THE GEOGRAPHY OF CONFLICT
November 9, 1989, was a day that changed the world. As jubilant crowds gathered before the Berlin Gate to celebrate the falling of the Iron Curtain, behind the scenes a much larger tectonic shift was taking place: the beginning of a new order in world affairs. On the surface the collapse of the Communist system in Eastern Europe should have rightfully been celebrated as a monumental advancement in the cause of human freedom, but along with that fall came the attendant demise of the international system that had maintained world order for half a century.
THE BEGINNING OF A NEW WORLD ORDER
The opening of the Berlin Gate was the beginning of a much larger revolution. Just over two years later General Colin Powell sat across a conference table in Moscow with the Secretary General of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. In Powell’s memoir he recalls in detail the fateful moment Gorbachev revealed his intentions, plans already in motion, to dissolve the Soviet Union. “Make no mistake General,” Gorbachev explained, “I just ended the Cold War.”
The most interesting aspect of the story was Powell’s reaction to this historic incident. He described feeling oddly unsettled and anxious after the meeting. Since the Second World War the United States had worked feverishly to outwit and undermine the Soviet “menace.” Now that effort was over, and what lay ahead was unknown. A new chapter in world affairs was beginning.
The bipolar nature of international affairs during the Cold War created a template of relative stability. There was a defined “us” and “them.” Strategic objectives were clarified through this prism. It was a system that influenced everything from trade treaties to military alliances, emigration quotas, foreign aid, arms deals, and technological research and investments. Now all of these things needed to be reviewed, with new priorities and diplomatic realities fashioned to suit a new international order. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought about a complete reshuffling of the deck in world affairs.
Throughout the 1990s scholars and strategists began to craft new theories of what system, or systems, would emerge to fill the void that the end of the Cold War created. Would the world be run as a unipolar monolith, with the remaining superpower, the United States, dictating the nature of world affairs? Some proclaimed the dawn of the “New World Order” in which an interconnected system of trade and commerce would assure peace and stability. Alliances would be crafted in such a fashion that capitalism and free markets would usher in a new golden age. Others had much more pessimistic assessments of what lay ahead.
THREE DOMINANT THEORIES
While the “New World Order” of globalization has gained wide acceptance as being the international principle dominating world affairs, three other theories have emerged to help explain the new paradigm we are living in. The first dominant theory was offered by the late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington. In 1994 he published a seminal essay in the journal Foreign Affairs titled “The Clash of Civilizations.” The underlying thesis of Huntington’s argument is that with the end of the ideological struggle between capitalist-democracy and communist-dictatorship now over, the world will revert back to more deeply felt bonds of identity. We will begin to identify ourselves not with our political or economic system, but through more ancient ties of religion, culture, and ethnicity—the world will be broken back up into the pre-colonial map of civilizations.
The second dominant theory views world affairs through a more pragmatic lens. The author and scholar Michael Klare has emerged as the most vocal spokesperson for the coming era of “resource wars.” This theory views international affairs as being dominated by a sort of economic ‘survival of the fittest’ competition. In a world that is fueled by petroleum, and dependant on access to supplies of other vital and scarce raw materials, we will witness a new age of conflict dominated by who gets what. Klare creates of map of the world with lines of conflict surrounding the earth’s remaining oil fields and fresh water systems. This worldview pits every nation-state against one another in a race for economic survival.
The final theory first appeared in the pages of The Atlantic Monthly. The writer Robert Kaplan spent much of the 1990s traveling through some of the world’s most impoverished and unstable regions. His essay “The Coming Anarchy,” puts forth a dark vision of an emerging North-South conflict. In his view, the tensions of the Cold War caused the major powers to treat the less developed world as pawns in a larger strategic game. The problems and turmoil in Africa, Latin America or Central Asia were viewed as background noise in a greater struggle. With that struggle now concluded, these neglected problems will now pour across borders forming fault lines of anarchy separating the haves from the have-nots.
The events since that fateful meeting between Powell and Gorbachev have given credence to each of these strategic theories. Some viewed the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as the opening salvo in a new civilizational struggle between the West and Islam. The “preemptive” invasion of Iraq could be perceived as a blatant resource grab, following in the lines of Klare’s predicted “oil wars.” All the while broad swaths of Africa have fallen into a form of political anarchy, with modern day pirates operating along coastlines outside the jurisdiction of any form of legitimate authority, and conflicts of genocidal proportions spilling across borders throughout the continent.
