Security risks on the rise from intensifying ‘New Cold War’

One year into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is all too clear that none concerned has in any way gained by it. The two main sides to the conflict have dug their heels in and are in an unrelenting posture, raising the possibility of the Ukraine situation degenerating into yet another humanly-costly ‘Killing Field’.

The UN has given the world the ‘bleeding statistics’. Well above 8000 Ukraine civilians have reportedly lost their lives over the past year while tens of thousands of others have been wounded or displaced. The question recurs: why are civilians being made to suffer in this invasion? Isn’t it plain to see that they have had no hand in creating the Putin regime’s ‘security’ worries or any other factors that it sees as justification for its invasion of Ukraine?

This is a matter of humanity or one of consideration for human life. The latter attitude requires that everyone who cares for the security of human beings anywhere stands up and be counted as those who oppose the killing of civilians in conflict and war. The ‘silent majority’ and other quarters who care for the wellbeing of humanity cannot remain silent any more.

The humane need to clearly and loudly voice their opposition to the taking of civilian lives in Ukraine and other wasting conflicts that place at risk the achievements of civilization. Public pressure needs to be applied on regimes that seem to be uncaring about the Reverence for Life, with the expectation that they would defer to wise counsel and give humanity the opportunity to be ingrained in hearts and minds.

Hopefully, the Russian people who possess a rich legacy of humanity left behind by the likes of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky would prove equal to this visionary undertaking. This task cannot be deferred any longer.

Of course, Ukraine is not the only military quagmire in contemporary times that raises the sensitive and troubling question of the escalating human costs of war. Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, under US-led military interventions raised the same issue and more.

The fact that civilian deaths are continuing unabated in such war zones testifies to the fact that the human conscience could be deadened to the point of total insensitivity to the problem of suffering. This is a foremost tragedy of our times that calls for urgent rectification.

Meanwhile, the security issues for the world could only be expected to intensify from the Ukraine quagmire. US President Joe Biden’s unscheduled recent visit to Ukraine and his meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, where he pledged continuous military assistance to Ukraine, freshly underscores the fact that the war in Ukraine could only be expected to drag on.

President Zelensky, for his part, wanted ‘war-winning’ armaments. That much was indicated to the US President. The former probably hinted at the need for fighter jets and the like that would clearly turn the war in Ukraine’s favour.

Further compounding the conflict is Russian President Putin’s adamancy in not backing-down from his position of continuing the invasion. His elaborate address to the Russian ruling class on the first anniversary of the invasion made that much clear. With neither party to the conflict indicating a softening of their positions the torture of Ukraine could only be expected to intensify.

However, there are security ramifications from these developments for the world as well that should have it deeply worried. There was, for instance, President Putin’s recent comment to the effect that his regime would not be going ahead with ratifying a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with the US.

The non-ratification of such a treaty would open the possibility of both sides going ahead with developing strategic weapons in an unrestricted, unaccountable fashion.

For the more experienced watcher of international politics, these developments carry more than a whiff of the US-USSR Cold War of decades past. We seem to be very much back in times of stepped-up East-West tensions, fueled principally by the super powers’ scramble to develop strategic weapons, even of a nuclear kind. However, in the present ‘New Cold War’ the ideological polarity of capitalism versus communism is absent on account of the fact that the Russia of today is by no means socialist or communist. However, the path has just been paved for an intensified East-West arms race which the world could very well do without.

In the days ahead the international community would need to figure out more intently than before how this new ‘Cold War’ could be contained and prevented from growing beyond its control. The UN is going the extra mile with regard to the provision of humanitarian assistance to those in need but keeping the super powers under control and getting them to adhere to the core principles of International Law has emerged as a principal challenge for it.

There are no simple answers to these dilemmas. However, some positives could be achieved if the UN reform process is speeded-up. A broad-basing of the UN Security Council’s permanent membership to bring in major democratic countries, thus far not included in the UNSC, that could act as an effective counter-weight against those permanent members of an authoritarian kind who tend to use their power arbitrarily, is one solution worth considering.

Nevertheless, there is no getting away from the need for the principal states of the world to keep the communication channels among them open. From this viewpoint the G20 finance ministers’ summit due to be launched in India today would prove important.

Ideally, this forum ought to impress on its participants the importance of working consensually in view of the fact that they all stand to lose as a result of having on their hands an unstable world, where politics would reign over economics. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is on record as having said that she would call on China in particular to ‘quickly deliver’ on debt relief measures for economically distressed countries but the West no less than China would need to cooperate in efforts of this kind. East and West need to work consensually on bringing about global economic equity. Thus, would be created a less unstable world.