War : Survivors, Memory, and Moral Responsibility (24)

Historically and culturally, Iran does indeed inherit a great deal from ancient Persia. Its geographical position as the "heartland" of the Middle East—connecting the Arab world, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and South Asia—is a geopolitical legacy unchanged since the Achaemenid era. Iran's national identity, too, is remarkably robust: the Persian language, a tradition of subtle diplomacy, and a deep awareness of being an ancient civilisation amongst younger nations.

Iran's strategy since 1979 does, in many respects, reflect the cunning of ancient Persia: rather than confronting the United States directly in open warfare (a contest it would plainly lose), Iran constructed the "Axis of Resistance"—a network of proxies in Lebanon (Hezbollah), Palestine (Hamas), Yemen (the Houthis), Syria, and Iraq. Iran emerged as one of the most resilient and strategically astute actors of the modern era, enduring nearly five decades of sanctions, isolation, covert operations, and the constant threat of war. Kashmir Images. This proxy strategy is, in effect, a modern version of the ancient Persian satrapy system—exercising control over vast territories without the need for direct military occupation.

Between 2023 and 2025, Iran's regional military position deteriorated significantly. In 2024, Iran lost a crucial ally in Syria when Bashar al-Assad fled the country, severing the overland supply route to Hezbollah in Lebanon. American and Israeli military strikes also degraded Iran's nuclear programme and its broader national defences. House of Commons Library

In June 2025, a direct twelve-day military conflict between Israel, the United States, and Iran resulted in significant Iranian casualties and mounting domestic economic pressure as Western sanctions continued to tighten. SpecialEurasia

The American-Israeli military strikes that commenced on 28th February 2026 proved still more consequential. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior Iranian officials were killed, plunging the country into acute political uncertainty. RAND

A proxy network in disarray:

Israel effectively dismantled the architecture of Iran's "forward deterrence"—the network of non-state actors that Tehran had painstakingly assembled across the Levant, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. By the end of 2024, Israel had decapitated Hezbollah's leadership by killing Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Hamas was functionally neutralised as a military force in Gaza. Eurasia Review

Mounting domestic pressure:

Iran entered 2026 beset by widespread protests, driven by a weakened economy and rampant inflation, spreading across all 31 of the country's provinces. House of Commons Library

What Iran Still Possesses

Battered as it is, Iran is not yet a spent force:

Iran still commands the most extensive ballistic missile programme in the region, as well as the capacity to project power over the Strait of Hormuz—the vital chokepoint through which some 84 per cent of the world's crude oil flows to Asian markets. NATO PA

The strategy of "deterrence through volume"—producing missiles in sufficient quantity to overwhelm Israeli and American defences—remains a central pillar of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). SpecialEurasia

China and Iran signed a comprehensive 25-year strategic partnership in 2021, whilst Russia and Iran concluded a similar 20-year agreement in 2025. In January 2026, all three countries formalised a trilateral strategic pact. RAND

Iran does genuinely inherit the geopolitical acumen of ancient Persia — patient, layered, and far from easily destroyed. For decades, its strategy of proxy warfare and asymmetric resistance proved highly effective in the face of sustained American and Israeli pressure.

Yet the events of 2025–2026 suggest that Iran is enduring the most severe trial in the history of the Islamic Republic—the loss of its Supreme Leader, the collapse of its proxy network, a deeply troubled economy, and direct military confrontation with the United States. Whether this constitutes a temporary setback of the sort Persia has historically recovered from, or a more permanent turning point, is a question that history is answering in real time.

Predictions for Iran's Future Power: Can It Survive Against the US and Israel?

 

The Starting Conditions That Must Be Understood

First, it must be made clear that this is no longer merely a long-term geopolitical rivalry—this is an active war. On 28th February 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated air and missile strikes against multiple targets in Iran—the most significant direct military confrontation between these nations to date. The operation targeted Iranian military infrastructure and senior leadership, including strikes in Tehran that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. 

Analysts have assessed that prolonged economic exhaustion and the erosion of public confidence in the Iranian state—following its historic military and foreign policy reverses of 2025—make 2026 the most gruelling year the Islamic Republic has ever faced. 

Three Plausible Scenarios

 

Scenario 1: Capitulation — Iran Yields Without Collapsing (Probability: Moderate)

In a capitulation scenario, the core of the regime would in all likelihood, remain intact and continue to govern the country. This outcome is generally more palatable to Washington, which would tend to regard a change in behaviour as a satisfactory result—though for Israel, regime change may well be the preferred outcome.

In this scenario, Iran would cease rebuilding its nuclear and missile programmes, accept a stricter successor to the JCPOA, and permanently forfeit much of its regional influence—whilst the regime itself survives. This would represent the most stable outcome for the wider region.

 

Scenario 2: Regime Collapse and Chaos (Probability: Low to Moderate)

Should the Islamic Republic genuinely collapse—as the result of a combination of military pressure and popular uprising—the day after would present a far more turbulent picture. In a regime-change scenario, the present regime's security forces may lack both the capacity and the popular legitimacy to continue governing. 

The end of the current regime would more likely give rise to what some analysts have termed an "IRGCistan"—a military-dominated state in which a new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, serves as a figurehead rather than the supreme authority, with real power residing entirely within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Scenario 3: Survival and Long-term Recovery (Probability: Moderate to High over the longer term)

This is the most compelling scenario from the perspective of Persian historical precedent. Iran emerged from 2025 battered but still standing, with analysts noting that Tehran interpreted its survival after a bruising war with Israel, significant regional losses, and severe domestic pressure as grounds for taking greater risks in 2026.

Shahram Kholdi has argued that Iran's leadership internalised the events of 2025 through a survivalist lens—one that encourages defiance rather than restraint. "If something that could kill you doesn't destroy you, it makes you stronger," Kholdi observed, characterising the core mentality of the clerical regime in the aftermath of the June 2025 war with Israel.

The Trump Cards Iran Still Holds

Battered as it is, Iran is not entirely without leverage:

1. The Strait of Hormuz as a Global Hostage

The reconstitution of Iran's ballistic missile capability has become a central preoccupation of 2026. Contrary to Western intelligence assessments in 2025 regarding the destruction of key production facilities, Tehran succeeded in procuring new solid-fuel propellant equipment from external partners. The IRGC's emphasis on missile production reflects a strategy of "deterrence through volume", aimed at overwhelming Israeli and American missile defences in any future conflict.

2. Russian and Chinese Backing

Iran is also the only country in the region actively and openly supplying Russia with military equipment for use in the war in Ukraine. However, with Chinese demand for oil weakening, Beijing's willingness to come to Tehran's rescue may be diminishing. 

3. The Houthis Remain Intact

The Houthis in Yemen represent a notable exception to the broader pattern of Iranian proxy disarmament. Despite sustained American, British, and Israeli strikes between 2023 and 2025, the Houthis have retained their hold on power and their influence over much of Yemeni territory.

The Factors That Will Determine Iran's Fate

The likelihood of Israel striking Iran in the near term is determined not by a single "decision" but by an unstable equilibrium unresolved by diplomacy, deterrence signalling, and regional de-escalation. Since 2024, Israel and Iran have crossed significant thresholds: Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack against Israel, and Israel demonstrated a clear willingness to strike Iranian strategic assets.

