This is closely related to the Syria thread that was recently closed and I've been given permission to post because it's a good, balanced article, not trying to incite anyone. Please, let's try to keep on topic and civil for at least the first page. Show those mods we can play nice! Ok, that's asking a lot.

"Apart from political maps of mankind, there are natural maps of mankind. ... One of the first laws of political stability is to draw your political boundaries along the lines of the natural map of mankind."

So wrote H.G. Wells in "What Is Coming: A Forecast of Things to Come After the War" in the year of Verdun and the Somme Offensive.

In redrawing the map of Europe, however, the statesmen of Versailles ignored Wells and parceled out Austrians, Hungarians, Germans and other nationalities to alien lands to divide, punish and weaken the defeated peoples.

So doing they set the table for a second world war.

The Middle East was sliced up along lines set down in the secret Sykes-Picot agreement. But with the Islamic awakening and Arab Spring toppling regimes, the natural map of the Middle East seems now to be asserting itself.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/08/07/the_natural_map_of_the_middle_east_115019.html

Thanks, Koheesti. The information is quite interesting.

Yes, that's a good article, and by picking up on the unrest in Nigeria, Sudan and I would add Kenya there is another religious/cultural battleground. Huntington's clash of civilizations map is worth scrutiny but neglects to divide Islamic culture into Sunni and Shia, which could arguably be the next major world conflict, should Israel somehow manage not to get embroiled, which it may struggle not to as it's simply in the wrong place as far as it's culture is concerned.

It seems many in the west spend a lot of energy trying to discredit Huntington's theory, but without needing to be right in, or cover every detail the basic premise that cultures will clash based on the overlaps in their geographical presence seems sensible.

Al Qaeda will indeed, as your article suggests seek to sew division wherever they can, hence Nigeria is an Islam vs Christianity battle, whilst Mali and the Sahara sees Wahabi extremists persecuting Sufi Muslim. Syria gives Al Qaeda two for the price of one as there are both Christian and Alawite minorities to persecute. Finally, without wishing to get too far off topic the same idea that H.G Wells had for the drawing of borders should also be considered on an intra-national level as mass immigration of alien cultures may cause the same civil strife leading to violence and maybe even eventual civil wars.

An interesting article, Koheesti. I just wonder if Al Qaeda is still as influential as it suggests (the conditions under which Bin Laden was living suggest not).

Much of the problem lies with artificial land borders. Iraq is a made-up country; "Kurdistan" spreads across three countries; many of the African borders are not much more than lines drawn on a map. Syria is quite clearly disintegrating, and then the Sunni/Shia divide will come into play. Lebanon is also made-up. But then what land borders are not artificial? Many parts of the world don't have convenient rivers or mountain ranges as national boundaries.

An interesting article, Koheesti. I just wonder if Al Qaeda is still as influential as it suggests (the conditions under which Bin Laden was living suggest not).

Much of the problem lies with artificial land borders. Iraq is a made-up country; "Kurdistan" spreads across three countries; many of the African borders are not much more than lines drawn on a map. Syria is quite clearly disintegrating, and then the Sunni/Shia divide will come into play. Lebanon is also made-up. But then what land borders are not artificial? Many parts of the world don't have convenient rivers or mountain ranges as national boundaries.

Sometimes natural boundaries don't do the trick either. In North America we have the Rio Grande River as the border between Texas and Mexico. But ethnically, the Mexicans are moving further north for economic reasons. As they like to say, "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us". Gotta admit, it is catchy.

As the article points out, historically when borders are drawn by outsiders with no knowledge (or even caring) about local peoples, it is a disaster waiting to happen.

The question is, HOW to rectify the situation without war?

In creating Pakistan they moved millions of people from India but have still had multiple wars between them and India.

The Soviets moved people all over the place and that didn't work out too well. Now you have Russian minorities in several countries complaining about not being treated equally.

So moving people hasn't worked. Education, teaching people to get along might do the trick. Of course, religion gets in the way of that in the Middle East. Jews vs Muslims, Sunni Muslims vs Shiite Muslims. That's a tough one to overcome no matter which side of the issue you fall on.

Ironic that Christianity and Islam both preach peace, and both of them constantly get involved in religious wars. But I think that if you could factor religion out of the equation, these people would still find an excuse for warfare.

Ironic that Christianity and Islam both preach peace, and both of them constantly get involved in religious wars. But I think that if you could factor religion out of the equation, these people would still find an excuse for warfare.

look around IB. war/killing happens all over and is not limited to Christians or Muslims.

Ironic that Christianity and Islam both preach peace, and both of them constantly get involved in religious wars. But I think that if you could factor religion out of the equation, these people would still find an excuse for warfare.

look around IB. war/killing happens all over and is not limited to Christians or Muslims.

