Very true Goku. I'm afraid it is the tendency of states that have both military and economic might to feel obligated to 'fix' things to make others more like themselves. If it works for them, surely it would help others to be like them, right? Obviously no. I
hesitate using the Romans and British as examples, but they are good ones. Whether through religious, economic, cultural. political, or military means they sought to make the world more like themselves. They thought that since they had risen to such power, that it was both their responsibility and their right to teach the 'barbarians'. This is a gross oversimplification of course, but I think you see what I am getting at.
Like the Romans and British though, we are stretching ourselves too thin. I personally don;t see an American invasion as very likely, but it would be possible for our forces stretched across the globe to be picked off if there was enough discontent and hatred toward the US (not just terrorist cells, but with worldwide state backing) A long shot in the sense that I doubt those who are discontented would organize well enough, and our economic slide is more likely to see fewer military actions abroad as we simply won;t be able to afford what we are doing now.
To be honest though, I doubt whoever takes our place as 'world police' will be any better. Stability is not achieved through putting down a populace, it is achieved through across the board economic prosperity. Of course there are several things that go into that, including the economic system, available resources, arable land, terrain, etc. It is no mystery that the most prosperous countries in the world are in the midlatitudes, the best regions for farming. Also notice that most of the poorest countries are south of the equator. This is because there is far less land mass down there, and very few areas that have optimal farming land, outside of South Africa and Argentina. Most southern hemisphere land mass is close to the equator itself, a terrible place for farming, and as populations grow rapidly they are not able to feed themselves, among other things.
Other problems are that in order to make money, some states take away what little arable land they have to grow food in order to make 'cash crops' (coffee, sugar cane, etc.). This obviously leads to less food overall, and also the issue of political corruption, taking away proceeds and putting it in their own pockets. So they must import food. (in case you haven;t noticed I am mainly talking about Africa here, but I'll move on to other areas) The food is dropped off at the docks, but it is either left there to rot, or warlords loot it and use it as a bargaining chip over the local populations. Add onto that the fact that increased medicine availability has sent them rocketing into a semblance of the second stage of demographic transition, there are more people living past birth, and those are also reproducing rapidly due to old farm customs, and is far exceeding the death rate. This population explosion is another source of the unrest.
There are no clear cut solutions to those problems. We can't just make a plan and take action, nor is it even advisable to do so. In most cases they do not want ours, or anybody's help. Corruption is something that has to be fought from within. How they achieve economic stability is tricky as well. They could get better farming equipment to make what land they have for it far more efficient, but though that would lead to more food, where do the other farmers go? Cities are hardly a good option, since it would take a while for the economies to go anywhere, it would just degrade into slums. Education is only as useful as the population makes of it. The unfortunate tendency is that people look at these problems from a Western perspective, rather than looking at it as something entirely unique. I sincerely hope those problems can be resolved, but it is going to be harder than most people realize.
If you want to focus on the Middle East (a loose term at best since it includes North African states as far west as Morocco, but nobody wished to use the term 'Muslim World' in a political context), it mostly boils down to religious unrest and a lack of farming land, as well as a lack of resources other than oil. The best bet I would think would be to make the jump to a service based economy, but I don't pretend to be an expert on this. Many of the problems previously discussed also apply here. I hesitate to say much more about it.
America has had an advantage in 3 areas, that very few other states has ever had.
1.) A very strong economy
2.) A strong military
3.) Ability to feed itself.
#3 is something oft looked over, but it is a crucial element. The US does produce enough food to feed everybody, but the problem has always been the distribution and pricing. Americans also get sick of seeing their charitable donations rot or get stolen. However, the world's carrying capacity is getting dangerously close. If everyone was producing as much food as they could with maximum efficiency, the world would be able to support a little over 9 billion people. This delves further into demographic theory of demographic transition vs. neo-Malthusianism, so I think I best stop here :sheep:
To those who actually read the whole thing, congrats:p I appreciate any criticism of course as I am sure I have overstretched what learning and understanding I have.
A few additions: All I was seeking to do here was extend the conversation from 'USA, USA!', and 'Amerika is teh suxxorz!1!/ Death to Bush', etc., to a broader understanding of the world situation. Even this is just a cliff notes version of an extremely small portion of what is going on. Books have been written on small portions of what I've said. I strayed quite a bit from my original statements as I went on, maybe I'll try to bring them together later. I didn't talk much about the mideast because I only got so far in my education, and I was not able to study the region more closely. I don't want to go in depth into something I know next to nothing about(though that doesn't stop most Americans:p). Most of this comes from Political Geography, but some cultural/economic/and physical geography as well.
10-Aug-2007
10-Aug-2007