Wars of choice and wars of necessity - our unstable world

Our world is becoming more and more unstable. We are now bearing witness to 3 major conflicts on 2 continents; the war in Ukraine, the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organisation and the war on international trade (despite the declared aiming of supporting Hamas) being waged by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. 

I believe the spread of conflict is in part due to a weak US Presidency. In recent times, many of the wars involving the United States, Iraq and - to a lesser extent Afghanistan - have been wars of choice - a US foreign policy decision without which a state of war wouldn't exist. The current conflicts aren't such wars. Russia and Iran respectively have decided to undertake the current hostilities - the US and the wider west have to respond forcefully, there is no choice.

I posit that the world becomes a more violent place when the relative economic strengths of the world's powers is in a state of flux. World War I was a challenge to the UK-based world order, World War II marked the assendency of the bi-polar world order, with the United States and Soviet Union becoming the two undisputed superpowers. We are currently seeing the relative economic strengths of the Peoples' Republic of China and the United States narrow and thus a more unstable world awaits. 

The botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan, culminating on 30 August 2021, was the trigger for the current round of instability. After nearly 20 years and over US$2 trillion spent, the Taliban were back in power as they were in 2001. Although President Biden did not reverse the US decision to leave Afghanistan, he nevertheless overturned his predecessor's 24 executive orders in his first 100 days in office. 

The effect on global opinion of seeing an insurgency taking on and defeating the world's most powerful superpower cannot be understated and has had global consequences. Undoubtably leaders like Presidents Putin and Khamenei were emboldened by the scenes at Kabul airport leading to Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

It is clear President Biden wants to avoid US entanglement in Europe and the Middle East. The fact that this is so obvious makes the world a more dangerous place. For all President Trump's bombastic comments, they made autocrats more uncertain about his true foreign policy intentions and - ironically - made the world a safer place. The world is now on the brink of wide spread wars. These are wars of necessity and not of choice for the US. Choosing not to confront the world's current conflicts will only lead to greater insecurity.