On Global Dilemmas
Part 1 – Human Involvement
Western-Lifestyle-Related Dilemmas
Dilemmas that derive from Western lifestyles are growing in seriousness and number. In the leading Western Nation, even those that get scant attention, such as pollution, road accidents, suicide, smoking, alcohol, neglect and hard drugs, each take more than thirty thousand lives annually.
Of course, the most publicised Western dilemma of our day is terrorism. Although, to this point it has been a relatively minor cause of death and destruction, the audacity of its proponents has enabled fear of terrorism to be built into a horrendous preoccupation. The US Congress even has seen fit to commit the country to a state of war against it. Many see this as an irrational reaction in that it stands to increase rather than reduce the terrorist threat and harms America’s capacity to deal with potentially more debilitating international stresses that are building.
Many of these stresses relate to globalisation. Under its impact, the centre of economic power rapidly is moving from the US to the East. The World’s Multi-Nationals are following it. The US is being left, floundering. Of late, it has been borrowing huge amounts of money just to maintain domestic living standards. And, if you disregard the introduction of policies aimed at delaying the day of reckoning, the US Government is acting as if blind to the danger. In fact it is exacerbating the situation by running huge current account deficits.
Tied up with this reversal in America’s fortunes is the Western-encouraged rapid adoption of their lifestyles by the huge populations of Asia. This is increasing competition for natural resources, particularly oil, the import of which is essential to the maintenance of US living standards. In such circumstances, the US Administration’s decision to sole-finance an expensive and irrational war against a puny group of terrorists such as al Qaeda, is looking like an unaffordable mistake.
If we include all expenses incurred in maintaining the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, the US is currently devoting about six hundred billion dollars, annually, to war-related activities. By contrast, the Al Qaeda Network effectively defends itself and is able to expand its offensives on a budget of well under half a billion dollars, annually. Any entity that can cause its wartime adversary to outspend it by more than a thousand to one, particularly when that adversary is heavily in debt, has time very much on its side no matter the size difference. Without a quick victory, the US will find itself confronted by unconquerable dilemmas. And a quick victory against an enemy that expands with every punch, looks to be a forlorn hope.
A far more sensible policy would be to recognise the need to allow ancient Western cultural values and institutions to evolve to a state that is reconcilable with the realities of the Modern World. The obsolete nature of the West’s beliefs and institutions is the principal reason that the division of the World into haves and have-nots continues long after means of abolishing its fundamental causes are available. If the World is to survive, obsolete Western cultural values and institutions must be allowed to evolve into forms that reward rather than penalise the wise, compassionate and just use of the awesome powers of our day on behalf of all of Mankind, rather than just the rich, the powerful and their constituencies.
If Humanity is to survive, all modern cultures must evolve to a level at which they motivate and reward Human Beings who strive to make of this Earth a series of Heavens, rather than a Hell. Their cultures must stimulate people to direct their energies, talents and resources to conducting an all-out war upon the global causes of poverty, misery and injustice, rather than in obeying institutions that guarantee their perpetuation. If the US was to dedicate even a small fraction of its military genius and might to the conduct of such a war, support for terrorism would soon evaporate to a level that the international anti-crime organisations are well-equipped to handle.
The Most Threatening Dilemma
The greatest threat of our time derives, not from Terrorist Cells or Rogue States, but from the policies of the World’s powerful Nations, to which such entities naturally evolve in reaction. The threatening policies are founded in a bygone era in which ruling elites could increase their wealth and power through the commissioning of marauding military bands, powerful enough to subjugate, enslave and rob surrounding communities.
Now that the weapons used by those elites destroy rather than subjugate communities, their continued use of the military option has become irrational. It destroys not only the booty but also places at risk the wealth and wellbeing of the aggressor. This imbecility is underlined by the fact that there is real danger of such military action snow-balling to a level at which much of the Earth’s capacity to sustain life could be destroyed and its balance left so damaged that centuries will be required to restore it to health.
If that is not to become Man’s fate, present cultures must be purged of ancient beliefs and institutions that inspire him to venerate war. If the dramatically increasing powers that are implicit in our new understanding of reality are not to become suicidal, we must discover ways of replacing this culturally inspired veneration for war with a stronger veneration for enterprises that are usefully creative rather than destructive and universally humane rather than barbaric. Man must achieve new beliefs that inspire Human Beings, along with institutions that appropriately reward them, for applying their individual and collective genius to making health, happiness and wellbeing available to all their fellows regardless of race, gender or location – and without such activities continuing to endanger the health of the Planet. That is a tall order! But Nature is so finely balanced and unforgiving that our collective survival may well depend on our ability to fill it.
Present US Foreign Policy is Sowing the Seeds of Global Disaster
Throughout history, weaker nations with cause to fear invasion by a powerful State, naturally have sought to create ways of defending themselves against such an eventuality. In modern times, such fear has resulted in the creation of Terrorist Networks and efforts by threatened states to develop weapons of mass destruction. Such activities are rendered the more inevitable if the avowed aim of a State they fear is to force its own cultural beliefs and institutions upon them.
Today, the pursuit of such a policy by the USA is causing even Powerful Nations to react. The leaders of Russia, France, Germany, Japan and China, each charged with the defence of their peoples’ culture and freedom, are expressing deep concern. Each is served by people well versed in history and world affairs. Each is aware that America’s ruling elite are anticipating huge economic problems at home in the immediate future.
