The Super Summary of World History (99 page)

As World War II ended, a new international organization was set up to help prevent new wars, the
United
Nations
. The organization started with hope, but as the years went on it became a debating society much like the League of Nations. Without total support from the Security Council the United Nations cannot act. There is a clear division in the world between political philosophies, and each of those philosophies sit on the Security Council; thus, when one party wants to act at least one other does not resulting in constant deadlock. Even when outright slaughters are ongoing the United Nations does not move. In Rwanda, a devastating slaughter has been going on for years, and the United Nations either cannot or does not wish to stop the murder. Even though UN forces went to Rwanda they were inadequate in size, training, and motivation; thus, the mission failed and the slaughter continued. In other areas of Africa, such as the Sudan, Muslims massacre Christians and the United Nations does not act. Famines take place all over the globe, but unless nations such as the United States do something, the United Nations seldom moves. In the United Nations no criticism can be made of such goings-on because the body will not stand for such criticism. Religiously antagonistic and ‘have not” states, whose agendas for the world are illiberal in the extreme, greatly outnumber the Western Democracies and consistently vote against the agendas of the West. Under these conditions the United Nations has devolved into stagnation.

Where the post-modern world will take humanity is difficult to say. Europe has shattered into a hive of small competing ethic regions. The same fracturing appears to be happening in Asia, Africa, and perhaps Latin America. Everyone wants to rule themselves. The shattering into small politically independent, but economically dependent, nations can hurt trade. Can these tiny areas really survive? The unifying force of religion is failing, as radical Islam stupidly adopts violence to unite people. Violence is the last method that works to unite people.

There are several trends influencing the modern world. Let’s take a quick look:

Technology

Technology is alive and well in our modern world. It is intrusive, complex, and allows technocrats tremendous power over those who do not understand the machines that technocrats have mastered. Computers are now tied to every aspect of life in the modern Western world. Mobile telephones are everywhere, and the World Wide Web (the INTERNET) has proliferated beyond comprehension.

The start of much of this technological wizardry was the Space Race between the USSR and America. In 1961 when President Kennedy announced that America would reach the moon before the decade was out, computers were machines that filled entire rooms. The number of vacuum tubes in computing machines like Univac numbered in the thousands (and they burned out a lot). One of the major accomplishments of the space program was to shrink computing technology to diminutive scales so they could fit onto spacecraft and help navigate and otherwise assist the astronauts in the complex flying needed to reach and return from space.

When the United States landed on the surface of the moon on
July
20,
1969
, it was the result of fantastic progress in marrying machines with computers. Neil Armstrong (the first man on the moon’s surface) and Buzz Aldrin (the second) were able to transmit from the moon to the Earth with radios that were minuscule compared to those available in 1960. When IBM launched its first personal computer it could address a maximum of 640 kilobytes of information at once. Now (2010) computers can address gigabytes of information with no problem. The growth of the power of the computer is one of the phenomena of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that will reach far into the future. There is little doubt technology will continue to power the machines of the future, but the future itself may be dark or bright. The machines and computers will not decide that issue;
people
will decide.

In 1974, a group of computer geniuses invented the protocol that would lead to the
Internet.
In 1992, the number of Internet users was extremely small, but by 2006, the number had grown to 350 million with millions more being added each year. The worldwide acceptance of the Internet and computers displays the acceptance of change in the Western world. The Internet has had a dramatic impact on societies in the West, and its impact will only grow as computers and transmission techniques become better and faster.

Bureaucracy and technology nowadays unite in both wonderful and dangerous ways. We cover this topic in the section on Bureaucracy in the Modern World (below).

War

First the good news; since 1945 there have been no general wars between any of the great powers. The bad news is war is changing rather dramatically in the twenty-first century. The super weapons owned by the United States and other technologically advanced nation states are virtually useless against
insurgents
who are able to hide among the population and strike indiscriminately and without warning. This type of warfare is the most difficult for the Western Democracies to face because it is very different from previous conflicts, and it forces the West to get involved in cultures they do not understand. Winning the support of the populace is not an easy matter for political entities viewed as former imperial powers or, going even further back, crusaders.

