Too often, leadership in modern governance is driven by reaction rather than understanding. When crises emerge, leaders rush to contain visible damage by deploying military force, imposing sanctions, issuing statements or managing public perception without addressing the deeper forces that produced the crisis in the first place. These reactive fixes create the illusion of control while quietly eroding long-term stability.
By Tahir Mahmoud
Symptom-based responses are politically convenient because they are fast, visible and easily communicated. Root-cause solutions, by contrast, demand patience, introspection and political courage. They require confronting uncomfortable realities: exclusionary policies, historical injustices, economic exploitation, ideological rigidity and institutional decay.
Ignoring these deeper causes only postpones conflict, allowing it to return later in more violent, fragmented and uncontrollable forms. This pattern has repeated itself across decades of global conflict, demonstrating that instability is rarely accidental. It is often the predictable outcome when leadership prioritises urgency over wisdom.
Consider the protracted conflict in Yemen. Repeated interventions focused on immediate security, airstrikes, blockades and tactical support without addressing the historical marginalisation of southern tribes, proxy building, economic deprivation or regional geopolitical rivalries.
Had leadership focused on dialogue, reconciliation and development early on, millions could have been spared famine, displacement and lost economic productivity. Today, entire generations face trauma that will reduce societal potential for decades.
A reactive approach also has global consequences. When one region collapses into instability, migration, economic disruption and terrorism spread beyond borders, affecting neighbouring states and the global economy. The illusion of control is not only dangerous locally; it also has systemic worldwide ramifications.
Bad ideas, hidden agendas & the gestation of conflict
Modern conflicts rarely begin with gunfire. They start with ideas that are some openly destructive, others deceptively framed as necessary or inevitable. Harmful ideas, interests and desires are introduced under the banners of ideology, national security, economic development or moral necessity. These ideas shape policy, normalise exclusion and legitimise coercion.
Alongside these visible forces operate hidden agendas: covert influence, strategic manipulation, proxy warfare, and economic exploitation, all concealed behind diplomatic language. These agendas thrive in opacity, relying on delayed accountability and fragmented attention to grow unchecked over years or decades. Conflict, therefore, is not sudden; it is cumulative.
By the time violence reaches public awareness, it is no longer a misunderstanding to be resolved but a structural failure embedded in institutions, narratives and power relations.
The Russian annexation of Crimea and the subsequent war in Ukraine illustrate decades of accumulated mistrust, historical grievances and strategic positioning. If transparent dialogue and preventive diplomacy had addressed these undercurrents, the region could have experienced decades of prosperity rather than war, sanctions, and widespread displacement.
The opportunity cost of unaddressed agendas is immense. Economies stagnate, infrastructure is destroyed, human capital is wasted, and the psychological health of populations deteriorates with mass migrations. Every delayed intervention allows hidden agendas to solidify, increasing the eventual cost of peace in financial, social, and environmental terms.
Misinformation & the tragedy of late truth
When conflict finally becomes visible, societies awaken not to clarity but to confusion. In the digital age, misinformation spreads rapidly, distorting responsibility and fragmenting attention.
Yet paradoxically, the same digital world preserves truth. Declassified documents, investigative journalism, satellite imagery, leaked communications, and digital archives slowly reconstruct the chain of decisions that led to the crisis.
Over time, these records begin to justify the good and expose the bad. They reveal who acted responsibly, who manipulated narratives and who benefited from prolonged instability. But this truth arrives retrospectively. Lives are already lost. Communities are fractured. Institutions are weakened—truth documents failure rather than preventing it.
In Sudan, the delayed recognition of political factionalism and historical marginalisation allowed conflicts to escalate for decades, leaving the public unprepared to understand or mitigate the consequences. Had the public been engaged early through transparency and dialogue, societal resilience could have prevented the spiralling violence.
Theoretical insight: societies that can access accurate, timely information before crises mature are more likely to resist manipulation, demand accountability and push for constructive interventions. Retrospective truth is necessary for historical justice but insufficient to prevent disaster.
