One hundred years ago, as the nineteenth century drew to a close, the mood was one of remarkably unrestrained optimism about the future. Decades of peace between the major global powers and unprecedented economic advances led many to believe that problems could be solved without resorting to deadly conflict. But the twentieth century proved to be the most violent and destructive in all human history, with armed conflict taking the lives of over 100 million people and political violence responsible for 170 million more deaths.1
A similar mood of optimism was evident as the Cold War ended. Perhaps with the shadow of nuclear holocaust lifted and a new spirit of superpower cooperation in the UN Security Council and elsewhere, we could look confidently forward to a new era of peaceful dispute resolution. Perhaps a commitment to trading with each other in an open-bordered, globalized economy would weaken the temptation to seek economic advantage through military conquest. Perhaps we now communicate with each other so much better--through travel, the global media, and new communications technology--that we would be much more reluctant to fight each other. Perhaps there have been so many advances over recent decades in health, education, and democratization that some crucial underlying causes of conflict have been ameliorated.
These hopes already ring hollow. The world has a long way to go before we can consign large-scale deadly conflict to history. Within a few short months of the Cold War's end, old aggressive nationalistic habits reasserted themselves with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The war in the Gulf was soon followed by bloody conflict in the Balkans and the Horn of Africa, and outright genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda. At the time of this writing, there is conflict in over two dozen locations around the world in which, over the years, tens of thousands have been killed and millions of persons displaced (see Figure 1.1).2
For many governments and their publics, the mounting losses from war have ceased to shock, as the rhythm of daily existence has settled into a routine of attack and counterattack. Yet wars have become ever more brutal. In some wars today, 90 percent of those killed in conflict are noncombatants, compared with less than 15 percent when the century began.3 In Rwanda alone, approximately 40 percent of the population has been killed or displaced since 1994.4
Economic development has been set back by decades in some countries. In Lebanon, for example, GDP in the early 1990s remained 50 percent lower than it was before fighting broke out in 1974.5 In 1993, 29 countries experienced conflict-related food shortages.6 Civil war is blamed for the abandonment of an estimated 80 percent of Angola's agricultural land. In Burundi, already inadequate food production dropped 17 percent during recent periods of conflict.7
This chapter considers the world we face today and the phenomenon of violence that plagues so many countries. Two major factors--the steady growth of the world's population and the stunning advances of modern technology--are transforming the world. They are changing our lives at rates and with results--socially, politically, economically, and environmentally--difficult to predict, and both trends present formidable challenges to peacemakers. At the same time, modern weaponry has put enormous destructive power into the hands of the leaders and groups willing to use violence to achieve their goals. This chapter argues that while human development has managed great strides despite the many episodes of mass violence, we cannot be complacent about our future course.
A World Transforming
Notwithstanding mass violence on a scale that dwarfs all previous centuries, those who survive in most countries now live longer, healthier lives in generally better circumstances than did their parents. Respect for human rights has become widely recognized as an important responsibility of governments and civil society. Concern for the condition of the planet has led to unprecedented international cooperation on many environmental issues.
While many elements of our changing world hold great promise for improvements in the human condition, the very process of rapid change inevitably creates new stresses, especially when accompanied by increased social and economic inequity. Over the past half-dozen years, nearly a quarter of the world's states have undergone political transformations. People and ideas have become more mobile within and between states. Immense wealth has been generated by new technology, but those left behind are increasingly conscious of their dimming prospects ever to share in this new wealth. Thus, many of the changes now under way could, if not managed properly, result in even greater risk of violent conflict.
Rapid Population Growth
The UN projects that world population will increase by more than 50 percent before the year 2050. The population of the developed regions is projected to decrease, while populations in developing regions will increase by more than 80 percent (see Figure 1.2).8
In the coming decade, world economic output will also grow dramatically, but the benefits of this growth will be concentrated largely in already wealthy states and a handful of big emerging markets, thus adding to disparities between and within nations. The 50 poorest countries, home to one-fifth of the world's population, now account for less than two percent of global income, and their share continues to decrease.9 Indeed, the poor in every country will experience the harshest effects and burdens of population increase. The income gap between wealthy and poor nations has doubled in the last 30 years and continues to grow.10 And poverty seems to have a woman's face: of the 1.3 billion who live in poverty today, 70 percent are female.11 With those having less becoming greater in number, the demands on governments will likely become even more difficult to manage and will create circumstances that could lead to increased conflict both within and between states.
