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I have written many times in the past about the singular conflict at the core of most human crises and disasters, a conflict that sabotages human endeavor and retards critical thought. This conflict not only stems from social interaction, it also exists within the psyche of the average individual. It is an inherent contradiction of the human experience that at times can fuel great accomplishment, but usually leads to great tragedy. I am of course talking about the conflict between our inborn need for self determination versus our inborn desire to hand over responsibility to a community through group effort — sovereignty versus collectivism.

In my view, the source of the problem is that most people wrongly assume that “collectivism” is somehow the same as community. This is entirely false, and those who make this claim are poorly educated on what collectivism actually means. It is important to make a distinction here; the grouping of people is not necessarily or automatically collectivism unless that group seeks to subjugate the individuality of its participants. Collectivism cannot exist where individual freedom is valued. People can still group together voluntarily for mutual benefit and retain respect for the independence of members (i.e. community, rather than collectivism).

This distinction matters because there is a contingent of political and financial elites that would like us to believe that there is no middle ground between the pursuits of society and the liberties of individuals. That is to say, we are supposed to assume that all our productive energies and our safety and security belong to society. Either that, or we are extremely selfish and self serving “individualists” that are incapable of “seeing the bigger picture.” The mainstream discussion almost always revolves around these two extremes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Michael Basta: The Science Of Conflict Resolution

October 3, 2017

Michael Basta: The Science Of Conflict Resolution

How persevere through difficulty in your key relationships

We write often here about the importance of community and how it’s an essential ingredient for resilient living. Not only do people’s support and aid offer solutions our own shortcomings can’t address, but their encouragement, support and partnership fulfill our lives in ways isolation cannot.

As our podcast with Pulitzer prize-winning author Sebastian Junger explored, humans are evolutionarily hard-wired to co-exist in community with others. Deriving self-worth from our relationships is simply a fundamental feature of the human species.

But relationships are messy. No two people are exactly alike and disagreements are inevitable. So when conflict arises, how can we navigate through them in ways that strengthen our relationships rather than tear them asunder?

A classic case in point: here at PeakProsperity.com, a very common form of relationship conflict our readers experience is what we refer to as “reluctant partner syndrome“. One partner learns about The Three Es and develops a strongly-felt sense of urgency to prepare for coming crisis. The other partner doesn’t understand this transformation and simply wants life to continue along as it always has been — who needs all the doom and gloom anyways? And the conflicts quickly ensue…

Anyone for whom that situation resonates will enjoy hearing from this week’s podcast guest, Michael Basta. Mike has worked in mental health for 30 years and is a certified Master Gottman Therapist. (Those who read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink may remember the chapter on John Gottman, whose decades of research studying couples enables him to determine with 94% accuracy after just a few minutes of observation whether a couple will stick together or not.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ron Paul Warns “The Conflict Between Government & Liberty Is At A Boiling Point”

April 8, 2016

Ron Paul Warns “The Conflict Between Government & Liberty Is At A Boiling Point”

This is excerpted from the introduction of Ron Paul’s Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues that Affect Our Freedom.

Liberty means to exercise human rights in any manner a person chooses so long as it does not interfere with the exercise of the rights of others. This means, above all else, keeping government out of our lives. Only this path leads to the unleashing of human energies that build civilization, provide security, generate wealth, and protect the people from systematic rights violations. In this sense, only liberty can truly ward off tyranny, the great and eternal foe of mankind.

The definition of liberty I use is the same one that was accepted by Thomas Jefferson and his generation. It is the understanding derived from the great freedom tradition, for Jefferson himself took his understanding from John Locke (1632–1704). I use the term “liberal” without irony or contempt, for the liberal tradition in the true sense, dating from the late Middle Ages until the early part of the twentieth century, was devoted to freeing society from the shackles of the state. This is an agenda I embrace, and one that I believe all should embrace.

To believe in liberty is not to believe in any particular social and economic outcome. It is to trust in the spontaneous order that emerges when the state does not intervene in human volition and human cooperation. It permits people to work out their problems for themselves, build lives for themselves, take risks and accept responsibility for the results, and make their own decisions.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Syria, climate change and the horror in Paris

November 16, 2015

Syria, climate change and the horror in Paris

As the world mourns those who died in Paris last week in a killing spree for which the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has claimed responsibility, reporters and commentators have been discussing the motivations behind the attacks. I’m not sure that any so far has considered whether one can draw a straight line from a severe drought in Syria to these mass killings. My own answer is that if the line is there–and I think it is–then it has taken many twists and turns before arriving in Paris.

