There is a population of seven billion in the globe today. The crux of the problem is that the population growth that we have is not sustainable. Now there needs to be organisation for seven billion. There has to be enough to feed seven billion. Seven billion people now need security! Hence the problem of ideology. Which brings upon the conflict of ideology. How do we organise society? The two contenders are capitalism and communism. The East and the West. The Left and the Right. The battle of how best to achieve the same goal. The conundrum. We both want the same thing; Happiness for all. That was known in ancient Greece by the greatest philosophers in the world (Aristotle). The goal is the same, however the means to achieve this simple goal has been causing grief for centuries. Are we to share or compete? Do we want our children to share their toys or fight for them? The kid with the biggest muscle gets the toy car and the barbie doll. These issues of organisation led to the cold war.
However, no one won the cold war. The cold war could be seen as a conflict of global dominance; who will control the world and with which economic ideology. The Soviets and the United States (US) were the main contenders in this battle of supremacy. With the fall of the Berlin wall and the breakup of the Soviet Republic, the cold war did not formally end. Communism has not died. Russia, with a loss of a few satellite states, is still communist in its core. China is headed to be a superpower as a communist state. The US lost the battle in Vietnam to communism. North Korea and India still pose problems. Then there is the problem of the Arab nations; The Arabs are not the biggest fans of the western liberal ideologies. There might be protests in the middle east in recent history, however the Arabs will not ally with the US any time soon. The problem of nuclear weapons, which began during WWII and continued through the Cold War, is still a problem whether or not the Berlin wall has fallen. The cold war as a remnant of WWII is not over and there has been no formal winner.
It is not possible to define the cold war (Baumann, 2008) as the globe has been entrenched in war since since the beginning of the twentieth century. Some like to think that the cold war began after WWII, however the Soviets began their spy games with America as early as the 1930s (Garthoff, 2004). Matlock (2001) suggests that the cold war began in Versailles and came to an end when the Berlin Wall (the iron curtain) came down in 1990 and the eastern European states were allowed to choose non-communist governments, however it is difficult to assess when the cold war ended or will end as the conflict of ideology still exists and there is no clear right path. “For the US, the high Cold War commenced with the blockade imposed on Berlin by the Red Army and, in response, the American and British airlift of supplies in 1948-49 … [and] … the Cold War came to its climax in 1961-62 with the sudden building of the Berlin Wall …”, (Ernest, 1998). If we are to believe Ernest and Matlock, we have to accept that it was a struggle of ideology and we have to consider the fact that the Imperial nations were fighting for control over the globe and their conflict spread over two world wars and the last half of the twentieth century with a fear of nuclear weapons creating a cold war. As there is still strife in the world today and we haven’t seen utopia anywhere near, we can assume that no one has won the cold war and we are still in a state of insecurity.
The battle of ideology is not over. Communism is not dead with the fall of the Berlin wall. Even though eastern Europe chose to break away from the USSR, communism is not dead. The people of the Russia’s satellite nations still want communism; their problem was one of nationalism. They spoke a different language and Russia might not have been very helpful in terms of social welfare as they had to build arms, however communism ideology has not lost out just yet. Russia, with the pretence of democratic elections is still communist at its core (Nelan & Fischer, 1996; Nagorski, 1996; Cheng, 2011). Lets not forget China; a communist state (Gelb, Jefferson & Singh, 1993), (Bao, Chiang & Ignatius, 2009; Bell, 2011). Some say China is open to Western thought, however, they are still run by a central dictatorship. They may be open to trade with the West, as just about anybody can buy just about anything from China through the internet, however all major utilities are still owned by the government; the republic. Also, the US packed up and went home after a little battle in Vietnam, which is still communist. North Korea is still pursuing arms and they are still communist. India is communist in its core. That is more that a third of the globes’ population. With China, India and Russia in one camp, that is a real battle. These three all have a large GDP and with the two billion in China and India combined with fact that Russia has space technology, the battle is not over.
