Inspired by David Brooks’ 7/5 column in the New York Times, in which he describes radical Islam as the main threat to global peace.
Not enough bread & circuses to go around.
The rising price of bacon.
i place the blame squarely on people.
Scarcity of water.
Right now Egypt is threatening Ethiopia because Ethiopia is going to divert the Blue Nile with a massive hydro dam which will take six years to fill. Egypt already has a water problem and the prospect of the Nile becoming smaller is a national crisis.
There will be wars and famines in the near future.
Human nature.
And Iceland. I’ve been keeping my eye on those guys ever since the Cod Wars.
Word.
Progressivism
Short-term probably Syria, North Korea, and Iran.
Long-term China.
Another vote for China. They’re looking for a change in the international status quo and that’s the kind of thing that causes wars.
Brooks is almost mediocre when he quotes experts or sticks to the facts. When he strives for the “vision thing” he’s usually very wrong and always pretentious enough to annoy.
Probably correct. Are there similar crises looming, in addition to water?
America, given its history of aggression and the fact that it’s engaged in attacks on other countries right now in the form of drone strikes. Except for the “it doesn’t count when we do it” principle it would automatically top the list for that alone, you can’t get to be much more of a threat to peace than actually attacking.
Conservatism*. Also known as “I got mine, fuck you”:
“Oh, you need food? I have plenty, so there must not be a problem.”
“Oh, you need water? It’s your own fault you don’t have any. Oh, that reminds me- I think I left the sprinklers on all night.”
“Wow, you guys seem really upset. It must be that you hate our freedoms. Luckily, I’ve got the biggest military in the world.”
“I need cheap oil to keep my military running. Oh, looks like you’ve got some that you’re not using. You don’t mind if I take it, do you?”
Or, basically, greed.
*I only called it this to tweak Collaborator’s kneejerk “progressivism” contribution.
You know what I blame this on the breakdown of?
Society.
I firmly believe that everything bad is caused by overpopulation. We need to colonize another planet.
The biggest threat to human security these days is insecure governments with weak militaries.
We have seen the slow winding down of interstate warfare over the last half century. What remains is civil war, rebellions, and various warlords. These things exist in places where the central government is unable to maintain control. Usually this happens when they lack legitimacy on their own, and thus need to rely on various client-patron systems (which we would probably call corruption) to maintain some sense of order. This arrangement is weak, but lucrative, which encourage a never ending parade of groups to try to claim some corner of it.
Religion. Any and all.
Greed.
Everyone wants more.
A bit hard to have global peace when everyone is trying to rip the others off - be it oil, jobs, water, food, land, goods, money, technology…and add to the mix the idiotic religions that can be tweaked to inflame the mood and declare it some godgiven right.
The status quo is america as the only superpower and things are so peaceful right now right?
Similar conflict has been going on between India and Pakistan, and Syria and Iraq, and with nations in Central Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Africa, and Bolivia and Peru. Water scarcity and poor utilization of freshwater resources is a largely ignored consequence of poorly planned “Green Revolution” programs and rampant industrial growth, including unsustainable use of so-called “fossil water” resources such as the Ogallala Aquifer in the United States and the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in Africa. We’ve treated water as an almost freely available resource for the past half-century because we can pump it out of the ground like oil, but like oil, it doesn’t just come from nowhere, and the current understanding of the hydrological system from sea to aquifer indicates just how long and fragile that system is.
This is all true, but such conflicts would be limited to regional wars if not for the fact that major powers get involved and support such wars with arms and materiel–sometimes for principles, sometimes for politics, and often for profit–which expands such “proxy” wars into more global conflicts that have little to do with the people on the ground. The United Nations, which was established with the specific mission to limit such proxy wars and coordinate efforts between nations to negotiate settlements, but has been largely ineffectual in conflicts in which one of the five permanent members of the Security Council have disagreed with action.
I find it unlikely that China seeks open war with anyone. Although they are certainly building naval and air power capabilities commiserate with a global power, the actual costs and impact on international trade of open warfare are doubtless apparent to them. However, supporting and supplying proxy wars in Africa and elsewhere may give them profit and access to natural resources that they would not otherwise have, and any interactions between China and other nations should be viewed in this context.
The threat of weapons in Earth orbit, and especially anti-satellite technology (which is in the grasp of China as well as the US, Russia, and potentially nations such as India, Israel, and Iran) does threaten to become a new theater for conflict for denial of surveillance, communications, and satellite-assisted navigation, all of which are crucial for coordinated operations on terrestrial and naval conflicts. Obtaining agreement and practical methods for verifications for space-based weapons should be a crucial focus of arms limitations efforts.
Stranger