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Un) Civilized Chaos
Though history has shown a general trend towards the coalescing of various civilizations as trade and communication between cultures increases, there have been periods of human development marked by a breakdown of these ties and the establishment of a more chaotic world order. One of these periods occurred around AD 500, beginning earlier in the fifth century and continuing for some time. There are some similarities to this breakdown, which ushered in the thousand-year period known as the Dark or Middle Ages, and the hiccup that the interconnectedness of civilization took from AD 1300-1500. Though this latter period was less chaotic both in degree and in spread than that which occurred in AD 500, some definite connections exist between the two.
The chaos of the fifth and sixth centuries that was to reverberate throughout the Middle Ages was the result of the fall of the Raman Empire. The empire itself has already split into separate entities, weakening it, and its final crumbling re-instilled the pre-Empire chaos to a large degree. Without a central political and cultural force, groups of people turned inward and became protective and isolationist again. Continued war both proved this wise and perpetuated the situation. In the 1300s, the papacy was split, and various allegiances and nations were split with it. Though the implications of the great schism were much less destructive and pervasive than those of the fall of the Roman Empire, the result was similar as trusts were broken.
The ability to conduct trade was essential for continued cooperation. When Rome fell, its roads were no longer guarded, and they soon became the territory of outlaws. Later in history, highwaymen still existed, and government officials and tax men also became common. Reduction in trade was a large part of the reason that chaos gained a foothold again in the late Medieval period.
Also, the death penalty still in use in a great deal of countries might provide another subject for debate from the point-of-view of human rights. A minimalist set of human rights, meant only to keep people safe from humiliation and pain cannot be effective. This is mainly because while certain human rights seem to be of little necessity, they are actually indispensable. Economic, civil, and political rights are of great
Fundamentally, the insurgents are fighting an enemy with superior weaponry, technology, and resources, so therefore, must seek avenues to mitigate these disadvantages. In other words, insurgent forces out vastly outdone in the traditional aspects of warfare, so they are forced to resort to unconventional modes of attack. Early in his book, the Army and Vietnam, Krepinevich provides the broad game plan an insurgent force must follow to achieve final victory: As
Southern States Before the Civil War, slave labor in the Southern States numbered almost four million black slaves (Constitutional Rights Foundation para 2). The agricultural proceeds of cash crops such as tobacco, cotton, and sugar cane enriched the Southern States and made the region the nation's economic engine. And fuelling this engine was the slave labor tasked to cultivate the agricultural wealth. The slave economy was so profitable it enriched the
history of events in the twentieth century, one might surmise that the twenty-first may not be all that different. Why? Because human nature and the pursuit of self-interest has not changed from one century to the next. To explain what drives international relations, Joshua Goldstein provides a brief history of the world, in addition to information about the geographical features and the consequences of different nation's economies. (Goldstein, 2003)
These responsibilities notwithstanding, the American public was already being conditioned to view the war in Iraq as a battle against extremists, that is, against the Islamist radicals who had threatened the "American" way" of life on September 11, 2001. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson had already inflamed America's own Christian fundamentalists with talk that the terrible events of that day were to blame in part on "the gays and
In an unprecedented move, Khrushchev denounced many of Stalin's excesses and set about changing Soviet policy towards the developing world. This change, some call it flexibility, was the branch the Soviets offered to developing countries, like Cuba. Looking around and seeing the alienated or disenfranchized, Khrushchev felt the time was right to solidify alliances with anticolonialists in Ghana, the Congo, and especially, Cuba (Hopf). After the Bay of Pigs fiasco,