Things fall apart

IN THE past year, the world has counted more missiles and bombs than hours.

- RICHARD MAHAPATRA

More bricks have been added to dust than to history. About 35 countries are in conflict. In a reversal of trend, wars and conflicts now displace and kill more people than natural disasters. “World War” is now a key Google search term; major conflicts are at their highest level since the end of World War II. The state of “polycrisis” has been replaced by “geopolitical crisis”. Heads of warring countries headline their state-of-the-nation speeches with the number of targeted attacks elsewhere. These are no ordinary times. The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a Sydney-based think tank “dedicated to shifting the world's focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress” calls this period “The Great Fragmentation”. In its latest assessment of global geopolitics, the IEP says, “The increase in global violence coincided with the start of the global financial crisis in 2008 and is the third major geopolitical phase in the past 50 years. This phase can be characterised as 'The Great Fragmentation'.” Global “peacefulness” has declined in 1