How silence and secrecy manufacture war
One of the most dangerous and least discussed drivers of conflict is the growing disconnect between leaders and the public. While decisions shaping war and peace are made quietly over years, the public remains largely unaware of the ideas, interests and hidden agendas being advanced in its name.
By the time consequences become visible, conflict is no longer a future risk; it is a present reality at the doorstep.
Contemporary conflicts are rarely sudden eruptions. Policies are adopted incrementally, alliances shift silently, economic pressures are applied discreetly, and strategic positions harden behind closed doors.
These processes unfold far from public scrutiny, protected by technical language, national security justifications and controlled narratives. The absence of transparency allows harmful ideas and concealed interests to mature without resistance, correction or democratic accountability.
Digital media complicates this further. While misinformation distorts understanding, authentic information also exists, scattered across reports, archives, and independent analyses. However, truth rarely reaches the public in time to prevent crises; it emerges retrospectively, reconstructing the path to conflict after irreversible damage has occurred.
The greatest warning of our time is not that conflicts are increasing but that they mature in silence. If leadership remains insulated and the public remains uninformed, escalation becomes inevitable.
Wisdom requires alignment: the public needs wise leaders capable of restraint and foresight, and leaders need a public capable of informed judgment and engagement. Without this alignment, democracy itself becomes vulnerable to manipulation and war.
Consider the Vietnam War. Policies were gradually escalated behind closed doors, with the public only slowly recognising the scale and cost of the conflict. Generations of Americans and Vietnamese suffered because early dialogue and transparency were absent. If the public had been informed and engaged, societal pressure could have redirected leadership toward negotiation and reduced the risk of escalation.
Today, this divide is even more dangerous. Global conflicts now exist in multiple regions simultaneously: Taiwan-China, Russia-Ukraine, India-Pakistan, Gaza, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Venezuela -US, and Denmark-Greenland.
Publics worldwide often lack awareness of accumulating tensions until violence threatens their immediate security. When multiple conflicts ignite in tandem, local crises can cascade into global systemic instability.
The public-leadership alignment is therefore not optional. Democracy and wisdom require that citizens be informed and that leaders be accountable. Only through this alignment can conflicts be prevented before they mature into destructive wars.
Lessons from Norwegian diplomacy
Sustained dialogue and confidence-building measures (CBMs) are not optional; they are essential. Norway’s diplomatic engagement offers a practical illustration. High-level regular visits, including the recent engagement between Norway’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andreas and Qatari counterparts, reflect diplomacy as an ongoing process of trust-building rather than a one-time performance.
Such engagements reduce uncertainty, surface hidden interests, correct misperceptions and create channels for early problem-solving. They do not guarantee peace, but they prevent misunderstanding from hardening into hostility.
Norway’s broader diplomatic posture, emphasising negotiation, humanitarian responsibility, and international law, demonstrates an understanding that peace is cultivated through continuity rather than episodic intervention.
If similar dialogue had been institutionalised in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Yemen decades ago, not only could armed conflict have been reduced, but societies could also have experienced significant economic growth, educational expansion, and cross-cultural cooperation—dialogue fosters conditions where prosperity and stability replace fear and destruction.
Norway’s diplomacy underscores an essential principle: the absence of dialogue accelerates instability, whereas sustained, principled engagement mitigates it, even in contexts where immediate peace seems impossible.
Yet one nation’s wisdom cannot compensate for global reluctance. All countries must adopt similar approaches to prevent escalation across multiple theatres simultaneously.
The global conflict landscape of 2025 was alarming. Tensions between China and Taiwan, Gaza-Israel, India and Pakistan, the war between Russia and Ukraine, disputes involving the United States and Venezuela, emerging geopolitical sensitivities around Denmark and Greenland and prolonged crises in Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia form a continuous arc of instability.
These conflicts differ in context, but they share structural similarities: delayed diplomacy, rigid narratives and insufficient early engagement. Warning signs were present long before the escalation, yet dialogue was postponed, minimised, or politicised.
