Posts by SebastianSarbu:
History between science and ideology
March 5th, 2015
By Sebastian Sârbu.
True enough history may be defined as being the ,,magister vitae”, as the sage old men from ancient times coined this paradigmatic vision.
Far from operate with hollow assertions, we should subject to the critical thinking, scientific examination the arguments by which we try to prove that history is truly an objective science, therefore a ,,magister vitae”.
Let’s pretend we don’t try to apotheotically endorse, the way we may still find in the speciality literature, the fact that history is the perpetual checkmate of the other sciences, we shall engage an approach meant to support the interest of science, beyond the sectarian positions, quite marginal actually which shrink the history down to a brand new species of relativism, a cultural one, applied to the global shifts, but nihilist at its core.
From gnoseological angle history gets in its crosshairs the cognitive modelling of the reality starting from down to earth ontological context and re-configuring the empirical data in agreement with the positive laws, the only ones which may provide the instruments of the objectivity and for probing the concrete.
While from a social angle, however, history as a science is focused on anthropological knowledge, researching the collective mentality, compressing time and pursuing in all this time the causal ratio which connects the events one to each other.
From ethical angle history is also bent to reset and re-settle if the human truth, by way of suspending the sequential order of the natural – causal and temporary, and granting of a utterly novel and universal dimension of heroic type, or mythical or else on the contrary the safeguarding of the human truth often prerequisite antagonisms, which by personification and actual stripping the action off its objective elements, are portrayed the actors here involved both antithetically and profoundly characteriologically. In this case subjectivity heightens whereas the probability lessens, and thus the venture is limited, the way time was compressed.
The various cultural constructs, the philosophical trends, social doctrines, interdisciplinary theories, schools of thinking, political ideologies have sought to found a paradigm, an ex cathedra working frame, and sometime extra cathedra of history which has been and still is regarded as an integrated science, if not altogether sub-tired to other sciences or progressist ideologies which , like in some chemistry laboratory is testing models and practices in the scientific approach putting on airs of mathematics and Kantian starched formalism.
In this case it is classical the example of the methodical – scientific failure to represent the dynamic – evolutionary representation of the historical reality like some linear course of running the events, whereof, here, the political accolade paid as a tribute to the ,,progress of civilisation”.
From this stand point, we rather back the theory of social – historical discontinuities, starting from a widely acknowledged fact that the world in itself is a dynamic system rather obeying the laws of dynamics and nor the statistical – mathematical laws neither the deterministic ones.
To determine, means nothing else but measuring and assert as being true whatever is here to be proved. The basis for induction for history represents a reverse process or asymmetric of cognition, the one that starts from effect back to cause, from experience to knowledge.
This represents of course the positivist method of analysis and research which is valid up to the point where rebuking its own objective venture, it falls into the formal logic sin of reductionist species, that it does not transcend.
At the same time, unlike the scientific knowledge, the empirical knowledge, is contradictory, subjective, relative and limited to just a particular slice of existence, down to a tightly contained case.
The scientific knowledge, however, on the contrary is universal, united, objective. Yet the outcome of both should be addressed based on criteria, methods and practices which pertain to the cognitive subject’s capacity, who is himself part of the reality it quantifies. So, if we quit applying of linear methods or lab-type ones when researching scientifically of the phenomena and the historical processes, we’ll find out that the historian’s mission is not to build up hypothesis, laws or new theories, having the aim of mathematically prove them accurate, or else of influencing the historical thinking hampered by the objectivity complex sprung off the wish to address history systematically.
The proto-chronism sin cannot lead to invoking an original sin turned hereditary by the way in which the nostalgia of paradise allegedly pre-existent into the human DNA, leads, from the intellectual angle, to either perpetuation or not of the primeval, more carnal faults, and these should manifest in continuation to those who would promote the cosmopolitanism. It is as if the de-constructivist theory would be mistaken for an actual de-construction of the concrete world, a token telltale of lack of accurate focus, or a theory of conspiratorial plots, which always surface from the hollow abysses flawing some theories popping up in the way of the cultural trend of establishing a general guideline in the knowledge of history, therefore of contextualisation only of what we use to call history in itself, or a historical phenomenon in itself.
We further retain the aspect that in our clarifying and cathartic efforts from the stand point of simplifying the common watcher’s comprehension on the history lived and narrated, shall only have relevance the history in itself, before approaching the actually lived history, the historical phenomenon in its space – temporality.
And this may be understood by only the fact that what we use to call ‘claimed knowledge’ originated in the common sense, as a Berkeleyan species, must be supported in the scientific circles by those evidences, which do not pertain to the rational discursiveness or some formal logic exercise.
There are nations where oral tradition plays a major role in what is called education to form and fundamental of knowledge, implicitly that grammar of persuasion, starting from symbolics and imagology.
However these instruments are very easy to use for manipulation and dismantling of the collective mental.
For the idealist Germany, whose prominent leading mind was in his time Hegel the philosopher, the idea, the deep set feel as sensitive certitude, the immaterial ideal stood at the foundation of history, of the very onset and the building up of the world. Even the State itself was looked at rather dogmatically, idyllically by Hegel who has set its worth as being a divine institution, and as a consequence the topmost product at a historical scale of the Universal Reason. Just thinking about, how this concept basically is not different from the ancient world’s philosophy, from stoicism. And again, history, as history looked at through the eyepiece of the cultural anthropology, shows us how these nations which benefited from a protected historic millieu, under economic, military and political pressure developed that philosophy, axiology, moral and educational paradigm in agreement with its own life psychology, but also jointly with the material and social existence conditions.
K.Marx supported the opposite namely that the idea, the culture, the conscience are determined by the economic, the social-historical millieu, the material basics.
From this point of view Marx had the right hunch, but he looked on the fatality of the material conditions on human society, failing to be realist and failing to see that the economic in itself is not wrapped in a compact packet, a fated gift, but each society in various successive historical periods developed its own custom-made economic model depending on the political ideology and the values system by which he conceived the constitutional order and the social organisation type.
Therefore history should have to be regarded through the prism of the two co-ordinates: education and science, conditioned by the social – historical practice itself; and due to the fact that culture is always a product of the spiritual heredity of a nation of ideas’ biography and the genesis of institutions, bespeaking about the national character echoed in all aspects of the public life.
History, therefore, is not just an autonomous science but an institution subjected to changes itself seeks to spot and quantify, to rationalize using specific means.
Karl Popper developed his own theory of science, where he proved that, this being a valid cognitive principle where the objective reality is concerned, a hypothesis could also be put to the test of negation and not just exclusively to the confirmation bench test.
In this regard he provided as an example the Marxism, which as a historical reality was the result of an exclusive confirmation, whereas the positivist laws of science and also mainstays of the universal evolution flagged this as an anti-natural conscience flaw, its implementation without taking into account the claim stated by us namely that the historian’s venture is not to just build up hypothesis, experimental models, or law arrays to serve the purpose of some political ideology, but to take into account the stark reality whose main agent is the human being, acting as a proactive subject builder of the reality.
Dismantling the conspiracy of history, Popper, unwillingly expressed himself like a true historian, who beside and beyond turning the history reality into a relative issue, he made a relative issue out of the very cognitive mode and doing so he most sincerely he expressed his ice-cold, objective, demystifying approach in what concerns not only history but also those who tinkers and tampers with it in order to just accept the harness of some ideology and make it beyond its natural laws.
