The End Of Modernity

[Rasputin]

Although the ideas in this paper are mine, my station in life makes translating these ideas into foreign policy totally impossible. I don't even know why I have these ideas unless its God's sense of humor -- to actually have so many answers to the world's problems and yet not nearly enough cash to get powerful people to listen to me. lol. The paper was written for a university class on Iran taught by a visiting Iranian professor. He gave me an A.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

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[Rasputin]

As a final point regarding an international oil standard, it must be noted that oil is more than any economy’s greatest natural resource. It is also the single greatest danger to the quality of life on the planet. As the scientific community has pointed out, the more oil we burn the more pollution we put into our natural environment. The more pollution in the environment, the more stress we put upon living things. The more stress living things experience, the more prone they are to disease. The more diseased living things are, the more susceptible they become to acting out violently and/or giving up on life. So it is, then, converting the no-standard economy to a standardized one would produce an immediate and dire economic scenario (a race, on the part of central banks to buy and hold oil at the expense of industries who would use it up); yet in the long run this sacrifice might very well prevent a far more disastrous future.

Global Warming and Ecocide
The greatest threat to the security of both the USA and Iran does not come from any nation. It does not come from any terrorist organization. The greatest threat to both countries is the real danger of global warming reaching a point of crisis such that the world passes the ecological tipping point, and irreversible natural cataclysm ensues. Already, scientists in both the USA and Iran have seen irrefutable evidence -- of the sort highlighted in Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth[20] -- of this. Another example is on how Chinese pollution is seeding the clouds above the western American seaboard.

In early April, a dense cloud of pollutants over Northern China sailed to nearby Seoul, sweeping along dust and desert sand before wafting across the Pacific. An American satellite spotted the cloud as it crossed the West Coast.

Researchers in California, Oregon and Washington noticed specks of sulfur compounds, carbon and other byproducts of coal combustion coating the silvery surfaces of their mountaintop detectors. These microscopic particles can work their way deep into the lungs, contributing to respiratory damage, heart disease and cancer. [21]

So it is, then, that industrialization is now extolling an incredibly high tax upon those who do and do not enjoy such economic rewards.

Given this comparatively recent realization on the nature of “the enemy,” the more traditional national security doctrines which define status quo military posturing -- for the USA and Iran -- are no longer valid. Indeed, we find a far more powerful villain in gross industrialization than we might discover in any terrorist cell. While it is certainly easier to direct violence against a terrorist, doing so can only distract states from their fiduciary responsibility: providing security with a sense of priority. Throughout the modern era, military hegemony has been the doctrine. Juxtaposed to military hegemony is a much newer and as of yet, untested, national security doctrine: human security theory.

Human security is the latest in a long line of neologisms -- including common security, global security, cooperative security, and comprehensive security -- that encourage policymakers and scholars to think about international security as something more than military defense of state interests and territory. Although definitions of human security vary, most formulations emphasize the welfare of ordinary people. Among the most vocal promoters of human security are the governments of Canada and Norway, which have taken the lead in establishing a “human security network” of states and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that endorse the concept. The term has also begun to appear in academic works, and is the subject of new research projects at several universities.[22]

In light of global warming and consideration of ecocide, human security theory seems to be the best doctrine for both the USA and Iran. Furthermore, it is quite possible that global warming has already gained too much steam while proponents of human security are too few to win clout in their respective regions. If this is the case, then it is reasonable to suggest US and Iranian proponents of human security must band together (forgetting their more immediate fraternity, with their countrymen) so as to expedite their rise to popularity.

... environmental problems, rather than inspiring the wave of ingenuity predicted by cornucopians, may instead reduce the supply of ingenuity available in a society. The success of market mechanisms depends on an intricate and stable system of institutions, social relations, and shared understandings ... .Cornucopians often overlook the role of social ingenuity in producing the complex legal and economic climate in which technical ingenuity can flourish. Policymakers must be clever “social engineers” to design and implement effective market mechanisms. Unfortunately, however, the syndrome of multiple, interacting, unpredictable, and rapidly changing environmental problems will increase the complexity and pressure of the policymaking setting. It will also generate increased “social friction” as elites and interest groups struggle to protect their prerogatives. The ability of policymakers to be good social engineers is likely to go down, not up, as these stresses increase.[23]

So it is, then, that the aforesaid theory of an international oil standard and/or a shared human security policy between, at least some, American and Iranian policymakers are essential in light of the possible decline in social ingenuity, round the world. It would behoove Iran to be one step ahead of the USA, regarding this potential paradigm shift and make such policy the overarching ideology with which is communicates, to the West. It is also more likely that Iranian policy makers could lead this paradigm shift, given how it would necessarily increase the price of oil and given the gross bias most Americans have, regarding low oil prices. Finally, there is hope that American military elites may be converted to human security doctrine so as to bring pressure on US policymakers to find ways to coordinate their activities with the military elites, who might also adopt human security doctrine, of Iran.

To coordinate military strategy, between the USA and Iran, becomes exponentially important when a real and literal world view is adopted. The leaders of both the USA and Iran should see the long term benefit of a mutual defense pact and treaty given their common enemies: ecocide and Sunni militarism. Since so much of the Middle East is rich in oil, while at the same time being cut up into banana republic-style mini-states, having a regional super power in the Middle East is necessary for greater control over oil exports. Iranian territory expansion would be a boon for the USA if and when it and Iran can reach an accord regarding their greatest common enemy. An Iran which encompassed many of the oil fields in what is today, Shiite populated Iraq, would be an Iran more able to pressure the despots of Saudi Arabia to also adopt human security doctrine. Moreover, an Iranian manifest destiny energized in part by a consciousness of impending ecocide, would certainly advocate an egalitarian message consistent with the Ayatollah’s vision of jurisprudence. Given this hypothesis, the centrifuge of conflict might more easily be diffused vis a vis common interest in ecological integrity. As for the war on terror, it too would benefit if both the USA and Iran adopted a human security theory for it does not exclude forward deployment of armed forces against the highly militarized and organized criminals as represented by Al Queda and the like. Indeed, such a shared ideology would prove a far more viable than the “coalition of the willing.” Absolute hegemony doctrine, however, hamstrings the war on terror as it would have both the USA and Iran work along divergent paths towards the ill advised goal of mere military supremacy.

