A hundred years have passed since the Great War ended with the Armistice that was signed on "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" in 1918. Reflections on this centenary can be approached through various perspectives. One can ponder on the undeniable profundity of the event and the fact that how peace is so vital for human sustenance, also how war ends in inevitable human suffering no matter who the victor is. Afterall, the death toll of the World War 1 totaled up to nearly 40 million with more casualties on the side of the victorious allied forces - approximately 10 million, lesser on the side of the defeated central powers (approx. 8 million), and an equivalent number of civilian casualties on both sides due to direct belligerence or disease. At the same time, one can also dwell on how ephemeral peace can be, evidenced by the aftermath of the treaty of Versailles, the failure of the league of nations and the precipitation of the Second World War. We can endlessly study the consequences of the Great War - the fall of the four behemoth aristocracies:the Romanovs, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, and the Ottomans; the rise of revolutionary forces in form the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Mexican Revolution, the Egyptian Revolution, a German and even a Mongolian Revolution; and the construction of new national identities and nation states such as the Weimar Republic, the Republic of Turkey, and other successor states such as Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. However, the greater question that underlies our curiosity to study these historical episodes is what we can learn from them. Can such bloody and large-scale warfare be averted? Or are we doomed to be stuck in a cycle of war and peace? As Ralph Hawtrey has aptly concluded that "If war is an interruption between two periods of peace, it is equally true that peace is an interval between two wars.

Naturally, other related questions arise - have we put the threat of a large-scale global war behind us forever? or are we nearing another great war? These questions have haunted thinkers time and time again, especially after the Second World War. Unfortunately, historical forces being unique, complex, and contextual fail to give us any clear answers or an accurate system of predictive analysis. No grand theory has been successful in explaining the forces of war and peace and all the analytical tools that we have are a set of near theses and a multitude of hypotheses. Yet, with the rise of China as a global force and the ostensible decline of the hegemony of United States, we are yet again haunted by these eternal questions.

In the backdrop of these questions, it is prudent to declare at the outset that this paper is an attempt to make sense of some of the prevalent hypotheses in relation to how the world is changing and what we can do about it, rather than professing any general laws or a grand theory, which inevitably would be a futile exercise. Also, it must be here acknowledged that I have heavily depended and have been influenced by the realist school of thought, especially the works of thinkers such as Robert Gilpin, E.H. Carr, Kenneth Waltz, and Jonathan Kirshner among many others.

Hegemonic Wars

If the George Modelsky (1978) is to be believed, then we are perhaps somewhere near an impending global crisis as he has professed in his theory of "long cycles of global politics" that there are hundred-year long cycles which begin and end with "global wars". Indeed, the first world war was an inauguration of such a cycle which triggered a greater collapse of global peace and coordination in the form of the second world war, after which the world has managed a relative period of long-standing peace. The changing of the international system is yet again in near sight as the United States shows signs of closing up, perhaps signaling its withdrawal from the position of world leadership and as the Pax-Americana is gesturing a conclusion, China is at its gates attempting to assert itself by filling up the political and economic space laying its claim to reshape the international order.

According to realists, large-scale wars such as World War 1 are "hegemonic wars" (Gilpin) and states in their bid to hegemony seek to expand to pursue a range of motives such as "security, prestige, primacy, and even domination" (Kirshner). Gilpin in his seminal work "War and Change in World Politics" has laid out five assumptions^[1] that explain how hegemonic states rise, establish a new world order, then fall into disequilibrium, and this disequilibrium is finally resolved by another hegemonic power reshaping the international system. If such resolution is not resolved amicably, the result is inevitably a war. As per Gilpin, differential rates of growth between states are at the heart of such wars as new states assert influence and change the existing balance of power.

