Fewer Nations Are Making War

It’s a classic case of doing better--and feeling worse. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it is commonly believed, interethnic and religious wars have dramatically increased. There is just one problem with this picture: It does not reflect reality. No matter how you count it--number of deaths, number of new outbreaks of violence or severity of the violence--the evidence shows a steady downward trend in conflicts since the early 1990s. Peacemaking is prevailing over war-making.

The total number of armed conflicts among and within nation-states reached a peak just before the end of the Cold War. Between 1989 and 1992, eight new ethnic wars, on average, began each year. Today, the average is two a year. The number of civil wars also has decreased since 1992.

Since 1991, settlements have been achieved in 18 ethnic wars, compared with only seven in the previous 35 years. Of the dozen most serious ethnic conflicts in Europe, east and west, every one of them either has diminished in intensity or been settled in the last five years.

Northern Ireland has never been closer to a long-term peace. In the African Great Lakes region, Rwandans have turned from genocide to rebuilding their society, while rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo are negotiating a settlement of their grievances. In El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala, successful negotiations have ended civil wars.

Unfortunately, settlements receive far less media attention than wars. In early 1998, a 10-year war between secessionists on the island of Bougainville and Papua New Guinea came to a close when the rebels agreed to a cease-fire. The conflict claimed at least 20,000 lives, yet the story rated only four lines in a leading national newspaper. A month earlier, a peace agreement concluded a 25-year secessionist war between Chakma rebels and the Bangladesh government. Tens of thousands died in this war; 100,000 refugees fled the fighting. But neither the war nor its settlement received one-hundreth the attention lavished on Kosovo.

Internal wars have always been with us, but they were largely overshadowed by the Cold War. With the end of the U.S.-Soviet struggle for world domination, however, conditions are more conducive than ever before for resolving and managing regional and global conflicts. International norms governing the acceptability of tribal or ethnic conflict appear to have changed from indifference to intolerance. The international community has acquired a more extensive set of peacekeeping and conflict-management tools, more experience and perhaps a greater will to reduce conflict.

Yet, despite these positive trends, there is a danger of complacency. Recent settlements in Kosovo and elsewhere are fragile and may break unless the international community takes immediate steps to sustain them. A settlement is only the beginning of a peace-building process, as we have seen in the Balkans and in Haiti. How do we move beyond ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, communal killings in West and Central Africa and ongoing unrest in Indonesia?

To maintain the momentum toward peacemaking, two courses of action are necessary: proactive conflict management and early intervention.

The past few years have shown that the United States has much more influence over the course of international conflicts than previously imagined. Democracies have replaced autocratic regimes in virtually every region of the world. As new democracies become more globally engaged, wars and insecurity fall off. Although global economic growth is uneven, it is strong and sustained enough to have checked prolonged economic crises in Southeast Asia and Latin America. The European Union, the United States and other international actors have made large political and economic investments to promote democracy, security and economic growth in post-communist states and south of the equator. Witness the recent G-8 decision to facilitate debt reduction for developing nations. The key is to increase the overall magnitude of international engagement so as to bind potentially conflicting parties into a global network that constrains extremists.

We also need to understand how we can better handle conflicts once violence breaks out. More effective multilateral interventions through early deployment of international monitors, mediators or peacekeeping forces can keep conflicts from escalating. Many experts now agree that Rwanda might have been spared the horrors of genocide if intervention had been early and consistent. Bilateral assistance programs like the U.S. Agency for International Development should encourage the extension of democratic rights to a country’s minorities as well as to its majority, along with promoting equitable economic development. In the Caucasus and the Middle East, we have found that a more culturally sensitive preventive diplomacy that engages both the opposition and the government defuses ethnopolitical conflicts before they explode. This task is not always easy for diplomats who are accustomed to dealing with governments alone. Second-track or citizens’ diplomacy emphasizing people-to-people contacts across lines of conflict can be especially helpful in building trust.

The ability of peacemakers to promote settlements of wars within nation-states has improved dramatically. We need to recognize what has worked to reduce conflict and build on the successes. The violent pasts in Kosovo and Congo will become the future only if we turn away, saying, “It’s your problem, not ours.” More sustained international engagement, not less, is needed to keep peace up and conflict down.*