General Theory of Globalization & Mod...

General Theory of Globalization & Modern Terrorism (2001)
April 8, 2007 — drsubrotoroy
A General Theory of Globalization & Modern Terrorism (2001)

Subroto Roy

This was a keynote address to the Council of Asian Liberals & Democrats meeting on November 16 2001, Manila, Philippines, and was published in Singapore in 2002, Alan Smith, James Gomez & Uwe Johannen (Eds.) September 11 & Political Freedom: Asian Perspectives. It was republished in the West on January 26 2004 on the University of Buckingham website, when the author was Wincott Visiting Professor of Economics there. It came to be followed a few months later by a public lecture at the University, titled “Science, Religion, Art and the Necessity of Freedom: Reason’s Response to Islamism” which has also been published here.

1. Globalization Through a Wide-Angle Lens
2. Suicide, Terrorism & Political Protest
3. Science, Religion, Art, and the Necessity of Freedom
4. Asia’s Modern Dilemmas: Named Social Life or Anonymous Markets
5. September 11: the Collapse of the Global Conversation
6. Envoi

Synopsis: The world after September 11 2001 has seemed a very bewildering place – as if all liberal notions of universal reason, freedom, tolerance and the rule of law since the Enlightenment have been proven a lie overnight, deserving only to be flushed away in the face of a resurgence of ancient savageries. One aim of this essay is to show this would be too hasty an assessment; another is to provide a general theory of “globalization”, a notion which often has seemed lost for meaning.

1. Globalization Through a Wide-Angle Lens

The perpetrators of September 11 subjectively acted in the name of Islam. It would have surprised them to know of the great respect with which the religious experience of Prophet Muhammad (572-632 AD) had been treated in the English language by Carlyle in 1842: “The great Mystery of Existence… glared in upon (Muhammad), with its terrors, with its splendours; no hearsays could hide that unspeakable fact, ‘Here am I!’. Such sincerity… has in very truth something of divine. The word of such a man is a Voice direct from Nature’s own Heart. Men do and must listen to that as nothing else; all else is wind in comparison.” 1

Carlyle told the story of Muhammad once not abiding by his own severe faith when he wept for an early disciple saying “You see a friend weeping over his friend”; and of how, when the young beautiful Ayesha tried to make him compare her favourably to his deceased wife and first disciple the widow Khadija, Muhammad had denied her: “She believed in me when none else would believe. In the whole world I had but one friend and she was that!”

Carlyle suggested the simple humanity and humility of Muhammad’s life and example, and even an intersection between Islamic belief and modern science (”a Voice direct from Nature’s own Heart”). He quoted Goethe: “If this be Islam, do we not all live in Islam?”, suggesting there might be something of universal import in Muhammad’s message well beyond specifically Muslim ontological beliefs.

In general, the life or words of a spiritual leader of mankind like Muhammad, Christ, or Buddha, as indeed of discoverers of the physical world like Darwin or Einstein, or explorers of secular human nature like Aristotle, Adam Smith or Karl Marx, may be laid claim to by all of us whether we are explicit adherents, disciples or admirers or not. No private property rights may be attached upon their legacies, but rather these remain open to be discussed freely and reasonably by everyone.

A second example is more proximate. It is of MK Gandhi the Indian sitting in South Africa reflecting on the Christian ideas of Thoreau the American and Tolstoy the Russian, synthesizing these with Hindu-Jain notions of “ahimsa” or “non-hatred” into a technique of political action to be applied eventually to end British rule in India; then transferred a decade after Gandhi’s assassination to the US Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King Jr, and later, after King’s assassination, back to Nelson Mandela languishing in prison, who ends apartheid and brings in its place a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” in South Africa.2

Construing globalization to mean merely Westernization of the East has been a commonplace error, leading to a narrow cramped perspective and reflecting ignorance of both East and West. There are countless examples of the Easternization of the West including the exportation of Judaism and Christianity, and of Indian and Arab mathematics and astronomy in the Middle Ages.

There have been and will be countless cross-fertilizations between East and West, let aside the subtle influences of Africa and other cultures and continents on art, music, dance, sports and beliefs around the world.

In general, whenever an idea, practice, institution or artifact transmits itself from its origin elsewhere, we have a little piece of globalization taking place. The speed and volume of such transmissions may have vastly increased in recent decades thanks to the growth of modern transport and communications but that is not to say some of the most important transmissions have not already taken place or may not yet take place.  Ours like every generation may be biased in favour of its own importance.

2. Suicide, Terrorism & Political Protest

Global transmissions can be as soft and salubrious as Americans learning to enjoy football which is not American football. But they can be grim and desperate too – like the transfer of “suicide bombing” techniques from Sri Lanka’s civil war to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; or the idea of  schoolboys firing automatic weapons germinating from A Clockwork Orange to actuality thirty years later in an American or a German school.

In fact the Thoreau-Tolstoy-Gandhi techniques of civil disobedience or a hunger-strike inflicting pain or sacrifice on oneself to show an adversary his folly, slide naturally to a limit of suicide as political protest — as when the Buddhist Superior Thich Quang Duc, protesting religious persecution by Diem’s regime in South Vietnam, immolated himself on June 2 1963, soon to be followed by other Buddhist monks and nuns, leading to the end of the Diem regime and start of the American war in Vietnam. Six years and half a world away, Jan Palach, on January 19 1969, immolated himself in Wenceslas Square protesting the apathy of his countrymen to the Soviet invasion that had ended the Prague Spring.

Suicide as political protest still abides by the Socratic injunction that it would be better to suffer wrong than to wrong others.3  Terrorism by suicide killing crosses that line — over into a world of utilitarian calculation on the part of the perpetrator that his or her suicide as political protest would be inadequate, and must be accompanied by causing death among the perceived adversary as well.

Gandhi, King and Mandela each had conservative, accommodative currents on one side, as well as radical dissident or parallel terrorist offshoots on the other, and we will return to ask why no non-violent political movement seems identifiable of which September 11 was the violent terrorist offshoot.

Where political protest is absent from the motivation, and killing the adversary becomes the aim with suicide merely the means, as with Japan’s kamikaze pilots, we have passed into a realm of international war between organized authorities in contrast with mere terrorism against some organized authority. A suicide-killer may of course subjectively believe himself/herself to be making a political protest though his/her principals may see him/her as an instrument of war.

Also, if it is correct to distinguish between kamikaze pilots and the perpetrators of September 11 by absence and presence of political protest in their motivation, terrorism typically arises as rebellion against some organized authority, and is to be contrasted precisely with war between organized authorities.

“State terrorism” can then only refer to an organized authority being repressive to the point of using its power to cause terror, physical or mental, upon a people or individuals under its control. “State-sponsored” terrorism would be something else again, where an organized authority assists a terroristic rebellion against some other organized authority, amounting effectively to an undeclared international war.4

3. Science, Religion, Art, and the Necessity of Freedom

The question arises whether anything in human nature or society may be identified to help analyse, explain or predict the myriad transmissions of globalization taking place, whether salubrious or not. If such a theory claims to be “general”, it will need to be wide enough to try to explain the motivation for modern terrorism and September 11 2001 in particular.

