World Order – Futures

This paper was written in 2015. Republished here on the occasion of Galtung’s 90th birthday, October 24, 2020. It was originally published at TMS, Transcend Media Service 1.  Definitions and Hypotheses: An Overview Definition: An empire is a transborder Center-Periphery system, in macro-space and in macro-time, with a culture legitimizing a structure of unequal exchange between center and periphery: Empires have different profiles. The US Empire has a complete configuration, articulated in a statement by a Pentagon planner: “The de facto role of the United States Armed Forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing”. (1) In other words, direct violence to protect structural violence legitimized by cultural violence. (2) The Center is the continental USA and the Periphery much of the world.  Like any system it has a life-cycle reminiscent of an organism, with...

Introduction Below is a long interview from Konrad Stachnio with Richard Falk – TFF Associate – on a wide-ranging set of questions, which stretched by knowledge past its breaking point, especially in assessing where the technological innovations on the horizons will lead us.It is one of 17 conversations published by Clarity Press under the title, Civilization in Overdrive: Conversations at the Edge of the Human Future.Preface by Stachnio after interview.The book is recommended strongly.It can be ordered here Originally published on Richard Falks blog on September 12, 2020 Civilization in Overdrive, edited by Konrad Stachnio “If a digital Fukuyama tells the world that ‘the end of history’ has been reached, he should be scorned this time around.” KONRAD STACHNIO: Do you know what is the role of the so-called Black Budget in building the power of the USA as a global security state? RICHARD FALK: It is not possible for someone without access...

Tom Switzer September 25, 2020 CIS Executive Director, Tom Switzer interviews John Mearsheimer and Kishore Mahubani to ask Has China Won? At a time when tensions are running high, CIS Executive Director Tom Switzer asked Has China Won? Our debate between John Mearsheimer and Kishore Mahbubani, two of the world’s leading foreign policy intellectuals. Covid-19 has greatly raised tensions between China and the West. Washington and its allies express outrage at the Communist regime’s opacity concerning the outbreak of the coronavirus. Meanwhile, fears are growing that a pandemic that began in the Chinese city of Wuhan may end by increasing Beijing’s international influence and power. Kishore Mahbubani is author of Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy (just out, PublicAffairs) A former Singaporean ambassador to the United Nations (twice), he was the founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He was a guest of...

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) holds talks with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province, June 10, 2018. (Xinhua/Ding Lin) August 31, 2020 By Niranjan Jose The relationship between China and Iran has been in the spotlight recently. A huge, 25-year deal is reportedly being considered that would see $400 billion of Chinese investment in Iranian energy and transport infrastructure. The deal is the latest effort by Beijing to expand from a regional hegemon into a global power through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which aims to reshape regional economic topographies in its favour. Beijing has ostensibly undertaken to make such a massive investment in key sectors of Iran’s economy in return for an assured supply of Iranian fuel for the next 25 years. The proposed investment is the biggest China has ever pledged to any country as a part of the BRI and envisages huge expenditure in building Iran’s...

Originally published as an editorial at Transcend on August 10, 2020 Connecting dots is neither the trend of our times nor of day-to-day political decision-making. Over the years, time, space and intellectual focus has shrunk. It’s deplorable and dangerous for an increasingly complex world facing increasingly existential challenges. For instance, during the European refugee crisis the dots between wars and refugee movements were hardly ever made. The focus was on how to limit refugees getting into Europe but hardly ever on the wars from which they fled. Western wars are untouchables. The lack of connections between the dots of the Corona and security – human security in particular – would be another example. The present author would see the handling of the Corona pandemic as the most fundamental documentation of the fact that not a single government has practised security the right way: billions of taxpayers’ dollars have been spent...

Pepe Escobar August 26, 2020 Let’s start with the story of an incredibly disappearing summit. Every August, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) converges to the town of Beidaihe, a seaside resort some two hours away from Beijing, to discuss serious policies that then coalesce into key planning strategies to be approved at the CCP Central Committee plenary session in October. The Beidaihe ritual was established by none other than Great Helmsman Mao, who loved the town where, not by accident, Emperor Qin, the unifier of China in the 3rd century B.C., kept a palace. 2020 being, so far, a notorious Year of Living Dangerously, it’s no surprise that in the end Beidaihe was nowhere to be seen. Yet Beidaihe’s invisibility does not mean it did not happen. Exhibit 1 was the fact that Premier Li Keqiang simply disappeared from public view for nearly two weeks – after...

