What is driving the rise of global conflict?

Is it a lack of global leadership? Political polarization? Resource stress and climate change?

David Miliband sees a combination of all these factors and more. For the past 10 years, the former British Foreign Secretary has led International Rescue Committee (IRC), a global NGO working on the front lines of conflicts around the world to provide assistance to refugees and other displaced people.

At the recent Aspen Security Forum, Miliband sat down with Vox to discuss Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and other conflicts, as well as the new British government, which is led by his former political party, Labour, and includes his brother Edward Miliband as energy secretary.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

We now have several years of data showing that the number of armed conflicts around the world is increasing in terms of both large numbers and casualties. Is it fair to say that the so-called “long peace” coming to an end?

I do not want to explain the end of the long peace for one particular reason, which is that the “peace” was not very peaceful. It suggests a bit of a golden age that we have left, and we should not fall into that trap.

What we do know is that today there are up to a dozen major conflicts – with major defined as more than 1,000 battlefield deaths (in a year) – and there are over 50 ongoing civil conflicts of various kinds. The two conflicts that receive the most attention, Ukraine and Gaza, are clearly in a different category than the civil wars that are dominant, Sudan being a prime example.

Second, what we also know is that in many countries there are many conflicts. There is not a single conflict going on in Cameroon or in Nigeria or in Myanmar.

Third, to your point, we know that civilians are increasingly bearing the brunt of conflict and that there is much more internationalization of civil conflict.

So I think we are in a period that we could describe as a flammable world. There is a lot of tinder and a lot of it is burning.

Okay, so let’s talk about the fire. What are some of the underlying structural factors that you think may be driving this increase in the number of conflicts and their severity?

Well, resource stress is a big conflict multiplier and that’s where you see this conflict/climate interface. We also know that political systems that fail to deal with compromise are a source of conflict. That has been the story in Syria, and you could say it is the story in Sudan as well.

We also know the divisive elements of social media has driven toxicity.

Also this point about the internationalization of conflicts — you’ve got more and more actors thinking regionally and making their power plays. And I guess the other thing is that the biggest determinant of where internecine conflict breaks out is where there was one before. So the failure to resolve conflict is a feeder of more conflict.

Recently, President Biden caused some controversy when he said he has done more for the Palestinian community yet anyone, by pressuring Israel to allow more aid to Gaza. Given what you see from Gaza and the work the IRC is doing there, how would you rate the international community’s use of pressure to bring in more aid?

It is a very complicated – perhaps uniquely complicated – situation. But the sum of the efforts is not yet yielding results either for Palestinians in Gaza or for the hostages held in Gaza. And so there’s a huge amount of frustration around the dire situation that civilians are facing.

What we have said is that the number of trucks entering an area is not a sufficient measure of humanitarian aid. You can get a truck across the border, but what happens to the aid once you get over it?

Turning to Sudan, we are about two decades removed from the era of the “Save Darfur” movement and the very close involvement of the George W. Bush administration in that country. Does it feel like something has fallen off the global agenda given the staggering scale of the crisis there?

There is no doubt that there is less global interest in Sudan today than there was 20 years ago. Twenty years ago there was a terrible loss of life, but also an extraordinary international mobilization. Much has changed in the outside world since then. There is a lot of humility born from mistakes and failures.

There is a lot of fatigue. There is also a new insistence on African solutions to African problems. So the African Union is in charge of diplomacy there, not the UN Security Council, which is a change.

But of course, the situation is getting worse, not better. It is the prototype of the modern civil war: highly complex, with internationally sponsored actors and spreading from the region. It is very dark.

And then when it comes to Ukraine: It’s very different from these other conflicts. It’s interstate, versus a civil war. There is a lot on the international agenda. How does the humanitarian response differ in such a conflict?

The first way it is very different is that it is a middle-income country. Second, it borders Europe. It is actually very rare for refugees to flock to rich countries. Seventy-five percent of the world’s refugees go to poorer parts of the world. They go from Myanmar to Bangladesh or they go from (Democratic Republic of Congo) to Tanzania. And those who have gone to Europe have been treated much better (than refugees from other conflicts).

But where we work on the Eastern Front, on the front lines, the parallels with other conflict areas are very real. Daily survival is an issue, basic services for people with health needs that were previously unserved. And there’s just an extraordinary level of fighting going on.

As someone who has been in both government and the NGO sector, how do you make the case to voters in countries like the UK or the US that these international priorities should matter given how many serious issues are on the domestic agenda?

I think it is very important to say that you are not asking to solve international problems instead of solving domestic problems. We should not try to convince people that the quality of their schools or their streets is not a top priority.

Having said that, we have seen from Covid that problems can come from abroad if they are not addressed there. There is a real need to recognize that this is a time when countries are more interdependent.

What do you hope to see from the new UK government in terms of the UK’s international role?

Well, I think what we’re seeing is that geography still matters. The new government has made it clear that it sees (Britain’s) values ​​and interests in line with its European neighbours. They don’t want to fight the Brexit wars, but there is no value in Britain and Europe pretending they are somehow in a different place.

They will want British diplomacy to work in a multilateral system. They will follow the US election very closely. And they will make it clear that they see the climate as a security issue, not just an environmental issue.

Is there a particular conflict or pressing issue that you think people should pay more attention to that doesn’t get the same kind of headlines as the ones we’ve discussed?

I mean, first of all, don’t forget Syria. It has been going on for more than a decade. There are 7 million civilians outside the country, and a similar number inside the country who are displaced.

Don’t forget the Rohingya in Bangladesh, but also don’t forget there are 3 million Burmese Myanmar citizens displaced internally. Don’t forget Afghanistan where there are still great financial needs. The West promised when it left militarily that it would not leave politically or developmentally.

Then there are some places that are much more foreign to Western audiences: West Africa, Francophone Africa in particular. There is a lot of dynamism in this region, but also many challenges.

You know, we (IRC) are growing. I’m not really sure if that’s good or bad.