These leaders also understand that an age-old approach to dealing with such problems is to manufacture foreign enemies and to commence wars against them. Such policy allows an Administration to employ powerful propaganda to hide the problems at home. It allows them to remove trouble-makers as traitors. It provides them with an excuse for getting potentially troublesome youth off the streets and under marshal law through conscription. Of late, events have made World Leaders aware of how appealing that option has become to the US ruling elite. It provides one of only two rational explanations as to why those elite have elected to place their Nation in a state of war against an enemy that, although troublesome, hardly justifies such sacrifice. The other rational, explanation (hotly denied) is that such a state of war can be used to justify moving a powerful military force into the Middle East – the World’s premier oil-exporting Region – at a time when a fundamental international shortage of oil is looming. As everybody knows, US wellbeing is utterly dependent upon the continuous import of a huge stream of oil.
US militarism justifiably worries many World Leaders at this time. They are aware that pursuit of similar policies by a major power in the last Century sparked two World Wars, each one of which cost tens of millions of lives, caused untold suffering and destroyed trillions of dollars worth of assets. They further are aware that, today, there are fundamental factors which make the risk of major-power military action getting out of control, far greater than it was in the last Century.
These factors include:
• A Rapidly heating Global competition for natural resources.
• The fact that Uncle Sam no longer is able to sustain living standards at home without going ever-deeper into debt.
• The Middle East sees itself as engaged in the defence of its Culture and Institutions against a foreign power bent upon forcing alien ones upon it.
• Residents of Western Nations feel confronted by diminishing security, savings, jobs, welfare and reasons to trust their ruling elites.
• Bills, which sanction the introduction of conscription, are awaiting attention in both US Houses of Congress.
There is evidence to suggest that other moves to place the US on a more complete war-time footing are afoot. If those moves become reality, the leadership of other powerful nations are likely to think in terms of forming a counterbalancing military alliance. The last such alliance, NATO, was formed in 1949 in response to a perceived military threat from Stalinist Russia and is credited with having prevented nuclear war through forty risk-filled years. Nations feeling threatened by US militarism, today, would hope that a similar alliance against it, might have a similarly beneficial effect.
If such an alliance were to be formed, once again, the World would find itself in a Cold War situation. But, this time, global financial and resource-supply realities will make it more difficult to maintain the peace.
The Nuclear Threat
It might be argued that, even if the war was to expand, nobody would be stupid enough to launch a nuclear attack.
However, in today’s reality, that is by no means guaranteed. What would happen if al Qaeda, now officially in a state of war with the US, were to consider itself justified by the US military invasion of Moslem States, in having one of its cells detonate an already planted nuclear device on the Homeland? How would the US Administration react? President Bush already has said that he would retaliate in kind. But Terrorism is not a State. It has no geographic definition. Who would Bush attack? Even if no countervailing nuclear attack was launched, the financial and political consequences of a modern city being vaporized are impossible to imagine.
Are we wiser, today, than we were in 1914? Sadly, present events suggest otherwise.
The Myth of Military Invincibility
Perhaps of most disturbing concern to leaders on the international stage, today, is the fact that the just re-elected US Administration appears to believe that it is militarily invincible and thereby justified in imposing its culture and will on the rest of Mankind.
Motivated by similar beliefs in the late thirties, Adolph Hitler caused his armies to invade a succession of countries including Poland. However, his invincibility proved to be short-lived. Human Nature being what it is, the World beyond his thrall united against him. His Third Reich – proudly founded to last a millennium – ceased to exist within a dozen years of its birth. But it took a dozen armies, the loss of tens of millions of lives and the obliteration of thousands of cities and villages to overcome the cruel aggression that his beliefs had sparked.
In this nuclear age, should employment of the military option again get out of hand, the damage is likely to be orders of magnitude greater than that caused by WW1 and WW2, combined. It can be assumed that countries desirous of defending their culture, again will unite against the aggressor. If that happens, Humanity again will find itself divided into two military camps. However, this time, each will possess nuclear weapons, orders of magnitude more powerful than those that obliterated Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of WW2. And each will possess them in sufficient number and form to obliterate the Homelands of their opponents.
Other Threatening Dilemmas
If, by some miracle, Modern Man escapes nuclear war, he faces other threatening dilemmas. They include:
• The stresses implicit in an ever-growing human population.
• The environmentally destructive effects implicit in the global spread of Western lifestyles.
• Heating competition for the natural resources essential to the maintenance of Western lifestyles.
• The existence of love-deprivation, neglect, injustice and poverty – and the self-loathing, hopelessness, boredom, drug addiction, crime, violence, ill health and suicide they engender.
• A fiat-currency-based, fractional-reserve financial system that hugely advantages the financial and political elites over the rest of Mankind.
Man’s exploding capacity to understand the workings of Nature and to create his own astonishing World, join to provide him with means of solving all of these dilemmas. But retention of long obsolete traditions, beliefs and institutions is persuading individuals and groups to continue in pursuit of narrow and divisive forms of self interest long after they have become civilisation’s greatest enemy.
Human cultures must be reformed so that they inspire respect for and reward leaders and others who place above all else the discovery and implementation of solutions to today’s globally threatening dilemmas. Unless Humans can be inspired by their cultures to respect and reward people who direct their energy and resources to solving these dilemmas, the products of individual and collective greed, fear and stupidity look set to severely damage our World – possibly beyond repair. If nothing meaningful can be done about it, the Human Race could be facing extinction within a century.
