World War 3 and the Coming Global Superstate

[Beet]

America today is kind of like Athens was for the ancient Greeks. If you read Pericles' funeral Oration, his speech could easily have been given by an American politician, it is the same rhetoric that we use. Of course this is no surprise as our government was purposely descended from theirs.

However America is also similiar to Athens in other ways. For one we uniquely hold the original innocent classical liberal spirit in us, which is not to be found in Europe where political philosophy further developed. Just as Athens in its day was unique in its democratic principles.

We are a proud nation and the strongest in the world, just as Athens was the strongest city state in Greece.

We won the respect and admiration of the world by bravely fighting off the Asiatic fascists and communists, just like Athens won the respect and admiration of Greece by bravely fighting off the Asiatic Persians.

Our fleets control the oceans of the world, and are the basis of our power, just as Athens' fleets controlled the Agean, and were the basis of its power. Our military spending is worthy of the rest of the world combined, just as Athens had more triremes than the rest combined.

We make alliances with small dependent states such as Israel, Eastern Europe, Kuwait, Pakistan, Taiwan and Japan, just as Athens made alliances with small dependent states such as the Corcyraeans, Potidaeans, and Plataeans. Just as a King makes alliances with the peasantry and burgeois in order to balance the power of the nobility. These small states drag and threaten to drag us into war, just as the Delian League members eventually dragged Athens into war.

Like Athens, America is a rising power. Like Athens, it unnerves previously established powers with fewer military capabilities. Like Athens, it faces a mainland, not the peninsula of the Peloponese, but the continent of Eurasia.

Despite having a smaller population than the Peloponnese, the Athenians were secure behind impregnable city walls (the Greeks had no technology that could breach the walls). Similarly, America is secure behind two huge oceans.

The only major difference between America and Athens thus far is that the Eurasian civilizations have not seen a threat from America the way the Peloponese saw a threat from Athens, to the extent that they would put aside their own differences. Nevertheless, the similarities are striking.

America is the New Athens.

In the past, the model of the "state" has always envolved this way: a series of small states emerge close with one another and compete fiercely with one another. In this competition, they generate a wealth of intellectual, cultural, political, and economic assets of civilization, deeply thought philosophy, and a strong competitive culture that is a result of the difficulty of their struggles. Finally, after a set of devastating wars, they are exhausted overwhelmed by a larger, neighboring power with more land, people, and natural resources. The larger power can use the civilizational assets developed in the crucible of the struggle of the smaller states, and is not hindered by their disunity and competition. Thus there comes a Golden Age, until the larger power itself disintegrates after a long time.

The exhibits from Western history I present are- The Greek city states, the Italian city states, the European states of the 16th-20th century, and finally, the world today, which is divided into a set of states in fierce competition.

After the end of the cold war there emerged two basic strands of thought that gradually moved their way through mass media into the global body politic, not just in the United States but throughout much of the world. The first, put forward by Francis Fukuyama, describes the end of history in a sort of Hegelian fairy tale, where all ideologies except for democracy are discredited, and it thus spreads throughout the world. The second put forward by Samuel L. Huntington, describes a clash of civilizations centered around national, religious, cultural, and ethnic lines. Over the past 14 years, we have seen both a move toward liberal democracy and a clash of civilizations. However, two democracies have never fought a war with one another. The neocons claim to believe this and thus they claim to think that if they can bring democracy to Iraq, and by extension to the Islamic world, they can somehow go one big step toward this Hegelian fairy tale of world democracy. This will of course, also benefit Israel. There is only one problem with their mission. It is not working.

Remember how Napoleon also sought to conquer other states under the guise of bringing liberalism to them? In the long run, the consequential result of his actions was not only to spread liberalism but also to spread nationalism. Indeed, the truth is that while Germany in 1914 was not a full democracy, it did have universal male suffrage. As did all of the other European states except in Russia, which had it in name only. The reason why the neo-cons will fail is also the reason why Napoleon failed. Because they forgot to take into account the enduring appeal of nations and religions-- or mroe precisely what Huntington calls civilizations.

The failure of the neocons will leave only one ideology left--extreme civilizationalism. Civilizations are a mix of nations, ethnicities, values, and religions. There are some who will say that extreme nationalism has already been discredited as an ideology in World War I and World War II. But firstly this is not the same as civilizationalism. Secondly, his is not true because the fascism was aborted before its true face could be shown to its own believers, assuming the success of military goals. Sure, German facism was discredited in the eyes of the Jews, non-Aryans, and moralists in general, but it doesn't take the holocaust to do that. Nazism was never directed at appealing towards non-Aryans or moralists. That is why extreme nationalism is still viable ideology. People can still say "oh if only we won Stalingrad" ... etc etc Since fascism has taken a monumental cosmetic hit to its reputation, but not been killed, it is in slumber. It was in deep, deep slumber in the 1950s and has gradually entered lighter modes of sleep. Its more unsavory aspects have been hidden in many countries under the broader label of "conservativism" whether intentional or NOT (I cannot emphasize the NOT part too strongly), just as the face of communism was made more acceptable by the label of "socialism". The emotion of fear plays a big role here.

