The human greed for even more wealth, more power, more territory to rule , more people to subjugate has remained the sole cause for wars in civilization and remains the primary cause even today. It is dressed and camouflaged in semantics and rhetoric – national pride, saving one’s sacred religion, protecting freedom, correcting historical wrongs, write former IAS officer V.S.Pandey and historian/freelance writer Dr. Smita Pandey
Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him?” wrote Blaise Pascal ,the famous French Physicist, philosopher, writer. These prophetic words have resonated on our planet for millennia. Thousands of wars were fought and millions and millions able bodied killed for no fault of theirs. This egregious brutality continues currently too-despite the so-called rule of law being salient in the international arena.
Today, in 2025, four wars are being simultaneously waged -the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel- Palestine war, Indo-Pak war and Israel-Iran conflict. Though the last two wars have paused for a while the apprehension of renewed conflict still ominously looms over the horizon. Why are there so many conflicts? Why can’t we, the people, coexist peacefully? The answer lies in human history itself- it’s all about wars only. Today’s nation states are all the creation of wars fought in the past years, decades, centuries. The moot question is why all this incessant bloodshed? Who are the people to blame for provoking needless wars? The answer is simple and always the same – those in power. They create war like situations by initially crafting the narrative, then nurturing it and then drumming into the minds of the populace- that war is the only option left. The irony of war was very succinctly put by Voltaire- “All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
The human greed for even more wealth, more power, more territory to rule , more people to subjugate has remained the sole cause for wars in civilization and remains the primary cause even today! It is dressed and camouflaged in semantics and rhetoric – national pride, saving one’s sacred religion, protecting freedom, correcting historical wrongs etc. History has only one lesson for humanity- as Socrates had aptly asserted centuries ago “All wars are fought for money” . One of the greatest minds born on earth, Albert Einstein, believed that wars were the result of natural aggressive tendencies found within all organisms and that the aims and causes of war were simply justification for these tendencies.
Analyzing the current disputes we again witness the same narrative playing out- people at the helm of affairs unwilling to see the logic of not going to war but sticking to their own aggressive reasons- how so ever ridiculous they may be. In the Indo-Pak war recently, lasting four violent days, nothing could be more absurd than the insistence of the Pakistani establishment to openly court, support and fund terrorists with the sole intention of hurting its neighbor India. It is well established that Pakistan is the epicenter of terrorism across the globe , supporting terrorists to harm not only its neighbors but even its former close ally USA -by sheltering the most wanted evil terrorist Bin Laden. No other nation has a state policy of harboring terrorists to harm other nation’s interests, and all in the name of protecting religion. There are many saner voices across the border too but the powerful men in uniform have succeeded in silencing them from the beginning of their journey as an independent state carved out of India on the basis of “Two Nation theory .“ It was constantly propagated that Hindus and Muslims cannot live together. Nothing can be more ridiculous than this – the contrarian reality is that India houses more Muslim population than Pakistan- which is still propagating this false divisive narrative.
Similar is the case of the Israel- Palestine conflict. In 1948, the United Nation had resolved to have a separate Israel and Palestine state, a compromise formula promptly rejected by the Palestine leadership, while Israel accepted the formula and Israel was born. The greed to have everything, willfully ignoring the ground situation and its history , has resulted in numerous wars, massive bloodshed, illegal occupation and suppression of a large section of the original inhabitants. The narrow and selfish mindedness of those so called “leaders” has resulted in the mess the region is in today with no permanent peace imminent and the acute suffering of the hapless people continuing unabated.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict follows the same tragic trajectory . Both nations justify their respective uncompromising stands. Leaders of both countries, and their allies, justify their stand on numerous grounds. They ruthlessly ignore the humungous loss of lives, the agony of millions of inhabitants who have had to leave their homes , mostly reduced to rubble , lost their near and dear ones – just for their so called whimsical rulers who are comfortably holding onto power. Who is the loser ultimately? Undoubtedly the hapless people- who are the only losers in every conflict across the globe. Former American President Eisenhower had said – “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
When will these leaders understand that their stupidity and narrow mindedness is making this planet a dangerous place to live in for billions who are trapped in these gruesome conflicts and cannot avoid the eternal misery. People in power need to heed Gandhiji who had said that -Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary. May the passions of men, especially their leaders, not be more potent than their reason.
(Vijay Shankar Pandey is former Secretary Government of India and Dr. Smita Pandey is historian and a freelance writer)