Regardless of the protests in the middle east, most of the people in the Arab nations still dislike western thought. The issues with the Arabs are similar to that of the Indians. Poor management in the boardroom, the Republic, or the King’s council. There is poverty in the middle east and it is causing frustrated individuals to rise up and voice their opinion. In the battle of the east and west, the Arabs will definitely side with the east. The Arabs do not really have much opinion on which ideology should be used in the world today, however, they still do not like the western people. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the Arabs will ally with the East as they have had ties to the USSR (Dine, 2010). That is Russia, China, India and the Arabs. Now that is a reputable camp. All that was required was an army. No bigger warrior than the mujahidin. The US went into Iraq and Afghanistan and have caused a lot of strife. They have been there for over ten years and have achieved nothing. They toppled an existing regime in Iraq; a violation of the nature of sovereignty. The treaty of Westphalia states that no state has the right to intervene in other states’ business. A violation like that needs punishment, however there is no government to stand over the US and demand justice. We live in a Hobbesian jungle where there is no overarching body to manage conflict between states. No international court or collective security. Lets not forget the Ottoman empire. A strong Arab empire that was a super power. A wonder in the world is the Taj Mahal; a love between the religions that held so strong it spread from the west bank to the ganges. Whatever tensions have existed since the separation of the Muslims and Hindus by the British, Islamabad and Hindustan are united with the east.
World war II introduced the technology to wipe out the planet and this problem has not disappeared with the fall of the Berlin wall. Nuclear weapons exists and are a threat. Iran is a threat as they have been reported to have nuclear technology. Iran is a theocracy and that is dangerous. North Korea is a nuclear power and is communist. India is in the nuclear club and will side with the east. Pakistan is a nuclear power and there is the whole Arab network under one nation (Michael, 2012). The beauty about nuclear weapons was that due to the fear of annihilation, no state would actually use their arsenal. There are about 27000 operational nuclear weapons of various sorts between the nine members of the nuclear club (Siracusa, 2008). Apart from the prestige of being in the nuclear club, there is the reasonable fear that one of these states might use their weapons. There is also the fear that a terrorist group might get their hands on these nuclear weapons, and reconstruct another 911 of epic proportions. The fear of the cold war of nuclear weapons still exists today. This aspect of the Cold War continues and has not been resolved.
No one won the cold war. The cold war is actually a continuation of the Second World War, which was a continuation of the First World War. There has been a century of war and it is not over. The problem is the world is small with a large population and there are problems of organizing society. There is still a conflict of ideology. It is a battle for global control. A fight to see whether the world will be controlled by the communists, the Russians, or the libertarians, the Americans. Both groups have their allies and will fight to the death if required. The west Europeans will support America, while Russia has the Chinese, Indians and the Arab nations. Both camps have weapons of mass destruction and have stockpiles of a variety of arms ready for battle. As in any chess game where the battle is for the middle of the board, the world has taken its battle to the middle east. The Arabs have taken the brunt of the battle and the war is ripe. The war is not over, it is climaxing. We still have to decide on a global economic ideology and neither side is prepared to back down. The communist states are practising free trade to some extent, however that is just strengthening their armies while they prepare for battle. Most of the rest of the world are still run by extreme military dictatorships and there is not much the US can do about that. They have toppled Saddam and shot down Gaddafi, however Syria is still holding strong and seems to be the front line. The cold war is not over and it matters because the welfare of the entire globes’ population of seven billion depend on it.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bao, P., Chiang, R., Ignatius, A., “Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang”, U.S Army War College, New York, 2009
Baumann, R. F., “Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War 1939-1953 / From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War / My Dear Mr. Stalin: The Complete Correspondence of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph V. Stalin”, Military Review 88.3, May / June 2008
Bell, D. A., “Why China Won’t Follow Arab Revolt”, New Perspectives Quarterly, 28.2, Spring 2011
Cheng, C., “Muddling through the shadow of the past(s): post-Communist Russia’s search for a new regime ideology”, Demokratizatsiya, 19.1 (Wntr 2011)
Dine, T. A., “U.S. Policy and Peacemaking Efforts in the Middle East: Historical Perspectives”, Journal of Cold War Studies, 2010, Vol. 12 (2)
Ernest, M. R., :America’s Berlin: Heart of the Cold War”, Foreign Affairs 77.4 Jul./Aug. 1998
Garthoff, R. L., “Foreign Intelligence and the Historiography of the Cold War”, Journal of Cold War Studies 6.2 (2004) 21-56
Gelb, A., Jefferson, G., Singh, I., “Can Communist Economies Transform Incrementally? The Experience of China”, NBER Macroeconomics Annual, Vol. 8, 1993
Matlock, J. F., “The End of the Cold War”, Harvard International Review, 23.3, Fall 2001
Michael, G., “How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III”, The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 19, Iss. 1, 2012
Nagorski, A., “Kissing up to the past”, Newsweek, Vol. 127(24), June 10, 1996
Nelan, B. W. & Fischer, D., “The Undead Red”, Time, Vol. 147, 4/8/1996
Siracusa, J., “Nuclear Weapons: A Very Short Introduction”, Oxford, N.Y, 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment