{"id":104347,"date":"2024-08-28T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/la-tentation-de-mars\/"},"modified":"2025-03-21T16:34:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T15:34:05","slug":"la-tentation-de-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/la-tentation-de-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"La Tentation de Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The period between 1945 and 1990 had a name: the Cold War. The third of a century that has passed since then has none, however. What Ghassan Salam\u00e9 asks is: Why? The explanation is that it is marked by two contradictory moments, the first consisting of promises of a more democratic, peaceful world, which globalization and the technological revolution were supposed to make multicultural and convergent; the second consisting of dashed hopes in the face of democratic backsliding, the rise of nationalism and identitarian sentiments, and transactional relations guided by political and diplomatic opportunism, outside the now-discredited UN regulatory framework. Will postmodern international relations, which some believed to be inspired by Venus, henceforth be under the aegis of Mars? At this pivotal moment in History, which of these two paths will tomorrow\u2019s world take?<\/h6>
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Salam\u00e9<\/span> Ghassan, La Tentation de Mars. Guerre et paix au XXIe<\/sup> si\u00e8cle [The Temptation of Mars: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century]<\/em>, Paris: Fayard, March 2024, 392 p.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n \n \n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \"\"\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n

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Salam\u00e9 is particularly well placed to take an objective look at the state of the world, where the countries of the \u201cGlobal South\u201d have recently been asserting themselves, driven by powerful anti-Western resentment and aspirations to influence the global system. As a professor of international relations at Sciences Po, a former minister of culture and education in Lebanon, and a diplomat at the United Nations, the author adds to his expertise and practical experience the lucidity and neutrality of a man from Lebanon, a country that is so close to the West without being part of it. In order to understand the world to come, he examines it from the angle of six factors that he considers to be sources of dashed hopes: democracy, globalization, the technological revolution, culturalism, the deregulation of force, and nuclear weapons. In his view, the changes we have observed are conducive to greater belligerence. But there is no such thing as inevitability!<\/p>\n

\u25d7 Democracy: There is no denying it: After having grown in number considerably over the course of the twentieth century, the number of democracies worldwide has been dwindling since 2006. Today, the world offers a wide range of political regimes, from those that explicitly reject the democratic model, such as China, to those that claim it without possessing its key attributes. As for the cradle of democracy, it is wavering under the influence of populism. The causes of this ebb and of the resilience of authoritarian regimes have been debated at length. There remains the question of the validity of the Kantian hypothesis, a guiding principle of the period between the 1980s and 2006, according to which democracies should not be inclined to wage war against each other. According to the author, this hypothesis holds only for the most stable of democracies, in which public opinion is a concern. Nations in transition are risk carriers, however. There is still the temptation for a hyperpower to launch a war to make the world \u201csafe for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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10 April 2024<\/div>\n PAGLIA Morgan<\/a>\n
\n 4 min.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
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\u25d7 Globalization: Is the interdependence that it causes\u2014that doux commerce<\/em> so beloved by Montesquieu and Kant\u2014likely to calm interstate relations, as neoliberals claim? Some think the opposite, insofar as dependence can either jeopardize a country\u2019s security and drive it to war to defend its interests, or force restraint on countries that, being more economically and energetically autonomous, could have prevented a conflict. Moreover, the \u201cexcesses\u201d of globalization have led to a succession of economic and financial crises. Inequalities have widened, both globally and locally, dividing the world into winners and losers and arousing growing hostility in public opinion. Through a partly justified confusion, this hostility variously fuels anti-European, anti-American, and populist sentiment, which necessarily runs counter to peaceful relations. Without coming to a decision, despite the arguments and counterarguments he puts forward, the author believes that globalization may not prevent conflict but does mitigate its risks.<\/p>\n

