Wars do not begin on the battlefield, but in decisions made far from those who will suffer their consequences. While public discourse speaks of security and power, millions of people carry wounds that last for generations. In the face of this reality, an unavoidable question arises: who decides the war, and who truly pays its price?

The Brevity of Life and the Illusion of Power

“Make us know the shortness of life so that we may gain wisdom of heart.” (Ps 92: 12)
This morning, as I recited these words of the Psalm with the community, they lingered within me with unusual depth. The Psalm reminds us that life is brief and fragile. Yet when I look at the world today, humanity often lives as though life were endless—competing for power, defending borders, and waging wars as if human life were expendable. While praying those words, I found myself reflecting on the deep futility of war.

Present Conflicts and the Historical Roots of Violence

My thoughts turned to the conflicts of our time, especially the continuing tensions in the Middle East and the long-standing hostility between Iran and the U.S.–Israel alliance. The escalation that intensified on 28 February 2026, with joint U.S.–Israel strikes on Iranian military sites followed by retaliatory attacks on Israel and U.S. bases in the region, did not suddenly begin on that day. It was the latest eruption of decades of mistrust, political rivalry, unresolved grievances, and cycles of retaliation.

Wars in this region are sustained not only by territorial concerns but also by hardened national identities, historical memories, and the involvement of powerful allies who support opposing sides. In many ways, nations end up fighting not only their own enemies but also the enemies of their allies.

Who Decides War—and Who Suffers Its Consequences?

This leads me back to the troubling question: Who sets the terms for war? Those who make these decisions often remain far from the battlefield. Political leaders and strategists debate policies in conference halls while their families remain safe.

Meanwhile, the true burden of war falls upon ordinary civilians—men, women, and children who had nothing to do with the conflict. Their concerns were never about geopolitical strategies; they simply wished to protect their families and live in peace.

Invisible Wounds: Memory, Trauma, and Collective History

Yet the suffering of civilians is often reduced to statistics. News channels report numbers—the dead, the injured, the displaced—but rarely speak of the deeper wounds that war leaves behind. The psychological scars carried by survivors remain largely invisible. Fear, grief, and trauma quietly shape lives long after the war has moved on to the next headline.
These wounds do not disappear with time. Unhealed memories can sometimes become more dangerous than the conflict itself. Communities carry them across generations, slowly turning pain into identity and grievance into history.

Anchal Malhotra, in Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory, observes that many survivors carried memories “too heavy to be borne.” In this sense, war does not end when the fighting stops; it continues in the realm of memory. As Bishop Thomas Menamparampil observes, “memory is not what happened, but what people felt.” What people carry within them—pain, humiliation, fear, or anger—often becomes the lens through which entire communities interpret the past.

Identity, Exclusion, and the Construction of the Enemy

Over time, these memories begin to shape how communities see themselves and others. Identities—national, religious, or cultural—are meant to give people a sense of belonging. Yet when these identities become rigid and exclusive, they easily turn into prejudice.

People begin to see themselves primarily through these identities, and the “other” slowly becomes an enemy. In such a climate, humanity becomes secondary to nationality or ideology, and conflicts are sustained not only by politics but by hardened perceptions of who belongs and who does not.

The Caribbean poet Derek Walcott, in A Far Cry from Africa, reminds us that beyond all the identities we construct, there exists only one race—the human race—and this defines our deepest identity. Yet war persuades people to define themselves primarily through nation, race, religion, or ideology. Even death dissolves these divisions: in the earth, all return to the same dust.

Proxy Wars and Global Rivalries

Looking more closely at modern conflicts, it becomes clear that wars are rarely fought by two nations alone. Powerful states often enter conflicts indirectly through alliances, arms supplies, missiles, and strategic support.
War then becomes not merely a struggle between two countries but a web of rivalries in which nations fight the enemies of their enemies. Within these broader geopolitical narratives stand the soldiers themselves—young men and women shaped by nationalism and trained to believe that dying for their country is an honour. Yet they often carry out decisions made far beyond them.

The irony of our time is that humanity claims to desire peace, yet repeatedly constructs the conditions for war.

War as a Reflection of the Human Heart

All this leads me back to a deeper realization: war is not only a political event but also a reflection of what exists within the human heart. Fear, pride, hatred, resentment, or compassion eventually manifest themselves in human actions—both personal and collective.

A nation that carries unresolved wounds may unknowingly nurture the conditions for future conflict. Many wars between countries are sustained by intensified national identities that overshadow our shared humanity.

The Need for Leaders Who Build Peace

What humanity needs today are peacemakers: leaders capable of feeling the pain of others as their own, whose eyes are softened by compassion and whose hearts are committed to healing wounds and restoring reconciliation where hatred has taken root.

Such leaders would be wounded healers—people who understand suffering deeply enough to prevent its repetition. While the leader of war mobilizes anger and rivalry, the leader of peace cultivates empathy and moral courage.

The Wisdom of the Heart

Returning again to the Psalm’s prayer, I begin to see its deeper meaning. To know the shortness of life is not only a personal realization but a moral awakening.

When we truly understand how brief and precious human life is, the destruction of life becomes far harder to justify. The wisdom of heart that the Psalm speaks about may be precisely this: the ability to see beyond narratives of power and rivalry and to recognize the shared vulnerability of all human beings.

If humanity could truly gain this wisdom, perhaps the world would begin to question more deeply the wars it continues to wage. For in the end, every human life is fleeting. And the greatest tragedy of war is not only that it destroys life—it is that it reveals how easily humanity forgets its own humanity.

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Sr. Elizabeth Rani SSpS is from India and have done B.A in English Literature.