We could start with the observable fact there is and has been only one human species, no matter how infinitely variegated its specimens across space and time. All have a capacity to reason as well as a capacity to feel a range of emotions in their experience of the world, something we share to an extent with other forms of life as well. And every human society, in trying to ascertain what is good for itself, finds need to reason together about how its members may be best able to survive, grow, reproduce and flourish. This process of common reasoning and reflection vitally requires freedom of inquiry and expression of different points of view. The lone voice in dissent needs to be heard or at least not suppressed just in case it is the right voice counselling against a course which might lead to catastrophe for all. To reason together implies a true or right answer exists to be found, and the enterprise of truth-seeking thus requires freedom as a logical necessity. It takes guts to be a lone dissenter, and all societies have typically praised and encouraged the virtues of courage and integrity, and poured shame on cowardice, treachery or sycophancy. Similarly, since society is a going concern, justice and fairplay in the working of its institutions is praised and sought after while corruption, fraud or other venality is condemned and punished.

A flourishing society may be viewed as one advancing in its scientific knowledge, its artistic achievements, and its religious or philosophical consciousness. Each of these dimensions needs to be in appropriate balance in relation to the others during the process of social and economic growth, and each has a necessity for its own aspect of freedom.

Science is our public knowledge regardless of culture or nationality gained of ourselves as members of the world and the Universe, and has been the most important common adversary of all religions. Who or what is homo sapiens relative to other living species? What is the difference between plants and animals? What constitutes a living organism? What is the structure of a benzene ring or a carbon atom or any atom or subatomic particle? What is light, sound, gravity? What can we say about black holes or white dwarfs? When did life begin on Earth and when is it likely to end? Are we alone in the Universe in being the only form of self-conscious life? Such questions have been asked and attempted to be answered in their own way by all peoples of the world, whether they are primitive tribes in hidden forests or sophisticated rocket scientists in hidden laboratories. Our best common understanding of them constitutes the state of scientific knowledge at a given time.

At the bar of reason, all religions lose to science wherever they try to compete on science’s home grounds, namely, the natural or physical world. If a religious belief happens to imply a material object can be in two places at the same time, that something can be made out of nothing, that the Sun and planets go around the Earth, that if you offer a sacrifice the rains will be on time, then it is destined to be falsified by experience. Science has done a lot of its work in the last few centuries, while the religions pre-date this expansion so their physical premises may have remained those of the science understood in their time. In all questions where religions try to take on the laws of scientific understanding head on, they do and must lose, and numerous factual claims made by all religions will disappear in the fierce and unforgiving heat of the crucible of scientific reasoning and evidence.

With the enormous growth of science, some scientists have gone to the limit of declaring no religious belief can possibly survive — that we are after all made up of dust and atoms alone, that there is no real difference between a mechanical talking doll and a gurgling baby who has just discovered her hands and feet. Yet reasonable religious belief, action and experience does exist and may need to make its presence felt. Religion may not battle science and expect to win on science’s home ground but can and does win where science has nothing and can have nothing to say. It has been reasonable everywhere for men or women faced with death or personal tragedy to turn to religion for strength, courage or comfort. Such would be a point where religion offers something to life on which science has nothing of interest to say. These include the ultimate questions of life or death or the “Mystery of Existence” itself, in Carlyle’s term.

In fact the ultra-scientific prejudice fails ultimately to be reasonable enough, and is open to a joint and decisive counter-attack by both the religious believer and the artist. Modern science has well established that our small planet orbits an unexceptional member of an unexceptional galaxy. Copernicus by this started the era of modern science and began the end of the grip on Western culture of astrology, which was based on a geocentric Ptolomaic worldview (many Asian cultures like India and perhaps China still remain in that grip).

Yet the pre-modern geocentrism contained a subtle truth which has formed the foundation of both art and religion: to the best of scientific knowledge to this day, Earth is the centre of the Universe inasmuch as it is only here that reason and intelligence and consciousness have come to exist, that there is such a thing as the power to think and the power to love.5

We are, as far as anyone knows, quite alone in having the ability to understand ourselves and to be conscious of our own existence. The great galaxies, black holes and white dwarfs are all very impressive, but none of them is aware of its own existence or capable of the thought or love of any human baby or for that matter the commonest street dog.

What responsibility arises for human beings because of the existence of this consciousness? That is the common and reasonable question addressed by both religion and art, on which science is and must remain silent. We may come to know through science that life has existed for x million years and is likely to be extinguished in y million more years, but we do not know why it arose at all, or what responsibility devolves on those beings, namely ourselves, who have consciousness and reason to comprehend their own existence in the Universe.

DH Lawrence meant to raise this when he said the novel was a greater invention than Galileo’s telescope. Great painters, composers, or other artists can be imagined saying something similar. Art is the expression of life, and human cultures, like plants, may be fresh and vigourous with life or decadent and doomed to death. The society which both recognizes and comprehends its own artistic traditions through reasonable evaluation while encouraging new shoots of artistic creativity, will be one with a vibrant cultural life; the society incapable of evaluating its own art self- critically enough will be likely also to kill new creativity from within itself, and become vulnerable to a merger or takeover.

Science, religion and art each vitally requires freedom in order to thrive. In art, the function of reason arises in critical evaluation of literature, paintings, cinema, drama, music, dance, architecture and other aspects of aesthetics. Swimming against a full tide of majority opinion here often may be the right thing to do. The critic FR Leavis spoke of the importance of there being an educated public to maintain serious cultural standards; he meant that the freedom to be vigorously critical, often against shallow entrenched coterie opinions, may be the only safeguard preventing artistic or cultural standards from collapse.

In science, the activity of reasoning whether in public with one another or privately within oneself, dispels scientific illusions (like astrology) and so enlarges the area occupied by a common empirical understanding. Freedom is logically necessary here to keep potential avenues towards the truth open; it extends also to protecting through tolerance those factual beliefs which may be manifestly false –it may be a crime to steal or commit murder but it is not a crime to hold erroneous factual beliefs about the world as such (e.g. astrology is wrong because Copernicus is right, but it would be illiberal to jail people for believing in astrology.) Such a need for freedom of belief and experience, as well as the tolerance of dissent, becomes most obvious in religion, where the stupendous task facing all human beings is of attempting to unravel the “Mystery of Existence”. The scope of these ontological questions, unanswered and unanswerable by science, is so vast it would be only wise to allow the widest search for answers to take place, across all possible sources and religious faiths, wherever the possibility of an insight into any of these subtle truths may arise. Perhaps that is why some solitary thinkers have sought to experience all the great religions in their own lifetimes, sometimes by deliberate conversion from one faith to the next.

A flourishing society, then, would be one which grows along the three planes of science, religion and art under conditions of freedom. And such a notion may be measured at different scales of social life. It starts with the family as the author of Anna Karenina knew in its famous opening sentence: “All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. It could then move to flourishing tribes, neighborhoods or local communities, to flourishing towns, provinces, or whole nations. At any of these levels, the flourishing society is one which inhales deeply the fresh air of natural science, and so sees its knowledge of the material world grow by leaps and bounds; it encourages religious and philosophical discussions and tolerance so does not fail to comprehend its own purpose of being; and it lives creatively and self-critically in trying to improve the expressiveness of its artistic achievements. Such a society would be self-confident enough to thrive in a world of global transmissions of ideas, practices, institutions and artifacts. Even if it was small in economic size or power relative to others, it would not be fearful of its own capacity to absorb what is valuable or to reject what is worthless from the rest of the world. To absorb what is valuable from outside is to supercede what may be less valuable at home; to reject what is worthless from outside is to appreciate what may be worthwhile at home. Both require faculties of critical and self-critical judgement, and the flourishing society will be one which possesses these qualities and exercises them with confidence.