Energy demands in the developing countries will more than double by 2010. According to some estimates, over the next decade annual energy infrastructure projects costing approximately $100 billion to $200 billion per year will be needed to support the economic growth of these countries.12 The ability of these nations to feed their populations will also come under serious strain. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that by 2010, developing countries will have to import more than 160 million metric tons of cereals, up from 90 million metric tons in the late 1980s.13
Most developing countries have also witnessed an abrupt rise in urbanization and a corresponding increase in unemployment as people move to the cities in search of work. Many find no jobs and more hardship in the cities, where urban infrastructure and services cannot support the swelling numbers. As urban centers become more crowded, housing conditions deteriorate, crime increases, and serious health problems emerge. In addition to these threats, women and children are particularly vulnerable to the dangers of sexual exploitation and are used as a cheap and plentiful (often coerced) source of labor.14
Beyond difficulties of urbanization and environmental stress brought on by competition for scarce resources, major problems of social adjustment, widespread resentment of the wealthy, and the deterioration of intergroup relations confront governments and leaders everywhere. Obviously, new strategies are needed to cope with these issues.
In sum, we face a world in the next century that will have nearly twice as many people consuming twice the resources but fed from considerably less arable land, with less water for irrigation and drinking available where people's needs are greatest. Some nations face the prospect of dependence on outside help for the subsistence of their people and therefore, perhaps, for the very existence of their states.15 Pushed by growing populations, governments and markets will continue to seek ways to adapt. They are both aided and frustrated in these efforts by the explosive pace of technological advancement.
The Expansion of Technology
One of the most striking facts of our time is the rise of technology as a dominant influence in the lives of most people. Technology now presents unimaginable benefits, opportunities, and choices, but it also poses grave hazards.
Advances in information technology have decreased the cost of processing and transmitting data by factors of a thousand to a million, an efficiency gain unmatched in history.16 The number of people around the world with access to the Internet is growing at a rate of ten percent per month.17
Technical advances have also spurred the growth and integration of a global economy. By the mid-1990s over $1 trillion changed hands each day, a fact that takes on greater significance when one considers that "a new global work force has developed that works in cyberspace and that, like much of the world's financial markets, operates beyond the reach of governments."18 These advances in certain ways limit the ability of governments and financial institutions to regulate financial flows and global markets, which makes them increasingly vulnerable to rogue trading and other illegal behavior.
The benefits of technology do not fall equally among or within nations. The ability to exploit technological innovation favors those who already operate in technologically sophisticated ways.
For those less fortunate, global competition for market shares and capital flows has made it more difficult for governments to protect the jobs, wages, and working conditions of their citizens.19 For example, new chemically and biologically engineered food and other products aimed at satisfying consumer preferences in rich countries can cause sudden drops in the export earnings of poor countries, creating a dramatic economic downturn that can fuel social and political upheaval. Advances in technology in one area of the world can thus unintentionally contribute to the emergence of violent conflict elsewhere.
The world of the next century will be markedly more crowded, interdependent economically, closely linked technologically, increasingly vulnerable ecologically, and progressively more interconnected culturally.20 Trends in this direction have long been apparent, but what has only recently come into sharper focus is the importance of managing the pace of change and its widespread repercussions. Contributing to this focus is the highly destructive power and universal availability of modern weaponry.
Modern Weaponry: Lethal and Available
Far too many weapons--conventional and unconventional--can today fall easily into dangerous hands. The worldwide accessibility of vast numbers of lethal conventional weapons and ammunition makes it possible for quite small groups to marshal formidable fire power. One person armed with an M-16 or AK-47 can kill dozens. A militant with one shoulder-fired ground-to-air missile can bring down a commercial aircraft carrying over 400 people. Civil society is extremely vulnerable to such threats. A few well-armed individuals can seriously disrupt public order. The threat of terrorists has had a profound effect on daily life and government policies throughout the world. In short, the power of modern weaponry--conventional, chemical, biological, and nuclear--is unprecedented in human experience, and the ability to produce and sell this weaponry is still largely uncontrolled.
Conventional Weapons
Conventional weapons are cheap and in ample supply. In many countries, guns are more readily available than basic food or medicine. An AK-47 costs as little as $6; ammunition is plentiful and cheap.21 A land mine costs as little as $3, and those already deployed probably number over 100 million worldwide.22 Nearly all of the large, wealthy, established states and many emerging states sell arms, and their aggressive marketing and easy financing have generated huge inventories and a steady global arms flow (see Table 1.1).
