Beyond
Notre Europe | 14/03/2007
The post-Cold War period is over, a fact we haven't yet woken up to.
Less than 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, that supposed triumph of democracy and the free market, a more uncertain world is emerging — one marked by the rising powers of China, India and Russia, an assertive and radical Islam hostile to the West, the threat of nuclear proliferation and other planet-scale risks.
At the same time, the fiasco of America's adventure in Iraq and the bogging down of Europe's political ambitions together herald the end of the Atlantic era — which was symbolised by European and American leadership on the world stage.
Globalisation is today the most important engine of the transformations affecting the planet — yet neither its detractors nor its zealous advocates have understood that at the turn of the 21st century, globalisation is as much a factor for tension as for calm in the world. Power games, competition for energy, stirrings of nationalism and identity politics, war, terrorism: the depoliticisation of the economy, a dogma of liberal thought since the 1980s, is colliding with the geopoliticisation of a globalised world.
We used to believe that growth guaranteed peace: now we must think of prosperity and conflict as related phenomena. Laurent Cohen-Tanugi's enlightening essay sets out to analyse this explosive new equation, providing us with the keys necessary to make sense of today's reconfigured world.
Guerre ou paix — essai sur le monde de demain. Published March 2007, Éditions Grasset et Fasquelle.
Articles by
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