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The Neo-Renaissance doctrine
February 18th, 2015
By Sebastian Sarbu.
To read report click bellow
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The Syrian file review
January 31st, 2015
By Sebastian Sârbu.
Bashar Al-Assad is one of those inflatable dictators, ,,pumped up” by Moscow, Phenian and Tehran orbiting along the famous infamous axis of the Evil, so defined by the USA, as far back as the times of Ronald Reagan Administration.
The Soviet Union’s ambition was to create a new power centre, actually for polarizing the Asiatic and Arabic worlds, so that by creation of the ,,Asiatic – Arabic Corridor” to build and emergent alliance of anti-occident type (USSR-India-Pakistan-North Korea -Iran-Afghanistan).
The basic is that Assad enjoys a rather counterfeited reputation and that he lost any credibility for the civilized world. The human rights culture and the higher standards of the western democracy call for an intervention.
The political solution turned up as non viable anymore from the moment we acknowledge the failure of the UNO reunions focused on finding a way out from the Syrian conflict and also on the failure of the Peace Conference in Geneva, against the dynamical backdrop scoring about 200,000 casualties toll, civilians mostly, since 2011 until today.
Lots have been said about the intensively invoked western military intervention chaperoned by the USA in Syria. Despite of those statements, naively decrypted, claiming that this military operation was not meant to remove Assad from power, this intervention could be even larger, and way more complex than a limited ,,Desert Fox” operation type, or a lightning warfare strike specific to the Israeli defense.
Sending in the air raids in April 1999 in Yugoslavia is just a coincidence which stirred confusion among the analysts of this phenomenon, since by this example no one wished to highlight a so-called limited intervention, with identical character, but rather the fact that the United States could move unilaterally, without a mandate from the UN.
A 2 to 3 military op in Syria, as vented by some news agencies would be deemed as a military expedition, that is a free-wheel single-sided foray of the US, possibly with a minimal support from France and the Great Britain. The postponement of the military intervention in Syria, far from playing on purpose to disappoint, provides the military action against the Assad regime with consistency and effectiveness and does not exceeds the Pentagon’s planning agenda which also are in the course of consulting with the Allies.
Firstly the necessary relenting of the military intervention development, actually provides the NATO member states, in fact to the USA’s traditional allies the opportunity to endorse the legitimacy of such an action, in agreement with the applicable norms in the international rights.
Not at last however, taking into consideration the Russia’s bellicose opposition which deployed a cruiser and an anti-submarine warships in the Mediterranean Sea, the USA wish an aggregation of a large coalitions of states.
The President Obama’s statement, declaring that no one wishes a new Iraq-like situation to happen, is indicative for the fact that the military intervention in Syria shall rather be one portent and complex and not just a military adventure empty of a legitimate justification and support of the international community on a largest scale possible. Also, this new type approach, is taking into account the risks and costs of an intervention, but also the practical modus operandi, by a ground-based action or of surgical type, aerial strategic a.s.o. In no way this statement should not be perceived with scepticism, as a pulling off from engagement which would favour a unilateral intervention, of lightning strike type, especially due to the fresh complications looming ahead related to the dangerous regional interests and powers such as Iran acting as a regional leader, putting up nuclear infatuation, promoter of some sort of political fundamentalism.
One portion of the international civil society uttered the opinion that the sheer lack of international community-backed action, indirectly legitimate the criminal acts of the Assad regime. In fact, an essential role was played by the instrumentation of the psychological mechanism and the public communications exercising meant to prepare the public opinion, which manifested the recrudescence in the indictment of the Assad regime and mostly of its last period.
Also this military intervention was approached from an economic angle, in the sense that the world economy would be hampered by this regional warfare.
Beyond the war philosophy, which in some cultural systems was regarded like having a civilisation bringer or creator role, we cannot however pretend not to see the modern studies and statistic indicative that the USA were always on the winning side from the economic-financial angle from any war waged elsewhere anywhere in the world. Beside this aspect there is also a quite intellectually and politically notorious fact the existence of the military industrial aggregated complex (the military capitalism), put together by way of the marriage of the three powers: economic, military, political, and the direct outcome of interest for our case study is the fact that the Pentagon takes no political-military decision on warfare businesses, without taking in account by actual computing its economic and strategic advantages. In the same context was circulated in the press the news release according to which the stock exchange shares of the weapons manufacturing industrial corporations skyrocketed by 20%, let alone the fact that the entire defense and security industry is in full swing and booming so to speak.
One should mention that the Bush doctrine of ,,the collective internationalism”, as it was recorded in the military and geopolitical studies, confirms that the USA may intervene not just off only preconceived reasons based on economically dominant pole position, or else out of a purely geostrategic far-fetching scheme but also from reasons concerning its own independence, save-guarding democracy, human rights and the fundamental liberties. This fact falls along the same strategic line under the Obama Administrations also.
The USA are a standalone power which, according to its defense doctrine, may intervene anywhere are threatened the democratic values, the order of the right and the human fundamental rights. Again, we emphasize, only a country with solid power structures may afford an intervention of any nature whatever on the international scene to knightly champion in the service of an ,,catholic ideal”. That is why those who are complaining the costs of a military intervention do not comprehend the intricate workings of a power’s mechanism, neither its values nor its principles.
Let’s not forget that the written records of the mankind history assert that the weapon was the first and the tool was next, yet the modern mankind sacredly pledged and acknowledged in the Universal Human Rights Declaration, the immutable principle of the force of the Right taking precedence over the right to the Force. So this moral and legal elementary school textbook of the modern man is the legitimate instrument of the Occident by which the Western values of an universal type are opposed to the Machiavellism of some obsolete political forces, acting in spaces where ideology is fed like opium to a pauper and feudalized population.
In conclusion, irrespective of the angle we may chose to watch on the Syrian Crisis, it calls for an answer, and this one should be synergic and strong bolstered with the moral worth of Justice in the civilized world at the level of the XXIst century.
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The Technological Boom and the War Typology at The Beginning of a New Millennium
January 21st, 2015
By Sebastian Sârbu.
The technologies have been, there are and forever shall be at the hottest very core of the armed confrontation. To some extent they are precisely those which revolutionize the military art itself. The relationship, however is neither univocal nor biunivocal but one with lots of tangled ins and outs. The war theory, the time honored experience in military campaigns, the actual requirements of the fighting space and among all these, the level of the technical offer are coagulated factors which jointly shape up a certain evolution of the military strategy.
The technology boom issue and its impact on the military field, given the current requirements, make up a highly attractive research field, of interdisciplinary nature, dwelling at the very junction point of technical, economical and military sciences.
Beside the economical, scientific and technical potential, the military potential makes today and shall be tomorrow an essential means for reaching the basic political and strategical aims of each state. It is therefore justified the world states’ preoccupation at the onset of the third millennium for the present and the future of their own weapon making industries, for boosting th efficiency factors of the military technologies, for further developing of the basic components of the modern war and the updated of battle engagement systems at tactical, operational and strategical levels.
At the question whether we are facing now a genuine revolution in military matters, that is for the military in a broader sense, the answer could not be but affirmative. Such a revolution has known many cycles and many stages based on the great scientific discoveries and their military implementation, on the brand new highly performance weaponry which in its turn incurred serious mutations in the both concept and the waging of actions of war.