Space Weapons and Remote War Fighting
If, for the sake of argument, all the suggested changes as outlined in this paper were to occur, there would no doubt be a certain amount of world wide chaos. Regarding the argument for the conversion to human security theory from the present hegemony doctrine, the probability of US force redeployment (worldwide) becomes great. Without status quo forward deployment of US forces, many nations would be destabilized. How might the USA mitigate this probable chaos? More so than former Secretary of Defense Donnald Rumsfeld suggested, the US military would need to be profoundly modernized. This possibility is not as fantastic as many would assume.

Admittedly, the notion of space weapons is easily dismissed as science fiction by those with little to no understanding of existent, prototype, weapons systems. Still, this potentiality is real enough to have caused the Russian Minister of Defense to have made recent remarks concerning the militarization of Earth’s orbit.

The United States clashed with China and Russia during a disarmament debate Tuesday over how to prevent an arms race in outer space, and Washington criticized Beijing for its recent test of an anti-satellite missile.

Russia and China, in turn, condemned the “one state” that refuses to consider a treaty banning space weapons -- a reference to the U.S.

The meeting of the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament came a month after China launched a warhead from a ballistic missile to destroy one of its old weather satellites -- a test that was widely criticized as a provocative display of the Asian country’s growing military capability.[24]

[Rasputin]

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Notes
[1] The Hussein-MacMahon Correspondence (1914-1916), Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) and Balfour Declaration (1917)

[2] Judaism, Christianity and Islam all come from the Near East juxtaposed to the complete lack of any original, popular and lasting religious discovery in the West.

[3] Manifest Destiny as put forth by President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic party (1845--up to present day) proclaims US control over the whole western hemisphere. It was the ideology for legitimizing the Oregon Territory, Texas annexation and subsequent annexations of otherwise foreign territory.

[4] Khomeyni, Ruhollah. Islamic Government: Governance of Jurisprudent. Honolulu: UP of the Pacific, 1979.

[5] Council on Foreign Relations: Iran’s Involvement in Iraq

[6] The Jamestown Foundation: Iranian Involvement in Afghanistan

[7] Mullahs of Iran Pledge $1b in Aid to Iraq and Iran Pledges Relief Aid to Afghan Refugees

[8] TIME: Iran's Nuclear Threat

[9] WSWS: US-North Korean nuclear agreement: clearing the decks for Iran

[10] Mueller, John. Retreat from Doomsday: the Obsolescence of Major War. New York: Basic Books, 1989. Pg. 247-250.

[11] Was Syria responsible for the assassination of Rafik Hariri? There are many suspicions that it was, but no proof. On February 14, a massive car bomb in Beirut killed Hariri and more than a dozen others and wounded more than 100. Syrian officials deny involvement. In September 2004, the Baathist government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pressured Lebanon's parliament to amend the constitution and extend the presidential term of Emile Lahoud, a Maronite Christian widely seen as a Syrian puppet. Then-Prime Minister Hariri, a billionaire businessman who had led the post-civil war rebuilding of Lebanon, resigned in protest in October. See >>>

[12] Xinhua: Iranian First Vice President terms visit to Syria as useful

[13] Infoplease: Understanding the Turkey-Kurd Conflict and USIP: Turkey and Iraq: The Perils (and Prospects) of Proximity

[14] White House: National Security

[15] Mideast Web: Who is Osama Bin Laden?

[16] CPA-Iraq: Zarqawi message

[17] Johnson, Chalmers. Blowback: the Cost of American Empire. Ontario: Fitzhenry & Whiteside LTD, 2000.

[18] This is regarding the Ottomans agreed to let European courts hold trials for Europeans charged with crimes, in the Ottoman Empire.

[19] CBS News: U.S. Heading For Financial Trouble?

[20] An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenhiem. Perf. Al Gore.UIP, 2006

[21] Pollution From Chinese Coal Casts Shadow Around Globe

[22] Paris, Roland. “Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air.” International Security 26:2 (1991) pg. 87

[23] Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. “On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflicts.” International Security 16:2 (1991): pg. 102

[24] MSNBC: U.S. clashes with China, Russia over space arms

[25] Military.com: Chinese Missile Destroys Satellite

[26] Bio: Hendrik A. Lorentz, and more specifically, Lorentz Force: F=q(vxB)

[27] DefenseReview.com: IAT Electromagnetic Systems Division Developing Rail Gun Tech for U.S. Military

[28] As an aside, I would be remiss for not including my own opinion regarding this technology. It seems to me all the problems of existent rail guns and, moreover, the shortcomings of existent designs can be overcome if such a weapon is designed so as to manifest what I call a “force cascade” a la:

{[f0 = c/4 x 1]F=q(vxB)}F =9x109Q1Q2/r2

[29]
* MQ-1 PREDATOR UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE
* TT-26 - a radio control (telemechanic in Russian terms) flame-thrower tank, 1935-1936. Armament: flamethrower, one machine-gun. 55 tanks were built. Used together with the TY-26 tank only.

[30] Ritter, Scott. Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change. New York: Nation Books. Pg. 218 .