuilds themselves, which might take a minute.

8. Separation of families: When Men head to War, families are separated. The troopers United Nations agency head to War leave their families heartsick and in despair. Prolonged separation might cause intense concern, panic, grief (a combination of disappointment and loss), depression, helplessness, and despair. This usually makes the members of the family lose their sense of self.

9. Trauma: Military personnel, United Nations agency, see combat in War usually suffer lasting health issues, together with physical injuries and mental problems like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. War destroys communities and families and sometimes disrupts the event of the social and economic cloth of states. the consequences of war embrace semi-permanent physical and psychological damage to kids and adults, moreover as a discount in material and human capital.

10. Client and capitalist uncertainty: With the upper inflation and enhanced government borrowing related to time, investors seeking safety might want to deliberate before finance within the country. This additionally decreases foreign direct investment. War step-up makes folks and corporations nervous enough that they sit down and stop payment. With a decline within the economy, folks buying power additionally scale back as affording basic wants is costly because of inflation.

War cannot be avoided as long as humans evolve and alter. There are several disadvantages and benefits of War. The war cycle ne’er ends and continuously ends up in a similar issue. One party winning the opposite losing. However, each side feels the devastating consequences brought by War. Death, Debt, and poorness are a number of the foremost major consequences that follow the War. The rewards could also be nice; however, the loss is just too nice. War ought to be avoided in any method potential.

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Essay on War - A nation or organisation may turn to war to reach its goals, but what is the actual cost of progress? Countless lives have been lost to war and continue to be lost. It costs a lot of money and resources as well. Wars have always been brutal, deadly, and tragic, from the American Revolution to World Wars I and II to the Crusades and the ancient Hundred Years' War. Here are a few sample essays on "war" .

100 Words Essay on War

The greatest destroyers of people in modern times are wars. No matter who wins a war, mankind loses in every case. Millions of people have died in battles during the past century, with World Wars I and II being the worst. Wars are typically fought to protect a nation. Whatever the motive, it is hazardous conduct that results in the loss of millions of priceless innocent lives and has dangerous impacts that even future generations will have to deal with.

The results of using nuclear bombs are catastrophic. The weapons business benefits when there is a war elsewhere in the world because it maintains its supply chain. Weapons that cause massive destruction are being made bigger and better. The only way to end wars is to raise awareness among the general public.

200 Words Essay on War

Without a doubt, war is terrible, and the most devastating thing that can happen to humans. It causes death and devastation, illness and poverty, humiliation and destruction. To evaluate the devastation caused by war, one needs to consider the havoc that was wrecked on several nations not too many years ago. A particularly frightening ability of modern wars is that they tend to become global so that they may absorb the entire world. The fact that some people view war as a great and heroic adventure that brings out the best in people does not change the fact that it is a horrible tragedy.

This is more true now that atomic weapons will be used to fight a war. War, according to some, is required. Looking at the past reveals that war has drastically changed throughout the nation's history. The destructive impacts of war have never been more prevalent in human history. We have experienced lengthy and brief wars of various kinds. There have been supporters of nonviolence and the brotherhood of man. Buddha, Christ, and Mahatma Gandhi have all lived. Despite this, war has always been fought, weapons are always used, military power has always been deployed, and there have always been armies in war.

500 Words Essay on War

If we take a closer look at human history, it will become evident that conflicts have existed ever since the primitive eras. Although efforts have been made to end it, this has not been successful so far. Thus, it appears that we are unable to achieve eternal peace. Many defend wars by claiming that nature's rules require them. Charles Darwin is placed in front of them to illustrate their point. He was the one who created the rule of the fittest. He claimed that everything in nature, whether alive or dead, is constantly engaged in a battle for survival. Only the strongest will survive in this fight. Therefore, it is believed that without battle, humankind won't be able to progress.

Impacts of War

People fail to see that war invariably results in severe damage. They ignored the nonviolent principles taught by Mahatma Gandhi, who used them to liberate his country from the shackles of slavery. They fail to consider that if Gandhi could push out the powerful Britishers without resorting to violence, why shouldn't others do the same? Wars are unavoidable calamities, and there are no words to adequately depict the vast quantity and scope of their tragedies. The atrocities of the two world wars must never be forgotten. There was tremendous murder and property devastation during the battles. There were thousands of widows and orphans. War spreads falsehoods and creates hatred. People start acting brutally selfishly. Humanity and morals suffer as a result.

War is an Enemy

War is the enemy of all humanity and human civilisation. Nothing positive can come of it. Consequently, it should never be celebrated in any way. In addition to impeding national progress, it undermines social cohesion. It slows down the rate of human progress. Wars are not the answer to the world's issues. Instead, they cause issues and generate hatred among nations. War can settle one issue but creates far too many other ones. The two most horrific examples of the war's after-effects are Hiroshima and Nagasaki. People are still enduring the effects of war 77 years later. Whatever the reason for war, it always ends in the widespread loss of human life and property.

Disadvantages of War

Massive human deaths and injuries, the depletion of financial resources, environmental degradation, lost productivity, and long-term harm to military personnel are all drawbacks of war. Families are split apart by war. Both towns and cities are destroyed by it. People become more sensitive, and every industry faces collapse. People’s health declines physically and they lose their sense of security. They won't have any security, and those who win the battle will treat the citizens of the defeated nation as their slaves and prohibit them from the right to work. After the war, there will be a lack of jobs and corruption issues for the nation to deal with.

Russia – Ukraine War

The world saw great turmoil beginning in February 2022 with the Russian-Ukraine War. Russia's invasion of Ukraine was the most serious conventional attack on a nation, bringing a severe economic crisis to the world. India has taken a neutral stance for Russia, keeping in mind the two countries' long-standing alliance, especially in its foreign policies and positive international relationships. Russia was concerned about Ukraine's security due to its intention to join NATO and invaded Ukraine in 2014. Additionally, Russia provided help to the rebels in the eastern Ukrainian districts of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The war between Russia and Ukraine has had a substantial impact on oil prices and other commodity prices, as well as increased trade uncertainty. India has economic troubles due to Western countries' supply disruptions and limited trade with Russia.

War has historically been the worst mark on humanity. Although it was made by man, it is now beyond the power of any human force. To preserve humanity, the entire human species must now reflect on this. Otherwise, neither humanity nor war will survive.

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Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Database Architect

If you are intrigued by the programming world and are interested in developing communications networks then a career as database architect may be a good option for you. Data architect roles and responsibilities include building design models for data communication networks. Wide Area Networks (WANs), local area networks (LANs), and intranets are included in the database networks. It is expected that database architects will have in-depth knowledge of a company's business to develop a network to fulfil the requirements of the organisation. Stay tuned as we look at the larger picture and give you more information on what is db architecture, why you should pursue database architecture, what to expect from such a degree and what your job opportunities will be after graduation. Here, we will be discussing how to become a data architect. Students can visit NIT Trichy , IIT Kharagpur , JMI New Delhi .

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive.

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Product manager.

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.

Operations Manager

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Stock Analyst

Individuals who opt for a career as a stock analyst examine the company's investments makes decisions and keep track of financial securities. The nature of such investments will differ from one business to the next. Individuals in the stock analyst career use data mining to forecast a company's profits and revenues, advise clients on whether to buy or sell, participate in seminars, and discussing financial matters with executives and evaluate annual reports.

A Researcher is a professional who is responsible for collecting data and information by reviewing the literature and conducting experiments and surveys. He or she uses various methodological processes to provide accurate data and information that is utilised by academicians and other industry professionals. Here, we will discuss what is a researcher, the researcher's salary, types of researchers.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues.

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems.

Safety Manager

A Safety Manager is a professional responsible for employee’s safety at work. He or she plans, implements and oversees the company’s employee safety. A Safety Manager ensures compliance and adherence to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) guidelines.

Conservation Architect

A Conservation Architect is a professional responsible for conserving and restoring buildings or monuments having a historic value. He or she applies techniques to document and stabilise the object’s state without any further damage. A Conservation Architect restores the monuments and heritage buildings to bring them back to their original state.

Structural Engineer

A Structural Engineer designs buildings, bridges, and other related structures. He or she analyzes the structures and makes sure the structures are strong enough to be used by the people. A career as a Structural Engineer requires working in the construction process. It comes under the civil engineering discipline. A Structure Engineer creates structural models with the help of computer-aided design software.

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description: A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Field Surveyor

Are you searching for a Field Surveyor Job Description? A Field Surveyor is a professional responsible for conducting field surveys for various places or geographical conditions. He or she collects the required data and information as per the instructions given by senior officials.

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Pathologist

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Veterinary Doctor

Speech therapist, gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth.

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Are you searching for an ‘Anatomist job description’? An Anatomist is a research professional who applies the laws of biological science to determine the ability of bodies of various living organisms including animals and humans to regenerate the damaged or destroyed organs. If you want to know what does an anatomist do, then read the entire article, where we will answer all your questions.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs.

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Photographer

Photography is considered both a science and an art, an artistic means of expression in which the camera replaces the pen. In a career as a photographer, an individual is hired to capture the moments of public and private events, such as press conferences or weddings, or may also work inside a studio, where people go to get their picture clicked. Photography is divided into many streams each generating numerous career opportunities in photography. With the boom in advertising, media, and the fashion industry, photography has emerged as a lucrative and thrilling career option for many Indian youths.

An individual who is pursuing a career as a producer is responsible for managing the business aspects of production. They are involved in each aspect of production from its inception to deception. Famous movie producers review the script, recommend changes and visualise the story.

They are responsible for overseeing the finance involved in the project and distributing the film for broadcasting on various platforms. A career as a producer is quite fulfilling as well as exhaustive in terms of playing different roles in order for a production to be successful. Famous movie producers are responsible for hiring creative and technical personnel on contract basis.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook.

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion.

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article.

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Individuals who opt for a career as a reporter may often be at work on national holidays and festivities. He or she pitches various story ideas and covers news stories in risky situations. Students can pursue a BMC (Bachelor of Mass Communication) , B.M.M. (Bachelor of Mass Media) , or MAJMC (MA in Journalism and Mass Communication) to become a reporter. While we sit at home reporters travel to locations to collect information that carries a news value.

Corporate Executive

Are you searching for a Corporate Executive job description? A Corporate Executive role comes with administrative duties. He or she provides support to the leadership of the organisation. A Corporate Executive fulfils the business purpose and ensures its financial stability. In this article, we are going to discuss how to become corporate executive.

Multimedia Specialist

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications.

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product.

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans.

Process Development Engineer

The Process Development Engineers design, implement, manufacture, mine, and other production systems using technical knowledge and expertise in the industry. They use computer modeling software to test technologies and machinery. An individual who is opting career as Process Development Engineer is responsible for developing cost-effective and efficient processes. They also monitor the production process and ensure it functions smoothly and efficiently.

AWS Solution Architect

An AWS Solution Architect is someone who specializes in developing and implementing cloud computing systems. He or she has a good understanding of the various aspects of cloud computing and can confidently deploy and manage their systems. He or she troubleshoots the issues and evaluates the risk from the third party.

Azure Administrator

An Azure Administrator is a professional responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Azure Solutions. He or she manages cloud infrastructure service instances and various cloud servers as well as sets up public and private cloud systems.

Computer Programmer

Careers in computer programming primarily refer to the systematic act of writing code and moreover include wider computer science areas. The word 'programmer' or 'coder' has entered into practice with the growing number of newly self-taught tech enthusiasts. Computer programming careers involve the use of designs created by software developers and engineers and transforming them into commands that can be implemented by computers. These commands result in regular usage of social media sites, word-processing applications and browsers.

Information Security Manager

Individuals in the information security manager career path involves in overseeing and controlling all aspects of computer security. The IT security manager job description includes planning and carrying out security measures to protect the business data and information from corruption, theft, unauthorised access, and deliberate attack

ITSM Manager

Automation test engineer.

An Automation Test Engineer job involves executing automated test scripts. He or she identifies the project’s problems and troubleshoots them. The role involves documenting the defect using management tools. He or she works with the application team in order to resolve any issues arising during the testing process.

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

War is generally defined as violent conflict between states or nations.

Social Studies, Civics

Tank in Iraq Invasion

A United States Army 3rd Infantry Division M1/A1 Abrahms tank during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. While the use of force was authorized by Congress, like many U.S. military conflicts, war was not declared.

