Chris Gallavin: 19th century tactics will never solve 21st century problems

Russian President Vladimir Putin. AP photo / Maxim Shipenkov

Opinion

We do not seem to learn from each altercation humanity has with humanity - matching guns with guns ends with more guns and their greater use.

No one state comes to this conflict with Da'esh (ISIS) untainted, meaning no one state can purport to take the moral high ground.

Matching force with force will result in more atrocities on both sides; more horrendous terror attacks and likely more pictures on our nightly news of rows of dead children as a result of NATO bombing.

I, for one, have had enough of this - we need to break the mould and think of a better way.

The downing of a Russian SU24 fighter jet by Turkish authorities was inevitable. Russia has flouted the territorial border of Turkey time and again in the past few months so it is no surprise that this has happened.

But if the jets were not there in the first place, irrespective of the evil acts of Da'esh, then there would have been no opportunity for this to have happened.

Our rhetoric of "aggression", "war", "self-defence" and "use of force" merely acts to justify the perpetual cycle of fighting and death and it has to stop - the old inputs are resulting in the old outputs, surprise surprise.

Despite Russia's involvement in the fight against Da'esh, Russian president Vladimir Putin has recently been critical of the West for having created the Da'esh threat.

Putin is, of course, being very selective in his speeches but save for the Fox News channels of the world, it is clear to most that the West have created the beast that is Da'esh.

That is not to say that the West should do nothing to combat it, but it appears the goal of Da'esh is to invoke its greatest weapon against the West - the West itself.

See how quickly France claimed self-defence in justification for its incursion into the territory of Syria. Until the UN Security Council Resolution 2249 of November 20, the legitimacy of the French bombing of Da'esh was questionable under international law.

Sanctions, a calm hand, and a strong personal constitution in our politicians are what is needed at the moment and not a blood run that will perpetuate more grief and anger.

We do need to put ourselves in the shoes of the French and even the Palestinians though - imagine if a terror cell located in a smaller state attacked New Zealand and killed 150?

What we would want to do should be matched with an analysis of what we should do. We can all understand the actions of France and the West in reaction to the horrific terror attacks but that does not make them right or effective.

Diplomacy with all nations and religious leaders is needed to isolate and eliminate the support Da'esh is currently receiving from around the world.

The columns of oil tankers driving into the territory controlled by Da'esh need to be stopped, so too the money trails, but we cannot fight this group in the traditional sense. They are a group that feeds off our anger and our need for revenge and "justice". We therefore need to control that and strangle their power base in ways civilisation has not ever done in the past.

The trading of bombs will just result in an escalation of aggression on both sides and that is not in the interests of any of us.

Professor Chris Gallavin is a criminal justice and international law expert at Massey University.