The late Maj.-Gen. Chris Vokes once noted that, “The meek are a hell of a long way from inheriting the earth.” He was right. The world today is a confusing, dangerous place, and it will likely remain that way for some time yet.

There have been three major inter-state wars in the last 15 years, two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Two of the three, fortunately, were brief; the jury is still out on the third. However, there has been almost ceaseless strife within states in the same period. Most of these intra-state conflicts have seen much death and destruction, some of which continues to this day. Names like Congo, Rwanda, The Former Yugoslavia, Liberia, Sudan and others, remain in the news— and the news is seldom good.

If the first decade and a half of the post Cold War world has been bloody and turbulent, what will the next 10 look like? Several experts have predicted the future strategic shape of the world. Four of them are worth a closer look.

The End of History

In 1992, an American, Dr. Francis Fukuyama, published The End of History and the Last Man. It claimed that the death of the Soviet empire in 1991 marked the failure, and thus the end of Communism. As communism was the only political ideology with the intellectual rigour to challenge liberal democracy, its demise meant that there would be no more ideological struggles such as those that drove the war against the Nazis or the Cold War. In Fukuyama’s view, democracy was the clear winner and sole survivor. The result: western style liberal democratic governments were the way of the future, at least in the long term.

Fukuyama’s optimistic predictions have not yet come to full fruition. While some of the former Soviet satellites have adopted democratic governments, others have not. In addition, communism is still alive in places like China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and some university campuses. Some pundits feel that Fukuyama is wrong, and that democracy is not universally inevitable. That said, the government of George W. Bush seems to agree with Fukuyama. Bush’s national security strategy of Sept. 2002 states: “We will actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets and free trade to every corner of the world.”

Bush wants to transform the Middle East by introducing a democratic western-style government into Iraq. This was one of the aims stated for the current war. Can it happen? Don’t bet on it. Islam and democracy are not bed mates in most of the Muslim world.

The West versus the Rest

Another observer of the international scene came up with a more pessimistic assessment of the future at about the same time as Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis. It can be most simply stated as “The West against The Rest”. The phrase appears in the writings of Paul Kennedy, author of The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers. This concept sees a world where “The West” continues to use the bulk of the world’s resources, including fossil fuels, minerals, food and water. This is certainly the case to this day. At the same time, the population of “The Rest” continues to grown by leaps and bounds while that of “The West” declines.

This western resource consumption breeds resentment in the poor and developing nations. As a result, a vastly outnumbered west will have to defend its place in the world against underprivileged hordes. The idea sounds simplistic, but there is some evidence of pressure against the west. The movement of economic refugees from the second and third world into the first is one example. This is most obvious along the American border with Mexico.

However, the growth of “non-traditional” immigrant groups in Canada and Europe is also evidence of this trend. For example, France now has the largest Muslim population in Europe, with significant demographic and political consequences: the latest being the issue of wearing headscarves by French Muslim women.

On the other hand, third world nations and populations lack the military means to challenge the west directly. Some of their people can, however, resort to terrorism, as they did in America on Sept.11, 2001. In this case, as it happens, most of the attackers were well-off members of a second world nation, Saudi Arabia, that except for its oil wealth, would be a third world nation.

There are a few gaps in the “West versus the Rest” idea. The most obvious is the fact that western nations do not show a unified face to such dangers. This became clear in the lack of enthusiasm shown in France, Germany and Canada for the US-led war in Iraq. In fact, in Sept. 2003 when America requested western help under UN leadership to rebuild Iraq, France and Germany declined. French President Chirac even went so far as to suggest that the world needs a range of power centres to offset American hegemony.

The Clash of Civilizations

A more complex explanation model appeared in The Clash of Civilizations, a book by Dr. Samuel P. Huntington. He sees the world split along fault lines between what he calls “civilizations”. Each of them is based upon broad common historic, linguistic, religious and cultural grounds. These civilizations include Western Christian, Eastern Orthodox Christian, Arabic-Muslim, Sino-Confucian, Indo-Hindu and Japanese-Shinto. Huntington notes that stresses appear on the fault lines between two or more of these civilizations. These stresses can lead to religious tensions, economic and ideological rivalry, acts of terrorism and even all-out war.

