Conflict and violence have been the hallmark of social existence of man in history. These have always defined human discourse from individual and group to the level of state and beyond. There is also a general human experience that suggests that often actual recourse to violence creates more problems than it resolves. It is because of the challenging situations of human living in relation to one another (and also in relation to harsh forces of nature) that people were prompted to find ways out of this unregulated situation in which human conduct was to be defined by violence only as a mechanism of addressing conflicts. Initially vulnerabilities must have instinctively prompted people to join together on the basis of naturally formed kinship affinities.
This primordial impulse for solidarity that Ibn-Khaldun, (1332-1406) referred to as Asabiyyah, as the basis of social solidarity resulted in the formation of the nascent political communities as a mechanism of addressing individual vulnerabilities vis-a-vis nature, in relation to one another and groups and communities competing for habitats and natural resources. This regulating of individual level violence allowed to create a stable social setting in which humankind could carry out its daily chores within a degree of security essential for whatever progress it has achieved in terms of culture and civilisation. Evolution of ethical-cultural norms also had a stabilising effect. Initially small kinship communities gradually developed into kingships and empires in history. It is the same impulse of social solidarity that is at the core of modern nation state formation as a mechanism of security vis-a-vis other such entities.
One of the greatest political thinkers of all times, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) says that human actions are primarily stimulated by their selfish and egoistic nature. In the natural situation, unregulated pursuit of individual interest leads to the discourse of violence pitting everyone against everyone else. It is again because of the same (selfish) nature that man through the invocation of his reason and rational understanding sought to secure his most precious possession, life, by conceiving and creating mechanisms of regulating raw nature of man that had led to a situation of an unending war of each against all, thereby creating a situation of universal fear and insecurity and making every one’s life vulnerable to sudden unnatural death.
This situation if left unattended would not allow mankind to survive and achieve all that it has been able to achieve in terms of progress in economy, culture, sciences and civilisation. The mechanism that men conceived at the level of rational understanding to put an end to potentially unending universal violent war of all against all was to form communities of common interest (civil society) and establish a common authority i.e. the institution of state to regulate human conduct.
Creation of the state and evolution of ethical/moral codes would not imply to fundamentally changing human nature but only to moderate it by allowing conditions of relative peace to pursue competitive interests and goals in a civil and regulated atmosphere without recourse to violence. It is being increasingly realised that while conflict is natural to human living, violent manifestation of it is not desirable. At the rational level human endeavour has been to secure a balance between the two; selfish impulse and urge for security of life, by submitting to the authority of state.
Creation of state did not mean an end to the violence. While regulating people’s conduct within its borders, State came to personify human nature defined by selfishness (unending desire of having more than others) and desire (egoist impulse) to dominate the rest. States continued to pursue the path of power whereby these could go on expanding and dominating. This is how, historically speaking, empires were formed and even destroyed by the more powerful. Thus while individual conduct was being regulated by state, there has been no mechanism or superior agency to regulate the conduct of the state.
That is why human history is broadly defined by wars between and among states. There are some historians who maintain that wars in history have helped in the establishment of large empires that allowed stable (many a times running into several centuries) conditions for achieving economic prosperity and civilisational progress. Till the coming of modern times empires, in spite of being large, powerful and centralised, allowed reasonably a good degree of freedom and socio-cultural autonomy within it’s what used to be loose and somewhat flexible frontiers. Some thinkers even eulogised war as a mechanism of bringing in cohesion and moral fulfilment in the person of State.
Renaissance, (14th-17th centuries), in Europe initiated a process whereby global power gradually began to be shifted from the East (Asia) to the West (Europe and its extensions). The basic stimuli of this change was that while Asian civilisations in their glory, pomp and show began to stagnate in the acquisition and creation of knowledge, Europe under the renaissance was defined by opening of minds and the quest for learning and innovation. During this process while Eastern/Asian Empires, Ottoman (1299-1919, spread to continents comprising parts of Eastern Europe, North Africa & West Asia), Iranian (Safavid, 1501-1736, Qajar, 1789 to 1925), Indian (Mughals 1526-1857) and Chinese (under the Ming, 1368-1644 & Qing, 1644 to 1912 dynasties) exhibited a certain degree of stability, Europe because of the enormous changes happening had to undergo a lot of multidimensional turbulences before stabilising.
This happened because an emerging new order with considerable energy was challenging the decaying Medieval Feudal system in political, cultural and economic characteristics. It is in this context that in 17th century after a thirty-year long seemingly unending pan-European war (1618-1648) that prompted the involved states to reach an agreement referred to as the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. This treaty attempted a framework for peaceful coexistence by recognising sovereign jurisdiction of states in their internal affairs within the defined borders. In a way it founded a new state-centric framework for international relations that by and large continues to shape up international order even today.
Thereafter, the state became a recognised international person in terms of international law with its legitimate jurisdiction within its defined borders. While it allowed undisputed sovereign authority within the state, it did not create any common authority to regulate state behaviour in relation to one another. International order became by and large anarchic in which the states, in the Machiavellian sense, were amoral (if not immoral) in their conduct. The state behaviour continued to be stimulated by its greed to grab and the desire to dominate.
With its quest for knowledge, Europe began to make new strides in sciences, technology and industry. This gave them new and more effective weaponry, greater efficiency in transportation and travel systems and most importantly a new economic edifice that revolutionised production process generating a new push for its trade beyond borders within the frame work of an evolving capitalist system wedded to unhindered process of wealth accumulation.
These changes left the previously great powers in Asia and Africa behind in all parameters of power, facilitating the emerging industrialising European countries to go for a hot and greedy pursuit of colonies in Americas, Asia and Africa. That created a global flux and put, all regions and countries world-wide, open to multiple invasions resulting in a whole set of new and seemingly unending violent conflicts as a result of a phenomenon that broadly began to be referred to as colonialism/imperialism.
Probably the greatest violence to the mankind has happened because of colonialism that manifested in a number of ways. Initially the European quest to secure colonies led to colonial wars among aspiring colonial powers like Portugal, Spain, Holland, Britain, France, and Russia in different parts of the world. Colonialism did greater violence in places that it occupied. It ended with the self-destructive wars and even in its destruction it left a terrible legacy of violence for colonies to deal with even after their independence.
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