From the Cold War to the Great Reset
By Christina Barbarousi
The end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century have been recorded in history as times when national societies turned to the irrational movement. There has been a strong dialectical competition between the two absolute forms of organization and behaviour of the states: the nation-states gradually moved from absolute division and war (authoritarianism – World Wars) to extreme unification with tendencies of interdependence (co-existence – European Union). Of course, evolution has shown that states have not remained faithful to these principles, as the two extremes always tend to look alike.
Therefore, the flow of History, as it evolved, can be schematically represented as follows:
World Wars (Interstate Wars) + Civil Wars led to destabilization of the global economic – social – political environment (national and supranational entities) and consequently to the exit from authoritarian regimes, then the strengthening of communist regimes with two (co-authoritarian regimes movements , to cold war, which led to the rise of imperialist – expansionist forces) and finally to the need for a federalist form of union and organization of supranational units – federation.
Here, the relationship between exit from authoritarian regimes led to the rise and fall of communist movements and then to the strengthening of imperialist policies is distinguished by the equation of the two extremes, which underlines the cyclical nature of history. At the end of the equation and shortly before and / or simultaneously with the strengthening of imperialist policies, the creation of the EEC / EU is placed, stating that the founding states have now understood that the dominance of one over the other is not achieved with conventional firearms and exterminate opponents, but with silent, Cold War economic, political, social, geostrategic tools, which trigger situations, exhaust and weaken the opponent. After all, the regional problem, as disparities’ problem, has been exacerbated by the Cold War, pushing the EU to formulate regional policy as a key investment policy and in response to its strongest adversary: the United States.
Therefore, since the end of the Cold War with the creation of the EEC/EU, the regional problem has taken its place, as the modern Cold War of the time, which has affected the member states of the European Union and keeps them in a constant negotiation of migration, economic, financial, social, political, technological, environmental flows, with tendencies of dependence on each other.
In short, the Cold War was a catalyst, both in the creation and development of the EEC / EU.
The Cold War is considered the transfer of war with conventional weapons to a tense geopolitical climate with unconventional, silent means, which trigger situations instead of bullets and appeared as a result of the modernization of the Art of War. The reason why it is considered as a form of war is due to the fact that the players as conflicting parties, are in constant negotiation and demonstration of the strength, one step before the conventional war, without necessarily ending up in it. In this case, the Cold War connects the two ends of the Atlantic, the US and the EU, as it was the tool and justification of the former to create the latter, as a counterweight and response to the weak USSR and the fear of a new communist empire shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The creation of the EEC / EU with a view to European integration was encouraged by the consequences of the Cold War, which are:
For the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR):
– Overestimation of its forces against US adversaries in the Cold War development fields: provocative political conflicts and military tensions, strong NATO military coalition counterweight, high economic competition (e.g. the cost of Marshall Plan), rapidly evolving competition, the “American Dream”, “The Good Americans”), espionage (NSA , CIA), nuclear weapons race (Hiroshima, Nagasaki), space race (US lunar exploration), regional wars (US has been instigated or involved in more than 100 wars since their inception).
-Difficult to maintain cold war gaming (human resources, technical equipment – technological obsolescence of knowhow , services, intercontinental travel costs).
– Inability to monitor developments in the fields, loss of control over the volume of propaganda information and diplomatic exhaustion.
-The USSR included many nations or states with cultural homogeneity, but which could not decide which culture they belong to. Internal pluralism has allowed the United States to approach some of the former Soviet satellites.
-The rise of “Thatcherism” in Europe with the simultaneous presence in the US of Reagan, the movement of privatization (deregulation of the public sector), the supporters of the lesser state, that is, diametrically opposed to the Soviet-communist state.
– A climate of doubt and withdrawal of confidence of the USSR satellite states from its central leadership.
– Political instability of the Soviet bloc.
For the United States of America (USA):
-Increased feeling of inner anguish to maintain their hegemonic power in the geostrategic landscape.
-Because of the above, its involvement in domestic political, economic European issues, sometimes through legal means (signing treaties and cooperation agreements), sometimes through financial tools (funding of infrastructure and actions) and often through social means (dissemination of American way of life and social standards through advertising) in Europe.
-Dissemination of the phenomenon of “cultural clustering or sister country syndrome”, the forerunner of the confederation of states (creation of the EU, etc.), but also of globalization. As a counterweight and response to the Soviet cluster of satellite states, which they manage to shake with European integration. The communist threat has almost weakened and the new European edifice (ECSC, Euratom , EEC / EU, EMU) can easily accept US influence (as opposed to the USSR).
– The spread of arrogance, which incites, infuriates and troubles non-Western cultures (meaning the former Soviet ones).
– As a result, the US maintains and strengthens the bipolar doctrine they established against the USSR, which, however, allows them to increase their influence on third players as a hegemonic power (the good saves the weak against the evil, improving his position through this rescue). Classification of nations-states into First (Western), Second (Soviet-Communist), Third World countries (mainly underdeveloped, African and colonial Latin American states).
