Previous discussion has made it clear that today’s level of science and technology is enough to satisfy the technical conditions required of a unified human society. Moreover, though the move from a nation-based society to a world power will be the greatest social change in human history, we have proved that the resistance it will encounter is relatively minor. All this clearly tells us that as long as the goal of unification is reasonably implemented, it may be achieved in a relatively short period of time.
Thus, this chapter will discuss the reasonable implementation required to achieve our goal of unification. In other words, what path must we chose to realize world unification?
SECTION ONE: MEANS AND STEPS
One: The Basic Idea: A Peaceful Transition
The unification of human society will bring about the demise of countries and the advent of one centralized world government. In a unified society, the highest administrative power will be transferred from state governments to the world government, from coexisting multinational states to the sole world power. Such a transfer will be unprecedented in human history, and it is the only way to guarantee the most essential and fundamental interests of all mankind as well protect humanity from self-extinction.
In spite of this, the realization of a unified society will threaten the visible interests of some people. While some of these people may put the interests of humanity first and support unification, others will go against the interests of mankind and resist—by armed opposition if necessary. There are two possible events that may lead to global unification: peaceful transition or all-out war.
Generally speaking, no sort of large political change can be reached through peaceful negotiation or war alone. More often than not, change is achieved through a combination of peaceful negotiation and war. The general approach to global unity can either be a one-step program or a transitional tactic.
The one-step program refers to a direct process of achieving unification in which the multinational society is transformed into one global entity governed by one world power. The transitional tactic refers to the establishment of an intermediate transitional phase in the transition from a state-based society to a large, unified society. In this transitional period, factors that are not conducive to achieving unification or long-term peace and stability of the unified society will be targeted, remedied, adjusted, and transformed.
The great cause of unification is above all an attempt to save humanity. It is a great cause of incomparable justice. Naturally, any just cause should also be promoted through just means—which eliminates war as a tactic. Therefore, peaceful means will be the basic starting point of our design. Previous analysis shows that unification is universally consistent with the fundamental interests as well as visible interests of all mankind, and it greatly benefits the top leaders of human society; thus, a peaceful transformation is actually possible. When we consider the actual steps needed to word towards a unified society, however, the immense difficulty of bringing together so many different regions and countries comes to light.
First of all, there is an enormous divide between the countries of the world. Economically, there are hundredfold differences in the per capita income of the richest and poorest countries. This type of wealth gap makes integration very difficult, and it requires compromise that is hard to achieve. Moreover, huge economic differences will inevitably lead to different education levels, living habits, and personality traits. Integration of a society made up of so many different elements will be immensely challenging.
Secondly, from an ethnic point of view, a certain level of ethnic conflict and even hatred exists between the many nations in the world. It will be equally difficult to overcome ethnic disputes that have been passed down for generations. Even if ethnic unification can be achieved, there is no guarantee that these problems will be truly laid to rest and not cause future unrest. Ethnic killings and blood revenge may still occur and will have a serious impact on people’s recognition of a unified society. All this may bury seeds of dissonance in the fundamental governance of a unified society.
Third, religious issues could impede the process of unification. The historical hatred of some religions in the world has lasted thousands of years, and the power of religious belief often makes acceptance exceedingly difficult. Even more troubling is the fact that a handful of countries in the world are religious extremists. Concessions to countries dominated by infidels are seen as a form of religious betrayal. Religious sentiments will be a big hurdle in the path for compromise.
Factors that affect the process of unification far exceed those listed above. For example, political and cultural differences may also affect the realization of a unified society. The attitude of national leaders is another crucial factor that may determine the success or failure of unification. The will of a nation is often manifested primarily through the leaders of that nation, and while democratic leaders may respect the opinions of the people a little more, authoritarian rulers will certainly not hesitate to impose their own will on their citizens. Global unification will include all the countries of the world; some may be democracies, but there will be many others under autocratic rule. The complexity and variables of the situation can only be imagined. With so many countries in the world, it is inevitable that some national leaders will try to hinder global unification by all means possible.
Because of the abovementioned series of factors, we believe that a transitional process for global unification may be more feasible; therefore, peaceful resolution and a transitional tactic will be the basis for our plan to achieve a unified human society. Even so, we cannot deny the possibility of a one-step approach. If broad consensus were to be reached all over the world, and people of all countries truly grasped the sense of crisis, the handful of opposition and difficulties mentioned above could be overcome. We are only discussing the transitional approach here because the ideal situation of one-step unification is much more difficult to achieve.