This is why the latest breaking discoveries in weaponry – data acquisition from satellites, infrared beam driving, laser and microwave remote guidance and the Global Positioning System (GPS), the creation and usage of high precision weapons, of the integrated weapon array systems a.s.o. – gave birth to another just out-of-the-box face of belligerence.
The contents of the contemporary military technology revolution may be deduced from the mere relevation of the features which make it specific and from the directions where it evolves. So we may highlight the following major features with direct impact on weaponry:
-all encompassing character (wide scope), since it exerts a major bearing on all weapon categories and warfare means (conventional, nuclear, cosmic, mass destruction, intelligent ammo etc.);
-fast paced development, since within rather short intervals of time, inside the same warfare means family pop up brand new weapon generations with enhanced features (armored cars, jet fighters, helicopters, missiles, air defense guns, high precision search and destroy systems, remote man & alert systems etc.)
-up scaling to cosmic dimension by production of space based weaponry (satellite mounted weapons and anti-satellite, space shuttles) with the purpose of exploiting this space, mainly from the military vantage point.
At the same time one may identify also the actions vectors within the contemporary military technology revolutions:
-the considerable expansion of the destructive effects of the weapons and warfare means by the effective usage of all the sources available: nuclear, thermonuclear, light and chemical;
-upscale the performances of the long range ballistic missiles, as the major means of carrying the destructive payload to the intent target, of the warfare radioactive and chemical substances;
-intensive and extensive implementation of the latest breaking discoveries in electronics, micro, nano electronics and lasers to the purpose of enhance technical – tactical indicators of the warfare means;
-upgrading of the technical – tactical indicators of the “intelligent weapons” (quite remarkable results were scored with: all kinds of missiles, jet fighter borne missiles, torpedos, anti tank mines, artillery shells, remote controlled jet fighters, drones etc. ) in order to be able to carry out warfare op missions of increasing complexity;
-intensification of preoccupations to build radiation-based warfare means and microwaves-based weapons with worsened destructive effects on personnel and warfare machines;
-intensification of research in the artificial intelligence field for larger scale sharing of expert-system usage (informatics experts-the most important artificial intelligence products) and robotics implementation in the military field;
-using the bio-technologies as warfare means which allegedly could eventually scale up to a genuine “genetic warfare”.
The revolution in weaponry is a certain. In just a couple of years only, a giant leap was made regarding the shape and effect of the hits, from massive to precision, from uncertainty to certitude, due to the latest breaking, highly performance technologies in the fields such as intelligence, research, pattern-recognition and hit.
The mutations occurred within the society call for a true revolution in approaching military concepts, a revolution capable to sync up and gear to the new economical and technological functions. Science and communication shall be the main engines of the XXIth century. Intelligent tools make intelligent weapons. No prove out best the actual modus operandi the Desert Storm warfare operation was run in the Persian Gulf which may be termed as a “warfare of mind (spirit) against matter”.
Actually in the confrontation in the Persian Gulf – as Newt Gingrich put it – “the world witnessed for the first time a warfare between military systems from the Third Wave and a Second Wave machine”. The “Desert Storm” operation mainly consisted in Iraqis annihilation by Americans and their allies, mostly due to to the fact that the Third Wave systems merely proved overwhelming. While the highly sophisticated anti aircraft artillery, belonging to the Second Wave, were no match in the confrontation with the stealth jet fighters from the Third Wave.
The armies in the Second Wave’s trenches were merely run over and steamrolled by the aiming and logistic systems sprung off the Third Wave” The entire deployment of the warfare was utterly upturned.
The war, the way of conducting the fight in such a conflict – in terms of economy, geopolitics and ethics – shall have multiple and profound side effects for both armies and their countries worldwide. The way of deploying shall utterly change the very nature of belligerence itself. The military doctrine is about to change, and to change quite radically. Today, “if we listen carefully – as A. Toffler said – no matter whether the terms are being formulated in Chinese or Italian, in French or Russian, the mainstay topics (of the military doctrines that is) remain those of the Air vs. Terrestrial Fight and the Air – Terrestrial Operations”.
In the military ops shall be employed high precision weaponry, able to “surgically destroy” specialized, carefully picked targets with minimal, “collateral damages”. The laser guiding bombs, the long range missiles, the stealth jet fighters “invisible” (anti-radar) etc. are all weapons which, by their capacity to penetrate high threat zones, shall echo the military men’s thought in the contents of the concepts on “deep inside battle”, “forbidden” and the importance of information and the smart weapons. The classical frontline vanished. The battle and the operation shall further deepen everywhere seeping in all dimensions: distance, altitude, time.
The military conflict in future is focused on values, whose content is based on qualitative features, rather than those still quantity based, namely: de-mass; selectivity, “ fine and accurate ”, of the aims and targets; “smart soldiers”; the creativity and the initiative, to be developed at a high degree by both militaries and civilians; compact combat units, weapon systems with more fire power and higher precision; more autonomy for commanding officers at all echelons; system integration; vast electronic infrastructure multi-branch and complex; maneuvering speed etc.
The usage of these values shall turn armies, not into just a machine but in an “wider scale internal feed-back system, communication and self-adjustment tuning”, which is actually “a thinking system of its own”. Also, as we mentioned above, the way of waging the battle, the warfare in itself, shall suffer major significant mutations – whereof a possible other alternate typology thereof.
The type of warfare for which prepare the countries, their armies, the command headquarters, the military everywhere, the cadets and rookies in the military education institutions is not the present war, but the war in the future, more exactly, in the next decade, that is the war of 2010- 2020.
The future warfare is not easy to identify and defined. Because, as it is just a political instrument, the war shall always configure along its own flexible co-ordinates, blending together features of the political and social philosophy with the armed combat laws and principles or from alternative types of confrontation.
It is widely considered that war is deemed as a means of un-block. A strategic situations, but the continuity elements and the discontinuity elements inside the space of confrontation, the appearance and development of the asymmetric components, terrorist, identity and globalization or anti-globalization widens the sphere and its contents, turning it into a dynamic reality, and make it almost indispensable to the planet, the main belligerent actors looming more and more so the Good and the Bad, the Good side of the bad and the Bad side of the good, in an infinite spectrum of conditioned possibilities and probabilities, and not so just in the classical dichotomy framework Yes – No. Throughout the analysis of war or wars in the making for which we are currently preparing – as shape of shapes of a permanent or perpetual warfare situation – one should keep an eye open on the following typology:
a) The classical warfare, to become in the next 10 – 20 years, High Tech Warfare, assuming its already known form, and Net Based War. It is unlikely that the classical war would altogether vanish from the panoply of any armed preparation. Most of the highly developed countries in the NATO (but also those from outside the Alliance) see this war in a rather dynamic, complex mode.
b) The perpetual warfare, as an expression of classical warfare and asymmetric united, with the following flavors:
– the geophysical warfare; information war; psychological warfare;
– the media war; the economic warfare; the cosmic war;
– the „cultural” war; the genetic warfare.
The geophysical warfare consists in a system of actions focused on triggering “natural” phenomena, calamities and catastrophes with adverse effects on the human life, localities, agricultural lands and estates, communication systems, with the purpose of reaching some important goals, counting also the total destruction of the enemy’s potential and resources.
The information war is based on controlling the information vectors.
