So, the last post
explored the possible effects of geography on the conflicts in the
Balkans. While the Balkan conflicts are
incredibly complex, they have typically been either small-scale or a smaller part
of a larger conflict, so I can at least make some sense out of them. Sure, it seems kind of odd that a group of
ethnically diverse nations would put aside their differences and join forces to
break free from the mighty Ottoman Empire…only to start fighting each other
within 5 years. But again…it makes
geographical sense given the historical and natural characteristics of the
region. However, the Cold War is much
harder to explain from a geopolitical standpoint.
The US and USSR, unlike
the Balkans, are not teeter-tottering between major powers; they are the major powers. It is not a very difficult endeavor to
explain the causes of the Cold War from a political, social, or economic
perspective; however, the war doesn’t, on the surface, seem to make sense
geographically. The United States and
the Soviet Union were located on entirely different continents and divided by
the largest ocean on the planet. Unlike
the Balkans, the US and USSR were not located in juxtaposing regions. The conflict took place primarily in Europe,
but that would seem one-sided geographically, since the USSR is much closer to
Europe and thus it would seem easier for them to project influence over the
area. The main problem with the war
geographically, though, is that the war was not inherently a conflict of
geography. While past wars often
revolved around territorial claims of expanding states, the Cold War revolved
around political, economic, and social claims on a territory, rather than
solely the natural resources or position of that area.
But the Cold War doesn’t make sense at first because it can’t be
compared. It is not the same as other wars. The Cold War, geopolitically, is the first
hyper-modern war. It is a war where
intellectual and economic claim are more important than the size of your
territory and the natural resources your territory possesses. Rather, the social resources you can get from
your allies are more important than the natural resources you have. The distance between the United States and
the Soviet Union would have rendered the Cold War pointless and near impossible
before, but technology has made the geographical distance obsolete. The war is not…natural. Geography is no longer solely about natural
resources. The nations of the world have
made geography about who is where as much as it is about what is where.
I think it was inadvertent, but at the end you made people, figuratively, a natural "resource." Though that seems a little out of place, consider this: Countries with good education and literacy are able to export the resource of high-skill labor, while countries with poor or no formal education and low levels of literacy are only able to export the resource of low-skilled labor. To me that is mind-boggling and scary, but it may be the route that our world is taking.
ReplyDeleteThat is what I am getting at near the end. We're turning people into resources, and while using people as pawns is nothing new to warfare, "commodification" of people has gone beyond soldiers in war. We're now using citizens as resources for war, and that is another really scary part. So I don't approve of social warfare like this at all, but it's an interesting thing to think of.
DeleteSpencer and Daniel, insightful comments. The future of the world is about population distributions and access to resources: we produce more than enough food every year to feed the world, but we don't distribute it equitably. Our country incarcerates people at a phenomenal rate, often locking them up for years, and then locking them out of society for the balance of their years. Marx seems to have been prescient in his observations about the reduction of human relations to economic transactions; and more so when he observed that the inevitable outcome of this is a differential of valuation for those humans. We are not, it seems, created equal.
ReplyDeleteI would, just out a mall nitpicking point, point out that the U.S. is juxtaposed through Alaska to Russia, which was a part of the USSR. However, I agree that the war was not a geographical one. You bring up the Balkans and I feel that that was an excellent comparison.
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