THE CONVERSATION
How do intractable conflicts come to an end?
BEHIND THE NEWS
With the Israel-Gaza war continuing to dominate the headlines, MATT ELTON assembled a panel of historians to discuss the factors that lead to entrenched warfare – and what might help resolve them
COMPILED BY MATT ELTON
EXPERTS DEBATE HISTORY’S BIGGEST ISSUES
ILLUSTRATION BY DAVIDE BONAZZI
THE PANEL
Rana Mitter
is the chair in US-Asia relations at the Harvard Kennedy School
Thomas Otte
is an expert in diplomatic, international and military history at the University of East Anglia
Hannah Skoda
is a fellow at St John’s College, University of Oxford, focusing on the social and cultural history of the high and later Middle Ages
Matt Elton The Israel-Gaza war is dominating the news at the moment, but rather than exploring its roots, I wanted to discuss other examples of seemingly intractable conflicts and how they come to an end. What examples from your research would you like to highlight?
Rana Mitter
Firstly, we would all hope for a resolution of these conflicts, in the Middle East and elsewhere. What history allows us to do is to look at the longer perspective and understand that sometimes conflicts that have gone on for years or even decades can eventually be resolved, and that sometimes it’s external factors and sometimes it’s internal factors that enable that to happen.
As a historian of modern China, I can offer two examples that provide a contrast. One is the relationship between India and China ever since the former gained independence in 1947 and the latter saw the establishment of Mao’s regime in 1949. Growing tensions between the two came to a head in 1962 with a small but very vicious war, and there have been border disputes ever since. This territorial dispute between the two Asian giants has never actually been resolved because of an issue of geography: there is an area of the Himalayas which is essentially most of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, but which China argues should be Chinese territory. The two sides have never managed to resolve that dispute.