Saleem Qamar Butt
Human history is defined by a continuous cycle of warfare. Sociologists and historians categorise these conflicts into major structural drivers, i.e. Resource Competition, which promotes Imperial Expansion driven by the pursuit of land, water, oil, and wealth; Ideological Clashes, which cause global conflicts triggered by opposing political systems, such as democracy versus communism; Religious Wars that caused centuries of violence rooted in dogmatic differences, exemplified by the Crusades; and Nationalism, which means tribalism scaled to state levels, causing catastrophic events like the First World War and the Second World War.
People keep wondering why peace remains an elusive dream. Total global peace has never been achieved in recorded history. Several systemic barriers prevent absolute harmony. The Security Dilemma remains prevalent, as one nation’s defensive build-up is always perceived as an offensive threat by its neighbours. Human nature, or evolutionary biology, programmes humans for in-group loyalty and out-group hostility. Like the spoils of war in ancient times, even now, economic incentives remain one major driver of conflicts because the military-industrial complex generates immense profit from ongoing global instability. The decline of one global superpower causes geopolitical power vacuums, which invariably trigger wars of succession among rising powers.
True peace is the absence of fear, not just the absence of war. As a historical paradigm, peace has only existed as an enforced state of power dominance. For example, Pax Romana, Pax Britannica and Pax Americana. Nevertheless, the Cold War (1947–1991) was a geopolitical struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. It perfectly illustrates how peace remains elusive due to structural competition, ideological hostility, and proxy warfare. The core drivers of the Cold War were ideological polarisation (capitalism and liberal democracy), the Nuclear Arms Race (MAD doctrine), and the Security Dilemma (NATO versus the Warsaw Pact). Consequently, the illusion of peace was maintained by fighting proxy wars in developing nations, e.g. the Korean War (1950–1953), the Vietnam War (1955–1975) and the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989): a destabilising conflict that created a power vacuum and fuelled modern transnational terrorism that keeps Pakistan, Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia in a state of conflict to this day.
Why does this confirm the elusive nature of peace? The “peace” of the Cold War was merely the absence of direct superpower war, sustained by the terror of nuclear annihilation; one may call that ‘Negative Peace’. Preventing war in Europe simply shifted battlefields and exported violence to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 did not bring permanent peace, as seen in the modern revival of democratic-authoritarian rivalries in the USA, Israel, Ukraine, Russia, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and the Gulf region, which remain an enduring legacy.
It can be fairly concluded that the structural dynamics of the 20th-century Cold War have resurfaced in 2026, fuelling an intense geopolitical rivalry between the United States and a revisionist bloc led by China and Russia. While the ideological language has evolved, the core mechanisms of the security dilemma, proxy battlegrounds, and zero-sum competition remain identical. The primary structural bridges connecting Cold War history to current 2026 tensions may also be seen from a fresh perspective. The classic Cold War was measured in nuclear stockpiles and missile counts; the current iteration is fought through data, code, and silicon, which is defined by the AI and Chip Race, and Weaponised Interdependence (“de-risking” and aggressive tariff structures).
The old binary of capitalism versus communism has transformed into a systemic clash between Liberal Democracies and Authoritarian States. China and Russia are actively consolidating alternative financial, trade, and security frameworks to challenge Western-led institutions. Russia’s ongoing aggression in Eastern Europe continues to test the cohesion and defence spending thresholds of NATO, reviving Cold War-era European security fears. Just as Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan defined the proxy conflicts of the 20th century, contemporary regional conflicts are deeply entangled in major-power rivalries, e.g. the War in Ukraine, the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, and the Middle East/Iran.
The 2026 GPI indicates that the world has become less peaceful over the past 18 years; of the 163 countries on the GPI, 119 have deteriorated and only 42 have improved. The Council on Foreign Relations’ Preventive Priorities Survey 2026 identifies an increasingly volatile, multi-theatre security environment, highlighting major risks including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Russia-Ukraine infrastructure war, and U.S. domestic unrest. The report emphasises escalating Tier-1 risks in the Middle East and a growing threat from AI-enabled cyberattacks alongside potential great-power confrontations.
The defining difference of 2026 is that the world is no longer strictly bipolar. While the original Cold War forced countries into two rigid camps, today’s landscape features independent middle powers (countries forming BRICS, QUAD and SCO), which try to actively resist being drawn into a new great-power standoff, leveraging their bargaining positions to maintain economic neutrality. Apropos, Pakistan’s diplomatic endeavours to disentangle the ongoing USA/Israel & Iran/Gulf States conflict notwithstanding, leveraging its nuclear stature, the increasing hostility between Pakistan & Afghanistan and Pakistan & India, with the potential to escalate beyond measure, especially over the Indus Water and IIOJK issues, also needs to be resolved with the involvement of major global players.
The writer is a retired senior army officer with experience in international relations, military diplomacy and analysis of geo-political and strategic security issues.
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