Photograph by Scott Nelson/Getty Images

War is generally defined as violent conflict between states or nations. Nations go to war for a variety of reasons. It has been argued that a nation will go to war if the benefits of war are deemed to outweigh the disadvantages, and if there is a sense that there is not another mutually agreeable solution. More specifically, some have argued that wars are fought primarily for economic, religious, and political reasons. Others have claimed that most wars today are fought for ideological reasons. In the United States, the legal power to declare war is vested in Congress; however, the president is the commander-in-chief of the military, so he or she holds power to conduct a war once it has been declared. In many instances, the president has used military force without declaring war . Just War Theory In Western tradition, there is a sense that the reasons for war must be just. This idea dates back to ancient times, but is most clearly traced to the writings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. They attempted to justify war, and reconcile it with the Christian belief that taking a human life is wrong. To Aquinas, a war must be just in both the reasons for going to war and how war is fought. Reasons for going to war— jus ad bellum —are just if (1) war is declared by an appropriate authority; (2) the war is waged for a just cause; and (3) the war is waged for just intentions. An appropriate authority is a proper, governing authority. A “just cause” may include self-defense or a response to injustice. “Just intentions” mean that it must not be fought for self-interest, but for justice or a common good. In addition, (4) there must be a reasonable chance of success; (5) the good that will be achieved must outweigh the bad; and (6) war must be a last resort. Once just reasons for going to war are satisfied, conduct in the war— jus in bello —must be just as well. Just conduct in a war means that it must be specific and proportional. That is, noncombatants and civilians must not be deliberately targeted. Further, only such force as is necessary must be used, and harms must be proportionate to the goal sought. Law of War Some of the just war theories have been adopted as parts of international agreements and incorporated into the law of war (i.e., international law) that regulates the resort to armed force, the conduct of hostilities, and the protection of war victims. The Geneva Conventions , for example, are a series of international treaties that are designed to protect noncombatants, civilians , and prisoners of war . The treaties were negotiated in Geneva, Switzerland, between 1864 and 1977. The First and Second Geneva Conventions apply to sick and wounded soldiers and sailors. They contain provisions related to protecting the wounded and sick, as well as medical personnel and transports. The Third Geneva Convention applies to prisoners of war , and the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to people in occupied territories. The Third Convention requires humane treatment of prisoners, including adequate food and water. The Fourth Convention includes provisions that forbid torture and the taking of hostages, as well as provisions related to medical care and hospitals.

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World Psychiatry
v.5(1); 2006 Feb

Mental health consequences of war: a brief review of research findings

R. srinivasa murthy.

1 Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, World Health Organization, Post Box 7608, Abdul Razak Al Sanhouri Street, Naser City, Cairo 11371, Egypt

RASHMI LAKSHMINARAYANA

2 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, UK

Among the consequences of war, the impact on the mental health of the civilian population is one of the most significant. Studies of the general population show a definite increase in the incidence and prevalence of mental disorders. Women are more affected than men. Other vulnerable groups are children, the elderly and the disabled. Prevalence rates are associated with the degree of trauma, and the availability of physical and emotional support. The use of cultural and religious coping strategies is frequent in developing countries.

The year 2005 is significant in understanding the relationship between war and mental health. This is the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war and of the start of the war in Lebanon. Every day the media bring the horrors of the ongoing "war" situation in Iraq. Some recent quotations from the media depict the impact of war on mental health: "We are living in a state of constant fear" (in Iraq); "War takes a toll on Iraqi mental health"; "War trauma leaves physical mark"; "War is hell... it has an impact on the people who take part that never heals"; "War is terrible and beyond the understanding and experience of most people"; "A generation has grown up knowing only war".

Wars have had an important part in psychiatric history in a number of ways. It was the psychological impact of the world wars in the form of shell shock that supported the effectiveness of psychological interventions during the first half of the 20th century. It was the recognition of a proportion of the population not suitable for army recruitment during the Second World War that spurred the setting up of the National Institute of Mental Health in USA. The differences in the presentation of the psychological symptoms among the officers and the soldiers opened up new ways of understanding the psychiatric reactions to stress.

During the last year, a large number of books and documents have addressed the effects of war on mental health. They include the WPA book "Disasters and mental health" ( 1 ); the World Bank report "Mental health and conflicts - Conceptual framework and approaches" ( 2 ); the United Nations (UN) book "Trauma interventions in war and peace: prevention, practice and policy" ( 3 ); the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) document "The state of the world's children - Childhood under threat" ( 4 ); the book "Trauma and the role of mental health in postconflict recovery" ( 5 ) and a chapter on "War and mental health in Africa" in the WPA book "Essentials of clinical psychiatry for sub-Saharan Africa" ( 6 ).

Though there have not been any world wars since the Second World War, there have been wars and conflicts throughout the last 60 years. For example, in the 22 countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region of the World Health Organization (WHO), over 80% of the population either is in a conflict situation or has experienced such a situation in the last quarter of century ( 7 ).

War has a catastrophic effect on the health and well being of nations. Studies have shown that conflict situations cause more mortality and disability than any major disease. War destroys communities and families and often disrupts the development of the social and economic fabric of nations. The effects of war include long-term physical and psychological harm to children and adults, as well as reduction in material and human capital. Death as a result of wars is simply the "tip of the iceberg". Other consequences, besides death, are not well documented. They include endemic poverty, malnutrition, disability, economic/ social decline and psychosocial illness, to mention only a few. Only through a greater understanding of conflicts and the myriad of mental health problems that arise from them, coherent and effective strategies for dealing with such problems can be developed.

The importance that the WHO attributes to dealing with the psychological traumas of war was highlighted by the resolution of the World Health Assembly in May 2005, which urged member states "to strengthen action to protect children from and in armed conflict" and the resolution of the WHO Executive Board in January 2005, which urged "support for implementation of programmes to repair the psychological damage of war, conflict and natural disasters" ( 8 ).

The WHO estimated that, in the situations of armed conflicts throughout the world, "10% of the people who experience traumatic events will have serious mental health problems and another 10% will develop behavior that will hinder their ability to function effectively. The most common conditions are depression, anxiety and psychosomatic problems such as insomnia, or back and stomach aches" ( 9 ).

This paper briefly reviews the evidence from published literature about the impact of war on the mental health of the general population, the refugees, the soldiers and specific vulnerable groups. For the purpose of this paper, the term "war" is used to include both wars waged between countries (e.g., the Iraq-Kuwait war) and conflicts within countries (e.g., Sri Lanka). The review presents data concerning some major wars/conflicts (the countries involved are considered in alphabetic order) and then briefly outlines the risk factors emerging from the literature.

IMPACT OF WAR ON MENTAL HEALTH

Afghanistan.

More than two decades of conflict have led to widespread human suffering and population displacement in Afghanistan. Two studies from this country are significant in terms of both their scope and their findings.

The first study ( 10 ) used a national multistage, cluster, population based survey including 799 adult household members aged 15 years and above. Sixty-two percent of respondents reported experiencing at least four trauma events during the previous ten years. Symptoms of depression were found in 67.7% of respondents, symptoms of anxiety in 72.2%, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 42%. The disabled and women had a poorer mental health status, and there was a significant relationship between the mental health status and traumatic events. Coping strategies included religious and spiritual practices.

The second study ( 11 ), using a crosssectional multicluster sample, was conducted in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, to estimate the prevalence of psychiatric symptoms, identify resources used for emotional support and risk factors, and assess the present coverage of basic needs. About 1011 respondents aged 15 years and above formed the sample. Nearly half of the population had experienced traumatic events. Symptoms of depression were observed in 38.5% of respondents, symptoms of anxiety in 51.8% and PTSD in 20.4%. High rates of symptoms were associated with higher numbers of traumatic events experienced. Women had higher rates than men. The main sources of emotional support were religion and family.

The Balkans

The conflict in the Balkans is probably one of the most widely studied ( 12 - 14 ) in recent years. Mental health of survivors of both sides was examined ( 15 ).

An initial study ( 16 ) among Bosnian refugees demonstrated an association between psychiatric disorders (depression and PTSD) and disability. A threeyear follow-up study on the same group concluded that former Bosnian refugees who remained living in the region continued to exhibit psychiatric disorders and disability after initial assessment ( 17 ).

A cross-sectional cluster sample survey among Kosovar Albanians aged 15 years or older found that 17.1% (95% CI 13.2%-21.0%) reported symptoms of PTSD ( 18 ). There was a significant linear decrease in mental health status and social functioning with increasing amount of traumatic events in those aged 65 years or older, and with previous psychiatric illnesses or chronic health conditions. Internally displaced people were at increased risk of psychiatric morbidity. Men (89%) and women (90%) expressed strong feelings of hatred towards the Serbs, with 44% of men and 33% of women stating that they would act on these feelings.

In a study of the mental health and nutritional status among the Serbian ethnic minority in Kosovo, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)-28 scores in the subcategories of social dysfunction and severe depression were high, with women and those living alone or in small family units being more prone to psychiatric morbidity ( 19 ). In a community sample of 2,796 children aged between 9 and 14 years, high levels of post-traumatic symptoms and grief symptoms were reported ( 20 ). This was related to the amount and type of exposure. Girls reported more distress than boys.

Cambodia has had a long history of violence, highlighted by the civil war in the 1960s, culminating with the "Khmer Rouge" rule that destroyed the social fabric of the society. Studies have found that refugees had high levels of psychiatric symptomatology after 10 years ( 21 ).

A household survey of 993 adults from Site 2, the largest Cambodian displaced- persons camp on the Thailand- Cambodia border, found that more than 80% felt depressed and had a number of somatic complaints despite good access to medical services ( 22 ). Approximately 55% and 15% had symptom scores that correlated with Western criteria for depression and PTSD, respectively. However, despite high reported levels of trauma and symptoms, social and work functioning were well preserved in the majority of respondents. Cumulative trauma continued to affect psychiatric symptom levels a decade after the original trauma events ( 23 ). This study also reported that there was support for the diagnostic validity of PTSD criteria, with the notable exception of avoidance. The inclusion of dissociative symptoms increased the cultural sensitivity of PTSD. Psychiatric history and current physical illness were found to be risk factors for PTSD ( 24 ).

Changes in the structure of the society have led to a breakdown of the existing protective networks such as the village chief and the elders in the village, especially for women ( 25 ). Traditional healers (monks, mediums, traditional birth attendants), who played an important role in maintaining the mental health of communities in the past, have lost their designated positions in the community following the conflict ( 26 ).

Twenty-seven Cambodian young people, who were severely traumatized at ages 8 to 12, were followed up 3 years after a baseline evaluation. A structured interview and self-rating scales showed that PTSD was still highly prevalent (48%) and that depression was present in 41% ( 27 ).

The human rights abuses in the Chechen population have been well documented ( 28 ). A report on a small number of Chechen asylum seekers in the UK adds to the evidence on the abuses and related psychological fallouts ( 29 ). Psychosocial issues were explored in a survey conducted in settlements housing displaced people (n=256) ( 30 , 31 ). Two thirds of respondents agreed with the statement that the conflict has triggered mental disturbance or feelings of being upset. Nearly all respondents indicated that they had family members having difficulty in coping with their disturbance or upset feelings. Coping strategies used were praying, talking, keeping busy, and seeking the support of family members.

Iraq has been at war at numerous times in history: a series of coups in the 1960s, the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), the anti-Kurdish Al-Anfal campaign within the country (1986-1989), the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait resulting in the Gulf war (1991), and the conflict starting in 2003. The UN-imposed economic sanctions following the Gulf war have had a profound impact on the health of Iraqis. The human rights abuses have also been recorded ( 32 ).

There are few studies on the impact of these conflicts on mental health. A study on 45 Kurdish families in two camps reported that PTSD was present in 87% of children and 60% of their caregivers ( 33 ). A study on 84 Iraqi male refugees found that poor social support was a stronger predictor of depressive morbidity than trauma factors ( 34 ). During the last three years of occupation by foreign forces, there have been many news reports about the mental health of the population, but no systematic study.

Israel has been in a situation of conflict for over four decades. A large number of systematic studies have been undertaken in different population groups. A recent study ( 35 ) found that 76.7% of subjects exposed to war-related trauma had at least one traumatic stress-related symptom, while 9.4% met the criteria for acute stress disorder. The most common coping mechanisms were active information search about loved ones and social support. Another study ( 36 ) reported that, twenty years after the war with Lebanon, an initial combat stress reaction, PTSD-related chronic diseases and physical symptoms were associated with a greater engagement in risk behaviours.

Lebanon has been ravaged by a civil war (1975-1990) and by an Israeli invasion in 1978 and 1982. The mental health impact of these conflicts has been studied extensively.

A random sample of 658 people aged between 18 and 65 years was randomly selected from four Lebanese communities exposed to war ( 37 ). The lifetime prevalence of DSM-III-R major depression varied across the communities from 16.3% to 41.9%. Exposure to war and a prior history of major depression were the main predictors for current depression.

The correlation between mother's distress and child's mental health was explored in a study in Beirut ( 38 ). The level of perceived negative impact of war-related events was found to be strongly associated with higher levels of depressive symptomatology among mothers. The level of depressive symptomatology in the mother was found to be the best predictor of her child's reported morbidity. In a study carried out in 224 Lebanese children (10-16 years), the number of traumatic experiences related to war was positively correlated to PTSD symptoms, with various types of war traumas being differentially related to the symptoms ( 39 ).

A cross-sectional study conducted among 118 Lebanese hostages of war ( 40 ) found that psychological distress was present in 42.1% of the sample compared to 27.8% among the control group. Significant predictors for distress were years of education and increase in religiosity after release.

During the last decade a large number of studies have reported high levels of psychosocial problems among children and adolescents, women, refugees and prisoners in Palestine.

