The Rise (Again) of Nations

Forerunner, "WorldWatch," September-October 2008

British Prime Minister Henry Temple (1784-1865), known as Lord Palmerston, remarked in the House of Commons on March 1, 1848: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow." In so many words, his statement encapsulates the age-old concept of the nation-state in relation to other nation-states. Nations are composed of large populations living within definable borders and having common governance, aims, and interests. Nations exist because humanity has splintered into hundreds of massive interest groups, each with its own idea of what is best for it.

However, since at least the Tower of Babel, it has been a dream of mankind to erase the lines that divide these human groups and create a one-world order. Empires—from Babylon to the Third Reich—have tried to impose worldwide rule and usher in a utopian Golden Age. In the last century, the idea of a new international system rose again in the League of Nations, in the United Nations, and finally in the post-Cold War New World Order, but each time an international union has been tried, those pesky nations and their interests have dashed it all to pieces.

And it is happening again.

Since the Cold War's end, globalism has been the watchword of international relations and economics. This has been made possible in part by the fact that, with the Soviet Union consigned to history's recycle bin, the United States has emerged as the lone superpower in the world. Being an economic powerhouse and in most cases benign in its foreign ambitions, America has created and fostered an environment of international amity and cooperation. To be sure, not all has been the proverbial sunshine and roses, but the U.S. has pushed and presided over many international institutions and initiatives, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, NATO, the G7, various military coalitions, and countless U.N. agencies.

Yet, cracks are appearing in the foundations of the present international system. Both of its main pilings—economic prosperity and peaceful relations—have been undermined to the point that the whole structure faces collapse. As Lord Palmerston clearly implied, when national interests are at stake, nations have a solemn duty to see to their own first—and both their allies and enemies be hanged!

The current economic woes and a handful of conflicts and foreign policy maneuvers reveal the instabilities of today's globalism. On the financial side, even with all the meetings of world leaders and the tremendous media coverage of the international economy, in reality only a rudimentary framework of a truly global system exists. While there is interconnectivity and cooperation, the world's sovereign nations are the system's players, each looking out for their own interests, using their own currencies, levying their own taxes, charging their own tariffs, and making their own deals.

In the current world credit crunch, each nation will act in its own best interests, and if, for instance, the cooperative efforts of the G20 put it at a disadvantage, it will simply not comply with and/or withdraw from the regime. No sovereign nation will take the chance of acting for the good of the world if it will be hurt by such altruism.

Something like this occurred in Europe when the credit crisis broke in early October. On October 12, the eurozone nations held a summit to coordinate their efforts to combat the swiftly developing financial disaster. Brussels, the hub of EU bureaucracy, did little but wring its hands and say that it lacked the power to make any significant moves. Picking up the slack were the finance ministries of the individual nations in Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, and the capitals of other sovereign states. They used the resources at their disposal to shore up their own lending institutions, protecting their own national interests. In other words, even within the EU, the international system began to splinter along nationalistic lines.

In terms of foreign policy, nationalism is also making a comeback. This can be seen most easily, perhaps, in Russia's recent maneuverings under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He and President Dmitri Medvedev are rebuilding an anti-U.S. bloc from the handful of non-aligned socialist governments around the world, particularly Venezuela and Cuba. The Kremlin is heralding Medvedev's upcoming trip to Latin America as a means for Russia to expand its economic markets in the region, but it is an open secret that his stops in Havana and Caracas will seek to coordinate the three nations' military and political alliance. It is no coincidence that Russia and Venezuela recently announced a joint naval exercise in Caribbean waters, a gesture of defiance toward U.S. hegemony.

In August, Russia invaded Georgia's sovereign territory, quickly overcoming the smaller nation's defenses and demanding that Georgia allow its breakaway province of South Ossetia to go its own way—that is, into Russia's embrace. Beyond rhetoric, the U.S. and NATO did nothing material to help their ally in the Caucasus region, revealing themselves to be practically incapable of unified action. Each member state criticized or mollified Russia in accordance with its own interests.

If we add into the mix Iran's belligerence, India's increasing confidence and autonomy, and China's expanding power, the world is devolving, as it were, into a dangerous, multi-polar configuration. A new Cold War—head-to-head, non-military confrontation among the world's most powerful nations—seems to be brewing. Hostilities of this kind can quickly turn into shooting wars.