Even so, it might be worthwhile for those who will soon be gathering in this bereaved city in order to negotiate a new worldwide climate treaty to understand any such connection. For in the background behind these events, there is a Syria starved of water almost surely because of climate change.

A study released earlier this year suggested that the first link in the causal chain that led to the current conflict in Syria was a severe drought lasting from 2006 through 2009, a drought that yielded some of the strongest evidence yet for the link between climate change and increasingly extreme droughts.

As The New York Times reported last March:

Some social scientists, policy makers and others have previously suggested that the drought played a role in the Syrian unrest, and the researchers addressed this as well, saying the drought “had a catalytic effect.” They cited studies that showed that the extreme dryness, combined with other factors, including misguided agricultural and water-use policies of the Syrian government, caused crop failures that led to the migration of as many as 1.5 million people from rural to urban areas. This in turn added to social stresses that eventually resulted in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Change: a clash of epistemologies

October 2, 2015

Climate Change: a clash of epistemologies

In a post published earlier this year, Ugo Bardi explains that the debate on climate change is going nowhere due to a fundamental incommunicability – or a ‘clash’ as he calls it – between different types of epistemologies over climate change. In his post he refers to some exchange between scientists and a newcomer – not any newcomer, actually the vice-president of the Italian Coal Industry Associations –which happened on the blog of the Italian Society of Chemistry (SCI). The newcomer used this section to attack climate science and climate scientists. The latter fully felt the attack and reacted as if their own persona had been aggressed. Apparently, the exchange degenerated in assorted insults and personal smears.

Quoting Ugo, “stiffen up and look offended when someone belittles climate science is not useful.” Indeed, it is not. But as I dare reading through the lines of Ugo’s post, the reason why it is not has nothing to do with the consequences of such insulting exchange – certainly the newcomer has not changed his mind on climate change; it has to do with the reasons of such incommunicability between different categories of individuals, one which raises conflicts rather than mere disagreements. To understand such conflicts Ugo mobilises the idea that the two groups – the scientists and the newcomer – are endowed with opposite epistemologies, that is, opposite ways of knowing and believing the world. The discrepancy goes beyond differences in perceiving the world and understand it accordingly; the discrepancy concerns the way the world is analytically constructed and given a sense.

I am sure that Ugo would have appreciated the concept of ‘epistemological rationality’ used by Alban Bouvier, a French social epistemologist, with reference to discursive exchanges between reciprocally suspicious interlocutors, in which each party considers that the arguments of the other rely on false or unreliable knowledge.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Death of Democracy in a Byzantine Labyrinth

July 21, 2015

The Death of Democracy in a Byzantine Labyrinth

The project of European Union, and its single currency experiment, were politically an attempt to unite fractious nations in order to put an end to a history of horribly destructive conflict. Economically, the goals were to scale up governance in Europe, to transition from the national to the transnational level in order to wield more power as a larger trading block. As such it was very much in line with the global trend of the last thirty years towards scaling up almost everything. However, as we have observed before, such expansions are inherently fragile and self-limiting:

This in-built need to expand, sometimes to the scale of an imperium in the search for new territory, means that the process is grounded in ponzi dynamics. Expansion stops when no new territories can be subsumed, and contraction will follow as the society consumes its internal natural capital….

….A foundational ingredient in determining effective organizational scale is trust – the glue holding societies together. At small scale, trust is personal, and group acceptance is limited to those who are known well enough to be trusted. For societies to scale up, trust must transcend the personal and be grounded instead in an institutional framework governing interactions between individuals, between the people and different polities, between different layers of governance (municipal, provincial, regional, national), and between states on the international stage.

