We have reached the 50th day of the war in Ukraine. A conflict whose details are scandalous and hopeless.

During this time, we witnessed the devastation of entire cities, attacks on entire populations, reports of rapes and the use of banned weapons, in addition to a host of other atrocities.

Looking at the Ukraine war in numbers is heartbreaking. At least 1,932 civilian deaths have been recorded since the beginning of the conflict, including 157 children. It was reported that 2,589 people were injured. The finding comes from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which constantly reminds us that the numbers are likely to be even higher.

The volume of people moving to escape the war is also striking. According to the information received from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, there are approximately 5 million people who left the country during this period.

From an economic perspective, the entire world is likely to face growth challenges this year as a result of the occupation. In the case of Russia, projections suggest the economy should register its biggest contraction since 1994, with a GDP drop of around 10% in 2022. For Ukraine, billions of dollars in foreign aid to support its restructuring and macroeconomic rebalancing, in addition to the obvious effects on wealth production.

As the accounting for the war worsens, negotiations continue to stall. The demands between the parties involve structural disagreements and slide into the difficulty of building mutual trust. For this reason, even if they reach a ceasefire agreement, it is not possible for the stability in the region to continue for a long time.

The situation in Ukraine is therefore different in different ways, as Professor Mary Kaldor’s London School of Economicsclassified as “including wars“. Reflection was first published in 2010 and has nothing to do with conflicts in this part of the world. It is a theoretical reflection on the “reason for existence” of conflicts in the 21st century. Read it from the perspective of 2022, the text could not be more current.

According to Kaldor, contemporary wars tend to be long, lasting, and inconclusive. This is because in new wars the goal is not necessarily to overthrow the enemy. In them, on the contrary, actors need enemies to perpetuate their narrative. The goal is to create a state of distrust that favors certain specific groups. These are wars, therefore, about politics and not about policy.

Also, in Kaldor’s view, such wars tend to confuse traditional actors with non-state actors. In them, pauses on the battlefield do not mean the end of the conflict. They are often marked by occasional attacks and often involve violence primarily against civilians. In the words of the author, they are “instrumental and rational, albeit unreasonable” wars.

In this type of conflict, in addition to direct combat, confrontation is also and mainly imaginary. Defeating the enemy is not the goal of war, but its justification. According to Kaldor, by creating chaos, political leaders design themselves as protectors of those under threat and strengthen their relevance within the system. Thus, the creation of fear and hostility serves to perpetuate certain ideologies and interests. In this context, “the inherent tendency of such wars is not war without limits, but war without end”.

On the 50th day of the Ukrainian War, such a nuance deserves consideration. The invitation is this: read Mary Kaldor. It will also help to understand that perhaps the “third world war” that many feared will not be like the previous two wars.