The psychological warfare, is aimed mainly on discouraging the enemy, on creation of some panic-inducing situations, uncertainty, false perception of the reality.
The media war, currently is the major means of conducting the perpetual warfare and especially the psychological warfare.
Media is displayed as information carried, as a dialogue space, as a tool and means for expressing the truth. The mass media however is more than just that. They are or may be instruments and means of info-manipulation, a terrific weapon the mighty ones may always use, one way or another.
Basically the economic warfare is mere fight for economic survival, for prosperity and dominance.
The cosmic warfare, is an extension of the confrontation theaters and of the means of confrontation across information, media, economic and military ranges.
The „cultural” warfare, does not refer to the clash of values as the misnomer sometime suggests but rather to a clash of interests hooked to the cultural production support.
In a way the genetic warfare, is an asymmetric flavor of the perpetual warfare. Such a war has no strategy nor doctrine to back it. Some aspects related to this are still manifest today, taking the form of biological warfare or the one involving mass destruction weaponry, human DNA cracking, etc. Under expert focus are, under the form sub of some instruments meant to genetically enhance the species, a plethora of methodologies, practices and products obtained by genetic engineering, by cloning.
c) Military actions taken against organized crime entities, drug smuggling and other asymmetric threats.
d) Post conflict military operations.
The warfare type to be assumed and modeled in the military education and the army instruction should be the Net Based War (NBW), which is copying from the society the efficient action mode, as a mere cost effective business like any other business. In other words, what society has learned from the army is fed back today according to some intricate ddeterministicinner working, to the military field.
The nuclear technology, the top tech, the nanotechnology, the information technology all these are to be found today, in-built into high precision weapons, while the projects in store for the years to come are even more ponderous.
In future the warfare would be mainly strategic. This trend of changing the war’s physiognomy began its dynamic grow within the last decade.
Alike the non conventional technologies, the non-conventional warfares should not however replace the classical, conventional, war as we know it. The time honored strategic type both concept and target, is the ,,total war”. Certainly the non-conventional warfare may annihilate the enemy without the classical military means especially in the globalization context. The debate remains open.
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The components of the identity clash and the importance of multiculturalism
January 15th, 2015
By Sebastian Sarbu.
Abstract: In this paper a conceptual analysis is developed, encompassing a rather large scientific range, of the identity clashes and its components and not in the least it is introduced the multiculturalism and its role as a peace-making factor and a solution provider.
The conflicts between identities are hierarchically classified by the time honoured scientific instruments and criteria, commencing from the most serious and legitimate sources in this field.
The scientific approach is built in a systematic multi-disciplinary attempt, meant to identify both the favouring inner causes of the identity clash, and the real context of their ways of making manifest. The particular and axiological elements are supplemented with historical, geopolitical and sociologic landmarks, in their dynamical nature. The independence of the identity clash actuality is therefore tackled from the angle of globalization and democracy-based changing processes in the life of the society, of a new economic geography of the states and the states’ need of security against the grand backdrop of vanishing of the economic walls between nations.
Furthermore, in this paper are introduced the solutions required for stopping the identity clashes and inhibiting their spiralling up dynamics.
The axiological mutations and the ideological extremism are here taken in consideration related to the geopolitical transformations and polarizations of a socioeconomic nature. Also are examined with critical eye the religious extremism phenomena, separatism, nationalism, anarchy and social anomy, regional insecurity.
The multiculturalism, observance of human rights, the development of the democratic institutions, negotiation, social justice, social cohesion, the intercultural / inter-religious dialogue, but also the implementation of the controlled-society inner mechanics, are just a few of the solutions introduced in this paper.
Keywords: identity clash, power relations, intercultural dialogue, inter-ethnic conflict, inter-religious conflict, fundamentalism, extremism, secessionism, globalism, axiology, multiculturalism, disparities, geo-economic zones, regionalism, the new economic geography, the Ricardian vision, NATO, EU, social anarchy, authority, social security, lasting development, polarization, democracy, social control, anomic state.
The globalization process as a transitory phase for mankind, is bearing the marks of sequentially transformations and reforms which generated a series of tensions and some new types of emerging conflicts.
In the past the Napoleonic paradigm prevailed in the worldwide geopolitical scale, as a theoretical tool at least, claiming that ,, space rules the politics”.
Even if this paradigm still works today, it was rather restructured somehow, so that ,,the space” should be claimed and divided from the viewpoint of a new political and economical geography, crafted on the basis of some axiological models (identities) which basically are the ground of a brand new generation of identity conflicts.
The conflicts are theoretical instruments employed by science to quantify some status, commencing from a principle of rights. Taking into account the space of crisis management and conflicts prevention, we shall further use a definition proposed by FEWER/FAST, which claims that there is no crisis without a conflict-prone environment, and that any crisis requires a trigger to blow up. If crises are the acute portions of the conflicts – that is moments when are highly jeopardized fundamental values, calling for instant response and under pressure of the decision making entity – the conflicts remain those situations where two actors at least wish, at the same time, the same thing, which they brawl for subsequently and for whose possession they are more than eager to spend resources and assume risks at any and all levels.
The causes leading to triggering of conflicts according to the Stanislawski model are based (theoretically) on character items of the value and hierarchy attributes of some actor (or group), i.e.: Power, Resource, Prestige. The advantage of this model consists in the inter-changeability characteristic of the three itemized elements mentioned above. Within the space of conflicts and the contesting elements between the two actors, the power shall be replaced by authority, as a coming-back to the charismatic power, and the prestige, as status, in correlation with authority and elements of identity.
From the perspective individual features – relational effects ratio, we have therefore, a sub-tier classification of the conflict grounds:
– conflicts of assignment / property, those focused on resources, where the dispute is purely relational and is consumed on just one element incurring its exclusive ownership, that is the disjunctive sharing model: simply, that thing is divided, after conflict, in the part of one side and the part of the other side, with nothing much else substantially left at the intersection of the two properties (albeit there still remains non shared portions in the process aftermath).
– conflicts of authority / power, when the two actors are wrestling to gain more authority on some space / community. This time, however, both sides are trying to maximize their own authority and to minimize the opponent’s authority, without having to do here with a constant sum, a quantified amount of authority, so that a raising of the authority of one side does not lead implicitly to a lower degree of authority of the other side.
– conflicts of status – in this case, the conflict resides in the acknowledgement by the other one of some status, of some position in a hierarchy, of some importance associated to some status. In this case, the essential characteristic, the feature in the dispute is related mostly to the actor’s own efforts, but it calls a erga omnes validation as such and – necessarily to become an actual conflict – the validation of the second actor.
Into a third category falls the origin of the deepest conflicts, due especially to the symbolic payload from the class of values, from the groups’ attributes and interests. In this case, we deal with a taxonomy of features depending on the symbolic value under debate, on a scale starting from the most basic, primary existence up to elements exclusively related to hierarchy or power relations. On this scale, the fiercest conflicts are found in the lower section of the scale, there where the very group’s existence, its identity, are involved, the very legitimacy of its existence or its targets’ inner reasons, of the claims and the prestige, the charismatic power an hierarchy type attribute, set erga omnes and which generates – besides interests – the capability of summoning from a political viewpoint, the outer support to reinforce the position engaged in conflict.
