The global permanence of war

The United States’ Operation Midnight Hammer destroyed much of Iran’s three main nuclear facilities with bunker-buster bombs – heavy devices that can penetrate roughly 80 meters of stone. The attack may not have annihilated every element of Iran’s nuclear program, but it certainly has inflicted a major setback.

In recent years, the world has experienced a permanence of war. It is difficult to categorize. It was not a world war as the first half of the 20th century knew; rather, it has been an enduring conflict with sometimes shifting coalitions.

Besides the traditional types of warfare, as seen in Ukraine, the eastern Congo, Sudan and the Horn of Africa, we have also seen non-classical forms. Propaganda, economic warfare via sanctions, cyberattacks, blocked supply lines and restricted access to raw materials, as well as subversion and terrorism, have fueled this modern war. There is a scramble in space over satellites, while the Arctic looms as a potential new battlefield.

Attempts have been made to pigeonhole the world into “the West” (the traditional industrialized democracies led by the U.S.), “the authoritarians” (meaning Russia, China, Iran and North Korea) and the so-called “Global South.” The West dreamed, and still partly clings to the illusion, of a rule-based world order that requires the U.S. as hegemon. As in the Cold War, it hung on the narrative of a rivalry between “good” democracies and “evil” authoritarians expecting that the majority – which is neither in the West nor in the authoritarian bloc – would align with the West for values-based reasons. That assumption is a fallacy.

We must recognize that the West and the authoritarians together represent a global minority with a sharply declining demography.

The flawed classification system misleads people and yields false conclusions. Diplomatic efforts typically bought into these assumptions as well. The result was that efforts toward “de-escalation” postponed real solutions and swept problems under the rug.

The so-called “rules-based world order” was in fact a pax Americana enforced by the U.S. – and it was not always rules-based.

Enough is enough

A primary source of horror has been the regime led by the ayatollahs in Iran. Under its rule, the country has striven to become a nuclear power and render itself unattackable, while sponsoring terrorism, civil war, and unrest in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. It has attacked Israel via terrorist proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Brutally oppressing its own population, Iran remains a torchbearer of the global permanence of war.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has now offered a model for ending a permanent war. The regime in Tehran has been moving closer to achieving nuclear-power status – a situation dangerous for the world and potentially lethal for Israel. After the October 2023 attack the Israeli Defense Forces and Mossad mostly dismantled Hamas and Hezbollah. However, as Tehran advanced its nuclear program Israel felt compelled to strike Iran’s nuclear centers. Lacking the heavy equipment the U.S. reserved for itself, Israel failed to neutralize the facilities. President Trump then issued an ultimatum.

In an extremely unprofessional diplomatic maneuver, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom sought to de-escalate and met Iran’s foreign minister. It was an embarrassment. Iran rejected all proposals. The regime faces growing domestic opposition – the more so as it hardened its stance in response to the American ultimatum.

President Trump did the right thing. He dropped the bombs and set facts on the ground. That is the right way to begin negotiations. It may further strengthen the domestic opposition, which has leveraged new communication technologies to mobilize against the regime from abroad. That is the best way to extinguish a permanent source of war.

The U.S. has been retreating from its world-hegemon responsibility for a while but will intervene when its interests are challenged. This case may become a useful policy to deter perpetrators.

https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/permanence-war/