This institutional framework takes time to scale up and relies on public trust for its political legitimacy. That trust depends on the general perception that the function of the governing institutions serves the public good, and that the rules are sufficiently transparent and predictably applied to all. This is the definition of the rule of law. Of course the ideal does not exist, but better and worse approximations do at each scale in question.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“The US Needs War Every 4 Years To Maintain Economic Growth”

July 5, 2015

“The US Needs War Every 4 Years To Maintain Economic Growth”

“This is not a secret,” explains Kris Roman, director of geopolitical research center Euro-Rus, “The whole [US] economy is built on the military theme: to maintain its economic growth, the United States needs a war every 4 years, otherwise the economic growth slows down.” The Belgian expert believes that with the collapse of the USSR, NATO should have stopped existing, but somehow the alliance “has grown to the size of the Universe because the motto ‘The Russians are coming!’ is relevant again.”

In the 25 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO has not forgotten even for a moment about the idea of an attack on Russia, Belgian political scientist and director of geopolitical research center Euro-Rus Kris Roman tells Sputnik News…

“But they had no pretext. Now, due to the chaos in Ukraine, this opportunity appeared and it is actively developed. The older generation, which had been brought up on the propaganda against the Soviet Union, has already accepted the idea of ??an inevitable conflict with Russia,”Roman said.

…

Roman said that when the Belgian defense minister had announced that 1,000 Belgian soldiers would be sent to the Baltic states in the event of a “potential Russian attack.”

The United States has repeatedly criticized Europe for small contributions to the NATO budget, saying that the EU tries to save money at the expense of its military budget.

“For America, this is unacceptable, because the whole economy of this country is built on the military theme — to maintain its economic growth, the United States needs a war every 4 years, otherwise the economic growth slows down, it’s not a secret. But the United States cannot fight alone, they need puppet-allies, but NATO members, which are suffering a crisis, cannot increase the budget allocations to the military budget, so Europe is under pressure,”Kris Roman said.

Russophobia Reminds a Disease

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The Pentagon goes nuclear on Russia

June 26, 2015

The Pentagon goes nuclear on Russia

We all remember how, in early June, President Putin announced that Russia would deploy more than 40 new ICBMs “able to overcome even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems.”

Oh dear; the Pentagon and their European minions have been freaking out on overdrive ever since.

First was NATO Secretary-General, Norwegian figurehead Jens Stoltenberg, who condemned it as “nuclear saber rattling.”

Then there’s Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson, the head of US Global Air Strike Command – as in the man responsible for US ICBMs and nuclear bombers – at a recent briefing in London; “[They’ve] annexed a country, changing international borders, raising rhetoric unlike we’ve heard since the cold war times…”

That set up the stage for the required Nazi parallel; “Some of the actions by Russia recently we haven’t seen since the 1930s, when whole countries were annexed and borders were changed by decree.”

At His Masters Voice’s command, the EU duly extended economic sanctions against Russia.And right on cue, Pentagon supremo Ashton Carter, out of Berlin, declared that NATO must stand up against – what else – “Russian aggression” and “their attempts to re-establish a Soviet-era sphere of influence.”

Bets are off on what this huffin’ and puffin’ is all about. It could be about Russia daring to build a whole country close to so many NATO bases. It could be about a bunch of nutters itching to start a war on European soil to ultimately “liberate” all that precious oil, gas and minerals from Russia and the Central Asian “stans”.

Unfortunately, the whole thing is deadly serious.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China’s Island Building Reveals the True Power in Asia

June 22, 2015

China’s Island Building Reveals the True Power in Asia

China’s land reclamation moves in the South China Sea may be cause for reproach, but no one will do a thing about Beijing’s island-building program beyond the huff and puff of objection.

While the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has been deliberating on the Philippines’ case against Chinese expansion into the Spratly Islands, China has stated that the results will have no bearing on its behavior, and has since reclaimed over 2,000 acres of land.

China continues to push the limits because it knows it can get away with its land grab, avoiding conflict or tarnishing any of its bilateral relations, even as the United States tries to vilify its eastern rival.

US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter remarked to the Shangri-La Dialogue Security Council in May that China risks miscalculation or conflict with its actions.

Adding to the litany of concerns, Malaysia’s defense minister warned of the potential for this flashpoint to escalate into one of the region and the world’s deadliest conflicts. Though tensions have risen in region making the Spratlys a potential flashpoint, China rarely lets its actions risk stability.

