Welcome to World War III.

Welcome to World War III.   First the good news.  

The ‘Grand Coalition’ of 65 nation states against ISIS demonstrates that when the world is threatened, nations can come together to counter it.   ISIS is a doomsday cult that has recruits from over 100 nations.   Luckily, the grand strategy that its own leader engineered into its structure contains the seeds of its own destruction -- suicidal mass murders and horrific injustices.  It will inevitably be left in the dust bin of history like every other doomsday cult and megalomania murderous ideology.  It could take decades, but it’s going down.

The bad news however is potentially very bad.  It might take us with it.  While ISIS is doomed, our freedom loving care free lives in the civilized world has largely ended.  The increasing loss of our privacy and freedom of movement, as well as our sense of security, will never fully recover.  We can also expect the loss of thousands, perhaps millions, of ‘innocent’ lives globally before ISIS bites the dust.  Maybe tens or hundreds of millions if ISIS finds, makes, or buys WMD (nuclear, chem, bio, cyber…) before the Grand Coalition can terminate all of its tech savvy minions.  

The really, really bad news is twofold.  First, ISIS won’t be the last global terrorist entity.  And, the tactic of terrorism is certainly not the only category of threat we face.  Global warming, wars between nations, pandemics, solar fare EMP events, asteroids and other threats will continue to happen.  And we remain unprepared, with virtually no planning even started for our common defense.

Second, world political leaders persistently fail to learn from their ‘grand mistake’ of the past.  Wars beget wars.   And justice is the only remedy.  A report this summer by the ‘Commission on Global Security, Justice and Governance’ detailed the enduring connection between injustice and insecurity.  The two word summary of this detailed report is ‘just security’.  World leaders should quickly embrace the recommendations of this Commission coauthored by one of our nation’s own foreign policy experts, former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright.

Definitely, justice is a function of law.  And most rational people believe that any law that doesn’t protect the inalienable rights of individuals is an unjust law.  This December 10^th will be the 67^th anniversary of the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’.  It is a special day that acknowledges this profound idea -- that the primary purpose of government is to protect both the freedoms and the security of its citizens.   This thoughtful document was drafted and unanimously passed after the horrors of World War II.  Eleanor Roosevelt championed it.  World leaders then failed to make it enforceable.  This set the stage for Cold War, which spawned the Global War on Terrorism.  Until nation states put the protection of human rights above the rights of nations to do whatever they like, whenever they like, to whomever they like, ‘we the people’ will never know the true meaning of freedom and security.   

The insanity of the supremacy of national sovereignty in running world affairs was enshrined in the UN Charter.  It gave freedom, not to ‘we the people’, but only to nation states. To this day they retain the freedom to rescind the rights and freedoms of ‘we the people’ if its leader so desires.  This flaw will likely be the end of civilization.  

Albert Einstein was once asked ‘what weapons would be used to fight World War III’.  He wisely responded, “I don’t know. But I do know that World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”.   Let us get off the war path.  And begin building global democratic institutions that effectively prevent and deter the violation of the most fundamental human rights.  The right to life, liberty and justice - for all.