Therefore, this way the identity clashes are conflicts the very identity of some actor is being debated into discussion. There are two fundamental types: extern, where the two actors are hassling over identity recognition but also of the legitimacy of one of them or they make potential or actual moves for changing the counterpart’s own identity, of the tradition as symbolic and institutional value of national / communitary type sub-mining the social order deemed as base plate of the entire hierarchy waging the axiological war – identity-focused and ideological war as well, and internally, when the components of the community in discussion claims parallel identities, very often prefabricated. When these contesting identities gain a basic political pitch, the identity clashes get polarized, the ,,cultural” – symbolic factor putting itself under the political force command as an organisational and glue-together factor for these groups, communities respectively. The identity clashes typology is comprised of: inter-ethnic, inter-religious, inter-cultural conflicts.
The geographical boundaries no longer may be set in this new age only observing geostrategic criteria (i.e. the ex-Soviet space, the German space), economics (the high – tech boom space, the energy resources space / raw material space), interests – strategic interest space – and the security and defense hot situations (South-East Europe space, the Baltic Countries , the states from ,,VÎSEGRAD”, the ,, VILNIUS-10” states). Starting with the major events by the end of the XXth century the political-administrative geography of Europe has changed with major implications both present and future.
As seen from the strategic angle the space is no longer representing today just a mere geographic acreage. Space had and still has a symbolic and political payload spiced with identity– axiological extra features, involving the status, the authority and the legitimacy of the political systems which are driving the states. The national interests were defined, in the globalization frame, as being mere regional interests.
In this context, the identity clashes occurred indirectly and as a follow-up of the new wave in democracy and Euroatlantic push, as a form of kickback from the power centres that wished to maintain the status – quo. On the other hand the states’ national role lost face in favour of the supra-statal groups (corporations), and of the sub-statal group (minorities). Whereas the supra-statal groups represent the economy-prevails-politics aspect, recte the liberal oligarchy, the sub-statal groups involve a trend to regionalization, communitarism, self-organizing, both aspects configured as factual evidence by-products of the globalization process.
The globalization of culture, of information generates most serious identity shifts, concomitantly with large drifts of social, economic or just purely identity emancipation, bolstered with a strong liberal streak. All these transformations were beneficial, but involved an asymmetric evolving dimension and a blossoming of secessionist trends, of non-legitimate entities of terroristic type or those having a subversive nature, which manifested in the life of the society as retrograde forces, extremist, anti-democratic or fuelled by ură ethnic-religious hatred and regional / sub-regional separatism. They flourished using to their profit the constitutional liberties leverage, but also speculating the institutional gaps in order to wage terror and anarchy.
An important role in maintaining the peace and social cohesion is played by multiculturalism. This is the expression of aculturalism, and also of the intercultural and inter-religious dialogue, of respecting the right of anyone to confess and practice any religion whatsoever by promoting a non-discriminatory politics. The religious beliefs may take political shapes both defensive and offensive, and when they develop amidst an anarchic social background, based on the ethnic component, communitary, hierarchic organization, authoritarian manifest as an extremist highly aggressive force.
The military and economic potential of the fundamentalist religious entities – generators of identity clashes, even full scale identity wars, originates in the moneylaundry and illegal cash transfers, organized crime, vacuumed power, institutional and security crisis, political corruption, insecurity and social / regional anarchy, the dissolution of the state authority, the volatility of the political milieu.
The components of the identity clash are: the ethnic-religious component, the socio-cultural component, the ideological -political component and the geopolitical component.
As an example the South Eastern Europe was set and re-known as traditionally space of religious and ethnic – cultural interferences. This is where blend in the religious and ethnic – cultural wide pools, Central and Eastern Europe specific, but also the pools from Near East and the Middle East.
Taking into account the vigorous religious and ethnic – cultural identity, but also due to the major drives of these socio-cultural factors, required to define the interstate relationships, an emerging European policy loomed ahead to stabilize the area’s zones and to implement of the democratic culture and norms as basic bricks of the modern society, based on the progress as concept and peaceful cohabitation in a safe and tranquil environment.
So the laicization of the statal institutions, the functionality of the state of based-on-rights state, the market economy, the respect for civil rights and liberties, legal coverage of the fundamental human rights, the protection of minorities, crisis management, support the free thinking and conscience, the development of the democratic institutions, represented the geopolitical side of the reforms and transformations based on states’ partnership to the Council of Europe, OSCE and PfP, which was marred by the resurrection of the ethnic-religious fundamentalisms, of the ethnic-cultural tensions and local conflicts.
Among the causes of the identity clashes of ethnic – religious type one may enlist: unbalanced ratios between ethnic-religious majority and minority by imposing of a minority ruling local administration; territorial skirmishes; hampering of local and regional development; artificial building of some statal or administrative-territorial and autonomous entities based on minority’s self-establishment based on ethnic-religious criteria, statal and interstatal separatist trends with territorial delimitations observing pseudo-religious criteria and purely ideological or political, hacking off the religious assets by way of inter/intra-patriarchal quarrels, arguments boiling within the laic state and inside the fundamentalist entities / structures.
The crash of Communism in the industrial societies in Europe and Central Asia favoured the religious moves revival. The Pan Arabian Move is currently reactivated and is generating the phenomenon generically known as ,,The Islamic Boom”. A boom whose expansionist targets focused on the Central and Eastern Europe, are as follows: controlling the main routes, commercial roads and centres between Europe and Asia, the planetary Ocean, Africa; the domination of an European space of strategic relevance; building up of a Muslim axis in South Eastern Europe, linked to the centre of Asia, the Middle East, the Near East and North Africa; deploying some military conflicts of a nature to engage the clash of the civilizations.
While in the ex-Yugoslavia, as anywhere within the Balkan space the nationalism acted as an obstacle for the NATO and EU rampant, the mentality of the federal identity went to its apex in the ex-Soviet space with identity conflicts of ethnic nature and former rivalries over some territories and sub-regions inhabited by various ethnics of the states just turned loose of the ex-USSR which severely resented the identity clash which behaved like a true major, ethnic component, still paying tribute to the old Soviet ways to purify and desnationalise.
The Nationalism, as cultural and axiological system, one of the sources of the identity clashes, is replaced with the religious beliefs system, energized by proselytism and expansion, as a reaction to the man’s identity crisis. This thing is visible in Mohammedan states, but it’s notorious the fact that the development of some religious fundamentalist – extremist groups is based on sectarian principles and political motivations and aims, respectively.
In this space of the identity clashes, we witness today a recrudescence of the battle between the ex-Soviet elite and the national elite of the newly emerged states.
The themes and topics on identity clashes are complex as they are influenced by other factors no less important. So the geostrategic findings on identity reflects the dynamic evolution from one system of values to another one which should not be regarded separately or in parallel against the prominent political structures and forces, but rather in an inter-dependency relationship.
It is essential to note that the identity clashes dynamics projected across the strategic interest space depends in its evolution on the manner the following favourable causes should be taken into account:
– a lack of political, economical, religious and ethnic-cultural homogeneity, which calls for programs and strategies of long lasting specific development by an effective valorification of the local and regional resources;
– the regional and power unbalances require collective and harmonizing solutions, establishing the European, zone, and regional institutional responsibilities, for a statal and supra-statal management with the purpose of regional development.
One single regional or even global actor cannot effectively to handle the entire array of topics and aspects and mostly it could not stand the political -economical – military pressures and interests swarming outside the reference zone.