THE GEOGRAPHY OF CONFLICT
This project is an attempt to integrate and explore these different strategic paradigms, and to serve as a resource for students, teachers, or anyone else interested in gaining a better understanding of the underlying causes of conflict in the world today. You will find here a series of book recommendations, PowerPoint lectures, links to articles, and selection of short essays all meant to bring into sharper focus the underlying trends in international conflict studies at the dawn twenty-first century—welcome to the Geography of Conflict.
THE BEGINNING OF A NEW WORLD ORDER
The opening of the Berlin Gate was the beginning of a much larger revolution. Just over two years later General Colin Powell sat across a conference table in Moscow with the Secretary General of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. In Powell’s memoir he recalls in detail the fateful moment Gorbachev revealed his intentions, plans already in motion, to dissolve the Soviet Union. “Make no mistake General,” Gorbachev explained, “I just ended the Cold War.”
The most interesting aspect of the story was Powell’s reaction to this historic incident. He described feeling oddly unsettled and anxious after the meeting. Since the Second World War the United States had worked feverishly to outwit and undermine the Soviet “menace.” Now that effort was over, and what lay ahead was unknown. A new chapter in world affairs was beginning.
The bipolar nature of international affairs during the Cold War created a template of relative stability. There was a defined “us” and “them.” Strategic objectives were clarified through this prism. It was a system that influenced everything from trade treaties to military alliances, emigration quotas, foreign aid, arms deals, and technological research and investments. Now all of these things needed to be reviewed, with new priorities and diplomatic realities fashioned to suit a new international order. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought about a complete reshuffling of the deck in world affairs.
Throughout the 1990s scholars and strategists began to craft new theories of what system, or systems, would emerge to fill the void that the end of the Cold War created. Would the world be run as a unipolar monolith, with the remaining superpower, the United States, dictating the nature of world affairs? Some proclaimed the dawn of the “New World Order” in which an interconnected system of trade and commerce would assure peace and stability. Alliances would be crafted in such a fashion that capitalism and free markets would usher in a new golden age. Others had much more pessimistic assessments of what lay ahead.
THREE DOMINANT THEORIES
While the “New World Order” of globalization has gained wide acceptance as being the international principle dominating world affairs, three other theories have emerged to help explain the new paradigm we are living in. The first dominant theory was offered by the late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington. In 1994 he published a seminal essay in the journal Foreign Affairs titled “The Clash of Civilizations.” The underlying thesis of Huntington’s argument is that with the end of the ideological struggle between capitalist-democracy and communist-dictatorship now over, the world will revert back to more deeply felt bonds of identity. We will begin to identify ourselves not with our political or economic system, but through more ancient ties of religion, culture, and ethnicity—the world will be broken back up into the pre-colonial map of civilizations.
The second dominant theory views world affairs through a more pragmatic lens. The author and scholar Michael Klare has emerged as the most vocal spokesperson for the coming era of “resource wars.” This theory views international affairs as being dominated by a sort of economic ‘survival of the fittest’ competition. In a world that is fueled by petroleum, and dependant on access to supplies of other vital and scarce raw materials, we will witness a new age of conflict dominated by who gets what. Klare creates of map of the world with lines of conflict surrounding the earth’s remaining oil fields and fresh water systems. This worldview pits every nation-state against one another in a race for economic survival.
The final theory first appeared in the pages of The Atlantic Monthly. The writer Robert Kaplan spent much of the 1990s traveling through some of the world’s most impoverished and unstable regions. His essay “The Coming Anarchy,” puts forth a dark vision of an emerging North-South conflict. In his view, the tensions of the Cold War caused the major powers to treat the less developed world as pawns in a larger strategic game. The problems and turmoil in Africa, Latin America or Central Asia were viewed as background noise in a greater struggle. With that struggle now concluded, these neglected problems will now pour across borders forming fault lines of anarchy separating the haves from the have-nots.
The events since that fateful meeting between Powell and Gorbachev have given credence to each of these strategic theories. Some viewed the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as the opening salvo in a new civilizational struggle between the West and Islam. The “preemptive” invasion of Iraq could be perceived as a blatant resource grab, following in the lines of Klare’s predicted “oil wars.” All the while broad swaths of Africa have fallen into a form of political anarchy, with modern day pirates operating along coastlines outside the jurisdiction of any form of legitimate authority, and conflicts of genocidal proportions spilling across borders throughout the continent.
THE GEOGRAPHY OF CONFLICT
This project is an attempt to integrate and explore these different strategic paradigms, and to serve as a resource for students, teachers, or anyone else interested in gaining a better understanding of the underlying causes of conflict in the world today. You will find here a series of book recommendations, PowerPoint lectures, links to articles, and selection of short essays all meant to bring into sharper focus the underlying trends in international conflict studies at the dawn twenty-first century—welcome to the Geography of Conflict.
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