Thus, the first world war can be seen in the backdrop of the declining hegemony of Great Britain and the end of Pax Britanica. At the eve of the war, although superficially the British economy seemed strong, yet according to Gilpin, a disequilibrium was brewing between British global commitments and its resources to maintaining its supremacy. This gave space to the emergence of challengers such as the United States, Russia, France, Germany, and Japan. While the Britain was able to settle its differences with America in the 1890s by acquiescing to American primacy in the Caribbean sea, it also gave way to Japan in the far east with the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 accepting its predominance in that region. This was followed by the "entente cordiale" in 1904 with France ending centuries of conflict with the French in the Mediterranean. Finally, with the 1907 the Anglo-Russian agreement, Britain exited the far eastern theatre leaving the contestation to potentially play out between Russia and Japan while turning Russia into an ally. However, while Britain was able to successfully employ a strategy of appeasement and withdrawal with these nations, considerably reducing its costs of managing many regions of influence, it was unable to contain its conflict with the rising power of Germany.

The challenge of Germany triggered a British-German naval rivalry and ultimately "the fate of the European state system" hinged on this contestation (Gilpin). Hence, a dispute in the Balkans was merely a tipping point that triggered the world war.

Ephemeral Peace

In a hegemonic struggle, peaceful settlements seem hardly likely and game theory helps us understand why. Even though peaceful resolution of a hegemonic struggle is perhaps the most optimally beneficial course of action for all nations, it is hardly likely especially in the presence of a number of states. There is always a looming possibility that a declining hegemon will end up in a conflict situation with at least one state in its phase of decline and this would most likely be enough to precipitate a large scale war. Dunn (1937), Manning (1937), andCarr (1951), have all pointed out that the great wars "could hardly be justified in terms of what we today would call cost/benefit calculations; all participants, to various degrees, are losers" (Gilpin, pp. 206). Yet in game theoretic terms war rather than peaceful settlement turns out to be a Nash equilibrium, albeit suboptimal. In fact, it may, in many cases be an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS).

This can be explained by the following game theoretic representation wherein one state is a declining hegemon - let us call it State A, and another state is a challenger - let us call it State B. These states face a Prisoner's Dilemma in a hegemonic contestation. Let us assume that they broadly have two strategies to settle the hegemonic contestation - (1) Peaceful acquiescence or peace represented by 'p' and (2) War represented by 'w'. Let the value or benefits that come with being a hegemon be represented by 'v' and the cost of conflict be 'c'. Then the payoffs in such a scenario for both the states will be as follows:

Alternatively put V= 10, C= 4, then:

Now in the above game, if both states choose a strategy of peaceful transfer of power (bottom right cell, PP), they both share the benefits and for ease of understanding let us assume that they divide the benefits equally. However, is such a situation, both states have an incentive to defect and try to enhance their share of the pie. For state B the best situation would be that it plays War and the state B plays Peace so that B can get all the value (v) and A gets nothing (0) - a situation shown in the bottom left cell. Similarly, for state A, the best situation is the top right cell. Even with treaties of cooperation, the danger that the other state would try to defect and begin to occupy a larger share is always around the corner. One can always reassert power and influence, even if it is a hegemon in decline given that it gets enough breathing space and some stability. Similarly, a rising hegemon can accommodate with the erstwhile one, but its motivations to press on harder to seek favorable terms and to eventually dominate are ever present. Therefore, stability of cooperation is at best, weak. Hence, the set of strategies which is evolutionarily stable is where both states defect and end up in the top left cell (WW). Once they are there, there is no incentive for either state to change their strategy and pursue peace since it reduces their payoffs and can even lead to their annihilation. War therefore, becomes a Nash equilibrium - a likely end state - even though collective benefits are greater when both play the peace strategy (bottom right cell, PP).

