Najm us Saqib<\/p>\n
Nothing has changed. Beneath the transformative veneer of technology, from the bronze shields at Marathon to the flying missiles over the Middle East, war\u2019s fundamental essence remains constant: it is a human endeavour driven by unchanging desires, fears, and follies, where the core dynamics of conflict have merely shifted expression across the ages. This timeless struggle, a constant rhythm of life in Classical Greece where city-states battled for supremacy through the collective discipline of the phalanx, evolved through Rome\u2019s institutional learning from catastrophic defeat into relentless conquest.
\nBy the twentieth century, this dynamic had transformed again, first into the industrialised slaughter of World War I, where the \u2018cult of the offensive\u2019 met its match in the machine gun, and then into World War II\u2019s Blitzkrieg, which solved the riddle of the trenches by restoring mobility through combined arms, a progression that culminated in the atomic bomb and the paradoxical state of Mutually Assured Destruction, where the capacity to win a war ultimately rendered major war unwinnable.
\nSince 1945, major-power war has been shackled by the nuclear deterrent. Conflict migrated to the periphery, becoming a game of proxies and insurgencies. The current Middle East conflict illustrates this dynamic. Triggered by the October 2023 Hamas attack, it has expanded beyond a conventional clash. It is multi-layered: a powerful state facing a network of non-state actors\u2014Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Shia militias. The battlefields are cities; the tools range from precision airstrikes to makeshift rockets; the calculus involves domestic opinion and global energy prices. The dynamic is one of calibrated escalation, where all sides probe for advantage while trying to avoid a conflagration no one can control.
\nThis raises an unsettling question: have we glamorised war? From Homer\u2019s *Iliad* to Hollywood\u2019s *Saving Private Ryan*, we celebrate the warrior and the noble cause. We have built our identities on the battles our ancestors fought. War becomes not merely a tool of statecraft but the forge of identity itself. If that is true, then the peace we claim to desire would require us to surrender the very stories that tell us who we are.
\nWhen leaders claim they alone can end conflict, they tap into a deep human craving: the desire for a single saviour. Yet wars do not have a single \u2018commencer\u2019 or a lone \u2018saviour\u2019. The current Middle East war has deep roots in 1948, the occupation of Palestinian territories, and the rise of Iranian power. To ascribe its initiation to one person is to overemphasise individual agency while underestimating systemic forces. Moreover, we reward the firefighter, not the architect. The leader who secures a ceasefire is celebrated, while the diplomats who spent decades building the foundations of peace are forgotten. We prefer dramatic rescue to mundane prevention.
\nIs power the deciding factor, then? Realism dictates that military might is the ultimate arbiter. But if power were everything, we would not speak of justice. The cynic says that justice is the mask the strong wear to pacify the weak. Yet there is a more nuanced truth: justice is the mechanism by which power stabilises itself. Raw power alone is exhausting. An empire built on force must constantly fight to maintain order. Justice, fairness, and law are not constraints on power; they are force multipliers. They convert enemies into allies and victory into legitimacy. The Romans understood this: they did not merely defeat their enemies; they incorporated them. Justice is not the opposite of power; it is power\u2019s most durable form. Hence, justice is the mechanism by which power rationalises and stabilises itself, making it efficient rather than merely brutal.
\nQuestion: why does the human mind resist accepting war\u2019s permanence? Because accepting that peace is fragile is to live in permanent anxiety. The human psyche is not built for that. Instead, we construct elaborate fictions such as the \u2018war to end all wars\u2019, the march of progress, essentially to shield ourselves from history\u2019s cyclical nature. We prefer the illusion of a perfectible world to the reality of one that must be perpetually managed.
\nFor weaker nations, survival depends on navigating the gap between power and its narratives. They can form coalitions, as the Greek city-states did. They can develop asymmetric capabilities, nuclear ambitions or insurgency, to raise the cost of aggression. The Houthis\u2019 ability to threaten Red Sea shipping is a textbook example. But the most subtle option is to weaponise the narratives of the powerful themselves. When a weak nation appeals to \u2018international law\u2019, it exploits the gap between the powerful\u2019s self-image and their actions. It holds up a mirror and demands, \u201cYou claim to be civilised. Act like it.\u201d This was the strategy of Nelson Mandela, of every movement that understood that the empire\u2019s conscience, however dormant, remains a weak point in its armour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Najm us Saqib Nothing has changed. Beneath the transformative veneer of technology, from the bronze shields at Marathon to the flying missiles over the Middle East, war\u2019s fundamental essence remains constant: it is a human endeavour driven by unchanging desires, fears, and follies, where the core dynamics of conflict have merely shifted expression across the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[12978],"class_list":{"0":"post-538050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article","7":"tag-najm-us-saqib"},"yoast_head":"\n