Reshuffling the World Order
From Mbscientific_wiki
By the dawn of the 20th century, the colonial powers of Europe were in full bloom. They had established domains, either through colonies or by proxy, all over the world. They had trade networks spanning the globe and the generated wealth was concentrated in a handful of centers, almost all in Europe.
Remember how we repeatedly saw unstable pyramidal social structures in warlike kingdoms. This was no different. Major kingdoms in England, France, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia, etc. had plenty of money, technology and were armed to the teeth. Something had to give. And it did, in a big way, in World War I.
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World War I
Europe, since the fall of Rome in 476, was in constant tribal, and then national conflict (once any given tribe settled a territory and carved out a nation). As you saw in the last section, as alliances were forged and broken, as the wars started and finished, the European map changed over and over in the aftermath. This was supposed to be no different, but then again technology, wealth, dominion, and the personal and national egos that they fostered had changed everything.
It started out simply enough. Serbia, was in the domain of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They wanted to establish their own Slavic Nation. So, a group of Bosnians assassinated the Heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire (July 28, 1914). So Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia. Russia, being the protector of their fellow Slavs, declared war on Austro-Hungarians. Germany, being allies to their Austrian kin, declared war on Russia and then France (Russia's ally) and invaded Luxembourg in a push to Low Countries. Then England (France's ally) declared war on Germany. The Ottoman's didn't want to miss out on the action so they came in on Germany's side. Then Italy, Bulgaria, Portugal, Romania, Greece came in. And Japan and US got in. And all of the colonies, spread all over the world got in.
In little time, you had the Entente Powers: France, Britain, Russia and their allies, and the Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottomans and their allies at war all over the globe. What started out as an ordinary European tiff ended up as The First World War, spanning 1914 to 1919. (For a full Time-Line Go Here. For an animated map/time line Go Here).
Meanwhile Russia's highly stratified society, under the further deprivations of war and under the new ideology of Marxism (Communism , Socialism), collapsed, ushering in the Russian Revolution and Bolshevik Takeover in 1917.
In the aftermath of WWI, the European map changed yet again. What was in 1914 (src: wikipedia:World_war_1)
now became (src: http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/web03/atlases/great%20war/great%20war%20%20pages/great%20war%20map%2051.htm)
For an animated map of the after math of the war Go Here.
In the aftermath of WWI:
- Russia gave up Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland.
- Germany lost land to France, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Belgium.
- Austro-Hungarian empire was dissolved with lands taken over by Romania and Poland. New nations of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia where carved out of the empire, and what was left over became Austria and Hungary.
- The Ottoman Empire dissolved, reducing its foothold to Turkey under a new regime. A new map of middle east was carved out, creating the present Arab nations in the domain of England and France under the Sykes-Picot_Agreement.
Treatment of Germany left German speaking populations in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and the Low Countries of Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. What was leftover was in economic ruins.
New nations were to get established in short order. Communism Ideology, already established in Russia (now called the Soviet Union) fostered a world wide movement. This led to counter-balancing movements of Fascism, particularly in Spain, Germany and Italy. In 1936 The Spanish Civil War between Communists and Fascists was in full bloom (1936-139).
In the east, Japan had taken over parts of China including Beijing and was on its way in claiming its domain over south east Asia.
The communist movement in China was under way by 1921, when the Communist Party was established with support by the new Soviet Union, almost immediately coming into conflict with the Chinese Nationalist Movement. And, both the Chinese Communists and Nationalist were at odds with colonial concessions as well as the Japanese expansions.
The colonial powers, weakened to the point of collapse by the war could barely maintain, let alone expand their colonies, though try they did!
In short not only WWI didn't resolve much, it left Europe and the rest of the world in shambles. And if that wasn't bad enough by itself, The Great Depression that racked the US starting in 1929 began a process of global economic contagion. Few economies went unscathed, but of all places the German economy was hit very hard.