4. Asia’s Modern Dilemmas: Named Social Life or Anonymous Markets

Actual societies, whether small like families or large like nations, in East or West, now or in the past, typically display these qualities in relative balance, excess, or shortage.6 Broadly speaking, throughout the vast span of Asia, there has been unstinting admiration over the last two hundred years for the contribution of the modern West to art, architecture and the growth of scientific knowledge. Where it has come to be known and applied, there has been admiration for liberal Western political thought; while ancient Asian nations which hastily imported ideologies like fascism and communism have lived to regret it. Western political morality at its finest derives from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant that rational beings recognise one another’s autonomy and treat one another as ends in themselves, not as means towards each other’s ends. 7

We see this in action today in for example the cordial relations between the USA and Canada, or between North America and Europe, or in recent attempts at European integration.

Asian nationalists in the 20th Century struggled to try to establish individual autonomous national identities, as the West had done in the 18th and 19th centuries. Asian nationalism represented an unwillingness to be treated as mere means towards the ends of Western nations, something we still see today when country B is used to counter A, then C used to counter B, then D used to counter C, etc in the old imperial manner of divide and rule This remains a serious problem of international relations but is something Asia can resolve independently by seeking to create for herself free societies which flourish in science, religion and the arts which would then be robust, self-confident and autonomous enough to decline to be used as means towards others’ ends.

Furthermore, Asian societies in some respects all resemble one another and pre-modern Western societies more than they do the contemporary West. These pre-modern societies were ones in which a person was identified by rights and obligations flowing from the place he or she came to occupy through inheritance or brave achievement, and centred around the loyalty of friendship and kinship, as well as fidelity of the household. The relationships between the sexes, between generations, between friends, all these across Asia today may still perhaps resemble one another and the pre-modern West more than they do some trends in the contemporary West. History and identity continue to predominate our cultures in Asia: everyone is someone’s son or daughter, someone’s brother or sister or friend or relative, everyone is from some place and is of some age; and every deed has a history to it which everyone knows about or wants to talk about.

In contrast, the modern Western financial economics which the present author teaches his students, describes a world of anonymous “efficient markets” with no memory; where anyone can thrive as long as he or she brings something of value to trade; where all information needed to determine prices tomorrow is contained in today’s prices and events; where nothing from yesterday is necessary to determine anything in the future; where the actual direction of price-change is random and cannot be consistently foretold, so we cannot in general make any prediction which will lead to profit without risk. We are to imagine a large number of players in such a market, each with only a tiny bit of market-power itself, and none able to move the terms of trade on its own. Each of these players then, according to the textbooks, seizes every chance to improve his or her own position regardless of all else, he or she will “buy low” and “sell high” whatever and whenever possible, until price differences between identical assets vanish and no extra profit remains to be squeezed out from anything. Such briefly is the pure theory of the efficient market economy which one teaches as an economist. One tells one’s students it is a good thing, and it is to be found, if anywhere in the best international financial markets, and that what globalization refers to is the whole world becoming like one big efficient marketplace.8

Yet, privately, Asia may have watched with dismay the near-collapse of family and social life which has sometimes accompanied the modern prosperity and technological advancement. The war in Vietnam brought obvious physical destruction to parts of Asia but may also have had more subtle corrosive long-term effects on the social fabric of the West.

If there has been something liberal and humane about Western politics while Asian politics have been cruel and oppressive, there may also be something stable and chaste about traditional Asian family life while modern Western societies have sometimes seemed vapid and dissolute. Specifically, if it is fair to say there has been too little autonomy experienced by women and children in many Asian societies, it may be fair as well to observe a surfeit of choices may have arisen in some Western societies, greater than many women and children there may privately wish for. How does a society find its right balance on the question of the autonomy, modesty and protection of family life and other social relationships? The divorce courts of the ultra-modern world are places of deep misery for everyone except the lawyers involved in the trade, and as some Asian leaders have observed, something the globalization of Asia could well seek to avoid.

Thus the dilemma faced by many Asians today may be how to absorb the efficiency of markets and sound governance of liberal political institutions, without the kind of private social collapse that seems to have occurred in many ultramodern societies, nor the kind of loss of political sovereignty against which Asian nationalists had struggled during the age of imperialism. We may now see how far this brief but general theory of globalization may be applied in explaining the bewildering events of September 11 2001.

5. September 11 : the Collapse of the Global Conversation

Words are also deeds while deeds may also convey meaning.9 The words and deeds of the perpetrators of September 11 2001, and of the nation-states organized against them since that date, are both components of a complex and subtle global conversation taking place as to the direction of our common future.

In earlier times, Gandhi, King and Mandela each led successful non-violent political protests of “non-white” peoples against “white” organized authorities. Their protests assumed a level of tolerance arising out of mutual respect between rebel and authority. None was a totalitarian revolutionary out to destroy his adversary in toto but rather each intended to preserve and nurture many aspects of the existing order. Each had first become the master of the (Christian?) political idiom of his adversary and was willing and able to employ this idiom to demonstrate the selfcontradiction of his opponent, who was typically faced with a charge of hypocrisy, of maintaining both x and its contrary ~x and so becoming devoid of meaning. Such political conversations of words and deeds required time and patience, and the movements of Gandhi, King and Mandela each took decades to fructify during the 20th Century. They had more conservative accommodative currents on one side, and more impatient radical terroristic offshoots on the other.

All such aspects seem absent from September 11 and its aftermath, which seems at first sight sui generis. No patient non-violent political protest movement can be identified of which September 11 was a violent terroristic offshoot or parallel. Tolerance has not merely vanished but been replaced by panic, mutual fear and hatred. Violence appears as the first and not last recourse of political discussion. The high speed of the modern world almost demands a winner to be declared instantly in conflicts with subtle and unobvious roots, and the only way to seem to win at speed is by perpetrating the largest or most dramatic amount of violence or cruelty. The world after September 11 2001 has seemed a very bewildering place — as if all liberal notions of universal reason, freedom, tolerance and the rule of law since the Enlightenment have been proven a lie overnight, deserving only to be flushed away in face of a resurgence of ancient savageries.

But this would be too hasty an assessment. The global conversation clearly collapsed very badly from the time of e.g. Carlyle’s effort in 1842 to understand Islam’s legacy to the point of September 11 2001 being carried out against the United States or Western civilisation in general in Islam’s name. Even so, the universal liberal virtues of patience, tolerance and common reasoning can still find use here — in identifying possible deep, long-term historical factors which may have accumulated or congregated together to cause such a crime to take place.