Yet peace does happen. When war ends up in the defeat of one state which may cause its annexation, annihilation, or a step short of it with severe penalties on the defeated state - as was the case with the post first World War Germany. Peace also happens when two states resolve hegemonic transfer peacefully as was the case between Britain and the United States. Yet, imagine the above game being played between many states and the probability of ending up in the Nash equilibrium of war becomes really high, despite many instances of cooperation and peace between states. As the realist Gilpin has profoundly noted:

Although men desire peace, it is not their highest value. If it were, peace and peaceful change could easily be achieved; a people need only refuse to defend itself. Throughout history, however, societies have placed other values and interests above their desire for peace. From this perspective the basic task of peaceful change is not merely to secure peace; it is to foster change and achieve a peace that secures one's basic values. Determining how this goal is to be achieved in specific historical circumstances is the ultimate task of wise and prudent statesmanship.

He adds that "in the absence of shared values and interests, the mechanism of peaceful change has little chance of success."

It is in this last statement that perhaps some answers to the questions we started with lie. In my experience of studying inter-group conflicts, I studied hundreds of cases of caste and religion-based violence in India. Indeed, working at the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the National Foundation for Communal Harmony exposed me to multitudes of case files that captured such inter-group conflicts. Conflicts between nations are anything but. Upon, delving into the research on inter-group conflicts whether at the national levels, or the subnational, caste, community, or even in at the level of groups within schools, it becomes apparent that human beings have a tendency to form groups. And slipping into conflict with other groups is easy once a group identity is formed and can be summarized in a three staged process (adapted from Bipan Chandra's analysis of the rise of communalism):

Stage 1: By mere identification of belongingness to a group one begins to identify their individual interests with the interests of the groups they belong to (and vice-versa).

Stage 2: they begin to look at the "other" and begin defining the other's interest as essentially different from their own interests

Stage 3: eventually they begin to see the other's interests as antithetical to the interests of their own group.

Various scientific studies have shown that it is easy for groups to slip into stage 3 from stage 1 and that it almost happens instinctively. The recommendations, although tentative and laden with assumptions, that I have forwarded in my book "Or Egalitarian Universe?" to resolve such conflicts are threefold, which I call the Three Cs:

1. Contact: the conflicting groups should have neutral spaces to communicate and come into contact with each other
2. Common goal: they should have a common super-ordinate goal that binds them together and which needs the cooperation of both to be attained and a failure of attainment should threaten both of their survival.
3. Common super-ordinate identity: shared sets of values, binding identities, common cultural and mental models.

This however, is a difficult mix of conditions to be fulfilled at the same time. Unfortunately, I conclude that the absence of any of these three conditions, could bring these groups into conflict. Contact without common identity or common goals could intensify rather than palliate conflicts. Similarly, a common goal once achieved could render the groups to relegate into conflict situations again and in absence of sufficient common values as well as proper communication, common goals can trigger misguided (often over-confident) competition rather than cooperation. Finally, a common identity and shared values are difficult to attain and even if they are present, in the absence of communication, can take divergent paths while in the absence of common goals can trigger rival claims on the identity, thereby precipitating conflict.

It is only institutions which are strong, innovative, and robust that can facilitate the three conditions. So far, one can say that the United Nations has been doing a satisfactory job at it and has been successful in maintaining a long global peace. Perhaps its greatest test would be to innovate and facilitate a peaceful resolution to the contestation of the United States and China so that they may come to a mutually beneficial equilibrium while the global systemic change does occur perhaps through trade wars rather than what we understand as traditional warfare. Indeed, a case of no war is a difficult equilibrium to attain, but one upon which the fate of the world order perhaps hinges once again.

References

1. These assumptions are ＃

• An international system is stable (i.e., in a state of equilibrium) if no state believes it profitable to attempt to change the system.
• A state will attempt to change the international system if the expected benefits exceed the expected costs (i.e., if there is an expected net gain).
• A state will seek to change the international system through territorial, political, and economic expansion until the marginal costs of further change are equal to or greater than the marginal benefits.
• Once an equilibrium between the costs and benefits of further change and expansion is reached, the tendency is for the economic costs of maintaining the status quo to rise faster than the economic capacity to support the status quo.
• If the disequilibrium in the international system is not resolved, then the system will be changed, and a new equilibrium reflecting the redistribution of power will be established.