Countries of the developing world, where most of today's conflicts are being fought, spent over $150 billion in 1995 on defense.23 Even as governments in many of these states have lost the ability to provide basic services for their populations, they still find ample resources to buy arms (see Table 1.2). Even as donor states offer funds and other assistance to help ease the ravages of war, many of these same countries, attracted to the lucrative arms trade, continue to sell the weapons and ammunition that fuel the ongoing violence.
Chemical and Biological Weapons
Chemical and biological weapons pose new dangers to poor and rich countries alike. The Iraqi government, for example, used deadly gas against its Kurdish population in 1988, and in 1995 the Japanese sect Aum Shinrikyo used sarin gas in a Tokyo subway, resulting in ten killed and over 5,000 injured--some permanently.24 Governments and disaffected groups still seek these inexpensive weapons of mass destruction, some of which can be produced from ingredients normally sold for commercial purposes.
The potency of these weapons is frightening. According to one analysis, "an ounce of type-A botulinal toxin, properly dispersed, could kill every man, woman, and child in North America. . . just eight ounces of the substance could kill every living creature on the planet."25 Many lethal gasses are colorless and odorless and can lead to immediate or slow, agonizing death for thousands. These weapons can be delivered in missiles or dropped from planes, exploded in ground ordnance, set in time-delay devices, released via remote control, or put in water supplies. Large concentrations of unsuspecting civilians, especially in urban settings, are vulnerable, as the Aum Shinrikyo episode demonstrated.
To be sure, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition, retention, and transfer of biological agents for offensive purposes. Nevertheless, there are difficult problems of distinguishing hostile and peaceful purposes. There are currently no standards to resolve these problems, nor is there a suitable process in place for making progress.
Unlike standard weapons, many biological agents are produced naturally; their existence does not depend on a design bureau or a manufacturing organization. Moreover, although the development of biological weapons must overcome technical problems and uncertainties, much relevant information about biological agents is generated by medical science and is easily available throughout the world. So are the pathogens themselves. As a result, development and production experiments could be undertaken in virtually any country in small-scale operations that would be difficult to locate. These characteristics preclude reliance on a system of control similar to those developed, for example, for fissionable materials or for major items of military hardware.
The Continuing Nuclear Threat
A pervasive sense that progress has been made in reducing the dangers posed by superpower arsenals belies the menace posed by nuclear proliferation. Weapons stockpiles, loose or nonexistent controls, and the lucrative market in trafficking nuclear materials and know-how create a substantial potential for two kinds of nuclear threats: deliberate use and inadvertent use.
It is not difficult to imagine at least three plausible circumstances in which nuclear weapons might be used deliberately: in the context of a dispute between states in which at least one has nuclear capabilities, by so-called "outlaw" states who perceive themselves unacceptably threatened, or by a terrorist group. Chapter 4 discusses ways to prevent these circumstances from materializing.
While the potential for such deliberate use of nuclear weapons may seem obvious, far less apparent, although no less dangerous, is the significant potential that also exists for an inadvertent nuclear detonation. Such an outcome could result if the nuclear-capable states--particularly the United States and Russia--do not take steps to strengthen and broaden the process by which they manage and reduce their existing nuclear capability. Specifically, Russia's nuclear arsenal cannot be safely sustained at current levels or deployments--two factors that are strongly influenced by the posture of the United States. The safe management and redeployment of Russian weapons is essential to avoid the prospect that instability in the former Soviet Union could trigger an inadvertent nuclear interaction. This report will discuss how improved early warnings, accountability, and physical security regimes can help prevent inadvertent nuclear use.
The Cost of Deadly Conflict
Against the backdrop of population growth, technological change, and the availability of destructive weaponry, the potential for violent conflict looms large. What are the consequences of such conflict? What are the long-term effects of losing doctors, lawyers, teachers, or other professionals and the destruction of schools and factories? How long does it take to rebuild? Who pays? What opportunities are lost forever? How does one begin to calculate what it means to a country to lose a generation of its children to war?
While it is difficult to measure the overall effects of a lost generation in countries ravaged by protracted civil war, the social effects of war can be felt in such ways as major changes in the size and composition of the labor force, in economic production, and in community stability.26 In modern wars nations lose their most precious resource--their people--and the capacity to rehabilitate those that survive. In Cambodia, for example, thousands of people have lost limbs to land mines, with the effects on women and children particularly devastating.27 Those who survive often harbor bitterness that fuels future violence.
