Open Dialogue
Diana Hochman, June 2021
A multi-polar world is a consortium of collaboration among peers. There can be no collaboration without cooperation and no cooperation without communication.
Communication, Cooperation, and Collaboration, a three-pronged approach that drives investments in human capital
Communication underscores cooperation and thus serves as the common denominator of all collaborative efforts. To collaborate, all parties involved must cooperate, and to cooperate all parties involved must communicate (effectively). Thus, the basis of a multi-polar world is reciprocity, that is, a mutually rewarding shared and equitable partnership that benefits all stakeholders (ordinary people). The power dynamic in a multilateral relationship is one of parity. Size does not matter in such an international order. Is each nation-state pulling its weight in direct proportion to its relative size, and not in proportion to the size of its sister nation(s).
To this end we must focus our efforts on the most vital component of the four pillars of progress, investment in human capital. The four pillars of progress are not mutually exclusive, for they operate in tandem to effect a rewarding outcome mutually beneficial to all. To invest in people, we must revamp our education system as the second most important investment in human capital. First, a nation must protect the lives of people in terms of essential safety and well-being. Secondly, it must arm its people with education. At the basis of a premier education is a fundamental outlay to teach people how to communicate. For if one does not know how to communicate, one will not cooperate, and therefore, one will be incapable of collaborating (with others).
Communication must take place in a global forum that promotes open dialogue and debate
A robust education frees the mind by teaching people how to think critically. Education is not indoctrination. The world needs thinking human beings who question everything. Educated people seek truth, that is, facts. An educated individual does not seek confirmation bias of his or her concepts, but rather will seek to disprove his or her theories in order to arrive at the truth in an unbiased way. Whenever facts stand in diametric opposition to a currently held position, an educated person will change his or her thinking. Thus, a fluid mind is both a requisite and hallmark of the educated person. Educated people are not ideologues.
Multicultural appreciation and world history may be embedded into educational programs, as well as literacy and economics (math skills), which is essential knowledge for human flourishing. We must invest in human capital by educating children from the earliest ages with the tools they need to thrive in a whole new world. The bright future humanity collectively aspires toward will consist of human beings who engage in conscious capitalism, which is the bedrock of ethical production and consumption. Humans of the new era will make products that responsibly factor the social and environmental impact of their creations in both the present and the long-term. Conscious capitalism is an ethos that at once eliminates waste and fraud and inefficiency through responsible and ethical application of the means of production and consumption with ultimate regard for human capital.
Educated people are able to collaborate across all verticals of human enterprise, from transportation logistics, which affects every human being on the globe, to free (unfettered) trade. Protectionism breeds isolation and impedes economic (energetic) flow, thereby greatly destabilizing markets, and ultimately harming the economic outlay of nation-states. It is in this vein that technology must be rendered a mere servant of human beings, and not placed on a pedestal as overlord. A transition to a more sophisticated war apparatus may be one where artificial intelligence supplants the need to sacrifice human capital as cannon fodder in endless wars. Nonetheless, every nation in a multipolar world must maintain a robust security apparatus from a defense-centric position in order to preserve the world’s most vital asset, human capital.
Nation-states must be guided by the ethos of transparency and accountability to their people, and to sister nations in a global order
A pivot to a multi-polar reality is fundamentally changing the ideological framework(s) that has governed human society until now. The seismic ruptures felt across the globe are seemingly disconcerting. While the picture may appear bleak, one must maintain optimism. However, one must resist idealistic pie in the sky whims as a panacea for a utopian pipe dream. To create a more orderly and prosperous world is a practical enterprise, rooted in reality. Without the lever of transparency and accountability in place, there are no guard rails on unchecked human behavior. Laws differ widely in different geo-locations around the world. Still, there are immutable human laws that apply to all people in all places. Do not steal and do not kill are two examples of universal human laws, or the golden rule to love your neighbor as you love yourself.
If life above all is sacred, then to kill in self-defense is sanctioned. An overt (previously covert) attempt on the part of the West—under the helm of the United States—to dismantle Russia through NATO via Ukraine as proxy was premeditated. An act of attempted murder. The end game was to diminish Russia by toppling her leader and ultimately to effect regime change. This is the very reason that NATO kept inching ever closer to Russia’s border. Pushed to the brink, on February 24, 2022, in an act of national self-preservation Russia finally fought back in order to defend the very existence of her people and culture. One would no more stand a gang of armed bandits planning a home invasion by staging AK47s from across the street aimed at one's front door. All the while, menacingly approaching ever closer day-by-day. Until one day, one opens the front door and these bandits are right outside on the front porch. No one could live in peace and safety with armed and dangerous marauders set to invade one’s home. In such an unfortunate situation, one must kill or be killed. So it goes with Russia and NATO via Ukraine. Ukraine was the scapegoat in the West’s effort to maintain unipolar hegemony at all costs.