The central question remains: whether the Iranian people will choose to bring down the regime from within, or rally against the "foreign enemy" in the form of the United States and Israel—a pattern that has historically served threatened regimes rather well.

Should the regime collapse, the geopolitical realignment would be profound. It would represent a strategic victory of the first order for the United States and Israel, whilst simultaneously shattering a central pillar of Chinese and Russian influence across the Middle East. 

Yet if one consults the long arc of Persian history—a civilisation that has survived Alexander the Great, the Mongols, Tamerlane, colonialism, and two world wars—one pattern recurs with remarkable consistency: Iran as a nation and a civilisation has always outlasted the regimes that have governed it. The Islamic Republic may well fall, yet Iran as a geopolitical force at the heart of Eurasia will not disappear. Whoever governs in Tehran hereafter—whether a military junta, a reformist government, or some new coalition—will inherit precisely the same geography, population, and ambitions that have kept Persia relevant for the past two and a half millennia.

What is already apparent is that the American–Israeli–Iranian conflict of 2026 is not giving birth to a new Middle Eastern superpower—rather, it is hastening the end of unchallenged American dominance and accelerating the emergence of a multipolar world order, in which Asia—and China and India in particular—stand to be the principal long-term beneficiaries.

[Part 25]
[Part 23]

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War : Survivors, Memory, and Moral Responsibility (23)

Throughout recorded history, the world has never lacked for dominant powers—empires and states whose military might, economic reach, or cultural influence far outstripped their contemporaries. Yet no superpower has ever endured indefinitely. Each rose through a combination of geography, innovation, and political will, and each eventually succumbed to the same forces it had once wielded against others.

The Rise and Fall of Superpowers: A History Through the Ages

The Persian Achaemenid Empire (c. 550–330 BC)

Founded by Cyrus the Great, the Achaemenid Empire was the first to claim dominion over much of the known world, stretching from the Aegean coast to the Indus Valley. Its chief strength lay in administrative sophistication: rather than ruling by brute force alone, Persia allowed conquered peoples to retain their languages, religions, and customs, a system that kept vast territories pacified at relatively low cost. Its satrapy system decentralised governance whilst keeping wealth flowing to the centre.

Its greatest rival was the Greek city-state coalition, most memorably at the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis. Persia never fully subdued Greece, and this failure proved costly to its prestige. The empire ultimately fell not to Greece, however, but to Alexander the Great of Macedon, whose lightning campaign between 334 and 323 BC dismantled the empire in barely a decade. Internal dynastic disputes and an overstretched administrative system had already weakened the empire's coherence before Alexander arrived.

 

The Roman Empire (27 BC – 476 AD)

Rome's supremacy rested on three pillars: an unrivalled professional army, a sophisticated legal and administrative apparatus, and an extraordinary capacity to absorb and Romanise conquered peoples. At its height under the Pax Romana, Rome controlled the entire Mediterranean basin, much of Western Europe, and parts of the Near East. Its road network alone—spanning over 400,000 kilometres—was an instrument of both military power and commercial prosperity.

Rome's most persistent rivals were the Parthian and later Sassanid Persian empires to the east, with whom it fought for centuries over Mesopotamia and Armenia. Neither side ever decisively conquered the other. Rome's fall was gradual and internal as much as external: overextension, fiscal crisis, political instability, the increasing reliance on Germanic foederati in the army, and mounting pressure from migrating peoples all eroded the western empire from within. By 476 AD, the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by the Germanic chieftain Odoacer — not with a bang, but with a tired administrative shrug.

 

The Islamic Caliphates (c. 632–1258 AD)

Within a century of the Prophet Muhammad's death (ﷺ), Arab armies had conquered a swath of territory from Spain to Central Asia — one of the most rapid imperial expansions in history. The early caliphates' strength was threefold: religious cohesion that unified previously fractious Arabian tribes; military dynamism born of that cohesion; and a readiness to absorb the learning of conquered civilisations, from Greek philosophy to Persian administration to Indian mathematics. Baghdad, under the Abbasid Caliphate, became the intellectual capital of the world.

The chief rival in the west was the Byzantine Empire, which successfully resisted Muslim expansion at Constantinople for centuries. The caliphates never fell to a single external blow; rather, they fragmented from within — through sectarian strife between Sunni and Shia factions, the rise of rival dynasties, and the gradual devolution of power to Turkic military commanders. The final, catastrophic blow came from without: in 1258, the Mongols under Hulagu Khan sacked Baghdad, reportedly killing the Abbasid caliph and ending the most prestigious institution in the Islamic world.

 

The Mongol Empire (1206–1368)

The Mongol Empire remains the largest contiguous land empire in human history, conquering from Korea to Poland within a single century. Its power derived from unsurpassed cavalry warfare, extraordinary logistical organisation, and a ruthless willingness to destroy those who resisted whilst rewarding those who submitted. The Silk Road, unified under Mongol protection, facilitated unprecedented trade and cultural exchange across Eurasia.

The Mongols' most determined rivals were the Mamluks of Egypt, who famously halted Mongol expansion at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 — the first significant Mongol defeat. The empire's undoing was, in part, its own vastness. It was divided into four successor khanates that frequently warred with one another. The Black Death, which spread with devastating efficiency along Mongol trade routes, decimated populations across the empire. By the mid-14th century, peasant rebellions in China had driven out the Yuan dynasty, and the Mongol moment had passed.

 

The British Empire (c. 1815–1914)

Following the Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the world's undisputed hegemon — the first genuinely global superpower. Its dominance rested on naval supremacy (the Royal Navy controlled the world's sea lanes), industrial primacy (Britain was the workshop of the world), and financial power centred on the City of London. At its peak, the British Empire covered roughly a quarter of the Earth's land surface and governed a similar proportion of its population.

Britain's chief rivals shifted across the century: France in the early 19th century, Russia in the "Great Game" over Central Asia, and Germany by the century's end. The First World War, though Britain emerged nominally victorious, proved financially ruinous. The vast debts accumulated during two world wars transferred economic primacy to the United States, and the tide of anti-colonial nationalism that Britain had partly inspired through its own liberal ideology ultimately dismantled the empire from within.

 

The Cold War Superpowers: The United States and the Soviet Union (1945–1991)

The Second World War left two colossal powers standing above a prostrate world. The United States combined industrial output, nuclear weapons, a dominant navy and air force, the world's reserve currency, and a network of alliances that covered most of the industrialised world. The Soviet Union countered with the largest conventional army on earth, its own nuclear arsenal, and an ideological appeal that attracted allies across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Their rivalry — conducted through proxy wars, arms races, and ideological competition — defined the second half of the 20th century. The USSR's fall was fundamentally economic: a command economy that could not compete with Western consumer capitalism, compounded by the ruinous costs of the arms race and the catastrophic war in Afghanistan. Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms — intended to save the system — instead accelerated its collapse. By 1991, the Soviet Union had dissolved without a shot being fired between the two superpowers.