True enough, Naam. That follows from my second sentence.

One way to bring people together in these troubled areas is to find a common enemy. To some extent the Jews work for Sunni & Shiite - unless there are no Jews around. But if/when the common enemy is no longer, the sides will go back to fighting each other.

So is it just too ingrained in human nature to need an enemy?

How did Western Europe get over it? A massive war killing tens of millions, followed by security being guaranteed from the outside while their economies boomed and they built up and became more tolerant of each other?

How would we replicate that in the world trouble spots today? Can we? Should we try? It didn't work in Iraq, but that was one country. Maybe we need a massive war across the Middle East, killing ~100 million and leaving cities in ruins?

Maybe there need to be two massive regional wars, affecting multiple generations. Would Western Europe have been at peace for 70 years without the destruction and death of WWII one generation after the destruction and death of WWI?

One way to bring people together in these troubled areas is to find a common enemy. To some extent the Jews work for Sunni & Shiite - unless there are no Jews around. But if/when the common enemy is no longer, the sides will go back to fighting each other.

So is it just too ingrained in human nature to need an enemy?

How did Western Europe get over it? A massive war killing tens of millions, followed by security being guaranteed from the outside while their economies boomed and they built up and became more tolerant of each other?

How would we replicate that in the world trouble spots today? Can we? Should we try? It didn't work in Iraq, but that was one country. Maybe we need a massive war across the Middle East, killing ~100 million and leaving cities in ruins?

Maybe there need to be two massive regional wars, affecting multiple generations. Would Western Europe have been at peace for 70 years without the destruction and death of WWII one generation after the destruction and death of WWI?

How did Western Europe get over it? I think to answer that question you need to get to the root of what democracy is. If you can legislate legal equality for all citizens and take away factors which threaten to undermine this then you are well on the way. Such factors would be discrimination based on race or religion, which may mean the reformation of the church went a long way towards this as did the abolition of slavery and laws against discrimination. Economics are certainly a factor, but I would suggest this comes later on after religious and racial hatred are tackled. I suspect bad economic conditions do however threaten to let age old enmities out of the bag, so the current state of affairs is hardly conducive to peaceful coexistence and more to opening up of old wounds, such as we are seeing with the UK/Argentine spat over the Falklands coming to the fore recently. I fear the massive war you predict is indeed coming, it is just a case of who fights on which side. If I had to choose it would be a Sunni vs Shia affair that we kept out of, but I'm not sure there will be that choice.

Good article. I wonder what the people of the region will face before peace returns?

Scary stuff indeed. Democracy certainly seems a long way off for many...that and any form of fair distribution of wealth and opportunity.

With banks and financial institutions running things. Maybe a a 1984 map is more believeable,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1984_fictitious_world_map_v2_quad.svg

Yes, that's a good article, and by picking up on the unrest in Nigeria, Sudan and I would add Kenya there is another religious/cultural battleground. Huntington's clash of civilizations map is worth scrutiny but neglects to divide Islamic culture into Sunni and Shia, which could arguably be the next major world conflict, should Israel somehow manage not to get embroiled, which it may struggle not to as it's simply in the wrong place as far as it's culture is concerned.

It seems many in the west spend a lot of energy trying to discredit Huntington's theory, but without needing to be right in, or cover every detail the basic premise that cultures will clash based on the overlaps in their geographical presence seems sensible.

Al Qaeda will indeed, as your article suggests seek to sew division wherever they can, hence Nigeria is an Islam vs Christianity battle, whilst Mali and the Sahara sees Wahabi extremists persecuting Sufi Muslim. Syria gives Al Qaeda two for the price of one as there are both Christian and Alawite minorities to persecute. Finally, without wishing to get too far off topic the same idea that H.G Wells had for the drawing of borders should also be considered on an intra-national level as mass immigration of alien cultures may cause the same civil strife leading to violence and maybe even eventual civil wars.

Strewth, an article written by a renowned anti-Semite, palaeo-conservative and holocaust denier/minimiser, Pat Buchanan, and then an endorsement of HG Wells, an intriguing mix of eugenics fan, anti-Semite and staunch socialist, Dan you really do find friends in strange places!

And all this in connection with "natural maps" of the world, much beloved of neo-cons and similar fans of simplistic reductions of geopolitics to a form of the board game Risk!

The "small map, big hand" approach to geopolitics as exemplified by the chicken hawk neocon school causes nothing but problems as the nitty gritty realities of the real geopolitical world as it really is do tend to get in the way of such glorious simplicity, see Afghan and Iraqi campaigns for stunning arrogance, ignorance and application of simplistic assumptions.

"Natural maps" have little relevance in this age of the Anthropocene.