– reducing the development offset between regions, securing the access to education, implementation of policies concerning human rights and the norms of the civic culture in community, concomitant with the promotion of cohesion and social mobilization, the reconstruction of the communitary spirit, legal protection of the fundamental rights, represent as many instruments in the hands of the decision makers to be construed as programmatic and inter-dependent efforts for prevention of identity clashes with social, political and general implications.
– the lack of true reforms, of the local administrative capabilities, of the a development of civil society and its involvement in projects and programs on implementation of formal/non formal dialogue, of tolerance and inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue, the failure to secure the rights for minorities and encouraging of secessionist trends or the development of some forms of economic autonomy, based on the ethnic criterion as a result of the lowering the degree of statal involvement in fair processes of tightly woven development of the society and resource fair-share.
Special Features of the Identity Clashes. The geo-economic component and sociologic aspects – in the context of globalization and the EU dynamics.
It is unanimously accepted for a fact that in the member states of the European Union there is a heterogeneity status, both where the economic-social development is concerned , and with regard to their respective political approaches. So much for the integration belongs as well to what was about to exceed the Ricardian vision on the world’s economy. However, one may find that the Ricardian model applies without distinctions between nations which forms an out of the borders commercial flow, be it just a simple international trading exchange, or else if one proceeds to a customs office union, as lower phase of the economic integration.
The integration may mean less some international assembly, but rather a regional process instead, which, since the structural and regional development political instrument is missing, there is some risk of uneven developments and further disintegration, so that the European Union as a power centre shall act like a macro-economy where the component regions shall be heterogenic, the unique market and the competition, declared as its main objectives, shall crash into the modern economy of today, their perfect opposite, in fact – the mixed economy, of the authoritarian interventionism.
From this viewpoint were projected and are still projecting various development models, and the solutions cannot be but global, based on co-ordination and co-operation, the autarchic trends being utterly unrealistic and inefficient.
According to some researches done by experts in their fields, the EU expansion bound to the Central Eastern Europe countries incurs a hightening of regional disparities, with implications on cohesive policies at both European and regional levels. That’s why a series of specialists propose an evaluation of the new theories such as: the new theory on commerce, the new economical geography, the foreign direct investment theory.
Factors, such as technologies, salaries and the proximity to the industrial centres in the regions with geostrategic importance and the EU markets, contribute to an explanation of the economic geography in the new member states. Some surveys reveal the fact that the markets integration multiplied the divergent forces, therefore leading to heightening or regional disparities in Hungary, for instance. The same surveys highlight the fact that the process of internationalization and structural change is expected to favour the metropolitan zones and the Westward regions, as well the regions having a strong industrial base or the countries closed to the East-West border.
In the context of economic integration getting in the thick, as a perpetual process, a territorial re-arrangement process is taking place, where the role of the obsolete national borders grow dimmer. The phenomenon and the process was concept-cast as ‘border spiritualization.’ So the complexity of the Euroatlantic international relationships, Euro-American, Euro-Asian and European, the politic-economic inter-dependence of the states, zones and regions become, inside the globalization frame, an irreversible process.
The displacement of the production means is resented especially where they are leaving, yet even the destination of this drift inside the EU is getting ,,the new economic geography model”- region of the industrial cluster union, in opposition to the other regions, pushed on to the ,,periphery”, being manifest at work centripetal forces and those centrifuge – from the negative competition. However, this geo-economic context should not be ideology-clad. The world polarization is real, and the risk it should generate identity conflicts on the background of the its clad-in-ideology, is real, this having a known precedent in history.
The traditional division,, poor / rich ”, be it generations or social classes, against a rather tight-doctrine backdrop, has borne for a while, a Marxist and Catholic dimension, widely spread and propagated by both statal forces and the sectarian entities of even the criminal organizations which ideologically care exploited the social-economic status of unfavoured categories. The economically ,,resurrected” societies, are based on pragmatism, while those underdeveloped, pauperized are far too much addicted to ideology, without solutions though, nor some degree of social cohesion and mobilization.
The trend to progressively elimination of the economic barriers between states heightens the need for security, in the context of discouragement of the identity clashes, the external threats being coupled with internal depreciative and worsening factors, stimulated by strategic political mistakes, institutional and social instability.
The new political-economic realities throughout South-Eastern Europe enforce the following directions of action: long lasting development, economic and energetic security, the development of the border zone infrastructure, the continuity of the economic reforms, both institutional and structural, fighting the organized crime, decentralization the resources at the centre, locally, the valorification of the intellectual capital, the stimulation of the private initiative, provide social security and not in the last place the building up of the facilities and institutions with innovative character, by valorification of the human and technological wealth.
From the geopolitical viewpoint, the European security and co-operation is under menace of global threats of external type, competition and confrontation between the geo-economic zones being some of them, however one should not underestimate the domestic danger factor, the reactivation of extremist ideological forces which incur axiological mutations and power games with long term strategic impact.
The change of civilization status obliges us at conceptual level, to operate from a multi-dimensional perspective.
The necessity to lay foundation for a new strategy for reaching a global security derives from the theoretical and practical hypothesis of energizing the inter-dependences, interactions and implicitly of the ever increasing of the asymmetrical threats, risk factors at the world level and of the identity clashes across the global anomic state background, in the context of global transition.
The mankind crosses a historical individualization process, the perfect reverse of uniformization, from which the institutions were born.
The institutions and the static concepts are made obsolete in front of the brand new life mode, highly energetic, increasingly individualized and under the global trends of administrative decentralization, social – economic self-administration by way of creation of some autonomous communities based on promotion of network-type structures, multi-mesh, anti-authoritarian, anti-hierarchic and polycentric in some special cases.
The concepts of this type which push to re-shape the world the way we know it, originate in a libertarian vintage and were amended at the time of their heydays by the Reagan Administration (1984).
At the same time, the sociologists insist on the ‘worldwide turbulence’ concept or ‘anomic status’ when they mean global anarchy.
In other words, the denial-of-AUTHORITY phenomenon, denial of any kind of order and heteronomous connections, slowly looms ahead up to an objective reality, and this would rather become a historical-conceptual base for claiming of the driving forces at the roots of generation of the new identity clashes, the axiological and behaviour action code in global space.
Globalization, however is challenging our judgment with two main aspects: social autonomy and losing the executive decision making control, from those institutions labelled as „obsolete paradigm” on individuals and mostly on sub-statal, subversive, interest-based groups, which may lead to up-grow of some erratic power centres, autarchic, ready to fuel both the local egoisms and global plutocracies, the supra-statal entities, and to change the democratic balances, and therefore jeopardizing the regional security, and inter-regional, respectively.
The insecurity sources may be multiple, since the global togetherness accomplished by way of pluralist forms of co-operation commencing from the integrative component of economic togetherness, social and international politics, being rather machinistic and arbitrary would lead rather not to gradual cultural, psychological , social, political and moral-religious dissolution, cleavage and fragmenting, but on the contrary, to their reinforcement.
This is why the security awareness culture, the multiculturalism, the intercultural dialogue, negotiation, the bolstering of the control mechanisms, communication and of social justice inner workings, and also the defensive discouragement, may lead to hedging of the identity clashes. It should be understood that a democratic society does not exclude the control, as the social control is a juridical sociology concept, pointing at the same time the passage from the state’s purely political control to the Control’s Society.
