Is war more profitable than peace? David Keen explains

[0:00] As the United States and Israel continue their war in Iran, [0:10] the focus has been on missiles, targets and the question of who is winning. [0:16] But what if that's the wrong question? [0:18] Because in many modern conflicts, victory is no longer the only or even the main objective. [0:24] Wars today don't just destroy, they also produce. [0:27] They reshape power, economies and create systems that can outlive the battlefield itself. [0:33] From sanctions and arms industries to smuggling networks and shadow economies, [0:38] conflict can become functional. [0:40] For some, it consolidates political control. [0:44] For others, it opens new streams of profit. [0:47] And for many, it creates a constant state of threat that justifies its own continuation. [0:53] Wars are not always designed to end. [0:55] They evolve, adapt and sometimes they sustain the very actors fighting them. [1:01] In the Middle East, that system is becoming increasingly [1:04] fragmented as states are no longer the only players. [1:08] Armed groups, informal networks and regional actors play roles that shape conflicts [1:13] in ways the global powers can't fully control. [1:16] The consequences stretch far beyond the battlefield. [1:19] From energy markets to inflation, from superpowers to developing economies, [1:23] the costs of conflict are global. [1:26] But so too are its incentives. [1:29] So if war can become economically and politically useful, what does that mean for peace? [1:34] To make sense of it all, and to understand why some wars don't end, [1:38] we turn to a leading voice in the political economy of conflict. [1:42] Professor of Conflict Studies at the London School of Economics, David Keane, talks to Al Jazeera. [1:48] David Keane, welcome to Talk to Al Jazeera. [1:55] You are a pioneer in the political economy of conflict, [2:00] so a field that shifts the focus away from who may be winning the war militarily [2:04] to who is essentially benefiting politically [2:08] from all of this. [2:09] Can you start by explaining to us what that means? [2:13] Set out your story for us, if you may. [2:16] Well, I think in, you know, if we think about the aims in a war, [2:22] we often think the aim in a war is to win. [2:26] And clearly, you know, that is an important aim in a war. [2:30] But there are also many others, you know, and one of them, I think, is making money. [2:35] Another one is a sort of a set of political functions or benefits [2:41] that may include things like suppressing dissent, [2:45] you know, under the cover of war, or divide and rule. [2:49] Or, you know, painting dissent as disloyalty [2:54] or even turning your enemy into the image [2:59] that you've put about in your propaganda, [3:01] you know, making the enemy resemble your propaganda. [3:05] So those are two other aims, then there's sort of psychological aims. [3:09] And I think reversing shame and humiliation is often a big one, [3:12] So those are two other aims, then there's sort of a psychological aims, and I think reversing shame and humiliation is often a big one, [3:12] big one. And a fourth one, I would say, is a simple one of trying to stay alive. Now, [3:19] if the aim is winning, then what you need to do is weaken or eliminate your enemy. But with a lot [3:27] of the other aims, sometimes the enemy can be surprisingly useful. So we get this phenomenon [3:34] of useful enemies, which I think is a real phenomenon. And the problem there is that [3:41] people acquire, as it were, like quite a wide range of acid interests, acquire an interest [3:49] sometimes in actually maintaining the enemy or taking actions that are predictably counterproductive [3:57] in terms of the reproduction of the enemy. So making people angry, attacking civilians, [4:06] winning, as it were, new recruits for the entity. It might be a rebel group or a [4:12] terrorist group or a terrorist group or a terrorist group or a terrorist group or a [4:12] terrorist group or a terrorist group or a terrorist group or a terrorist group or a [4:12] terrorist group or a terrorist group or a nation that they claim to be trying to oppose or [4:18] weaken. So there's a question mark I'm trying to raise in a way about the aims in a war and whether [4:25] the enemy is somebody that you want to eliminate or somebody that you might be interested at some [4:33] level in continuing the existence of. David, at this juncture in the Israeli-US war on Iran, [4:41] where despite claims by both sides of a degree of military success, it's almost impossible to say [4:48] who the actual winners are. But given your focus on how you frame world conflict, I wonder whether [4:57] it's possible to ask who benefits from this tension the most without potentially the need [5:03] for an absolute victory? Yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting and complicated question. [5:10] I mean, one of the things that we [5:12] can observe, and this is, I think, very common in wars, is that even when there hasn't really [5:19] been a convincing victory by any party, you know, a number of different parties find reasons [5:26] to claim that they have registered a success in the war. You know, and Trump, I think, [5:34] awarded himself 15 out of 10 for his success in