This April until July, the FNF (Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom) IAF (International Academy for Leadership, Gummersbach, Germany) alumni will have a series of lectures about the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war. These are for alumni only, not open to the public. I went to IAF in Germany in October 2008, I attended the seminar on "Local Government and Civil Society", our great facilitators and lecturers were Arno Keller and Monika Bayern, great liberal minds of FNF.
Here are the lecture topics, then my short discussion about them.
If I have to answer briefly the above questions, here:
1. The end of history? No. History is about endless evolution of human societies and communities. Homo sapiens been around the planet for about 30,000 years or so, out of the planet's 4.6 billion years existence. I think modern homo sapiens will be around for the next thousands and millions of years.
2. The end of peace? No. After WW2 that ended in 1944, there were few invasions that happened, mostly done by the US (Vietnam in the 70s, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, regime change wars in Eastern Europe in 2010s, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2014,...), Russia invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, annexation of Crimea in 2014, etc. Beyond these, no global war happened. Generally global peace for 8 decades, until the Ukraine war last February.
Recall also, when Gorbachev allowed the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, disintegration of USSR in 1990, abolition of Warsaw Pact military alliance in 1991, they happened generally peacefully. But NATO was not abolished, instead it kept expanding towards Russia border, promising more missiles and tanks near Russia.
3. The end of liberalism? No. Humanity by nature longs for freedom, peace, unrestricted mobility aided by technology. But we saw large-scale curtailment of this freedom since 2000 lockdowns because governments and multilaterals don't believe in natural immunity, only vax-vax-vax immunity with 3rd, 4th, endless boosters and money.
4. The end of democracy? No. If people are left on their own, they and their service providers (physicians, traders, etc) will provide competitive and useful information and services, like using proven, off-patent early treatment drugs. But global narrative is a different political animal. Demonize those proven early treatment drugs, use only unproven, EUA, no long-term studies of real safety vax.
5. The end of trade globalization? No. People want cheap energy from different sources and countries. But governments, especially the US and EU, have politicized trade via econ sanctions on Russia exports. When you politicize trade, you get more politics and less trade. So now energy prices are very high because only few countries can freely supply the world of oil, gas and coal while huge supply of these energy products from Russia are being shunned and demonized.
6. The end of reality? No. Take wars and invasion. These are good and justified, no heavy attacks by global media and multilaterals if the invader is the US (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq,...). But war and invasion is bad and unjustified if the invader is Russia. Pure propaganda. Real non-propaganda is this -- war and invasion is wrong. Period. Whether the invader is Russia or America. Invasion is wrong.
Take these cover stories by The Statist, aka The Economist.
For this mouthpiece of military-industrial complex, wars and invasion are good, justfied. Invade and/or bomb the Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians, Bosnians, Kosovars, etc., all justified so long as the bombers are Americans and British. But for The Statist, Russia invasion is bad evil wrong unjustified. Double talk by big media. Lousy. Anti-liberal.
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