Notes on Chaos: Draft Political Treatises

The theory of chaos has hitherto been pursued in the natural sciences. However, it may illuminate some issues in the social sciences too.

1. Introduction ¶1. Politics as well as social change in the early 21 st century have taken a dramatic turn towards instability, change and uncertainty, i.e. towards chaos. ¶2. This may be observed in domestic politics in several countries as well as in international politics in many domains. ¶3. The overwhelming fear among citizens and inhabitants is that the idea of progress has played out its role: "Things will never be the same!" ¶4. The most profound anxiety for the developments in the 21 st century stems from climate change that may wash mankind from the surface of Planet Earth. ¶5. But there are many concerns: collapse of Islam internally, the growth of Euro Islam, the threat of nuclear confrontation in East Asia, the withdrawal of the US from international solidarity, the new imperialism of Russia, the resort to new search for the old nationalism as well as surging populism and the decline of the Left, especially Social Democracy, the politicians' opportunism. ¶6. I will bring up global warming last, because it is the most lethal source of chaos. It is now unstoppable. ¶7. The social sciences must start modeling real events with chaos theory, dealing with cataclysmic events and developments (Gleick, 1988). ¶8. Chaos theory was inspired in the 1960s by Lorenz (1969), who was studying equations applied to climate. He found that a system of three differential equations, coupled with a positive feedback and a negative feedback, could not 2. The Koranic Civilization ¶1. a. Fort the first time in history, the Shias have the upper hand against the Sunnis. The Arab League appears powerless against the Shias strongholds: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, as well as to some extent Qatar. ¶1. b. No reliable statistics exists on the proportion of Sunnis and Shias in the Muslim civilization. If Turkey is added, then we must also separate between different kinds of Shia as well as of Sunnis. India has probably an equal division of Sunnis and Shias but the Shias are often Ismailia's, or seveners. It is stated that the number of Sunnis is much larger than the number of Shias-80-90 percentages against 20-10, but it is likely an underestimation of the Shias, who may be Twelvers, Seveners and Fivers as well as the Shiites in Turkey. ¶1. c. The conflict between Sunnis and Shias has always been there in the Koranique civilization, but it has risen to alarming heights, with the stand-off between Saudi Arabia and Iran. ¶1. d. Civil war in the giant Muslim civilization wreaks havoc everywhere; first the Al Qaeda and the IISIS against moderate Sunnis and all Shias; now the confrontation between Sunnis and Shias, involving incredible cruelty-see Yemen. ¶1. e. The ISIS will kill more people by terrorist tactics, but a major confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran would bring gigantic misery to Arabs and Parses. In addition, the Kurdish problem remains unresolved, as always. The Kurds constitute a nation, and they are generally moderate Sunnis. ¶1. f. The outcome of the civil wars in the Moslem civilization has been a dramatic rise in death from domestic violence and countless casualties among civilians, especially women and children. Why would Muslim leaders tolerate and even support this dire development the last two decades? The Koranic predicament is reminiscent of Christianity with the struggle between Catholics, Protestants and sects. It came to nothing but sorrow. ¶1. g. The destruction of Syria and Yemen testifies about the complete absurdity of civil war in our time when conflicts can be brokered by peaceful means, like voting and bargaining. The collapse of Iraq followed the Allied Invasion: Operation Iraqi Freedom-the mistake of mistakes. The goal of removing Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, was to make Israel safer, said a French Arab specialist.
Look at the outcome now with Shia hegemony. ¶2.c. Eliminating or badly hurting religious opponents became a daily or nightly preoccupation in the Moslem countries, from Algeria over Turkey to Indonesia, from Nigeria to Somalia. Religious violence is counter-productive and its grand scale has weakened the Muslim civilization severely and hurt even the Koranic belief-system. ¶2. d. Koranic faith puts no limits to killing, just as Christian faith in history was extremely lethal in its consequences of dissent and opposition. Compare with Buddhist sects, where killing is forbidden and hardly occurs. Why cannot Sunnis and Shias live side by side?