This sowed the seeds of World War II that would fully fledge less than 20 years later.
World War II and the Cold War
(Note: For a complete coverage see wikipedia:WWII_timeline)
By early 1930's Germany was in the thralls of the double whammy of absorbing the blows of the defeat in WWI and the ensuing global economic contagion. The resultant economic depression left a power vacuum. National Socialist German Workers Party, in the person of Adolf Hitler, stepped in the breach (1933). Nazi Germany restarted its military industrial complex with a doctrinal shift advocating speed of armored mechanized units and integrated air support. The new German air force cut its teeth supporting their fellow fascists in The Spanish Civil War (1936-139) resulting in decisive tactical and strategic victories. Then Germany began to move in earnest, annexing Austria (1938) and occupying Czechoslovakia (1939). The western front of WWII was in full flare when Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and France and England declared war (after Non-Aggression Pact, German and Soviet Armies invaded and carved up Poland). Then in short order, Germany invaded the Belgium and then France, occupying it in 1940. Soon thereafter, Germany began the air campaign against England. And, it commenced the invasion of Russia in 1941.
To the south, Italy invaded Albania, Balkans and Greece as well as North Africa (together with Germany).
To the east, Japan through its Naval Power had Occupied Manchuria and was on the move in China. The three countries: Germany, Italy and Japan formed the Axis Powers in 1940. In 1941 Japan struck Perl Harbor, bringing US into the war. The stage was set, The allied Powers of US, UK and Soviet Union were to wage war against the Axis Powers in Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania.
Eventually fortune of war were reversed:
- The expansion of the Germany was halted in Stalingrad (1943).
- Italian and Germany's North African Armies were destroyed by allied forces (1943).
- Allied Invasion of Italy commenced (1943)
- Allies land in Normandy (1944)
- Allies began the push towards Germany from France to the west and Russia to the East (1944-45).
- Berlin was captured and Germany surrendered in 1945.
And in the Pacific Theater:
- Japanese Fleet were crippled at the Battle of Midway (1942).
- Island hopping campaign began to gain steam in the drive towards Japan (1942-45)
- Philippines were recaptured.(1945)
- Atomic Bombs were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945).
- Japan surrendered in 1945
Upon conclusion of WWII, the global map was redrawn, this time politically, dividing the globe in the spheres of Influence of Democracies (US, UK, France, The Democratic Block) and Soviet Union (The Communist Block). The cold war had started, first carving up Europe (map- Cold War Military Alliance in Europe, src: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_war).
And then the world (Src: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/coldwar1.htm)
The term Cold War, is a misnomer, it raged all over the globe, directly (US: Korea, Vietnam, USSR: Afghanistan), or through proxies, it lasted more then 40 years, cost untold lives and treasure, and probably the only thing that stopped it from going nuclear was the immense nuclear arsenal on both sides. Anyway, the cold war world map in 1982 looked like (srchttp://users.erols.com/mwhite28/coldwar2.htm):
After the fall of the Berlin wall and collapse of the Communist Block, The Unipolar US Military posture is (src:http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/usaworld.htm):
Morphological Descriptors
1- Social Cohesion - By the beginning of the 20th century the influence of religion on policy was relatively limited. We don't see the religious drivers that we saw in the period of Religious Empires, or even their aftermath during the colonial period. Religious cohesion was strictly between masses.
Prior to WWI, alliances were political in nature. People of European Kingdoms were by enlarge tribal. But oddly enough power marriages, that is marriage between the kings and princes to princesses from other countries were common. Competition over territory, proxies, spheres of influence and resources were the main drivers of kingdoms. The powers were warlike by nature, forging alliances against other alliances as a tool to build more power and offset threats. So, as we saw, it took but a spark of a pistol to set off WWI.
