Mains Practice Questions

Introduction

When Wangari Maathai began planting trees across Kenya in the 1970s, people mocked her efforts as insignificant against the tide of deforestation. Yet, decades later, her Green Belt Movement restored millions of trees, revived local ecosystems, and empowered rural women. Maathai’s work symbolised a deeper truth — sustainability is not about merely preventing harm but about healing and regenerating what has already been lost. It is about creating more good than the damage already done.

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Understanding the Shift in Perspective

• Traditional view: Focused on reducing pollution, minimising waste, or conserving energy — reactive and defensive.
• Modern view: Emphasises regenerative practices, circular economy, green innovation, and social empowerment — proactive and transformative.
• Link to global goals like UN SDGs, Paris Agreement, and Agenda 2030.

Dimensions of “Doing More Good”

• Environmental Dimension:
  • Moving from carbon reduction to carbon sequestration (e.g., afforestation, biochar).
  • From minimising waste to circular economy models — reuse, recycling, regeneration.
  • Examples: India’s Mission LiFE, Swachh Bharat Mission, and renewable energy expansion.
• Economic Dimension:
  • Promoting green entrepreneurship, sustainable finance, and inclusive growth.
  • Example: Green hydrogen, EV ecosystem, solar parks, and CSR initiatives promoting sustainability.
• Social Dimension:
  • Empowering local communities, promoting education, health, and equity.
  • Example: Self-help groups, women-led renewable initiatives, rural livelihood programs.
  • Integrating sustainability with human development.

Ethical and Philosophical Perspective

• Sustainability as a moral responsibility towards future generations (Intergenerational Equity).
• From “Anthropocentric” to “Ecocentric” approach — coexistence with nature.
• Reflecting Gandhian philosophy: “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”

Challenges in Practising Positive Sustainability

• Short-term economic interests vs. long-term ecological gains.
• Policy fragmentation, lack of awareness, and weak enforcement.
• Need for behavioural change and innovative governance models.

The Way Forward

• Promote regenerative agriculture, net-positive architecture, green jobs, and nature-based solutions.
• Encourage public-private partnerships for sustainability innovation.
• Foster education and ethical consciousness for a sustainability-driven mindset.

Conclusion

In conclusion, true sustainability transcends the idea of damage control — it is a transformative vision that seeks to restore balance between human progress and the planet’s well-being. It calls for an ethical shift from exploitation to regeneration, from consumption to conservation, and from short-term gains to intergenerational equity. As Wangari Maathai’s legacy reminds us, building a sustainable future means doing more good — nurturing ecosystems, empowering communities, and ensuring that development becomes a force for renewal and harmony, not depletion.

Introduction

Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) emerged during the Cold War as a strategic doctrine asserting that if two adversaries possess nuclear weapons capable of annihilating each other, neither would initiate conflict. It rests on the logic of deterrence — peace maintained not by moral restraint or international law, but by the certainty of catastrophic retaliation.

This paradox of peace through fear defines the ethical, political, and philosophical dilemma of modern warfare: Can lasting peace arise from the threat of total annihilation?

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Historical Context

• Originated post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945); formalized during US–Soviet Cold War.
• Scholars John von Neumann and Thomas Schelling applied game theory to deterrence.
• Cuban Missile Crisis (1962): Peace preserved by fear of nuclear escalation—symbol of MAD’s effectiveness.
  
  

Ethical Dimensions

• Kantian ethics: Threatening annihilation violates human dignity; ends can’t justify immoral means.
• Just War Theory: Violates proportionality and discrimination; indiscriminate destruction.
• Utilitarianism: Deterrence avoids war but imposes lasting fear and economic waste.
• Gandhian ethics: True peace rests on Ahimsa and moral disarmament, not coercion.

Theoretical Perspectives

• Realism (Morgenthau, Waltz): States act for survival; nuclear deterrence ensures stability.
• Liberalism (Rawls, Wilson): Peace requires cooperation and justice; MAD reduces morality to calculation.
• Constructivism (Wendt): Deterrence is socially constructed; norms can reshape peace.
• Feminist ethics (Cohn, Enloe): MAD is a patriarchal logic glorifying power over care and empathy.

Practical Illustrations

• US–USSR: Avoided direct war but fuelled proxy conflicts and arms races.
• India–Pakistan: Post-1998 nuclearization deterred war but allowed limited clashes (Kargil 1999, Balakot 2019).
• US–North Korea (2017–18): Fear of annihilation replaced by diplomacy, showing peace through dialogue.
• Russia–Ukraine (2022–): Nuclear deterrence prevents NATO intervention but enables aggression—moral hazard.

Humanitarian & Environmental Ethics

• MAD ignores the transgenerational and ecological ethics of warfare.
• A full-scale nuclear exchange would lead to:
  • Nuclear winter, destroying agriculture and ecosystems.
  • Mass civilian casualties violating international humanitarian law (IHL).
  • Intergenerational injustice, burdening future generations with radioactive legacies.
• Philosopher Hans Jonas in The Imperative of Responsibility (1979) argued that modern ethics must consider long-term consequences of human action. MAD, by threatening irreversible planetary harm, fails this moral responsibility.
• Global Treaties & Alternatives
  • NPT (1968): Prevents proliferation but creates ethical inequality among nuclear states.
  • CTBT (1996) and TPNW (2017, ICAN Nobel 2017): Moral move from deterrence to disarmament.
  • UN Charter (1945): Collective security as moral alternative.
  • Human Security (UNDP 1994): Redefines peace beyond military deterrence.
• Thinkers and Moral Voices
  • Einstein: Warned “Our thinking has not changed with the atom.” Advocated supranational governance.
  • Bertrand Russell: Called nuclear deterrence “collective madness.”
  • Pope Francis (2021): Declared even nuclear possession immoral.
  • Amartya Sen: True peace equlas to “presence of justice,” not absence of war.
  • Nelson Mandela: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”
• Ethical Path Forward
  • Gandhian non-violence & moral diplomacy over fear-based security.
  • Confidence-building measures (CBMs): New START (US–Russia), India–China border protocols.
  • Ethical global leadership to promote empathy, justice, and human dignity.

Conclusion

Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) embodies the ultimate ethical paradox — peace sustained by the perpetual threat of death. It has prevented great wars but at the cost of moral integrity and global trust.

True peace cannot be founded on fear; it requires moral imagination, empathy, and justice — the courage to disarm both weapons and minds. As Albert Schweitzer said, “Ethics is reverence for life.”

Replacing deterrence with conscience, and domination with cooperation, remains humanity’s only path to a just and enduring world order.