Only 100 Seconds to Midnight
It’s time to wake up from self-induced amnesia
Global tensions are escalating to an interesting yet frightening level and all the while we remain idle and ineffective, debating and complaining about issues that have almost no global importance when it comes to the preservation of humanity.
The Doomsday Clock has placed us at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest we have been since its inception in the 1940s. The Russia-Ukraine conflict displays our blatant ineffectiveness on the stage of foreign policy and now with the emerging details of the China-Taiwan conflict, the situation becomes much muddier.
In a speech on Sunday, Chinese President Xi Jinping didn’t rule out using force to take control of Taiwan, as China sees the self-governing island as a fundamental part of Chinese hegemony.
All of this, however, has gone virtually unreported in the midst of the Ukraine war, which is also heating up by the day. Most recently, Putin has launched attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid, knocking out roughly 30 percent of Ukraine’s power stations, and forcing the country and its citizens to attempt to conserve energy as we approach the winter months. The World Health Organization predicts that a devastating humanitarian crisis is possible and a widescale effort to provide aid to the region is imperative.
Now, the effort to balance the war-mongering personalities of the West and the quest for domination by countries like Russia and China requires thoughtful and urgent negotiation and policy implementation that hasn’t transpired.
Even war-criminal Henry Kissinger is opposed to continuing this war, saying that “Pursuing the war beyond [this] point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself.”
Secretary of State, Andrew Blinken when speaking at Stanford University on Monday, warned of the potential lengths China is willing to go to in order to secure Taiwan. If Beijing is not able to obtain control over the island, then it is likely it will use coercive force.
This comes as Nancy Pelosi’s reckless visit to Taiwan and President Biden’s claim of US willingness to defend Taiwan should war ensue, practically ruins the strategic ambiguity that had proved to be a decent stabilizer under the One China Policy.
Furthermore, we should have no reason to believe that China will be accommodating, as the US has “waged low-grade economic warfare against China for at least four years now — firing volley after volley of tariffs, export controls, investment blocks, visa limits, and much more” according to Jon Bateman of Foreign Policy.
This “low-grade economic warfare” has been perpetuated by both the Trump administration (tariffs) and the Biden administration with a larger effort toward technological decoupling and “extraterritorial limits on the export to China of advanced semiconductors, chip-making equipment, and supercomputer components,” with the US having, “a single-minded focus on thwarting Chinese capabilities at a broad and fundamental level.
The goal of the United States is simple: to be the sole hegemonic force in the world.
A status we have been chasing since the development of globalization and the formation of a world economy. Many consider the United States to be the world police, interfering in non-American affairs that are highly complex and seemingly fraught with lies and deceit. I hold this to be true in the formulation of my own thoughts throughout the course of these events.
To this point, there is menacing unpredictability about the future of the war in Ukraine and the potential battle brewing for world hegemony. If there is anything that we need to acknowledge, it is that the past few years of foreign policy have been utterly disastrous and dangerously enacted -which to no surprise, has been poorly relayed to the American public.
As the elections approach, rather than target opponents due to ideological basis, attempt reconciliation with your fellow voters and citizens, and aim to criticize the poor attempts by our government to provoke and stir the pot on a global situation that has the potential for catastrophe that has never been realized in human history.
In short, choose to be on the right side of history, whatever that may mean.
Thank you all so much for reading this. I hope you were able to take value from it. If you enjoy my work, feel free to give me a follow to support my writing.
Below is a link to another piece that you may like and my page on the Iowa State Daily, where I am a columnist
Best regards,
Caleb