A study conducted by the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme among children aged 10-19 years ( 41 ) revealed that 32.7% suffered from PTSD symptoms requiring psychological intervention, 49.2% from moderate PTSD symptoms, 15.6% from mild PTSD symptoms, and only 2.5% had no symptoms. Boys had higher rates (58%) than girls (42%), and children living in camps suffered more than children living in towns (84.1% and 15.8% respectively).

A study on Palestinian perceptions of their living conditions during the Second Intifada ( 42 ) found that 46% of parents reported aggressive behaviour among their children, 38% noted bad school results, 27% reported bed wetting, while 39% stated that their children suffered from nightmares. The study also revealed that more refugee (53%) than non-refugee (41%) children behaved aggressively. Thirty-eight percent of the respondents said that shooting was the main influence, 34% stated that it was violence on TV, 7% cited confinement at home and 11% reported that it was the arrest and beating of relatives and neighbours. Seventy percent of refugees and non-refugees stated that they had not received any psychological support for the problems of their children.

In a series of studies during the last 10 years from the Gaza Community Mental Health Centre ( 43 ), the most prevalent types of trauma exposure for children were witnessing funerals (95%), witness to shooting (83%), seeing injured or dead strangers (67%) and family member injured or killed (62%). Among children living in the area of bombardments, 54% suffered from severe, 33.5% from moderate and 11% from mild or doubtful levels of PTSD. Girls were more vulnerable.

The physical and mental health problems of the survivors of the genocide in Rwanda have been well documented ( 44 ). In a recent community based study examining 2091 subjects ( 45 ), 24.8% met symptom criteria for PTSD, with the adjusted odds ratio of meeting PTSD symptom criteria for each additional traumatic event being 1.43. Respondents who met PTSD criteria were less likely to have positive attitudes towards the Rwandan national trials, suggesting that the effects of trauma need to be considered if reconciliation has to be successful. There have been reports on the state of health among the large numbers of refugees (500,000-800,000 in five days) who fled to Goma, Zaire following the capture of the capital Kigali, but none of them has considered the mental health dimension.

The conflict between the majority Sinhala and minority Tamil population in Sri Lanka has been ongoing for nearly 30 years. One of the first studies that looked into the psychological effects of the conflict on the civilian population was an epidemiological survey ( 46 ), which reported that only 6% of the study population had not experienced any war stresses. Psychosocial sequelae were seen in 64% of the population, including somatization (41%), PTSD (27%), anxiety disorder (26%), major depression (25%), alcohol and drug misuse (15%), and functional disability (18%). The breakdown of the Tamil society led to women taking on more responsibilities, which in turn made them more vulnerable to stress ( 47 ). Children and adolescents had higher mental health morbidity ( 48 ).

A study carried out in ex-combatants in Somalia found high psychiatric morbidity and use of khat ( 49 ). A UNICEF study found evidence of psychological effects of the prolonged conflict situation in a high proportion of a sample of 10,000 children ( 50 ). There is near total disruption of the mental health services in the country.

Sudanese refugees fled into northern Uganda in two major waves in 1988 and 1994. Symptoms of PTSD and depression were found to be highly prevalent among Sudanese children living in the refugee camps ( 51 ). Refugees had higher rates of individual psychopathology than the general population, and it was observed that the cumulative stress grew as the years in exile progressed. The consequences of long-term exile were still present 5-15 years later, with an increase in the rates of suicide and alcohol use.

RISK FACTORS

From the large amount of studies reviewed, some broad risk factors and associations can be drawn.

Women have an increased vulnerability to the psychological consequences of war. There is evidence of a high correlation between mothers' and children's distress in a war situation. It is now known that maternal depression in the prenatal and postnatal period predicts poorer growth in a communitybased sample of infants. Social support and traditional birth attendants have a major role in promoting maternal psychosocial well being in war-affected regions. The association between gender- based violence and common mental disorders is well known. Despite their vulnerability, women's resilience under stress and its role in sustaining their families has been recognized.

There is consistent evidence of higher rates of trauma-related psychological problems in children. The most impressive reports are those from Palestine. Of the different age groups, the most vulnerable are the adolescents.

The direct correlation between the degree of trauma and the amount of the psychological problems is consistent across a number of studies. The greater the exposure to trauma - both physical and psychological - the more pronounced are the symptoms.

Subsequent life events and their association with the occurrence of psychiatric problems have important implications for fast and complete rehabilitation as a way of minimizing the ill effects of the conflict situations.

Studies are consistent in showing the value of both physical support and psychological support in minimizing the effects of war-related traumas, as well as the role of religion and cultural practices as ways of coping with the conflict situations.

CONCLUSIONS

The occurrence of a wide variety of psychological symptoms and syndromes in the populations in conflict situations is widely documented by available research. However, research also provides evidence about the resilience of more than half of the population in the face of the worst trauma in war situations. There is no doubt that the populations in war and conflict situations should receive mental health care as part of the total relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction processes. As happened in the first half of the 20th century, when war gave a big push to the developing concepts of mental health, the study of the psychological consequences of the wars of the current century could add new understandings and solutions to mental health problems of general populations.

A number of issues have emerged from the extensive literature on the prevalence and pattern of mental health effects of war and conflict situations. Are the psychological effects and their manifestation universal? What should be the definition of a case requiring intervention? How should psychological effects be measured? What is the long-term course of stress-related symptoms and syndromes? ( 52 ). All these issues need to be addressed by future studies.

It is important to report that the WHO and some other UN-related bodies have recently created a task force to develop "mental health and psychosocial support in emergency settings" ( 53 - 55 ), which is expected to complete its activity in one year.

The Objectives of War: Glory and Justice, Advantage or Annihilation?

The Cold war is a defining war as it ostensibly birthed a new and enhanced peaceful international system. As a result, the post-Cold War world created is depicted as a nonviolent and prosperous environment due to the culmination of fighting and the territorial expansion of liberalism. With the promotion of democracy and the rise of multilateral international institutions across nations, many predicted a change in warfare due to the evolution of arms control constraint during the Cold War or the obsolescence of war itself due to rising nuclear disarmament in the new unipolar world (Cox, 2011). While the 21st Century has not become the peaceful era many foretold, and the nature of warfare has significantly changed, the goals which actors seek to achieve or preserve continue to remain constant. According to Hans Speier (1941), three types of war exist: absolute war, instrumental war, and agnostic fighting, which are orientated respectively toward the objectives of annihilation, advantage, glory, and justice. Thus, in this essay, I argue that while the modes of warfare and actors involved have evolved in the post-Cold War world, the critical military objectives of war Speier’s identified have remained the same. A critical examination of the prevalence of the annihilation and absolute war follows, followed by advantage and instrumental wars, and finally glory and justice in agnostic fighting.

Annihilation

The first section of this essay will examine the objective of annihilation, which is the primary intention of ‘absolute war’. Absolute war is waged without rules in which the absolute enemy is a symbol of ‘strangeness, evil and danger to the community as a whole’ (Speier, 1941:445). This lack of social homogeneity results in a war waged without a sense of mutual obligation, and instead, all available means of violence are enforced. The historical types of war in which restrictions are abandoned are those against ‘barbarians, savages and infidels’. For instance, the Crusades were a series of ruthless religious wars between Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages. At that time, the use of weapons in wars was prohibited among Christians, but an exception was allowed in fighting the Mohammedans, exhibiting the rejection of restrictions (Speier, 1941:446). In modern times, ideological wars fought in the name of strong political beliefs can be compared to those waged against unbelievers. For instance, the twentieth Century can be referred to as an ‘age of genocide’ as considering the wars in the last 100 years in which genocides have occurred, every situation has been one in which the war has provided the cover for genocide exhibiting the intention of annihilation. This has proceeded into the post-Cold war era through the Islamist uprising in Algeria 1991-2002, the war in Bosnia Herzegovina 1992-1995, and the Second Congo War 1998-2003, which all produced mass fatalities (Bartrop, 2002: 525).

However, the literature on whether absolute war may be a trend in the post-Cold War world contradicts this. While the collapse of the Cold War may have decreased the dominance of capitalist-communist identities, they have been replaced by increased religious, ethnic, or regional identities. As a result, these changes have resulted in a growth of available identities and hubs seeking to deploy them, instigating ‘new wars’ in the future (Maynard, 2015:42; Kaldor, 2013). According to Kaldor (2002), these ‘new wars’ will be fought by state and nonstate actors, and instead of seizing territory through military means, battles will be rare and violence is directed principally against civilians as a method of commanding territory rather than against adversary forces. Thus, genocidal tendencies have come to dominate contemporary war as increasingly states go to war because of uncertainty in their control over ‘their’ territory. These wars are mainly directed against civilian populations aided by technological revolutionised uses of airpower (Kaldor, 2013; Shaw, 2000).

However, in contrary to Kaldor’s ‘new wars’ thesis, there has been a steady decrease in the number of civil wars since 1989 as economic development is increasingly dependent on intellectual capital that must be enticed rather than coerced; hence, the incentives for governments to limit conflicts is more persuading in the post-Cold War period. (Melander et al., 2009). Likewise, due to the rise of multilateral organisations and international institutions such as the United Nations and NATO, wars among powers are rarely allowed to run their natural course due to foreign intervention to prevent mass fatalities since ‘the greater the humanitarian crisis generated by a conflict, the greater the pressure to meddle’ (Freedman, 1998: 49). However, Luttwak (1999) argues this is problematic as it causes war to become an endemic conflict because the outside intervention blocks the transformative effects of decisive victory and exhaustion; therefore, peace cannot ensue, resulting in eventual annihilation.

Nonetheless, the increase in technological military weapons, including nuclear weapons and missile systems that have expanded the means of destruction and human cost of war, indicates that the objective of annihilation remains constant in modern warfare. Together these studies indicate that if a major war were to erupt between the nuclear powers, annihilation would undoubtedly be achieved; thus, while the modes of warfare and actors involved have changed from in the post-Cold War world, the objective of annihilation remains constant.

The second section of this essay will examine Speier’s (1941) concept of instrumental wars that seek to achieve ‘advantage’ by attaining values that the enemy controls, most notably economic values. As a result, ‘war assumes the form of robbery in which the death of the victim may constitute murder but does not mean waste’ as the victor is likely to gain highly valuable strategic and economic benefits (Spier, 1941: 449). Colonial campaigns conducted by western states and the wars fought to prevent the liberation of the colonies are critical examples of instrumental war. For instance, the Battle of Plassey (1757) helped establish British imperialism over India, gaining access to the country’s commodities, including Indian spices, textiles, precious stones, opium, and control over trading routes. Overall, territory has been a powerful influence on conflict throughout history as a recent reanalysis of the Correlates of War (COW) data suggests that of the 79 interstate wars between 1816 and 1997, 43 (54%) should be classified as territorial, suggesting that explicitly territorial issues are more likely to lead to war, recurring conflict, and result in high fatalities should war occur (Vasquez and Valeriano, 2010).

In the post-Cold War world, strong international concern to preserve existing state boundaries is evidence of the significant role of territoriality. The evolution of international institutions and international law to protect these boundaries has benefited many states, protecting their most critical territorial possessions and reducing the threat of predation from other states (Johnson and Toft, 2014:33). Although the territorial integrity norm is primarily a western phenomenon, interstate conflict over territory continues, from Kashmir and Israel/Palestine to the South China Sea. For instance, the Israel and Palestine conflict is one of the world’s longest-running conflicts between two movements that both lay claim to the same territory in Israel since an initial United Nations proposal to distribute each group part of the land failed; thus, Israel and the encompassing Arab nations have fought several wars over the territory since (BBC, 2021).

Additionally, a considerable amount of literature has been published on future ‘resource wars.’ Contemporary conflicts would be categorised by a new violent scramble for resources among local warlords, regional hegemons, and international powers due to the combination of population and economic growth leading to a relentless expansion in demand for raw materials. For instance, global climate change could multiply strains on natural resources and trigger water wars, catalyse the spread of disease or induce mass migrations stimulating further armed conflicts (Klare, 2001; Victor, 2007).

However, critics argue that future resource wars are unlikely and rarely occur since resource money may magnify and prolong some conflicts as well as, the root causes of those hostilities usually lie elsewhere. Furthermore, there has been a steady decline in conquest wars since the Cold War from more than half to less than 30% (Holsti, 2010). Liberals assert this is due to conquest wars becoming unprofitable due to economic globalisation, such as increases in international trade, expanding overseas investment, and the high international costs since the international community condemns the use of force in all territorial disagreements, including those where political authority is ambiguous (Meierding, 2016).

Therefore, only in civil wars does the question of resources such as oil, diamonds, minerals, and territory play a significant role; this was especially true as Cold War superpowers halted their financial support to local actors. Hence, the abundance of resources, not their scarcity, fuels such conflicts, such as the current tensions between North and South Sudan over oil, which are remnants of civil war and a failed secession process, not a desire to control new resources (Tertrais, 2012:16; Meierding, 2016; 261). However, modern nationalist movements are frequently linked to concepts of territory, especially homeland, for a specific, often ethnic group; therefore, as established in the previous section, identity conflicts remain prevalent in modern society. Consequently, while instrumental wars are likely to be contained to intrastate conflicts rather than interstate, they remain prevalent; hence, the objective of advantage remains constant in the post-Cold world (Le Billon, 2007).