the war. Israel obviously would claim some [5:42] security [5:42] benefits. Iran can point to its ability to retaliate and so on. But I think if you can claim [5:51] success, then that is kind of a political benefit in itself. Beyond that, I think that, you know, [6:01] the functions of war as a distraction and the functions of war as something that can quieten [6:09] internal dissent and allow you to paint, you know, the future of the world, you know, in a way that's not [6:13] necessarily a political benefit. [6:14] I think that the idea of, you know, having the right opponents as disloyal is something [6:17] that is really quite important, you know, in the United States, in Iran and in Israel. [6:26] And I think there are elements, for example, of the Revolutionary Guards in Iran, you know, [6:33] that have an interest in the continuation of sanctions, that have an interest in the [6:38] continuation of international tension pointing to common enemies. [6:44] enemies, labelling dissenters as disloyal and so on. [6:49] So these things come into play, you know, and I think in terms of Israeli politics, [6:56] you know, there's been a lot of trying to portray opposition as disloyal, there's been [7:03] attempts to postpone accountability for corruption. [7:08] There is, in a way, I think, a serial use of war, including in Gaza, which was really [7:16] a genocide in my book, to distract from a process of accountability at home. [7:24] I think Trump himself is very concerned with distracting people at the moment. [7:28] Yeah, let me just jump in there and break down what you've just said, because you've [7:33] made it sound as if... [7:37] The benefits, of course... [7:38] ...of conflict for some countries far outweigh the desire for any kind of lasting resolution [7:44] as a means of controlling opposition voices or any kind of opposition within those given [7:51] countries. [7:52] So war is the ultimate distraction, as you say. [7:54] Well, it is the ultimate distraction. [7:56] It doesn't mean that some of the threats are not real, you know, because 9-11 was very [8:01] real. [8:02] Iran has made many threats against Israel and so on. [8:08] We have the horrific Hamas attacks on Israel and so on. [8:12] So these things are not necessarily invented and often they're all too real and all too [8:20] horrible. [8:21] But nevertheless, you know, if we look at the pattern of responding to some of these [8:26] events, I think it does predictably create new enemies. [8:31] It does predictably enrage people. [8:35] And so we have to look beyond the declared there. [8:38] aim of weakening the enemy at the other possible functions psychological economic and political [8:46] of taking these what in my book are predictably counterproductive actions that are going to [8:52] exacerbate conflict that are going to perpetuate the war on terror probably entrenching the [9:00] revolutionary guards in iran though of course we don't know you know we we have to keep an open [9:06] mind about these things just picking up david on something else you said because i'd like to know [9:10] how this narrative of i guess a kind of continuous existential threat allows countries to bypass [9:18] demands within their own country so let's say demands for economic reform [9:22] human rights desire for an increase in public spending because in the first 100 hours of this [9:28] conflict the us burned through 800 million dollars per day i mean that's significantly higher than [9:35] the opening of the world's largest economic reform system and that's a huge amount of money [9:36] and that's a huge amount of money and that's a huge amount of money and that's a huge amount of money [9:36] and that's a huge amount of money and that's a huge amount of money and that's a huge amount of money [9:36] of the iraq or afghanistan wars i mean that's money that could have been spent [9:40] on housing on education on health care uh in the united states but it's been funneled [9:48] into the walk offers yeah and i actually thought you know during the trump's first administration [9:56] the one sort of good thing about him was that he seemed to be relatively reluctant [10:03] to launch international wars you know and he had a whole critique [10:07] of the neoconservatives and the way that um you know a lot of the elements of the war on terror the [10:16] waste of money the waste of lives and so on that that involved and that to me was a was a you know [10:24] the one really relatively convincing part of his campaign but he now seems to have radically [10:30] departed from that and of course trump loves freedom i mean he loves his own freedom and the [10:37] ability to change his mind and to change his mind and to change his mind and to change his mind and [10:39] mind to set the agenda and he has taken the united states in a radically different direction i also [10:48] think israel uh has kind of adopted some increasingly drastic remedies to trying to [10:56] solve the problem of its own security you know as we saw in gaza so these things can kind of [11:05] radicalize and actually i think if you create enough enemies [11:11] or you contribute to the existence of another enemies that in itself can encourage some very [11:17] drastic solutions because of the fear of retaliation yeah talking