The Hidden Cycle of Myanmar’s Forever Wars

In 2011, the American academic Steven Pinker released a long book called The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. In a dense blend of history, multiple data sources and psychology, Pinker argues that over the past century the rise of the nation state, increased international economic interconnectedness, improved protection of women and children, and greater cosmopolitism is largely to thank for the steady decline of violence. He also evokes the “escalator of reason” theory; that humanity was finding ways to manage the competition or fear that drives violence and seek various forms of conflict reduction.

The book received widespread international attention but also had many detractors. After all, a decade before its release, the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq sparked wars that have lasted in various forms ever since, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions. Israel’s repression of the Palestinians persisted. Civil war in places like Sudan/Darfur were highly destructive and resumed in recent years, with tens of thousands killed. Ethiopia was plunged back into war in Tigray between 2020 and 2022: civilian death counts there range from 100,000 to 600,000. And just months before the release of Better Angels, hopes for the Arab Spring soon degenerated into brutal civil wars in Syria, Libya and other countries.

Make peace, not war

In Myanmar, just as hopes were rising of democratic transition in 2011, a 17-year-long ceasefire between the Myanmar military and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) broke down, killing hundreds of civilians and displacing over 100,000 more.