The result is a dangerous imbalance: the number of active conflicts is rising faster than the mechanisms designed to resolve them. This is not a failure of institutions alone; it is a failure of wisdom in how those institutions are applied, a confused approach from the beginning.
Conflict in one region has ripple effects worldwide. As energy prices rise, migration flows increase, global supply chains fracture, and alliances are tested. The war in Ukraine disrupted wheat supplies to Africa and the Middle East, exacerbating famine risks. Had preventive diplomacy stabilised the region earlier, hundreds of millions of people could have benefited from food security, economic stability, and social peace.
The theoretical insight is clear: peace is not local, it is systemic. A lack of dialogue in one theatre risks cascading crises globally. Open “frontiers of conflict” today means that instability anywhere threatens prosperity everywhere.
The new existential risk
Humanity now possesses technologies capable of causing planetary-scale destruction. Nuclear weapons, autonomous systems, cyber warfare and environmental degradation mean that modern conflict does not merely destroy opponents, it endangers civilisation itself.
A large-scale war today would not end with ceasefires alone. It would contaminate ecosystems, destabilise climate systems, and have consequences lasting for centuries. Technology without ethical and diplomatic restraint is an instrument of self-destruction.
The paradox of our era is stark: knowledge exists, yet collective wisdom is insufficient to prevent its misuse. Power without foresight becomes self-destruction.
Consider the global impact if a nuclear conflict occurred in South Asia. Beyond immediate loss of life, radiation, agricultural collapse, and climate anomalies would affect populations across the Northern Hemisphere, triggering famine, economic collapse, and forced migration on an unprecedented scale.
The lesson is clear: technological capability without strategic wisdom transforms potential into an existential threat.
Reclaiming Global Wisdom
Wisdom must be measured not by dominance, deterrence or rhetoric but by the ability to prevent crises before they escalate.
This requires leaders to institutionalise:
Diplomacy must move from reaction to prevention. Prevention is not weakness; it is the highest form of strategic intelligence. Peace is not an event but a process cultivated over years, continuously reinforced and shared between leaders and society.
Had early dialogue, transparency, and preventive diplomacy been applied in Taiwan-China relations, Russia-Ukraine, or Sudan, billions in economic development, infrastructure, and human potential could have been preserved.
Peace is a multiplier: it enables societies to prosper, invest in education, health, and technology, and create durable institutions.
The choice before humanity is stark. Accumulating conflicts, hidden agendas, and delayed awareness are not accidents; they are the consequences of neglecting dialogue, transparency, and wisdom.
If leaders fail to act wisely, conflicts will continue to accumulate across regions until escalation becomes uncontrollable. In a world armed with nuclear weapons, advanced technology and environmental vulnerabilities, the absence of wisdom is no longer a policy concern; it is existential.
The public must demand wisdom, and leaders must embody it. Alignment between informed citizens and foresighted leaders is humanity’s only defence against self-destruction. If diplomacy remains reactive, truth continues to be delayed, and dialogue remains optional, the world will not stumble into catastrophe by accident. It will burn because humanity chose silence over foresight, reaction over prevention and convenience over courage.
The time to act is now. Wisdom must guide every decision and action; dialogue must be continuous; transparency must be the standard; publics and leaders must align, because the survival of civilisation depends on it.
If this alignment does not occur, wars will continue to escalate, local crises will cascade globally, and the survival of civilisation will be jeopardised. The opportunity cost of inaction is immense: prosperity forgone, lives lost, generations traumatised, and ecological systems destroyed.
Conversely, prioritising peace unlocks human potential, safeguards the planet, and prevents the destructive chain reactions that could flatten civilisations. The world cannot afford complacency. Every nation, every leader, every citizen has a stake. The survival of humanity depends on acting wisely before the fires of accumulated conflict consume us all.
Tahir Mahmood is an expert in counter-radicalisation and governance, known for his work with multiple governments to address complex challenges through innovative, knowledge-based, and scientifically systematic solutions. He authored various books, contributed to the EU-funded RiskTrack research project & is currently developing a new crime theory to support crime prevention & the evaluation of new proposed criminal laws for governments. This is his first contribution to The Liberum.