Glory and Justice

Finally, in the last section of this essay, I will explore the prevalence of the ‘agnostic fight’ in which victory is a symbolic revelation of ‘glory and justice’ provided that shared rules and norms are meticulously respected. Violence throughout history in both inter and intrastate conflicts has been glorified and sanctified through defending national ‘honour’, values, and security to either maintain or alter the status quo. For instance, historical societies such as the Roman Empire, Vikings, Malorian knights, Shaolin monks, the Samurai and Zulus were built on the demand for glory achieved in a battle to prove an individual’s self-worth (French, 2016). However, over time due to the construction of sovereign states and the ‘humanitarian revolution’ as coined by Pinker, war has no longer come to be associated with personal achievement or heroism; instead, we are experiencing ‘war fatigue’ (Mueller, 1989) and ‘debellicization’ (Mandelbaum, 2002). In developed countries from the last 20th Century, each element that built a war-friendly mentality such as nationalism, territorial ambition, an international culture of honour and indifference to human casualties has become outdated, resulting in an overall decline in global violence (Tertrais, 2012; Pinker, 2011: 283).

However, there are some specific cases in which ‘glory and justice’ remain prevalent. Great power states treasure their status in the international order and consider war to preserve their prestige despite the political and military consequences, as per the British intervention in the Falklands (1982) to re-establish their sovereignty. The re-conquering of the Falklands demonstrated Britain’s capability to project its hard power far away and display its financial capacity to do so. As the UK’s reputation was stained from its failure in the 1956 Suez Crisis, a victory in the Falklands would be considered an astonishing achievement and restore the image of a strong and victorious United Kingdom, thus achieving merited glory and justice (Grandpierron, 2017).

Despite this, the post-Cold War era has seen frequent military expeditions to be authorised on humanitarian concerns to ‘preserve the peace’; the 21st Century is now witnessing a legitimisation of warfare where it has become the weapon of choice for powerful state actors. The ‘War on Terror’ initiated by the Bush administration in 2001 illustrates this clearly. From the beginning, the war was presented as a legally acceptable act of self-defence that adhered to the ‘just war’ principles; therefore, labelling the acts of terrorism as an act of war provided Washington with a just cause. Additionally, it was constructed as a war of last resort with no diplomatic options available in order to combat the evil of terrorism; combined with the Christianity of the Bush administration, the war has been portrayed as a crusade for freedom fought in defence of liberty and is comparable to the Second World War, or “the ultimate good war” (Dexter, 2008: 66). As previously mentioned, great powers will go to great lengths to maintain their prestigious status. 9/11 shattered the perceptions of invulnerability the US projected as a global leader; hence, the war provided a stage to reassert Washington’s power.

Conversely, Fletcher (2002) argues that war and justice are not synonymous. Justice is about restoring moral order in the universe, whereas war pursues interests that can only be achieved through death and destruction and compartmentalise the two risks imitating the holy mission of the enemy. Therefore, if the War on Terror was indeed in the pursuit of justice, the provisions of the Bill of Rights bearing on a fair trial should apply in Guantanamo as they do in the United States (ibid:7). Many Islamic fundamentalists perceived American bases in Saudi Arabia as an invasion of Dar el Islam, thus justified attack. However, as the law of war has evolved, religion is no longer a ‘just cause’, only self-defence against aggression has been normalized as such. As a result, despite a normative shift occurring in which people in the developed world perceive war as ‘disgusting, ridiculous and unwise’, it has now been repackaged as legitimised self-defence. Hence, the objectives of glory and justice continue to be achieved through the evolution of the actors and modes involved in warfare (Mueller, 1990:326).

In conclusion, despite the birth of a new international system that aided the development of international institutions and liberal norms after the Cold War, war and its fundamental objectives continue to endure in contemporary society. With the invention of new technological military weapons, actors with a persistent aspiration to attain control over resources in inter-state conflicts and the desire for great power states to assert their dominance in the international order through acts of self-defence, absolute and instrumental wars and agnostic fights continue to ensue. However, the rise of foreign liberal intervention to interrupt the natural courses of war to save civilians prevents decisive victories and obstructs the intended objectives resulting in endemic conflicts such as the Israel and Palestine dispute. As a result, more actors are often involved today, and eventual annihilation becomes an ever-increasing likely conclusion. Therefore, by analysing the three objectives: annihilation; advantage and glory; and justice, this essay has shown that while the modes of warfare and actors involved have evolved in the post-Cold War world, the critical military objectives of war Speier identified have remained apparent.

Reference List

Bartrop, P. (2002). “The Relationship Between War and Genocide in the Twentieth Century: A Consideration”. Journal of Genocide Research , 4(4), pp.519–532.

BBC (2021). “Israel-Gaza violence: The Conflict Explained”. BBC News . [online] 21 May. Available at: h ttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-44124396 [Accessed 26 May 2021].

Cox, M. (2011). “The Uses and Abuses of history: The end of the Cold War and Soviet Collapse”. International Politics , 48(4-5), pp.627–646.

Dexter, H. (2008). “The ‘New War’ on Terror, Cosmopolitanism and the ‘Just War’ Revival”. Government and Opposition , 43(1), pp.55–78.

Fletcher, G.P. (2002). Romantics at War: Glory and Guilt in the Age of Terrorism . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Freedman, L. (1998). The Changing Forms of Military Conflict . Survival, 40(4), pp.39–56.

French, S.E. (2016). The Code of the Warrior: Exploring Warrior Values Past and Present . Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.

Grandpierron, M. (2017). Preserving “Great Power Status”: The Complex Case of the British Intervention in the Falklands (1982). Croatian International Relations Review , 23(79), pp.127– 156.

Holsti, K.J. (1998). Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order 1648-1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Johnson, D.D.P. and Toft, M.D. (2014). “Grounds for War: The Evolution of Territorial Conflict”. International Security , 38(3), pp.7–38.

Kaldor, M. (2013). In Defence of New Wars. Stability: International Journal of Security and Development , 2(1).

Klare, M.T. and Holt, H. (2001). Resource War: The New Landscape of Global Conflict. New York: Henry Holt And Company.

Le Billon, P. (2007). “Geographies of War: Perspectives on ‘Resource Wars’.” Geography Compass , 1(2), pp.163–182.

Luttwak, E.N. (1999). “Give War a Chance”. Foreign Affairs , [online] 78(4), pp.36–44. Available at: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1999-07-01/give-war-chance [Accessed 26 May 2021].

Mandelbaum, M. (2002). The Ideas that Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Public Affairs.

Maynard, J.L. (2015). “Identity and Ideology in Political Violence and Conflict”. St Antony’s International Review , [online] 10(2), pp.18–52. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/26229187 [Accessed 26 May 2021].

Meierding, E. (2016). “Dismantling the Oil Wars Myth”. Security Studies , 25(2), pp.258–288.

Melander, E., Öberg, M. and Hall, J. (2009). “Are ‘New Wars’ More Atrocious? Battle Severity, Civilians Killed and Forced Migration Before and After the End of the Cold War”. European Journal of International Relations , 15(3), pp.505–536.

Mueller, J. (1990). “The Obsolescence of Major War”. Bulletin of Peace Proposals , [online] 21(3), pp.321–328. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/44481533 .

Pinker, S. (2011). The Better Angels of our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and its Causes . London: Allen Lane.

Shaw, M. (2000). “The Contemporary Mode of Warfare? Mary Kaldor’s Theory of New Wars”. Review of International Political Economy , [online] 7(1), pp.171–180. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4177336 [Accessed 26 May 2021].

Speier, H. (1941). “The Social Types of War”. American Journal of Sociology , 46(4), pp.445– 454.

Tertrais, B. (2012). “The Demise of Ares: The End of War as We Know It?”. The Washington Quarterly , 35(3), pp.7–22.

Vasquez, J.A. and Valeriano, B. (2010). “Classification of Interstate Wars”. The Journal of Politics , 72(2), pp.292–309.

Victor, D.G. (2007). “What Resource Wars?”. The National Interest , [online] 92(), pp.48–55. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42896095 [Accessed 26 May 2021].

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The advantages and the disadvantages of war will be reviewed from the perspectives of Boot (2006), Coyne & Matthews (2011), Howard (2000), Lomborg (2003) and Tzu (2009). The distinct perspectives of the benefits of war will be reviewed and followed by the disadvantages of war.

Wars are expensive in terms of human costs and economic costs. Notwithstanding, wars have brought numerous technological advantages to mankind. Nuclear energy was initially discovered and applied as a military device. Plastic surgery had been invented in order to remove the scars from the soldiers who had derived in the wars. GPS devices were initially used on spy satellites which were applied during the period of the Cold war (Boot, 2006).

The race into space and the search for extraterrestrial life was an outcome of the Second World War. Many military philosophers have perceived that if a nation desires peace, they must be ready for war. If it were not for the Revolutionary war, the United States would not exist. If it were not for the Civil war between the states, slavery might have continued as a legal institution in the United States. Wars bring out the worst and the best in societies (Boot, 2006; Howard, 2000).

War is disadvantageous as a result of the human and the economic costs. Many nations apply the fear of incurring the disadvantages of war as a bargaining tool. War is an ineffective means of resolving disputes due to its attribute of causing the destruction of economic and human resources which might otherwise benefit the opposing factions. There are three conditions which cause nations which would normally resolve their differences peacefully to go to war with one another and to accept the potential disadvantage of war (Coyne & Mathers, 2011: Tzu, 2009).

Wars occur when the two opposing sides do not concur with regards to their relative influence and strength. This disagreement causes an imbalance in the judgments which evaluate the potential benefits and the potential disadvantages of war. This aspect of disagreement is defined as the private information aspect of war. The second conditions which cause two nations to war with one another and accept the potential advantages in addition to the potential disadvantages of war are based on the commitment challenge. If the dissemination of power which is present between two nations has the possibility of shifting, the shift in power between the two nations may cause a peaceful negotiation of the two factions with regards to accepting the potential disadvantages to war for each side Coyne & Mathers, 2011,; Tzu, 2009).

If the weaker opponent is experiencing an increase in influence and strength, this increase may cause the opposing side to be willing to negotiate against war. The weaker opponent may not choose to go to war, due to the aspect that a future position may have a greater promise of increased influence and strength. The nation which is losing influence and strength may wish to negotiate a peaceful agreement which keeps everything in the perspective of the moment. The nation which is losing influence and strength may doubt if the peaceful agreement can be maintained Coyne & Mathers, 2011).

It is comprehensible that the opposing state which is gaining influence and strength may behave motivations to renegotiate a novel collection of demands when the influence and strength have favorably shifted in their favor. This aspect may cause the weaker opposing nation to resort to war if the concessions which had been peacefully agreed upon are not maintained. The nation which is gaining power and influence may have a preference for peaceful negotiations and it may be willing to honor the outcomes of present negotiations. The two factions may dispute the viability of this promise once the situation changes and one off the opposing nations has the forceful strength to negotiate issues which had not been previously negotiated. Peacefully and apply military force in order to procure those benefits. This aspect is acknowledged as the commitment challenge of war ( Coyne & Mathers, 2011; Lomberg, 2013; Tzu, 2013).

The third reason for war is often indivisible challenges. The indivisible challenges may incorporate religious, philosophical issues and territorial challenges. Quite often resources can be divided, however religious distinctions and territorial disputes cannot be divided among actors. War and the human and economic costs which area associated may be avoided if the challenging subject of dispute can be associated to another challenge which can be more easily resolved or if one of the factions makes some sort of concession to the other. Usually the origin of an indivisible challenge is a pressure political group within one of the nations which possesses considerable influence (Coyne & Mathers, 2011; Lomberg, 2013; Tzu 2009).

This implies that one or both of the opposing nations may have a variety of actors. The significance of indivisibility challenges is slight when compared to the aspects of information and commitment challenges. This leaves the information and the commitment challenges as the two logical reasons that opposing nations go to war with one another (Coyne & Mathers, 2011). The benefits of war were reviewed by Sun Tzu who had been a Chinese tactician and high ranking military official. Sun Tzu originally wrote the Art of War in the sixth century before the Common Era (Tzu, 2009). The Art of War which was composed by Sun Tzu is composed of thirteen chapters. Every chapter in the book is dedicated to a specific aspect of waging war. The Art of War is one of the most significant military strategy treatises that have ever been written. The themes which have been covered in the book which is titled the Art of War have been extended to spheres of influences which exceed military tactics (i.e., commerce, legal reflection and marketing strategies) (Tzu, 2009).

Sun Tzu thought that war was a required evil which must be evaded at all consequences. The war should be waged rapidly in order to overcome and limit the human and economic hardships. There has been no war which has caused any nation to profit (Lomberg, 2013; Tzu, 2009) A nation which becomes triumphant in war does so due to the aspect of taking decisive action prior to the opponent’s realization of their menacing position. Sun Tzu believed that holocausts and criminal war activities should be avoided due to the characteristic of motivating increased resistance from the opponent and the capacity of holocausts and criminal war activities to enable the tide of war to turn in the opponent’s favor ( Lomberg, 2013; Tzu, 2009).

