4 Responses to “Resolving Major World Conflicts Needs a New Paradigm”

  1. Chungshu Yang says:

    Don,

    Agree.
    What would be a new paradigm you propose?

  2. Don says:

    Chungshu,

    Thanks for your question.

    The paradigm required is a new mind set, and not necessarily a new organizational structure (e.g., changing the UN) or mechanism to implement the paradigm. If a new mind set is adopted, then the organization structure or mechanism can be worked on.

    We definitely do not have the required mind set. Just look at what the U.S. government has been fermenting in many countries in the world in creating unrest and instabilities that eventually led to chaos, civil wars, economic/political/social collapse of those countries’ infrastructures. All of these are often done under the name of promoting democracy and freedom.

    Look also at the disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea. If one studies the historical and legal aspects of these disputes in an unbiased way, one will come to the conclusion that China is not the country that is adopting an expansion foreign policy, but other countries in complicity with the U.S. are trying to steal territories from China, and to surround, isolate, and weaken China.

    Yes, there could be some grey areas in some of the territorial disputes, but what the U.S. government and the Western press are presenting is overwhelmingly distorting the truth and definitely one-sided against China. My website has several articles providing more information on these disputes.

    Thanks.

    Don

  3. David K. Rogers says:

    Don:

    Thank you for including me in your extremely interesting website with so many thoughtful topics. I thoroughly enjoy reading them as they provoke my mind past the mundane of daily events!

    With regard to your article on “Resolving World Conflicts with a New Paradigm”, I am in complete agreement with the concept, but I’m not convinced what you propose will solve the current nemesis of radical Islamism the western world is now facing. In my opinion, that will only be resolved by either completely eliminating or suppressing each and every radical element until their movement becomes ineffective.

    My worldly concern relates more to over population rather than “global warming” or war. It frightens me to see satellite images of population centers and other areas of our planet at night. Wars between nations in the future will likely be fought over shortages of food, water and other natural resources rather than land acquisition or political control. Keeping that in mind, perhaps (albeit a horrible prospect), historically, wars have been a governing factor controlling excessive over population and an earlier depletion of limited natural resources, had they not occurred. If I’m correct, the Japanese started their misguided aggression mainly for natural resources in Indochina, not solely because they wanted more land or wanted to be rulers of the world. And yes, their population, as others, was reduce as a result of their insane and cruel aggression.

    Being a geological engineer and having served in the Army as a Chemical Officer, I am not so fearful of the immediate and long term (but seemingly horrendous) impacts of nuclear, chemical and biological warfare. As Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Chernobyl, recent Japanese nuclear plant and other nuclear “disasters” or chemical/biological pollution have proven, the environmental impacts are temporal, certainly within a geologic or even historic time frame. Perhaps, war is “Nature’s” or perish the thought “God’s” way of checks and balances so mankind continues to be sustainable on earth.

    On another subject, I’m looking forward to reading “Tom Memories of Nanking” by Tamaki Matsouka. Thanks for the referral.

    And lastly, I’m currently working on my second novel, a story about my uncle’s military service with the American Expeditionary Forces in France and Belgium during the last 6 months of WWI, a horribly cruel war with high casualty rates because of antiquated (Carl von Clauswitz) tactics used against modern weaponry. The title is “Donkeys Leading Lions” and should be available in 12 to 18 months on Amazon.

    David

  4. Don says:

    David,

    Thank you very much for your comments. I apologize for such a delayed response.

    Yes, we should all be concerned about over-population, especially in countries that can least afford over-population. However, utilizing wars to solve the over-population problem is definitely not a method we should even consider in the 21st century. It is immoral, discriminatory, and creates so much destruction in the world that whatever world remains will not be a world that we can be proud of or look forward to, or even live in.

    It is true that one of the reasons for Japan’s invasion of China and other parts of Asia in the 1930s and 1940s was to obtain more natural resources in Indochina, but Japan also wanted natural resources and land in China. Furthermore, Japan also wanted to have the Chinese human labor to support her greedy expansion of their industries; Japan did not have enough men to do work, especially when most of them were fighting in wars..

    I have to disagree with you about both the immediate and long-term impacts of nuclear, chemical and biological warfare. I think we are seriously mistaken if we believe that once nuclear weapons are used that it will always be possible to control its use to localized or isolated geographical areas. Please also keep in mind that today’s nuclear weapons could be several thousand times more powerful than those used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the half-life of some of the radiation hazards from nuclear weapons are thousands of years. This means that a mistake now can gravely affect the health and livelihood of hundreds of generations in the future. The consequences of a nuclear war is far worse than an isolated disaster like Chernobyl or Fukushima

    If we study the horrific consequences of biological and chemical weapons used by Japan in China during WWII, we realize that biological and chemical weapons can become weapons of mass destruction. For example, depositing a biological germ or chemical agent in a major water supply can easily result in thousands, if not millions, of deaths or incapacitated health injuries.

    Everyone should be concerned about terrorists, Islamist terrorists or non-Islamist terrorists. However, we should seriously assess whether some of our actions are actually helping the terrorists grow in number and strength. See, e.g., my article “Some Thoughts on ISIS”: http://www.dontow.com/2015/12/some-thoughts-on-isis/.

    A major war today will have no winners, but only losers. This makes it even more important for the world’s major powers to seek a new paradigm to resolve major conflicts.

    Don

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