The Effects of Wars: Lessons from Ukraine

The devastating war in Ukraine has transformed our understanding of military combat and international politics in the 21st Century. Until now, analyses of the effects of wars – including this one – have tended to be compartmentalised by sub-disciplines. These include International Relations (IR), Security Studies, International Political Economy (IPE), History, Historical Sociology, Public Administration and Psychology, among many others. In contrast, taken together, and addressed from an interdisciplinary perspective, a new set of studies shows how the war has had deep and complex “ripple” and “washback” effects. These are affecting human life; human development; economies; values and attitudes; policy and governance; and power distribution and relations around the world. This complexity, therefore, derives from both the number of actors involved, areas of human society affected and their interconnections. In other words, each of these layers of society have scope to feedback on one another and feedback loops may in turn affect the evolution of conflict and the possibility of its resolution in the future.