The Lingering Costs of Violence

The Lingering Costs of Violence

Adis Duderija

Armed conflicts   can ,at times,  be  justified as necessary means to resolve immediate conflicts and threats, but it is important  to recognize that their impacts ripple well beyond the formal cessation of hostilities, undermining future peace in subtle yet profound ways. While violence may defeat enemies in the present, it sows the seeds of radicalization, social disintegration, and deep polarization that gestate over time into renewed instability. By examining three “second-order effects” - the radicalizing impact on political factions, erosion of social cohesion, and closing of the policy space - we can better understand how war perpetuates itself by weakening societal structures crucial for durable peace.  

Nonviolence, though riskier initially, may disrupt this generational embedding of conflict and rejectionism by obstructing violence from corrupting community ties and the political sphere. 

One pernicious second-order effect is the tendency of war to empower radical elements while sidelining moderates who advocate compromise and diplomacy. As fighting persists without resolution, wavering segments of communities lose faith in the possibility of nonviolent solutions and see militancy as the only “realism” left. Gradually, extremists come to dominate discourse by framing alternatives as cowardice or betrayal rather than thoughtful attempts to reconcile all sides. Branding moderates this way allows radicals to consolidate support from those despairing of change through lawful participation. This dynamic transforms fringe movements into entrenched forces commanding devoted followings that persist far beyond initial triggers through multi-generational indoctrination of the disaffected young.   

Socially isolated youth traumatized by loss and hopelessness during conflict’s longevity find radical groups offer purpose, empowerment and clear answers amid turmoil that disrupted their coming-of-age. Not yet settled into permanent roles and still grappling with identity, these volatile ages develop formative political worldviews during upheavals that violence exacerbates. For them, uncompromising militant ideologies supplant fractured communities as sources of belonging and guidance. Thus does war intergenerationally perpetuate radicalism by redirecting socialization of successive youth cohorts toward radicalization and away from modes of community and cooperation necessary for stable societies. It transforms a cohort now too into a generational wellspring for rejectionist doctrines.

At a deeper structural level, conflict devastates the very social fabric on which communities depend by destroying personal bonds of trust between neighbors who were once interdependent. Lingering fears and fractured relations born of sudden estrangement poison reconciliation even long  after direct fighting ends. 

This fragmentation of what Robert Putnam terms “social capital” - the dense weave of rapport and reciprocal goodwill vital for cooperation - occurs at a microscopic scale between individuals as well as macroscopic levels. At both, the wreckage of intra-communal networks weakens the relational infrastructure crucial to reconstituting stable, cooperative relations when animosity ebbs. Conflict polarized populations grow too estranged psychologically and politically to rebuild on bases of shared citizenship through inclusive programs. Societal trauma lingers psychologically through experiences that corrode willingness to compromise. 

Similarly, as strategic calculations polarize amid fighting, participants find less space for cooperative solutions addressing roots of marginalization fueling violence in the first place. Moderation loses platforms while militancy dominates fragmented political spaces. This closing of cooperative avenues for preventive approaches precludes mutually satisfactory postwar transitions emphasizing inclusion and joint problem-solving. Societies polarized internally as well as externally vis-à-vis international actors become too divided - psychologically traumatized as well as politically polarized - to reconstitute on foundations of shared prosperity and citizenship when violence displaces diplomacy. Postwar assistance models promoting peace through cooperation find barren ground. 

While force resolves near-term battles, its impacts gestate over time through a generational radicalizing of successive cohorts, corrosion of social cohesion, and preclusion of reconciliation-centered politics. By embedding conflict psychologically within populations as well as structurally across political systems, war breeds future conflict itself through second-order deformations of the very social fabric that makes peace possible. A holistic, preventive model prioritizing societal resilience through cooperative diplomacy merits support over temporary victories that generate deeply detrimental consequences impeding stability once guns fall silent. Thus while force conquers present foes, nonviolence may obstruct destructive radicalization, social fissuring and closed policy spaces from taking root, preempting wars by preventing their generational perpetuation through corrosive second-order effects.