With each passing day, the Ukraine war is proving to be more and more harmful not just for the affected people but also for world peace. The urgency of stopping the war as early as possible is increasing and to achieve this, sincere efforts are needed on all sides.

The Human Development Report 1991 had made an important statement which has relevance in the present context. This report stated, “There have been over 120 conflicts in the Third World since 1945 with 20 million deaths. In many cases – from Korea to Afghanistan – these have been cold war struggles between the superpowers carried out by proxy on Third World soil.” This drew attention to one of the most important aspects of post-1945 conflicts – the fact that these were in effect proxy conflicts between the biggest military powers in which millions of people from other countries died and suffered.

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In the early 1990s, for some time at least it was hoped that with the end of the Cold war, these proxy wars would also stop, bringing much needed peace to our conflict-ridden world. But the way recent history has played out, big power rivalries and the arms race have continued, and so have proxy wars, the latest manifestation being in Ukraine.

After the break-up of the USSR, the USA and some of its allies like Britain ignored the option of having friendly relations with Russia and pursued policies that would further weaken Russia and increase its insecurity, including with reference to its immediate neighborhood. Some allies like Germany may not have been so keen to pursue this policy but they eventually fell in line.

As Russia was looking to maintain its place of importance and honour, it had to resist this approach and therefore sought closer ties with China. Hence rivalries along cold war lines got strengthened again. As the two biggest military and nuclear weapon powers could not fight each other directly except at the risk of destroying themselves, their escalating rivalries had to find a place for confrontation and this time it was the misfortune of Ukraine that it became the battlefield.

Clearly it was a serious mistake on the part of Russia to launch this invasion, and Vladimir Putin only aggravated the initial mistake by making some arrogant comments. Sincere friends of Russia should also understand this as a serious mistake, and instead of trying to offer imagined justifications for the invasion, should devote themselves to finding ways of ending the war that would enable Russia to make an exit on acceptable terms. Since this is a proxy war, cooperation of the USA is needed for an early end of war.

There has been much concern for helping refugees from Ukraine, for sending weapons and other help to Ukraine. All this may be justified, but where are the efforts to end war as early as possible? These do not seem to be so visible in the USA, or in its closest allies like the UK. At various stages, Turkey and to a lesser extent France have been involved in this, while other important countries like India have been emphasising this, but the USA does not appear to be in any great hurry to stop the destructive war.

There has always been a hawkish section in the US foreign policy establishment (just as there has been a section which advocates peace and reconciliation) and problems increase whenever the hawks dominate. Some of them appear to believe that the more Russia gets struck in a quagmire, the better it is. The hawks in the US foreign policy establishment are also happy that Russia has never received such adverse worldwide publicity that it is receiving now.

The loss of your main adversary should be considered your gain, the hawks argue, and hence they do not mind if such a situation continues. However, such an analysis may prove to be too narrow. The reality is that if such a high-risk position as exists today in Ukraine is allowed to persist, then apart from the daily cost it inflicts on the suffering people of Ukraine as well as the indirect economic costs on people of several other countries, the conflict can also escalate in unpredictable ways that could prove dangerous.

The flames of such escalation may then spare no one, not even the most powerful and secure. While sanctions are meant to harm Russia only, indirect harm is spreading far and wide. In fact, this could even escalate the search for other currency systems, and this from the point of the USA should be seen as an extra risk to the worldwide acceptability of the US dollar as the reserve currency.

The policy of constantly putting Russia under pressure could prove to be destructive. The last time a great power was put under pressure to the extent of humiliation (Germany after the end of the first world war), it led to the rise of Hitler. Surely no one wants a repeat. Hitler’s Germany did not have nuclear weapons.

Present day Russia has plenty of them. So the best policy is for the USA to extend sincere cooperation to end the war and then the sanctions, for Russia to accept a very early exit, to be followed by both countries and the international community extending generous rehabilitation help to Ukraine.

(The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Man Over Machine and Planet in Peril.)