The Shape of Things to Come

Most often civilizations at the end of their modernity become united. The countries become ruled by the one nation which wins the power struggle. The whole now constitutes what Toynbee calls a universal  state and is governed by an emperor-figure.

When we look at our own civilization, the Western, which now encompasses most of the globe, this development may look unlikely. Rather the world is said to become multipolar. Still, there is little doubt that real power as it is typical in modernities, gets concentrated in fewer and fewer more and more dominating countries. But will this continue until only one is left? No, not necessarily.

 Because of the extreme force of modern weapons of mass destruction and the disastrous consequences of a war between the great powers of today, it is unlikely that one will swallow the others. Thus in our civilization we may not see the usual unification of all countries. I have earlier pointed to the fact that this pattern though being the normal does not apply in all preceding cases. An exception is old Babylonia where the successors of the first emperor Hammurabi did not succeed in uniting the areas of their civilization completely. The southern Sealand continued for three centuries to stay independent. In the Oriental civilization the first great sultan or emperor Alp Aslan and his successors had to leave North Africa and Spain outside their empire, and this empire was soon divided by the Seljuk semi-nomadic tradition of dividing a realm between the family members, especially the sons, of a dead leader.

In the typical cases where the world is united, we typically from the moment of the victory of the winning power see an almighty, often hereditary emperor-like government continuing for centuries without much development. In Babylonia of course starting with the mentioned Hammurabi, in old China with Shi Huang and in Rome with Augustus. In the few cases where the whole world is not united, we typically see the same political development in each of the not united parts. Each has its own emperor.

The example which seems most appropriate as a comparison with ours may be the situation between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire. Since Alexander the Great the Greco-Roman civilization stretched  from Spain to West India. Greek kings still ruled in North India three centuries after Alexander. As I have written earlier, the universal state from the time of Augustus could have encompassed this whole area. For two main reasons it did not. Firstly the Romans weakened their power by being torn by internal conflicts between the two major political parties and their power-hungry men, a pattern which closely resembles the developments in the present United States. This meant that Rome could only swallow countries which were exceedingly weak, i.e. all countries west of Mesopotamia. Secondly, the beginning Oriental civilization meant that the eastern parts of the Hellenized world gradually became culturally estranged from the  western parts. This new Orientalization trend affected the Parthian Empire. Also, this empire was not weak as the other Hellenist countries. Therefore it remained independent of Rome.

Also today we may expect that not all areas will be united under the Rome of our civilization, the United States. Like Rome this power is splitting itself, and also now, there are strong powers outside. The phenomenon of a cultural estrangement today applies to Russia,but not to China which is thoroughly Westernized.

Another important difference between then and now is that the spheres of interest of Rome and Parthia were more clearly defined in the century before Augustus than the spheres between the powers of today, the corresponding phase in our case. The victory over Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC only confirmed this. Thus in our case in the next decades we will see the big powers enlarge their spheres of interest accompanied by conflicts over this.

The smaller countries will be subsumed in these spheres. It is unpredictable which parts of the world each great power will take over. This depends on the strategy and tactics employed by the competing powers within int’l politics, economic policies and IT and also on coincidences. And it also depends on political decisions in the smaller countries. In this last case public opinion will play a crucial role. Even though stable democracy may be declining, the idea will continue to be of immense importance for a long time. Even the later absolute emperors will enact “democratic” elections to legitimize their rule. Obviously these de facto emperors will carry republican titles like Augustus and his successors did. Even more presently, and for the coming decades of competition for spheres of interest, powers which are perceived as undemocratic will have a disadvantage in the competition for the opinion of the public and the politicians in the countries which must choose side. A disadvantage which can only partly be diminished by economic offers. On the other hand, more presidencies of the type of Donald Trumps will also certainly not give much sympathy in democratic countries. And the lack of strategy and consistency will frighten also less democratic countries away.

Even though the future limits of the spheres of interest is largely unpredictable, we may be rather sure that the Americans will do their utmost to secure Latin America for themselves, thus enforcing the strangely prophetic Monroe Doctrine. This is the deeper meaning of the present US policies toward the incompetent government in Venezuela and the new sanctions against Cuba. Large parts of Subsaharan Africa may become part of the Chinese sphere. Europe will be a contended area unless the EU becomes much more united and efficient. Clearly the dominant powers with the biggest spheres will be the United States and China. India may create its own smaller sphere while Russia with all means will defend its limited one. Another contended area will be the Middle East. But this is also an area full of tensions which can erupt into explosions anytime without the help of outside powers competing for power, thereby dragging the big powers into conflicts.

Developments will be different in each sphere of interest, not least because of differences in the internal developments inside the big powers. Evidently as said many times, the United States are destroying their cohesion and thus diminishing  their strength. The enormous military budget can only partly reduce the effect of this. The shifts between polarized political forces disturb long term strategic planning. And presidents like Trump even manages to destroy strategies set out by politicians from his own political party.

Therefore in the American sphere of interest the history of the next decades will be comparable with the developments in the Antique world west of Parthia. The chaos then in Rome and now in Washington is counterbalanced by the weakness of the smaller countries in the sphere. The countries in the sphere being taken over by the Unites States will be passive victims of the chaos in Washington. They will be subdued through often sudden eruptive expansions, of course under the disguise of continued independence. I am not thinking so much of military interventions, but rather political threats and dictates, arrests of politicians, economic sanctions and not least cyber-warfare. Latin American nations under left wing rule can be treated the same way or invaded.

On the internal level China will continue to be much more stable, and it will use long term strategic planning. A splendid example is the present Belt and Road project. Therefore the Chinese sphere will develop in a much more planned and systematic way. Countries will be subjugated through investments and a subtle economic dependence. If countries want to escape this, they may try to switch to the Americans who will use similar dependence plus the earlier mentioned means in an unstable and much less subtle way. In parallel with these subsumings of smaller countries we will see the borders between the spheres of interest being continuously moved backward and forward.

There is no doubt that both big powers will expand through internet control. In the future the borders are not so much the geographic ones through the real landscapes, but rather borders between parts of the Internet and the devices coupled to this. Thus an important aspect of the way spheres of interest are being expanded and countries are being taken over, is that the physical landscape is being supplemented by the Internet as an area for fighting and movement of borders. Today every online device is a part of a border to be defended. As I have written earlier, it is irresponsible to let this happen in an uncontrolled manner. This to a high extent concerns countries in the EU and other small nations.

The Americans have or can develop means against IT-penetrance from abroad. The Chinese and soon the Russians are building an effective great firewall. This is a logical choice. If every device, company, institution or system does not have individual effective borders, there must be an effective outer border around the whole country. Of course a such firewall can protect both against espionage, sabotage, cyber-warfare and also against influencing of internal public opinion.

Behind a national firewall, more or less autonomous cyber-subspaces can operate. Without a such border, vital sectors of a hostile or just  irritant country can soon simply be shut down by IT-forces from abroad. This is much easier and cheaper in terms of money and human lifes than sending Roman legions or American marines or even than bombing campaigns. Also without such direct interventions every insufficiently protected system coupled to the Internet can already now or in the near future shift from being within the borders of  a country to de facto being outside these borders. In this way a country can loose “territories”, not at the outer geographical perimeter, but everywhere. Countries can simply piece by piece become depleted loosing control of more and more parts. And here it is not a question of Huawei versus other suppliers of IT infrastructure. Without proper protection and with billions of devices coupled to the Internet, all IT-powers (or hackers) can access points all over your country through these highways. Moreover, many of the services used by privates, the industry and local and governmental administrations use servers based abroad. This too makes foreign control easy to establish.

It is high time the EU considers these dangers.