SPEAKING FREELY Religion and geopolitics:
Ties that bind By W Joseph Stroupe
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Religion's deep involvement in the political,
social, economic and military affairs of mankind is
certainly nothing new. But the real extent and scope of
religious activism currently under way, and its precise
timing, are highly significant.
Geopolitical
transition periods of sufficient magnitude to affect the
very structure and configuration of the international
system do not come often, but when they do arrive, they
carry with them immense significance. And it is a fact
of history that religious leaders often have a much
earlier sense of having neared such transition periods
than do political leaders. Perhaps this is largely due
to the fact that religious leaders preside over
organizations that are international in scope, and
therefore tend to concern themselves more deeply with
issues, trends and developments that transcend national
borders to encompass mankind and its international
interests as a whole. For a recent example of what is
meant here, consider the profound geopolitical insight
that was manifested by the current pope of the Catholic
Church starting in the early 1980s.
Religious
activism and geopolitical transition When the
pope came to power in 1978, it did not take him long to
sense that a new geopolitical transition period of
immense importance was imminent. The configuration of
the international world order was then bipolar, with one
of the poles consisting of the anti-religious, atheistic
Soviet communist empire.
The pope appeared to
understand and sense that the foundations of communism
had already been weakened for some time, and were ripe
for ideological attack. Communism had arisen as a way to
throw off the crushing burdens of oppression by more
"traditional" systems of government, such as the
oppressive alliance formed by the czars and the Russian
Orthodox Church. But soon communist systems of
government became worse oppressors than were the systems
they had replaced.
A moral, social, economic and
spiritual justification for communism was grossly
lacking by the time Pope John Paul II was elected, and
he clearly understood that fact, before any politician
did. When the late Ronald Reagan was elected president
of the United States in 1980, the pope was already
engaged in the ideological attack against the Soviet
communist system and welcomed a fellow anti-communist to
work together with him to change the world for the
better. He understood that the bipolar configuration of
that world order could be put at significant risk by
ideological means, and that the Soviet pole could be
seriously weakened, perhaps eventually resulting in a
global, fundamental reconfiguration of the international
system to become one that would be unipolar in nature.
Considering the danger posed by any ascendancy
of an atheistic, anti-religious political system such as
the Soviet Union, the Vatican's new activism of the
1980s was a smart geopolitical move designed to ensure
its own safety and survival. Very interestingly, it was
the actions of a prominent religious entity (the
Vatican) that nudged the world into the immensely
important and virtually bloodless geopolitical
transition period that opened up in 1989 with the
tearing down of the Berlin Wall and closed in 1991 with
the formal collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus the
bipolar world order had given way to the unipolar one.
This aptly illustrates the principle that more
often than not religious leaders sense the approach of
such important transition periods before political
leaders do, and that the actions of religious
organizations or actions deeply inspired by religious
belief can nudge, or push, the world headlong into such
periods.
Geopolitical transition - prompted
by new religious activism How does that principle
work with respect to the immensely important
geopolitical transition period that the international
system has now already entered, a transition period that
will in all likelihood leave the international system
completely reconfigured, just as the previous one
(1989-91) did?
Just as the pope of the Vatican
had sensed in the late 1970s that Soviet communism was
not all that it appeared to be with respect to strength,
formidability and longevity, and that therefore the
bipolar configuration of that old world order could be
prompted to undergo a reconfiguration, so also radical
Islamic fundamentalism in the incarnation of groups such
as al-Qaeda has sensed that the current unipolar world
order of the last superpower can be prompted to change
configuration. It has sensed that the last superpower is
not all it appears to be with respect to strength,
formidability and longevity of its position of global
domination. Its position of global dominance can be
threatened and weakened by a combination of ideological
and bloody asymmetric warfare.
On September 11,
2001, it sought to demonstrate these facts. Now, less
than three years later, the US is fighting to retain its
position of economic, international diplomatic, moral
and military global dominance. That position is
certainly not virtually automatically assured, as has
been assumed. It is even coming to be at increasing
risk.
The current geopolitical transition
period, which carries immense importance for the entire
international system, and which has every likelihood of
resulting in a change of configuration from the unipolar
world order of the last superpower to a multipolar new
world order in which the US is not destroyed or endures
an all-encompassing collapse, but in which the US can no
longer exercise global dominance in any sphere of power,
was entered on September 11, 2001. And the world was
pushed violently into the current transition period by
the actions of a terrorist network that is deeply
inspired by its fanatical religious convictions. And the
respondent actions of the last superpower, very much
designed to ensure and to solidify its position of
global dominance in all spheres of power, are having the
precise opposite effect, in all spheres of power.