One such historical factor has been technological and economic: the invention and immense use of the internal combustion engine throughout the 20th Century, coupled with discovery of petroleum beneath the sands of Arabia — all of which has made the material prosperity of the modern West depend, in the current state of technology, on this link not becoming ruptured. A second and independent factor has been the history of Christian Europe’s alternating persecution and emancipation of the Jewish people, which leads in due course to the Balfour declaration of 1919 and, following the Nazi Holocaust, to the creation of modern Israel among the Arabic- speaking peoples. The history between Christianity and Judaism is one in which the Arabic-speaking peoples were largely passive bystanders. Indeed, they may have been almost passive bystanders in creation of their own nation-states as well — for a third historical factor must be the lack of robust development of modern political and economic institutions among them, with mechanisms of political expression and accountability often having remained backward perhaps more so than in many other parts of Asia.

The end of World War I saw not only Balfour’s declaration but also Kitchener, Allenby and TE Lawrence literally designing or inventing new nationstates from areas on a desert-map: “Our aim was an Arab Government, with foundations large and native enough to employ the enthusiasm and self-sacrifice of the rebellion, translated into terms of peace. We had to … carry that ninety percent of the population who had been too solid to rebel, and on whose solidity the new State must rest…. In ten words, (Allenby) gave his approval to my having impertinently imposed Arab Governments… upon the chaos of victory…”

“(The secret Arab societies) were pro-Arab only, willing to fight for nothing but Arab independence; and they could see no advantage in supporting the Allies rather than the Turks, since they did not believe our assurances that we would leave them free. Indeed, many of them preferred an Arabia united by Turkey in miserable subjection, to an Arabia divided up and slothful under the easier control of several European powers in spheres of influence.” 10

Beginning with the Allied-induced Arab revolt against the Turks, the classic imperial doctrine of “balance of powers” or “divide and rule” has seemed to continue to be applied in rather more subtle diplomatic form up until the present: with post-Mossadeq Iran against any incipient Arab nationalism, then with Iraq against post-Revolutionary Iran, then against Iraq in the Gulf War of 1991. It is only during and after the Gulf War that Osama Bin Laden, as a totalitarian revolutionary, arose as an adversary of the West.

Throughout these decades, little or no spontaneous cosmopolitan political conversation seems to have occurred from which a mature, sustained indigenous Arab or other Muslim nationalism may have arisen as the basis for nation-states, as had done e.g. with Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian or Vietnamese nationalism.11

From 1919 to 1945, the global conversation became preoccupied with other matters, and from 1945 to the end of the Cold War, with yet other matters again. While the three long-term factors unfolded themselves through these turbulent decades, the natural vibrant free conversation vitally necessary for the political life of any people continued for the Arabic-speaking peoples to remain mostly stifled, dormant, inchoate or abortive. Expectedly enough, whatever little current it had turned inward to the insular austere roots of a faith of the desert:

“The Beduin of the desert…found himself indubitably free…. In his life he had air and winds, sun and light, open spaces and a great emptiness. There was no human effort, no fecundity in Nature: just the heaven above and the unspotted earth beneath. There unconsciously he became near God…. The Beduin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God. He could not conceive anything which was or was not God, Who alone was great…. This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words, and indeed in thought. It was easily felt as an influence, and those who went into the desert long enough to forget its open spaces and its emptiness were inevitably thrust upon God as the only refuge and rhythm of being…. This faith of the desert was impossible in the towns…” 12

But this attempt to return inevitably became something reactionary in the late 20th Century. Finding the Beduin and the original deserts of Arabia transformed over the intervening decades, it could only try to recreate itself among the Pashtoon in the barrenness of Afghanistan, and led to the bizarre scenes of the Taliban attempting to destroy televisions and cassette-tapes in the name of Islam.

6. Envoi

The crimes of September 11 2001 were ones of perverse terroristic political protest, akin on a global scale to the adolescent youth in angry frustration who kills his schoolmates and his teachers with an automatic weapon. But they were not something inexplicable or sui generis. They represented a final collapse of the centuries-old cosmopolitan conversation with Islam, while at the same time it was an incoherent cry of a stifled people trying to return to the austere faith of the desert. Words are also deeds, and deeds may also be language. What September 11 has demonstrated is that even while the information we have about one another and ourselves has increased exponentially in recent years, our mutual comprehension of one another and ourselves may well have grossly deteriorated in quality.

Reversing such atrophy in our self-knowledge and mutual comprehension requires, in the opinion of the present author, the encouragement of all societies of all sizes to flourish in their scientific knowledge, their religious and philosophical consciousness and self-discovery, and their artistic expressiveness under conditions of freedom. Ultra-modern societies like some in North America or Europe may then perhaps become more reflective during their pursuit of material advancement and prosperity, while ancient societies like those in Asia or elsewhere may perhaps become less fearful of their capacity to engage in the transition between tradition and modernity, indeed, may even affect the direction or speed of change in a positive manner.

To use a metaphor of Otto Neurath, we are as if sailors on a ship, who, even while sailing on the water, have to change the old planks of the ship with new planks one by one. In due course of time, all the planks get changed one at a time, but at no time has there not been a ship existing in the process — at no time need we have lost our history or our identity.

© Subroto Roy, November 16 2001; January 26 2004

1 Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship, London 1842.
2 In fact, “Gandhi’s correspondence with Tolstoy… only started after passive resistance had begun, and he only read Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience when he was in prison for that very offence”. Judith M. Brown, Gandhi’s Rise to Power,Indian Politics 1915-1922, Cambridge University Press 1972.
3 Cf. The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Princeton, 1961, Gorgias 474b, 483a, b.Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, Thinking, pp. 181-182, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971

4 Applying this to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the precise question would be how far the present Palestinian authority may be objectively considered the organized authority of a nation-state: if it is, then Palestinian suicide-killings are acts of war; if it is not, they are acts of terrorism. The rhetoric on each side
5 Finding water or even primitive life elsewhere will not change this.

6 For example, the relatively new nation-states created upon the ancient societies of the Indian subcontinent to which the present author belongs, apparently display a surfeit of religiosity combined with a shortage of rational scientific growth, including the sciences of governance and economics. Despite the examples of solitary thinkers from Kabir and Nanak to Gandhi, the political and economic benefits of social tolerance still seem badly understood in the subcontinent. Equally, the mechanism of holding those in power accountable for their actions or omissions in the public domain has often remained extremely backward. A mature grasp of the division between the private and public spheres may also have been absent in Asia; the distinction between private and public property is often fuzzy or opaque; the phenomena of corruption and pollution are then easily explained as mirror-images of one another: corruption is the transmutation of something valuable from the public domain into private property; pollution is the expulsion of private waste into the public domain. Each is likely to be found with the other.

7 Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, ed. H. J. Paton, Oxford
8 The contrast between “named” and “anonymous” societies occurred to the
author on the basis of the theoretical work of Professor Frank Hahn of Cambridge University, Cf. Equilibrium and Macroeconomics, MIT 1984.

9 This was emphasized by the late Cambridge philosopher Renford Bambrough, “Thought, word and deed”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. LIV, 1980, pp. 105-117.

