Thursday, September 1, 2022

Anti-Westphalian Trends

 


Henry Kissinger notes that in the Middle East the trend is toward the dissolution of the States: Libya has no central government and its large area is divided among several warring tribes and political factions. Syria has been divided into tribal areas and the formal dictator controls Damascus if even that. Iraq is divided into Sunni and Shi'a parts and a semi-independent Kurdish statelet. Iran is a dictatorship ruled by a utopian clergy. Saudia is owned by one family and Islam's most extremist missionary movement, the Wahhabis. It doesn't look very stable. In all of Africa, there is not one stable Westphalian state. Obviously, the peoples living in the region are unable to organize themselves into working States. Kissinger suggests that they could fall under the protection of willing world power, and mentions China, India, and Russia. Some kind of neo-colonialism. 

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