The most important asset in a nation is its people. Therefore, this invaluable asset must be protected at all costs
No viable nation can risk disarmament. Only a robust security apparatus will keep would-be marauders in check, serving as effective deterrents by plugging vulnerabilities. America’s push for a proxy war against Russia was part of its post Cold War protocol to maintain global hegemony. Biden sold the world a bald-faced lie, shamelessly parroted by the media, to cover up America’s true intentions. Now, under the Trump Administration, America is seeking to shift blame and responsibility—for an utterly failed effort to destroy Russia—on Ukraine and the European Union respectively. This is a recurring American pattern, wherein, once the U.S. demoralizes and destroys a country, it pulls out and leaves the country to fend for itself. America is noted for her usurious ways as the U.S. has long waged ideological warfare around the world in the name of democracy.
The call for denuclearization by Trump is disingenuous and a trap. Desperately seeking to disarm his ideological foes, he is angling for America to regain the dominant hand. The world, however, will call America's bluff. It is unthinkable that America could become the “shit hole nation" that its current president derided lesser nations for being. But the writing is on the wall. The West pushes a bogus narrative of Russia as a bogeyman intent on capturing all of Europe, as if Putin is on a Napoleonic quest to conquer the world. This scare tactic is the product of paranoid thinking and projection by the Western Bloc. Moreover, the EU is banking on Turkey to carry the malignant weight of “fight to the last Ukrainian” against Russia. Turkey has been playing both sides for a long time, as it has been beneficial for Turkey to straddle the fence. However, Turkey has a very important relationship with Russia. Thus, it remains doubtful that Turkey will station its 300,000 plus troops in Ukraine. Time will tell. The European Union and NATO, vassals of unipolar hegemony, are counting their chickens before they hatch.
One of America's biggest failures is a lack of intelligent leadership, that is, people who think dynamically, who are bold and innovative and who understand the world and people as they are
While ideological and cultural differences exist between global superpowers, over time, the world has become increasingly interconnected and interdependent transatlantically. If the U.S. collapses, then other nations will lose much, too, as they have invested heavily into American infrastructure. Though what is lost is not beyond recovery for other nations. They will survive and adapt new ways and means and build alliances and partnerships across the globe. Meanwhile, the United States will face a final reckoning, or judgment day, as it were. However, an ominous end is not necessarily inevitable for the United States, as of this writing anyway.
If a nation is holding all the cards and is the unipolar hegemon, then if it is not guided by a moral arc toward the good, it may enact unilateral tariffs and sanctions against other nations in an unjust and arbitrary manner simply because it has the purchasing power (and control) to do so. However, the United States no longer has the upper hand. The current U.S. president is calling plays from a playbook that no longer suits the players on the field. He’s going back to the future and attempting a remake of Hitler’s Germany circa 1940s.
The major difference between then and now is that nuclear war is the war to end all wars. Trump’s antics are little more than bluster and bluff. A grasping at straws, or throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks brand of governing. His executive manner is tantamount to slapstick, haphazard, disorderly conduct at best. Sadly, it is the American people who stand to lose the most from his egregious actions. China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Global South nations, et al., will continue to press on as they coalesce into ever more meaningful collaborative unions in the global bloc. Some examples of these powerful unions are BRICS, SCO, and still, the United Nations.
It is essential for the security of nations, and the world, to have a robust security apparatus in place, which uniquely serves as both deterrent and protector, without which, mayhem will ensue
Denuclearization is ill-advised. Non-nuclear proliferation is advisable. The United States is in an unenviable and weak position only to the degree that it stubbornly, pridefully and arrogantly seeks to maintain a position of global dominance as a unipolar hegemon. Trump’s lap dog, the DOGE of the U.S. is taking a chainsaw to domestic affairs, thereby recklessly driving the nail in America’s coffin. Quite the opposite of making America great again. Nonetheless, a diminishing window of opportunity exists for the United States to maintain a position of global leadership, but not as the uni-polar hegemon. Rather, the opportunity is as an equal among peers (of other global power houses). To assume a position of global leadership requires a shift in mindset from the ideological perspectives that swing the pendulum from extreme-to-extreme in the U.S. American politicians are bound by ideological mind prisons. The only tie that binds them is the erroneous belief that America is the chosen one, meant to rule the world by fiat. The defining attributes of western ideology are dominance, control, subjugation and oppression, and are utterly antagonistic to investments in human capital.
