Monday, April 30th, 2012
So what is this “New World Order”? I am not inclined to give much credit to the boundless conspiracy theories but they do make for some humorous anecdotes (see Simpson’s “Stonecutter’s Song”).
Seriously though what would Kissinger say now, almost 20 years after the publication of this book, about the New World Order. There is an inescabably Eurocentric focus to his analysis of the periods of various World Orders, from the Peace of Westphalia to the Congress of Vienna. What did these conceptions mean to the populations of Southeast Asia, Africa or the Americas? Not much, thank you. If that is the case then, if Kissinger is really talking about European hegemony, and I think we could safely argue that the United States is a product of that, then is our current embroilment in the “war on terror” really much of a suprise?
As we conquered the west in the euphamism of “manifest destiny” the native American’s pushed back but could not prevail. As “we”, meaning the European history and culture of representative democracy, seperation of church and state and free market systems, push into all corners of the globe, is it really suprising that some are pushing back? Is it suprising that some have acquired the means to really hurt us? Will 9/11 be regarded as a sort of modern battle of little bighorn? Was the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan like the Spanish retreat from the great Pueblo Revollt of 1680?
By 2110 at least one other “New World Order” will have emerged by then according to Kissinger’s rubric, what will the students of this classroom refer to our time as? Will it indeed be, “the end of history”? What do you think? What is this time period?