The Present and the Horizon

The United States has exercised unipolar dominance since 1991, underpinned by military expenditure exceeding that of the next ten nations combined, the dollar's status as the global reserve currency, and an unmatched network of alliances. Yet the 21st century has seen this dominance increasingly challenged. China's extraordinary economic rise has produced a rival with a comparable GDP and rapidly modernising armed forces. Russia, though economically weaker, retains a vast nuclear arsenal and a demonstrated willingness to use military force to reshape its neighbourhood.

Whether the current era produces a true successor superpower, a stable multipolar equilibrium, or prolonged instability between competing blocs remains the central geopolitical question of our time. History offers one reliable lesson: no dominance is permanent, and the seeds of decline are often sown at the very height of power.

The pattern that recurs across these millennia is striking: superpowers tend to fall not merely because rivals grow stronger, but because internal contradictions—fiscal overstretch, political fragmentation, ideological rigidity—weaken the foundations upon which external power ultimately rests.

[Part 24]
[Part 22]

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War : Survivors, Memory, and Moral Responsibility (22)

The evening bulletin rolled out with all the pomp of a national emergency: “Breaking News: Minister discovers a groundbreaking secret—stoves can be turned off once food is cooked!” The anchor’s voice trembled as though announcing the cure for a century-old plague.

Viewers at home, however, were less awed. One quipped, “Thank you, Mr Minister, all this time we thought the stove must remain on until our grandchildren graduate.” The sarcasm spread like wildfire, turning the ministerial wisdom into a meme.

Soon, the logic was stretched to parody: advising citizens to close their umbrellas once the rain has stopped, or to remove their helmets after arriving home. The humour was not merely playful—it carried a sting. People muttered, “If we need reminding of something so obvious, either the nation is in a dire energy crisis, or the minister is in a dire idea crisis.”

Artists joined the chorus, penning verses that mocked the solemnity of the decree: O noble flame, you burn with pride, Guided by wisdom, ministerial guide. ‘Switch off when cooked!’—a decree so grand, as if stoves must blaze till night’s demand. Next command may surely be: ‘Close the fridge once you’ve grabbed your tea.’

Thus, a simple household habit was elevated to the status of national policy, and the people responded not with obedience but with laughter—laughter that revealed both their wit and their weariness.

After the nation recovered from the shock of discovering that stoves can, in fact, be turned off after cooking, a quiet unease lingered. If such revelations are deemed headline-worthy, one wonders what other truths lie buried beneath bureaucracy and broadcast. But while we chuckle at the theatre of domestic absurdity, the world beyond our kitchens burns with a far crueller flame.

Not all fires are culinary, and not all crises can be extinguished with a flick of a switch. As satire gives way to solemnity, we turn our gaze from the stove to the battlefield—to the human cost of war, where lives are not merely inconvenienced, but shattered.

The Human Cost of War

A Critical Examination of Suffering, Devastation, and Memory

War is among the most consequential and destructive phenomena in human history. Whilst political discourse frequently centres on military strategy, territorial gains, or ideological victory, such framings often obscure what is perhaps the most profound dimension of armed conflict: its human cost. From the battlefields of the First World War to the protracted civil conflicts of the twenty-first century, the burden of war falls disproportionately upon ordinary people — civilians who never took up arms, families separated by violence and fear, and communities shattered by forces beyond their control. This essay examines three interrelated dimensions of the human cost of war: the suffering and displacement of civilians, the economic devastation that conflict engenders, and the enduring psychological and intergenerational trauma that outlasts the cessation of hostilities. Together, these dimensions reveal that the true cost of war is not measured in territory or treasure, but in the immeasurable toll exacted upon human lives and dignity.

 

Civilian Suffering and Displacement

One of the most visible and immediate human costs of war is the suffering inflicted upon civilian populations. In contemporary armed conflicts, civilians bear a disproportionate share of the casualties. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has repeatedly documented that in modern warfare, civilians account for the vast majority of war-related deaths and injuries, a stark reversal of earlier patterns in which combatants constituted the primary casualties (ICRC, 2010). The bombardment of cities, the use of landmines, and the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure — including hospitals, schools, and water supplies — have become hallmarks of twenty-first-century conflicts, from Syria to Yemen.

Forced displacement is among the most devastating consequences of armed conflict. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that by the end of 2022, forcible displacement worldwide had surpassed 100 million people for the first time in recorded history, driven largely by ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (UNHCR, 2022). Displaced populations face acute vulnerabilities: loss of livelihoods, disruption of education, inadequate access to healthcare, and heightened exposure to sexual and gender-based violence. Women and children are particularly at risk; the UN has repeatedly noted that girls in conflict zones face drastically elevated rates of child marriage, exploitation, and exclusion from schooling (UNICEF, 2021).

The Syrian civil war, which erupted in 2011, serves as a sobering case study. By 2020, the conflict had displaced over 13 million people — approximately half the country's pre-war population — either internally or as refugees abroad (Human Rights Watch, 2020). Civilian infrastructure was systematically targeted; the World Health Organisation documented hundreds of attacks on medical facilities throughout the conflict, rendering the healthcare system near-inoperable in many regions (WHO, 2018). The deliberate destruction of civilian environments is not merely collateral damage but, in many instances, a calculated instrument of warfare designed to break the will of entire populations.

Beyond physical harm, civilian suffering encompasses profound violations of human dignity. The experience of war strips people of agency, security, and belonging. As Kaldor (1999) argues in her seminal analysis of 'new wars', contemporary armed conflicts are characterised not simply by military confrontation but by the deliberate destruction of civilian society as a political objective — making the suffering of non-combatants not incidental but intrinsic to the logic of modern warfare.

Economic Devastation

The economic cost of war is immense and multifaceted, affecting not only the belligerent nations but also regional neighbours and the broader global economy. Direct costs include expenditure on military operations, weapons procurement, and the immediate destruction of physical infrastructure. Indirect costs, which are often far greater, encompass lost productivity, reduced investment, capital flight, disruption of trade, and long-term impairment of human capital. The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) estimated that in 2022 alone, the global economic impact of violence — encompassing conflict, crime, and insecurity — amounted to approximately $17.5 trillion, equivalent to roughly 12.9 per cent of global GDP (IEP, 2023).

The destruction of physical capital is one of the most immediate economic consequences of war. Bombardment and ground combat reduce cities, factories, transport networks, and agricultural land to rubble, often in a matter of days. The cost of reconstruction in post-conflict societies is staggering. A World Bank assessment estimated that rebuilding Syria's war-damaged infrastructure would require over $250 billion, a sum far exceeding the country's annual GDP even before the conflict began (World Bank, 2017). Similarly, the wars in Iraq between 1990 and 2011 resulted in decades of economic regression, with GDP per capita remaining far below pre-war levels well into the 2010s (Bilmes & Stiglitz, 2008).

Agricultural economies are especially vulnerable. In Yemen, which was already one of the poorest countries in the Arab world before the outbreak of civil war in 2015, the conflict devastated farming systems, destroyed irrigation networks, and displaced rural communities. By 2021, the United Nations warned that Yemen was on the verge of the worst famine the world had seen in decades, with over 16 million people facing acute food insecurity (UN OCHA, 2021). The destruction of food production capacity has long-lasting consequences: even after a ceasefire, communities may struggle for years to restore agricultural output, perpetuating cycles of poverty and malnutrition.