During the transitional process from a nation-based society to a unified society, the following should be achieved:
1. Balanced economic and social development across the world
Low-income areas should receive assistance in terms of development, and mature scientific and technological achievements should be promoted to these low-income areas. Theoretically, once existing scientific and technological achievements are evenly applied throughout the world, the per capita income level in all regions should equalize.
2. Regional integration promotion
The promotion of regional integration will be one of the most fundamental tasks and ultimate goals of the transitional period. Much work must be done in this area, such as constant dilution of the concept of nations and strengthening of the concept of mankind; promoting unified moral values, a unified language, unified living habits, and promoting ethnic and religious integration. This could promote a soft environment for world integration and harmonious coexistence.
3. Gradual establishment of the hard (technical) environment for world integration
Today’s technical conditions have fully satisfied the requirements of a unified society and made world governance infinitely achievable; however, we should also see that the world is still unevenly developed. Many countries do not yet have highways, and many areas still lack lights, telephones, radios, and even cars. The transitional period will be tasked with communication exchange and technical integration to create a favorable hard environment for a unified society.
In addition, the transitional period will also be tasked with the exploration of an effective management approach for the future unified society. At the same time, since many aspects of the transitional period will differ from those of the country-based society, actions to limit the development of science and technology can also be explored.
Two: The Basic Choice: Close-Knit Groups of Absolute Superiority
The transitional period will be established to promote a smoother transition from a country-based society to a unified society, but it will also seek to guarantee more effective, stable, and long-term governance for the unified society.
During this period, many factors will affect the realization of these two goals. These factors must be adjusted, rectified, rebuilt, and eliminated in order to ensure the smooth progress of global unification.
There will be many possible options for the transitional period, and any option that will be conducive to the aforementioned goals can be seen as a viable option. In fact, the determination of the transitional approach will be largely determined by the attitudes of national leaders as well as the public. No option will receive a 100 percent satisfaction rate, but the ultimate option will be the one that receives maximum support from the most influential leaders and countries. This may not be the most reasonable option, but that is the reality of human society. We can analyze and study the conditions of human society to generate the most theoretically reasonable option and use it to sway the general public as well as the most influential political leaders in the world. This may pave the way for a most suitable transitional program.
The transition to a unified society can be generally understood as the consolidation of all countries in the world into one whole. In that way, this transitional process will have the features of country consolidation. Historically, the most peaceful means of country consolidation have been achieved through the coalition of nations. Let us analyze the transition towards nation coalition as a starting point for our discussion.
1. Several Possible Forms of Coalition
The use of coalitions for transition relies on the links between countries to form a more powerful national coalition. This type of national coalition will be established for the sole purpose of promoting unification. It will continue to strengthen the close ties within the coalition as the timeframe matures, until the entire world is united into one.
If all countries were allowed to form coalitions on their own, their motives for aligning would be multifaceted. Even if the principle of unification were widely recognized on a global scale, it would be impossible to ensure that all alliances would be formed purely in regard to this cause.
Some of these coalitions may be designed to promote global unification, but some may be devised for other purposes.
The forms of coalitions will certainly be manifold. There may be economic alliances, political alliances, military alliances, and so on. Furthermore, these alliances may be closely or loosely linked; closed or open; regional, ethnic, cultural, or ideological. In any case, we can be certain that some forms of national coalitions will not be able to shoulder the task of unification promotion. For example, it would be difficult for a national coalition linked solely by economic ties to achieve global unification. Any loosely linked national coalition would also fail under such heavy responsibility.
The coalition most likely to achieve unification would be a closely linked one that contained important elements like politics, military affairs, and economics. It will require participation from the supreme powers of the world so that no contention will be possible. Only a national coalition of this scale will be able to win the recognition of other non-coalition countries and carry out the cause of global unification.
There are many kinds of alliances today—too many to clearly count. Examples include the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the League of Arab States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Warsaw Pact, the North American Free Trade Area, and the South Asia Free Trade Area. Some coalitions are very close-knit; federal states are so closely aligned that they are actually a single country. Other coalitions may be so loose that there are no actual restrictions among countries. We will only focus on the national coalitions capable of directly promoting and playing leading roles in unification.
2. The Characteristics of Coalition in a Free State
Historically, coalitions between states have formed out of free will. As the most supreme powers of human society, countries are free from external restraint and can decide the objectives, content, and actions of coalitions according to their own needs. Coalitions cannot limit the actions of independent states, and countries are usually free to act as they will. We will refer to this unrestrained state of the countries as the free state.
a. Coalitions are either formed due to confrontation or generate confrontation due to formation.
