Often an individual’s ambition for power translates into a country going to war. How has the power struggle evolved until today, or until the Trade War?
After the nuclear discovery, the power shaped into the scientific competition - or the cold war. Scientific inventions held the power, because it created the credibility that another party might attack and potentially win an absolute war. Therefore, scientifically more advanced country created a credible threat. The fear held the power, but equally it caused societies to live in terror that one day it might happen!
Then, this fear paved the way for ideas of peace and love. When walls of terror and separation were teared down, the power reshaped into the form of freedom. Namely, free movement of people, goods and cooperation to create advantages in the new economy for peace. A few years after, we proudly named it “the globalization”. The power was in the country’s ability to access as more markets as possible to maximize its economic power. Although borders were blurring, some countries had the power of production – as China, while others the power of consumers – as the USA. These and other global states were becoming more powerful in their own way.
Every now and then, the war or peace shifts the power from one form into other. For the past 100 years the power has taken four different shapes. It shifts whenever too many parties hold equal power. As it stems from the paradox:When everyone holds the power, – nobody actually does! Then, a new criteria for the power develops to regain the dominance over the perceived value.
The trade war today is a trial of bringing the power back home, drawing up borders that blurred and setting up walls that once got teared down. It’s power draws from the left overs of weapons, science, economic globalization to damaging each other’s trade.
There might be many questions for the past, but the one I have for the future -
What kind of war will be the cure for the consequences of the Trade War today?
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