Climate Change & Technology are Messing Up Neo-Con Politics

Neo-conservative foreign affairs policies are built upon the principal that what won us the Cold War will work again.  The one basic assumption underlying Neo-Con politics is that the U.S. can use military force to combat whatever enemy it has and leave behind a stable democratic country that is a U.S. ally, without leaving behind a U.S. military presence forever.  This last point is critical because unlike Germany and South Korea, where we have had a more or less permanent military presence, but our soldiers can relax and live with their families enjoying the foreign culture, these newer countries we march into don't want a peaceful U.S. presence.  They have people who want to kill Americans and the U.S. population will not support putting the military in harms way forever.   So for the Neo-Con view to have any support, there has to be an exit strategy.

I know of no more expert a person on the complexities of the Middle East than Thomas Friedman.   He lived in Lebanon and Israel for a number of years and travels there regularly to speak with this numerous contacts there.

People revolt when they cannot afford food to eat or there is simply not enough food.  The U.S. cannot afford to pay for food for all the underfed countries of the world where political chaos might exist.  So it is best that we not put our military in such places.



"Without the Cold War system to prop them up, it is not so easy anymore for weak states to provide the minimums of security, jobs, health and welfare. And thanks to rapid advances in the market (globalization), Mother Nature (climate change plus ecological destruction) and Moore’s Law (computing power), some states are just blowing up under the pressure."

"Yes, we blew up Iraq, but you can’t understand the uprising in Syria unless you understand how a horrendous four-year drought there, coupled with a demographic explosion, undermined its economy."

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"You can’t understand Egypt’s uprising without linking it to the 2010 global wheat crisis and soaring bread prices, which inspired the anti-Hosni Mubarak chant: “Bread, Freedom, Dignity.” You also can’t understand Egypt’s stress without understanding the challenge that China’s huge labor pool poses in a globalized world to every other low-wage country. Go into a souvenir shop in Cairo, buy a Pyramids ashtray and turn it over. I’ll bet it says, “Made in China.” Today’s globalization system rewards countries that make their workers and markets efficient enough to take part in global supply chains of goods and services faster than ever — and punishes those who don’t more harshly than ever."

"You can’t understand the spread of ISIS or the Arab Spring without the relentless advance in computing and telecom — Moore’s Law — creating so many cheap command-and-control Internet tools that superempower small groups to recruit adherents, challenge existing states and erase borders. In a flat world, people can see faster than ever how far behind they are and organize faster than ever to protest. When technology penetrates more quickly than wealth and opportunity, watch out."

Link to Friedman column