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Global Power Shifts—Not All Change Is GoodNations are drifting more and more towards becoming one world, but the result will not be the utopia that many expect!by Rod HallAccording to the United Nations, the world is made up of 185 countries today. Some are huge nations and some are tiny. Over the past half century, these basic units that make up our world civilization have all become less dominant, less independent and in many ways less separate than before. The world is converging toward one global system. This is due to many individual factors including new forces created by international economic interests, technological advances and modern political and foreign policy strategies that are streaming in separate powerful rivulets like mighty rivers converging toward a common destination-one global community. As it has become easier and cheaper to move goods from one place to another, the lingering belief in national self-sufficiency has weakened. Almost every country now buys from abroad a larger proportion of what it consumes than it did 50 years ago and a far bigger share of the world's capital is owned by multinational companies, operating freely across national borders. With this economic revolution comes a more united yet unstable world. William Greider in his book One World Ready or Not summarizes our rush to economic change. "Economic revolution, similar to the impulse of political revolution, liberates masses of people and at the same time projects new aspects of tyranny. Old worlds are destroyed and new ones emerge. The past is up-ended and new social values are created alongside the fabulous new wealth" (1997, p. 11). While Greider urges individual nations to strive to regain some of their economic control, he also realizes this is unlikely. "Economic difficulties are immense, but the real question involved in stabilizing the globalized financial system is about political power. Who shall govern these important matters, governments or private markets? Finance capital wants government to get out of the way and let the markets rule, but global capital needs old-fashioned national governments much more than it acknowledges. If the nation-state loses its authority to govern, who will protect the sanctity of property rights or rescue capital owners in a market crisis? Without trustworthy national governments, who will issue money that people can trust…? Governments, in essence, must reclaim the governing obligations of the nation-state from private markets… But it is the major governments, of course, that are as yet unwilling to consider any measure to moderate the effects of financial liberalization" (ibid., pp. 256, 317, 319). Military Changes More Dramatic In military matters the changes that flow from technological advances are even more dramatic. Until about 60 years ago, the only way in which one country could successfully use force to impose its will on another was to defeat its soldiers on the ground. Between two countries of approximately equal strength, that could be a long and hazardous business. Nations often worked hard to maintain peace and made alliances, especially among their closest neighbors. Today, smart bombs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and long-range bombers, can all deliver powerful conventional, nuclear, chemical or biological weapons across borders anywhere in the world. At the push of a button a region in a sovereign country can erupt in war. Nations are searching for more effective ways to maintain the peace, relying on the United Nations and other international groups and associations for support. The third technology-based challenge to the power of the old nation-state is the information revolution. People in different countries now have the means to know far more about each other. They can see news instantaneously, share cultures and enjoy international entertainment via television. Radio signals from neighboring regions can inform as well as share culturally specific music, ideas and interests. They can argue about politics or share information about their neighbors on the Internet or on ever-cheaper telephones and cell phones. As knowledge is more easily transmitted across borders, the distinctiveness of nations grows less sharply defined. Greider summarizes the emerging new world order. "But the essence of what is forming now is an economic system of interdependence designed to ignore the prerogatives of nations, even the most powerful ones" (ibid., p. 17). A comment in The Economist article titled "The Shape of the World," captures the effects these rivulets of technological change have had on the nation-state. "The wondrous machine of global revolution is oscillating out of control, widening the arcs of social and economic instabilities in its wake… The nation-state is not what it used to be, ignored by the global money markets, condescended to by great multinational corporations, at the mercy of intercontinental missiles, the poor thing can only look back with nostalgia to its days of glory" (January 5, 1996, p. 17). New Worldview The rushing of our world toward one global community is not the result of economic and technological forces alone. A new worldview among many leading politicians affects their governments' foreign policy. This changed ideology now plays a big part in reshaping our world. Charles Krauthammer, in a speech at the Manhattan Institute, said many foreign policy experts in high administration advisory positions are strong advocates of three principles that underlie many of the actions we see being made in America and other leading nations. He cites internationalism, legalism and humanitarianism as having an especially strong impact on American foreign policy efforts over the last two presidential terms. "Taken together, these three reflect a vision of the world that is coherent, consistent, and dangerously at odds with the realities of the international system. It is truly a world imagined" (The New Republic, March 15, 1999, p. 22). Internationalism is the belief in the moral, legal and strategic primacy of international institutions over mere national interests. Krauthammer foresees a problem with enforcement as international institutions take primacy over national interests. "The international arena is a state of nature with no enforcer and no universally recognized norms. Anarchy is kept in check, today as always, not by some hollow bureaucracy on the East River, but by the will and power of the Great Powers, and today, in particular, of the one great superpower" (ibid., p. 22). Legalism is the belief that the sinews of stability are laws, treaties and binding international contracts that can domesticate the international arena. Therefore the main work of foreign policy is to sign pieces of parchment. "At root, the idea is to transcend power politics with a regulated system of agreements that creates new norms, obligations, and constraints on the behavior of otherwise lawless nations… But this is hopelessly utopian. The basic difference between the international system and domestic society is that in domestic society there exists a monopoly of the means of coercion, an enforcer, a sovereign. There is generally also a preexisting community of norms" (ibid., p. 23). James Hirsen, Ph.D., in his book The Coming Collision-Global Law vs. U.S. Liberties, indicates that the intricate web of international agreements currently being woven will change existing norms and affect our personal liberties. "Because international law activity takes place on the global stage, it seems very distant from matters that typically concern most people in their daily lives. International law generally manifests itself in the form of treaties. Most people think that treaties deal exclusively with relations among nations. Yet the treaties that are being crafted by internationalists deal specifically with some of the most intimate and private details of our existence, including family relationships, public education, and religious beliefs" (1999, p. 9). Humanitarianism is the belief that the primary world role of the leading nations of the world is, to quote Madeleine Albright upon her swearing-in as ambassador to the United Nations, "to terminate the abominable injustices and conditions that still plague civilization." In private conduct, altruism is the ideal. However, for nations living among aggressive, powerful potential foes it can be disastrous, Krauthammer says. "Nations are not individuals. They live in a state of nature with no higher authority to protect them. If they do not protect themselves, they die. Ignoring one's interests, reacting in fits of altruism, is an invitation to a ruinous squandering of blood and treasure… But what holds the international arena together-what keeps it from degenerating into total anarchy-is not a central authority, not the phony security of treaties, and not the best of goodwill among the nicer nations. What stability we do enjoy is owed to the overwhelming power and deterrent threat of a superpower like the United States that defines international stability as a national interest" (op. cit., The New Republic, p. 25). A Perfect World? These ideals are "dangerously at odds with the realities of the international system" (ibid., p. 25). Why? Because this world is a dangerous place, and its nations are not inclined to set aside their self-interests in a way that will result in peace. God has from the very beginning opposed human efforts to unite into one global community based on mankind's flawed reasoning (Genesis 11:1-9). One of the main reasons God set up nation-states by family lines is to avoid the massive fighting and destruction that would be the result of man left to his own devices. Globalism is having the same effect today as it did thousands of years ago. "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them" (Genesis 11:6). But God will intervene before humanity destroys itself. The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of God, Christ and the saints, with true peace and prosperity (Revelation 11:15; 5:10). In the meantime we need to be doing the Work of God, watching and praying so these things will not come upon us as a thief in the night (Matthew 24:42-46). WNP |
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Keywords: power shifts humanitarianism legalism internationalism
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