-Therefore, the US has made a decisive contribution to exacerbating what is called the regional problem ( the weak state depends on the strong state), which is a problem of disparities and bears many similarities to the Cold War on territorial level.
Overall, despite the very serious reasons that led to the creation of the EU, its mission, that is, European integration with the aim of creating the European State as an awe-inspiring rival to the US, is a process that is not fulfilled yet. The social and economic convergence of the Member States as a means of integration cannot be achieved (at least not under the one size fits all recipe according to Juncker Plan), so the European Union model of organization based on federation has been challenged. Of course, the issue of cohesion and why it is not achieved is a separate problem and is the subject of another analysis.
From Confederation to the Great Restart
According to the World Economic Forum, the Covid- 19 crisis and the political, economic and social upheavals it has caused are radically changing the traditional framework for decision-making. The inconsistencies, inadequacies and contradictions of multiple systems – from health and finances to energy and education – make those systems more exposed than ever to a global context of concern for human life, livelihood and self the planet. Leaders are at a historic crossroads, having to manage short-term pressures against medium- and long-term uncertainties.
In order to do this, however, a part of the power of the states‘ must be relinquished and transferred with a part of the power of the individuals back to the system of ‘internationalization’, but this time to its administrative part, that is, to world governance. New international relations, as shaped by the redistribution of decision-making shares, will lead to a new social contract between individuals and a global managing authority with direct authorization and without the mediation of third institutions, such as national states or international companies, such as has so far occurred in the aforementioned systems (socialist / USSR / the good of the whole, free market / US / individual profit and mixed / EU / integration or intermediate state). Especially at a time when emerging localization patterns of development as a counterweight to globalization, such as the small places matter and the revenge of the places that don’ t matter.
-At the political-managerial level, public policy makers, such as governments, politicians and parties, have been shown ‘inadequate policy makers to respond to the outbreak of the Covid- 19 pandemic’ . In addition, when the health crisis is over, they will face the consequences of societal anger over this mismanagement. Only countries that were operationally prepared for emergencies, i.e. those that have an effective health care system, a high degree of social trust in their national leaderships and a developed sense of social solidarity among citizens, will be spared. But these few countries cannot make a difference globally, even if we consider them as joining forces which help other countries. The goal is more power and funding to the state institution and their gradual transfer to a single global governing body. Because states are fragile and people are vulnerable.
– At the economic level, the ongoing struggle of societies under the tyranny of achieving a high GDP (tyranny of GDP growth) as a tool to quantify growth must stop in order other qualitative determinants of prosperity must be taken into account, such as level of people happiness, which are the real indicators of social progress. After all, the pandemic has revealed that the meaning of life is in intangible goods and not in tangible ones. Therefore, zero to negative GDP growth (degrowth movement) is considered tolerable and / or desirable, especially for rich countries. National governments have ambitious but unrealistic fiscal plans and set goals that they cannot achieve.
-And while economic and social systems have gone from reacting to resilience, to responsiveness and to reliability, they now have to move to self-efficiency.
Therefore, private property should be reduced as this will minimize the risk of savings and investment for individuals in conditions of uncertainty. People as individual actors should reconsider collective values (such as the notion of the state), ‘question the functioning of the market’ (as well as consumerism) and turn to neutral and ecological forms of coexistence (we can live better with less). In the next possible natural or economic disaster, individuals will be much less likely to lose their property or even their lives, and their expectations of government response will be minimized, as will the resulting social conflicts.
Overall, the recent catastrophic history of conventional warfare and the suspicion of the Cold War have led the Western European States (mainly France and Germany) to play an instinctive role in maintaining their survival in the geopolitical sphere, united under a common European purpose, which ‘would put an end to military conflicts between them’. The creation of the EU was an instinctive move to preserve in the future the political and economic power of the former superpowers (including the now powerful US), which played a leading role, but also which were most affected by the human and economic costs of the wars, which they chose to get involve. It was a peaceful domination of those who participated over their opponents, since conventional warfare was no longer a popular means, due to the economic and social exhaustion it brought to the states.
Nevertheless, while the Cold War created the need for cultural cohesion and confederal organization of states, today all this is disputed. The World Economic Forum considers that in order to address economic disturbances and social unrest in conditions of uncertainty, nation-states or federations of states are not needed; and the public decision-making process should be simplified in terms of stages and levels of power, passing directly to authorization by individuals to a single principle of world governance.
However, from the time of the Cold War until the Great Restart, no system has been able to give a satisfactory answer to who decides and why, who plans and by what criteria, if it knows all the information it needs and how it is legitimized.
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Sources
Schwab, K. and Malleret, T., (2020). COVID-19: The Great Reset, Forum Publishing.
World Economic Forum, (2020). Podcasts: The Great Reset.
World Economic Forum, (2020). The Great Reset official initiative website.
Ioannou, Ch. And Kontos, M., (2016). European Union: Challenges and Limitations, University of Nicosia.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
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