By Dr Arun Mitra
The missile attack on Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in central Kyiv, Ukraine on July 8 , 2024 by the Russian forces is very disturbing. Since the start of the conflict in Gaza 31 out of 36 hospitals have been damaged or destroyed and over 500 healthcare workers killed according to the UN Human Rights Office. Article 18 of the Geneva Convention stipulates that a building designated as a civilian hospital cannot be the target of attack. But this has been ignored despite several appeals including by the UNO.
During the war time it is the vulnerable sections of the society, the children, women and the elderly who suffer the most. It is always heart breaking to see the children crying for help, weeping, sitting by the dead bodies of their kith and kin not really understanding what has happened and what is in store for them in future. Massacre of nearly 15000 children in Gaza as a result of Israeli aggression is the most heinous crime of the on-going times.
Number of non-combatants killed during the modern warfare is much more than the combatants. During the wars during 1990’s, more than 90% killed have been the civilians; in fact more children died than soldiers. As a result of changes in warfare strategies over the last decades, civilians have become more vulnerable in the conflicts.
The war causes extreme misery. There is uncertainty of life at any moment of time. Fear of displacement, injury and death always looms large. Normal life pattern comes to a halt. Schools are closed; tourism ends; economy slows down and there is manifold increase in wasteful expenditure on arms. This adds to hunger, deprivation, destruction and cries everywhere in the war zone. Any war in the present day times has serious global impact. Many a time wars lead to destruction of cultures even civilisations. Environment is a big causality in the war. The combined militaries of the world contribute to 6% of the global carbon footprint.
Empathy, love and affection which is a natural behaviour of a person becomes perverted. No empathy is left towards, even children and women. In fact in many war situations children and women are abused; even used as weapons of war.
It is very unfortunate that whereas every incident of war today is easily visible on our home screens, we have failed to stop them. There is no serious collective effort to stop the wars through dialogue. Rather in the last few decades we have witnessed blatant intervention by the big powers in other countries on the pretext of establishing democracy or fighting terrorism. Aggression on Iraq by the US and its allies, armed intervention in Afghanistan in the name of terrorism and aggression on Libya are the examples of these. Their role in armed conflict in Syria and some African countries is well known.
Such acts, instead of cutting down expenditure on arms have added to increase in the world military expenditure which in 2022, rose to $2240bn with $82.9bn spent on nuclear weapons alone. As per the International Campaign to Abolish of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), in 2023, the nine nuclear-armed states spent $10.8 billion (13.4%) more on their nuclear arsenals than the year before, a total of $91.4 billion, or $2,898 per second on nuclear weapons. Every country increased the amount it spent on nuclear weapons. The United States had the biggest increase, at nearly 18%. The United States spent more than all of the other nuclear-armed states combined, at $51.5 billion. China surpassed Russia as the second-highest spender at $11.9 billion, and Russia came in third, spending $8.3 billion.
This is the time for intense diplomacy to bring down the arms race and to impress upon the global community that expenditure on arms takes away our resources from social needs. The big powers, particularly the G7, need to understand this. It is however very sad that instead of initiating diplomatic means and dialogue, the NATO in its meeting in Washington has promised US$ 43 billion to Ukraine to keep on fighting and defeat Russia.
The double standards of the US government of asking Israel to observe restraint in its offensive on hand but on the other side supplying them large cache of weapons in the name of self-defence are intriguing. Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023 and up to the end of June, the US had transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions, the Reuters news agency reports.
The Military Industrial Complex is making roost by selling arms and making huge profits due to the poor diplomatic efforts to end war. The global south, facing its enormous problems of economic development and environment conservation is yearning for peace. It is only in the conditions of global peace that there would be better conditions to increase investment in the poor developing countries and a shift from the war industry to the industry for common good.
It is therefore imperative that diplomatic efforts be increased to end the on-going wars including the Russia Ukraine and War on Gaza in particular. There is also need to have dialogue to sort out conflicts in some of the African counties and to facilitate dialogue in south Asia. In the absence of NAM the BRICS can play some role even though it may not be to the liking of NATO.
It is high time that a broad initiative is taken at the international level to appeal to the nuclear weapons possessing countries to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). They should be made to agree to keep all the nuclear powered weapon system off high alert. The Nuclear Weapons Possessing States (NWS) should declare no first use of nuclear weapons and never to use them on any non-nuclear state. Any escalation of war in Ukraine and Gaza is fraught with the danger of use of nuclear weapons. Any complacency in this matter or lack of diplomatic initiatives to prevent the threat of use of nuclear weapons could be catastrophic. (IPA )
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