Pursuing its claims over the South China Sea – overstepping those of the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia among others – is not the move of a bellicose nation poised for overt conquest. Instead it’s the cool calculation of a country with a penchant for stability and a keen eye for potential dangers; and it is this insidiousness that is most alarming.

There is justification in the international community’s concerns with China’s expansion in the South China Sea. Regional neighbors don’t want to live in the shadow of a growing hegemon who employs bully tactics and uses its economic clout against them. They therefore look to the Washington for help. It is also in the United States’ interest to hamper the ascendency of its eastern rival – BRICS, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the rise of the New Silk Road – to maintain its fleeting dominance in Asia.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Chinese State Paper Warns “War Will Be Inevitable” Unless U.S. Stops Meddling In Territorial Dispute

May 25, 2015

Chinese State Paper Warns “War Will Be Inevitable” Unless U.S. Stops Meddling In Territorial Dispute

Whereas over the past year, ever since the outbreak of the hostilities over the fate of Ukraine following the Victoria Nuland orchestrated presidential coup, relations between Russia and NATO have devolved to a Cold War 2.0 state as manifested by countless interceptions of Russian warplanes by NATO jets and vice versa as depicted in the following infographic…

… at least China was mercifully allowed to stay out of the fray between the Cold War enemies.

This all changed this month when first the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress this month cast China as a threat to regional and international peace and stability, followed several weeks ago when, with China aggressively encroaching into territories in the South China Sea claimed by US allies in the region such as Philippines, Vietnam and Japan, the US decided to get involved in yet another regional spat that does not directly involve it, and started making loud noises about China’s territorial expansion over the commodity-reach area.

China promptly relatiated by threatening a US spy plane during a routine overflight, while immediately thereafter the US retaliated at China’s escalation, and warned that building sea “sandcastles” could “lead to conflict.”

Far from shutting China up, earlier today China said it had lodged a complaint with the United States over a U.S. spy plane that flew over parts of the disputed South China Sea in a diplomatic row that has fuelled tension between the world’s two largest economies.

Quoted by Reuters, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday China had lodged a complaint and that it opposed “provocative behaviour” by the United States.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Neil Howe: What To Expect From The Fourth Turning We’re Now In

March 15, 2015

Neil Howe: What To Expect From The Fourth Turning We’re Now In

More centralized control, crisis & conflict

Neil Howe demographer and co-authour of the book The Fourth Turning returns to the podcast this week. In our prior interview with him, we explored his study of generational cycles (“turnings”) in America which reveal predictable social trends that recur throughout history and warn of a coming crisis (a “fourth turning”) based on this research.

Fourth turnings are characterized by a growing demand for social order, yet supply of it remains weak. The emergence of the surveillance state, a perpetual war machine, increased intervention in the markets by the central planners, greater government control of critical systems like health care and the Internet — all of these are classic signs that we are well into a fourth turning now:

In the fourth turning, the supply of order is still absent that the demand for order grows. So we now have a demand for order and no supply. That creates the unusual dynamics of a fourth turning — kind of like we had in the 1930’s. People suddenly feel that no one is in control and that enormous events are overtaking their society which no one of leadership age has any idea how to confront or how to manage. And it goes without saying today we look up to Gen Xers and Boomers and we see leaders who couldn’t organize their way out of a shoe box. I live in the Washington DC area and the government and Congress literally does nothing. All they do is argue and fight and nothing gets done in this city. It’s amazing, and a great testament to the power of institutional inertia that things keep moving forward in some manner. There is this great unsettled feeling we have that there is a rudderless ship that we’re on where no one knows where it is going. We see dangers that we seem paralyzed and unable to respond to.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Global Conflict Intensity Spikes To 7-Year High

February 7, 2015

Global Conflict Intensity Spikes To 7-Year High

If it’s not one geopolitical concern these days it’s invariably another. If today’s story isn’t weak-handed Greece escalating the rhetoric in its hopeless game of chicken with eurozone creditors, it’s ISIS ratcheting up the shock factor in a campaign to scare U.S. coalition partners away from an increasingly ineffectual bombing campaign in Syria and Iraq. If it’s not an escalation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine, it’s logrollingbetween the U.S. and Saudi Arabia with the fate of the Assad regime, Gazprom, and the Russian economy at stake. As we’ve seen over the past several months (e.g. crude in a veritable tailspin) and over the past several days (e.g. hourly news out of Greece raining on the BLS’s non-farm revision parade), markets are becoming increasingly tethered to the vagaries of geopolitics — and don’t expect that trend to abate any time soon.