We must carefully remember that the demise of
the Soviet Union was very significantly aided and
accelerated by its own complicity in becoming hollowed
out economically, as it spent its way into oblivion. It
could not keep up with the United States. It spent
itself past center, economically speaking, and simply
could not recover economic balance. Collapse was
unavoidable.
The United States, too, has spent
itself into very deep and troubling debt, far past
center, so to speak, without any possible recovery to
more stable economic ground foreseeable in the future.
The terrible economic consequences of such mushrooming
debt have been only temporarily deferred by the
tremendous inherent strength that the US economy
possessed at the start of the decade of the 1980s, when
it was still the largest creditor economy in the world,
and by the appetite of the big Asian economies for
purchasing (financing) US debt. However, when the time
comes for that appetite to be curbed by the
repercussions of rising interest rates, and it will come
very soon, then the full force of negative repercussions
will hit the US economy with a force that will be
unstoppable. Only then will it be fully appreciated
that, during the 1980s when the US outspent the Soviet
Union and thereby hastened its demise, the US couldn't
really afford such massive expenditures either. The US
economy was inherently and structurally weakened by that
spending, has never recovered, and has continued to
suffer increasing structural weakness as a result of its
continued amassing of huge, unprecedented debt.
This precarious situation has now become an
invitation to exploitation that fanatical Islam-inspired
al-Qaeda could not resist. Hence on September 11, 2001,
it pushed the international system headlong into another
immensely important geopolitical transition period by
launching asymmetrical attacks on the last superpower,
thus threatening the fundamental unipolar configuration
of the international system.
The influence of
religion and religious belief and fervor, whether the
fanatical sort or the more "traditional" sort, is again
on the rise, both on the national and the international
levels. Religious activism can exert powerful
influences, both welcome and unwelcome. We have
discussed the obvious influence of fanatical Islam and
the likely repercussions and implications for the
international system. But what of the increasing
influence of the more traditional religions, such as
those of Christendom? What are the likely implications
and repercussions of the escalating activism apparent by
such religious organizations?
What about
Christendom's new activism? In the late 1970s and
the decade of the 1980s, the Vatican, along with the
later addition of its US partner, had seized and
retained the initiative in its geopolitical maneuverings
against the Soviet Empire and the bipolar world order of
that time. By 1989 the world had been peacefully plunged
into a geopolitical transition period of unprecedented
significance as a result.
However, since
September 11, 2001, radical Islamic fundamentalism has
seized, and to date it has retained, the initiative,
violently plunging the world into another, even more
significant, geopolitical transition period. In the
tremendous upheaval that has occurred during this
current transition period, geopolitical changes have
been occurring that signal an imminent massive
reconfiguration of the unipolar world order of the last
superpower. Such fundamental geopolitical changes in the
configuration of the international system upset and
concern not only political governments, but also
international religious organizations, which also have
geopolitical interests and goals.
In the
development of a multipolar world order, one that tends
to pull the United Nations and its Security Council
toward the geopolitical center, what will be the role
and resulting geopolitical influence of the Vatican, the
Anglican Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as
others? These are the questions the leaderships of those
very organizations are pondering. Such religious
organizations need no convincing with respect to the
immense importance of geopolitical developments and how
their own positions of power and influence in this world
will be affected.
However, unlike previously,
Christendom has been massively on the defensive in a
geopolitical sense since September 11. It has lost the
initiative to radical Islamic fundamentalism. It now
seeks to take back the initiative by mounting its
pointedly increased religious activism, both in the
realm of national politics and in the realm of
international politics and diplomacy at the UN and
elsewhere. It seeks to involve itself directly in
national and international affairs in an effort to guide
the outcome of developments in this most important
geopolitical transition period. But Christendom is not
by any means a monolithic and harmonious religious bloc,
one that moves in unified purpose and with common goals.
Within the religions of Christendom there exists fierce
disagreement and competition on geopolitical, social and
moral issues. And such fierce disagreement also exists
among Christendom, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. The
only thing that might even temporarily unite the
religions of the world would be an attack from another
planet!
