BEZ’S BLOG #19: “NATION STATES: NO HIGHER AUTHORITY”
 Check out the 16 slides by Ms. Ramos Let’s explore the concept of nation states. John Mearsheimer, a political science professor at the University of Chicago presents a theory that states are the principal actors politically and have no higher authority over them. All states have some offensive military capabilities with difficult to discern intentions that are hidden inside the state bureaucracy and inside leaders’ heads. Trying to exactly discern future intentions is also impossible. Nation states strive to survive. There have been attempts to create a higher authority to states such as the League of Nations founded in 1920 right after WWI to maintain world peace. The League was incapable of preventing aggression by Germany, Italy and Japan that ushered in the Second World War. The United Nations created after WWII was formed to prevent future world wars and harmonize the actions of nations. Despite being the largest international organization with members being most all of the countries in the world, it has not lived up to its charter. The Cold War between the USSR and the USA exemplified its failure. UN membership expanded greatly in the 1950s and 60s when newly independent nations gained freedom from their colonial masters. While they have a voice in the assemblies, ultimate power is still held by the United States and much power by the six veto countries of the UN Security Council. The UN, overall, has a tiny budget further limiting its effects. It has failed to mediate many conflicts around the world. There remains no higher authority than the nation state, and those who control it. Almost all nations have varying levels of military forces. Costa Rica and Japan are examples of countries that have forgone establishing an army. Consider ways of assessing national military capabilities. US, China, Russia and India spend the most with the US proportion of the world’s total spending being around 40% or close to half. The U.S. also spends close to half of its discretionary federal budget on the military. America is a heavily armed, threatening nation. What are intentions of states? The Monroe doctrine, voiced by US President Monroe in 1823, stated that the U.S. would not tolerate further European colonization of the Americas. Such formal declarations are not the major way to learn about state intentions. One can discover documents such as a U.S. state department planning study of 1947 that described the vast difference in wealth between the U.S. and the rest of the world, and strategizing how it could “devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.” The U.S. wanted to be the dominant national power in the second half of the last century without a specific statement of intentions. The prime focus of the U.S. was economic domination through expanding its form of capitalism. A state’s true intentions remains hidden. Evolutionary theory presupposed that survival of the species is the primary goal. If humans don’t reproduce in sufficient numbers we will become extinct like the dodo. Consider the nation state as a superorganism or a species that needs to survive. Strategies are subsequently devised by nations to ensure survival but they remain insecure. At the end of the cold war hopes were raised that the American military budget would decline. Instead it increased as a sign to the rest of the world that the U.S. would continue to dominate and keep everyone safe in its image. Nation states are quite recent creations. For what purpose was this done? In pre-history we lived as forager-hunters or hunter-gatherers in small groups, typically less than 150. With the advent of agriculture hierarchies began and someone could call himself your lord or master, command you to grow food for him, store it in the castle you built for him, and go to war to protect his resources and acquire new ones. Feudalism was born. Monarchies came along overpowering feudal lords and further concentrating power. Great ancient empires, such as the Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Persian came into being. They exercised control over large areas and different groups of people. The Dutch and British empires are more recent examples pointing out that each has a lifespan. Within these empires strategies of dividing various colonized groups against one another were commonly used to maintain power (consider Rwanda). Emigration (leaving) was difficult while immigration, increasing the colony size, took place. Favouritism was practised. The two World Wars in the last century gave modern nation states preeminence and led to the concepts voiced above. For a given nation state there are many geographic and cultural divisions, although strong attempts are made by leaders to portray everyone as French, Iranian, Bolivian or American. One can dissect many Americas culturally and geographically even within the U.S. The current political turmoil there is indicative of this lack of unity. There are similar differences in other nations. Modern nation states do not discourage emigration but impose various immigration controls based on racist exclusion of various groups. Some people are said to belong in a nation and others in various categories as migrants, refugees, displaced persons, undocumented, illegals do not. This creates a category of others who cannot participate in what those who fit into the national category can, its citizens. In the United States this leads to marginalized groups who can be taken advantage of in various ways, including being paid less than minimum wage ($7.25 today, unchanged since 2009) and being subject to various forms of trafficking. Clearly a second class (or worse) status. Ultimately, today, we are left with a situation in which nation states exist in an anarchic realm without a higher authority. Their military might shows the need for some to dominate others and protect what they have. Actual intentions of states are very different from those projected to the world. The United States, said to promote peace and democracy has been at war for all but 17 years since its founding. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan with little justification resulted in the loss of millions of lives. In modern times the military industrial complex, a phrase voiced by President Eisenhower in his farewell speech in 1961, has immense power to push for various warring efforts and line its pockets. The current organization of society serves neither its human inhabitants, nor the planet. The health of the planet is in serious jeopardy. The military industrial complex has become the corporate military media complex whose interests are for perpetual profit. Violence is increasing and the world is very unstable. The climate emergency demands a coordinated rapid response which is highly unlikely to happen without a higher authority to the nation state. Instead of nation states we need to focus on the planet and its inhabitants. Abolishing nation states in exchange for a planetary state, or at least some form of binding global decision making, is the task ahead. I studied mathematics and physic at the University of Toronto and went on to graduate school in mathematics at Harvard. Understanding systems is a part of my intellectual makeup. Comprehending the health of populations requires considering them as organisms; this has grounded much of this blog’s series so far. This month’s blog considers nation states as a superorganism. Let’s go beyond and study human societies and their history in a scientific fashion a concept called – cliodynamics. Peter Turchin’s book “End Times”, covered in a previous PHW, will be the focus to continue this theme in next month’s blog. Stephen Bezruchka, Seattle, WA July 20, 2023 |
PLANETARY HEALTH WEEKLY 