Fortunately, BBVA is on the case, noting that “geopolitical analysis is becoming a key element on the agenda for 2015.” Indeed. That’s why the bank has just launched their first ever “BBVA Research conflict & social unrest monthly update.”

From BBVA, on conflict:

During January, the presence of ISIS in the Middle East continued to be a threat while the Russian-Ukrainian crisis escalated, increasing geopolitical worries in the region. In contrast, territorial disputes and geopolitical tensions eased in South-Eastern Asia. Social unrest related to demands for democracy (North Africa), together with terrorism and economic demands (Europe), have also increased…

…key hot spots continued to be the Russia-Ukraine and ISIS conflict. The Russian-Ukraine crisis escalated again in January (see our previous hot topic) after a relatively calmer period during October-November. This triggered a new meeting in the EU level to discuss new sanctions. The situation in neighbouring countries (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia…) also remained tense. In the Middle East, the International coalition forces regained some ground in Northern Syria (Kobane) and were able to stop the advance of ISIS in Iraq. However, it will take more time to secure peace in the region. Tensions also increased in Western Europe after the attacks in Paris and in Belgium.

And on protests:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Outlook for the New Year — Paul Craig Roberts – PaulCraigRoberts.org

January 3, 2015

The Outlook for the New Year — Paul Craig Roberts – PaulCraigRoberts.org.

The Outlook for the New Year

Dear Readers: The conflict that Washington has initiated between the West and Russia/China is reckless and irresponsible. Nuclear war could be the outcome. Indeed, Washington has been preparing for nuclear war since the George W. Bush regime.
Washington has revised US war doctrine in order to initiate conflict with a first strike nuclear attack.
Washington has discarded the ABM treaty in order to build and deploy anti-ballistic missiles that are intended to prevent a retaliatory strike against the US. Washington is engaged in a buildup of military forces on Russia’s borders, and Washington is demonizing Russia’s government with false charges.
As the Bush/Obama regimes dismantled the safeguards put in place in order to minimize the risk of nuclear war, no protests came from the American public or the media. Washington’s European vassal states have also been silent.
Washington’s drive for hegemony has brought nuclear insanity to the world.
Moscow and Beijing understand that they are Washington’s targets. As Larchmonter explains, Russia and China are conjoining their economic and military capabilities in order to protect against Washington’s attack. Read what Larchmonter reports. Open the URL in my column below and run your cursor over the bottom of the page and click “page fit.” Choose 50% and readable text will fill your screen.
Washington’s demonization of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and Assad were preludes to military attacks on Iraq, Libya, and Syria. In view of these precedents, it is reasonable to regard Washington’s demonization of Vladimir Putin as a prelude to military action.
Russia is not Iraq, Libya, or Syria. Russian war doctrine states that Russia can use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear or conventional attack on Russia. For the world to sit silent while Washington’s arrogance provokes armageddon telegraphs total political failure. Where are the voices in behalf of humanity?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Did Anyone See 2014’s Many Crises Coming?

December 25, 2014

Did Anyone See 2014’s Many Crises Coming?.

This year has been marred by crises across the globe, as protests and conflicts have dominated headlines. Groups that were unknown to many, such as the Islamic State and Boko Haram, have become well-known. Tragedies like the downing of flight MH17 instantly entered public consciousness. Other crises, such as the continuously rising death toll in Syria and the increasing death toll of migrants, have occurred at a slower, yet relentless pace.

Some of these crises have been gestating a long time, while others seemed to develop in an instant. But were any of them predictable?

Predicting Conflict

Each year, political scientists working in the field of crisis and conflict forecasting run complex models analyzing the propensity for conflict in different regions across the world. These are usually published around the beginning of the year as a primer for both policy makers and the public on the threats to watch out for in the months ahead.

Each of these forecasts is unique; some prioritize risks in relation to U.S. interests, and others focus on aspects such as the potential for a mass killing. Taken together, they give a general idea of the regions and actors that concerned people looking at what the world would face in 2014.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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