The failure of the neocon ideology and the Hegelian fairy tale that we seem to be spinning towards in the early 21st century leaves in its wake, including the "New Athens" of America, a series of civilizationalisms. In fact, America is already being drawn into a civilizational war we may never emerge from. The image of benevolence of American intentions will also be trashed. Thus the last barrier to the naked "city state" scenario of ancient Greece will be eliminated. In history, the Greeks ended up fighting a series of costly, disastrous wars that ended in stalemates.

The same will happen in our world if two things happen (1) Western liberal democracy does not magically spread as an all-encompassing ideology throughout the world as predicted by Fukuyama (2) people begin to identify primarily with "civilizations" such as "America", "Europe", "Islam", "Russia", "China" and "India."

If these two things happen, the world will be ripe for a series of events that will set off World War III. It may be the New Athens versus the Eurasian powers, or maybe not. After the war(s), which may last several generations (thus giving enough time to discredit civilizationalism completely), following my own Hegelian theory, there will emerge a Global Superstate and a Golden Age of mankind, to last perhaps hundreds or thousands of years. However before this hundreds of millions perhaps billions of people will have to die.

Now I expect people to come and deny, say this will never happen, and flame me for being so pessimistic. Come on.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

America today is kind of like Athens was for the ancient Greeks. If you read Pericles' funeral Oration, his speech could easily have been given by an American politician, it is the same rhetoric that we use. Of course this is no surprise as our government was purposely descended from theirs.

Actually our federal givernment was more modelled on Republican  Rome than it was on Democratic Athens.

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While democracy was a distinction of Graeco-Rpman culture, Athens was hardly unique in being democratic.

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Actually they fought off the Asiatic Persians, not the Turks, the Turks weren't a threat to the Greeks until more than a millenium after the fall of Athens.

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One fundamental difference between the US and Athens is that Athens forced its "allies" to pay for its fleet while we pay for ours ourselves.

[Beet]

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Athens was the first democracy in Greece. Which just makes the similarities all the more striking.

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My mistake. I wrote Turk by accident since I had an image in my mind of the Persians attacking from Asia minor.

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Actually they pay for their (and our defense) indirectly through purchases of U.S. arms. The U.S. is the world's largest arms dealer. Granted, at the time Athens faced more serious revolts from some of its allies, which no longer saw a need to be in the league. However America has not yet reached at state. However we are approaching it-- Germany and South Korea used to be staunch allies, for example.

[AuH2O]

I like Huntington's more recent stuff, though most academics do not. I do not like Fukuyama... his view of history is entirely too narrow and presumptuous.

I see a clash mostly along Northern/Southern lines.

I'm not so sure about your conclusion though. If anything, we might see increased interconnectedness but without a connected bureaucracy; if there was no longer a scarcity of food, for instance, or for basic quanities of energy, government would become less important.

War is mostly a result of changes in the balance of power. However, norms play an important role; thus, an emergent EU is not likely to go to war with the US, because the outcome would be so destructive to both sides (without the hope of any benefit). It might be that the decline of the nation-state, should it occur, would prevent a challenger state from ever arising; the US would be the last superpower in modern history (leaving out potentials thousands of years from now).

The Neocon strategy, morals aside, has interesting benefits. Essentially, if successful, it reduces the risk of war by making sure states will only enter into wars that either benefit them or are necessary; war with the US could hardly be benefitial anytime in the forseeable future, and likewise is probably not necessary under any circumstances (if the country is governed democratically).

Nevertheless, it is somewhat possible a group of states will seek to challenge the 'Northern Bloc' (NATO, plus I believe Russia in time). I can only imagine that would occur if the Northern states acquired some kind of economic advantage that would leave the opposition in a permanent state of inferiority; much like the Japanese felt when they determined there was no option other than a suicidal attack against the US in 1941.

My personal view is that the US will undergo a second civil war at some point, though I have no idea what form it would take. Peaceful secession could occur, or violent internal conflict (ala 'We,' the early 20th century Russian novel where the cities fought the country; that was only an element of the story, but it forshadowed modern cultural clashes).

So long as there is power, there will be conflict. Only it's form is malleable; military, political, economic, social, etc. There will be power so long as there are individuals and/or societies: so long as there is a human race. Thus, there will always be conflict. If, one day, humanity has developed norms such that violence is unthinkable, certainly there will be less death in the world... but no less competition.

[The Duke]

Beet,

You can't compare the downfall of Napoleon to that of the US.  First of all, Napoleon's expansion was traditional imperialsim with liberalism as a mask.  The US legitimately believes in liberalism.  Napoleon is closer to the USSR or Nazi Germany than the US- ideology as a mask for empire and nationalism.  The US uses military power as a means to spread liberalism.  We are the exact inverse of Napoleon.

You also cannot compare the US to Athens.  Athens never wanted nor recieved a massive Empire.  They had a city state and a series of tributaries.  Their power was not commensurate with US power and more closely resembled the British Empire than the American one.

