So, how does the US relate to this? We keep our distance and see how it plays out. Mostly the US has contributed by being less relevant: Once the Koreans got the US out of the picture, a moderate South Korean and an ambitious young North Korean dictator found they could agree on next steps very quickly. What will come next is far from certain, as it is unclear how far the South would go to accommodate the North (would they ask the US military to leave the peninsula?), or how much Un can be trusted to keep the peace, but it is at least a signal accomplishment to end the state of war that has existed between the two countries for three generations.
Will Trump claim credit for it? No surprise; he is already saying he did it all by himself. Does he deserve credit for it? Not that much, but, to give him some his due, he "stirred the pot", and this is what was able to be brewed up afterwards.
Civilizing Waves
I suggest an analogy as a way to think about the history of the world. Civilization is like a broad, deep, low-lying plain rising gradually out of the sea. We can then think of various perturbations--movements of various kinds, like nations, tribes, religions, mass migrations, military forces of conquest--as waves rising out of the sea and washing over the land surface. Most of them have a relatively short duration before they reach their "high-water mark", and then roll back into the sea, but they often leave something behind, their contributions to the collective human experience and knowledge.
Some of those waves are very tall, but not so deep (front to back); they hit hard and go far but recede quickly. Examples would be the surge of Napoleon in Europe, or the Mongols in Asia. Most of the dynasties of Chinese history would be more like tidal surges which rise, swamp everything, and slowly sink in. Then there a few monster waves: the rise of the major religions, the double-crested wave of the classical Greek and Roman expansions, and then there's This One.
There was a massive Earthquake, which we sometimes call Modernity, other times the Enlightenment, and the red-hot magma fueling this tsunami is the power of reason to interpret facts, the philosophy known as empiricism. The rumblings go back farther, to the Renaissance, which accompanied also the Age of Exploration for the Western European nations, which certainly made a big splash. The big wave, though, has been the surge in science and technology, which has been breaking for some 200 years now. The chaos of the Twentieth Century has been an outcropping upon which this flood has broken and been diverted in unexpected ways (Communism, Fascism, the Cold War), possibly less forceful now, but still leaving behind incredible quantity of detritus (like the Internet, smartphones, robots).
The Korean War has certainly been a central fact in Northeast Asia; equally so the long postwar tensions and the separate paths North and South Korea have taken since then. I would put it in the context of 'stuff' left behind by that major flow called the Cold War which resulted from the modernizing monster wave being powerfully broken by the rock of World War II. It is high time for it to settle into the landscape.
Some of those waves are very tall, but not so deep (front to back); they hit hard and go far but recede quickly. Examples would be the surge of Napoleon in Europe, or the Mongols in Asia. Most of the dynasties of Chinese history would be more like tidal surges which rise, swamp everything, and slowly sink in. Then there a few monster waves: the rise of the major religions, the double-crested wave of the classical Greek and Roman expansions, and then there's This One.
There was a massive Earthquake, which we sometimes call Modernity, other times the Enlightenment, and the red-hot magma fueling this tsunami is the power of reason to interpret facts, the philosophy known as empiricism. The rumblings go back farther, to the Renaissance, which accompanied also the Age of Exploration for the Western European nations, which certainly made a big splash. The big wave, though, has been the surge in science and technology, which has been breaking for some 200 years now. The chaos of the Twentieth Century has been an outcropping upon which this flood has broken and been diverted in unexpected ways (Communism, Fascism, the Cold War), possibly less forceful now, but still leaving behind incredible quantity of detritus (like the Internet, smartphones, robots).
The Korean War has certainly been a central fact in Northeast Asia; equally so the long postwar tensions and the separate paths North and South Korea have taken since then. I would put it in the context of 'stuff' left behind by that major flow called the Cold War which resulted from the modernizing monster wave being powerfully broken by the rock of World War II. It is high time for it to settle into the landscape.
The First Armistice: A Centennial
2018 is the 100th anniversary year of the original Armistice Day--November 11--which ended World War I (in the US, Armistice Day has since been renamed as Veterans Day). 1918 marked the US' emergence as the undoubted pre-eminent power, due to the exhaustion of the European powers in the Great War (Germany, Russia, France, Britain) and the catastrophic, colonialized condition of the East and South Asian societies. The fifty years that followed, 1918 - 1968, 50 and 100 years ago, were defining in terms of America's relation to world history Cultural game-changers like mass electricity, radio, television, and film created a global culture that was centered on the US as the critical market, cementing the fame of both home-grown talent (such as Bob Dylan, Louis Armstrong, Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe) and foreigners who could crack through (the Beatles and other English Wave bands, Elizabeth Taylor, Sofia Loren). This was capped by incredible accomplishments in aerospace engineering, nuclear weapons and power, and the rise of the space program.
The developments in the US' forms of participation in global affairs were dramatic and confounding, as the pendulum swung violently. During the period after 1928, the US went from providing the security for the war settlement terms to refusing to ratify participation in the international organization it had proposed. A desperate effort by traditional America to keep the country from fulfilling its leadership role prevailed through much of the avoid its leadership, as the unstable international system it had birthed toddled, wobbled, then fell over the window ledge. US'-sponsored democracy in Europe seemed headed for military defeat, until the extremist societies turned against each other in self-destructive frenzy (in 1941, with Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, and with the attack on Pearl Harbor) .
We seemed to have learned a lesson, as the efforts after WWII to set the tone, containing totalitarian advances by championing decolonization and development. But, by the end of the 50th year of the period, it became apparent that the limits of American willingness to extend itself and its allies in foreign affairs were being reached with the seemingly unwinnable Vietnam War.
I would say that The Decline ("The Long Way Down") began there. Fifty years ago this time of year was the time when Bobby Kennedy's campaign was on the verge of a breakthrough, until he was cut down (like his brother's, an assassination we have never quite come to understand). In the chaos that followed, a new form of reaction arose, one that was never fully defeated and has arisen, once again, in these times. 1968 ended with an election in which a moderate Democrat (Hubert Humphrey)--viewed as too accommodating by many of his party--fell substantially short in the Electoral College despite a near-draw in popular vote. (Sound familiar?)
Yes, we dominated the next 50 years. We had little choice but to protect our global empire, established even more clearly after the collapse of the Communist one, though the will was often lacking (think of the Senate authorization of the first Gulf War, clearly justified by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, but which barely passed). Now, we are clearly in a retreat mode with regard to our leadership in the world; while our objective has always been to execute policies which ultimately benefit ourselves, the philosophy in the past has often been that helping the world--to settle conflicts, help development, promote freedom and international trade--would be the best way to accomplish these. Now, the willingness to look for those mutual benefits is either gone or greatly reduced.
The result is that the current American hydraulic force on that great plain of civilization is one of an undertow, pulling some of our great contributions back out to sea. We are still a force to be reckoned with, but the admiration the Obama Administration engendered in the global community is gone--or worse.
From Bill Maher's New Rules this week: Trump always says he's 'looking out for the little guy'. Turns out he was talking about his dick.
He definitely read him the Riot Act'. But not exactly: I looked up the original Riot Act and found this:
Riot Act of 1715 (repealed 1967) .authorized local authorities to declare any group of twelve or more people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action.--Wikipedia.
That's more like a Trumpian thing.
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