The Global Questions Series: Number 6 – Power, Conflict, and War

Contents

1. Introduction

2. The World Has Gone MAD

3. Countries Existing Peacefully

4. The Power Transition Theory

5. Zero-Sum Game of Power Transition and Competition

6. Negative-Sum Game of Power Transition and Competition

7. Israel-Egypt Peace

8. Power Transition Without MAD

9. The Complex Matrix of Geopolitics

10. Concluding Remarks

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Bitesize Edition

•  In the last edition of the Global Questions Series, I wrote about brinkmanship, the Cold War, and the role of the United States in the world order.

• Mutually assured destruction between nuclear-armed states ensures we can’t continue too far over the brink. This led me to question what happens in a world without it.

• I question why the world often falls in bipolar or multipolar situations, and the role power transition theory plays in this. When we find ourselves in a situation where a ruling power is challenged by a rising power, these interactions can be zero-sum, where the gains of one player are the loss of another, or negative-sum, where the overall basket of rewards for all players is negative. Negative-sum games have the potential to spiral, with the players fighting for an ever-dwindling basket of resources. Thankfully, we have MAD as a wall in the concept of geopolitical brinkmanship.

• What would the world look like, if we didn’t have this? Would something take its place? Are the biggest powers in the world today already considering this? Let’s dive in.

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Introduction

Last time in the Global Questions Series, I wrote about how Mutually Assured Destruction has limited how far over the brink we can truly go in a conflict between nuclear-armed powers. After writing that piece, I questioned what a world would look like without this limit.

Technological innovation is seemingly reaching an exponential rate of growth. For anybody who has seen “The Three-Body Problem” on Netflix, you’ll know it’s about an alien race making their way to Earth. It’s going to take them 400 years, and if they’re travelling through space, they’re clearly more advanced than we are. But will they be once they arrive?

Not that this is a realistic situation we’ll find ourselves in, but it makes the point that we are innovating quicker than ever before. So, what would a world without MAD truly look like? What, if anything, would stop us from heading further over the brink?