The victorious faction should be able to capture the government of the opposing nation without completely destroying the government or the infrastructure. The destruction of the opposing nation’s government or infrastructure should be conducted as a final option. Sun Tzu also perceived that the location of the military forces in strategic positions was of great significance. The choice of positioning a military force in opposition to other nation’s military force must be performed objectively upon the need for the avoidance of the potential expense of human and economic loss (Tzu, 2009).

War has its advantages. War has its disadvantages. Wars are usually conducted by two opposing factions. These two opposing factions are usually willing to accept the advantages of war in exchange for the human and economic costs of war. Wars have led to invention. The benefits of the inventions which have been gained by war have been able to benefit many during the times of peace.

Sun Tzu believed that in order to avoid war, one of the nations must be willing to apply the disadvantages of war as a persuasive factor against waging war. Nations can apply techniques of negotiation in order to avoid the information, commitment and indivisible aspects which cause wars. If it were not for war, the United States would have never been conceived. If the Civil war had not been waged between the opposing factions of the United States, slavery would have perpetuated as an acceptable institution in the United States. If the United States had not become involved in the Second World War, the Holocaust may have never ended and other holocaust may have ensued.

The aspect of the United States, Russia, the European Union, China, Japan and India launching satellites and spaceships into space in order to search for extraterrestrial life is an outcome of the benefits of the Second World War. Many of the inventions which are applied today, (i.e., GPS tracking systems, microwave ovens and cellular phones) are results of technologies which have been developed for wartime applications. Wars have their disadvantages; however, wars also have their advantages.

Boot, M. (2006). War made new: Weapons, warriors and the making of the modern world. USA: Gotham Books.

Coyne, C.J. & Mathers. R.L. (2011). The handbook on the political economy of war . UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Howard, M. (2000). The invention of peace: reflections on war and international order . USA: Yale University Press.

Lomborg, B. (2013). How much have global problems cost the world? New York: Cambridge University Press.

Tsu, s. (2009). The art of war by Sun Tzu- classic edition . (L. Giles, Trans.), El Paso, TX: El Paso Norte Press.

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Nuclear weapons: Why reducing the risk of nuclear war should be a key concern of our generation

The consequences of nuclear war would be devastating. much more should – and can – be done to reduce the risk that humanity will ever fight such a war..

The shockwave and heat that the detonation of a single nuclear weapon creates can end the lives of millions of people immediately.

But even larger is the devastation that would follow a nuclear war.

The first reason for this is nuclear fallout. Radioactive dust from the detonating bombs rises up into the atmosphere and spreads out over large areas of the world from where it falls down and causes deadly levels of radiation.

The second reason is less widely known. But this consequence – 'nuclear winter' and the worldwide famine that would follow – is now believed to be the most serious consequence of nuclear war.

Cities that are attacked by nuclear missiles burn at such an intensity that they create their own wind system, a firestorm: hot air above the burning city ascends and is replaced by air that rushes in from all directions. The storm-force winds fan the flames and create immense heat.

From this firestorm, large columns of smoke and soot rise up above the burning cities and travel all the way up to the stratosphere. There it spreads around the planet and blocks the sun’s light. At that great height – far above the clouds – it cannot be rained out, meaning that it will remain there for years, darkening the sky and thereby drying and chilling the planet.

The nuclear winter that would follow a large-scale nuclear war is expected to lead to temperature declines of 20 or even 30 degrees Celsius (60–86° F) in many of the world’s agricultural regions – including much of Eurasia and North America. Nuclear winter would cause a 'nuclear famine'. The world’s food production would fail and billions of people would starve. 1

These consequences – nuclear fallout and nuclear winter leading to famine – mean that the destruction caused by nuclear weapons is not contained to the battlefield. It would not just harm the attacked country. Nuclear war would devastate all countries, including the attacker.

The possibility of global devastation is what makes the prospect of nuclear war so very terrifying. And it is also why nuclear weapons are so unattractive for warfare. A weapon that can lead to self-destruction is not a weapon that can be used strategically.

US President Reagan put it in clear words at the height of the Cold War: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?” 2

Nuclear stockpiles have been reduced, but the risk remains high

40 years after Reagan’s words, the Cold War is over and nuclear stockpiles have been reduced considerably, as the chart shows.

The world has learned that nuclear armament is not the one-way street that it was once believed to be. Disarmament is possible.

But the chart also shows that there are still almost ten thousand nuclear weapons distributed among nine countries on our planet, at least. 3 Each of these weapons can cause enormous destruction; many are much larger than the ones that the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 4

Collectively these weapons are immensely destructive. The nuclear winter scenario outlined above would kill billions of people— billions— in the years that follow a large-scale nuclear war, even if it was fought “only” with today’s reduced stockpiles. 5

It is unclear whether humanity as a species could possibly survive a full-scale nuclear war with the current stockpiles. 6 A nuclear war might well be humanity’s final war.

Close Calls: Instances that threatened to push the ‘balance of terror’ out of balance and into war

The ‘balance of terror’ is the idea that all involved political leaders are so scared of nuclear war that they never launch a nuclear attack.

If this is achievable at all, it can only be achieved if all nuclear powers keep their weapons in check. This is because the balance is vulnerable to accidents: a nuclear bomb that detonates accidentally – or even just a false alarm, with no weapons even involved – can trigger nuclear retaliation because several countries keep their nuclear weapons on ‘launch on warning’; in response to a warning, their leaders can decide within minutes whether they want to launch a retaliatory strike.

For the balance of terror to be a balance, all parties need to be in control at all times. This however is not the case.

In the timeline, you can read through some of the close calls during the past decades.

The risk of nuclear war might well be low – because neither side would want to fight such a war that would have such awful consequences for everyone on the planet. But there is a risk that the kinds of technical errors and accidents listed here could lead accidentally to the use of nuclear weapons, as a nuclear power can incorrectly come to believe that they are under attack.

This is why false alarms, errors, and close calls are so crucial to monitor: they are the incidents that can push the ‘balance of terror’ out of balance and into war.

Accidents and errors are of course not the only possible path that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. There is the risk of a terribly irresponsible person leading a country possessing nuclear weapons. There is the risk of nuclear terrorism, possibly after a terrorist organization steals weapons. There is the possibility that hackers can take control of the nuclear chain of command. And there is the possibility that several of these factors play a role at the same time.

A timeline of nuclear weapons ‘close calls’ 7

Below this post, you find additional lists of close calls, where you find much more information on each of these incidents.

How to reduce the risk of nuclear war?

An escalating conflict between nuclear powers – but also an accident, a hacker, a terrorist, or an irresponsible leader – could lead to the detonation of nuclear weapons.

Those risks only go to zero if all nuclear weapons are removed from the world. I believe this is what humanity should work towards, but it is exceedingly hard to achieve, at least in the short term. It is therefore important to see that there are additional ways that can reduce the chance of the world suffering the horrors of nuclear war. 8

A more peaceful world : Many world regions in which our ancestors fought merciless wars over countless generations are extraordinarily peaceful in our times. The rise of democracy, international trade, diplomacy, and a cultural attitude shift against the glorification of war are some of the drivers credited for this development. 9

Making the world a more peaceful place will reduce the risk of nuclear confrontation. Efforts that reduce the chance of any war reduce the chance of nuclear war.

Nuclear treaties : Several non-proliferation treaties have been key in achieving the large reduction of nuclear stockpiles. However, key treaties – like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the US and Russia – have been suspended and additional agreements could be reached.

The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which became effective in 2021, is a recent development in this direction.

Smaller nuclear stockpiles : Reducing the stockpiles further is seen as an important and achievable goal by experts.

It is considered achievable because smaller stockpiles would still provide the deterrence benefits from nuclear weapons. And it is important as it reduces the risk of accidents and the chance that a possible nuclear war would end civilization.

Better monitoring, better control: The risk can be further reduced by efforts to better control nuclear weapons – so that close calls occur less frequently. Similarly better monitoring systems would reduce the chance of false alarms.

Taking nuclear weapons off ‘hair-trigger alert’ would reduce the risk that any accident that does occur can rapidly spiral out of control. And a well-resourced International Atomic Energy Agency can verify that the agreements in the treaties are met.

Better public understanding, global relations, and culture : Finally I also believe that it will help to see clearly that billions of us share the same goal. None of us wants to live through a nuclear war, none of us wants to die in one. As Reagan said, a nuclear war cannot be won and it would be better to do away with these weapons entirely.

A generation ago a broad and highly visible societal movement pursued the goal of nuclear disarmament. These efforts were to a good extent successful. But since then, this goal has unfortunately lost much of the attention it once received – and this is despite the fact that things have not fundamentally changed: the world still possesses weapons that could kill billions. 10 I wish it was a more prominent concern in our generation so that more young people would set themselves the goal to make the world safe from nuclear weapons.

Below this post you find resources on where you can get engaged or donate, to help reduce the danger from nuclear weapons.

I believe some dangers are exaggerated – for example, I believe that the fear of terrorist attacks is often wildly out of proportion with the actual risk. But when it comes to nuclear weapons I believe the opposite is true.

There are many today who hardly give nuclear conflict a thought and I think this is a big mistake.

For eight decades, people have been producing nuclear weapons. Several countries have dedicated vast sums of money to their construction. And now we live in a world in which these weapons endanger our entire civilization and our future.

These destructive weapons are perhaps the clearest example that technology and innovation are not only forces for good, they can also enable catastrophic destruction.

Without the Second World War and the Cold War, the world might have never developed these weapons and we might find the idea that anyone could possibly build such weapons unimaginable. But this is not the world we live in. We live in a world with weapons of enormous destructiveness and we have to see the risks that they pose to all of us and find ways to reduce them.

I hope that there are many in the world today who take on the challenge to make the world more peaceful and to reduce the risk from nuclear weapons. The goal has to be that humanity never ends up using this most destructive technology that we ever developed.

Resources to continue reading and finding ways to reduce the risk of nuclear weapons

Hiroshima : John Hersey’s report for the New Yorker about the bombing of Hiroshima, published in August 1946.
’80,000 Hours’ profile on Nuclear Security : an article focusing on the question of how to choose a career that makes the world safer from nuclear weapons.
The ‘Future of Life Institute’ on Nuclear Weapons : this page includes an extensive list of additional references – including videos, research papers, and many organizations that are dedicated to reducing the risk from nuclear weapons.

Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Charlie Giattino, Hannah Ritchie, and Edouard Mathieu for reading drafts of this and for their very helpful comments and ideas.

Additional lists of close calls with nuclear weapons

* Future of Life Institute – Accidental nuclear war: A timeline of close calls .

* Alan F. Philips, M.D. – 20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War , published on Nuclear Files

* Josh Harkinson (2014) – That Time We Almost Nuked North Carolina

* Union of Concerned Scientists (2015) – Close Calls with Nuclear Weapons

* Chatham House Report (2014) – Too Close for Comfort: Cases of Near Nuclear Use and Options for Policy authored by Patricia Lewis, Heather Williams, Benoît Pelopidas, and Sasan Aghlani

* Wikipedia – List of Nuclear Close Calls

On Nuclear Winter see:

* Jägermeyr, Jonas, Alan Robock, Joshua Elliott, Christoph Müller, Lili Xia, Nikolay Khabarov, Christian Folberth, et al. (2020) – ‘ A Regional Nuclear Conflict Would Compromise Global Food Security’ . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 13 (31 March 2020): 7071–81.

* Robock, A., L. Oman, and G. L. Stenchikov (2007) – Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences , J. Geophys. Res., 112, D13107, doi:10.1029/2006JD008235.

* Alan Robock & Owen Brian Toon (2012) – Self-assured destruction: The climate impacts of nuclear war . In Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 68, 66–74.

* Alan Robock & Owen Brian Toon (2016) – Let’s End the Peril of a Nuclear Winter , In the New York Times, Feb. 11, 2016.

Some additional points:

* The risk of nuclear winter (initially termed ‘nuclear twilight’) was only discovered in the early 1980s, more than 3 decades after the bombs were first used.

* The main mechanism by which a nuclear winter is expected to cause a decline in global food production is by reducing the growing season, the days in a row without frost. See Robock, Oman, and Stenchikov (2007).

* Robock estimates that the smoke and soot would rise as high as 40 kilometers (25 miles) into the atmosphere. See Robock and Toon (2016).

* Before the nuclear famine kills people from hunger, many will die from hypothermia.

* In addition to the impact on the climate, the ozone layer is expected to get depleted in such a scenario. This would allow more ultraviolet radiation to reach our planet’s surface, harming plant and animal life.

* In general there is only relatively little scientific work that focuses on nuclear winter and additional, good research could be useful to provide a better understanding. Due to the lack of research there remains uncertainty about how devastating a nuclear winter would be. In particular there is disagreement on how likely it is that all of humanity would die in a nuclear winter.