But, WWI left a lot of unfinished business, if anything it added to the warlike posturing. It took WWII, to finish the job of dismantling the social pyramids of kingdoms. After WWII, the European Kingdoms as political powers were by enlarge finished, what was left of them became mere ceremonial in nature, constitutional monarchies with little power over policy.
What happened to the pyramidal social structures of the Kingdoms in the 20th century is not that much different from what happened in the previous centuries, as we have seen. Pyramidal structures, with power concentrated on top are unstable. All kings, dynasties and empires eventually go.
What replaced the pyramidal social structure of kingship was the new philosophies of governance by democracy and communism. Fascism being pyramidal by nature, hit a quick exit.
Communism as an ideology is supposed to be flat, "power to the people", "workers of the world unite", as the slogans say. But in actuality in every case communist governments and social structures were pyramidal, with strongman dictatorships and party cronies at the top. They were far less stable than any kingships, lasting less than 80 years in total.
Then there was this odd experiment that on paper had no chance to succeed. That was the constitutional democratic form of government, staring with the one implemented in the US. The American constitution literally turned the pyramid on its head. The collective of individuals were to rule through their elected representatives. Elections were to be held in short scheduled intervals and whoever didn't do the bidding of their constituents got fired. That experiment was unheard of. The biggest gamble was that no one knew how a large number of diverse groups with diverse interests could manage to self-govern. Before that all attempts in democracy where in small homogeneous peoples with common interests, like Greek city states, Algonquin tribes and alike. But James Madison's argument was that in fact you needed many diverse groups to balance against one another. There was a strong bill of rights to protect the individual against the rights of the state and majority mobs. Moreover the government itself had a system of checks and balances, so no one institution could run away with power. So in theory you have the power of cities, counties, states and the federal government stressing against one another. And on top you have the powers of branches of government stressing against each other. It was a crazy, untried idea. But it had one thing going for it, freeing up the power of the individual, upending the unitary pyramid of power. And it wasn't a success from the get go. It had a lot of problems to sort out, by the power of pen or sword or both. There was a civil war, universal suffrage, civil rights struggle. To this day there are state rights, individual rights, religious rights, and all manners of issues to sort out. Hardly any bill passes the congress without a fight. And that is precisely the balance of power as intended. The contentious fight for rights to power leaves no one power unchecked. It is messy, inefficient, a pain in the ass, but decidedly not pyramidal.
But constitutional democracy wasn't the only game in town. Europeans had been tinkering with parliamentary democracies for quite some time. It was something more suited to the pyramidal nature of kingships. It gave the nobility, the religious, the rich and powerful a say in matters. And it remained that way, for the most part, till after WWII. Communism and US Constitutional Democracy opened up the ideology of at least inclusion of the common man. So Parliamentary Democracies opened up as well.
Now the Democratic Block had two models to choose from to go against the Communist Block.
As we know now it wasn't much of a contest, as well will see next.
2- Economy - After WWII, the world was in ruin and had to rebuild. There were two economical models. A centrally controlled Communist Economic Model. And a market controlled Capitalist economic model. There was no contest. From morphological stand point, a communist economy is top down controlled, limited in its qualitative and quantitative delivery. There are no incentives for production, no self-starting or self-correcting mechanisms. Market economies have incentives built in. When an old way of doing business falters, new ways spring up. It has a built in chaotic dynamic, economic flows of money, supply and demand, mix and match every which way, stable businesses perpetuate, unstable ones die off. Where market economies continually rejuvenate, command economies are static, there is no competition; command economies die a natural death.
By late 20th century a new form of economy emerged, the knowledge economy. It was significantly different from anything that appeared before it. Traditionally, trade involved the exchange of money with goods, physical goods. These goods included food stuff, tools and objects, objects of necessity or desire, otherwise they were material in substance. The knowledge economy puts that notion on its head. Here, knowledge itself is the stuff of currency. The goods are now abstract in nature. Software, movies, music, "how-to" books, etc., we all buy this stuff and what is takes to make them is knowledge. But it hardly stops there, consider the impact of the knowledge of engineering, economics, politics, medicine, mathematics, and the list goes on and on. Knowledge economy even permeates traditional economies by rapidly increasing productivity in a variety of traditional sectors. There are entire university systems dedicated to creating and training these knowledge workers for the endless parade of jobs that are in demand. And the investment banking sector is betting billions, trillions of dollars over time, to develop and gain ownership of knowledge that is yet to be established, giving (hopefully!) rise to the goods and services of the future.