10 T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, A Triumph, 1926, Doubleday 1935, pp. 649, 659; pp. 46-47

11 The most may have been Attaturk’s Turkey, M. A. Jinnah’s creation of a
Pakistan separate from India, and Algeria’s independence from France — all distant from the fulcrum of Arabia. In case of Pakistan, it was Hitler’s invasion of Poland that led the British, in something of a panic, to begin on September 3 1939 to treat Jinnah’s Muslim League on par with Gandhi ’s Indian National Congress. The 1937 provincial election results had shown little support for Pakistan in the areas which today constitute that country. Cf. F. Robinson, “Origins” in Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, edited by William E. James & Subroto Roy, Hawaii MS 1989, Sage 1992, Karachi OUP 1993.

12 Seven Pillars of Wisdom, pp. 40-41

A General Theory of Globalization & Modern Terrorism with Special Reference to September 11

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Terrorism and Globalization: Is Terrorism a Part of Globaliz
Terrorism and Globalization: Is Terrorism a Part of Globalization?
In the world today, there is a growing trend in violence, both domestically and internationally, in the form of terrorism. It is present in our everyday lives and in every part of the world—some more than others. Terrorism takes on many forms and has had an impact on all our lives in one way or another. Whether it affected us directly with the loss of a loved one or an incident we were a part of, or indirectly by heightened security at the airports causing delays, sudden drop in a stock values we own, or emotionally by the countless reports and images displayed by the media, terrorism has affected us all and shows no signs of going away anytime soon.

The underlying question then, is what has caused the sudden trend in terrorism? Has it always been around but just not focused on by the media, or has something taken place on a global scale causing the sudden trend? There are many groups and a magnitude of theories on the sudden trend of terrorism. Political scientists worldwide are at the forefront of this investigation. Amongst this group are many differing opinions and theories. One popular theory used to explain the sudden trend in terrorism is g

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Are Terrorism and Globalization Linked?
Matthew Trotter
Dr. Ozminkowski, COM 108
February 24, 2006

 

 

 

 

 

Are Terrorism and Globalization LinAlthough a peripheral link between globalization and terrorism has been established, it does not answer a simpler question. Does globalization cause international terrorism? Haydar Bas is quoted by Kuru (2005) as saying, "'Globalization is a concept originating from the West which has became [sic] a façade to adamantly impose particular ideas on underdeveloped countries, such as the claim that the borders are removed and nations are cooperating by ignoring their economic, cultural, and civilizational differences.'" There are a few hypotheses in support of the idea. These hypotheses fall into four main categories: cultural differences, economic disparity, political frustration, and clashing market systems. There are also claims that globalization and international terrorism are not linked at all. Foreign Policy (2005) found "little correlation between a country's level of global integration and the number of significant international terrorist attacks on its soil." It even claims globalization may help countries combat terrorism. However, this study solely looks at numbers; the question to be answered here cannot rely solely on quantitative data.
Cultural differences introduced by globalization are thought of as the main cause of international terrorism. If the hypothesis is true that cultural differences cause international terrorism, then it can certainly be said that globalization indirectly causes terrorism. Cronin (2002) states, "Foreign intrusions and growing awareness of shrinking global space have created incentives to use the ideal asymmetrical weapon, terrorism, for more ambitious purposes." She also says indigenous peoples blame the perceived corruption of their customs, religions, and languages on an international system American behavior unconsciously molds. The CQ Researcher (2001) mentions cultural differences as a source of conflict many times. Conservative societies are offended by the media image of the United States.
There may not be enough solid evidence of cultural differences inciting terrorism though. Campbell (2001) writes, "Debates within [the Middle East] center only in the most trivial way on Western 'contamination,' such as by pop music and video games, of their cultures." Rojecki (2005) even says the Huntington hypothesis (culture as the major source of anti-globalization) "receives comparatively little support in [the media], perhaps because of the Bush administration's strenuous efforts to divide… al-Qaeda from Islam in general." It seems that cultural hypotheses for international terrorism lack solid support and are only popular because they take into account the most obvious differences between the West and Middle East.
Economic disparity is another source of hypotheses concerning globalization and international terrorism. The recent invasion of Iraq portrays an "image of the West as an enlightened but militarized and muscular liberator," and "recoups the reality of the global North as… a site of mass consumption in a world of horrifying need" (Barkawi, 2004). The CQ Researcher (2001) also explores economic disparity as a source of terrorism. "'With globalization, people tend to compare themselves with bigger and bigger groups, and if you're in a poor village in Egypt what you see in U.S. television sitcoms are people with a lot of money,'" David Byman is quoted.
However, economic disparity alone does not seem like it would inspire international terrorism, no matter how well-off Western nations are compared to the rest of the world. There are plenty of nations that are as bad as or worse-off than the Middle East that do not engage in international terrorist activity. That point alone discredits the economic disparity hypothesis.
The category of political frustration has two different theories concerning globalization and terrorism. The first theory, presented by Kuru (2005), claims, "Globalization challenges a specific type of state, one that aims to homogenize its citizens through sociocultural policies." This is true of the Middle East and untrue of Western nations. Western nations, being mainly democratic, do not attempt to lump their citizens together as one; rather, a great deal of diversity is present in them. In the Middle East, internal strife is intense, as one group of leaders tries to claim power and keep all people under its law. It does not seem that this challenge should concern leaders very much, considering they constantly struggle against internal opponents. It seems the leader could simply ban access to any international influence.
The other type of theory in this category is blaming the West for internal strife. Most of the time, this involves Western nations interfering and installing unfit leaders. As far as politics are concerned, Rojecki (2005), states, "Globalization is a cover for reinforcing American dominance with the UN as a fig leaf… the United States is said to support corrupt regimes that routinely violate human rights." Carmody (2005) agrees with this idea, saying, "Support for repressive governments… are likely to prove unstable as [it generates] 'blowback,' unintended negative consequences." History has seen Western installation of repressive regimes throughout the world, so this point has more bearing than the former.