Free-state coalitions are generally established for confrontation. Even when they are not established for this express purpose, they often generate confrontation by disturbing the objective balance of power. These confrontations can be economic, political, military, or comprehensive in nature. For example, the pan-Islamism movement emerged due to the invasion of Western countries and the proliferation of Christian civilization. The goal of the pan-Islamism movement was to unite all Islamic nations into one big alliance to better resist the invasion of Western powers.
The Axis powers were established in an attempt to dominate the world and strive for German occupation. Hitler united Italy, Japan, and Germany in order to form a national coalition capable of opposing the overall powers of Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. The attack of the Axis powers took Europe by surprise; as a result, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union quickly became allied nations. Eventually, they were joined by the United States and China. The same principle applies to the NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War era.
Economic alliances are also formed for competitive advantage. The North American Free Trade Area was formed to compete economically with the European union; the ASEAN Economic Community was established to contend with the powerful economic forces of China, Japan, and India. Of course, economic competition is usually less fierce than political and military confrontation, and receives less attention from the world.
The League of Nations and the United Nations were both coalitions that sought to include all nations in the world; therefore, they are different from the national coalitions discussed above. In other words, if the League of Nations or the United Nations had been able to completely influence global affairs, they would have completed the transition into a unified society, and our discussion would be meaningless.
b. Coalitions in the free state are pluralistic coalitions.
Since free-state coalitions are always born of or generate confrontation, their confrontation must also be somewhat targeted. Once a national coalition is established, their target will be established as well, whether they choose to publicly disclose it or not.
The aligned force produced by a national coalition is a repositioning of the balance of power among all member countries. Correspondingly, in order to resist targeted action and enhance their own strength, the country or countries being targeted will contact other countries with similar interests to form their own coalition as well. The confrontational nature of national coalitions means that they will always be pluralistic, not singular. That is to say, one or more of the same type of national coalition will always coexist in the world at the same time. They may not be established simultaneously, but the time gap will not be too large. This is true of economic alliances, cultural alliances, military alliances, and political alliances, with the latter two being particularly obvious in this regard.
c. Confrontational coalitions will continuously expand.
Since national coalitions are usually founded in rivalry, they will appear in pairs and both sides will constantly seek to overpower their opponents. This characteristic is especially strong in military and political coalitions, since any weaknesses could threaten the survival of countries. The initial size of the national coalition will not be maintained but will expand continuously to absorb new members and consolidate competitive advantage. Since all opposing camps will be making such efforts, the size and scale of each coalition will be constantly increasing.
Before World War I, France moved to further alliance power by aligning with Britain after it gained Russia as an ally, establishing the Allied Powers. But this was only the beginning. As the competition between the Allied Powers and the Central Powers intensified, the race for new alliances intensified as well. Eventually, even Italy, originally a Central Power, was absorbed into the Allied Powers, along with Romania and Greece. Even distant countries like China, Japan, and the United States were won over by the Allied Powers. This influx of members ultimately changed the balance of power and led to the success of the Allied Powers.
The Central Powers made great efforts as well. They succeeded in attracting Turkey and Bulgaria, both countries with important strategic positions and strong land armies. More importantly, the Central Powers successfully forced Allied Powers member Russia to sign an alliance before the war ended. Russia was forced to make financial and land reparations and ultimately withdrew from war, thus lifting the Eastern threat to the Central Powers.
During the Cold War, NATO only had twelve initial members; it was the addition of Greece, Turkey, and West Germany that consolidated its strength. In reality, the power of NATO was not limited to Western European and North American countries. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in the Far East were all under NATO’s influence.
The rival Warsaw Pact Group was doing exactly the same thing. Not only did it win North Korea, Vietnam, China, and other countries in the East, but it also succeeded in distancing NATO heavyweight members such as France and West Germany from the alliance.
d. Semi-close coalitions are most likely to result in conflict.
In a closely linked coalition, the rise of the member states is very consistent, and all countries will be careful to act according to agreements. Since parts of each country’s sovereignty has been assigned to the coalition, the coalition will act like one nation when dealing with foreign matters (federal states are such coalitions).
