Chaos and Order ( Final Draft)

Chaos and Order ( Final Draft)

If we go through a brief recount of the world’s history, we would find war as one of the principal topics.  Wars fuelled by a myriad of causes: power, religion, pride, conquest and fear among many others, all resulting in some form destruction. Internationalist, had until the early 20ths century, believed it was the way of the world. The international system, to them, works as an anarchic community, always in the verge of conflict, because the little order to be had can only come by those who have the most power. Since there is no body that regulates states, the one with the most power would set the few rules, we think of them as empires. How does a nation become an empire? It would need, military and economic power, and there is only so much a state can get on its own, resources are limited. This creates a constant threat to other states, who are either on competition for the power, or those who had the resources the other state needed, which constantly lead to war. 

And until very recently that had been the only way believed things could be run. The world we live in is very different, many historical processes led to what we see as normal now, international cooperation, human rights, the United Nations, but more importantly war as a last result. This processes in themselves have spread for centuries, they were the steps that led to the evolution of the international system, as man evolves and changes there are new behaviors which affect their interactions.  This evolutionary step in the international system have also drawn changes in the interactions, one of the elements of this next step in evolution is the  increase of connections between states.  Struggle for power still persists, just as homo sapiens basic instinct is still survival, however, all the economic and cultural linkages that weave almost all nations together, one way or the other, give us pause.   Our world is far from perfect, but today’s levels of interconnectedness have permitted to achieve a level of stability in a system forever deemed as anarchical. Unlike the savage international community we once were, interconnectedness has help giving order to an otherwise chaotic world; it has been able to create a semblance of balance, otherwise elusive in our history. What happens to a particular nation has resonances with others, due to humanitarian sensitivities or economic relations, barriers like language, culture, and religion, which for millennia were the determining factors, are not primordial.

Our interactions have changed, as Thomas Friedman explains in “The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention”, a chapter in his book The World is Flat, how supply chains and economic relations-using the Dell suppliers as he model- between countries make them less likely to go to war (125). Why? According to Friedman, “no two countries that are both part of a major supply chain, like Dell’s, will ever fight a war against each other as long as they are both part of the same global supply chain,” for, “people embedded in a major global supply chain don’t want to fight old-time wars anymore… they want to enjoy the rising standards of living that come with that” (125). Essentially since countries in the same supply chains are not in dire conditions, and there is more on the table to lose than what might be won in a war, people prefer to stay out them. We no longer need to conquer a country, or seize new land to obtain what we want from them, we make economic deals in which everyone gets more or less what they want, without shedding blood. Supply chains of global scales may seem to some, just as a way for big business to make more profit, which is a part of the equation; they also distribute that wealth in a more reasonable manner. No lone state is getting the spoils of that business, making them a bigger player in international community, it give us levelness, but more importantly this supply chains help perceptions change. We no longer see other nations only as competition; they are ‘our neighbors’, ‘our allies’, and even ‘our brothers’, we see ourselves as part of a whole.

That levelness, or flattening of the world which Friedman call it, is more or less what Steven Johnson in “Listening to Feedback”, observe in the media, “the overall system, in other words, has shifted dramatically in the direction of distributed networks, away from the traditional top-down hierarchies” (193). The redistribution of networks, like the redistribution of power and wealth in the international system, leave aside the status quo of our historical tendencies, we move away from hierarchies. While for news networks it means that information is shared and covered by everyone, in the political and economic sphere it means that what happens in one nation has a greater resonance in another. What is currently happening in Japan due to the earthquake and tsunami affect us beyond the human tragedy, it disrupts supply the economic networks Japan makes part of. We want Japan to bounce back fast, as it is instrumental in the economic global system, and while some other nations are able to take on Japan’s role, the glitch in the system would have lasted too long, affecting all its other members. While this might seem as a negative aspect of our interconnections, it is precisely the fact that it can also affect us that makes the rest of the world act to help Japan. We help because, one way or the other, it involves us too.

The international community works like the human body, which as Johnson explains, “is a massively complex homoeostatic system, using intricate networks of feedback mechanism to keep itself stable in the midst of dynamically changing situations” (196). Thus, like a human body we try to regulate ourselves, and ‘ourselves’ means all states.   Just as Japan’s current tragedy can be of consequences to other nations, due to the damage it does to the system, there are other factors that tend to disrupt the system. Today while the instances for war between states have been lessened, thanks to how connected we are, the apparition of belligerent groups with no national affiliations is new challenge to a system that is just adapting to change. Terrorist groups, drugs cartels and intellectual property pirates, among others take advantages of the system too, for a “in a flat world it is much more difficult to hide, but much easier to get connected” (Friedman 136). The same links that can help a supply chain work, serve as tools for dangerous players in the international stage to affect the entire system. A terrorist group can send threat via email, suicide bombers can travel on plains, drug money can be launder with a click of a mouth; this are obvious drawback of interconnectedness. However they also strengthen the connections between states, for as what happens to one nation can have consequence in other ones, they present a unite front against this groups. We find a common enemy and universal problems we can deal with together, linked not only by our interest but by our problems. The effects interconnections have are not always necessarily good, they makes us dependant of one another, but that is perhaps what we have been missing.

The interconnections of all our systems be them political and economic or mediatic and social, are increasing. The free flow of goods, information, opinion and culture, make our world a source of wonderment, we are probably the most labored collection of all times. As, art critic, Michael Kimmelman expresses in “the Art of Collecting Lightbulbs”, both collections and wonder cabinets, make seemingly unrelated thing coherent, the interconnectedness of so many systems at a time work like a collector, in the great scheme of things, “they make order out of chaos” (219). They create an intangible collection of niches that are necessary for the entire thing to work.  As new issues arise in the international community, states develop new roles, and strengthen old ones. Those niches give a sense to nations; even failed states have a purpose they create focus points for other states, they are examples of what no to do. At the same time they make the international community collaborate with them, trying to make them successful so that they will not endanger the system.

As Friedman proposes, all economic and political connections make the world flat, further than money and treaties. These interconnections are starting to make individuals more and more conscious of the similarities we share. The free flow of information between places on opposite sides of the globe, and supply chains shared by nations that were once enemies, give a new face to our interactions that miraculously contrast to those in our history.  And that balance, as flawed as it might be, is the first real opportunity we have had to leave war behind.

Johnson, Steven . “Listening to feedback” Emerging. Barclay Barrios. Boston. Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. 190-204. Print

Kimmelman, Michael. “The Art of Collecting Lightbubls” Emerging. Barclay Barrios. Boston. Bedford/St. Martins, 2010.  216- 225. Print

Friedman ,Thomas. “The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention” Emerging. Barclay Barrios. Boston. Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. 121-138. Print