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Europe, the Muslim Mediterranean and the End of the Era of Global Confrontation
By Arno Tausch
Abstract
This article starts from the assumption that both Europe and the Muslim world are facing the same tendency of a basic and underlying shift in global economic activity away from the West of the Euro/Asian/African landmass towards the countries of the Pacific, and that the United States Government’s main interest today is in preserving and intensifying the US Government global hegemony after the end of the Cold War, and to maximize access to global wealth and energy resources in a world that looks more and more like the late 19th Century. The conditions of this political economy of the 21st Century were spelled out by the world system theory school of thought in the social sciences, pioneered by such scholars as Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Volker Bornschier, Christopher K. Chase-Dunn, Andre Gunder Frank, and Immanuel Wallerstein.
Chances to arrive at an alternative world order — one that is based on strengthened United Nations, on global cooperation, and global civilizational dialogue, were lost in the decade after the end of the Cold War. The positioning in the global power game, and nothing else, was the reason for this Iraq war, and forget all about the fight against “WMD” (weapons of mass destruction) and all the other “holy” principles.
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