As World Revolts, Great Powers Watch

Intensifying internal conflict, destabilizing for governance, is underway in varying degrees for many countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, South Sudan, Syria, Thailand and Ukraine. Syria’s conflict is the most brutal with 125,000 dead and 6 million people dislocated amid the use of torture and chemical weapons. The struggle emerges when political factions, in the minority or majority, prefer endless battle over compromise. Insecure political leaders resist any form of protest or criticism. Civilians suffer the most from such conflicts, but hope for intervention from the international community and the United Nations is dwindling. “This is the emerging shape of the present world, which, sooner or later, will be settled by superior force – as was the civil war in Sri Lanka, five years ago,” writes John Lloyd for Reuters. He insists that refusing to intervene can lead to as many victims as intervention. The developed nations expect problems to be handled internally and in the meantime “watch, send aid, keep out.”