Where has That New World Order Gone?

The Time of the West Seems Over

Remember back to the days of the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union? Remember how politicians spoke grandiosely of a "Peace Dividend"? US President Bush(Sr) proclaimed the beginning of a New World Order. Things were going to change. Humanity was entering a new era.

Forgive us, but we are finding the proclamation of a New World Order passe these days, since hardly a month goes by without some political leader or other declaring yet another one. The latest is Gordon Brown, who in his career has probably pronounced about twenty of them, declaring at the conclusion of the recent G20 meeting that--yes, you guessed it--the world had just entered another New World Order.

Well, actually, the Preacher in Ecclesiastes had already pronounced that nothing was new under the sun. It is not surprising, then, that the New World Order turned out to be pretty much like an Older World Order. The second verse has proved remarkably like the first.

We came across the following prognostication by the late Samuel P Huntingdon the other day--written in 1995, but speculating on what we might be facing in the next few decades. Apparently he was not convinced about "New World Order" rhetoric.

Modernization has generally enhanced the material level of Civilization throughout the world. But has it also enhanced the moral and cultural dimensions of Civilization? In some respects this appears to be the case. Slavery, torture, vicious abuse of individuals, have become less and less acceptable in the contemporary world. Is this, however, simply the result of the impact of Western civilization on other cultures and hence will a moral reversion occur as Western power declines?

Much evidence exists in the 1990's for the relevance of the "sheer chaos" paradigm of world affairs: a global breakdown of law and order, failed states and increasing anarchy in many parts of the world, a global crime wave, transnational mafias and drug cartels, increasing drug addiction in many societies, a general weakening of the family, a decline in trust and social solidarity in many countries, ethnic, religious, and civilizational violence and rule by the gun prevalent in much of the world.

In city after city--Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Bangkok, Shanghai, London, Rome, Warsaw, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Delhi, Karachi, Cairo, Bogota, Washington--crime seems to be soaring and basic elements of Civilization fading away. People speak of a global crisis in governance. The rise of transnational corporations producing economic goods is increasingly matched by the rise of transnational criminal mafias, drug cartels, and terrorist gangs violently assaulting Civilization. Law and order is the first prerequisite of Civilization and in much of the world--Africa, Latin America, the former Soviet Union, South Asia, the Middle East--it appears to be evaporating . . . .

On a worldwide basis Civilization seems in many respects to be yielding to barbarism, generating the image of an unprecedented phenomenon, a global Dark Ages, possible descending upon humanity.
The Clash of Civilizations, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 321.

Nearly fifteen years on, Huntingdon's prognostication appears to be coming true. For a while the world "united" around the Coalition of the Willing in an effort to combat terrorism. The coalition fell apart over the war in Iraq.

The global balance of power is now definitely shifting. The West is in decline. Debt has progressively enslaved it to the creditor nations. In turn, debt in the West has been an inevitable outcome of welfare entitlement rights, which have cut through the moral fibre of Western nations with deadly force. The culture of welfare entitlement rights, universal throughout the West, has sliced through savings habits relentlessly (why save when someone else will provide for you). When savings evaporate, dependence results. It has also fed a culture of instantaneous demand gratification and an expectation of the omni-competence of government to solve each and every problem.

The Western liberal-academic complex has championed this pseudo-culture and bludgeoned the West into subjugation with its pagan human rights philosophies being propagated at every opportunity.

But inner spiritual subjugation inevitably transmutes into external subjugation. So the West is increasingly dependant, first upon its own governments, and then upon creditor nations, which fund their governments. Influence and power wanes correspondingly. Western powers, including the US, are simply unable to afford their military any longer. It is impossible over time to satiate rising welfare entitlement demands and the costs of global military superiority at the same time. Powers like China are now at the cutting edge of military research and technology. Normal service is resuming.

Huntingdon's description is likely to prove remarkably accurate. But will it result in a Dark Age? For some it will. It would be a Dark Age for a globalist or an internationalist or someone who genuinely believes in the rectitude and possibility of a "New World Order". But the decline of the arrogant self-righteous West is not a bad thing in itself. After all, the humanist Western Enlightenment bequeathed to the world the Reign of Terror, two world wars, the Age of Colonialism, Western imperialism, the idolatry of nationalism, National Socialism, the African slave trade, Communist dictatorships, the United Nations, and statism. Only the deeply prejudiced would mourn the passing of its bloody global hegemony.

In the coming phase, nations and governments would do well to mind their own business, return to basic principles, be friends with all, enemies of none, and adopt a foreign policy of strict, armed neutrality. Meanwhile for the covenant people of the Living God, the future remains bright. As Western idols come to "lie broke in the Temple of Baal" we expect people will be freed from their thrall.

It is through the vale of suffering that a rebellious people will finally return to the God of their fathers.