The Paradoxes of War teaches us to understand that war is not only a normal part of human existence, but is arguably one of the most important factors in making us who we are. Through this course, I hope that you will come to appreciate that war is both a natural expression of common human emotions and interactions and a constitutive part of how we cohere as groups. That is, war is paradoxically an expression of our basest animal nature and the exemplar of our most vaunted and valued civilized virtues. You will learn some basic military history and sociology in this course as a lens for the more important purpose of seeing the broader social themes and issues related to war. I want you to both learn about war, but more importantly, use it as way of understanding your everyday social world. So, for example, the discussion of war and gender will serve to start you thinking about how expectations of masculinity are created and our discussion of nationalism will make clear how easy “us-them” dichotomies can be established and (ab)used. I will suggest some readings for you to complement the class and assign some activities through which you will be able to apply the theoretical insights from the course to your observations of everyday life. At the end of the course, you will start to see war everywhere and come to appreciate how much it defines our life. All the features of this course are available for free. It does not offer a certificate upon completion.
Fight for Resources/US Military Reach
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來自 Princeton University 的課程
Paradoxes of War
566 個評分
從本節課中
New Challenges
Wars are not fought as they were yet militaries are still organized anachronistically.
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Miguel A. CentenoMusgrave Professor of Sociology and Professor of Sociology and International Affairs
Sociology
While these kinds of major theater wars, I would argue, are unlikely, except in
very, very limited circumstances, we do have
to consider what would these struggles be about.
And I think in this way we are moving away from the 20th Century.
They're unlikely to be about ideologies, and despite Samuel
Huntington, they're unlikely to be about civilizations fighting each other.
They're very likely to be about the oldest source
of war and that is the fight for resource.
Here, for example, is a map of the oil reserves across the world.
The gas reserves would look a little bit different, but fairly much the same,
with a much larger presence to the United States, but let's just look at oil.
Is it any coincidence that
this is the hottest military zone of the planet?
is it any coincidence that this is where the military attention of
practically all militaries, that are relevant to
a global sense, are focused.
This is where the oil is.
This is the lifeblood, in a sense, of the modern world and it is here, the most
likely place, where you will have this fight for this control of resources.
Here, the western hemisphere is particularly well positioned in that
the United States and its co-continentals, in a sense,
possess enough oil resources, especially when you link up with
Western Africa, to be able to survive some kind of autarky.
The critical, the critical customer for this kind, for
this world of oil is both the Europe and Asia.
So, here is a possibility that at one point or another,
these two halves, in a sense, skirting this zone may
involve themselves in some kind of struggle, in order to, again,
gather what is the equivalent of the lifeblood of the modern world.
In the 21st Century, battles or wars might actually come
for the pursuit of a different liquid and that is water.
Water, like oil, is not evenly distributed around the world
and what we can find is zones of potential drought.
Zones where the water availability will be extremely limited.
There's obviously this part of the Southern Mediterranean Basin, but we have
to take into account particularly the Chinese need for massive amounts of water.
China actually possesses quite a bit, but it
also has a massive population and huge industrial needs.
So, China might find itself as a, might find
itself in need of expanding, not for ideological reasons, not for
geopolitical reasons, but simply in a massive search for this resource.
This illustrates the same point using a slightly different technology and again,
notice this zone of dryness here and whether this zone,
in a sense, will develop more local fights for control over water.
These could be combined in the case of Middle
East, with more global struggles over control of the oil.
Note again, the wealth of the Western Hemisphere.
The Western Hemisphere has been given massive amounts of resources and
minerals and petroleum and oil and gas, but particularly in water.
South America in particular, has massive water reserves, so
we could imagine the future in which the continent either
becomes a global hegemon, thanks to it's control
of this resource, or it becomes a zone of conflict.
The most likely source of conflict, of this kind of major theater
war, will have to do with the consequences of global climate change.
We are seeing a world whose geography is being transformed.
We're only beginning to understand what the, possibly
military or political, consequences of that will be.
We are aware, or increasingly aware, of what the human consequences
are going to be, what the economic consequences are going to be,
what the physical consequences are going to be, but I think we
increasingly have to wonder how these
will translate into possible military struggles.
As zones become too difficult to live with, as
you get massive movements of, your refugees.
Can we imagine in a sense, a form of conflict in which those
countries that have the resources and have the good luck not to suffer too
much from climate change, have to protect themselves in a sense, from those
whose populations can no longer exist in their own territory and they must move.
So, I think the fight for these struggles, the
fight for these resources, but particularly the fight to deal
with the consequences of this massive climate change, are
going to be shaping, in a sense, the global map.
We're unlikely to have the kinds of conflicts, again,
associated with major theater wars, but I think we have
to consider that there might be a fight,
in a sense, for the very, very resources for life.
If we do have that fight, if there is that kind of struggle, there
is an actor who's importance cannot be denied and that is the United States.
The military hegemony enjoyed by the United
States is, perhaps, unprecedented in the world.
If we look at the kinds of resources available in
terms of technology; in terms of training and skill; in
terms of expenditure; the distance between the United States and
it's closest possible rivals, let's say Russia and China, is immense.
The United States is the only power that has
the ability to project its military across the entire world.
Here's just three illustrations of this.
What we did was look at the
representation of, US military across the
world, obviously not including the, the Continental
48, and here's the presence of the Navy.
We see how the Navy, in a sense, is a global
presence and combined with the aircraft carrier capacity of the
United States, which is unique, it is able to project itself
even where places where it might not be at one point.
Here is the presence of the Air Force, again, concentrated this is from 2012,
so of course this particular square is much smaller.
But again, we see a global presence.
And if we look at the Army, again, this square here, given
changes in the last couple of years, will be a lot smaller.
The point is that there is a global presence of this American military.
The American military, in a sense, is now serving
as the policemen, trying to preserve this process of globalization.
If we see the United States in some kind of struggle, it is largely because it is
going to be trying to police globalization to
make sure that the flows of globalization remain constant.
It is possible that it might get into a struggle with Russia and China.
Again, because of nuclear weapons, all bets are
off about the kinds of results of this.
But it purely limited sense that neither Russia nor
China could really challenge the preponderance of the American military.
So we live in a world, at least for now, where in terms
of major theater wars, again, I want to emphasize that in terms of a particular
kind of conflict, we do have in a sense, almost, and I use this
word purely descriptively, I don't mean to use it any
normative way, we have
for the first time something of a global empire.
Perhaps not what many imagined in the 1990s or even in
the first decade of the 21st Century, but certainly
the preponderance of a single power with the capacity to defeat
any other challengers or any other
possible combination of challengers.
This means that we're looking at a world where these
major theater wars might not occur because they don't have
the capacity, because it would be too expensive, because the
states don't have the resources to fight them.
More over, we do have something, remains, even after the
first decade of the 21st century, of an imposed Pax Americana.
Where the United States military has this
preponderance in major theater war and could arguably again, with
the exception of nuclear powers, could impose itself militarily if
it wish, if it wanted to do so.
The real question is, yes, this preponderance of American power
is unique, it is unquestioned, but how relevant is this?
How relevant is this massive display of power?
How relevant is this kind of supremacy in major theater wars?
The supremacy in the western way of war, which the United States
currently has, again the beginning of the 21st century, how relevant is
that for the kinds of conflicts, and the kinds of wars and
the kinds of violence that we're likely to see in the 21st century?