Far from being a failure, the multiculturalism knows a profound and remarkable revival from a non formal viewpoint.
The transfer of the state’s executive authority from the unique, central level to the micro-societal local level may generate risks for the social and statal security of each national entity, especially because any potential source is exploited by a rampant, fiercely competing power, the potential relative offsets being readily speculated and capitalized across all the interested segments by the special interests groups and entities.
All these facts lead to a mistaken re-share of power, the administrative capacity not being reinforced, but on the contrary, disintegrated by autarchic, anarchic or centrifugal factors and, mostly, especially and mainly in those zones where operate groups led by oligarchic rules, which parasite on the social system.
The sociologists are somewhat right regarding the global anomic status (‘worldwide turbulence’), under the conditions of society polarization, of popping up of new identity groups, new political values, social and cultural, which clash and engage themselves in opposition with the traditional values of the ,,old” world.
All these aspects actually show in fact a change of the civilization status, implicitly of the social-historical landmarks’ parameters.
The anomic status urges the achievement of the political and historical must: from CHAOS to ORDER.
The anarchy which signifies a state of deny-of-law, is the result of autonomy degeneration which represents the Law an individual or an organized community of people issue to themselves by their own free will.
Today mankind is in transit from heteronomy, that is from the Law in-coming from outside to autonomy, as a natural follow-up of the globalization process, of late-breaking thought values and of the historical process of individualization en-route we have mentioned above.
The road to new conflicts
The identity clashes scored the history of the last 10-20 years with popping up of several conflicts (even armed ones) – of an inter-ethnic, separatist nature but also some new types of identity clashes, came in the package with the progressive deepening of the differences between neighbours and the rebuke of compatibility-tuning process at the newly hatched NATO frontier.
As to the global situation the following solutions for further prevention and eradication of the identity clashes are mandatory: the pursuance of inter-statal and inter-religious dialogue, the preservation of the multiculturalism and the identity of each nation as it is, the long lasting development, financing the building of new democratic institutions, the bolstering and enhancement of the administrative power’s efficiency, removing the legal and power vacuum, the creation of social control mechanisms, the proactive fight against corruption and the global/regional anomy, the creation of area security complex on a partnership based on inter/intra-regional (statal) dialogue and co-operation, on full observance of both majority and minority rights and liberties bereft of any positive or negative discrimination whatsoever and not at last the promotion of the security awareness culture.
Also it is required to further keep using legal, military and economic enforcement for keeping at bay the stray groups which threat the regional and global security.
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The strategic reconfiguration of the power poles
January 11th, 2015
By Sebastian Sarbu.
Abstract. Starting from approaching the aspects of globalism, technological, economical and cultural progress of the contemporary world, the paper focuses on the reconfiguration of the strategic interests of the power hot spots (or power poles), the latest breaking brand new emergent power poles, the dogfight for supremacy in the political initiative issue, on the strategic dominance from both economic and technologic angles.
The geopolitical approaches and the security and defense mainstay concepts are introduced from the specific standpoint of each school of strategy in both European and Asian space.
The asymmetric menaces on security and the development of the states, the clash for resources as seen in the context of the world wide raging crisis today, the budding of new power spots in the making, gauged against the global framework, lead to extra boosting the head-on confrontation and competition among the mighty powers of the world, to reshaping accordigly their strategic stands but also to a post-globalization updated world order.
Keywords: globalism, strategic reconfiguration, multi-polar world, strategic partnership, Rimland, strategies, resources, power hotspots, new world order.
The world at large, with its huge progress in technology, civilization, culture, information and economics, is ground and torn apart by mighty contradictions, strong challenges, much too obvious discrepancies, where the various hues in progress and of protest against the very side effects of this very progressive trend are vectors which, as they move away, do tighten the string raising the stress level, the crisis spots and the overall conflict status.
In these conditions, a complicated brawl is currently under way on redraw the power poles, to gain and maintain both political and strategic “upper hand” , on these grounds and also on the top notch nanotechnology, of the strategic dominant load. Today are widely used the so called strategic partnerships, which develop themselves in a new formula of blending the interests and prevent the major conflicts between the leading players, between the nuclei around which coagulate or re-coagulate the major power poles: the United States of America, Germany, The European Union, Russia, China, Japan, India, the Arab World.
The strategies these nuclei use are highly similar, since their policies are alike – at least where the wish, the will power and the ability are concerned and put to work joining the best efforts to a proper, strategic reconfiguration of the entire world as we know it – a thing which leads, in some way to the creation and maintaining of a safe environment where mass destruction weapons are tightly checked and high intensity conflicts and wars are forestalled.
The American School of Strategy# – which basically is, global as scope, thorough, experiment-based and pragmatic – highlights the staggering complexity of war as phenomenon, studies the low, medium and high intensity wars and, in the wake of the dramatic event experienced on September 11, 2001, is introducing a brand new political and strategic concept – the war against terrorism – which is, both in its underlying philosophy, and in its theoretical and pragmatic setup – a new type of confrontation and root of the fundamental concept of the XXIst century – the perpetual war.
The German School of Strategy# sticks to its European tradition and, of course, its German vintage.
After Mid Europe recasting in a new mold, Germany still maintains a classic stand on defence and security, based on nation’s own responsibility and a proper readiness status. This concept “perpetual war”, not to be found explicitly in the German doctrine, is spectacularly manifested in Germany’s own policy and strategy (and even mostly so, in Germany’s economy). At the same time, albeit it is not quite aligned to the globalisation process, Germany proactively is promoting a pan-European policy, coaching, as the Europe Union’s main engine (but as a leading economic and military power as well) a strategic partnership with Russia, which so re-fuels the Mackinder’s fears way back in 1904-1943, about a huge Eurasian power pole in the making, having as its nuclei Germany and Russia.
The EU strategy emerging from both the joint European security policy and joint European security and defense policy (PECSA), rather is not focused entirely on the perpetual war, but just on some of its features only, especially those generating actions and missions type Petersberg, addressing counterstrikes against terrorism issues, fighting against drug lines and organized criminality, doing humanitarian deeds, actions such as those triggered by natural calamitis and catastrophes or in some civil and military emergencies. The priority with the EU strategists is represented, in a first stage, by the completion of all the necessary prerequisites aimed to establish the de facto continental unity, solving the economical, political, social, ethnical problems, managing the crises and conflicts the type of those which already occurred and still are developing within the ex-Yugoslavian space and in other hot spots also.
On the other hand the Russian Strategy School did not relinquish and shall never relinquish its major force field lines, resulting from the very Russia’s own character of grand Eurasian power and from the specific data and resources of its territory. Russia is the largest country in the world, it is the repository of huge amounts of ores and natural reserves and has at its command a tremendously powerful, material, human, cultural and military potential. Russia has its own special projection where the war strategy is concerned, emerging straight from the sheer immensity of its space, form long time experience, from its own geostrategic location and, obviously, from the role it assumes and plays in building and shaping #of the new world order, in re-configuration of the power poles.
The Chinese Strategy School, emerging from antiquity, from Sun Tzu, surfaced with a unique dynamics not known before, especially where the potential strategies are concerned. China wishes for itself to be perceived as a regional power, with a decisive role in the configuration of a stable secure environment in the East and the Pacific, a vantage position allowing to prevent the acts of war, the proper management of its own proprietary space, the settling the Taiwan based issues and in the economic development. China is a highly stable country and, at the same time, a mighty power on both the heartland#, and rimland#, a focal point of civilization, an ancient culture, playing an important role in the shaping out the global security strategic environment (but different in nature from the US, the European Union and the Russian roles).