* The paper by Jägermeyr et al (2020) shows that among the countries with the largest food production losses would be the US and Russia, those countries that have the largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

For anyone who interested in the impact of nuclear winter on food production and famine, Ord (2020) cites the following:

* Cropper, W. P., and Harwell, M. A. (1986) – “Food Availability after Nuclear War,” in M. A. Harwell and T. C. Hutchinson (eds.), The Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War (SCOPE 28), vol. 2: Ecological, Agricultural, and Human Effects. John Wiley and Sons.

* Helfand, I. (2013) – Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk? Physicians for Social Responsibility.

* Xia, L., Robock, A., Mills, M., Stenke, A., and Helfand, I. (2015) – Decadal Reduction of Chinese Agriculture after a Regional Nuclear War . Earth’s Future, 3(2), 37–48.

Reagan in his State of the Union address in 1984, quoted in the New York Times: Bernard Gwertzman (1984) – Reagan reassures Russians on war . In the New York Times January 26, 1984.

There are nine countries that are known to possess nuclear weapons: Russia, United States, France, China, United Kingdom, Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea. South Africa once possessed nuclear weapons and is the first state to voluntarily give up nuclear weapons.

The explosive power of a nuclear weapon is called the yield of a nuclear weapon. It is the amount of energy released when that weapon is detonated. It is usually measured in ‘TNT equivalents’.

The bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 13–18 kilotons of TNT. (one kiloton are 1000 tonnes)

The largest bomb that was ever detonated is the ‘Tsar Bomba’ built by the USSR and detonated in October 1961. Its yield was about 50 megatons of TNT. That’s 50,000 kilotons of TNT or about 3,333-times the yield of the bomb in Hiroshima.

The scenario in Robock, Oman, and Stenchikov (2007) is based on the nuclear stockpiles after the large reduction that was achieved after the end of the Cold War. It shows that the world still retains enough weapons to produce “a large, long-lasting, unprecedented global climate change,” as the authors put it. Since the publication of this study, the stockpiles have been reduced further, as the chart shows, but not very strongly so.

For a recent discussion of this question see Ord (2020) – The Precipice.

This list is largely based on Toby Ord’s 2020 book The Precipice . His list can be found in Chapter 4 and Appendix C of his book.

Ord in turn relies mostly on a document from the US Department of Defense from 1981: Narrative Summaries of Accidents Involving US Nuclear Weapons (1950–1980) .

This list is mostly based on the ’80,000 Hours’ profile on Nuclear Security and Toby Ord (2020) – The Precipice.

For big overviews of this literature see the forthcoming book Christopher Blattman (2022) – Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace and Steven Pinker (2011) – The Better Angels of our Nature for a big overview

Lawrence S. Wittner – Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement . Stanford University Press.

One indication for the declining interest in the last generation: Mentions of “nuclear war” in books and newspapers peaked in 1985 and declined strongly since then (see Google Ngram for ‘nuclear war’ ).

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Annie Jacobsen: 'What if we had a nuclear war?’

The author and Pulitzer prize finalist, who has written the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club, Nuclear War: A scenario, on the "shocking truths" about a nuclear attack

By Annie Jacobsen

12 April 2024

The Titan nuclear missile in the silo in Arizona, US

Michael Dunning/Getty Images

Not long after the last world war, the historian William L. Shirer had this to say about the next world war. It “will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquers and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet.”

As an investigative journalist, I write about war, weapons, national security and government secrets. I’ve previously written six books about US military and intelligence programmes – at the CIA, The Pentagon, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency– all designed to prevent, or deter, nuclear world war III . In the course of my work, countless people in the upper echelons of US government have told me, proudly, that they’ve dedicated their lives to making sure the US never has a nuclear war. But what if it did?

“Every capability in the [Department of Defense] is underpinned by the fact that strategic deterrence will hold,” US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which is responsible for nuclear deterrence, insists publicly. Until the autumn of 2022, this promise was pinned on STRATCOM’s public Twitter feed. But to a private audience at Sandia National Laboratories later that same year, STRATCOM’s Thomas Bussiere admitted the existential danger inherent to deterrence. “Everything unravels itself if those things are not true.”

If deterrence fails – what exactly would that unravelling look like? To write Nuclear War: A scenario , I put this question to scores of former nuclear command and control authorities. To the military and civilian experts who’ve built the weapon systems, been privy to the response plans and been responsible for advising the US president on nuclear counterstrike decisions should they have to be made. What I learned terrified me. Here are just a few of the shocking truths about nuclear war.

The US maintains a nuclear launch policy called Launch on Warning. This means that if a military satellite indicates the nation is under nuclear attack and a second early-warning radar confirms that information, the president launches nuclear missiles in response. Former secretary of defense William Perry told me: “Once we are warned of a nuclear attack, we prepare to launch. This is policy. We do not wait.”

The US president has sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. He asks permission of no one. Not the secretary of defense, not the chairman of the joint chief of staff, not the US Congress. “The authority is inherent in his role as commander in chief,” the Congressional Research Service confirms. The president “does not need the concurrence of either his [or her] military advisors or the US Congress to order the launch of nuclear weapons”.

When the president learns he must respond to a nuclear attack, he has just 6 minutes to do so. Six minutes is an irrational amount of time to “decide whether to release Armageddon”, President Ronald Reagan lamented in his memoirs. “Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radar scope… How could anyone apply reason at a time like that?” And yet, the president must respond. This is because it takes roughly just 30 minutes for an intercontinental ballistic missile to get from a launch pad in Russia, North Korea or China to any city in the US, and vice versa. Nuclear-armed submarines can cut that launch-to-target time to 10 minutes, or less.

Today, there are nine nuclear powers, with a combined total of more than 12,500 nuclear weapons ready to be used. The US and Russia each have some 1700 nuclear weapons deployed – weapons that can be launched in seconds or minutes after their respective president gives the command. This is what Shirer meant when he said: “Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it.”

Nuclear war is the only scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end civilisation in a matter of hours. The soot from burning cities and forests will blot out the sun and cause nuclear winter. Agriculture will fail. Some 5 billion people will die. In the words of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, “the survivors will envy the dead”.

I wrote Nuclear War: A scenario to demonstrate – in appalling, minute-by-minute detail – just how horrifying a nuclear war would be. “Humanity is one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” UN secretary-general António Guterres warned the world in 2022. “This is madness. We must reverse course.”

Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen, published by Torva (£20.00), is available now. It is the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club: sign up here to read along with our members

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Is This Israel’s Forever War?

By Keith Gessen

A photo of an Israeli soldier walking through Gaza City outside of a hospital. There is a tank on his left.

Natasha Hall grew up in Arlington, Virginia, in the nineteen-eighties. Her mother, who was originally from Jordan, was an accountant at the World Bank; her father, who was a Vietnam War vet and marine biologist, worked at the Environmental Protection Agency. During the summers, they would sometimes visit her mother’s family in Jordan; in 1996, in the wake of the Oslo Accords, they were able to visit the West Bank. Hall, then thirteen, had heard about the territory’s occupation, but she was surprised by the obvious and quotidian restrictions on Palestinians’ lives. She remembers seeing people lined up at checkpoints with their hands on their heads, facing a wall. When the 9/11 attacks took place, she was in her first week of college. From what Hall already knew of the world, she immediately feared what the U.S. would do in response. She decided to study foreign policy. Shortly after graduating, she went to the Middle East and stayed there, on and off, for the next twenty years.

The foreign-policy world in Washington, D.C., is filled with people who have gone abroad and had a formative experience. Hall’s was the long American “war on terror.” In the late two-thousands, she worked for the RAND Corporation on evaluating reconstruction efforts in Iraq. (They were not going well.) In 2012, she took a job in government, travelling all over the world and interviewing refugees who wished to resettle in the U.S. But the process was slow, and, when it came to the conflict that had by then become her greatest area of focus, the Syrian civil war, the United States took so few people. She moved to Istanbul to work with Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, a volunteer organization that helped civilians caught up in Bashar al-Assad’s brutal counter-insurgency campaign. Hall saw people surviving in conditions in which survival seemed impossible. She saw what Western resources and preparation could and could not do. “Every time we would find a way to protect people, they”—the Syrian regime and its Russian backers—“would up the ante,” she told me. Russian fighter jets “were wiping out whole neighborhoods. Even if people had a basement to shelter in, the Syrian government might hit them with chlorine gas, smoking them out.” (Despite multiple reports from the United Nations and other organizations that Assad’s forces repeatedly used chemical weapons in Syria, the regime has denied these accusations.) Humanitarian aid and civilian protection were useless, she concluded, if they were not backed up with other forms of support. “If you drop a bunch of people that just want to save lives into a context where people are trying to do the opposite, structurally speaking, they will manipulate you in every way possible,” she said.

In 2017, in the wake of Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban,” Hall, a year and a half out of her government job interviewing refugees, published an editorial in the Washington Post arguing that whoever wrote the ban didn’t know about the intense vetting process that refugee applicants already had to endure. That month, a declaration signed by Hall, recapping her editorial, was filed as part of a lawsuit brought by refugee groups and individuals of Middle Eastern descent against the Trump Administration. The lawsuit led to a pause on the ban, later lifted by the Supreme Court, which eventually upheld a reworded version.

Hall moved back to D.C. a few years ago, in part because she had had a child and wanted to be closer to her parents, and in part because she wanted to be closer to the policymaking apparatus. She became a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a high-minded security-oriented think tank. She testified before Congress, briefed senior government officials, and wrote papers on Syria, civilian protection, and how to maximize the impact of humanitarian aid.

Hall was on a research trip in Jordan on October 7th of last year, when Hamas militants breached the fence that surrounded Gaza, murdered twelve hundred people, and took more than two hundred back to Gaza as hostages. Hall’s first reaction was horror. Next came bewilderment: How was it possible that Israel was so unprepared? After that, fear. She watched Joe Biden travel to Israel and urge the Israelis to learn from America’s errors after September 11th. “While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes,” he said. Hall worried that Israel would make those same mistakes. “That’s why some of the survivors of the October 7th attack came out to say that they didn’t want Israel to lash out at civilians,” Hall wrote to me. “Because they knew what would happen.”

The 9/11 attacks and the wars that followed fundamentally rearranged the American national-security apparatus, destabilized the Middle East, and left lasting scars on the American body politic. They also showed a generation of policy analysts and regional specialists what the quest for total security could look like. Among them was Annelle Sheline, who, in the fall of 2001, had just started her sophomore year in high school, in North Carolina. Even before anyone knew who had hijacked the planes and crashed two of them into the World Trade Center, one of her classmates announced, in fifth period: “We are going to kill those God damn Muslims.” At the time, Sheline later recalled in an essay about that day, she kept quiet. In retrospect, her classmate was right. “We were indeed going to kill a lot of Muslims,” she wrote.

In college, Sheline decided to study media, conflict resolution, and Arabic. She went on to get a Ph.D. in political science with a focus on religious authority in the Middle East, receiving a language fellowship for study in Egypt along the way. The experience, to some extent, was surreal: she was being paid to study the region, year after year, because the U.S. Air Force kept dropping bombs on it. After receiving her Ph.D., she settled in D.C. and worked at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, which tries to present a foreign-policy alternative to American militarism. In early 2023, Sheline was hired by the State Department to work in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (D.R.L.).

Sheline said that she found the department still demoralized from the Trump Administration, and understaffed. Biden’s nominee to lead D.R.L., a longtime human-rights advocate named Sarah Margon, had just withdrawn her nomination; at a confirmation hearing, Margon had been confronted with a tweet she’d written in support of an announcement from Airbnb, in 2018, that it was not going to allow Israeli settlers in the West Bank to list their homes. (Airbnb backed off the policy in the face of several lawsuits. You can now book a stay in the settlement of your choice.) Those who remained in the department were dedicated to their mission. They believed that the United States could play a positive role in the world. Sheline felt, at first, a little “weird”—she was a lot less certain about American beneficence than some of her colleagues—but also inspired. After the Trump years, the country again had a President who seemed to believe that human rights should be a priority.

Sheline had been in government for just six months when the Hamas attacks took place. The killings shocked and dismayed her. With colleagues, she discussed what Israel’s response would likely be. She was encouraged that President Biden had warned Benjamin Netanyahu not to repeat America’s post-9/11 mistakes.

She did not have to wait long to see that Netanyahu had not listened. In the first week of Israel’s Operation Swords of Iron, its Air Force dropped more bombs on Gaza than had been dropped by the U.S. in the most high-intensity month of the campaign against ISIS , back in 2017. Civilians were being killed at an astonishing pace—more than three hundred Gaza residents died a day in the first month of the war, many of them children. In mid-October, a State Department official, Josh Paul , resigned. He had worked in the bureau that oversaw weapons transfers to Israel. In the past, he said, citing the example of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the attention paid to how weapons would be used had been “microscopic.” In this case, however, “there was none of that. It was, ‘Open doors. Go.’ ”

Sheline was impressed by Paul’s resignation, but she had no intention of following suit. For one thing, she was far more junior. For another, she had just arrived in government after a long period of trying to do so. She and her husband had a mortgage and a toddler—a little girl.

