The Effects Of Modern Armed Conflict

War has been a inseparable part of the human experience. Well for most of our specie’s existence at least. It was always a way to secure your interests when diplomacy hits a brick wall. However throughout the 20th century all that began to change. In this essay I will aim to explain how the perspective of war changed for the individual, the state and globally in the 20th century through reasons such as the democratization, globalization and the rise of more advanced weapons. This research question links with the topic “changing communities” as war affects the smallest community which in my option is the family to the largest which is the global community. The main body paragraphs

In order to test this hypothesis properly, multiple steps and measures needed to be taken to ensure the data procured was not only accurate but also pertinent to the study. The first of these steps was to establish a standardized definition of what actually determines what is and what is not an interstate war. In this study, an interstate war is classified as being a conflict between two or more states in which at least one thousand battlefield deaths occur. It should also be noted that at least one hundred of these deaths must be incurred by each state that is participating in the conflict. This helps to differentiate war from other violent acts such as massacres or genocides.

American veteran and novelist, Kurt Vonnegut uses his wartime experiences as a basis for his thought-provoking, antiwar novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. The novel follows Billy Pilgrim, an American chaplain’s assistant who serves near the end of World War II, through the horrific fire bombings of Dresden and his life after the war. In his novel, Vonnegut presents twentieth century war as traumatic and destructive, however; it is something that cannot be avoided so humans need to develop a means to cope with its effects.

Conflict induced displacement is hazardous to health. Ironically, the displacement proves deadlier than the attack. Mortality during the acute emergency phase of a displacement can reach sixty times normal rates. The baseline crude mortality

The early 1970s were watershed years for public health in emergencies. The Biafran War (in Nigeria), the 1970 cyclone in Bangladesh, and the sweeping famines in Africa deeply engaged the public health community in trying to meet the need for impartial and effective medical aid. The use of epidemiologic methods to reduce civilian morbidity and mortality in mass emergencies began in earnest at this time.4,5 This period also saw the engagement of health care practitioners in the elaboration of international norms on ethics, human rights, and humanitarian law in emergency settings.6-8

In the last decade, discussion of “the decline of war” has dramatically escalated. This essay evaluates and critiques three major arguments for the decline in warfare since 1990, examining the human nature approach of Steven Pinker, the shorter-term factors proposed by John Mueller and the alternative “New Wars” theory championed by Mary Kaldor. In combination, these approaches provide a general summary of the major strains of “declinist” literature and demonstrate the challenges of assessing the changing political violence and armed conflict after the Cold War.

In many places around the world today, people are existing in carnage, as seen in the films “Living in Emergency” and “5 Broken Cameras”. Within all of these films, there are various instances where people are simply normalized with the war and violence happening around them. Looking at the film “Living in Emergency”, one can learn a lot about the normalization of war to people, as the documentary follows the plights of medical professionals within the organization “Doctors Without Borders”. Set in Congo and Liberia, both which are dealing with conflict and who have little access to proper medical facilities, the film bounces between the stories of four doctors as they struggle to provide proper emergency care to a large number of helpless people. The doctors highlight that they are often “psychologically tired” during their missions, and one veteran doctor who wants out of the mission tells that he often is most content when he diagnoses a patient and knows that there is nothing that he can do to help them, as this takes the pressure off of him and makes his work easier to handle (0:10). Many doctors highlight that death becomes part of the work they are in, as they try their best in all situations, but with limited medical supplies and severe cases of disease and injuries that have gone without treatment for years, death is common (0:20). The film flips between scenes of post-war Liberia and the warzone that is Congo, as 4 million have been killed in the DCR since the start of this war (0:18). The work is becoming more and more dangerous for the doctors placed in Congo, as they no longer can go out at night as 5 doctors were almost killed by muggings and the general endangerment of a warzone (0:20). In Liberia, the casualties are so severe that a veteran doctor says that he no longer has the “stomach for this work”, and this shows that even after multiple placements, this doctor is still not desensitized to the ugliness that he sees (0:35). In this film, we really see the impact of poverty on all aspect of these civilian’s lives, and such shows the normality of horrific conditions, which once again leads to the question of should the United States be in charge of fixing these issues?

