How do the big and powerful attack? They do it in many different ways, although nowadays its primarily economically, this is where the famous McDonald’s culture comes into place, capitalism starts eating the little enterprises and gives more to the richer and less to the poorer, this is common knowledge and in a way capitalism starts eating individuality and making all of us part of a “Happy Meal” by selling us the idea that we’re getting more variety thanks to them, that they’re making things easier for us, but that’s not true. For example the big car companies have satellite companies, some of them especially the Japanese ones make so called luxury cars and sell them under the name of the satellite company (which usually have sophisticated names such as “Infinity”, “Acura”, “Lexus”, etc.) but what these companies are really selling us are Nissans and Hondas and Toyota, and the worse thing is that in they’re efforts to cut costs they sell the same car with a couple of different details in the exterior and one or two more gadgets inside, but the cars platform is the same it has the same chassis, engine, and suspension, maybe if you’re lucky the engine is tuned up differently and these really minor details make us fall into their trap and let them make even more money while they’re spending more or less the same amount.
I’ve gotten out of the main topic to prove the point that capitalism and globalization are not aimed the right way, they’re not aimed at improving the level of life in general, they intend to make the majorities the servants of the companies by utilizing different techniques such as marketing and media framing. The worse thing is that we’re conscious about all of this and we do not want it to change because we are the ones that are enjoying it, this is a very selfish thing but at the same time it constitutes our reality.
The new world order works that way, but we also have to put ourselves although its hard in the perspective of other states which are also looking for their own power, they are not the enemy they are the competition, the small competition. Its hard to understand that the world is not only us but all of the civilizations around us, it’s hard to put ourselves into others shoes but it’s the reality and I firmly believe that hegemonic stability is utopia, after all the international community is an anarchy. That leaves us no other option but to look for our own selves and to behave in sometimes irrational manners, and all of this comes back to the survival of the fittest.
I strongly feel that Mearshimer’s point of view is the one which I tend to agree with out of the authors read along the semester, some people may call Mearshimer a pessimist person or a person with a very drastic way of viewing things, but in international politics where there is no hegemony to establish a common order things are much harder and I strongly believe that it is much better to expect the worse because you never know who may be feeling offended by the actions of a certain states. Culture and variety are things that should be kept in mind always and they are to be respected if in order to get closer to a peaceful treaty this type of example can be in a way observed in the following paragraph:
“One might counter that, if the United States stays put in Europe and Northeast Asia, there might be no great-power war and therefore no danger that Americans might have to suffer the horrible costs of war. But there are two related problems with this line of argument. Although an American military presence would probably make war less likely, there is no guarantee that a great-power conflict would not break out. For example, if the U.S. military stays put in Northeast Asia, it could plausibly end up in war with China over Taiwan. Furthermore, if a great power war would occur, the United States would be involved from the start, which does not make good strategic sense. It would be best for the United States either not to become involved in the fighting or, if it had to join the war to do so later rather than earlier. That way the United States would pay a much smaller price than would the states that fought from start to finish, and it would be well-positioned at the war’s end to win the peace and shape the postwar world to its advantage.”
(Mearshimer, Great power politics in the Twenty-first century, page 389). Huntington’sThis paragraph gives us a good idea on how Mearshimer looks at things, its not a very optimistic view but it is the one closest to reality and therefore I consider his recommendations and approaches to be the safest way to follow simply because of the fact of prevention. I think Mearshimer is very aware of the fact that the United States is involved in Northeast Asia , especially in Taiwan to gain power over that area, Mearshimer is aware of that too and he states it in the last line of the paragraph quoted above.
The time for colonizing is over and although certain states, especially the more powerful ones tend to try and control what other states do and in a way approve or disapprove their actions. Many times this is done by economic threats or sanctions and even sometimes its done with threats of the use of military power.
Trying to control things is a very common human behavior and I really doubt that it will change because its part of our instincts, this is done nowadays in ways in which we as part of the superpower tend to enforce world order and the media is used a lot to persuade us that what’s going on is the correct thing to do, but I would say that the use of the media is being abused because the people are only observing one perspective and many cases this can be a technique employed by many politicians to ensure their popularity and by ensuring their popularity they are one step closer to being re-elected or staying in office.
Huntington’s book devotes a lot of its time to talking about the Muslim world, as well as the rest of the world, he makes really good points about the cultural differences that exist between the Western civilization and the rest of the civilizations and this is what is pretty much creating the new world order. At the same time Huntington mentions a lot about the different cultures and races around the world and how they’re trying to maintain their own identities, this is clear in the following paragraph:
“In today’s world improvements in transportation and communication have produced more frequent, more intense more symmetrical and more inclusive interactions among people of different civilizations. As a result their civilizational identities have become more salient. The French , German , Belgians and Dutch increasingly think of themselves as European. Middle East Muslims identify with and rally to the support of Bosnians and Chechens. Chinese throughout East Asia identify their interests with those of the mainland. Russians identify with and provide support to Serbs and other Orthodox peoples. Thes broader levels of civilizational identity mean deeper consciousness of civilizational differences and the need to protect what distinguishes “us” from “them”.”
(Huntington, The clash of civilizations, page 129). I completely agree with the above statement because you can see it happen everywhere. I strongly feel that this is because there is a feeling that the own identities are being lost because of the rapid changes and communications, so I believe that the common identity is something that the people look for in order to preserve at least something of what they’ve got, in a way it is very similar to the way the people in the United States feel about their identities, its clear that in the case of the U.S.A. the people that live in it consider themselves first of all Americans and then they consider themselves by their ethnicity so it would be; Afro-Americans, Irish, Italians, Hispanics, etc. This is because how the world is working now tends to go to only one identity that would be in a simplified way “a human being”, and human nature always makes us want to distinguish ourselves from the rest and be proud of what our origins are.
These thing take me to believe that the new world order will en up being the western civilization and the middle eastern civilization, so I think that there is not going to be an hegemonic civilization in the world I strongly believe that the world is going to end up being a bi-polar world, in which the western civilization and the middle eastern civilizations will be on a constant race for world domination and imposing their cultures. I really doubt that things are going to stay the way they are and I think that 9/11 was a clear example of how things are progressively changing. This may take a lot of time because change isn’t that fast, especially such drastic change but I believe that nowadays the world is tending towards that. What will happen to the rest of the states that aren’t dominant states and that have too much problems of their own to worry about something else? I think that they’re going to end up once again as third world countries that can just worry about their own survival, so they would pretty much behave like the third world countries behaved during the cold war and just take help from anyone who offers help. Asia would take part dividely and parts of it would go on to help the two world orders. After all this is just a speculation of mine, but always keeping in mind that in international politics there is no hegemony or rule book, as we learned in class its an anarchy.
I would like to end this final essay saying that it is almost impossible to agree on everything with the different authors, they all bring different perspectives and they have their own ways to back them up. All of them present really interesting things and good examples, I would also say that the Lexus and the olive tree was the easiest to understand of the three books because Friedman puts some of his real life experiences as part of the examples and that makes the book easier to read and more fun. On the other hand Hamilton and Mearshimer are more fact oriented and you could notice that they are more inside the political scientists point of view while Friedman gives us more the perspective of an outsider.
