Bbelt1215's Blog

So, What Did We Learn?

bbelt1215 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:35:31 +0000

Well, at the very least, I learned that the world of international politics is a complex one; one that can’t be summed up quite as simply as I have done in this blog. However, I think my assessments of interactions between countries of different cultural levels have proven some sort of pattern in how world leaders “get along” with each other, or not. It appears that as a country’s level of development increases, the more likely they are to interact positively on the world stage. Conversely, those countries with lower levels of development are selfish and power hungry. Also, a positively acting country must possess at least two very important cultural levels as outlined by Dr. Beck. These are the blue (law) and green (peace-loving) levels. In the international world, orange (technology) is proliferating much faster than the blue and green levels, leading to barbaric cultures with access to high technology and weaponry. This is scary at best and I think we can all agree that somehow we need to bring those cultures to our level so that they can become partners, not enemies of the world. Therefore, I plan to continue in my endeavor to carry out the duties listed on the Guide to Action page.

What’s Next?

bbelt1215 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:59:25 +0000

So what’s next for the world in terms of international relations? It’s a big question and quite honestly one I can’t answer. I will, however, speculate based on my opinion.

I believe that in the future, the Middle East, China, Russia, and North Korea will form an alliance. With China as the leader, this group will effectively replace the U.S. as the global leader. This could develop in several ways. First, it could lead to World War III. One could say that we are due for another one. If this were to happen, the U.S. would probably lose and surely, harsh sanctions would be imposed. Second, if Russian, Chinese, and U.S. relations get patched up, the U.S. would merely be potentially replaced by China as a world cultural leader.

China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea

bbelt1215 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:37:21 +0000

These four countries freak the crap out of me. Not individually, mind you, but combined they could be really terrifying. The fact is that Russia has been on very friendly terms with China and Russia, and China is linked to North Korea. Half are ruled by psycho dictators and the other half is communist. China is growing faster than any other country in the world right now, plus they and Middle Eastern oil countries own most of our economy (the rest being owned by Japan). Russia and the U.S. have been at odds since the Cold War, Iran’s president want’s nukes for God knows what purpose, and North Korea’s dictator is just crazy. A military or economic alliance between these four countries could spell trouble for the U.S. Fortunately, that is highly unlikely at this point.

Project Insights

bbelt1215 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:26:50 +0000

This blog has developed more horizontally than I anticipated. I feel like there isn’t very much depth unfortunately, and I want to add that somehow. Overall, I feel like I don’t have quite enough knowledge to focus the blog the way I’d originally intended. However, on another note, I feel as if I’ve sorted out some of my own thoughts about interactions between nations. I hope to use these new insights to probe deeper into the issues I would like to address such as social trends that are caused by these interactions. I may amend previous posts to add deeper insights to this project.

The U.S. and Europe

bbelt1215 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:08:17 +0000

The United States and Europe are well-known for being the most influential and developed areas of the world. As such, they share a strong collective balance of technology, lawfulness, a lack of ethnocentricity, and a lack of megalomaniacal tendencies. That is not to say they are the most ideal model for developed nations. However, they do represent a good interim goal for underdeveloped nations. Like the snowball effect, as the U.S. and Europe become more developed hopefully other nations will follow through economic growth and cultural tolerance.

The U.S. and the Middle East

bbelt1215 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:44:21 +0000

Right now, the U.S. is having some trouble dealing with the middle east due to many factors including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cultural factors exist as well. There are some middle easterners who fear involvement of the U.S. because they believe our influence will corrupt their ages-old belief system. As an aside, terrorist regimes hold this same fear, but represent the red level of development much more strongly in their resistance. In this way, the middle east in general seems to be against development in some sense. However, the advent of the orange, or technological development level will strongly affect their development into a force to be reckoned with should they lighten up on their extreme fear of foreign nations.

The U.S. and Japan

bbelt1215 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:48:35 +0000

Other than the U.S. and countries of Europe, Japan is probably the only country as highly developed in Asia. Therefore, developmental levels are similar between Europe and Japan. Japan is a special case, however, due to the drastic changes undertaken after WWII. For example Japan possessed the red, warlike level, and the purple, mystical level, as well as some blue level of the law. After the war, Japan’s focused decisively shifted to the blue level and the green level. Eventually, as we all know, Japan came to possess strong qualities of the orange, or technological development level. This similarity with the U.S. leads to good relations between the two countries.

China and Africa

bbelt1215 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:30:36 +0000

For the past 30 years or so, China has been much more involved in the internal affairs of countries in Africa. Whereas the U.S. and other global organizations have invested much in infrastructure and education specifically in those weaker economic areas, China has been handing large sums of money to often unstable or corrupt African governmnets. This is an example of the green level of understanding in which China sees African leaders as inherently good willed and concerned for their charge. Sadly, this is not always the case and this dealing between the green level of China and the red, power hungry level of many African systems results in massive gain by the red from the green with the result in more weapons spending by fearful African leaders.

The U.S., China, and North Korea

bbelt1215 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:25:45 +0000

When examining relations between these three countries, one has to first examine proximity, government, and past relations. Due to proximity, China and North Korea could have better relations than with the U.S. This may also be due to the historical background of China and North Korea sharing a common enemy in Japan. Although the U.S. and China have had good relations in general, China is still a communist state, as is North Korea. This sours relations between the three countries with the U.S. on the opposite side of the table governmentally. Recently, China has been cooperating with North Korea much more, hopefully supporting both its interests as well as U.S. interests to end North Korea’s nuclear program.

Interactions Between Different Cultural Levels of Civilizations in the World Today

bbelt1215 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:08:22 +0000

I recently began listening to a CD series called “Spiral Dynamics” by Don Beck. This series takes a look at civilizations and assigns certain colors which represent behaviors of people of a state and the overall collective level of civilization they have attained. For example, those states in which the majority of citizens believe in “magical” or “mystical” properties of the world would be called “Purple”. Superstition would fall into this category as well. “Orange” represents the presence of cutting edge technological development. Needless to say, most civilizations today would belong to any number of categories, with a certain focus in maybe one or two. I plan to use this blog to determine patterns of behavior using interactions between differing levels of civilization.