about drastic solutions [11:23] so this is what um the u.s secretary of defense pete hegseth um said when he was questioned about [11:29] the eye-watering costs of waging this war he said quote it costs a lot of money to kill bad guys it [11:36] costs a lot of money to kill bad guys i mean ironically the iranian government has been [11:41] very supportive of the iranian government and the iranians have shown that they can fight an [11:45] asymmetric war at a fraction of the cost that must be a rude awakening for the trump administration [11:51] yeah i think the the iranian regime has been quite clever in promoting influence in places like syria [12:03] in lebanon and so on at a fairly low cost you know and a lot of it is encouraging malicious [12:12] people who are often quite impoverished at relatively low cost providing training which [12:19] is relatively cheap and so on as far as the the united states government is concerned i think this [12:28] division of people into good guys and bad guys is incredibly simplistic [12:35] and it goes back at least as far as the vietnam war you know and the idea there as you know was [12:42] if we can just kill enough bad guys kill enough viet kong then this is going to solve the problem [12:49] of vietnam but you know we know that the mass bombing of vietnam created a huge number of [12:57] additional recruits to the viet kong so those tactics don't work and you have to [13:04] think more creatively about how to isolate the so-called bad guys um and that usually [13:12] means tackling the corruption and the violence that has created a rebellion or a terrorist [13:20] movement in the first place on that point david let let's focus on iran if we may because there [13:25] are those clearly as you've suggested who benefit i guess from a continuation of the current system [13:32] um in iran and when i say current system i also mean potentially benefiting from a continuation [13:38] of western sanctions also i'm thinking about those who may have benefited from [13:43] state monopolies those who are controlling smuggling or the black markets for instance [13:48] well yeah this is something that we see many times in conflicts you know we saw it in in syria [13:56] we've seen it in uh in former yugoslavia as well and iraq as well when you get sanctions [14:03] you know you tend to get a big price difference between the country that's being sanctioned [14:10] and the surrounding area and if you can actually [14:14] successfully breach international sanctions which clearly the revolutionary guards have [14:20] done in the case of iran you know the profits are often very considerable and often you get [14:27] a monopoly as they have had basically as i understand it on the smuggling that is breaching [14:33] the sanctions so i do think sanctions are very problematic in that way and it partly relates to [14:41] people's ability to get around them [14:44] of course the the sort of the diverse nature of superpowers at the moment with [14:50] russia and china and so on you have plenty of options and you can go outside the dollar-based [14:57] system this is part of the reason why so many people want gold at the moment [15:02] let me try to evade these sanctions let me try and distill this then because what i'm hearing [15:08] is that you're saying that sometimes when the cost of war is cheaper for a nation or more beneficial [15:15] than the price of peace then it works in their interest to in some ways sustain frictions to [15:22] maintain hostilities yeah i mean i think the strongest example of that or one of the strongest [15:28] is basically the incredible level of military spending within the united states that survived [15:36] the end of the cold war you know you would have thought that was an opportunity to dismantle [15:42] the military industrial structures but spending [15:47] stayed pretty much at the levels of the height of the cold war so why was that opportunity [15:55] not taken well clearly there were a number of threats around the world which the government [16:01] pointed to and the defense industry pointed to and terrorism was foremost among them for a while and [16:08] then russia kind of came up the agenda but that was an opportunity that was spurned and of course [16:15] these things have consequences because if you [16:17] build up your own arms you're encouraging the other guy to build up their arms and then you [16:23] can point to his arms build up as justification for your own and this is what happened during [16:29] the cold war so we have these kind of self-sustaining systems that are built on [16:35] the mass manufacture of things that can kill people it is extremely profitable [16:42] and there are a lot of predictably counterproductive tactics that are being adopted [16:49] and if you can't get them out of the air and there are a number of [17:02] uh democratic systems that the the problem is is that you can't preserve those systems [17:09] uh and i think very rarely work of course you can declare victory you know remember the mission [17:14] accomplished uh in 2003 that george w bush declared but these victories very rarely materialize because [17:18] a war economy will often deepen it will complicate let me let me pick you up upon that point of mission accomplished because you know