In this vein, we would do well to remember Revelation 17 and 18, which contain several references to kings and nations, not cooperative international bodies. Perhaps the world is shaping up to fulfill these long-awaited prophecies.

Climate Change and World Peace

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All hail Al Gore, the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize!

This is the near-unanimous cry of the mainstream media news hawkers this morning. Gore—former U.S. Vice President and darling of liberals, Hollywood, and tree-huggers everywhere—received the Peace Prize for preaching the gospel of manmade climate change around the world and urging radical measures to counteract the "imminent" threat. Supporters here in the U.S. are hoping that this honor will convince Gore to reconsider running for President in 2008.

Gore shares the prestigious award with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the infamous IPCC. Gore lauds the IPCC as the "world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis." The vast majority of news reports on this story will ignore the fact that the IPCC's reports on climate change have been repeatedly shown to be U.N. policy statements hiding behind a tissue of dubious scientific research. A quick comparison of the last several reports by the panel reveals the IPCC backtracking on its estimates on the severity of global warming—to the point that its projections now fit comfortably into historical warming and cooling trends. After removing the hysteria caused by activists like Al Gore, the global warming "threat" turns out to be little more than a normal temperature fluctuation.

Gore himself, along with his so-called documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, has recently come under fire for false and misleading statements. London's Daily Mail reports that a British High Court judge ruled this week that the movie is "alarmist," "exaggerated," and "one-sided." Further, showing the film in schools disregards British education policies unless accompanied by guidance notes to balance its partisan stance. While opining that An Inconvenient Truth was "broadly accurate" on climate change, High Court Justice Burton listed nine scientific errors asserted as facts in the film. These included the estimated rise of sea levels (Gore claimed a catastrophic rise of twenty feet in the "near future"), the correlation between the increase in the CO₂ level and temperature, and his declarations that global warming has caused or will cause the shut down of the Gulf Stream, the drying of Lake Chad, the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro, the evacuation of Pacific Ocean atolls, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, the bleaching of coral reefs, and the drowning of polar bears. Although the film's supporters will never admit it, the judge's findings, which the Daily Mail dubs "inconvenient untruths," effectively gut the documentary of its most essential, emotional points.

In the months leading up to the bestowal of the prize on Gore and the IPCC, there was little doubt about who would win it. Several other candidates had been under consideration by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, but Gore was the frontrunner from the beginning of the process. According to its press release, the Committee's reason for awarding the Peace Prize to Gore and the IPCC is "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." In justifying its choice, the Committee attempts to link the prospect of "extensive climate changes [that] may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind" with the possibility that such change "may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. . . . There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, with and between states" (emphasis ours).

So, the most prestigious award in all the world is given because the Nobel Committee, determining from backpedaling IPCC reports that manmade climate change is real, foresees that it might cause groups to migrate, compete, and engage in conflict over resources. As the Committee also wrote, "Indications of changes in the earth's future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds." Such is the tenuous link between climate change and world peace. Rather than awarding the prize to someone or some group that is actually doing something now to foster peace between peoples, the Committee chose to laud Gore and the IPCC for perhaps reducing future conflicts by increasing awareness that climate change may disturb the present harmony among nations and ethnic groups over resources.

It appears that the members of the Nobel Committee live in a sealed environment cut off from the real world. There are many real conflicts raging right now over earth's precious resources. In fact, one can argue that the world's spotlighted conflict, the Iraq War and its aftermath, is a struggle over Middle East oil, the fuel of the world's economy. In addition, the migrations of workers from poor to rich countries—for example, Hispanics into America and Muslims into Europe—are related to a lack of resources in their homelands and an abundance of them in the developed nations, and they are creating conflict. Yet, none of these present-day confrontations have been set off by manmade climate change, today's cause célèbre, so the supposed prevention of hypothetical future conflicts becomes the reason for Gore's selection. What a peacemaker he might be!

What a mockery of peacemaking! The Nobel Peace Prize has degenerated into a political farce to legitimatize select globalist ideas and movements. The climate change mantra is not being used to bring peace but to assert control over human activity, to urge the ratification and enforcement of treaties, laws, and regulations that limit rights and progress, especially in industrialized, developed nations in the West. Peace is liberating, but the politics of green are ultimately to gain power over large segments of humanity in the name of environmental sustainability. Such control and power in human hands will not bring peace but more war.

