Copy-And-Paste Empires

Lessons not remembered

Place five or six pre-kindergarten children in a sandbox with a multitude of toys, enough for all, and tell them, “Play nice.” Leave them there awhile. Watch and listen. You’ll soon witness small skirmishes developing. Absent adult intervention, mere tiffs will escalate into forms of tribal warfare abound with hurt feelings, shouts, threats, tears, resentment, jealousy, envy, and finally…violence…toward the toys at first, then each other. As a parent with memories of childhood sandbox experiences and how they were resolved, you can sort through the tangled mass of emotional and physical wrongs committed and dole out necessary remedies to rebalance the scales of justice in your backyard.

The biggest, toughest kid on the block would not be allowed to have his way. You would employ the skills of mediation and fair play accumulated since childhood and attempt to pass on the virtues of good behaviour, fairness, sharing, give-and-take, and how they ultimately lead to ‘win-win’ outcomes.

But if you had no memories of childhood scenes of sandbox turf wars and how they were resolved, the path toward peaceful resolution would not be available to you. You’d simply not know what to do nor have any idea of what works and what does not. On a much grander scale, this is a rough sketch of the dilemma faced by nations vying for top spot as the world’s new conquering empire. Nobody was alive during the last changing of the guard and few bother to study what went wrong, thus the skills necessary to negotiate and reason things out are not available for those involved to avoid escalation and all out global war .

The current tension in international affairs closely mirrors the conditions leading up to World War I. The old-world order was collapsing and there existed a world-wide power vacuum that needed filling. A big war was coming. I’ll come back to that.

The current president-elect of the United States of America has no memory or experience related to the challenge of resolving issues that led to the fall of past world empires. If/when he is inaugurated in early 2025, he will be handicapped by his own ignorance of history as it pertains to hegemonic collapse. And he is not alone. He drew large and sincerely adoring crowds that chanted, “USA, USA, USA”, while nations representing most of the world’s population set about to convene with the purpose of planning and executing ways to collectively and peacefully free themselves from America’s economic and military domination.

The BRICS member states, with China leading the way, are building the next empire. The new American administration can lash out with as many tariffs, economic sanctions and trade embargoes as it wants, like a spoiled child having a temper tantrum, but the historic cycles regarding the rise and fall of empires will march on. What goes up comes down. Empires are no different. As King Solomon expressed, there is nothing new under the sun.

There are presently nine formally recognized nation-state members that make up the BRICS consortium, representing over one-half of Earth’s inhabitants, with others either knocking at the door to join or kicking the tires of this new vehicle, which apparently comes with standard features such as safety, security and economic smooth-sailing. That’s the theory. That’s the goal. How it achieves its desired outcome will be anything but smooth. The top dog is becoming more vicious as its superiority is challenged and in decline. Economic and military weapons are being implemented by all sides as this transition unfolds. Proxy wars, propaganda and sanctions are the order of the day. The fight is on. Here we go again.

I have read Barbara W. Tuchman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction work, The Guns Of August, at least three times, and refer to it often as an historical document of great value to better understand present-day geo-political events. It is a fascinating read. Tuchman goes behind the scenes, behind the big picture, and gives a glimpse into the personalities, thinking and idealism of political and military leaders as they took their nations into what became World War I. The intention of both sides was to fight a quick war lasting a few months at most. They had no idea of what they were about to unleash.

In the book’s final paragraph, Tuchman writes of how things appeared to all parties concerned once the kinetic fighting went from days to weeks to months: “Afterword there was no turning back. The nations were caught in a trap…”. The former world order convulsed and spiraled into WWI, then WWII after a few years spent reloading.

Tuchman’s narrative could easily and accurately undergo an operation of ‘copy-and-paste’ overlaying current world headlines. Most of the nations still exist, as do their respective leadership positions, titles and functions. And worst of all, human nature still exists. The same issues that arose in the sandbox are now playing out on the international stage. But unlike the intervening parent who knew from experience how to resolve the sandbox difficulties, none of today’s statesmen were alive the last time the world was on the brink of total war, and I doubt any have bothered to read works like The Guns Of August to get an idea of the many pitfalls to avoid while working things out.

I believe the world has again entered a turning point. There is no evidence that those currently in positions of power, whether within nations or competing blocs, are any different than those who led nations into WWI and II. They are just as belligerent, delusional, irresponsible, greedy and ambitious as any in the past. Some have more positive qualities such as level-headedness, wisdom and self-control, and I hope those in that camp prevail. But I sense the road ahead is a bumpy one.

God bless us, everyone.

Daniel (Murphy) Kennedy