we're talking about the apparent [17:20] and end of the war on terror, the decades of conflict that came after 9-11. [17:28] I mean, we did, of course, see the destruction of al-Qaeda. [17:32] We saw the killing of Osama bin Laden. [17:35] We saw the US pull out of Afghanistan. [17:37] But in your mind, is what we are seeing now in the Middle East [17:41] some way of a continuation of that war on terror? [17:45] Or is it something else? Is it something new? [17:48] Well, I think it is partly a continuation of it, yeah. [17:54] We saw, as you say, the defeat of al-Qaeda. [17:59] But then, of course, we had al-Qaeda in Iraq, which kind of grew out of it. [18:04] There was a claim of victory against al-Qaeda in Iraq. [18:08] But then we had ISIS, which grew to a large extent out of al-Qaeda in Iraq. [18:14] So you have this sort of serial declaration of victory. [18:20] And then people can relax for a little bit. [18:22] But then something else happens. [18:24] And a lot of times these threats are feeding into each other. [18:27] There's a continuity between these organizations. [18:32] I think, you know, the destruction of Gaza, you know, that is in a way a very distinct problem. [18:39] But it was an action that was presented by Israel within the framework of a war on terror. [18:47] In Sri Lanka, where I was in... [18:50] In 2009, you know, the government wreaked horrible destruction on the Tamil population [18:56] in the name of an international war on terror. [18:59] And it was actually difficult for Britain or the United States to criticize that. [19:04] You know, when they themselves were detaining people indefinitely, [19:09] they themselves had the language of the war on terror. [19:13] And we need to be ruthless. [19:14] We need to suspend liberty to a certain extent in the interest of security. [19:19] Specifically, on the ground. [19:20] Specifically, on the ground. [19:20] Specifically, on the ground. [19:20] Specifically, on the language used around the war on terror. [19:22] I guess a very seismic, symbolic shift at least came with the rebranding of the Secretary of Defense [19:30] to the Secretary of War, the Defense Department to the War Department. [19:35] Because, I mean, that signaled almost a kind of move away from more of a reactive war on terror [19:41] to a U.S. administration that sought to project power, to pursue peace through strength, [19:47] I think is the words used by... [19:50] Pete Hegg said. [19:51] So, do you see that as a rebranding of what's gone before? [19:55] Or is that really a defining departure from what we've seen in the past? [19:59] I think it's a great question. [20:01] I think it is partly a rebranding. [20:04] But it's partly an indication that violence and the assertion of America's right, [20:14] in particular, to do what it's like, to do what it likes, has become sort of incredibly shameless. [20:21] Under Trump. [20:24] And Trump is somebody really who has systematically rejected shame [20:29] and indeed made a lot of political capital, in my opinion, [20:33] out of offering people a kind of vicarious shamelessness through his abuses [20:40] and through his spectacular demonstrations of freedom, as I say, freedom for himself. [20:48] So, I think, you know, there are some significant differences. [20:51] For example, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, you know, they did make some efforts to try [20:57] to create some sense of international legitimacy for what they wanted to do in Iraq and to [21:06] try and get the U.N. on board to a certain extent. [21:10] We're not seeing that now with Trump and Netanyahu. [21:14] We're just seeing a kind of go-it-alone spirit, which I think is incredibly dangerous and [21:21] incredibly destructive. [21:22] So, I do think there's a shamelessness about what's going on. [21:27] And that thing you mentioned about relabeling as a department of war, you know, Trump would [21:34] say, well, this is, you know, this is honesty. [21:35] You know, he projects this image of honesty. [21:38] I'm not a hypocrite. [21:40] The liberals are hypocrites. [21:41] I tell you the truth as it is. [21:44] And he's made some considerable political capital out of that, in my opinion. [21:49] But it's also a very frightening turn. [21:51] David, talking about political capital. [21:52] We've talked about the big powers. [21:54] I'd like to talk about the small powers, if I may, because I wonder if the rise of non-state [22:00] actors, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, whether they fit into this frame [22:07] as well. [22:08] Because I want to know if they are motivated by the same impulses that perhaps Iran or [22:15] the United States may be for their own ends. [22:18] I mean, how does your approach to this work when war is being waged? [22:20] I mean, how does your approach to this work when war is being waged? [22:21] I mean, how does your approach to this work when war is being waged? [22:22] I mean, how does your approach to this work when war is being waged? [22:23] I mean, how does your approach to this work when war is being waged? [22:24] I mean, how does your approach to this work when war is being waged? [22:25] Well, I think in a way, Hezbollah is being waged by smaller paramilitary networks. [22:27] Okay, some see Hezbollah