Despite any Western nations' actions to install ineffective governments, it seems the affected nations are no better at helping themselves. The CQ Researcher (2001) points out, "The Muslim world never underwent a movement like the 18th-century Enlightenment in the West, which hastened the demise of religious influence in government." Considering the tendency of the region to reject secular government, it seems the best government to be installed, if secular, would be rejected. Western nations, wary of Islamic terror, cannot be blamed for avoiding the installation of Islamic governments.
The final type of hypothesis considers clashing markets, a concept that has not been considered enough. Mousseau (2002) pins the problem of international terrorism solely on this aspect of globalization, stating, "In this mixed economy, the clash of clientalist and market cultures can lead to illiberal and unstable democracy, military dictatorship, state failure, sectarian violence, or some combination thereof." It seems that this scenario could lead to the conditions Carmody (2005) claims are responsible for providing opportunity for transnational terrorism, "Islamic fundamentalism… 'failed states,' and the lack of effective territorial control." Clientalist societies and market societies are naturally clashing entities. To summarize, clientalist societies see cooperation as the exchange of gifts, base trust on life-long friendships within small, approved groups, and are very hierarchical. Middle Eastern nations are clientalist societies. Market societies place less emphasis on small, approved group loyalty and encourage cooperation with new groups and base loyalty on an agreed-upon sanctity of contracts. Western nations are market societies.
"From the clientalist perspective, however, those with market values are from out-groups and thus are untrustworthy. Moreover, by expressing self-interest, individuals with market values… appear to have no culture and are seemingly interested in little beyond the crude pursuit of material gain" (Mousseau, 2002). When this concept is paired with the fact that when people in developing countries see the breakdown of traditional relationships and the surfacing of zero-sum anarchy, they relate them to growing Westernization of their societies, it is not difficult to see that there is potential in this hypothesis. There are two more factors within clientalist societies that contribute to international terrorism. First, privileged persons often emerge as terrorist leaders because they have the most to lose from globalization. They exploit the hierarchical structure and gather many patrons from the economically lowest parts of society. To keep their patrons' loyalty, leaders must demonstrate strength. Second, in this society's perspective, individuals are responsible for the actions of the entire group. Therefore, terrorist attacks that kill innocent people are justified because leaders are showing strength by killing guilty people (Mousseau, 2002).
The hypothesis of clashing market systems is the best explanation for international terrorism. It does need to be further researched and tested to confirm its plausibility, but it definitely seems to be the most rational explanation for international terrorism. Mousseau (2002) sums up his hypothesis by saying, "The underlying cause of terror: the deeply embedded anti-market rage brought on by the forces of globalization."
Conclusion
Globalization is an economically-driven process of business which also makes ideas, cultural behaviors, technologies, and politics global concepts and lead to greater interaction among previously separated groups and/or nations. Recent terrorist attacks and attempted attacks have raised the question: Are globalization and international terrorism connected? There are aspects to globalization that have inadvertently facilitated the rise of international terrorism. International media, communications technologies, conveniences, and international finances have facilitated terrorism on a global scale. The more important question is: Does globalization cause terrorism? The answer to that is unclear. There are many hypotheses, considering cultural differences, economic disparity, political frustration, and clashing market systems. The concept of clashing market systems seems to best answer the question. The theory definitely finds globalization greatly contributes to international terrorism but is not itself the only cause. However, the theory should be further tested and researched to verify its worth.
References
Barkawi, T. (2004). Globalization, culture, and war: on the popular mediation of "small
 Wars." Cultural Critique, 58, 115-147.
Campbell, K.M. (2001). Globalization's first war? The Washington Quarterly, 25:1,
 7-14.
Carmody, P. (2005). Transforming globalization and security: Africa and America post-
 9/11. Africa Today, 52:1, 97-120.
Center for Strategic and International Studies (2002). What is globalization? Retrieved
 February 20, 2006 from http://www.globalization101.org/globalization/.
CQ Researcher (2002). Hating America. The CQ Researcher, 11:41, 969-992.
Cronin, A.K. (2002). Behind the curve: globalization and international terrorism.
 International Security, 27:3, 30-58.
Foreign Policy (2005). The global top 20. Foreign Policy, 148, 52-60.
Gray, J. (2005). A violent episode in the virtual world. New Statesman, 134, 16-17.
Government of Canada (2005). Economic concepts: globalization. Retrieved February
 20, 2006 from http://www.canadianeconomy.gc.ca/english/economy/
 globalization.html.
International Labour Organization (1996). Globalization. Retrieved February 20, 2006
 From http://www.itcilo.it/english/actrav/telearn/global/ilo/globe/new_page.htm.
International Monetary Fund (2000). Globalization: threat or opportunity? Retrieved
 February 20, 2006 from http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/ib/2000/041200.htm.
Kuru, A.T. (2005). Globalization and diversification of Islamic movements: three
 Turkish cases. Political Science Quarterly, 120:2, 253-274.
Mousseau, M. (2002). Market civilization and its clash with terror. International Security,
 27:3, 5-29.
Naím, M. (2002). Post-terror surprises. Foreign Policy, 132, 95-96.
O'Sullivan, J. (2004). The role of the media at a time of global crisis. International
 Journal on World Peace, 21:4, 69-79.
Progressive Living (2001). Globalization defined. Retrieved February 20, 2006 from
 http://www.progressiveliving.org/definition_of_globalization_defined.htm.
Rojecki, A. (2005). Media discourse on globalization and terror. Political
 Communications, 22, 63-81.
Tetzlaff, R. (1998). World cultures under the pressure of globalization. Retrieved
 February 20, 2006 from http://www.hamburger-bildungsserver.de/
 Welcome.phtml?unten=global/allgemein/tetzlaff-121.html.
University of Colorado at Boulder (2002). Globalization and democracy: an NSF
 Graduate training program. Retrieved February 20, 2006 from http://www.
 colorado.edu/IBS/GAD/gad.html.
World Bank Group. (2000). What is globalization. Retrieved February 20, 2006 from
 http://www1.worldbank.org/economicpolicy/globalization/ag01.html.

