balance or hegemony? Between these old cities of the big playing politics until today and until further notice the dynamics of Power and the powers from war pregnant, again and again and never finally. At Harvard University, where much of the policy is close to the intellectual work is done, there is currently the “Thucydides”project, named after the Athenian General and chronicler of the Peloponnesian war more than two thousand years. Nothing more than a macabre game?
Thucydides described the thirty-year struggle between Athens and Sparta, the rise and decline, which ended with the disaster of the two Greek Vormächte, prelude to the short, Alexander Empire, and the long Roman Empire. The world experienced “Defence intellectuals not apply” to the American coast of your and our time? Maybe from the struggle to balance or hegemony in the Ancient world, to learn something for the management of conflict in the world of today and tomorrow.
The Cold war was, after the leaders in Moscow and Washington had looked into the abyss, a rough Balance between the United States and the Soviet Union: global, nuclear, bipolar. The opposing ideologies were not of insight in the way that the world would survive powers together, or perish together. The forced moderation, coexistence and containment of real opposites.
conflict management, arms control, confidence – and security-building measures accompanied the long nuclear peace and assured him at the same time, against the disturbers of medium size such as North Korea and Iran. To control the wild proliferation of nuclear technology and nuclear weapons, and to prevent as far as possible, was the most important powers the common goal of the super. With the Implosion of the Soviet Empire it was, however, in order to the end.
What followed was the global hegemony of the United States: to water, to land, in the air and in space; but also in the arts of soft power, the rule setting and controlling, for example, the global financial flows. But it was short-lived, not only because of the showed together makes the collapse of Lehman Brothers on Wall Street, the limits of the financial.
But even more, because Russia is nuclear superpower is still in the petrochemical state, and resource power with a long memory, do not want to accept this with the least status in the world, the new borders in Central and Eastern Europe and the loss of Prestige and power. “New order or no order,” – it sounded a warning and unheard from the Kremlin.
dictatorship, and Confucianism
much more, but it got the American leadership, the verzettelte in the Middle East politically and militarily, and the Islamist murder of jacks, said a ungewinn indirect of war, on the coasts of the Pacific ocean in distress: The people’s Republic of China, which had been left decades ago, the Maoist delusions behind and a Melange of Communist dictatorship and life ethics and discipline of Confucianism, tried, climbed on to the oldest and newest world power in Asia.
This was done by first taking advantage of the rule-based Western system of trade and copyright laws, and continued under the ritual expressions of peaceful intentions in the case of simultaneous entitlement to equal participation in the world, particularly on world trade.
What is the United States, and in particular since the presidency of Donald J. Trump, as a civilian Aggression and ruthless attack on American Jobs and the welfare of the Trump voters and the American middle-class is displayed, see the Chinese leadership as a return to the natural order in the heavens and all whatever is beneath it.
“Peaceful rise”, the program of the last decade, is therefore no longer enough. By 2050, China should be in accordance with the declared will of the strong man in Beijing is the leading country in the world, a furious consumption of the Environment, Ageing of the people.
Without serious conflict will not come off, military and civilian, quieter in relation to the smaller neighbours, which have always been the Stronger are able to adapt, and louder in relation to the United States of America in the times of Donald Trump. The more than significant increase in the American customs duties on Chinese Goods was only the beginning.
The public humiliation of the Chinese weighs as heavy as the enforced economic braking. To lose face in Asia is on an old-fashioned way, unacceptable. Inner equilibrium and economic growth are important; but even more important is the legitimacy of the leadership and their Reputation.
died in a Similar way to Germany before 1914
Mao Tse-Tung in 1976 and the fact the Chinese have the greatest possible Favor. Because of this long-awaited farewell cleared the way for the unleashing of power in reserve, since not only China, by and by to have changed, but also the entire environment, the reverse – without the Rest of the world already understood, that, in the future, according to other rules will be played, whether in business or politics, whether in diplomacy or strategy.
Very early on, mostly thinkers such as Henry Kissinger have warned that the impending Revolution in the state system, if not used with caution and handled with Abandon would lead to similar distortions in the system of States, as by the rise of Wilhelmine Germany before 1914.
Nobody wanted to make space for the new German, and the German elites realized too little, the warning of the old Bismarck remained unheard: The German policy not to throbs behavior “as the man who, come to money on the dollars in his pocket, and anyone bump into”.
The rise of a great power with a global claim to power was understood at the time as being a “German Revolution” and misunderstood – not without the participation of the heirs of Bismarck. Today, the Chinese Revolution is in full swing – with or without permission from America.
balance or hegemony? Beijing does not want to leave the answer to other powers. The “Belt and Road”Initiative, which aims to connect the Chinese industry on the ground with European destinations, as well in the overall design of Chinese Grand Strategy, such as fortification and militarization of previously uninhabitable reefs in the South China sea – a major artery of world trade and at the same time, a first line of defense mainland China.
The United States insist on free Passage. The Poltergeist in Washington can ruin the relationship to Beijing. But it wouldn’t be the first Time that a economy is escalating the war into the uncontrollable. The study of history offers a relentless lessons.