Hence when the Russian Orthodox Church
lends its full support to President Vladimir Putin and
his government, it is doing so based on its geopolitical
interest in seeing Russian reacquisition of global
power. And when the predominately conservative Vatican
very boldly puts pressure on its parishioners designed
to discredit Democratic presidential candidate John
Kerry in the lead-up to the US election, it is doing so
based on the calculation that the Church will fare much
better geopolitically with a conservative US president.
And when the Vatican insists upon language in the EU
constitution that gives recognition to Europe's
Christian heritage and the ongoing importance of
Christendom's religion, and when it bitterly laments the
exclusion of all such language from the new
constitution, it is attempting to block the formation of
a united and influential geopolitical power bloc that
largely ignores and even disdains Christendom's
religion. And when the Anglican Church demands a seat on
the Security Council for a commission of religious
leaders so as to be able to guide deliberations there
and to ensure that council decisions have "moral
authority", it is doing so to promote the geopolitical
interests of itself and of the United Kingdom and its
allies, whose interests have suffered in the Security
Council of late.
None of these disunited forms
of religious activism has even the remotest chance of
taking the initiative away from radical, fundamentalist
Islam, however. As such, the most likely effect will be
to divide the world further along sectarian lines.
Religious influence inside the Security Council would
certainly make the task of achieving council unity,
already a very difficult matter, virtually impossible.
And the "moral authority" religious leaders claim only
they can bring to council decisions is very dubious
indeed. And if one religion were invited to sit in on
and guide council deliberations and decisions, would
that not set a precedent, so that the council would have
to invite all religions aboard? Considering the track
record of deep disunity, and even of widespread bloody
disunity, among the religions of the world: how can
anyone consider the possible setting of such a precedent
to be a welcome development? During this most
important geopolitical transition period, as
developments intensify, we can expect religious activism
of the kind we are already witnessing to intensify as
well. This has almost always resulted in the whipping up
of nationalistic and sectarian fervor and disunity,
rather than the promotion of international peace and
security. The UN and other international and national
entities and institutions should beware of such
implications and repercussions, no matter how tempting
it may become, in some future crisis and series of
crises, to make political/geopolitical deals with
religious organizations - deals in which such religious
organizations promise to deliver meaningful and coveted
political and moral support of the masses and even
perhaps of particular governments under their influence
in exchange for inside positions of influence over
deliberations and the geopolitical direction of
international organizations, such as the UN for
instance. Such deals will come at an extremely high
price, resulting in the precise opposite of what is
promised - the gross and complete loss of "moral
authority". For by inviting religious organizations
significantly into the mix, such organizations as the UN
will also be inviting within the confines of the
Security Council all the sectarianism, strife, greed and
divergent and irreconcilable definitions of morality,
all of which, we are deeply sorry to say, are widely
manifested in today's religious institutions.
Please note: The preceding statements are not
intended as a condemnation of any particular religion or
of religion in general or of religious belief itself.
Rather, such statements are made from the frame of
reference of a purely geopolitical analysis of
religion's influence in the modern world, and the
chances that increased religious influence will bring
greater harmony within international relations. We see
no basis for concluding that the result would be greater
harmony, but rather, based on recent history and all the
relevant facts and trends, the most likely outcome would
be greater disharmony and sectarian strife. It truly
gives us no satisfaction to be required, by a stark
analysis of the facts, to make such statements. In our
view it is unfortunate that all too often the great and
powerful religious organizations of the world, and
sometimes also the individual members of religious
organizations, fail in significant ways to act in
harmony with the praiseworthy principles espoused by
their faith. And our conclusion in this regard is not
intended to discredit the religious beliefs of many
sincere persons around the world who are made to be much
better persons as a direct result of their sincerely
held beliefs. If our very direct and stark analysis of
the subject of religion in politics and geopolitics has
offended anyone, then we would consider that a failure
on our part to properly present the facts in a way that
stimulates intelligent thinking on the subject. - The
Editors, GeoStrategyMap.com.
W Joseph
Stroupe is editor in chief of
GeoStrategyMap.com, http://geostrategymap.com/ an
online geopolitical magazine specializing in strategic
analysis and forecasting. He may be reached by e-mail
at editor_in_chief@geostrategymap.com.
(Copyright 2004 GeoStrategyMap.com and W Joseph
Stroupe. All rights reserved.)
Speaking
Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say. Pleaseclick here if you are
interested in contributing.