as being almost a kind of mini franchise of Iran in the same [22:32] way that you would view the branch of a bank internationally. [22:36] But is that a wrong way of looking at this? [22:40] Well, I think a lot of these non-state actors, they do very often have state backers. [22:50] And we've seen it with Hezbollah. [22:54] We've seen it with the rapid support forces and the UAE in Sudan. [23:03] So we can't sort of regard them simply as non-state actors. [23:08] I think that, you know, in the case of Hezbollah in Lebanon, [23:13] you know, there has been quite a strong effort from the Lebanese government to weaken Hezbollah. [23:21] And that's something that can potentially, I think, bear a lot of fruit. [23:27] And then when Israel comes in and starts bombing Lebanon and displacing, you know, as I understand it, a million people, [23:38] you know, this can easily set things back. [23:42] So states tend to sort of weigh in on these struggles, these local struggles, [23:49] often in extremely counterproductive ways. [23:53] I think Sudan, you know, is an interesting case of a government that, you know, going back to the 1980s, [24:02] tried to mobilize militias, mobilize its own militias for the purposes of counterinsurgency. [24:10] But then the government, in a way, lost control of the violence because the militias were economically motivated to a large extent. [24:19] They spread rebellion to new areas. [24:22] And on the whole, they rebelled. [24:23] They refused to disband after particular military campaigns. [24:27] And they became, as it were, a political factor in their own right. [24:31] And we know that the RSF, you know, is a successor to the Janjaweed militias that created the Darfur genocide. [24:42] And it's been a huge factor in Sudan politics ever since, you know, basically extorting the government, using gold in particular, [24:53] to build up its strength, and eventually turning against the army with the result of this horrific civil war that we have at the moment. [25:02] So militias don't always obey what their puppet masters tell them to do. [25:09] And that can be very destructive in itself. [25:13] David, can a conflict like the Iran-Israel rivalry ever truly end, taking in everything you've discussed? [25:20] Or does that system simply evolve? [25:22] Evolve into new forms of hybrid warfare, all to protect essentially underlying profit margins and existing power structures? [25:32] Well, I think conflicts can come to an end. [25:37] I think a lot of people thought that the Cold War would never end because partly of the vested interests in full. [25:46] But it did actually surprise us by ending. [25:49] Of course, people who were making the argument that it will never end, [25:54] will now point to various aspects of a revival of the Cold War, you know, in terms of Russia, and even China, and so on. [26:04] So I do think sometimes that violence is a little bit like energy, you know, in the sense that it can change from one form to another, [26:13] but it very rarely disappears entirely. [26:17] In practice, I think, you know, one of the things you can do is to make peace more profitable [26:24] and more accessible. [26:25] And I think that's one of the things you can do is to make peace more attractive for various warring parties than war itself. [26:30] You know, you can offer them a stake in a political settlement, in a peace process. [26:35] You can buy them off, if you like. [26:38] One of the problems with that, of course, is that you are, you tend to entrench corruption and indeed violence within the peace settlement that you're actually creating or offering. [26:52] David, in a fragmented, in a fragmented global economy, [26:56] I mean, how does the political conflict of those big powers, the political conflict that we are seeing play out in the Middle East? [27:03] I mean, how does that affect the global south? [27:06] How does that affect nations that are watching from the sidelines while simultaneously protecting the big powers in Washington, D.C., in Beijing or Moscow, for instance? [27:18] I think there are a lot of economic impacts as well. [27:24] You know, for example, the World Food Programme. [27:26] Now, it's talking about perhaps 45 million people facing severe food shortages and starvation as a result of the war that's currently going on with Iran and Israel and the United States. [27:44] So, you know, we know that oil prices are going up. [27:48] We know that fertilizer prices have been drastically affected. [27:53] This affects food production and it affects people. [27:56] And I think, you know, if we go back in history just a little bit to, for example, 2011, you know, you had a huge increase in global food prices for various reasons. [28:11] And that fed rather directly into famine in places like Yemen and Somalia. [28:18] And it also fed into the so-called Arab Spring and the civil war in Syria, for example. [28:24] So these kind of knock-on effects. [28:27] You know, they're not always predictable. [28:29] But I think you can predict that many of them are going to be extremely bad. [28:34] And the people that are going to suffer are going to be, you know, very far from Washington or Jerusalem. [28:44] David Keene, thank you for talking to Al Jazeera. [28:47] Yeah, pleasure to talk to you.