War also exacts severe costs on human capital — the skills, health, and productive capacity of a population. Conflict forces schools to close, disrupts medical systems, and kills or disables workers in their prime years. Research by Collier and Hoeffler (2004) demonstrates that countries emerging from civil war face not only immediate economic contraction but also severely diminished growth prospects for years thereafter, as the erosion of institutions, infrastructure, and trust compounds the direct losses of the conflict period. The economic consequences of war are thus not confined to its duration; they ripple outwards and forwards in time, locking societies into prolonged underdevelopment.

Trauma, Memory, and Intergenerational Impact

The psychological wounds of war are perhaps the least visible yet the most enduring of its human costs. Survivors of armed conflict are exposed to a constellation of traumatic experiences — witnessing death and atrocity, losing loved ones, suffering physical injury, enduring displacement and deprivation — each of which carries substantial mental health consequences. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and complicated grief are prevalent among both combatants and civilian survivors. A landmark study published in The Lancet estimated that approximately one in five people living in countries affected by conflict suffer from a mental health condition, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia (Charlson et al., 2019).

Children are disproportionately harmed by exposure to conflict. The developing brain is especially sensitive to chronic stress and trauma; early adverse experiences can alter neurobiological development, impairing cognitive function, emotional regulation, and social development. UNICEF has repeatedly documented the devastating impact of war on children's mental health, noting that exposure to violence is associated with heightened rates of behavioural disorders, learning difficulties, and social withdrawal (UNICEF, 2021). In conflict-affected regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, millions of children grow up with severely compromised psychological foundations, their potential circumscribed by experiences no child should endure.

The concept of intergenerational trauma has become central to understanding the long-term human cost of war. Research in epigenetics and developmental psychology suggests that the effects of traumatic stress can be transmitted across generations, shaping the psychological profiles of children who were never themselves exposed to the original conflict. Studies of Holocaust survivors and their descendants have provided some of the most compelling evidence for this phenomenon; Yehuda et al. (2016) found measurable epigenetic changes in the offspring of Holocaust survivors, suggesting that extreme trauma may leave biological, as well as psychological, imprints on subsequent generations.

Memory, too, plays a complex role in the legacy of war. Collective memory — the shared narratives through which communities remember and interpret past conflicts — can be both a source of resilience and a driver of ongoing tension. As Halbwachs (1992) argued, memory is not merely individual but socially constructed and maintained; nations and communities organise their identities around the memories of past wars, sometimes in ways that perpetuate grievance and hinder reconciliation. The selective commemoration of conflict — who is remembered as hero or victim, which atrocities are acknowledged and which are suppressed — shapes political cultures and can fuel renewed cycles of violence. The Rwandan genocide of 1994, the Srebrenica massacre, and the ongoing disputes over the memory of colonial wars all illustrate how unresolved historical trauma can destabilise contemporary societies.

Mechanisms for addressing wartime trauma and fostering collective healing are therefore not merely therapeutic concerns but vital political imperatives. Truth and reconciliation commissions — such as those established in South Africa after apartheid and in Rwanda following the genocide — represent institutional attempts to grapple with the memory of atrocity and lay the groundwork for social reconstruction. Whilst such mechanisms are imperfect and contested, they recognise a fundamental truth: that sustainable peace requires not only the cessation of hostilities but the careful, sustained work of psychological and social recovery (Hamber, 2009).

Conclusion

War exacts a cost upon humanity that transcends the calculations of military strategists and political leaders. The suffering and displacement of civilians, the economic devastation visited upon nations and communities, and the deep psychological wounds that persist across individuals and generations together constitute a toll that no diplomatic victory or territorial acquisition can justify. As this essay has demonstrated, the human cost of war is not a regrettable side effect of political conflict but its most consequential dimension. Understanding this cost — through rigorous scholarship, honest commemoration, and genuine engagement with the experiences of those who suffer — is a moral as well as intellectual imperative. Only by confronting the full human reality of war can humanity hope to build the political will necessary to prevent it.

References

Bilmes, L. J. dan Stiglitz, J. E. (2008) The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Charlson, F., van Ommeren, M., Flaxman, A., Cornett, J., Whiteford, H. dan Saxena, S. (2019) 'New WHO prevalence estimates of mental disorders in conflict settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis', The Lancet, 394(10194), hlm. 240–248.

Collier, P. dan Hoeffler, A. (2004) 'Greed and grievance in civil war', Oxford Economic Papers, 56(4), hlm. 563–595.

Halbwachs, M. (1992) On Collective Memory. Disunting dan diterjemahkan oleh L. A. Coser. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hamber, B. (2009) Transforming Societies after Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health. New York: Springer.

Human Rights Watch (2020) World Report 2020: Events of 2019. New York: Human Rights Watch.

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) (2010) International Humanitarian Law and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflicts. Jenewa: ICRC.

Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) (2023) Global Peace Index 2023: Measuring Peace in a Complex World. Sydney: IEP.

Kaldor, M. (1999) New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era. Cambridge: Polity Press.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2022) Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2022. Jenewa: UNHCR.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) (2021) Yemen Humanitarian Crisis. New York: UN OCHA.

UNICEF (2021) The State of the World's Children 2021: On My Mind – Promoting, Protecting and Caring for Children's Mental Health. New York: UNICEF.

World Bank (2017) The Toll of War: The Economic and Social Consequences of the Conflict in Syria. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.

World Health Organisation (WHO) (2018) Attacks on Health Care in Syria. Geneva: WHO.

Yehuda, R., Daskalakis, N. P., Bierer, L. M., Bader, H. N., Klengel, T., Holsboer, F. dan Binder, E. B. (2016) 'Holocaust exposure induced intergenerational effects on FKBP5 methylation', Biological Psychiatry, 80(5), hlm. 372–380.

[Part 23]
[Part 21]

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War : Survivors, Memory, and Moral Responsibility (21)

The nature of armed conflict has undergone a profound transformation since the mid-twentieth century. Whereas classical warfare was predominantly characterised by engagements between symmetrical state actors on defined battlefields, the contemporary security environment is defined by asymmetrical confrontations involving non-state actors, digitalised battlespaces, and contested legal and ethical frameworks. This essay examines three interrelated dimensions of modern warfare: the rise of terrorism and guerrilla tactics as instruments of asymmetrical conflict; the emergence of cyber warfare as a novel domain of hostilities; and the evolving moral and legal debates that these developments have provoked. Drawing on a range of scholarly, strategic, and legal sources, the essay argues that the persistence of asymmetrical conflict demands a fundamental re-evaluation of the doctrines, norms, and institutions that govern the use of force in international relations.

MODERN WARFARE AND ASYMMETRICAL CONFLICT

Terrorism, Cyber Warfare, and the Ethics of Contemporary Armed Conflict  

The conduct of war has always reflected the political, technological, and social conditions of its era. The industrialised mass conflicts of the twentieth century—epitomised by the two World Wars—gave way, in the latter half of the century, to a more fragmented and complex landscape of armed confrontation. Scholars such as Mary Kaldor (2012) have characterised this shift as the emergence of "new wars"—conflicts distinguished by the blurring of distinctions between soldiers and civilians, the proliferation of non-state armed groups, and the pursuit of identity-based political objectives rather than classical territorial conquest.

