It is a relatively small planet and together we have reached a reasonably high level of technical achievement and efficiency.
The coverage of higher levels of life sustainability remains patchy of course and in many rain poor areas this is unlikely to change radically even with the best will in the world. In these areas of resource poverty we certainly find negative behaviors being generated in the fight for survival though the conflicts do tend to stay local.
The most prominent problem continent is Africa with Latin America following a close second. India, which might be expected to generate similar phenomena appears largely exempt except in times of an internal flare up of tension between the Hindu and Muslim populations.
In terms of nation against nation conflicts that between India and Pakistan is one of the most prominent. Perhaps the most prominent of all however are the multiple stresses within the Middle East where religious facts also feature highly. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been adversaries for many years with the Sunni Muslims are in conflict with Shi’ite Muslims. Israel with its Jewish majority is aligned with Saudi Arabia while the Alawite minority in power in Syria sides with Iran. These fracture lines create a constant tension which underlies daily acts of aggression by one side or another by either word or deed.
The Middle East is the epicenter of mutual discord where violence is never far from the surface. The lack of any lasting stability and the wide distances between the various powers involved make for a powder keg situation that looks impossible to make safe. Greater powers on the fringes of the region such as Turkey and Russia, and some farther flung such as the USA lend their input with variable results. The USA is engaged in a covert war against Syria because Syria is aligned with Iran. Russia assists Syria against its internal dissident forces and the proxies of the USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other regional states along with combatants from a wide variety of other nations.
While the Middle East remains an intractable problem there is an overarching conflict of interests that lies above and beyond it but which also intermittently and tangentially plays a part within it.
The USA is endeavoring to assert (or it could be said to reassert) its status as the world’s preeminent superpower. It has a historical claim predating any recent events to this title in coordination with others such as the UK and much of Europe, but its desire to maintain, bolster and renew this status in recent years stems from the most grievous wound it ever received as a nation state, that which occurred on September 11th 2001.
While the U.S. poured resources and energy into the surge of internal and external response to 9/11 in an attempt to heal and protect itself by closing down all possible dangers to it, it arrived in an era that was already several decades old where significant other nations were fast rising in terms of economic, technological power and the extent of their diplomatic reach and influence.
The goal of the USA post-9/11 was to make the world safe for America. To do this required neutralizing all threats and eliminating them if at all possible. This was to be done using myriad means with both soft and hard power. Initially there was a perceived need to demonstrate strength through a hard power alone. This began to be phased out after the expenditure of much blood and treasure with dubious and arguably extremely counterproductive results. Increasingly, U.S. soft power has taken over from hard with an ever-growing use of technology, a strategy of instigating disruptive covert forces within targets alongside an almost comprehensive ability to deliver media manipulation internally and among its allies.
The creation of an almost watertight media environment where governmental narratives on foreign policy issues are reflected without significant deviation has become the foundation on which to allay home fears among the majority population. This allows the manipulations externally to be carried out without fear of any internal backlash.
The Middle East is producing the most obvious heated exchanges both verbal and physical. This is where the most volcanic eruptions are likely to take place in future as they have done in the past. Current hot spots are Yemen where the Saudis, aided by western nations are fighting a proxy war against Iran. The Israelis are never far from mounting violent attacks on Palestinian targets and within Syria the innumerable forces in operation constantly vie for power in a great many localities where an expansion of hostilities could occur at any time.
The overarching ambitions of the USA and its allies are expressed meanwhile in lesser terms, the most significant fracture point where violence is seen on a daily basis is in eastern Ukraine where the USA is in a proxy war with the Russian Federation. This is the location of a hot war in Europe seldom reported these days but a highly significant source of both tension and bloodshed. The conflict over Crimea is also heating up with the Ukrainian regime attempting to deny the people there water. They have dammed the source of 85% of the water the people on Crimea need to survive in an act of potential genocide.
In eastern Ukraine and Crimea then we have another seemingly intractable conflict but this time not in the far flung Middle east but within Europe. This conflict has the potential to generate a wider war reflecting a crucial aspect of the overarching conflict between the USA and one of those it considers an obstacle to its post-9/11 goals, Russia.
Then we come to the most significant conflict which resides at the highest level of all in terms of having the largest global effect, that between the USA and China. All else pales into insignificance compared to this battle of the world’s two most economically powerful behemoths. This is the battleground where the ultimate fate of the entire world is being fought. It is being fought using economic weapons... and will be a fight to the death.
The elites of the USA see themselves as being in a condition of waging a war to maintain the existence of the values they hold most dear and to protect, and expand if at all possible, its national interests and that of its allies. They perceive China as an existential threat to these values and interests. Rather than find any cooperative arrangement whereby a balance could be achieved in solely economic terms U.S. elites feel they are justified in acting aggressively due to the very different economic rules by which China is governed. The conflict can be likened to the gladiatorial fights seen in Rome’s coliseum in ancient days when two gladiators were given very different weapons to fight each other with, perhaps a spear and shield on one side and a helmet and net on the other.
Only one or the other in this contest of superpowers can win. The elites of the USA are convinced they must win so as not to be vulnerable to attack as they were on 9/11. The Chinese elites are not working under the burden of such a project however but a more simpler goal, to achieve as beneficial a lifestyle to their population as humanly possible. This is the overarching conflict that we are seeing played out now via myriad political and economic tactics on one side where a wrecking ball policy has been decided upon...while the other gets busy with laying down the necessary infrastructure to generate ever growing trade networks and means to create ever more partnerships.
Only when one or the other of these behemoths gains a certain level of dominance over the other will some semblance of stability arise and the possibility of increasing cooperation emerge. Until then, conflict of one kind or another, but not violent conflict, appears to be the order of the day.
But on the day of reconciliation which follows the acknowledgement of the loser that he has lost, new avenues will emerge from the mist of conflict that lead to ever greater cooperative power by every major power to resolve all powder keg situations that fester elsewhere.
I believe these circumstances as described above are the only real hope for the global harmony that we seem so very far from achieving currently.
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