You also cannot condemn the Athenian model to inevitable failure.  Had Athens not screwed itself in the Peloponnesian War, by replacing Alcibiades as commander of the Athenian fleet in the middle of the Sicilian expedition, they'd have won that war.  They'd have never declined and fallen the way they did.  Maybe eventually they'd have been overtaken, but it was a single error that brought them down and made the difference between winning and losing.

Don't be such a pessimist.

[Brambila]

First of all, Athens wasn't the strongest city-state in Greece. As a matter of fact it was very weak.  It was certainly one of the most influential, but Sparta was certainly more powerful in the sense that America is powerful- economically and militarily. That's exactly why the Spartans beat the Athenians in the Peloponnesian war. Also, Athens wasn't the only city to get the Persians out, the Spartans had a huge bit of the picture, and in fact they were the prime military weapon. The Spartans trained soldiers very well- one of the training exercises, for instance, was to push a tree until a hole in the ground was made and it was filled with blood and urine. With this, they learned to push the lines with shields against thousand of soldiers. All in all, Athens wasn’t that powerful of a city-state, but simply a very influential one.

Also, although many moralists followed German fascism, it wasn’t directed to them, and their philosophy wasn’t connected to morality. As a matter of fact, Nazism supported abortion, homosexuality (Hitler killed feminine men; contrary to the popular belief that he killed homosexuals; Hitler himself may have been homosexual), and many other immoral acts. In this sense, just as the Spartans supported homosexuality with male soldiers so that their motivation would be within each other rather than from families at home, the Nazis were similar to the Greeks.

Though your argument isn’t clear on how conservatism and fascism are similar, it can be compared with any ideology, especially liberalism. For instance, part of the reason for the Greek’s dark ages was a collapse of morality. Actually, many collapses of nations has been due to moral decline. Liberalism is constantly preaching against the existence of morality, thus they are sending themselves into a national collapse.

I think that the war would result from a mixture between a union between Arab nations, and the alliance and re-communization of Russia and China. I think if Europe and the United States continues to have such flaky laws on securing from terrorism, terrorism will be a major part of World War III.  

[Beet]

AuH2O- I'm not too sure about my conclusion either. As I said, in history it was always some outside unified power with more resources that was able to mop up, consolidate, and pave the way through unprecedented, unimagined glory on the back of its position as unifier. The civilizational model already encompasses all of the world's regions that might have a large enough resource base to unify the exhausted civilizations and play such a role; so it is likely that instead of a superstate, humanity could just fall into a permanent state of lethargy and decline.

Ford- I would like to be more optimist but I from what I see around me, there is a high chance that we are headed toward the "clash of civilizations"... a true clash undescribed by Huntington, due to the victory of civilizationalism as the only vital ideology remaining. To be truthful I wish the neocons would succeed, but they are completely discrediting the spread of liberalism around the world and meanwhile mask the growth of civilizationalism in their blundering. Liberalism cannot succeed globally without accounting for and soothing over the edges of civilizationalism, as well as putting civilizationalism into a broader and deeper context; thus subverting it. But this does not seem to be happening in the world.

My point with the Napoleon example is just that the coming rise of nationalism was underappreciated by people who only saw the spread of liberalism in Napoleon's time; just as the neocons today underappreciate civilizationalism.

Athens did have an Empire that was similiar in structure as America's empire is. Their power was based on their technology and unique position, not the sheer numbers of their land forces; but the same can be said about the US.

The Athenian model is not condemned to failure (though it should be noted that the Peloponessian War did not end the wars of Greece; Athens later recovered and defeated Sparta. The big picture is what eventually happened to Greece during this period), but the civilizational model is condemned to clash. After the failure of the neocons' radical disregard of civilizations, Huntington's radical civilizationalism will then triumph around the world. However Huntington titles his book "clash" or talks about clash, he does not take his idea to its finality-perhaps because he himself buys into civilizationalism and talking about the conclusion of his philosophy would reveal unattractive facets. Or perhaps because he denied those facets to himself. When civilizationalism reaches its peak (assuming "[paleo] conservative" triumph in America and everywhere else except Europe, which is developing a seemingly non-conservative structure that is nevertheless civilizational...) America will be situated like Athens was in the Grecian world.

Brambila- Athens was stronger than Sparta in all except its land military capabilities. Compared with Sparta's position in the Peloponnesian League, Athens was much more central to the Delian League. Corinth, Elis, and other major states stood with Sparta. Yet the two leagues were actually quite well balanced. Athens was eventually defeated because of its lack of land capabilities, but this didn't have to be if it had utilized its advantages correctly. As Ford pointed out, they trashed Alcibiades while he was winning. But at the same time you could say the only weakness of the US is in large-scale land-based operations away from the sea.

I never said fascism was directed toward moralists. I explicitly said it was not. The bridge between conservatism and fascism is civilizationalism. Conservatism is the face of civilizationalism in peacetime, but the more pronounced a clash or conflict, the more civilizationalism becomes manifest in fascism. By this definition I would say that Al Qaeda and the radical islamist groups are fascists even though they are not nationalists; they are civilizational fascists, following the replacement of the nation-state as the unit of fascist ideology with the civilization.