Another result of the war in the Middle East has been the lack of basic supplies and services for many citizens. Many refugees live in “makeshift dwellings” (“Afghanistan: Bleak Living”) and whole regions have been turned into slums. Many living in the slums are in need of food, clean water and warm clothing. In 2006, it was reported that “millions of Iraqis had little or no access to clean water, sanitation and healthcare” (BBC News). The BBC also reports that some families spend up to a third of their monthly wage of $150 USD just on clean drinking water. Not only is it shocking that the average monthly wage in Iraq is similar to the allowance of some American teens, it’s terrible that families need to pay such ridiculous amounts of money for a basic necessity that many people take for granted. Aside from food and water, it is also difficult for civilians to access other basic services like medical care and education. A UN spokesman commented on this matter saying “‘access to basic services, such as health and education’” was negatively affected by the ongoing war (“Why is it Getting Worse?”). This is particularly troublesome when UN forces carry out military operations because during the operations the number of civilian casualties is significantly higher, and injured civilians more often than not can’t afford medical attention. It’s also depressing to see that the next generation of

Currently, more than half of deaths in conflict areas are among civilians; it has been shown to cause higher mortality compared to any other major disease (1). Unfortunately, conflict has further reaches than just mortality. For instance, conflict draws away resources from areas such as health or education, often has many human rights violations, and it can demolish the environment. On a more personal level, conflict has negative impacts on the civilians’ health. Civilians are often forced to flee their homes and be displaced in another, less conflict-ridden areas in their own country; these people would now be called internally displaces person’s (IDP). Being surrounded by conflict has its own health implications, but being taken from home and put

Several similarities exist between the conflict incurred by European settlers with Native Americans in the depictions of Inca, Garcilaso de la Vega's La Florida del Inca, and Gaspar Perez de Villagra's Historia de la Nueva Mexico. Excerpts from both works can be found in the compendium edited by Harold Augnebraum and Magartie Fernandez Olmos entitled The Latino Reader: Five Centuries of an American Literary Tradition from Cabeza de Vaca to Oscar Hijuelos. In both narratives, the authors chronicle Spaniards unlawful dispossession of territory that was previously inhabited by Native Americans. Quite naturally, these natives resisted this early form of larceny, which oftentimes resulted in an armed conflict between the two disparate groups. However, it is fairly apparent that both authors viewed this conflict and the appropriation of the Native Americans' land as largely religious matter, which was justified by the sake of Christianity. The narratives are at variance predominantly in their depiction of the natives during this conflict, however. Whereas de Villagra's depiction is decidedly less concerned with these natives and their point of view, Vega frequently takes pains to portray the humanity and dignity of the Native Americans encountered by the Spanish in Florida.

As the levels of violence escalated, so have the casualties. The exact numbers of these casualties are in dispute. A report conducted by the International Rescue Committee in 2008 estimates that 5.4 million Congolese have died in the conflict between 1998 and 2007, while The Human Security Report from Simon Frasier University in Canada’s British Columbia endorses a Belgian report that places casualties at 200,000 between 1998 and 2004. Therefore, it is no wonder that researchers and organizations are having difficulties in obtaining accurate numbers since the combatants fight as groups of irregulars. Whatever the numbers are, it is clear that men, women, and children are dying, and those most affected by the violence are those most vulnerable.

The Arab world today is shrouded in controversy. Political instability and armed conflicts are portrayed as the norm throughout the Middle East. According to the pseudo regional specialists, the causes behind all the conflicts faced are obvious, religion and radicalism. Yet this fails to answer the question, “why”, which opens the door to better understand the foundation of the present day Arab states. This questions the origins to why the Arabs chose to leave the Ottoman Empire and take support from the British Empire, which at the time seemed contradictory. Unless British involvement with the Arabs had enticed the revolution, then to what extent did European Jihadist propaganda sway the Arabs to revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1916? This paper will discuss that the Arab revolt against the Ottomans was in an effort take control of the Arab territories for themselves without the need for external influence to push them into making the decision. As such, the alternative explanation would be that Sharif Hussein was influenced by the British into believing that the revolt was his opportunity to liberate the Arabs from the Ottomans. Illustrating this point will be by examining circumstances that had led to the Arab’s decision, understanding how European intervention and motives shaped the revolt, and assessing the incentives the Arabs had for revolting.

Could you explain the effects of conflict and displacement on the health of these displaced persons and families? Can you suggest policies to reduce this burden? Please consider the roles that physicians can play.

The above definition of health by the World Health Organization redefined the concept of health among the different stakeholders involved in safeguarding people’s right to health. Until then health was merely seen as an absence of disease. But this definition helped the world to reimagining the various dimensions of health. Thus it underscores the fact that health is directly influenced by the environmental as well as social factors such as housing, education, food and a sense of safety from physical as well as sexual violence too. Thus health effects of conflict and disasters are much beyond the mortality and morbidity figures reported.

In the completion of this research project research a wide variety of literatures will be reviewed. Broadly, the focus will be on violence including civil wars and genocide, and the international community’s response to violence, focusing both on the theory that unpins response and then more specifically on UN missions and their effectiveness. The literature on violence does not form a cohesive body, rather, for each form of violence there is a distinct literature, and often these literatures do not cross pollinate. For the interest of this literature review a brief review of the literatures available on civil war and genocide will be considered, followed by a brief review of the literature on the response to conflict by the UN.