Sheline has trouble pinpointing the moment she changed her mind. During the next several months, she watched the State Department work on negotiations for a substantial ceasefire, which never seemed to come to fruition. She watched U.S. planes airdrop food packages into Gaza, Berlin Airlift-style, while its ally Israel endlessly inspected trucks that could have delivered far more food at the crossings into Gaza. She watched the Administration leak, over and over, that the President was very frustrated with Netanyahu. “It’s, like, Well, clearly he’s not,” Sheline said, “because he has a lot of power here.” If Biden were genuinely frustrated, she thought, he could demand that the ceasefire happen and that civilians be granted more access to humanitarian aid. “They’re building this stupid pier instead of just insisting on the trucks getting across the border,” she told me last month.

“Often, inside the State Department, there’s this belief in the process,” Sheline continued. “You know, ‘It’s a slow process. You have to just go through the steps.’ But, really, from what I’ve observed, the only thing that seems to be causing any shift is public pressure. I had done what I could. I had tried to do what small things are available for someone in my position on the inside.” In mid-February, citing the Israeli campaign in Gaza, she told her superiors that she was going to leave, though only after she finished a yearlong commitment to the job, and completed her work on the bureau’s annual human-rights reports. Once that was done, she shut down her personal Web site and wrote an editorial for CNN. “Unable to serve an administration that enables such atrocities,” she wrote, “I have decided to resign from my position at the Department of State.”

The experience was still very raw when we spoke over Zoom a few days later. “I know that I won’t ever probably get to work for the government again, which in D.C. may be tricky,” she said. “It’s hard to even say what a professional impact this may end up having. But, you know, I think about my daughter. I assume that she will learn about this in school. And I just want to be able to let her know that I did what I could on the inside. But then it became clear that that just wasn’t having any impact.”

The U.S. government is a very large bureaucracy. You go there to have some effect on what the government is doing. Your chances of having such an effect are inversely proportional to how much the issue matters at that moment. “I mean, not that I expected one person to shift the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Sheline said, “but I hoped that maybe by being on the inside, and working with others—there are many people inside State who are really trying, working very hard on this issue. But, you know, until the President decides that he wants the U.S. policy to change, it’s not going to change.”

For many people, in Washington and beyond, the American response to the 9/11 attacks settled an old question about the U.S. and its commitment to human rights. Clearly, it seemed to them, the U.S. had no such commitment. It was happy to preach to other people—to Serbs, Russians, Chinese—about human rights. But, when it came under attack, it would do just about anything to wipe out the threat.

Paradoxically, though, it could be argued that the American war on terror redeemed or even reconstituted the human-rights community in the U.S. In the context of that war, American human-rights advocates were no longer primarily criticizing other countries’ human-rights abuses; they were criticizing and trying to mitigate their own. In the past six months of war in Gaza, that community has been very vocal in its criticism of a longtime U.S. ally. Analysts and former government officials, many of them shaped by the American forever wars, have written eloquently about the principles of proportionality and the potential for war-crimes prosecutions not just of Israelis but of their American counterparts. They have demanded that the Biden Administration enforce American legal requirements for weapons provided by the U.S.

When I spoke to Hall last month, she said that she had never seen a war like this one. In Syria or Iraq or Ukraine, civilians could usually flee. In this conflict, Gazans are trapped. Neither Israel nor Egypt will let them in, and they know, from bitter experience, that if they leave, they may not be able to return. Another difference is the state of Gaza before the war. It was already ground down from multiple rounds of destruction and rebuilding, poor governance, and the Israeli-Egyptian economic blockade; some of the buildings that were bombed had been constructed out of concrete from previous buildings that had been bombed. (It does not help matters that, for years, Hamas put scarce resources toward its extensive underground tunnel network.) Then, there is Gaza’s water. In Eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held area east of Damascus that was besieged by the Assad regime for more than five years—one of the longest sieges in modern history—Hall saw people digging wells in their back yards. In Gaza, this is hazardous. The coastal aquifer is depleted; the water underground is brackish without treatment. This greatly cuts down on the ability of Gazans to survive.

Above all, Hall was seeing an army prosecute a war using indiscriminate means. “Urban warfare is notoriously difficult, but we still have rules,” she said. “There is no military reason to withhold medicine, water, and food to a civilian-populated area—and some of the weapons being used don’t make sense.” Israel was dropping two-thousand-pound bombs (supplied by the U.S.), which have the capacity to kill within a quarter-mile radius; in Gaza, which is just five miles wide in certain places, this was a very large radius. “You don’t use weapons like that in densely populated urban areas, or, rather, shouldn’t,” Hall said. More than thirty thousand Gazans had been killed—more than a third of them reported to be children—and epidemiologists had begun to warn of famine .

For Hall and many other observers, Biden’s failure to intervene was the key factor. Hall thought Biden had made a simple political calculation: that the progressives in his party had nowhere to go. He also had a well-known soft spot for Israel, and believed deeply in its role as an American ally in the Middle East. He may also have been trying to keep Netanyahu close to prevent him from escalating with Hezbollah and Iran. Still, at some level, it was a mystery. “If you ask me what I am puzzled by, it’s not the barbarity of either Hamas or the Israeli government,” Ian Lustick, a political scientist and longtime student of Israeli affairs, told me in late March. “It’s why Biden is so slow on the uptake here.”

On April 1st, two events that had the capacity to alter the war took place. One was an Israeli strike on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, which killed two senior Iranian commanders. The other was the Israeli strike on three World Central Kitchen vehicles that were moving along the coastal road in Gaza, which killed seven aid workers who had just delivered food to a nearby warehouse.

The World Central Kitchen attack seemed to shock the President into action. In a thirty-minute phone call three days later, Biden demanded that Netanyahu start fighting with more deliberate care; that he let significantly more aid into Gaza; and that he agree to a ceasefire that will create conditions for the remaining hostages held by Hamas to be released. A readout of the call was delivered to the media by the National Security Council’s spokesman, John Kirby, who couched Biden’s warning in stern terms. “What we want to see are some real changes on the Israeli side,” Kirby said. “If we don’t see changes from their side, there will have to be changes from our side.”

But the Biden-Netanyahu phone call also had another topic: the Iranian threat of retaliation for the Israeli strike in Damascus. In the face of this threat, Biden said, the U.S. stood side by side with Israel, and would continue to support it. In more recent days, Biden’s tone has become more forceful. He has said that American intelligence indicates an attack from Iran against Israel could be imminent, and he has urged Iran to change course.

For Lustick, the call signalled a turning point in the conflict in Gaza. Israeli Prime Ministers, he said, almost never ended wars because they wanted to; instead, they did so when their allies, and in particular the United States, forced them to. This had happened in 1982, when Ronald Reagan called Menachem Begin to stop attacks on Lebanon; it happened in 2002, when George W. Bush leaned on Ariel Sharon to end his incursion into the West Bank. “Not a single war has ended because Israel’s war aims were achieved,” Lustick told me. “They always end when the United States says, ‘O.K., now you gotta stop,’—and they do. We say that in different ways, but we always have to say it, and it’s partly because the Israeli government needs it to be said, because otherwise they’d have to admit that they didn’t achieve their war aims.”

In the days after the Biden-Netanyahu phone call, this prediction seemed to be correct: Israel announced that it would soon open the Erez Crossing, in north Gaza, to allow in more humanitarian aid, and that it was pulling troops out of Khan Younis, in the south, signalling a halt, at least for now, of major military ground operations. Netanyahu said that his promised invasion of Rafah—the last city in Gaza more or less left standing, where much of the civilian population, and, the Israeli government claims, many Hamas militants, have taken refuge—would still go forward, and that a date had even been set. But his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, quickly contradicted him, telling his American counterpart that there was as yet no date for the proposed invasion.

Sheline was skeptical of the Israeli response. The bombs were still falling; the long-awaited ceasefire still hadn’t happened. And the humanitarian aid was inadequate. “They say they will open one more crossing, and they let in a hundred more trucks,” she said a few days after the Biden-Netanyahu call. “But at this point, after the World Central Kitchen attack, we have a lot of organizations pulling out because it’s a suicide mission for them. We need so much more now—there’s still nowhere near enough aid.”

Hall was worried about the so-called “day after.” “So you wipe out every Hamas soldier—then what?” she asked. “You just created a whole bunch of orphans and people who are forever traumatized by this without really anything on the other side of it.” Israel would not be able to simply leave the Strip, as it has after previous episodes of what it called “mowing the grass.” “This is very different,” Hall continued. “And I fear that if there isn’t a bigger reconstruction plan on the other end, this will be a festering wound, even more so than it has been, for decades to come.” Hall recently wrote a white paper for the Center for Strategic and International Studies about what she called “the new forever wars”—local conflicts that went on and on because they had become internationalized, as some had during the Cold War, but with more actors. Russia or China or Iran might support one side, the U.S. and Europe the other. Each side kept the other in the fight, while the root causes of the conflict remained unaddressed. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a very long-running example of such a conflict, but now more “kinetic,” more destructive, and more dangerous. And there was no end in sight.

For now, to Hall, the most immediate fear was famine. She had seen starvation in Syria. Once people started dying of hunger, as some have in Gaza, it was already too late. “In my experience, mothers will soon become so malnourished they can’t produce breast milk, they can’t get formula, and then things get really ugly,” she told me. “Society can break down from the inside. People will do anything to feed their kids.” ♦

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W hen Israel launched its retaliatory war to root out Hamas from Gaza in the aftermath of the group’s Oct. 7 massacre, it had the overwhelming support of a horrified world. Six months on, Gaza lies in ruin. Its 2.3 million population, most of whom have been internally displaced, faces widespread famine. More than 33,000 Palestinians, the majority civilians, have been killed. And Israel, once backed by the full-throttle support of its closest allies, appears more isolated than ever before.

Nothing exemplifies this isolation more than the growing calls for the U.S., the U.K., and Germany to suspend arms sales to Israel. These calls, which have only grown louder in the days following the killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in an Israeli airstrike, are now coming from some of the highest levels of transatlantic politics.

In the U.S., 56 congressional lawmakers (among them former House speaker Nancy Pelosi) penned a letter urging President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to withhold further weapons transfers to Israel until a full investigation into the deadly airstrike concludes, and to condition future assistance to ensure its compliance with U.S. and international law. One, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, even went so far as to say that Israel’s actions in Gaza could legally be considered a genocide .

Read More: ‘It’s Not Just a One-Off Incident:’ What the World Central Kitchen Deaths Reveal

In the U.K., Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from parliamentarians and legal experts alike to suspend arms sales following revelations that the government received legal advice that Israel has broken international law in Gaza. Meanwhile, in Germany—which this week faces allegations brought forward by Nicaragua at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it is “ facilitating the commission of genocide ” in Gaza by supplying arms to Israel—hundreds of civil servants have reportedly written to Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other senior ministers calling on Berlin to “cease arm deliveries to the Israeli government with immediate effect.”

Central to all of these calls is a concern over whether Israel’s conduct in Gaza could constitute a breach of international humanitarian law—and, if so, what it means for the countries that have backed the Israeli war effort with arms and assistance. If Western weapons are found to have been used in the perpetration of war crimes (or, worse, genocide ) in Gaza, what culpability could their suppliers face? If Israel is deemed to have fallen on the wrong side of international law, could it bring its allies down with it?

Legal experts tell TIME that the answer largely depends on which laws and treaties one consults. Among the most emphasized is the international Arms Trade Treaty, in which Article 7 requires party states to undertake a risk assessment of all arms transfers—and, where there’s an overriding risk that those arms could be used to commit or facilitate violations of international humanitarian law, to prohibit their export. The U.S. hasn’t been a party to the U.N. treaty since former President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2019. (Washington does, however, have its own domestic legislation that prohibits it from providing military assistance to foreign military units suspected of committing human rights violations.) But it nonetheless applies to 113 other state signatories, including Germany, which is the second-largest provider of arms to Israel after the U.S. Some countries, including Canada and Italy , have already opted to halt their arms exports to Israel, citing concerns over their compliance with domestic and international law. In the Netherlands, the government was ordered to suspend its delivery of F-35 fighter aircraft after a Dutch court determined that there was a “ clear risk ” that they could be used to violate international humanitarian law.

Such a precedent could have serious implications for the U.K., a signatory, which despite providing far fewer arms to Israel has suspended its exports in the past: First in 1982 , and then again in 2009 . While the British government contends that its arms sales to Israel are compliant with international law, human rights organizations have argued that this position is inconsistent with mounting evidence of war crimes. “They’re very well aware that there’s equipment that they’ve currently already licensed, and component parts of equipment that they’ve licensed, that are likely to be used by the IDF in Gaza now,” Yasmine Ahmed, the U.K. Director of Human Rights Watch, tells TIME. “That means that they’re clearly breaching those obligations under international law.”

ICJ Delivers Order On South Africa's Genocide Case Against Israel

The obligation that perhaps looms largest over Gaza is the responsibility that states have to prevent and punish genocide under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention. In a landmark decision in January, the ICJ determined in an interim judgment that there is a plausible risk of Israel committing genocide in Gaza. While this doesn’t constitute a definitive ruling (genocide cases can take years to resolve), it does put Israel’s allies on notice. “It makes countries aware that there’s that risk,” Ahmed says. “Continuing to provide arms to Israel when an apex U.N. court has said that there’s a plausible risk of genocide means that there’s a very serious risk that countries are also violating the Genocide convention, to the extent that they’re failing to prevent genocide by continuing to arm Israel.”

