It's A Dangerous World - We Wanted It To Be

The West Has Amped and Antagonised Its Enemies For So Long Now It Faces Meltdown

ALBERT Einstein was being kinda thick when he said:

"I don’t know what weapons will be used to fight World War III but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Even many years after World War III, I guarantee President Mutant-brains won’t be announcing: “Today I ordered successful targeted strikes on the Radioactive Desert with three sticks. More sticks may follow to maintain order against the threat of stones”.

Still, Uncle Albert’s point stands: the use of a nuclear weapon would herald the end of organised human life. I was made painfully aware of this likelihood at a slightly odd time. In the mid ‘90s, I read an amazing book by an obscure author, Andrew Murray. Literally on page one, he predicted a third world war starting in Ukraine.

Andrew Murray was no fortune-teller, just a man paying attention to the facts while everyone else was basking in globalisation and America’s unipolar moment. The Western world back then was threatened only by asteroids, dinosaurs, and aliens - not by nation-states, even in fiction. The closest Hollywood came to a concern about international rivalry was a comedy that literally asked us to see the Vietnam war through the eyes of a mentally-impaired Tom Hanks.

Murray’s underlying theory? Simply that the collapse of socialism in 1991 and the subtle weakening of American empire had left all countries less secure and more warlike. But it wasn’t until just after 9/11 that the international relations journals, galvanised by arch realist John Mearsheimer’s new book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, started to catch up with the idea of renewed great power conflict, and even then pretty much everyone was still just focused on terrorist attacks for at least another decade.

Watching the West fulfil my fears by systematically day-by-day dismantling its own security since the 1990s exactly as Murray predicted has filled me with bitter tears of joyful, horrified vindication.

I am not afraid of our official enemy states, never have been. Yes, the markings on the missile set to kill me will be in a foreign language but it will be my own side - following at least three decades of bully-boy policies - that is predominantly to blame for my death.

America is always talking ‘regimes’.  The Serb regime, the Libyan regime, Venezuela’s regime… it’d drone-bomb the L’Oréal Skin Care regime if it didn’t supply them with oil. 

Remember Saddam Hussein? In the wake of 9/11 the Americans said he had 5,000 tonnes of mustard gas but got there and couldn’t even find mustard. A Baghdad hotdog was a decidedly unsatisfactory affair in sanctions-era Iraq. 

We literally call North Korea the “Hermit Kingdom”. Hermits are about as scary as hobbits. You know, the hobbit wasn’t the baddy in The Hobbit - it was Benedict Cumberbach. (Appropriate, actually, given Cumberbatch’s hatchet job on Julian Assange).

What about Iran? Secretary of Defence under Trump said that “Iran is the Homebase for Al Qaeda”. I’m not sure if you’ve been to Homebase lately but if their nuclear weapons are as awkward to assemble as their shelving units then I'm sure we'll be fine for a little while yet.

On the BBC’s latest HARDtalk, Stephen Sackur actually seemed a bit miffed that Iran wasn’t retaliating as violently as expected and put it down to how “weak” it is at present. Maybe a better explanation is that Iran has actually always been quite defensive power, right from the days when our ally Saddam Hussein invaded and used the chemical weapons we gave him. Nor did Iran ever really need nukes, in part because its military technology is so formidable. This is not a weak state - it is just less warlike than the US and UK.

China is, of course, totally different, though, isn’t it? Nigel Farage says he "very scared" of China. I feel exactly the same - oh yes! In fact, the only way I can calm my paralysing terror of China is reminding myself that it's 5,000 miles away in f—-ing China. 

Remember last spring when the Americans invoked the terror of China’s spy balloon? Gee, I sure hope the Chinese don’t send any more party paraphernalia. They might shoot at us with a Chinese Spud Gun. I’d hate for them to make us stand on a Chinese Lego.

This habit of threat inflation is so embedded in Western society that, literally, our most famous NATO critic wants a new Cold War with China, even as he advocates for peace with Russia. John Mearsheimer, mentioned earlier, thinks that China, left unchecked in the South China Sea, will cause a “century of national humiliation” for the United States. This is paranoid nonsense. For over two hundred years, the US’ Monroe Doctrine has strictly and incontrovertibly prevented foreign forces from penetrating the US’ sphere of influence. Mearsheimer says China would station missile systems in Mexico and Canada. Even if for some reason China was willing and able to attempt such an imposition, the United States would resist - with conventional forces and with nukes - as they cross any number of red lines during the weeks, months, and years it’d take. China would feel like a pigeon flying up to the Death Star.

The US and UK must develop a realistic sense of threat - and recognise the overriding role they play in worsening it. The two most secure countries on the planet, separated by water, are the most violent and paranoid. We must pull back from the brink and start talking international treaties and agreements. If we do, our populations will find that the prospects for justice, prosperity and peace for all improve dramatically.