This transformation has been accelerated by globalisation, technological diffusion, and the declining capacity of certain states to monopolise legitimate violence within their territories. The result is a security environment in which asymmetrical conflict—the confrontation between actors of markedly unequal military capability who employ correspondingly different strategies and tactics—has become the dominant paradigm. Understanding the character of this environment, and the normative challenges it generates, is among the most pressing tasks confronting scholars, practitioners, and policymakers alike.

Terrorism and Guerrilla Warfare

Conceptual Foundations

Terrorism and guerrilla warfare represent the two most prevalent modalities of asymmetrical armed conflict. Although the two are frequently conflated in public discourse, they are analytically distinct. Guerrilla warfare, derived from the Spanish diminutive of "guerra" (war), refers to a form of irregular military strategy in which relatively small and mobile forces harass, attrit, and ultimately compel the withdrawal of a stronger adversary through hit-and-run tactics, ambushes, and the exploitation of terrain and popular support (Mao Tse-tung, 1961). Terrorism, by contrast, is characterised primarily by the deliberate targeting of non-combatants to generate fear and to coerce political actors—whether governments, populations, or the international community—into making concessions (Schmid, 2011).

The distinction matters because it has both strategic and legal implications. Guerrilla fighters may, under certain conditions, qualify for combatant status and the protections afforded by international humanitarian law. Terrorists, by definition, forfeit such protections by targeting civilians. In practice, however, the two phenomena frequently overlap, and many non-state armed groups engage in both irregular military operations and acts of terrorism as part of a broader campaign.

 

Historical and Contemporary Manifestations

The history of asymmetrical conflict is extensive and predates the modern state system. However, the twentieth century witnessed the codification of guerrilla warfare as a coherent strategic doctrine, most influentially in the writings of Mao Tse-tung, Vo Nguyen Giap, and Che Guevara. Mao's theory of protracted popular war posited that a weaker force could defeat a stronger adversary by operating in three phases: strategic defence, strategic stalemate, and strategic offensive—a framework that proved devastatingly effective in the Chinese Civil War and in the Vietnamese resistance to French and American intervention (Fall, 2005).

The decolonisation struggles of the mid-twentieth century produced numerous successful guerrilla campaigns, from the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962) to the Viet Cong's resistance to American military power in Vietnam. These conflicts demonstrated the limitations of conventional military superiority when confronting a determined insurgency embedded in a sympathetic population. As David Galula (1964), one of the foundational theorists of counter-insurgency, observed, in guerrilla warfare the political and military dimensions of conflict are inseparable, and victory requires not merely the defeat of the enemy's forces but the winning of popular legitimacy.

Contemporary terrorism, by contrast, has increasingly taken on a transnational character, exemplified most dramatically by the attacks of 11 September 2001 carried out by al-Qaeda. The attacks demonstrated that a non-state network, operating across multiple jurisdictions and exploiting the openness of globalised societies, could inflict catastrophic harm on a superpower and precipitate a fundamental reorientation of global security policy (Burke, 2004). The subsequent "Global War on Terror"—prosecuted through military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, drone strike campaigns in multiple countries, and expansive domestic surveillance programmes—illustrated both the reach of modern counter-terrorism capacity and its profound limitations and costs.

The emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a quasi-territorial entity between 2013 and 2019 represented a further mutation of jihadist terrorism, blending conventional military operations, territorial governance, sophisticated propaganda, and spectacular atrocities into a novel hybrid threat (McCants, 2015). Although the territorial caliphate was militarily destroyed by 2019, ISIS has persisted as a dispersed network capable of inspiring and directing attacks globally, illustrating the resilience of decentralised terrorist organisations.

 

Strategic and Political Implications

The persistence of terrorism and guerrilla warfare in the contemporary world reflects a fundamental strategic logic. The "calculus of violence" available to non-state actors has been dramatically expanded by access to cheap and readily available weapons, encrypted communications, and the global reach of the internet. At the same time, the political and reputational costs of disproportionate counter-insurgency operations have constrained the responses available to state actors, creating what Ivan Arreguín-Toft (2005) terms a "strategic interaction" in which the asymmetry of means does not necessarily translate into an asymmetry of outcomes.

The policy implications are significant. Effective responses to terrorism and guerrilla warfare require an integrated approach that combines the disruption of organisational networks, the reduction of recruitment and radicalisation pathways, the provision of legitimate governance and economic development in conflict-affected areas, and the building of international coalitions capable of addressing transnational threats (Byman, 2015). Neither military force alone nor purely developmental strategies are sufficient; the challenge is one of sustained, nuanced, and politically intelligent engagement.

Cyber Warfare and Technological Battlefields

The Emergence of Cyberspace as a Domain of Conflict

The second major dimension of modern asymmetrical conflict is the emergence of cyberspace as a domain of armed hostilities. The digital revolution has transformed virtually every aspect of modern societies—including their militaries, critical infrastructure, and governmental systems—creating new vectors of vulnerability that adversaries, both state and non-state, can exploit. Whilst cyber conflict has roots in the activities of hackers and state intelligence agencies dating to the 1980s and 1990s, it has evolved into a sophisticated instrument of strategic competition.

Thomas Rid (2013) has argued that, strictly speaking, most cyber operations fall short of constituting "war" in the Clausewitzian sense, because they lack the violence, instrumentality, and political character associated with conventional armed conflict. Instead, he characterises the majority of cyber operations as sabotage, espionage, or subversion—activities that, whilst potentially enormously consequential, do not in themselves constitute acts of war. This conceptual point is important, but it should not obscure the fact that cyber operations can cause substantial physical harm and can be integrated into broader military campaigns in ways that make the distinction between war and non-war difficult to sustain in practice.

 

Major Incidents and Evolving Capabilities

The most widely cited early example of offensive cyber operations was the Stuxnet worm, discovered in 2010, which is widely attributed to a joint United States–Israeli operation and was designed to sabotage Iran's uranium enrichment programme by causing centrifuges at the Natanz facility to self-destruct (Sanger, 2012). Stuxnet was remarkable not only for its technical sophistication but for its demonstration that cyber weapons could cause tangible physical damage to industrial infrastructure—effectively constituting an act of sabotage, if not an act of war.

Subsequent years have seen a proliferation of significant cyber incidents. The 2007 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Estonian government, media, and banking websites—widely attributed to Russian-linked actors in the context of a political dispute over a Soviet-era monument—were among the first instances of large-scale, politically motivated cyber attacks on a sovereign state (Herzog, 2011). The 2016 Russian interference in the United States presidential election, involving the hacking of Democratic Party email servers and a sophisticated social media disinformation campaign, illustrated the use of cyber tools not simply to degrade military capabilities but to undermine the democratic processes of an adversary (Mueller, 2019). The 2020 SolarWinds attack, attributed by the United States government to Russian intelligence services, demonstrated the vulnerability of even the most secure governmental and commercial networks to sophisticated supply-chain compromises (Sanger & Perlroth, 2021).