That prospect, and the potential criminal liability that comes with it, has prompted concern among British civil servants overseeing U.K. arms exports to Israel, who last week requested to “ suspend all such work ” over fears that it could put them in legal jeopardy. Their request came a week after a third U.S. State Department official publicly resigned over the Biden administration’s handling of the war in Gaza—a decision that Annelle Sheline, who served in the office devoted to promoting human rights in the Middle East, attributed to the administration’s “flagrant disregard for American laws” and the inability of her or other federal employees to influence policy. Indeed, State Department staff have reportedly sent at least eight internal dissent memos registering their disapproval of U.S. policy on the war, according to the Independent . By contrast, just one was sent during the first three years of the Iraq War.

Read More: How Israel and Its Allies Lost Global Credibility

Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College in Dublin and a former associate legal officer at the ICJ, tells TIME that in a situation where the ICJ has already determined that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, “it would then be possible for another state that has provided arms to Israel—if such arms were used to commit genocidal acts—also to be found to have violated international law.” He adds, however, that it is difficult to prove that a state was legally complicit in genocide as it would require proving that the state was aware of another state’s genocidal intent; it's easier to prove that a state failed to meet its international obligation to prevent genocide, the responsibility for which is triggered the moment state learns there’s a serious risk that genocide will be committed. Nicaragua’s case against Germany at The Hague, a ruling on which is expected in the coming weeks, rests on the latter argument.

While what it means to meet one’s obligation to prevent genocide can vary from state to state depending on their relative capabilities or leverage, “Lawmakers in the U.S. and the U.K. and elsewhere need to be thinking very carefully about whether their conduct puts them at risk of violating or breaching their obligation to prevent genocide,” Becker says, adding: “I don’t think it’s a very big leap from that understanding of the obligation to prevent genocide to the conclusion that it’s problematic to continue providing arms to Israel without any meaningful safeguards.

While a judgement on whether Israel has committed genocide is likely years away, if the ICJ were to determine that Israel had committed acts of genocide in Gaza and found that its allies who supplied arms did so with full knowledge of risk, among the tangible consequences that states could face include an order from the ICJ to take remedial action, such as paying financial reparations. What’s less clear, however, is how such orders could be enforced. “The ICJ has no means of enforcing its decisions,” Becker says. “At the end of the day, the ICJ has to rely on others to carry out its decisions.”

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Write to Yasmeen Serhan at [email protected]

Opinion Leaders of Jordan, France and Egypt: Cease fire now in Gaza

Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein is king of Jordan. Emmanuel Macron is president of France. Abdel Fatah El-Sisi is president of Egypt.

The war in Gaza and the catastrophic humanitarian suffering it is causing must end now. Violence, terror and war cannot bring peace to the Middle East. The two-state solution will. It is the only credible path to guaranteeing peace and security for all, and ensuring that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis ever have to relive the horrors that have befallen them since the Oct. 7 attack.

On March 25, the U.N. Security Council finally assumed its responsibility by demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. This is a critical step that must be fully implemented without further delay.

In light of the intolerable human toll of the war, we, the leaders of Egypt, France and Jordan, call for the immediate and unconditional implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2728. We underline the urgent need to bring about a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.

We emphasize the urgency of implementing the Security Council’s demand for the immediate release of all hostages and reaffirm our support for the negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United States that address a cease-fire, as well as the hostages and detainees.

As we urge all parties to abide by all relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, we warn against the dangerous consequences of an Israeli offensive on Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinian civilians have sought refuge. Such an offensive would only bring more death and suffering, heighten the risks and consequences of mass displacement of the people of Gaza and threaten regional escalation. We reiterate our equal respect for all lives. We condemn all violations and abuses of international humanitarian law, including all acts of violence, terrorism and indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Protecting civilians is a fundamental legal obligation for all parties and the cornerstone of international humanitarian law. Violating this obligation is absolutely prohibited.

Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine, but famine is already setting in. There is an urgent need for a massive increase in the provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance. This is a core demand of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 2720 and 2728, which emphasize the urgent need to expand aid supplies.

U.N. agencies, including the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, and humanitarian actors play a critical role in relief operations in Gaza. They must be protected and granted full access, including in the northern part of the Gaza Strip . We condemn the killing of humanitarian aid workers, most recently the attack against World Central Kitchen’s aid convoy .

Consistent with international law, Israel is under an obligation to ensure the flow of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population, a responsibility it has not fulfilled. We reiterate the Security Council’s demand to lift barriers to humanitarian assistance and for Israel to immediately facilitate humanitarian assistance through all crossing points, including in the North of the Gaza Strip and through a direct land corridor from Jordan, as well as by sea.

We, the leaders of Egypt, France and Jordan, are determined to continue stepping up our efforts to meet the humanitarian, medical and health needs of the civilian population of Gaza, in close coordination with the U.N. system and regional partners.

Lastly, we underline the urgency of restoring hope for peace and security for all in the region, primarily the Palestinian and Israeli people. We emphasize our determination to continue working together to avoid further regional spillover, and we call on all actors to refrain from any escalatory action. We urge an end to all unilateral measures, including settlement activity and land confiscation. We also urge Israel to prevent settler violence.

We emphasize the necessity of respecting the historical and legal status quo at Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites, and the role of the Jordanian Waqf under the Hashemite custodianship.

We stress our determination to step up our joint efforts to effectively bring about the two-state solution. The establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the basis of the two-state solution, in accordance with international law and relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, to live side by side in peace and security with Israel, is the only way to achieve true peace. The Security Council must play a role in decisively reopening this horizon for peace.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Street Children

This essay about street children sheds light on the harsh realities faced by minors living on the streets due to various socioeconomic factors, including family breakdown, poverty, and conflict. It outlines the significant challenges these children encounter daily, such as exploitation, health issues, lack of education, and societal stigmatization. Highlighting the necessity for a holistic approach to address these issues, the essay argues for interventions that tackle root causes, provide specialized support, and promote reintegration into society. Emphasizing the global responsibility to protect and empower street children, it advocates for concerted efforts from governments, international organizations, and civil society to improve their conditions and ensure their rights, ultimately striving for a society that measures its success by how it treats its most vulnerable.

How it works

The plight of street children remains one of the most heart-wrenching yet overlooked issues in today’s society. These children, often invisible to the bustling masses of city life, embody the profound disparities and systemic failures that persist across the globe. This essay explores the multifaceted lives of street children, the myriad challenges they face, and the steps that can be taken to alleviate their suffering.

At its core, the term “street children” refers to minors who live and survive on the streets.

This includes those who sleep in public places without the care of family or guardians, as well as those who might have a home to return to but spend the majority of their time on the streets due to various circumstances. The reasons behind this harsh reality are as diverse as the children themselves. They range from family breakdown, abuse, and poverty, to urban migration and armed conflict. These factors not only push children into living on the streets but also entangle them in a web of challenges that are hard to escape.

Life on the street exposes these children to a spectrum of risks and adversities, including exploitation, abuse, health problems, and a lack of access to education and basic sanitation. The daily existence of these children is marked by a constant struggle for survival, where securing food, safety, and a place to sleep become their primary concerns. Moreover, street children often face societal stigmatization and exclusion, further marginalizing them from mainstream support systems and services. This isolation can have profound effects on their psychological and emotional well-being, fostering a cycle of poverty and neglect that is difficult to break.

Addressing the needs of street children requires a holistic approach that goes beyond mere temporary relief. It necessitates understanding the root causes that lead children to live on the streets and tackling these issues at their source. This includes implementing policies aimed at poverty reduction, ensuring access to education, and providing support to families in crisis. Moreover, specialized interventions that cater to the unique needs of street children are critical. These include access to healthcare, rehabilitation services, and programs that facilitate their reintegration into society.

The global community has a moral obligation to protect and support street children. This involves promoting their rights, ensuring their voices are heard, and taking concrete actions to improve their living conditions. Civil society, governments, and international organizations must collaborate to develop sustainable solutions that address both the immediate needs of these children and the structural issues at play. Empowering street children through education and vocational training can also pave the way for their future success and independence.

In conclusion, the issue of street children is a complex phenomenon that demands comprehensive and compassionate responses. By acknowledging the inherent dignity and potential of these children, society can begin to dismantle the barriers that keep them from leading healthy, productive lives. It is through concerted efforts and targeted interventions that the bleak reality of street children can be transformed into a narrative of hope and resilience. As we move forward, let us remember that the measure of a society is often found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.

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The New Movie ‘Civil War’ Matters for Reasons Different Than You Think

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By Stephen Marche

Mr. Marche is the author of “The Next Civil War.”

“Not one man in America wanted the Civil War, or expected or intended it,” Henry Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, declared at the beginning of the 20th century. What may seem inevitable to us in hindsight — the horrifying consequences of a country in political turmoil, given to violence and rived by slavery — came as a shock to many of the people living through it. Even those who anticipated it hardly seemed prepared for its violent magnitude. In this respect at least, the current division that afflicts the United States seems different from the Civil War. If there ever is a second civil war, it won’t be for lack of imagining it.

The most prominent example arrives this week in the form of an action blockbuster titled “Civil War.” The film, written and directed by Alex Garland, presents a scenario in which the government is at war with breakaway states and the president has been, in the eyes of part of the country, delegitimized. Some critics have denounced the project, arguing that releasing the film in this particular election year is downright dangerous. They assume that even just talking about a future national conflict could make it a reality, and that the film risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is wrong.

Not only does this criticism vastly overrate the power of the written word or the moving image, but it looks past the real forces sending the United States toward ever-deeper division: inequality; a hyperpartisan duopoly; and an antiquated and increasingly dysfunctional Constitution. Mere stories are not powerful enough to change those realities. But these stories can wake us up to the threats we are facing. The greatest political danger in America isn’t fascism, and it isn’t wokeness. It’s inertia. America needs a warning.

The reason for a surge in anxiety over a civil war is obvious. The Republican National Committee, now under the control of the presumptive nominee, has asked job candidates if they believe the 2020 election was stolen — an obvious litmus test. Extremism has migrated into mainstream politics, and certain fanciful fictions have migrated with it. In 1997, a group of Texas separatists were largely considered terrorist thugs and their movement, if it deserved that title, fizzled out after a weeklong standoff with the police. Just a few months ago, Texas took the federal government to court over control of the border. Armed militias have camped out along the border. That’s not a movie trailer. That’s happening.

But politicians, pundits and many voters seem not to be taking the risk of violence seriously enough. There is an ingrained assumption, resulting from the country’s recent history of global dominance coupled with a kind of organic national optimism, that in the United States everything ultimately works out. While right-wing journalists and fiction writers have been predicting a violent end to the Republic for generations — one of the foundational documents of neo-Nazism and white supremacy is “The Turner Diaries” from 1978, a novel that imagines an American revolution that leads to a race war — their writings seem more like wish fulfillment than like warnings.

When I attended prepper conventions as research for my book, I found their visions of a collapsed American Republic suspiciously attractive: It’s a world where everybody grows his own food, gathers with family by candlelight, defends his property against various unpredictable threats and relies on his wits. Their preferred scenario resembled, more than anything, a sort of postapocalyptic “Little House on the Prairie.”

We’ve seen more recent attempts to grapple with the possibility of domestic conflict in the form of sober-minded political analysis. Now the vision of a civil war has come to movie screens. We’re no longer just contemplating a political collapse, we’re seeing its consequences unfold in IMAX.

“Civil War” doesn’t dwell on the causes of the schism. Its central characters are journalists and the plot dramatizes the reality of the conflict they’re covering: the fear, violence and instability that a civil war would inflict on the lives of everyday Americans.

That’s a good thing. Early on when I was promoting my book, I remember an interviewer asking me whether a civil war wouldn’t be that terrible an option; whether it would help clear the air. The naïveté was shocking and, to me, sickening. America lost roughly 2 percent of its population in the Civil War. Contemplating the horrors of a civil war — whether as a thought experiment or in a theatrical blockbuster — helps counteract a reflexive sense of American exceptionalism. It can happen here. In fact, it already has.

One of the first people to predict the collapse of the Republic was none other than George Washington. “I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations,” he warned in his Farewell Address. “This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature.” This founder of the country devoted much of one of his most important addresses, at the apex of his popularity, to warning about the exact situation the United States today finds itself in: a hyper-partisanship that puts party over country and risks political collapse. Washington knew what civil war looked like.

For those Americans of the 1850s who couldn’t imagine a protracted, bloody civil war, the reason is simple enough: They couldn’t bear to. They refused to see the future they were part of building. The future came anyway.

The Americans of 2024 can easily imagine a civil war. The populace faces a different question and a different crisis: Can we forestall the future we have foreseen? No matter the likelihood of that future, the first step in its prevention is imagining how it might come to pass, and agreeing that it would be a catastrophe.

Stephen Marche is the author of “The Next Civil War.”

Source photographs by Yasuhide Fumoto, Richard Nowitz and stilllifephotographer, via Getty Images.

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