@Folium, I don't need to know anything about Pat Buchanan to address the OP on it's merits, just as one need not be a Nazi to enjoy Wagner. In a nutshell you are railing against top down simplification and taking the polar opposite, namely bottom up over complication where you fail to detect any pattern at all let alone the wood from the trees. This type of approach has led to the wonderfully successful current western foreign policy with governmental and press fawning over the human rights catastrophe known as the Arab spring.

@Folium, I don't need to know anything about Pat Buchanan to address the OP on it's merits, just as one need not be a Nazi to enjoy Wagner. In a nutshell you are railing against top down simplification and taking the polar opposite, namely bottom up over complication where you fail to detect any pattern at all let alone the wood from the trees. This type of approach has led to the wonderfully successful current western foreign policy with governmental and press fawning over the human rights catastrophe known as the Arab spring.

@Folium, I don't need to know anything about Pat Buchanan to address the OP on it's merits, just as one need not be a Nazi to enjoy Wagner. In a nutshell you are railing against top down simplification and taking the polar opposite, namely bottom up over complication where you fail to detect any pattern at all let alone the wood from the trees. This type of approach has led to the wonderfully successful current western foreign policy with governmental and press fawning over the human rights catastrophe known as the Arab spring.

You see everything through the prism of the Muslim cunning plan to take over the world with immigration being the Trojan Horse. HG Wells with his love of eugenics was focused on proving that white Teutonic types were the master race and that they were literally a race apart in a geographical sense and in cultural, economic and social terms.

"Natural boundaries" in Wells' world required segregation and a situation akin to apartheid SAfrica, Cyprus or parts of the Balkans where enforced separation is based on race, ethnicity or religion or a combination of all three.

Your preference for autocrats is well documented and your mention of the Arab Spring is illuminating. If ever there was a gross journalistic over simplification it is the notion of a monolithic in tandem shift of a dozen countries all heading in the same direction. While this might suit the idea of the jihadis under the bed, world domination thesis the real outcomes are likely to be as diverse and disparate as the original start points for the countries concerned.

@Folium, I don't need to know anything about Pat Buchanan to address the OP on it's merits, just as one need not be a Nazi to enjoy Wagner. In a nutshell you are railing against top down simplification and taking the polar opposite, namely bottom up over complication where you fail to detect any pattern at all let alone the wood from the trees. This type of approach has led to the wonderfully successful current western foreign policy with governmental and press fawning over the human rights catastrophe known as the Arab spring.

@Folium, I don't need to know anything about Pat Buchanan to address the OP on it's merits, just as one need not be a Nazi to enjoy Wagner. In a nutshell you are railing against top down simplification and taking the polar opposite, namely bottom up over complication where you fail to detect any pattern at all let alone the wood from the trees. This type of approach has led to the wonderfully successful current western foreign policy with governmental and press fawning over the human rights catastrophe known as the Arab spring.

You see everything through the prism of the Muslim cunning plan to take over the world with immigration being the Trojan Horse. HG Wells with his love of eugenics was focused on proving that white Teutonic types were the master race and that they were literally a race apart in a geographical sense and in cultural, economic and social terms.

"Natural boundaries" in Wells' world required segregation and a situation akin to apartheid SAfrica, Cyprus or parts of the Balkans where enforced separation is based on race, ethnicity or religion or a combination of all three.

Your preference for autocrats is well documented and your mention of the Arab Spring is illuminating. If ever there was a gross journalistic over simplification it is the notion of a monolithic in tandem shift of a dozen countries all heading in the same direction. While this might suit the idea of the jihadis under the bed, world domination thesis the real outcomes are likely to be as diverse and disparate as the original start points for the countries concerned.

Apart from shutting down any press critical of themselves the Salafists have got round to crucifying people in Egypt, they are active in making the lives everyone who they disapprove of a living hell. By the way try judging H.G Wells through the prism of the times in which he lived, not 2012. As for South Africa and the end of apartheid, I suggest you look at what is happening to the white farmers there, it would certainly have been called genocide pre black majority rule, though for some strange reason seems completely invisible to our humanitarian MSM.

Coming back to Wells, natural boundaries are being rendered meaningless by mass migration of people aided by the failed theory of multiculturalism. Finally if you are familiar with the Tolkein book Lord of the Rings you will find a striking metaphor for the British Isles changing for the worse. Allow me to expand for any middle earthers out there.

Hobbiton and the South Downs are Southern England, further away from unwelcome progress is the Grey Havens (Ireland). In the other direction you have Brie (Normandy) which is Ok but a bit dangerous. Moria is the Alps, Rivendell is probably Geneva. Rohan, the North Europeans and Vienna or Constantinople is Minas Tirith. Then comes Mordor with all the heathens, orcs and goblins. The dark skinned pirates of Umbar are the barbary pirates with their war oliphants.

IIt's almost worth a thread of it's own this coming to think of it.