The two wars that have engulfed much of the second half of Joe Biden’s presidency are at risk of escalating. Ukraine has taken the war into Russia in recent weeks, and Washington continues to gradually lift its restrictions on how Kyiv can use American weapons. Meanwhile, the efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza appear to be stuck, and the risks of a wider regional war remain acute.
Against this backdrop, Swedish diplomat Hans Blix published a book, “A Farewell to Wars: The Growing Restraints on the Interstate Use of Force,” that argues that a number of factors, including fear of nuclear war, growing public aversion to armed conflict, and increased economic interdependence, greatly decrease the possibility of large interstate wars in the future.
RS: Considering years of brutal and devastating war in Ukraine, the Hamas attack on Israel, and Israel’s destruction of Gaza, is it not provocative to write “a farewell to wars?”
BLIX: I am not, of course, closing my eyes before these bloody wars, nor to the large gruesome chapter of civil wars that is outside my field of inquiry. The Russian invasions of Ukraine are crude violations of the rules that Russia herself and all other states of the world have committed to by accepting the U.N. Charter. I support the continued large- scale assistance that is given to Ukraine. I do so not because of any fear of Russian designs against Europe, but because we need to help end or minimize the intrusion that violates the common legal order established in the U.N. Charter.
Yet, having taken a long-term view and identified growing restraints against interstate war, I do not see the Russian action as ending this evolution but as a disastrous aberration and deviation from it. What was intended, I believe, was not a war but a quick intervention to achieve regime change through a limited “special military operation,” a Crimea 2. It failed, as it was based on erroneous intelligence and lack of understanding that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians wanted independence and continued emancipation from Russia and the Russian economic and political system. Läs intervjun