The League of Nations failed because of its in ability to act, the UN suffers from similar problems, which while not as great will eventually lead to diminishing International support. When I say “diminishing supportâ€, I don’t mean by all or even most countries but by a few strong. Those who have the strength and will to use there muscle in both economical and military fields to express their position in away that the world must listen.
The Will to Power, is always practiced when it comes to growing in any field. Why should the strong listen or be limited by the weak. Why should a country that has the self-belief in its ability to take on the world single handily, wait for International opinion to change and match its own?
Please don’t take what I’m about to say as a conspiracy theory or that this post is about starting a conspiracy thread. It’s looking at facts in an indirect way, while always remembering that there is more then one way of viewing a situation.
As the old saying goes, “Money makes the world go roundâ€. We’re living more and more in a world that is and becoming Capitalistic in its ideology. Capitalism is about free trade between free traders. When one becomes free to trade one also takes on the risk of losing out and becoming poor, or broke. The question that now arises: What do I have to trade? Is it manual labour, intellectual abilities, finite resources, land, money? Capitalism gives the rich more strength to buy up other profit making commodities. Which in the long-term will mean it’s easier for the rich to get richer while the poor need to be more inventive about how they acquire there wealth.
The same is true for the international community. The rich countries have more opportunities to make money as they have more expendable wealth. While the smaller countries become isolated and weak. Only consolidation of the smaller countries can stop the strong from growing by slowly making each small country irrelevant. The main idea behind the EU, EC, EEC and all the other names it has carried, is all to do with consolidation for the purpose of economic and political survival. Even the UN is a form of this. Wars are now really fought on the old battlefields. Money, and wealth of the populace is a more effective form of fighting a war. Instead of only an army of 2 million fighting, you can have a country’s entire populace all using there wealth to buy up other country’s natural wealth. Stock markets allow the individual the ability to invest in big multinational corporations, which have their main base in one country while using up the resources of another. Now, not only is the country fighting, but everybody in that country is directly fighting, in the war “that is not a warâ€, but is still a very real power struggle. As the more foreign investors who own local resources move the power from the local populace across to the foreign investor.
Back to the problem at hand, Power. This conflict with Saddam is and isn’t about oil. Oil is the black blood of all economies. It’s supplies the energy to all of the industries, powers our TVs, Computers, Cars, Airplanes, etc. And almost everything, I would actually speculate, everything we have, oil has helped in are acquiring of it in some form or another. So to claim that the war is not about oil is mistaken.
America is the single most powerful economical power in the world, I would say China is the second but is currently limited by International trade tariffs. From what I’ve read Saddam control’s potentially 25% to 30% of the entire world’s oil reserves. This finite resource must be controlled and managed. It also gives Saddam power to do deals with other nations and buy allies with oil directly or indirectly. Indirectly Russia, France and Germany see America’s call for change in Iraq for a new leader, one that will lead to a leader who is more willing to deal with America on American terms. Saddam once had strong ties with the American, but over time these have been dissolved.
International terrorism is the main guise that this little dance is being played too. America and the UK would be more lightly to see an increase in terrorism. But if their plans were successful, while terrorism might increase, the scale of the danger would be diminished. So you might have more attacks, but they would be less serious, then if a single big attack occurred with weapons of mass destruction. Russia, France and Germany will see very little international terrorism either way, as they are seen to be sympathetic to Saddam. But I believe this is fuelled more by the fear of America becoming more powerful because it will have easier access to Iraqi oil. While Russia, France and Germany call for peace, they’re really trying to block America’s attempts to access Iraqi oil and using the UN as a tool for doing this. The country that uses the most oil has the potential to produce the most profit making commodities. Both the EU and Russia are now under extreme economical pressures. The European Central Bank’s interest rates are very low, trying to inject new life into the failing economy. While America is also on the back foot it’s in a better position to make a quick recovery, even though some of Bush’s economical decisions would not seem very sound. Europe is becoming a more a second-class citizen in the ever-evolving world. While still important Russia has lost her platform on the world stage, seen as a weak and recovering nation. It’s now Americas time to be strong and without an equal it’s free to do almost anything it wishes, as it would literally take a united world to stand against her.
So back to “Why should the strong listen or be limited by the weak. Why should a country that has the self-belief in its ability to take on the world single handily, wait for International opinion to change and match its own?â€
Does a single world power lead to the inevitable irrelevance of the UN? As one country becomes more influential then a combined community of nations, how long before all the other countries fade into the history books. Ultimately is world unity through politics an unrealistic goal? Will the invisible lines that divide land and the water that divides continents be removed only by a single world power expressing itself through imperialistic expansion?