1985 - Cold war forever. The balance of power rests on the broad shoulders of bipolarism, MAD, and the nuclear arms lining launching stations from Minnesota to Minsk. A grand, theatrical sense of the sweep of history--and not just a little doom-pervades society.Well, just a thought...
1995 - Pax American, post-history. Democracy has triumphed, the roles of states is now in question. Newly-formed EU suggests a pan-global democratic united countries. Globalism means riches for everyone! Go NAFTA! In the halls of the Pentagon, strategists remain gloomy and create flowcharts demonstrating the next great states to arise, and the military expenditures the US will make defeating them. No one pays attention.
2005 - Globalism metastasized. States now irrelevant as the power centers shift to chaotic extra-governmental terrorist networks. Huge militaries are useless in the face of IEDs. The US's grand empire has lasted less than two decades.
2008 - The return of something akin to cold war? Russia's again invading Georgia. China looks hungrily at global domination. IEDs and neocon dystopia appear the quaint manifestation of gentle times, when we let the crazy old cranks run the country. Time to get serious again--the Reds are on the march.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
History by Conventional Wisdom
This Georgian invasion has gotten me to thinking.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
The world is paying more for our Iraq adventure here. Political, foreign policy, and military policy ethics are off the superpower table again. If we wanted to arbitrarily invade Iraq for our benefit, why shouldn't Russia get to invade Georgia and Poland? Why shouldn't China get to do whatever they want with Tibet and Taiwan? Etc, etc, etc down the hellhole.
Post a Comment