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| Fifth Column |
| Henry Kissinger: The world in flames |
| 2014-09-05 |
| h/t Spengler [SundayTimes] ...No truly global “world order” has ever existed. What passes for order in our time was devised nearly 400 years ago at a peace conference in the German region of Westphalia after a century of conflict across central Europe. It relied on a system of independent states refraining from interference in one another’s domestic affairs and checking one another’s ambitions through an equilibrium of power. The Westphalian system spread round the world as the framework for a state-based international order spanning multiple civilisations and regions, because as the European nations expanded they carried its blueprint with them. At the end, it was an equilibrium between two superpowers---and then, one of them collapsed, while the other... ....The Arab Spring started as a new generation’s uprising for liberal democracy. It was soon shouldered aside, disrupted or crushed. Exhilaration turned into paralysis. The existing political forces, embedded in the military and in religion in the countryside, proved stronger and better organised than the middle-class element demonstrating for democratic principles in Tahrir Square. ...The conflict in Syria and Iraq and the surrounding areas has thus become the symbol of an ominous new trend: the disintegration of statehood into tribal and sectarian units, some of them cutting across existing borders, in violent conflict with one another and manipulated by competing outside factions, observing no common rules other than the law of superior force. ...As America called on the world to honour aspirations to democracy and enforce the international legal ban on chemical weapons, other great powers such as Russia and China resisted by invoking the principle of non-interference. They had viewed the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Bahrain and Syria principally through the lens of their own regional stability and the attitudes of their own restive Muslim populations. Aware that the most skilled and dedicated Sunni fighters were avowed jihadists, they were wary of an outright victory by Assad’s opponents. ...Syria and Iraq — once beacons of nationalism for Arab countries — may prove unable to reconstitute themselves as unified sovereign states. As their warring factions seek support from affiliates across the region and beyond, their strife jeopardises the coherence of all neighbouring countries. The conflict in Syria and Iraq and the surrounding areas has thus become the symbol of an ominous new trend: the disintegration of statehood into tribal and sectarian units, some of them cutting across existing borders, in violent conflict with one another and manipulated by competing outside factions, observing no common rules other than the law of superior force. ...Zones of non-governance or jihad now stretch across the Muslim world, affecting Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mali, Sudan and Somalia. When one also takes into account the agonies of central Africa — where a generations-long Congolese civil war has drawn in all neighbouring states, and conflicts in the Central African Republic and South Sudan threaten to metastasise similarly — a significant portion of the world’s territory and population is on the verge of falling out of the international state system altogether. As this void looms, the Middle East is caught in a confrontation akin to — but broader than — Europe’s 17th-century wars of religion. Domestic and international conflicts reinforce each other. Political, sectarian, tribal, territorial, ideological and traditional national- interest disputes merge. Religion is “weaponised” in the service of geopolitical objectives; civilians are marked for extermination based on their sectarian affiliation. Where states are able to preserve their authority, they consider their authority without limits, justified by the necessities of survival; where states disintegrate, they become fields for the contests of surrounding powers in which authority too often is achieved through total disregard for human wellbeing and dignity. ...If order cannot be established, vast areas risk being opened to anarchy and to forms of extremism that will spread organically into other regions. From this stark pattern the world awaits the distillation of a new regional order by America and other countries in a position to take a global view. Henry, Henry, still haven't grasped who's important in the Middle East, and who's yesterday's news. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #5 The Westphalian Order drowned in Manilla Bay and the Straits of Tushima, the new boys didn't understand the rules. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2014-09-05 10:48 |
| #4 Many Islamics have always been tribal and always will be as long as they practice first cousin marriage. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2014-09-05 10:41 |
| #3 What passes for order in our time was devised nearly 400 years ago at a peace conference in the German region of Westphalia after a century of conflict across central Europe. Except that the Westphalian concept of order seems to have had a limited effect on the development of the U.S. We were formed in rebellion against an English king and that system. We were escaping tyranny. The English order had been formed independently and before the Westphalian Peace Conference. The point is the Westphalian "New World Order" of Kissinger seems over inflated. Maybe it's his Austrian background. The Islamics have always been tribal and probably will always be so long as they believe in Islam. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2014-09-05 10:32 |
| #2 The conflict in Syria and Iraq and the surrounding areas has thus become the symbol of an ominous new trend: Oblivious to events in sub-Saharan Africa over the past 60 years is he? Can't we just settle for wobbly, geriatric comments from Castro from time to time and be done with it ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-09-05 10:31 |
| #1 "Syria and Iraq, once beacons of nationalism for Arab countries"... The only reason these two were ever mistaken for states is that the USSR provided them with weapons on a scale that made the thought of rebellion ludicrous. As long as there's strong hand on the leash, the dog goes where he's told. (See also Yugoslavia.) |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2014-09-05 07:22 |