{"id":240853,"date":"2023-08-07T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T11:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=240853"},"modified":"2023-08-11T03:53:40","modified_gmt":"2023-08-11T02:53:40","slug":"humanity-needs-a-completely-different-peace-and-security-system-in-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/08\/humanity-needs-a-completely-different-peace-and-security-system-in-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanity Needs a Completely Different Peace and Security System in the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

A major peace publishing event across cultures. The cover story of the influential <\/em>China Investment Magazine\u2019s July 2023 edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

Can you imagine a leading economics, finance and investment magazine in the Western world publishing a 30 A4-page (10 000 words) article about the future peace and security world order \u2013 a think-piece consisting merely of concepts, theories, visions and philosophical aspects of the theme?<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t. They would not see it as meaningful to include perspectives on peace, nonviolence, security and related matters. But they\u2019d probably gladly publish articles about military corporations, profits and the like.<\/p>\n

But in China, they see the value of such holistic<\/em> thinking between interrelated dimensions of society \u2013 and of the world \u2013 as it really is. Economics is not only about economic things; it takes place in a framework that influences it \u2013 past, present and future.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the main problem in Western economic thinking is that it\u2019s mostly about market aspects, corporate\/private actors and maximizing utilities and profits as if <\/em>economics could be isolated from society and culture. Furthermore, in the academic field called \u2018national economics,\u2019 Western economy students spend years learning about something that has not existed for decades in the real world.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m honored to have been asked by China Investment<\/a><\/em> to write about the theme indicated in the headline. And I am grateful for the opportunity to express my thinking based on four decades of scholarly work, quite some thinking and on-the-ground experiences. See the original edition here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before you read my future-oriented analysis, let me quote this from its homepage<\/a> so you get an impression of the status of this magazine:<\/p>\n

\u201cChina Investment<\/em>, founded in 1985, is a monthly under the supervision of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China\u2019s macro-economic management agency, It\u2019s jointly operated by Investment Research Institute under NDRC, China International Engineering Consulting Corporation. Enjoying an exclusive position under the central government,\u00a0China Investment\u00a0<\/em>is the core journal which started the earliest among similar magazines to focus on the investment trend. Over the past 30-plus years,\u00a0China Investment<\/em>\u00a0has been in line with the global market as its fundamental coordinate with a strategic focus on specific countries and regional markets and those major international propensities.\u00a0China Investment<\/em>\u00a0is a key dialogue platform for officials from different countries, investment agencies, experts and scholars, business people and journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now, my article below. It has been changed and re-edited in a few places and I have added some thoughts on non-military defense.<\/p>\n

On August 1, 2023, the very important Global Times<\/em> published my summary<\/a>, requested by them, of the longer analysis below.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

*********************<\/p>\n

30 Jul 2023 – <\/em>The world\u2019s taxpayers give US$ 2,240 billion annually to their national military defenses. That is the highest ever, more than 600 times the regular budget of the United Nations, and three times the total trade between China and the US. Such are the perverse priorities of our governments; the five largest spenders are the US 39% of the total, China 13%, Russia 3,9%, India 3,6% and Saudi Arabia 3,1%.<\/p>\n

Worldwide, governments maintain that they need that much to secure their people\u2019s survival, national defense, security and stability – and that global peace will come.<\/p>\n

With the exception of the elites of the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complexes (MIMAC), we all know this is a huge fallacy. Today\u2019s world is at a higher risk of war–including nuclear–, more unstable and militaristic than at any time since 1945.<\/p>\n

At the end of the West\u2019s Cold War a good 30 years ago, peace became a manifest possibility, NATO could have been dismantled since its raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em>, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, fell apart. A new transatlantic common security and peace system could have replaced NATO.<\/p>\n

Tragically, \u2019defensive\u2019 NATO did everything not only to cheat Russia with its promise to not expand \u2018one inch,\u2019 but also to expand up to the border of Russia, \u201cnot one inch off limit for the alliance,\u201d to quote Marie Sarotte\u2019s brilliant 550-page book, Not One Inch<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The NATO world now postulates that both Russia and China are threats to be met with even higher, de facto limitless, military expenditures.<\/p>\n

But wait! How would you think and act if you witnessed a team of doctors do one surgery after the other on a patient who, for each, came closer to death?<\/p>\n

You\u2019d probably say that they are quack doctors. Their diagnosis and treatment lead to a devastating prognosis. Instead of health, they produce more of the problem they claim to solve!<\/p>\n

Given that the highest investment on peace and security in history has caused the highest risk to humanity\u2019s survival, why don\u2019t we have a vibrant global debate? What is fundamentally wrong with the entire paradigm of security through arms? Where are the critical analyses of the world\u2019s most enigmatic and dangerous logical short circuit?<\/p>\n

The dominant security paradigm builds on factors like these:<\/p>\n