It is a fundamental duty: to understand the times in which we live.
That means we should not live in the past or an imagined future. This does not prevent us from learning the lessons first or understanding the key trends that will shape the future.
History
This is especially true in the field of international relations.
We are not before World War II. In the heart of Europe there was no regime determined to physically exterminate a people by dominating the earth and planning their industrial destruction.
Putin is an imperialist dictator: he is not Hitler.
- Listen to Maxime Bernier's interview with Mathieu Boc-Cot QUB :
Those who want to drag out the war in Ukraine or extend it to the point of triggering a dynamic that should bring about Putin's downfall and regime change in Moscow live in a parallel world and lead us to disaster. We forget that we are now in the nuclear age.
We are not at the time of the Cold War, when two great ideologies divided the world, one of which necessarily defeated the other.
We are no longer post-Cold War, when the globalized US empire ruled the earth and suppressed some places that were slow to change into a massive democratic war waged with bombers.
Photo by AFP
We live in a multipolar world that resembles the clash of civilizations that Huntington talked about.
The great civilized states confront each other directly or indirectly.
Diplomacy
Everyone claims to have their own sphere of influence. Two spheres of influence collide. A conflict may arise.
Peace in this world has little to do with the Kantian fantasy of universal peace, and is more about diplomacy, compromise, and the balance of power. So will the present century.