Some experts scorned this concept when Huntington first proposed it. A few still do. However, the fault lines dividing Western Christians, Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Bosnia led to bloodshed from 1991 to 1995. Tension and terrorism have occurred for over 50 years along the Hindu and Muslim fault line in Kashmir. China and India, both nuclear powers, stare at each other across the Himalayas. These all suggest that Huntington is on to something.

More recently attacks by Muslim extremists under Osama Bin Laden on the United States give added emphasis to the clash of civilizations concept. Note, however, that there are clashes within civilizations too, most notably Islam, where Shiite Muslims kill Sunni Muslims and vice versa with equal gusto.

The Coming Anarchy

One of the most recent of the post Cold War forecasts first appeared in two books by Robert Kaplan, The Ends of the Earth, and The Coming Anarchy.

Kaplan sees the future as being driven by several key factors, all of them interconnected to some degree. First is explosive population growth, especially in Roman Catholic and Islamic parts of Africa. Increasingly large numbers of people make heavy demands on scarce resources in many third world nations. Water, fuel for cooking and warmth, and land for farming are among these resources. Pressure on them leads to deforestation, desertification, flooding and hunger. People move into the cities looking for work and food, where they produce urban slums. In such places disease, starvation, lack of jobs and discontent fester. People under stress in such conditions can be motivated to kill others by tribalism and ethnic differences, as well as by politics, ideology and religion. This sort of anarchy, in Kaplan’s view, is observable now in much of Africa.

Corrupt third world governments are not capable of providing social services to cope with these problems. In many Islamic countries these are provided instead by Islamic agencies, often funded from places like Saudi Arabia. These fundamentalist Islamic groups and their schools, or madrasahs, are breeding grounds for radical Islam and Islamic terrorists.

So What?

The future will reveal variations of all four concepts: the end of history; the west versus the rest; the clash of civilizations; the coming anarchy. This simply reflects the complex nature of international and intranational reality today.

What should we in the west do about it? There are a number of possible answers. We should invest in promoting the practise of birth control in the third world, starting in Africa. Note, however, that American foreign aid policy, driven by Christian fundamentalists, won’t provide aid to organizations that promote abortions or mechanical methods of birth control. These fundamentalists preach that abstinence is the only righteous means by which overpopulation (or Aids) may be controlled. Unfortunately, humans are driven by strong natural emotions and instincts, and abstinence simply doesn’t work for most of us.

We should also invest in education in the developing world. Educated populations generally have fewer children than those that are not. They are also better able to deal with ecological and social crises and other threats.

We should also get serious about reducing the West’s and the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, especially oil. North American, European and Asian economies dependent on cheap oil from the Middle East are hostages to Saudi Arabia and its neighbours.

These approaches will all take time to implement and even more to succeed. In the meantime, we must deal with current realities, beginning with terrorism as a first priority. Some have suggested that the war on terrorism might, or should, look a lot like the clandestine operations of the Cold War: spies, Special Forces, political assassinations and the like. Robert Kaplan, author of the Coming Anarchy model, suggests that this is already underway. It is only one among many options. All sorts of sensible strategies must be tried, because unless terrorism can be defeated, or at least controlled, the world will continue to be dangerous for both established and fledgling democracies.

The UN and NATO, and individual nations, will also be called upon to intervene in failed and failing states. The record so far, which includes Rwanda, Somalia, Zaire and Sudan, is not good.

Does Canada have a role to play in all this? Certainly. However, the lead is being taken by America, and we don’t have the resources or indeed, the will to follow their lead in anything like the scope of their military methods.

Canada can play a part in making a better world, using both our military and diplomatic power. However, lack of people, modern equipment and funds has seriously degraded our military and crippled our Foreign Affairs Department over the past decade. The new government must start to rebuild our military and our diplomatic services without delay.

BGen Jim Hanson is a member of RUSI of VI. He spoke on this subject at our Sept. meeting.

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