Erni & Ola FriholtTFF Associerade och Fredsrörelsen på Orust 26:e augusti 2020 Obesvärat av coronatidens bromskrafter ökar historiens tåg farten. Vi märker i våra kupéer hur det förbisusande landskapet ändrar karaktär, med torra brandhärjade slätter och skogar, avlösta av slagregn och översvämningar under en blixtrande mörk himmel. I skrivande stund står en tredjedel av Bangladesh under vatten, ett land med 150 miljoner invånare. Människor på flykt söker skydd där de kan, här och där undsatta av stater som samarbetar för allas säkerhet. Samtidigt rapporterar den holländske journalisten Geert Mak om hatfyllda utfall från USAs ledande militärer, som pekar ut de skyldiga i Ryssland, Mellanöstern och allra mest Kina. Han talar om vikten av att hålla samman ett insiktsfullt, fredligt EU som motor i en utveckling i fred och samarbete. Vi sitter alla i historiens framrusande tåg, en del med gardinerna fördragna i hopp om att kunna stiga av i en...

August 24, 2020 Michael Wong Vice President of Veterans For Peace, Chapter 69 America vs. China: “A Clash of Civilizations” Hillary Clinton famously said, “’I don’t want my grandchildren to live in a world dominated by the Chinese.”   During his tenure, President Obama launched his “Pivot to Asia,” moving 60% of US naval power to bases surrounding China, developing the Trans Pacific Partnership treaty specifically to economically isolate China, making Air-Sea Battle the official US doctrine explicitly to contain China militarily, and announcing boldly that his aim was to contain China’s economic rise.  Not surprisingly, China reacted with alarm. The Cold War was long over, China’s economic rise was a peaceful one, it had no aggressive intentions towards the US or anyone, and prior to Obama’s “Pivot to Asia,” relations had been stable and tension low, China argued. Such arguments from China, however, were dismissed by US leaders.    Originally published at peacepivot.org...

Photo: U.S. President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai toast, Feb. 25, 1972. (White House/Wikimedia Commons) A rant by Mike Pompeo regarding what the U.S. should do with China led to a fruitful exchange between an old China, and an old Soviet hand, writes Ray McGovern. August 24. 2020 Ray McGovern Quick. Somebody tell Mike Pompeo. The secretary of state is not supposed to play the role of court jester — the laughing stock to the world. There was no sign that any of those listening to his “major China policy statement” last Thursday at the Nixon Library turned to their neighbor and said, “He’s kidding, right? Richard Nixon meant well but failed miserably to change China’s behavior? And now Pompeo is going to put them in their place?” Originally published at consortiumnews.com Yes, that was Pompeo’s message. The torch has now fallen to him and the free world. Here’s...

Gordon Dumoulin July 27, 2020 While most people all over the world are debating the current health, geopolitical, and economic developments in the COVID19-era, the history train has already left the station quite some time ago for a drastic new destination as this era is a transformative time for humanity and earth; whether we like it or not, the train is already moving and shall not stop for a while – hopefully as that would not be good, to say the least. Although each cultural and geopolitical region having their own wagon and nations having their compartments, we are all onboard the same train. While people are discussing if tea or coffee should be served on the train, whether the train should run electrically or on fuel or if and how WIFI should be allowed, few people talk about the train’s destination. However, the destination will be the historical event...

TFF is proud to present yet another book by its Associate, John Scales Avery, who at the age of 83 remains an incredibly productive global thinker and author of books about our world’s essential problems, what causes them and what must be done. And all of Avery’s books are freely downloadable… The book is – Benefits of Equality – which presents evidence supporting the thesis that elimination of excessive economic inequality makes societies happier and better. It’s just out, 451 pages and freely downloadable Benefits of Equality Avery’s life work is presented beautifully by the online Wall Street International and by the Eqbal Ahmad Centre for Public Education. And his Collected Essays and others are published by another TFF Associate, Jørgen Johansen at Irene Publishing. Ideals of the Enlightenment The Age of Reason, or the Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas during the...

Världen efter Corona – konstruktivt Hur kommer världen att se ut de närmaste årtiondena?Vilka val har vi? Hur kan fred och rättvisa fortfarande bli möjliga? 11:e juni 2020 Jan Öberg I maj höll jag en internationell föreläsning i två delar om förändringarna i världsordningen och om hur framtiden kan bli bättre för oss alla. Den var på engelska. Jag har nu spelat in en svensk version, dock med viss anpassning här och där till svenska förhållanden och en svensk publik. Det är en föreläsning som var tänkt att hållas i Henåns Kulturhus för Fredsrörelsen på Orust, Nordens bästa. Men den fick ställas in med anledning av Coronan. Här har du den i två delar – som den också finns på på TFF:s Vimeo-kanal: Del 1 Del 2 Stort tack om du kan hjälpa sprida budskapet eller återanvända föreläsningen i dina sammanhang – t ex i seminarer, undervisningsförlopp eller på din...