While the need to address global warming and climate change seems to be gaining momentum in the US, poverty and global development seems of far less concern to many Americans, what’s more, to nations in the Western hemisphere. These global concerns need not only be addressed, but it should also be noted that they emanate, in part, from a new international relations paradigm. In the February 1994 issue of The Atlantic Robert Kaplan states unequivocally “How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet.”[1] After the fall of the Soviet Union an instant power vacuum was created within the Caucasus, a region still stricken with rampant poverty and cultural conflict. Departures of Western influence from many nations all over the world has also promulgated poverty and failed states. Kaplan stipulates to the Huntingtonian argument that without foreign influence interstate and intrastate conflict would occur along cultural, religious, and societal lines.[2] Kaplan goes farther; arguing that what was being witnessed with the fall of the Soviet Union was only the beginning. “Most people believe that the political earth since 1989 has undergone immense change. But it is minor compared with what is yet to come. The breaking apart and remaking of the atlas is only now beginning…Michael Vlahos, a long-range thinker for the U.S. Navy, warns, ‘We are not in charge of the environment and the world is not following us. It is going in many directions. Do not assume that democratic capitalism is the last word in human social evolution.”[3] Global warming and climate change are becoming increasingly linked and intertwined with global development and poverty, in many ways the two can be addressed through similar policies. Kaplan argues that global warming and climate change is much more widely accepted as a global issue, as where global development and poverty are not. But the latter is a false assumption. As poverty proliferates throughout developed world, it will, through mass migrations, spread throughout much of the developed world. Thusly, the daunting challenges of overpopulation, disease, and crime will subsequently be a direct threat to domestic security and stability.
Much of the developing world is due to see their populations continue to expand in the coming decades, even with the disturbingly high percentages of their populations being infected with life-threatening diseases.[4] Many of these nations are forced to do whatever they can in order to keep output and production at levels high enough to simply sustain life within their borders, often at the expense of public health and the health of the environment, “The political and strategic impact of surging populations, spreading, disease, deforestation and soil erosion, water depletion, air pollution, and, possibly, rising sea levels in critical, overcrowded regions like the Nile Delta and Bangladesh—developments that will prompt mass migrations, and in turn, incite group conflicts—will be the core foreign-policy challenge from which most others will ultimately emanate, arousing the public and uniting assorted interests left over from the Cold War.”[5] Rampant poverty is not something that can be defined upon regional, ethnic, or religious lines. While many nations, particularly China and nations in Africa, see the largest amounts of their impoverished citizens living in rural areas, the rampant poverty and continued overcrowding in many of the world’s largest cities are equally alarming. With the exceptions of Tokyo, New York, and Los Angeles, in 2000 most of the world’s largest urban epicenters were not among the countries with the highest GDP.[6] The developing world is also far behind in the quality, some of the treatments still used in some parts of the world have not been used in the US since the 18th century.[7] The US and the West’s commitments to delivering aid to much of the developing world is commendable, but leaves much to be desired. Further, since 2001 the US has decreased the amount of money it allocates to aid.[8] Many of the nations most in need are of little or no strategic value to Western powers, moreover the US.
Much of the world has also developed a fractious relationship with the West along the lines of globalism. Many developing nations see globalism as another form of Western exploitation. “In the past quarter-century, the development economics imposed by the rich countries on the poorest countries has been too much like the medicine in the 18th century, when doctors used leeches to draw blood from their patients, often killing them in the process.”[9] Economic liberalization has yet to alleviate much of the poverty in the developing world. The developing world lacking in infrastructures and institutions that wealthier, developed nations enjoy and also help to allow for global economic liberalization to function successfully. “The most adverse effects have risen from the liberalization of financial and capital markets—which has posed risks to developing countries without commensurate rewards.”[10]. Economists are affably quick to point out, however, that a global economic liberalization should benefit everyone because it should increase international economic output, therein increasing trade, and thus increasing capital acquisitions and development for all parties involved. Economists, however, are often criticized for overlooking inequities.[11] In a sense, globalism could be viewed as the last vestiges of European imperialism in many parts of the world. While many territories have no interests in being incorporated as such, those territories still hold resources or commodities of interest for the West. Furthermore, globalism has allowed for Western powers to increase their trade without maintaining a physical presence in the region. Concurrently, as Kaplan points out, there are two looming challenges to the economic development of these states; both are byproducts of similar transgressions—“The Lies of Mapmakers.”[12] First, due to the fact that foreigners arbitrarily drew many of their borderlines, those respective nations lack legitimized governments. Secondly, due also, in part, to the false borderlines, different ethnic groups and tribes with histories of conflictual relationships, now must cooperate in order to bring about cultural, economic, and ultimately, national growth. This is a tall mountain to climb, and in many cases, many choose not to attempt it. An international backlash to globalism has also changed the political landscape. “A political era driven by environmental stress, increased cultural sensitivity, unregulated urbanization, and refugee migrations is an era divinely created for the spread and intensification on Islam, already the world’s fastest-growing religion.[13]