To fully understand the scope of the knowledge economy it is important to understand the credit based economy. Credit, as in various forms of borrowing, has existed basically ever since trade started. But, in the case of the knowledge economy it becomes the financial foundation as well the fuel. To (over) simplify the picture, the manufacturer of knowledge goods, as well as its buyers, borrow from the banks which borrows from the government, which prints and regulates monetary notes. As the size of the economy grows (more knowledge goods are produced and sold), the government simply increases the supply of monetary notes to support the growing economy. Say in the case of purely knowledge based products, software, games, books, movies, music, expert services, etc. there is nothing physical in that monetary flow to hinder or cap the flow. The size of the economy can expand unrestricted by material availability. In applied sectors of the knowledge economy, permeating established genres of engineering, medicine, agriculture, architecture, etc. knowledge products and expert services can proliferate without being capped by material restrictions as well, by enlarge. Compare that with say material based industries such as oil, or wood or steel; they are capped by the availability of the materials in question. Moreover, knowledge products are generally produced with a relatively small energy overhead required to make them, compared to material based industries. Finally, the knowledge economy is inherently global.
Knowledge economies have two morphological features:
1- A System and a Culture of learning- The System of learning consists of primary, secondary, trade, university, and post graduate educational institutions. The Culture of learning instills the fact that learning is a constant in the knowledge economy. In fact the real learning begins after graduation from the System and entering the workforce. It is on the job that real learning and the application of knowledge in building and selling of knowledge products come to bare fruit. The System is the foundation of the knowledge economy, the Culture is its engine.
2- Economic Freedom expressed in free trade networks, specifically the Internet- Economic Freedom lets knowledge products proliferate without bounds. The economic transactions are by enlarge carried out electronically, these days primarily on the Internet.
The impact of this evolutionary morphology is huge. The knowledge economy has already created immense amounts of goods, services and wealth. The hot markets of present and future are in essence driven by the knowledge economy.
3- Military - The military build up in our social morphology finally capped itself with creation of nuclear weapons. There are presently enough nuclear weapons to end human life on earth several times over.
But, the military industrial complexes have their own cultural momentum. In the US, a yearly military budget runs to about a half a trillion dollars and it is deployed in nearly all of the States, effecting local economies that service the military installations. There are significant dual use technologies that came out of the military (especially the US military) and entered the civilian sectors: aviation and avionics, communication (short-mid-long range, including satellites), computing and information technology, space exploration, all-terrain vehicles, body protection, radar, sonar, internet, etc. just to name a few. So there are huge constituents from all manners of sectors that are dependent on these expenditures as a matter of survival.
Though US has the largest military budget, military industrial complexes in pretty much every country have the same cultural momentum. There are few countries (Costa Rica) who have consciously decide not to stand a military.
Currently, there are two distinct drivers for military development and deployment. One is the traditional drive for betterment of technologies in support of tactical and strategic deployments. This is mainly in competition with other developed countries. The other one is new. It is the joint military-civilian approach to conflict prevention and resolution. The drive here is to manage trouble spots before they get out of hand. This approach covers concepts not in a traditional military doctrine: soft (smart) power, conflict resolution skills, language skills, human intelligence emphasis, civilian engineering skills, medical delivery skills, cultural skills, etc. are all to converge with traditional military tactics and strategies. Further, the deployment arena for this approach is global, there is no single country that can muster all of the tasks at hand. So there are a lot of military to military as well as civilian to military connection to be shored up to manage this new approach in a vast and dynamic global arena.