Postwar rebuilding is an extremely slow, costly, and uncertain process (see Table 1.3). The cost of reconstruction in Kuwait after the six months of Iraqi occupation that ended with Operation Desert Storm was estimated at $50 billion to $100 billion, the equivalent of up to four times Kuwait's preconflict annual GDP.28 Iraq, under a sanctions regime imposed in April 1991, showed that by summer 1997 there was little prospect for a quick return to normal living. Efforts to restore adequate shelter, water, and power to the innumerable ruined cities and towns of Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, Chechnya, Somalia, and Sudan will take years. Renewed violence, growing crime, and corrupt government are ever-present dangers, and where capable government is absent, the threat of widespread violence is often present.
In addition to the price paid by those actually in violent conflict, many peoples and countries well beyond the boundaries of the fighting face consequences and bear significant costs as well. Other states, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) become involved in efforts to manage or resolve conflict and deal with the enormous human suffering, and the demand for help has only increased (see Figures 1.3 and 1.4).
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has seen its expenditures increase along with the growing millions of refugees and displaced persons, from under $600 million in 1990 to an estimated $1.4 billion in 1996.29 The members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) collectively contribute up to $10 billion annually in emergency humanitarian assistance. They spend nearly $59 billion on overseas development assistance, much of this to help countries ravaged by war.30 Additionally, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which assists all victims during and after international conflict and internal strife, had a budget in 1996 of nearly $540 million.31
The major global humanitarian NGOs have thousands of people operating around the world in countries beset by war. CARE International, for example, had operations in 24 countries in 1995 that were in conflict; Médecins Sans Frontières had more than 2,500 people in the field in 1995.32 Religious, relief, and development organizations alone operated programs that cost more than $800 million in 1995.33 In short, once war has broken out, the costs of the violence soar.
A Historic Opportunity: Toward Prevention
The end of the Cold War was a turning point in history that brought a largely peaceful end to the rivalry between the nuclear powers, which could have destroyed human society. Current agreement between these powers on many issues has improved prospects for a more unified international response to crises. This ability to agree, combined with a growing (although still inadequate) consensus about the importance of human rights and democratic governance, provides the opportunity for a new international effort to curb violent conflict. This opportunity must be seized by responsible leaders worldwide through economic, political, and social policies designed to develop an awareness of the value of prevention, a grasp of what preventive strategies work best under various conditions, and a cooperative orientation to draw on all of the available resources--government and nongovernment alike. Such cooperation is essential if we are to solve the global problems of violence, environmental degradation, public health, and poverty.
While many dangers cloud our future and prompt this warning against complacency, it is reasonable to approach the coming decades with qualified hope. Economic and social changes on the horizon could lead to greater understanding among cultures and raise the living standards of most of the world's population in an equitable way.
To make this hope a reality, all of the relevant players in the international community must put far more effort into preventive strategies. National leaders, global and regional organizations, and the key institutions of civil society--nongovernmental organizations, educational and scientific institutions, religious institutions, the media, and the business community--all have crucial roles to play. The task that the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict has set itself in this report is to identify those roles and suggest how they might best be carried out.
Advances in health, education, and governance
In Health:
Between 1960 and 1994, life expectancy in developing countries increased by more than a third, from 46 to 62 years. In the same period, the infant mortality rate in developing countries fell by more than half, from 150 per thousand live births to 64. Between 1975 and 1995, maternal mortality rates fell by nearly one-half worldwide.
In Education:
Between 1970 and 1995, the literacy rate in developing countries rose from 43 percent to 70 percent. Between 1975 and 1995, females advanced twice as fast as males in both literacy and school enrollment in developing countries. Between 1960 and 1991, the net enrollment ratio in developing countries increased from 48 percent to 77 percent at the primary level.
In Governance:
Today, 117 countries, double the number in the 1970s, are either democracies or in the process of democratizing. In Latin America, 18 countries have made the transition from military to democratic governments since 1980, and since 1990, nearly 30 multiparty presidential elections have been held in Africa. The percentage of women in legislatures in 1995 was higher in developing than in developed countries, 12 percent compared with 9 percent.
Sources: United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 1997 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Freedom House Survey Team, Freedom in the World (New York: Freedom House, 1996); Committee for the 1995 World Conference for Women, "Worldwide Facts and Statistics About the Status of Women" (New York: Committee for the 1995 World Conference for Women, 1995); United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 1996 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).