“Climate change will be the main driver. Nine out of every ten disasters are now climate-related. Recorded disasters have doubled in number from 200 to more than 400 over the past two decades.”[14] Increased aid to the developing world is necessary for two distinct reasons. First, while natural disasters have increased in frequency, the response times to deliver much-needed aid to affected countries has not decreased. As disasters continue to befall nations whom are ill equipped to handle the aftermath on their own, more readily available aid is an imperative. Like development, addressing climate change requires cooperation. “The central flaw of the Kyoto Protocol can be explained in terms of the underlying structure of the climate change issue. Climate change involves the intersection of a complex set of intergenerational and intragenerational collective action problems. This structure, and in particular its intergenerational collective action problems, has not been adequately appreciated. Yet until it is, we are doomed to an ineffectual environmental policy.”[15] Even those nations that don’t dissolve into tribalism face inherent challenges. India has routinely trumpeted the cause of global warming and climate change, but putting aside its already troublingly high poverty rate and environmental concerns, it also has regional tensions that hinder working towards truly addressing climate change. What’s more, India has the largest Muslim population of any nation living within it’s borders, which makes it even more difficult to work towards addressing climate change within its own borders. Likewise, another emerging power from the same continent, China, poses an even more daunting threat to climate change and global warming. China propagates its own right to development, in which polluting is an unfortunate side effect. But China is unique. Much of its population still suffers under immense poverty, but yet its GDP grew by astounding levels over the past few decades. Also, China is now the largest polluter in the world.[16]
Global development and poverty, and climate change and global warming, those are two problems that Kaplan argues will lead to societal decay, crime, and future international conflict. Again, they are both problems that the West has been reluctant to address. While the US and much of the developed world may be focused on the Middle East, Kaplan argues that the African continent may be the destination for a new kind of war. Like some cities in the Middle East and Asia, many cities, settlement, and towns in Africa are not even represented on maps.[17] Also, these areas, moreover, these countries should be of concern to the West. Not only because of their tumultuous nature, repeated coups, and continued conflict. The West need also be concerned over the continuous spread of rampant poverty that through mass migrations might be spread throughout the world, but also because these nations must completely disregard public and environmental precautions in the hopes of providing for the populations. Furthermore, looking to what other nations have endured, these nations, assuming they do not slip into tribalism, may need to compete with their regional neighbors in orders to acquire whatever scarce resources may exist.
States will need to stand up in order to survive. “No longer will these states be so firmly propped up by the West or the Soviet Union.”[18] Indeed not. In Kaplan’s new paradigm within international relations, due in large part to globalism, states will not be propped up unless they hold an economic or strategic interest. Without efficient means of production, states will do whatever they can meet the necessary levels of production to either remain globally relevant, or simply adequately produce for the respective populaces. Contrarily, impoverished nations will not be able to address climate change. Additionally, impoverished nations will not be able to deal with or manage the ever-increasing amounts of disasters related to global climate change that may befall their nations. Likewise, the people will move to where the jobs are in hopes of alleviating their poverty. Subsequently, overcrowding and overpopulation will take hold, thusly leading to an even greater rate of the spread of life-threatening diseases and crime. Once again, this all may seem to be a doomsday scenario for those of us in the West, but without a meaningful and effective policy to both global development and poverty, and global warming and climate change, the global threat remains tangible and real. “Africa may be marginal in terms of conventional late-twentieth-century conceptions of strategy, but in an age of cultural and racial clash, when national defense is increasingly local, Africa’s distress will exert a destabilizing influence on the United States.”[19] Mass migrations might in fact bring such destabilizing influences to the US, as well as to the West. While global development and poverty is not issue to have gained the kind of momentum as global warming and climate change has throughout the West, it is, once again, not an issue that can be separated from the latter. Still, the US might learn a lot from studying the problem of Mexico City. Mexico City is one of the most highly populated, additionally, overcrowded cities in the world, as well as one of the most polluted. Of course, such a study brings forth an entirely unique, and, in some cases, an unwelcome set of challenges. According to Kaplan, the thought that man possesses such capability to truly address this paradigm is idealistic and irrational. But that does not, however, mean that man should not address the situation. Again, mass migrations will not only spread poverty, disease, increased overcrowding, but also spread tribalism. “As state power fades—and with it the state’s ability to help weaker groups within society, not to mention other states—people and cultures around the world will be thrown back upon their own strengths and weaknesses, with fewer equalizing mechanisms to protect them.”[20]
[1] “The Coming Anarchy”, Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic, February 1994
[2] “The Clash of Civilizations”, Samuel Huntington, Foreign Affairs, summer 1993.
[3] “The Coming Anarchy”, Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic, February 1994.
[4] “The End of Poverty”, Jeffrey Sachs, Time, March 6, 2005.
[5] “The Coming Anarchy”, Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic, February 1994.
[6] “Planet of Slums”, Rick Davis, Verso, New York, NY; 2006.
[7] “The End of Poverty”, Jeffrey Sachs, Time, March 6, 2005.
[8] “The End of Poverty”, Jeffrey Sachs, Time, March 6, 2005.
[9] “The End of Poverty:, Jeffrey Sachs, Time, March 6, 2005.
[10] “Globalism’s Discontents”, Joseph E. Stitzglitz
[11] “More or Less Equal”, World Development Report
[12] “The Coming Anarchy”, Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic, February 1994.
[13] “The Coming Anarchy”, Richard Kaplan, The Atlantic, February 1994.
[14] “More help now, please: How to tackle tomorrow’s disasters”, John Holmes, The Economist: The World in 2009, 2008.
[15] “The Global Warming Tragedy and the Dangerous Illusion of the Kyoto Protocol”, Stephen M. Gardiner
[16] “As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes”, Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley, The New York Times, August 26, 2007.
[17] “The Coming Anarchy”, Richard Kaplan, The Atlantic, February 1994.
[18] “The Coming Anarchy”, Richard Kaplan, The Atlantic, February 1994.
[19] “The Coming Anarchy”, Richard Kaplan, The Atlantic, February 1994.
[20] “The Coming Anarchy”, Robert Kaplan, February 1994.
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