Is this the end of history all over again?

South China Morning Post ^

[FarCenter]

It’s always fun to watch big thinkers slug it out over the most pressing issues of the day. Today in one corner is renowned Indian literary critic and essayist Pankaj Mishra, arguing why so many countries prefer to sit on the fence over the war in Ukraine and why it won’t end well for the West.

Opposing him is Francis Fukuyama, the influential American political scientist, predicting a triumph of the West, the total defeat of Vladimir Putin and a renewal of the “spirit of 1989”.

Fukuyama says he is sticking his neck out to make several prognostications. Writing in online magazine American Purpose, here are his predictions. Russia is heading for an outright defeat. The collapse of the Russian position will be sudden and catastrophic. There will be no diplomatic solution before the war’s end. Putin will not survive his war. His defeat will discredit or at least weaken all the populists and dictatorial strongmen on the rise in recent years.

...

I met Mishra once in Hong Kong. He is a dark and brooding heavy intellectual. I am not surprised by his far more realistic take. He refers to Fukuyama, when he writes for Bloomberg, “Such rhetoric, usually intoned by men who lived through the heady last days of the Cold War, is dangerous. It could yet again make Western countries misread the world and their own power to shape it.” Many nations, he observes, are sitting “out the new cold war between a hastily reunited West and Russia”. The cold warriors of the West don’t understand “the transactional and shifting relationships at the heart of non-alignment”. No matter what happens in Ukraine, he predicts the following trends will intensify, “opportunistic non-alignment, de-democratisation, de-dollarisation of the international financial system and general de-Americanisation of the globe”.

[Ancesthntr]

Fukayama got it dead wrong once already, so I am not prepared to buy any of what he’s selling this time around.

[newfreep]

...as we know it...

[Mr Ramsbotham]

It may not be the End of History, but it now appears that we are now experiencing the end of armor as a viable military tool. Soon to come will be the end of ships of all natures, including aircraft carriers.

I agree with you. Heaven only knows what will arise to take its place, though.

[MrKatykelly]

Let me share some of my personal small thinker stuff. If you see a really bright flash in the sky, close your windows for a few weeks, go the basement if you have one. If your still around in a month, start gardening.

[moovova]

Perzactly.

[Bookshelf]

I don’t want to give away secrets, but long ago in a faraway place I witnessed a warboard that had all the enemies subsurface ships located on it. I grant that much has been done to silence subs, but they are still vulnerable. As for pilots, following the John McCain fiasco all planes should now be unmanned, and we are moving that way very quickly with drones. I fully expect the next war will be fought by adept sixteen year olds playing out war games on supercomputers at Nellis Air Base in Nevada.

[Kevmo]

Let me tell you about history and democrats, liberals, progressives and socialists. For them history begins when they wake up in the morning.

***That’s pretty good, almost tagline worthy. I’ll update the tagline page with a shortened version.
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