In India it is common to see street dogs chasing two-wheelers. When someone or something is persistently chased by another the phenomenon is called “being dogged by something”. With the latest flare up between Israel and the Hamas, following closely on the heels of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one is constrained to conclude that we are being dogged by war. 

It reminds me of the novel “The Dogs of War” by Frederick Forsyth. The novel is of 1974 and the movie of 1980, about a British industrialist who hires European mercenaries to depose the government of a fictional African country.

But then, truth is always stranger than fiction. Wagner’s (a Russian state-funded private military company controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who recently died in a mysterious air crash, a former close ally of Russia's president Vladimir Putin) mercenaries were/are doing just that in several sub-Saharan African countries. History keeps repeating itself, because we are dogged by war. War mongering is also one of the best ways for insecure leaders to secure votes, by pointing to imaginary external threats. Indira Gandhi used the “foreign hand” spectre to hold on to the sceptre of power. Our present political dispensation uses the spectre of Muslim love jihadis, Christian conversions and Pakistani terrorists to consolidate its vote bank. 

A glance at recent wars would be enlightening. There were two World Wars (1914-18 & 1939-45) that dragged on for years, killing millions of people. With the Ukraine conflict well into its second year, European countries are already beginning to tire of financing another country’s battles. Recent electoral results in Europe indicate that war fatigue has set in.

Two instances of WWII, both of mass destruction, come to mind. The first is about the “Dam Busters”, a movie that I saw in boarding school in the 1960s. It was about the British 617 squadron that, on 16/5/1943 used bombs that bounced on the water of the dam reservoirs before hitting and breaching the Mohne and Edersee dams; thereby flooding the Ruhr Valley, killing 1600 people and forcing German industry to a grinding halt.

One of those in the squadron was Leonard Cheshire, who had carried out 102 war missions and was highly decorated for his bravery. That is just one part of the story. The other is that he founded the Cheshire Homes across the world to minister to those in need. Was he making retribution for the ravages of war, of which he had been a part?

The far more horrifying episode was the dropping of atomic bombs on 6/8/1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Over 2 lakh people were killed, excluding the effects of radiation. The B29 bomber that dropped the “fat boy” was piloted by Paul Warfield Tibbets (the irony of the name)! What is not so well recounted is that on 9/3/1945, 5 months before Hiroshima, the US had fire bombed Tokyo, killing one lakh people. 

Next in line is Vietnam, a war that dragged on for decades, giving birth to the hippie slogan “Make love not war”. The enduring image of Vietnam is that of a 9-year-old girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, running naked, her back burning with napalm stuck to it. Napalm bombs were as anti-personnel as land mines. That photo, taken by American photographer Nick Ut, stirred the conscience of the world. It was titled “The Terror of War” for which it won the Pulitzer Prize. 

Here again, the story hasn’t ended. After the war, Kim migrated to Canada and established the Kim Foundation for war victims. Today she is a goodwill ambassador for UNESCO.

Keep moving. In 1971 India “liberated” Bangladesh. At what price? Millions of refugees in camps, a cess in the form of a postage stamp to recover the cost of war, and permanent enmity with Pakistan. Now it is their turn to use a double-barrel K gun – Kashmir and Khalistan. Can war ever be a solution?

The dogs of war haven’t stopped. On 2/8/1990 Iraqi troops over-ran Kuwait. The influential USA got resolution No 678 passed in the UN to use force to evict the Iraqis. They did, and then hanged Saddam Hussein, the most secular Muslim leader in the Middle East. They didn’t find any Weapons of Mass Destruction, only a milk powder factory. Truth from the mouth (or food) of babes.

The gun toting, gum chewing Americans had not yet learnt any lessons. After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Towers in New York they invaded Afghanistan on 7/10/2001, because the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. The ultimate irony, years later the Americans handed Afghanistan back on a platter to the very same Taliban! Might is neither right, nor a water tight path to success. The Americans are yet to see the light of the tunnel called “War”. 