The Japanese School of Strategy, albeit emerging from about the same area and the same civilization as the Chinese is not based on the same principles however. Since they are lacking natural resources the Japanese developed a strategy with efficiency and perseverance, ambush and wait and at its core. After the World War II, Japan did not let itself deterred and overwhelmed by the effect of the two nuclear strikes over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but moved on to building up of some strategies which, basically, do not differ much from those applied in times of war. Only they were transferred/translated in the field of electronics and the nanotechnology, that is the potential strategies.
The development and implementation of these potential strategies seem contradictory against the actual resources, however the Japanese solved this paradox by another paradox: from what you don’t have build a power factor and from what you do have build a generation and sustaining factor for that power.
The Indian School of Strategy# actually is paying tribute to the great Indian culture, influenced by the diversity of this ancient civilization, and also internally driven by the urge and will power of India to make itself a power pole on the rimland, mostly in South East Asia. In this regard the Indian School of Strategy is promoting a series of principles heavily influenced by the Indian culture’s own ways, habits and values and , equally so, by the modern military trends, theories and practices, mostly British and American.
The Arabic School of Strategy is not unitary neither, flexible nor compromise prone. It is based on a contradictory concept, sometimes odd enough, other times a keeper of great values.
The onset of the third millennium anticipates massive changes in the historical development of the great powers of the world. The geopolitical events during the last decade stand proof that the directions and development trends of the new world order were henceforth set and trumpeted. Out of a split country, Germany re-united, turning itself as the economic “engine” of the Europe. The ex-Russian empire shred to pieces, and its inheritor, the Russian Federation, was “degraded” from the superpower rank to ‘big power’ only.
Out of a buttress of the hard and pure communism, China emerged like a socialist – capitalist breed of a country, while the main European players, such as the Great Britain, France and Germany struggle to find a new shape for the European New Order, as a counterpart to the Eurasian space. After an economic recess Japan comes back in full force, struggling based on the capacities it has developed to date to impose itself as a large military power also. As of the United States of America, reaping the vantage points scored under a both functional and pragmatic democrat system, driven by a high performing and efficient economy, bolstered by quite impressive financial and military funds, with no matching competition looming ahead, took the pole position as the only actual superpower – or megapower – term coined by some outstanding analysts and politologs.
The current trends apparent in the surfacing and acknowledgment of the new power poles just make the direct consequences of the events (or ‘situations’) occurred within the secured environment.
The sequence of events in the aftermath of the ’90 highlighted that no other power in the world, be it even a nuclear power, could take no large scale political- economic or military initiatives without the prior agreement and sometimes US assistance. Today, the US detain a prominent position in the world, and the economic and security crisis trigger extra boost in the defense policy and re-configure the US strategic interests world wide.
The Gulf War and the military actions in ex Yugoslavia and Afghanistan statistically proved that US payload in these operations exceeds 80% while the employed technology, weapons and logistics represented military capacities so sophisticated and expensive that the other allies simply cannot afford just yet. Beyond the rivalries prone to menace its safety and the world’s Washington D.C. does not aim to enforce its vision on this topic. The United States of America are the one and only power “capable to intervene anytime anywhere it so wishes to, at all times when its interests are affected”. The joint internationalism doctrine, issued during the US president George Bush ticket, acknowledges the right of the US to intervene in any state which violates the democracy, the human rights and the principles of civil rights.
In order to fulfil its strategic aims, the USA proactively seek to further reinforce the bridge foot as set in a united Europe, by an authentic transatlantic partnership, so that this Europe, in due course of expansion, to be able to become a better and more viable jumping board to project throughout the Eurasia the new world order. The relatively recent “robust” extension of the NATO, from the Baltic Sea through the Black Sea flags the US concern to control the edge area or the Eurasia’s “maritime border”, starting with Finland and the Scandinavian countries, goes down to Poland, Romania, Turkey and Georgia, embracing the Near East and India zones and closing up with the Mongolia, China and Japan territories. The Eurasia’s maritime border, or as the theoreticians called it “Rimland”, represents today the very essence of the global power. The one who rules the Rimland rules the Eurasia, and the one who rules Eurasia holds in his hands the destiny of the entire world.
Although it is obvious that no other country on the globe could not claim yet any responsibility for division of power and responsibilities with the US, the contest for control and the management bearing highly significant geopolitical and geostrategic connotations, and mostly the Euroasiatic space, is getting momentum and currently gets more fierce and acute.
Across the globe coalitions are being drawn up with the purpose of forestalling the US from ruling supreme. Highly relevant in this line are the alliance of China and Russia, and the increasingly obvious wish for independence of the Europe which, mostly France and Germany, turn less and less an ally configured now more like a competitor against the general backdrop of the spectacular congestion of the anti-globalization movement.
Against this background of USA dominant and prominent might, during the next decade the European Union looming now shall emerge with enhanced resolution, as a political, economic, cultural and even military main driver, as a stability and progress factor able to promote its own options and interests.
Even if among its initial targets set out at the time of EU creation was listed the point of turning the continent into a military superpower able to talk from peer to peer with the US, to be able to manage both its own crisis and the hotspots in the neighbourhood, to involve itself and have a say in the world politics, however, not even one of the member countries was eager, at least just yet, to bolster the amounts due to the military budget, which would be required to hit that target. This thing incurs as a consequence enlarging the gap between the proprietary military capacities against the US military assets and a due delay on hitting that particular mark as proposed, for a while.
The drift to a multipolar world would last for a long time, and the international community shall experience, probably, a deep set reconfiguration, where the global and regional integration shall coexist next to the contradictory trend of the world fragmentation and hierarchy-based constructs. While the globalism makes almost improbable a war among the major powers, the amplification of the asymmetric risks such as the terrorism, organized crime and the proliferation of the mass destruction weapons increasingly often generate conflict prone issues.
However it is still not ruled out a possible linear East-West confrontation focused on the restructuring the globalism and the creation of a post globalisation world scheme, entirely based on other new structures and values tuned and updated to the shifts, to the third millennium requirements respectively. Due to the condition of rapidly depletion of the natural resources, simultaneously with the aggressive demographic boom, the battle for the strategic resources was left the most mainstay reason for sparking conflicts.
The fight for these shall grow fierce, and the countries regrouping, sub-tiered depending on their own interests around the newly emerged power poles shall develop more clearly so. Probably we’ll be eye witnesses to the rise and building the pressure in these centres with the purpose of capturing in their sphere of influence of as many countries as possible in order to jostle for a best vantage position in the new world order scale.This configuration shall be tailored by interests, by the capacity of knowledge, by the amount and quality of the data, by the technological power and the access to the resources. It is also possible to witness the structural modifications in some states, due to multiple causes such as economic, demographic, religious, but also due to the general trend of keying down the national leading role of the states, to the asymmetric menaces against their security and development.
Among the prominent power vectors already emerged and clearly configured, the USA and the EU on one side, China and Japan on the other side, to which increasingly obvious Russia shall join, competition and confrontation relationships shall develop, while the crystallisation of the possible new power poles is under way: the United States of the Europe and the Far Asia.
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