In the context of interstate conflict, the war in Ukraine, which intensified dramatically with Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, has provided the most extensive contemporary example of the integration of cyber operations into conventional military campaigns. Russian cyber attacks on Ukrainian governmental systems, energy infrastructure, and communications networks have been a persistent feature of the conflict, although the anticipated "cyber blitzkrieg" did not materialise as decisively as many analysts had predicted, partly owing to Ukrainian resilience and the assistance of Western technology companies (Watling & Reynolds, 2022).

 

The Asymmetrical Dimensions of Cyber Conflict

Cyber warfare has pronounced asymmetrical characteristics that distinguish it from conventional armed conflict. The cost of entry is relatively low: sophisticated cyber capabilities can be developed or acquired for a fraction of the cost of conventional military systems, enabling smaller states, non-state actors, and criminal organisations to conduct operations against far more powerful adversaries. The attribution problem—the difficulty of definitively identifying the source of a cyber attack—further advantages the attacker, providing plausible deniability and complicating the formulation of proportionate responses (Rid & Buchanan, 2015).

At the same time, highly digitised and networked societies are disproportionately vulnerable to cyber attack. The critical infrastructure—power grids, water treatment facilities, financial systems, healthcare networks—of advanced industrial states presents an enormous attack surface. This creates an asymmetry of vulnerability as well as capability: actors with less digitalised infrastructure, paradoxically, may be less susceptible to certain forms of cyber attack, even if they are also less capable of conducting offensive cyber operations.

The implications for deterrence theory are significant. Classical nuclear deterrence relied upon the credible threat of mutually assured destruction to deter aggression. Cyber deterrence is far more complex: the attribution problem undermines the credibility of deterrent threats; the diversity of cyber capabilities and the variety of potential targets make the formulation of proportionate responses difficult; and the possibility of escalation from cyber attacks to conventional military conflict introduces risks that are difficult to manage (Libicki, 2009).

Moral and Legal Debates of Modern Warfare

International Humanitarian Law and Its Application

The regulation of armed conflict by international law has a long history, rooted in the customary practices of states and codified most comprehensively in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977. The fundamental principles of international humanitarian law (IHL)—distinction, proportionality, necessity, and precaution—were designed to limit the suffering caused by armed conflict and to protect those who do not or can no longer take part in hostilities. Their application in the context of modern asymmetrical conflict, however, raises profound challenges.

The principle of distinction requires parties to an armed conflict to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and to direct attacks only against the former. In asymmetrical conflicts, however, this distinction is frequently blurred. Guerrilla fighters and terrorists operate among civilian populations, using civilians as shields, wearing civilian clothing, and exploiting the protections afforded to civilians by IHL. This creates acute dilemmas for state forces, who must make targeting decisions under conditions of uncertainty, with the constant risk either of killing civilians through excessive caution or of committing violations through excessive force (Walzer, 2006).

The development of targeted killing programmes—in particular the extensive use of armed drones by the United States in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere—has generated intense legal and ethical debate. Proponents argue that targeted killing is a lawful and proportionate means of neutralising individuals who pose an imminent threat and who cannot be captured, conducted with precision that minimises civilian casualties relative to conventional military operations (Brennan, 2012). Critics contend that the legal framework governing such operations is opaque and inadequately scrutinised; that the empirical claims about precision and minimisation of civilian harm are contested; and that the political and strategic consequences—including the radicalisation of affected populations and the erosion of international legal norms—undermine the long-term objectives of counter-terrorism policy (Alston, 2010).

 

The Ethics of Asymmetrical Conflict

Beyond legal questions, modern warfare raises profound moral challenges. Just War theory, developed over centuries by theologians and philosophers including Augustine, Aquinas, and Grotius, and systematised in contemporary form by Michael Walzer (1977) and Jeff McMahan (2009), provides the most influential framework for moral evaluation of the decision to go to war (jus ad bellum) and the conduct of war (jus in bello). The application of just war criteria to asymmetrical conflicts—including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Gaza conflicts, and the Syrian civil war—has been deeply contested.

The doctrine of double effect, which permits actions that have both good and bad consequences provided that the bad consequences are foreseen but not intended and are proportionate to the good achieved, has been heavily deployed in debates about the killing of civilians in the course of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations. Critics such as McMahan (2009) have argued that the traditional framework, which evaluates the moral status of combatants solely by reference to their status rather than their individual culpability, is morally inadequate in the context of wars fought between state forces and non-state armed groups.

The use of autonomous weapons systems—sometimes described as "lethal autonomous weapons" or "killer robots"—represents perhaps the most acute moral frontier in contemporary debates about the ethics of warfare. The prospect of weapons capable of selecting and engaging targets without meaningful human control raises fundamental questions about moral responsibility, accountability, and the dignity of the individual in war (Arkin, 2009). The International Committee of the Red Cross (2021) has called for the establishment of legally binding limits on autonomous weapons systems, a position supported by many humanitarian organisations and a growing number of states, but resisted by major military powers—including the United States, Russia, and China—who regard autonomous systems as strategically important.

 

The Responsibility to Protect and Humanitarian Intervention

A further dimension of the legal and moral debates surrounding modern warfare is the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit. R2P affirms that states bear a primary responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, and that the international community has a responsibility to intervene—including through coercive means—when states fail or refuse to fulfil this obligation (ICISS, 2001).

The application of R2P has been deeply controversial. The NATO-led intervention in Libya in 2011, authorised by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 based on R2P, was initially welcomed as a test of the doctrine's operationalisation but became deeply divisive when the intervention was perceived by Russia, China, and others as going beyond the authorised mandate to protect civilians and effectively effecting regime change (Bellamy, 2011). The failure to invoke R2P effectively in Syria — where the Security Council was paralysed by great-power vetoes — illustrated the limits of the doctrine in the face of geopolitical competition. These experiences have generated a profound debate about the relationship between sovereignty, human rights, and the use of force in international relations.

Conclusion

Modern warfare and asymmetrical conflict pose extraordinary challenges to scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. The persistence of terrorism and guerrilla warfare reflects the enduring logic of asymmetrical strategy: the capacity of weaker actors to impose disproportionate costs on stronger adversaries through the exploitation of political vulnerabilities, popular support, and the limits of conventional military power. The emergence of cyber warfare as a domain of hostilities has further complicated the strategic landscape, creating new forms of vulnerability, new instruments of coercion, and new puzzles for deterrence and arms control. And the application of existing legal and moral frameworks to these novel forms of conflict has revealed deep tensions between the principles and the realities of modern armed conflict.

What is clear is that the existing frameworks—legal, strategic, and ethical—developed primarily in the context of conventional interstate conflict, are under severe strain. The Geneva Conventions, Just War theory, and the architecture of international security institutions were designed for a world of symmetrical state actors; their adaptation to the conditions of asymmetrical conflict, cyber hostilities, and autonomous weapons is incomplete and contested. Addressing these gaps requires sustained scholarly engagement, constructive diplomatic effort, and the political will to subordinate short-term strategic advantage to the longer-term imperatives of a rules-based international order. In the absence of such an effort, the costs—human, political, and civilisational—will continue to accumulate.