4- Technology (last but decidedly not least) - Science and technology are the prime drivers of social morphology of the 21st century. It penetrates everything and it is already global in reach.
Consider information technologies and internet in particular. It already has created new social morphologies. For the first time in human history we have virtual societies. You now have virtual collaborative creativity, virtual social networks, virtual trade and sales networks, virtual knowledge spaces, etc.
Biological and medical technologies have prolonged human life and its quality. Genetically engineered crops are already on the market.
We are already reaching outwards to the depths of space and inwards to subatomic particles.
A global economic system is already in the tens of trillions of dollars, hundred trillion dollar global economy is in sight.
The global knowledge economy has created supra-national social morphologies. Some, in the form of multi-national companies are spread all over the globe, they don't necessarily share the national interests of any one nation, more often than not their interests do not coincide. But there is more to it than that. Kids plugged into the internet might have more in common with kids on the other side of the globe that are plugged into the internet. More than the kids next door that are not plugged into the internet, more than their grandparents who are internet free.
In the first chapter we discovered a few key features of morphological flows, they apply to our social evolution as well:
1- the attractive-repulsive forces that set the entities in action. Here we have the drive of money and power that is the overarching impetus of social action. That leads to social chaotic dynamics.
2- chaotic dynamics of social structures mixing and matching every which way, more often than not through conflict. What started as tribal social pyramids of religious-kingship has now morphed into the relatively flat world of the knowledge domain.
3- spectrum is full. There are still hunter-gatherers, farmer-herder societies, religious kingdoms, along with tribal democracies, muti-ethnic democracies, with the knowledge domain on top of the complexity hierarchy.
No one can guess as to the emergent morphology of the 21st century human social structure. But, as with everything else we have seen through this exercise, something will emerge under the stresses of natural selection.
Specifically, we have to deal with sustainability. The technologies that built the 20th century social structures (including physical infrastructures) were based on cheap energy. So waste was not a big deal. Subsequently, if you are a 200 pound person driving a 4000 pound car, 95% of the energy is burnt to move the car, 5% to move you. some 70% of the energy that feeds housing in the developed world is wasted. That is just to give a couple of examples from the energy sector.
As the world population is exponentially growing (6 billion and counting- 2008), no one has figured out how to feed, house, educate the population in a sustainable way.
So, just like everything else in the biotic domain, as our social structures radiate out, they are checked by nature selection. Nature is the gate keeper, letting social morphologies that can sustain themselves survive, while others die off.
Chapter Key
9- Our Social/Cultural Evolution: Religion, Science, Economics, Democratic Governance, Arms
(note: societal knowledge trees and culture are one and the same thing)
societal knowledge trees: religion + governance == social evolution ==> tribal cultures, societies and governments
societal knowledge trees: science == scientific evolution ==> technological societies and cultures
societal knowledge trees: economics == economic evolution ==> national wealth, trans-national economic alliances
societal kowledge trees: democratic governance == evolution of free societies ==> global coalition of free societies
societal knowledge trees: military arts and sciences == military evolution ==> empires, international military alliances
Courses
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Science--Technology--and-Society/STS-003Spring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm - MIT OpenCourseWare - STS.003 The Rise of Modern Science
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm#History - Entire MIT OCW History Curriculum, including:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/History/21H-301Fall-2004/CourseHome/index.htm - MIT OpenCourseWare - 21H.301 The Ancient World: Greece
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/History/21H-302Spring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm - MIT OpenCourseWare - 21H.302 The Ancient World: Rome
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/History/21H-306Fall2003/CourseHome/index.htm - MIT OpenCourseWare - 21H.306 The Emergence of Europe:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/History/21H-311Fall-2004/CourseHome/index.htm - MIT OpenCourseWare - 21H.311 The Renaissance, 1300-1600
Links
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