The insurgents strike soft points for the purpose of inflicting casualties and gaining worldwide headlines. These tactics will be successful if the insurgents can carry them out consistently and wear down the forces of the West. The new form of warfare favors the enemies of the West because as long as they can keep or obtain the allegiance of the locals the Western powers cannot successfully prevail against them. The native factions making this kind of war often use terror tactics to gain and keep control of local populations. Thus, to “win” such a conflict the West must learn the ways of the locals and then attempt to convince them that democracy and moderation is the path to a better future. If for any reason the West fails in this endeavor, then the opposing combatants will continue to avoid capture and continue to inflict losses. The West should note that for hundreds of years the eastern cultures have been living next door and have not adopted Western ideas. Will they now choose to do so just because Western military units reside in or near their land? (See
:
The
Accidental
Guerilla,
by
D.
Kilcullen, Oxford University Press
,
2009)
[389]

Good intelligence is the key to victory in these new wars. What must happen for the West to succeed is that the locals must give away the positions of the insurgents and warn the Western Democracies fighting in the area of planned raids or the placement of bombs and other traps. A clear indication of nearing victory is an increase in accurate intelligence from locals wanting the insurgents out of their area. A clear indication of nearing defeat is zero intelligence tips, for whatever reasons. Thus far, the Western Democracies have not adapted well to this new form of warfare. Corruption in foreign governments presents a significant problem—if not the most significant. Budgets for the Western Democracies show the spending levels for massive new weapons systems to fight World War II type contests are either stable or rising. To win the new wars the West must spend funds on additional intensive training and new specialized equipment for their foot soldiers and avoid spending excessive sums on super weapons capable of destroying entire regions in one blow.

Even as insurgent warfare is thrust on the West the old form of all-out war is still a threat. Red China still possesses a massive army, navy, and air force that threaten neighboring nations. The survival of Taiwan depends on US military protection. Russia is rebuilding its old nuclear arsenal and improving its military to enable it to challenge the West. These facts force the United States to maintain both a reasonably sized, technologically proficient conventional force, and, additional, highly trained and mobile forces to thwart insurgents that may gain control of vital raw materials or nuclear weapons. Maintaining these dual forces is expensive, and deploying to long wars without obvious endings will drain the financial resources and damage the political will of the United States and other Western Democracies.

In the war on terror, the atomic bomb changes everything. Now a small and otherwise inconsequential nation can literally destroy millions at one blow. If Iran or North Korea were unable to gain atomic weapons how much of a threat would they comprise? Without atomic weapons, the terrorist’s threat is much less viable. With atomic weapons a terrorist state can shake the world to its foundations. All this puts the entire world on a razor’s edge because there are so many nations controlled by leaders who would use atomic weapons without compunction.

Lack of political will to fight the long wars of insurgency is the most significant threat to the survival of the Western Democracies. As monolithic religious sects take over nation after nation in the Middle East, and elsewhere, the challenge to the West becomes ever greater. Meanwhile, the Western Democracies will debate the morality, cost, effectiveness, and sacrifice necessary to win these wars and will most often decide to pull out after a few years or high casualties—if history is any guide. The citizen of the Western Democracies hold their military to the highest standards of warfare, while their enemies of are held to no standard whatsoever. From a “political will” point of view the West is in trouble. Contrary to many views on the subject, the United States and the West
can
lose
the war against terrorism, and the consequences would be devastating for the world.

US Civil Rights Movement

1955
to
present
day
(2010)

The civil rights movement that began before the US Civil War, and ended with the nadir of Reconstruction, would return in the late 1950s and continue through the 1960s and beyond as the Reverend Martin Luther King and others began nonviolent opposition to laws in southern US states relegating blacks to inferior citizenship. A series of laws enacted by Congress, with substantial backing from people of all races in areas outside and inside the South, reinforced the political rights of blacks throughout the United States of America. The
Civil
Rights
Act
of
1964
, the
Voting
Rights
Act
of
1965
and the
Civil
Rights
Act
of
1968
were just a few of the laws passed to insure civil rights for minorities. In addition, the blacks demanded social equality and equality in employment. Backed by the US Congress and the federal courts, the blacks managed to achieve substantial progress by the end of the 1970s. The civil rights movement continues in 2010, expanding to nonblack minorities, women, and homosexuals who now claim the US is an evil and unfair society.

For reasons difficult to comprehend, after the blacks had gained numerous laws protecting the civil rights of all minorities and numerous laws, regulations, and court decisions giving opportunities that even went so far as to discriminate against whites, the blacks still argued for more. Worse, the leaders of blacks and other minorities began contending that the United States was a fascist nation unworthy of their support. This contention of an evil United States spread and became a commonly held belief in many minority groups throughout the country. For example, black churches openly teach that the Federal Government invented the AIDS virus to kill black people, and under so called “Liberation Theology” black and minority churches openly call for violence against the white race and the overthrow of the US government.

What has been forgotten by a substantial number of blacks and other minorities (who by 2010 were majorities in many cities) is how the white race in America made sure minorities were protected and gained an equal place in society. In 1865, after suffering almost a million casualties in the Civil War, white northern soldiers and the US Congress freed the black slaves and passed Constitutional Amendments to protect their civil rights. In the 1960s, few blacks were in Congress when the civil rights acts were passed, and the judges from 1960 to 2010 making favorable decisions for minorities were white. Poor as this may sound,
white
America
freed
the
blacks
who
now
seemingly
hate
them.
Somehow, freedoms won via the white majority caused blacks to believe they still suffer from oppression.