Semi-close coalitions will function very differently. On the one hand, the members of the coalition will extend mutual aid and agree to binding agreements; on the other hand, these countries will also take separate actions outside of the coalition’s scope. This is when problems arise. Since each country has their separate and individual interests outside of the coalition, they will likely take actions that may conflict with members of the opposing coalition. The more members each coalition has, the more conflicts will arise and with greater frequency. Furthermore, since members of the same coalition share similar interests and obligations and will hope to receive aid in situations of conflict themselves, they will support their coalition members without questioning right or wrong. The members of the opposing coalition will act along similar reasoning; thus, the conflict between two countries will quickly escalate into large-scale conflict between two coalitions.
To put it simply, under a semi-close coalition, individual countries will easily drag the entire coalition into confrontation over some small trouble. Since individual countries will come across conflicts frequently, semi-close coalitions will often be engaged in large-scale conflicts. For example, World War I was ignited by a small clash between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had long entertained territorial ambitions toward Serbia; the assassination of the Archduke of Austria was merely an excuse for war. The ensuing world war was an escalation of this regional dispute between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Without the support of the Central Powers—especially Germany—Austria would not have dared to invade Russia. And without support from the Allied Powers, Russia would not have been able to resist Germany and Austria-Hungary alone. It was the interference of the two coalitions that ultimately resulted in global war.
Such huge confrontations would be less likely to occur between completely loose coalitions, since such coalitions would generally ignore the plight of their member states. On the other hand, close-knit coalitions would rarely allow such independent actions. Only semi-close coalitions are likely to be dragged into large-scale conflict due to the actions of certain member countries.
3. Free-State Coalitions Cannot Shoulder the Heavy Responsibility of Unification Transition
A coalition-based transition method relies on the coalition to strengthen the bond between countries and expand the scale of the coalition. Once the coalition has all members of the world as its members, and the members are closely united as one country, the unified society will become reality. If transition were dependent upon a free-state coalition, what would happen? Since free-state coalitions are always pluralistic alliances that expand continuously, the world would ultimately be split into two opposing coalitions. This is because in the course of global unification, countries will join coalitions due to two motives. Some will form a coalition to play a leading role in unification; these countries will be extremely powerful and large in scale. Others will join a coalition to protect themselves from being marginalized in unification; these countries will be small- or medium-sized countries of less power; therefore, the coalition for global unification will be dominated by major powers and participated in by small and medium-sized countries.
Not all major powers will gain leading roles in the process of unification, and not all smaller powers can be protected from marginalization. Those countries that are unable to receive the attention and benefits they desire will be crowded out from one coalition to form another coalition; thus, the relationship between various coalitions will always be competitive and antagonistic. This is the law of coalitions. As soon as global unification becomes generally accepted and the need for national coalitions starts to arise, various coalitions will rise up. These coalitions will all try to absorb as many new members as possible in order to guarantee a leadership position in the unified society.
If no large-scale wars break out during this period, changes will start to occur as national coalitions develop. The weaker coalitions will recognize their disadvantage and be absorbed into large coalitions. Alternatively, medium-sized coalitions of similar power will choose to merge together to form a new, stronger coalition. The two abovementioned situations may take place simultaneously and complement each other.
As coalitions continue to develop and mature through mergers and acquisitions, it is likely that two superpower coalitions will emerge, each occupying half of the globe. Both of these coalitions will hope to emerge as the dominant force in the crucial historical moment of global unification, and they will be locked in opposition as a result. At the same time, during their initial and intermediate stages, national coalitions will be semi-close in nature, because most countries will have joined the coalition to avoid marginalization. In reality, they will play a very small role. The coalitions will be dominated by very few countries. The leaders and peoples of most countries will not be happy to surrender full control and sovereignty to the national coalition, so they may give up portions of power gradually. Since the national coalitions will be eager to attract more members and retain existing members, they will not insist on absolute power transference right away. It will be some time before these national coalitions mature enough to have practical significance; the earlier national coalitions will only be semi-close in nature.
The above characteristics will increase the probability of conflict between coalitions. Since each coalition will have a massive number of members, escalated confrontation may very likely occur and even lead to global war. This world war may end up pitting one half of the world against the other, and all means of high-tech murder techniques could be employed. It would be a war of truly destructive power.
We can conclude that free-state coalitions may give rise to the possibility of a devastating world war. This is obviously contrary to our goal of achieving unification through peaceful transition. Free-state coalitions, therefore, are not the best option for the transition approach.
4. Conclusion: Absolute Superiority Can Prevent Mass Murder
Since free-state coalitions can easily lead to the outbreak of devastating world war, we must avoid the emergence of pluralistic coalitions. To do this, we must first eliminate the free alliance between countries; that is, we cannot allow countries to form coalitions at will. One central, singular coalition must be formed and further expanded on according to a strict timeline and a mature plan. This coalition will systematically absorb new members until it naturally transitions into a unified society.