Be it the Ukraine-Russia conflict or the more recent Israel-Hamas one, brute force is never the solution. Violence only breeds more violence. As per Newton’s Third Law of Motion – for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For all those who are supporting Israel’s devastation of the Gaza Strip, let me remind them that in war, truth is the first casualty. The adage “All’s fair in love and war” is even further from the truth.

A friend asked me “What is the Church’s stand on war”? It occasioned this article. My thoughts first went to St Francis of Assisi at the height of the Fifth Crusade for the liberation of the Holy Land from the Saracens (Muslims). Francis had no time for diplomacy. In August 1219, with just one companion, he went to meet Sultan al-Kamil, to negotiate peace. He did not succeed, but he left a deep impression on the Sultan. The latter’s religious advisors demanded that Francis be sentenced to death.

To the contrary, the Sultan said to Francis, “I am never going to condemn you to death”. Instead he offered Francis precious gifts that the Poverello naturally declined.  Do today’s religious or political leaders have the humility and courage of St Francis? Pope Francis, who has taken his name, has engaged in dialogue with Sunni leaders in Egypt and Shia leaders in Iraq. He has reportedly sent emissaries to Moscow. 

Is that enough? One shouldn’t advise others to do what one cannot do one’s self. Nevertheless, considering his stature and credibility, Pope Francis could directly reach out to the warring parties. Instead of attending unending synodal discussions (yawn), if he were to take the U.N. Secretary General and one or two more world leaders to Jerusalem and Moscow the world would be galvanised.

In the Advent season we anticipate Jesus’ coming as the Prince of Peace, saying that the people would beat their swords into plough shares. Nations will never again go to war, never prepare for battle again ((Is 2:4). At his birth the heavens opened to say “Peace on earth” (Lk 2:14). In his first public discourse Jesus said that the peace makers would be called the children of God (Mat 5:9). Has Jesus’ coming been in vain? It will be, if we don’t heed his words.

Let us also examine contemporary Church teachings in “The Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World” (GS). I say this because in the past the Church has not been a paragon of virtue when it comes to war and bloodshed.

In the Early Church, St Augustine of Hippo, influenced by Cicero, evolved a doctrine of a Just War. This justified State armies eliminating heresy by killing heretics! Today such heinous acts would be described as crimes against humanity. 

The Just War tradition had seven abiding “principles”: 1. The Cause 2. The Right Intent 3. The Net benefit 4. The use of legitimate authority 5. It was to be a last resort 6. There had to be proportionality of means and 7. Right Conduct. I have serious doubts if, in the heat of battle, such lofty principles would be adhered to. 

Back to the Pastoral Constitution. A few quotes: 

• Peace is not merely the absence of war. Nor can it be reduced solely to the maintenance of a balance of power between enemies (GS 78)

• Peace cannot be obtained on earth unless personal values are safeguarded (Ibid)

• The threat of war hangs over us (Ibid)

This was said at the height of the cold war. The next section of the Constitution has an ominous sub-title “Curbing the Savagery of war.”

• It acknowledges that “guerrilla warfare … deceit, subversion … are new ways to wage war” (GS 79)

• It condemns the “methodical extermination of an entire people, nation or ethnic minority” (Ibid)

• One cannot claim that “all is fair between the warring parties” (Ibid)

• The destruction of entire cities, with their population, is a crime against God … that needs to be condemned (GS 80)

The Constitution also seeks to strike a balance when it says:

• Governments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defence once every other means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted (GS 79)

• Further, members of a country’s armed forces are agents of security and freedom “as long as they fulfil their role properly, they are making a genuine contribution to the establishment of peace” (Ibid).

We need to apply the litmus test of these teachings to conflicts around the world; else we will continue to be dogged by war. Not unlike the hippies let us strive to “make love not war”.

(The writer is the Vice President of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, Kanpur and may be contacted at noronha.kp@gmail.com)