\u25d7 The technological revolution: Contrary to the hopes it raised for a convergent, inclusive world, more intersocial than interstate, it has undeniably contributed to creating new sources of conflict. Social conflict, first of all, through the fracturing of the world into hostile coteries, which have become all the more vicious as the commodification of content has encouraged hate. Second, interstate conflict, because mastery of the new information tools is one of the factors of power. As a result, it enables the digital giants to become fully fledged players in international relations. The author recalls the decisive role played by Elon Musk, via Starlink, at the start of the war in Ukraine. By fracturing societies, particularly over issues of identity, and increasing the number of players in international relations, the technological revolution has a direct impact on two other themes: culturalism and the deregulation of power.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n \n \"\"<\/a>\n <\/span>\n \n Un monde \u00e0 refaire<\/a>\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n
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27 October 2023<\/div>\n PAGLIA Morgan<\/a>\n
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\u25d7 Culturalism: The author defines this as a \u201ctendency to give precedence to cultural factors in determining the causality of political, economic, or social events.\u201d The phenomenon is cyclical, he observes, as the speed of global change increases and the major ideologies collapse. To study the link between the \u201cculturalist drift\u201d and conflict, Salam\u00e9 resorts to the related concept of civilization. In the singular, he explains, civilization is imperialistic. The West seized on it to justify its colonial wars, exporting human rights, democracy, and scientific rationality as universal values. In the plural, this concept refers to the \u201cclash of civilizations\u201d envisaged by Samuel Huntington,[1]<\/a><\/sup> which is essentially belligerent, and which the author disputes in part. Culturalism\u2019s main limitations include considering civilizations to be static entities, closed to any cross-fertilization; pretending to forget that civilizations are themselves marked by internal conflicts; and neglecting the fact that a recognized authority must exist to trigger a war. The author concludes that insofar as culturalism systematically denies universalism, it cannot be good for world peace.<\/p>\n

\u25d7 The deregulation of force: Despite a highly developed legal framework, built up in the twentieth century, and the beginnings of a dialogue between the great powers following the collapse of the USSR, a widespread tendency to resort to force continues, in defiance of international conventions. According to Salam\u00e9, responsibility for this lies indirectly with the United States, which, by bombing Iraq in 2003, against the advice of the United Nations Security Council, showed its contempt for international law and undermined the tacit rule that democracies do not launch preemptive wars. This \u201coriginal sin of the new deregulation of force\u201d has given rise to emulation between powers: Russia, humiliated by the loss of its status, concerned about former Soviet republics joining NATO, and encouraged by American ignorance of Security Council votes, is unscrupulously adopting a revisionist attitude; China, proud of its power, is asserting its freedom of regional action and, along with Russia, is constantly reminding us that the world order is by nature multipolar and that no state has the right to impose its will on others. Moreover, Russia, aware that it has reached a plateau in its growth, sees its window of opportunity closing and could rush into the use of force. This leaves all the other powers which, either out of a sense of insecurity (questioning American protection), or to reclaim a lost status, will not hesitate to strengthen their military resources or take up arms.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\u25d7 Nuclear weapons: In this climate of insecurity, and because nuclear weapons have, until now, protected the countries that possess them, the time for proliferation has come. According to the author, it is undeniable that the risk of nuclear weapon use has increased.<\/p>\n

The time for lasting alliances is over: make way for \u201cdiplomatic polygamy.\u201d The return of multipolarity\u2014which is the normal state of the international system, based on \u201cthe multiplicity of factors of power, their uneven and shifting distribution, and the diffusion of power to middle powers and non-state actors\u201d\u2014today translates into an order that is unstable, uncertain, and therefore conducive to conflict. Human beings nevertheless have a decisive role to play, and recognizing their importance helps to shatter the myth of inevitability.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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17 July 2024<\/div>\n PAPON Pierre<\/a>\n
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This article has been translated from French and edited Cadenza Academic Translations
Translator: Clair Ivins; Editor: Matt Burden; Senior editor: Mark Mello<\/span>r.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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    Huntington<\/span> Samuel P., \u201cThe Clash of Civilizations?\u201d, Foreign Affairs<\/em>, vol.\u00a072, no.\u00a03, 1993, p.\u00a022-49. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The period between 1945 and 1990 had a name: the Cold War. The third of a century that has passed since then has none, however. What Ghassan Salam\u00e9 asks is: Why? The explanation is that it is marked by two contradictory moments, the first consisting of promises of a more democratic, peaceful world, which globalization … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":97092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[203],"keyword":[996,1268,1000,896,906],"class_list":["post-104347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-read-seen-heard","tag-geopolitique-en","keyword-democratie-en","keyword-diplomatie-en","keyword-politique-internationale-en","keyword-relations-internationales-en","keyword-guerre-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104347"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104357,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104347\/revisions\/104357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104347"},{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=104347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}