The key to this idea is the limitation of free unification within a country-based society. Only a few specific countries can be allowed to form one singular coalition aimed at promoting global unification. Realistically, this approach will limit partial powers of most countries. Such an act has never been tested in history, since international organizations have never been powerful enough to do so. What kind of power would it take to accomplish such a feat?
All countries in NATO take orders from the United States, and the countries of the Warsaw Pact followed the lead of the Soviet Union. Both the United States and the Soviet Union had the absolute strongest strength within their respective camps.
In the Chunqiu period (also known as the Spring and Autumn Period) of China two thousand years ago, many states of various sizes existed spread in the Huaxia area. As the might of the Zhou dynasty diminished, the five most powerful states emerged. These five states respectively dominated China’s affairs in different periods and were known as lords among their peers. At the time, many countries did not heed the orders of the Zhou emperor, but they did not dare disobey the lords of the time. This shows that strength has always been the ultimate deciding factor in a country-based society.
Although international organizations like the League of Nations and the United Nations cannot control the actions of countries, the major powers of the world can. Many smaller countries can ignore the orders of the United Nations but must bow down before larger, more powerful nations. In NATO, France and Germany challenged the authority of the United States in succession, but only because they had each gained considerable strength of their own. In the socialist camp, China challenged the Soviet Union as well and eventually withdrew from the Soviet-centric camp. This was also because China had gained enough capital to be placed on equal footing with the Soviet Union.
Looking back on the issue of coalition pluralism, we can conclude that only an absolute power could be strong enough to prevent the free alliance of countries. Furthermore, this type of power can only come from countries. We are not speaking of one singular country; no country could possibly hold so much power. We are talking about a superpower coalition with strong political, military, and economic ties and consisting of the major powers of the world. This superpower coalition would be an uncontested giant in the world, and no other force on Earth would be able to challenge it. Even if challenges were leveled at such an entity, there would be minor resulting damage.
We know from history that any war with extreme disparities in strength will not result in large-scale casualties and losses. For example, there were only 130 casualties on both sides when the United States occupied Grenada in 1983, most of which were Cuban aid troops. The United States succeeded in occupying Grenada in only three days. In 1989, it took only four days for the United States to capture Panama and escort Panama’s president, Noriega, to await trial in the United States. Only three thousand casualties resulted on both sides and more than half of them were civilians. The 1991 Gulf War was considered a large war, but even then less than twenty thousand casualties were reported. In particular, the US-led multinational force lost less than one hundred people and took only forty-two days to force Iraq to withdraw its troops from Kuwait. These circumstances were all made possible by the absolute military, political, and economic advantages of the United States relative to the other countries involved.
In comparison, the Iran-Iraq war that took place between 1980 and 1988 resulted in far greater damage. As two medium-sized countries with similar power, Iraq and Iran were embroiled in war for over eight years. The war resulted in 2.5 million casualties and nine hundred billion dollars in war expenditures. In the end, neither party conquered the other, and the only result was that two oil-rich countries became poverty-stricken.
Both world wars were also confrontations between evenly matched powers. The confrontation between the Allied and Axis powers in World War II was particularly brutal and dragged half the world into the abyss of war. These two world wars caused unprecedented damage and casualties; the destruction to culture, society, and humanity is impossible to calculate. Countless historical events illustrate one truth: evenly matched confrontations will surely lead to extremely brutal wars, but conflicts between disproportionate powers will usually avoid excessive bloodshed.
This issue can be explained in the following way. When the gap of power is extreme, not only will the weaker party be more willing to surrender and obey, but the stronger power will often feel more merciful. This is similar to how a giant may choose to spare defenseless, vulnerable children. While matched powers will inspire competitiveness, absolute superiority can often inspire kindness and a desire for peace within countries and national coalitions. In order to ensure the peace and mutual inclusiveness between countries and national coalitions, power of absolute superiority is necessary.
We can conclude that one close-knit national coalition formed by the strongest powers in the world is necessary for successful global unification. This coalition must be strong enough to deter all other countries in the world from forming alliances freely, thus changing the free state of countries. This absolutely superior coalition is the only power capable of achieving peaceful transition to global unification through one singular alliance without any destructive war. We will refer to such an entity as the “absolutely superior coalition of countries,” or the “superior coalition” for short. Identifying and selecting a superior coalition is the most appropriate transitional approach towards global unification.