References

Alston, P. (2010). Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Study on targeted killings. United Nations Human Rights Council. A/HRC/14/24/Add.6.

Arkin, R. C. (2009). Governing lethal behavior in autonomous robots. CRC Press.

Arreguín-Toft, I. (2005). How the weak win wars: A theory of asymmetric conflict. Cambridge University Press.

Bellamy, A. J. (2011). Libya and the responsibility to protect: The exception and the norm. Ethics & International Affairs, 25(3), 263–269.

Brennan, J. O. (2012, April 30). The ethics and efficacy of the president's counterterrorism strategy. Speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC.

Burke, J. (2004). Al-Qaeda: The true story of radical Islam. Penguin Books.

Byman, D. (2015). Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the global jihadist movement: What everyone needs to know. Oxford University Press.

Fall, B. B. (2005). Street without joy: The French debacle in Indochina. Stackpole Books. (Original work published 1961)

Galula, D. (1964). Counterinsurgency warfare: Theory and practice. Praeger.

Herzog, S. (2011). Revisiting the Estonian cyber attacks: Digital threats and multinational responses. Journal of Strategic Security, 4(2), 49–60.

International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). (2001). The responsibility to protect. International Development Research Centre.

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). (2021). ICRC position on autonomous weapon systems. ICRC.

Kaldor, M. (2012). New and old wars: Organised violence in a global era (3rd ed.). Polity Press.

Libicki, M. C. (2009). Cyberdeterrence and cyberwar. RAND Corporation.

Mao Tse-tung. (1961). On guerrilla warfare (S. B. Griffith, Trans.). Praeger. (Original work published 1937)

McCants, W. (2015). The ISIS apocalypse: The history, strategy, and doomsday vision of the Islamic State. St Martin's Press.

McMahan, J. (2009). Killing in war. Oxford University Press.

Mueller, R. S. (2019). Report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election (Vols. 1–2). United States Department of Justice.

Rid, T. (2013). Cyber war will not take place. Hurst & Company.

Rid, T., & Buchanan, B. (2015). Attributing cyber attacks. Journal of Strategic Studies, 38(1–2), 4–37.

Sanger, D. E. (2012). Confront and conceal: Obama's secret wars and surprising use of American power. Crown Publishers.

Sanger, D. E., & Perlroth, N. (2021, January 2). New details emerge about the breach of SolarWinds and the US government. The New York Times.

Schmid, A. P. (Ed.). (2011). The Routledge handbook of terrorism research. Routledge.

Walzer, M. (1977). Just and unjust wars: A moral argument with historical illustrations. Basic Books.

Walzer, M. (2006). Terrorism and just war. Philosophia, 34(1), 3–12.

Watling, J., & Reynolds, N. (2022). Ukraine through Russia's eyes. Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Special Report.

[Part 22]

[Part 20]

Bahasa

Reallocating Official Remuneration for Indonesian Social Resilience

The proposal to cut officials' salaries often surfaces as a gesture of national solidarity during times of economic distress. However, to evaluate its effectiveness in easing the burden on the State Budget, we must scrutinise the underlying fiscal realities. Let us examine this proportionally. It should be noted that the figures considered are estimates based on the components of Basic Salary and Fixed Allowances funded by the state.

Sectoral Analysis of Official Remuneration

If we apply a more aggressive fifty per cent reduction to the 580 Members of the House of Representatives, the annual savings would climb from ninety billion to approximately two hundred and twenty-five billion rupiah. This represents a more substantial figure, yet it remains a fraction of the total legislative budget. Within the executive branch, applying this half-salary cut to the 107 Ministers and Deputy Ministers would increase the savings to roughly eleven to twelve billion rupiah annually. While this is a symbolic milestone, it highlights that even a radical reduction at the cabinet level does not yield massive fiscal relief due to the relatively small number of personnel. The most significant shift occurs when targeting the thousands of Senior Civil Servants (Echelon I and II); a fifty per cent cut here could potentially save the Treasury upwards of six hundred and thirty billion rupiah per year, as the sheer volume of high-ranking bureaucrats creates a much larger cumulative base.

The State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Sector: Directors and Commissioners

The impact becomes far more pronounced within the SOE sector. Given that executive compensation in state firms—particularly in banking and energy—is considerably higher than in the civil service, a fifty per cent reduction in remuneration and bonuses for Directors and Commissioners would drastically improve corporate margins. Across the hundreds of state-owned entities and their subsidiaries, such a move could bolster the annual dividend contribution to the national treasury by an estimated two to three trillion rupiah. This confirms that the SOE sector remains the most effective "lever" for generating actual revenue through compensation reform, far outweighing the direct savings from the central government's payroll.

The Overall Calculation

Under this radical fifty per cent scenario, the total cumulative benefit—combining direct savings from the legislature and bureaucracy with increased dividends from SOEs—would reach an estimated three to four trillion rupiah per annum. Even at this heightened level, the fiscal reality remains sobering: three trillion rupiah covers less than one per cent of the annual energy subsidy requirements if oil prices remain volatile. Therefore, whilst a fifty per cent cut would provide a significantly stronger "sense of crisis" and perhaps satisfy public demand for austerity, it still fails to serve as a primary solution for balancing the State Budget. The true utility of the policy remains psychological and political; it functions as a prerequisite for social stability, ensuring that when the government eventually asks the public to endure higher costs, it does so with the moral authority of having first halved its own top-tier expenditure.

The issue of dual office-holding 

The issue of dual office-holding (commonly referred to as double dipping) represents one of the most contentious points in the debate over fiscal efficiency in Indonesia. Both ethically and fiscally, allowing an individual to draw full compensation from two or more state-funded sources during an economic crisis is widely seen as an affront to the principle of social justice.

To address the situation of Deputy Ministers or other high-ranking officials holding multiple positions (such as serving as a Deputy Minister while also acting as a State-Owned Enterprise Commissioner), the following policies could be implemented:

1. Implementation of a "Single Salary System"

The most radical yet arguably fairest policy would be to mandate that officials choose only one source of income.

Mechanism: The official would continue to perform both roles (e.g., Deputy Minister and Commissioner) but would only be permitted to receive the salary and allowances from the position with the higher nominal value.

Benefit: This eliminates the perception that public office is being utilised for the personal accumulation of wealth from multiple state coffers.

2. Elimination of Basic Salary for the Secondary Position

If the first policy is deemed too extreme given the increased workload, the government could enforce a rule whereby for the second position, the official is only entitled to a duty allowance or honorarium, without the basic salary or other fixed benefits.

Mechanism: The basic salary remains paid by the home ministry, whilst at the SOE, they would only receive attendance incentives or a small percentage of tantiem (profit-sharing bonuses).

3. Cumulative Income Ceiling

The government could establish a maximum threshold for the total income an official is permitted to receive from all concurrent roles.

Mechanism: For instance, the total combined income from a ministerial post and a commissionership must not exceed 150% of a minister's standard salary. Any excess beyond this cap would either remain unpaid or be returned to the national treasury. 