God says, "The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace" (Isaiah 59:8). Human nature makes it impossible for mankind to make a lasting peace; men and women are always too willing to fight for their self-interests (see James 4:1-3). Peace will come to mankind only when Christ returns in power and, ironically, forces humanity to live His way of peace. As Zechariah 9:9-10 says of Him, "Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation. . . . [T]he battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be 'from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.'" This is the real, glorious peace prize we seek.

Toward Anarchy

Here in Charlotte, the local school system has descended into another crisis—only the latest one on a very long string of such problems—and this time the turmoil concerns what is being called deconsolidation. Briefly, the wealthy and relatively placid suburban areas wish to secede from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) and form their own, separate system. In fact, they have suggested that CMS should be broken up into at least three—and perhaps more—smaller, more local, more accountable districts. The backers of this idea believe that local autonomy and a smaller, more efficient administration are the keys to reforming a horribly inept, corrupt, unfair, and ineffective governmental agency.

The public school system is probably the most visible and tangible form of government to most Americans, certainly to those who have children in the system. It is here that the shortcomings of big government are most quickly observed and have their greatest impact on the average citizen. Despite the fact that voters have the "power" to elect school boards, the unified school districts around the nation are not run by these elected officials but by the entrenched bureaucracy created to support the ever-expanding—and soon-bloated—system. With power over billions of dollars and motivated by an agenda to impose their often-liberal values (in CMS's case, it is forced integration through busing and mandated racial "equality" through disproportionate allocation of funds to the inner city—in effect, a kind of reparations package), these relatively unaccountable managers implement their ideas through successive administrations without missing a beat. In Charlotte, it took thirty years for the frustration with the system to build into outright rebellion.

On the national level, the rumblings against big government are also being heard. For starters, democrats are widely seen as advocates of higher taxes, expanded services, and increased governmental involvement in every area of life, and their candidates—at least nationally—have done poorly in the last three elections. In addition, fiscal and social conservatives are quite concerned about President Bush's profligate spending. Granted, much of it has gone to military matters, but perhaps even more is being funneled to fund No Child Left Behind, prescription drugs, and other social benefits. Many claim his proposal to "save" Social Security will be another financial boondoggle for the American taxpayer. Whatever the case, more spending means higher taxes means increased government means less freedom for Joe and Jane Citizen—whether the administration is Republican or Democrat.

Even on the radical Left, some are crying for decentralization and local autonomy. Ward Churchill, the embattled Ethnic Studies professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has called for "the United States out of North America," meaning that he advocates the breakup of the American government into hundreds or even thousands of local, self-determining districts. Whatever his reasoning, he believes that there can be peace, freedom, and equality only on the "tribal" level—that is, only among those who band together around a set of common beliefs and aims. To him, the larger the entity, the less cohesive and fair it is, so it makes sense to him to strip all large governments of power. He and many who think like him are reacting to the obvious abuses and inequalities engendered by huge, powerful, impersonal, and inevitably corrupt human government.

Since the Second World War, the world has been advancing and building global structures: the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Criminal Court, etc. Only now are many seeing the problems associated with such transnational organizations. For instance, the UN has recently found itself mired in scandals ranging from the Oil-for-Food Program to sex-trafficking on UN missions. Observers are realizing that the self-interests of often very diverse peoples keep clashing, causing horrible disparities, abuses, and offenses around the world. For this very reason, the U.S. will not become a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, to name just one example.

The human solution is to move in the opposite direction, toward tribalism. Deconsolidation, decentralization, downsizing, local autonomy, and similar words or phrases are all catchphrases for this movement toward tribalism. At its extreme, tribalism becomes each man for himself—anarchy, literally "without a ruler," an absence of government, resulting in lawlessness.

The Bible describes such conditions: "In those days, there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6; 21:25; see also Deuteronomy 12:8). The book of Judges has been called "the bloodiest book of the Bible," as the text shows Israel cycling through the process of freedom, decline, oppression, and revolt time after time. The author pares the cause of the Israelites' instability down to this one statement: There was no government, so it was every man for himself.

Do we really want to go there? On the other hand, do we really want to continue under the present system?

The real problem in all of this swinging back and forth between globalism and tribalism is self-interest—or to put it bluntly, selfishness. No human government, big or small, powerful or weak, centralized or local, will work unless the governed are willing to put aside their self-interests for the good of all. Certainly, this is altruism, but it is a basic message of the Bible: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). There will be no universal stability, peace, and prosperity until humanity realizes this and chooses to live by it.