 

 

Summary
The main lessons I learned about the search process are how to find more relevant sources and how to narrow a search. Before doing the research for this assignment, I did not fully understand how to obtain more related sources after finding a few of them. While doing the research, I was able to apply techniques I learned from the library's research workshop. I looked at source summaries and searched again using terms in the available source's or sources' subject lines to find more on the same topic. I also was not sure of how to significantly narrow a search before doing this assignment. I knew hot to use the Boolean operators, but I did not know that I could use certain parameters within databases to narrow the search as well. By using those techniques, I was able to narrow my search down to mostly full-text sources.
http://www.ozminkowski.com/globalizationpaper-sample2.doc

Globalization and the Future of Terrorism: Patterns and Predictions
Title: Globalization and the Future of Terrorism: Patterns and Predictions

Author: Lia Brynjar
ked?
Globalization Defined
While a precise definition of the term has yet to be established, many of the currently employed definitions use similar concepts. The University of Colorado at Boulder (2002) describes the global economy as one in which the main international players are corporations and lacking a structure tied to national boundaries. Refusing to assign a specific definition to the term, the World Bank (2000) describes it primarily as "the observation that in recent years a quickly rising share of economic activity in the world seems to be taking place between people who live in different countries," or, more simply, an increase in international economic activities. The Center for Strategic & International Studies (2002) attempts to precisely define globalization, calling it "a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology." The International Monetary Fund (2000) offers the broadest summary of globalization, referring to it as "the increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through trade and financial flows," adding, "The term sometimes also refers to the movement of people (labor) and knowledge (technology) across international borders. There are also broader cultural, political and environmental dimensions of globalization." Globalization is "the increased mobility of goods, services, labour, technology and capital throughout the world," according to the Government of Canada (2005). Rainer Tetzlaff (1998) writes that globalization encompasses many aspects, including increasing international transactions, new communications technologies, an increasing complex division of labor and goods distribution, quick turnover of concepts and consumer patterns, and a significant increase in transnational institutions and political movements. Globalization is "a process of growing interdependence between all people of this planet," according to the International Labour Organization (1996) and mentions economical interdependence. Even the cynical Progressive Living organization (2001) talks about globalization from an economic standpoint, calling it "a process, well underway, which trends toward the undermining of national sovereignty, and therefore citizen's [sic] rights, in favor of the economic interests of gigantic transnational corporations."
All of these definitions of the term agree on the economic aspect of globalization. The process began as one of increasingly international business dealings. However, it is ignorant to not consider other aspects of globalization. A good definition for it is an economically-driven process of business which also makes ideas, cultural behaviors, technologies, and politics global concepts and lead to greater interaction among previously separated groups and/or nations. It seems that this is the most succinct and precise the definition of globalization can be without ignoring many important aspects of it as some of the previously mentioned definitions do.
Globalization and Terrorism
In recent years, the world has seen many terrorist attacks or attempted attacks in locations other than where the terrorist(s) originated from. Notably, the majority of these attacks involved Muslim extremist groups. A Madrid train was bombed, as was a London subway. United States embassies in African nations were attacked. Airplanes were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center in New York. Australia narrowly avoided a terrorist attack. In each of these cases, the terrorists did not come from the country that was targeted.
When the media covers the fight against terrorists, people often hear that a government is doing something to stop them without sending any military personnel somewhere in response. Instead, financial assets are frozen to slow terrorists. Terrorist websites may be taken offline. Group cells may be discovered within a targeted country and be shut down by local, state, and/or federal law enforcement officers.
Considering what is known about globalization and the current situation of international terrorist activity, one could draw a correlation between globalization and terrorism. It certainly seems that the two are connected. In a speech at the World Media Conference, John O'Sullivan (2004) identified four components of what he called the "world crisis:" globalization itself, the mass migration of people over frontiers and the consequent spread of ethnic diasporas, the increased power of religion over secular philosophies, and the extension of the powers and influence of transnational organizations. Are globalization and terrorism linked in any way(s)? If so, how are they linked? By answering these questions, it may be possible to see if globalization causes international terrorism, if international terrorism is simply an unfortunate side effect of globalization or some of its aspects, or if no link exists between the two.
Globalization Facilitating Terrorism
Some aspects of globalization facilitate terrorism. At its basest meaning, globalization means internationalization. Something is taken from a national setting and projected across the world. Certain nations adopt this, others reject it. When most nations do accept it and adopt it, globalization is taking place.
Cronin (2002) suggests that terrorism cemented itself as an international phenomenon in the 1970s and 1980s, "evolving in part… in reaction to the dramatic explosion of international media influence." At this point in time, news media was truly becoming international in scope. Many broadcasting companies maintained correspondents or sister stations in other nations, sharing information back and forth. This would lead to the first visions of terrorism for many peoples who had never seen it. Presently, the media can be responsible for perpetuating the climate of international terror. "For example, there may no longer be… a globally organised terror network, but… the media have globalised our perception of terror" (Gray, 2005). Another aspect to this concept is that the media can be used by terrorists for their purposes. Campbell (2001) reminds his readers Osama bin Laden released his now-infamous recorded statements using instruments of globalization. Many have seen video of bin Laden on American media outlets even though it was originally released to regional network Al-Jazeera.
International media certainly is not the main byproduct that facilitates terror. Perhaps the main facilitator stemming from globalization is communications technologies. There are many devices taken for granted in Western society that changed the way terrorists operate, especially digital communications device. Clansmen fighting Americans in Somalia in the early 1990s used digital phones that could not be tapped (Carmody, 2005). The internet, mobile phones, and instant messaging have given many terrorist groups a truly global reach. Leading up to the September 11 attacks, al-Qaeda operatives used Yahoo e-mail, while the presumed leader made reservations online and other members researched topics such as using crop dusters to release chemical agents (Cronin, 2002). Perhaps even more troubling is that these technologies can be used to disperse terrorists to different locations yet stay connected. Cells can stay in touch through internet communications while websites spread ideologies (Cronin, 2002). It is estimated that al-Qaeda operates in over sixty countries now as a result of using technologies inspired by globalization (Campbell, 2001).
According to Campbell (2001), many things sophisticated Western societies have adopted to become more efficient are leaving them more vulnerable to attacks. This includes policies of free trade, relaxed immigration policies, and streamlined border crossing policies. Rojecki (2005) claims the "transportation infrastructures that had been credited by some… had been used by terrorists." This includes both national and international travel systems.
Even financial systems created to make international business simpler can be used for terror instead. Cronin (2002) points out that the fluid movement of financial resources can help terrorists, citing the United States' invasion as an example. While the allied forces closed in on the Taliban, money collected by small businessmen was moved across the border by operatives and transferred through an informal banking system to the United Arab Emirates. From there, it became gold bullion and was sent around the world before it could be seized. More concerning is the way organizations are beginning to gather funds to operate. There are many groups with global financing networks, most of them recognized as foreign terrorist organizations. Their sources include nonprofit organizations and charities (whose donors may or may not be aware of their monies' use), companies which send revenue to illegal activities, illegal enterprises, and websites set up for donations.
"The terrorist attacks showed that political globalization is as powerful a phenomenon as the globalization of the economy" (Naím, 2002). To deal with ever-increasing international relations, many organizations were set up, including the United Nations, the North American Treaty Organizations, the Organization of American States, and so on. In these forums, many people can come together to share ideas. At the same time, similar forums provide a hub for ideas and processes of coordination and cooperation used by terrorists.
It is apparent that many things inspired to grow or be created by globalization have unexpectedly been used to facilitate terrorist operations. The international media has made the world much more aware of their aims and activities. Communications technologies have been used to frustrate opposition forces ore ease operations within terrorist groups. Modern conveniences and economic policies have even been known to facilitate terror in some way. International financial systems can help terrorists hide their assets or gather funds. Political globalization can help terrorists meet and share ideas and procedures. It is not a stretch to claim that there are many aspects of globalization that have unfortunately been used to help terrorists.
Does Globalization Cause Terrorism?
Date: 2005

Institution:  Contemporary Security Studies, Norwegian Defense Research Establishment

Bibliography: Lia Brynjar 2005. Globalization and the Future of Terrorism: Patterns and Predictions. Great Britain:Routledge

Key Words:
Globalization, social science and terrorism, armed conflicts, organized crime, money laundering.

Summary of Key Issues, Points, Conclusions:
Book written for serious researchers interested in the relationship between globalization and terrorism. Through the book the author discusses salient issues surrounding terrorism and he posits possible implications for the future of terrorism.  The work contains in depth research and analysis on globalization and armed conflicts, international relations and politics, the global market economy, demographic factors in terrorism, ideological shifts, and technological effects of globalization and terrorism. Of special interest is the chapter on the globalization of organized crime. The author postulates, transnational crime organizations (TCOs) will continue to grow in diversity and sophistication in many regions of the world, and their global reach will be more pronounced. New and profitable areas of organized crime will emerge. Developed countries will be more affected by TCOs than in the past. 
Implications for terrorist include but are not limited to the following:
• Increased access to fabricated identification cards and certificates
• Increased access to military grade weapons and equipment
• Decreased state capacities and increase in ungoverned territories
• Increase in transnational organized crime
o Drug trade
o Human-trafficking-sex trade and slavery
o Alien smuggling
• Increase in productivity of drug producers, refiners, and traffickers worldwide