4. Absolute Prohibition of Dual Office-Holding in the Commercial Sector

This approach is more structural than a mere salary cut. The government could strictly prohibit active public officials (Deputy Ministers or Senior Bureaucrats) from serving as commissioners in SOEs.

Argument: Beyond saving the budget, this aims to eliminate conflicts of interest and ensure the official is 100% focused on their bureaucratic duties within the ministry.

5. Transparency and Voluntary Reversion

In the short term, the government could issue a moral appeal for those holding multiple positions to voluntarily return a portion of their earnings to the state as a gesture of empathy. This should be accompanied by public transparency regarding who has made such contributions.

The problem of dual office-holding is not merely a matter of figures on a ledger; it is a question of public ethics. Cutting a minister's salary loses all credibility if, at the same time, deputy ministers or senior officials continue to receive "double pay" that may be several times higher than the minister's own basic salary.

A policy of "Single Salary" or a Prohibition of Dual Office-Holding is the most effective way to demonstrate that the government truly possesses a sense of crisis.

To provide an even more comprehensive fiscal outlook, let us incorporate the Ministerial Operational Funds (Dana Operasional) into the analysis. Unlike the basic salary, these funds are significantly larger and intended for the execution of duties, yet they represent a substantial area for potential austerity.

It should be noted that the figures considered are estimates based on the components of Basic Salary, Fixed Allowances, and, for the executive branch, a significant reduction in discretionary operational budgets.

Sectoral Analysis of Official Remuneration and Operational Funds

When we look beyond the 580 Members of the House of Representatives—whose fifty per cent salary cut yields two hundred and twenty-five billion rupiah—the focus shifts dramatically toward the executive's operational expenditure. For the 107 Ministers and Deputy Ministers, the basic salary is merely the "tip of the iceberg." Ministerial Operational Funds can reach upwards of one hundred to one hundred and fifty million rupiah per month. If we were to slash these operational budgets by half, alongside the fifty per cent salary cut, the savings from the Cabinet alone would leap from a mere twelve billion to approximately one hundred billion rupiah per annum. Extending this logic to the thousands of Senior Civil Servants (Echelon I and II), who also command significant official travel and meeting budgets, a fifty per cent reduction in both their take-home pay and their departmental "activity" budgets could realistically save the Treasury in excess of two trillion rupiah annually. 

The State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Sector: Directors and Commissioners

The SOE sector remains the most potent source of fiscal recovery in this scenario. By halving the remuneration, bonuses, and "representation allowances" of Directors and Commissioners across the vast network of state firms, the resulting reduction in corporate overheads would be immense. Given the commercial scale of these entities, such a radical austerity measure could bolster the national treasury through increased dividend payments by an estimated three to five trillion rupiah. This confirms that the most significant fiscal gains are found where state-owned commercial interests and high-level bureaucratic activity budgets intersect, rather than in the basic payroll of elected officials alone.

The Overall Calculation

Under this expanded and radical fifty per cent austerity scenario—which now includes both salaries and a portion of operational/activity funds—the total cumulative benefit to the state could reach an estimated five to seven trillion rupiah per annum. Whilst seven trillion rupiah is a formidable sum, it must be viewed against the backdrop of the energy subsidy burden, which can fluctuate by tens of trillions based on a minor shift in oil prices or the exchange rate. Therefore, even this maximalist approach covers only a small fraction of the fiscal gap created by global economic volatility. Nevertheless, the inclusion of "Operational Funds" in the cuts transforms the policy from a merely symbolic gesture into a more credible fiscal strategy. It signals that the leadership is not only sacrificing personal income but is also committed to streamlining the very machinery of government, thereby strengthening the moral authority required to navigate a national economic crisis.

To provide a definitive perspective on the impact of these measures, let us reallocate the projected seven trillion rupiah in maximalist savings toward specific social welfare programmes. This demonstrates how "official sacrifice" can be transformed into a tangible public benefit.

It should be noted that the figures considered are estimates based on a fifty per cent reduction in Basic Salary, Fixed Allowances, and for the executive branch, a significant reduction in discretionary Operational Funds.

Strategic Reallocation of Savings

If the state successfully recoups seven trillion rupiah through these radical austerity measures, the impact on the National Budget (APBN) remains fiscally modest but socially transformative. For instance, seven trillion rupiah could fund the National Health Insurance (JKN/BPJS) premiums for approximately fifteen million low-income citizens for an entire year. Alternatively, these funds could be redirected to the Education Sector, providing full annual scholarships for roughly seven hundred thousand underprivileged university students, effectively securing the human capital of the next generation. In the context of infrastructure, this sum is sufficient to construct or rehabilitate thousands of kilometres of rural roads, directly lowering logistics costs for small-scale farmers who are hardest hit by rising fuel prices.

The Socio-Economic Trade-off

While the seven trillion rupiah saved does not solve the macro-economic challenge of a five-hundred-trillion-rupiah energy subsidy, it bridges the gap in "micro-protection." By shifting funds from the upper echelons of the bureaucracy—specifically the high-yield SOE Sector and Ministerial Operational Funds—to grassroots welfare, the government creates a powerful narrative of redistribution. This prevents the "sense of crisis" from becoming a "crisis of trust." The primary benefit of this reallocation is not the stabilisation of the exchange rate or the global oil price, but the mitigation of poverty and the preservation of purchasing power for the most vulnerable segments of society.

The Overall Calculation

In final summary, the cumulative benefit of a fifty per cent cut across the legislature, cabinet, senior civil service, and SOE leadership—when coupled with operational fund reductions—yields a fiscal "war chest" of five to seven trillion rupiah. Although this represents only about one to two per cent of the total deficit caused by currency and commodity volatility, its targeted application can provide a safety net for millions. Therefore, the policy serves as a vital bridge: it does not fix the macro-economy, but it provides the moral and financial capital required to protect the micro-economy. It ensures that while the state navigates global turbulence, the burden is shared from the top down, rather than from the bottom up.

In conclusion, while a radical fifty per cent reduction in the salaries and operational funds of Indonesia's political and bureaucratic elite offers limited fiscal relief against the gargantuan scale of global commodity volatility, its true value lies in its profound socio-political resonance. Generating an estimated five to seven trillion rupiah, such measures would cover less than two per cent of the national energy subsidy burden. Nevertheless, the strategic reallocation of these funds—potentially securing healthcare for fifteen million citizens or providing scholarships for seven hundred thousand students—transforms a symbolic gesture into a tangible lifeline for the most vulnerable. It is a policy that prioritises moral authority over mere accounting, ensuring that the state does not ask the public to endure hardship without first demonstrating a profound sacrifice from the top down.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of this proposal must be measured not by its ability to balance the national ledger, but by its capacity to preserve social cohesion. By streamlining the high-yield SOE sector and curtailing discretionary ministerial spending, the government signals a genuine "sense of crisis" that bridges the gap between the governing and the governed. In an era of economic turbulence, this redistribution of resources serves as a vital safeguard for the micro-economy, fostering the collective trust necessary to navigate systemic challenges. It is a testament to the principle that in times of national trial, the burden of leadership is best demonstrated through shared austerity and redistributive justice.

[Bahasa]