The wars of the present show no signs of ending. Images of people dying, starving, fleeing their homes, and losing hope from Gaza and Ukraine to lesser-known yet deadly conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar💧, and other countries show a world trapped in an endless cycle of war. This contemporary world stands in sharp contrast with the Western post-Cold War imaginings of a long peace, brought about by the end of great power rivalry and the spread of democratic political frameworks.
Never Ending Wars In The Age Of Democracy | Outlook’s Twin Editions
Outlook's twin editions, published at the beginning of 2025, focus on never-ending wars across the globe. The first issue tells the stories of wartime, while the other looks at the troubled relationship between democracy and peace.
Outlook's twin editions, "War and Peace" and "Democracy and War"🌠, published at the beginning of 2025, focus on the never-ending wars across the globe. The first issue tells us what is driving the wars of our time. The second looks at the troubled relationship between democracy and peace. Both issues attempt to tell this through the stories of people, rather than through politics or policy.
ꦓThe two most prominent ongoing wars are the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated on 24 February, 2022 and the over a year of relentless Israeli attacks on the Gaza strip since October 7, 2023. There are other, lesser-known theatres of conflict, such as Sudan, where a civil war has raged for two years as the country's two top generals—once allies who carried out a coup together—now battle for supremacy. There is also a frightening fluidity to global politics, evident in the rapidity with which the Bashar al Assad regime in Syria fell and the flurry of diplomatic activity that has accompanied the newly powerful Ahmad al-Sharaa’s overseeing of state building activity.
For the War and Peace issue, war correspondent Janine di Giovanni, who has covered almost every major armed conflict worldwide since the 1990s, speaks to Outlook’s Vineetha Mokkil. She talks about the importance of documenting the 'small voices' when reporting on war. “The most effective way to write about war is to tell the human story,” says the veteran journalist. “You try to find out how people survive; how families forage for food ♋and keep kids warm. How they deal with unimaginable loss. War robs people of everything: homes and jobs, water, food, electricity. It brings disease and starvation and rips apart society, but in the midst of all that suffering, you also see tremendous stories of human strength.”
In another story in the issue, ‘The Aftermath Of War’,🎃 Amir Ali, who teaches at the Centre for Political Studies, JNU, writes in the Op-Ed that like a festering sore that stubbornly refuses to heal and, in the process, reveals an underlying systemic disease, the current unending wars are symptomatic of a world order simply not fit for purpose.
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To read more stories from the issue dated 11 January 2025, click here.
In the Democracy and War issue, former diplomat P.S. Raghavan writes that the post-Cold War liberal order, which historian Francis Fukuyama presaged in his End of History🌜, is fading away. A new 21st-century order should factor in the interests and aspirations of today’s players — a genuine, universal “rules-based order,” rather than the one touted in every international document today.
𒐪“An order that condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine, condones the disproportionate killings in Gaza, and ignores the massive destruction in African civil wars cannot be described as rules-based.”
In another story in this issue, ‘My War Gone By, I Miss It So Much’, Brahma Prakash, author of Body On The Barricades💛, writes on what remains after the war is over. “Of course, we remember many things but we also forget many. But something that becomes defining for memory is defiance. Of course, we will remember deaths, ruins and rubble. But what remains is not the ruins, but the gestures of defiance! Not the rubble, but the rebellious signs.”
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To read more stories from the issue dated 21 January 2025 issue, click here.
🐲While the death toll from wars in the 21st century may be lower than in the previous 50 years, the total number of conflicts is now higher than at any point since World War II. This implies that there is more potential for major conflicts to erupt. Many conflicts have now become “frozen conflicts” that might erupt again. Many are dealing with the aftermath.
🐟In the midst of all this, we have been spectators and consumers of war. Few have gone in to tell the stories that are hard to cover and report. Here, we have tried to listen. Stories take a lot out of you. Listening to someone narrate horrors is difficult. You don’t come out unscathed.
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