Name of Researcher: Tyson Voelkel

Institution: Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M University

Terrorism's Threat to Globalization
YellowTimes.org, November 12, 2002

 
Following the attacks of September 11, the United States recognized the threat terrorism posed to the global economy. Whether or not it was their specific intent, the architects of the attacks caused immense damage to the global economic structure. By striking at the economic and military core of this system, the inevitable spread of free trade capitalism throughout the world was temporarily postponed.
Since September 11, the United States has been pursuing a policy of coercion in order to destroy any threats to the current global economic order. The attacks of that day have been used as a justification to eliminate globalization opposition groups; this justification has also been used to mask increased U.S. expansion in parts of the world that were previously beyond Washington's sphere of influence.
Such newly acquired regional control can be seen in the Caucasus and Central Asia. This has given the United States greater influence in the Middle East by encroaching upon Iran's eastern and northwestern border. Military bases have been built in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. has also been furthering economic ties with Georgia in the middle of fresh invasion threats from Moscow.
By increasing its presence, the United States has worried other regional powers, namely Russia and Iran. Moscow fears that the United States will gain more control over the oil and gas deposits in the southern Caucasus, in countries such as Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Tehran fears that increased U.S. involvement around Iran may limit their country's economic growth and possibly even threaten its existence. Iran recently built a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan and is currently planning a new pipeline with India; Tehran also fears that increased U.S. influence in oil-rich Azerbaijan could limit Iran's access to oil drilling sites in the Caspian Sea. How the resources of the Caspian will be divided is still under contest with the five bordering countries -- Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan -- vying for rights. Further, U.S. corporations are planning on building oil and gas pipelines out of the oil and gas rich Caucasus and Turkmenistan bypassing Iran.
Along with encroaching U.S. troops on its eastern border with Afghanistan, many in Tehran worry about possible U.S. troops along its western border with Iraq. Iran and Iraq have strengthened economic cooperation recently with the Iraqi-Iranian joint committee for trade and economic cooperation. Both sides stressed the development of bilateral cooperation in all fields. All of this may be squandered any day with a U.S. invasion of Iraq. While many in Iran would not mind seeing Hussein go, the prospects of having the U.S. military next door is not a desirable alternative.
But Iran has remained cautiously silent over the encroaching United States. If they do not comply with U.S. demands, Tehran fears that the U.S. may induce "regime change" sooner than later considering that they are already part of the "axis of evil." U.S. President Bush recently stated, "Iran must be a contributor in the war against terror. Our nation and our fight against terror will uphold the doctrine: either you're with us or against us. And any nation that thwarts our ability to rout terror where it exists will be held to account, one way or another." Such statements have put Iran on the defensive.
With the American people supporting the Bush administration against perceived and real threats, the Bush administration has unique leverage to build more military bases and thus increase U.S. influence and intrusion around the world.
Washington is gambling that increased influence will decrease the chance of attacks against the global economic system and its own territory. With U.S. bases now littering previously hostile areas, and authoritarian central governments being propped up by funding from the U.S., the administration is hoping to suppress any militant sections of foreign societies.
However, such a policy is truly risky. The overt use of force by Washington is exposing U.S. policy, making it harder to disguise its strategy in moral and humanist terms. Because voting blocs primarily respond to moral justifications, the Bush administration could lose support at home as such justifications erode under continued scrutiny.
In addition, the administration could further inflame segments of the world already discontented with the global economic system. This could result in more attempts to attack the system. With the spread of U.S. forces as part of this strategy, there will certainly not be a lack of targets.
Further attacks on U.S. and Western interests will severely disrupt opportunity for economic growth. The October bomb attack in Bali, Indonesia was a perfect example of what further attacks will do to the world economy. Indonesia's tourist industry has been damaged, which threatens the entire country's economy since tourism accounts for 3.4 percent of its GDP; it also decreases foreign investment in what looks to be an unstable market. The Bali attack has already sharply reduced the flow of tourists to points of interest throughout Southeast Asia.
Therefore, Washington believes that the best way to increase world stability and thus restart economic growth is to expand U.S. influence across the globe. Instead of relying on foreign governments to control segments of their own populations who resist globalization, the United States is taking matters into its own hands. As for foreign governments who directly threaten global economic growth, either by not taking action against militants or simply hampering the release of economic resources into the world market, they risk certain demise.
 
Erich Marquardt drafted this report; Matthew Riemer contributed.
[The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. PINR seeks to inform rather than persuade; it is currently a project of YellowTimes.org. This report may be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org.
All comments should be directed to PINR@YellowTimes.org

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Terrorism, Oil, Globalization, and the Impact of Computing
Three things have happened in the last few years, which are now converging with a fourth inexorable trend to make major changes in consumer behaviour, mostly for the better. 

1) September 11, 2001 showed the world the destruction that a small number of terrorists could cause by hijacking unsuspecting passenger planes.  The subsequent increase in security almost did not stop 10 other UK to US flights from being exploded above the Atlantic by British-born terrorists disguising liquid bomb ingredients in soft-drink containers.  The terrorists will continue to get more and more creative, and will eventually destroy an airliner in an act of terror.  This fear now hangs over all passengers.  At the same time, security at airports is increasing pre-flight periods to up to 3 hours in duration.  Multiply this by the millions of business passengers per year, and the loss of billions of dollars of productivity is apparent. 

2) Oil at $70/barrel is making air travel more expensive for cost-conscious businesses.  I happen to believe that $70/barrel is the optimal price for oil for the US, where the economic drag is not enough to cause a recession, but the price is high enough for innovation in alternative energy technologies to accelerate.  Nonetheless, economic creative destruction always has casualties that have to make way for new businesses, and airlines might bear a large share of that burden. 

3) At the same time, globalization has increased the volume and variety of business conducted between the US and Asia, as well as between other nations.  More jobs involve international interaction, and frequent overseas travel.  This demand directly clashes with the forced realities of items 1) and 2), creating a market demand for something to ease this conflicting pressure, which leads us to...

4) The Impact of Computing, which estimates that the increasing power and number of computing devices effectively leads to a combined gross impact that increases by approximately 78% a year.  One manifestation of the Impact is the development of technologies like Webex, high-definition video conferencing over flat-panel displays, Skype, Google Earth, Wikimapia, etc.  These are not only tools to empower individuals with capabilities that did not even exist a few years ago, but these capabilities are almost free.  Furthermore, they exhibit noticeable improvements every year, rapidly increasing their popularity.

While the life blood of business is the firm handshake, face-to-face meeting, and slick presentation, the quadruple inflection point above might just permanently elevate the bar that determines which meetings warrant the risks, costs, and hassle of business travel when there are technologies that can enable many of the same interactions.  While these technologies are only poor substitutes now, improved display quality, bandwidth, and software capabilities will greatly increase their utility.

The same can even apply to tourism.  Google Earth and WikiMapia are very limited substitutes for traveling in person to a vacation locale.  However, as these technologies continue to layer more detail onto the simulated Earth, combined with millions of attached photos, movies, and blogs inserted by readers into associated locations, a whole new dimension of tourism emerges. 

Imagine if you have a desire to scale Mount Everest, or travel across the Sahara on a camel.  You probably don't have the time, money, or risk tolerance to go and do something this exciting, but you can go to Google Earth or WikiMapia, and click on the numerous videos and blogs by people who actually have done these things.  Choose whichever content suits you, from whichever blogger does the best job. 

See through the eyes of someone kayaking along the coast of British Columbia, walking the length of the Great Wall of China, or spending a summer in Paris as an artist.  The possibilities are endless once blogs, video, and Google Earth/WikiMapia merge.  Will it be the same as being there yourself?  No.  Will it open up possibilities to people who could never manage to be there themselves, or behave in certain capacities if there?  Absolutely.

http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/terrorism_oil_b.html