Why Kill and
¶2. e. With Christian developments in fresh memory, why turn the Middle East into Germany of the 30 years' war period? Religious or sectarian conflicts tend to remain indecisive, just causing misery and sorrow, like for the Yemeni children without milk. Are they infidels, deserving death from starvation? ¶2. f. Although the conflict between Sunnis and Shias data back to the death of the Prophet, recent surge in Islamic violence has to do with the rise of fundamentalism in the 20 th century, with 3 men: Mawdudi, Qutb and Faraj. They inspired the AL Qaeda as well as the ISIS, theologically, philosophically and ideologically. They argue that true Islam can be distilled and practiced in today's world. They were completely wrong.
¶2. g. The 3-Maududi, Qutb and Faraj-initiated the process of political chaos in the Muslim civilization, including Northern Africa.
¶2. h. There is NO ONE SINGLE ISLAM. Koranic belief is divers, as with all world religions. What the Prophet revealed is not known with certainty, and the Koran was forthcoming late after his death. It is open to different reasonable interpretations, and the messages are sometimes abstruse or even contradictory, pending between ALLAH the merciful and ALLAH the revenger. ¶2. i. The problem of Theodicy poses major difficulties for Islam. How come ALLAH does not intervene to save the innocent Muslims who die from civil war and terrorism? He is believed to be all mighty, but he stays away, silent/Does he regard Shias as infidels? Who knows? ¶2. j. The belief in all mightiness is impossible to reconcile with the new theory of the universe. When we have trillions of suns and planets, why would Planet Earth matter? How could ALLAH control the incredible forces operating in the universe? ¶2. k. Religious beliefs constitute stories or tales, nothing more. People adhere to them because they make up their culture, their ways of life and believing. But people want a peaceful message to adhere to, so that they can get on with their lives on a daily basis. The conflicts with Islam are fundamentally meaningless. ¶2. l. The books and pamphlets by Mawdudi, Qutb and Faraj stimulated people like al-Zawahiri and al-Zarqawi to commit crimes against humanity and the Muslims. They also were spread by the Muslim Brotherhood. Open Journal of Political Science ¶2.m. In his civilization enquiry, underlining the world religions, Maw Weber called Islam "a religion of warriors", explaining its incredibly fast spread from Spain to India. This identification of the Muslim virtuosi was an expression of orientalism, which could please only the fundamentalists Sunni or extremists Shias. ¶2.n. To Weber (1978), Islam is like Judaism and Christianity an "other-wordly" religion ("jenseitig"). Since ALLAH is all mighty on Judgement Day, why kill or wage war in this world ("dieseitig"), the inner-world that is strictly finate? 4. Growth of Euro Islam ¶3. a. The internal chaos in the Muslim civilization has a counter-part in Europe, where the substantial Moslem groups challenge the established order of nation-states. ¶3. b. The Moslems are now so numerous in several European countries that the party system has been plunged into chaos. ¶3. c. The arrival of millions of immigrants, many Moslems from Africa, Arabia and Central Asia, has provoked a strong voter reaction, focusing upon the nation. Thus, nationalism is back with a vengeance. So-called populist parties have sprung up in almost all countries amidst much higher voter volatility. ¶3. d. The new populism is a mixture of protest phenomena: anti-immigration, anti-partitocrazia, but it is hardly fascism. The Left has difficulties finding a proper response to populism, Social Democracy declining in some countries chaotically. ¶3. e. Party politics does not fit the classical Lipset and Rokkan model-"frozen party systems in Western Europe". Instead, elections are hard to predict and earthquake outcomes may happen in several election. ¶3. f. Regionalism has crushed the myth of European Union identity with its nation-states members. The UK leaves the EU under chaotic form. And a province in Spain claims human rights for its demand for secession, meeting sympathy in Antwerp, Scotland and Lombardy. ¶3. g. One may await the formation of Islamic political parties in Europe, with explosive implications. In both France and Germany, the Moslems are so numerous that they could change the dominant Western culture in these secular nations. ¶4. a. The election of Donald Trump as US president has increased uncertainty in international relations, leading to the brake up of institutions that stabilized world politics. The space left from US withdrawal, initiated by president Obama, has rapidly been filled by Russia, conducting a more aggressive foreign policy, and by China, exporting its successful economic model of market socialism to Africa and Central Asia.

Decline of the US and Public International Law (PIL)
¶4. b. As the international order among sovereign states is weakly institutionalized, it runs the risk of anarchy. Public international law has expanded much since the end of the Second World War, but its enforcement is still precarious.
J.-E. Lane Open Journal of Political Science ¶4. c. World politics constitutes a Hobbesian jungle without rules that are stably respected. International anarchy should be tamed by normativity, i.e. rules by institutions like NAFTA, NATO, EU and the UN. But the enforcement of these institutions and their rule making is problematic or hardly fully probable.
¶4. d. The US is now destabilizing several global or regional institutions like e.g. the COP21 Treaty without contributing anything positive to replace them. US nationalism is likely less effective internationally than US participation in institutions and supporting multilateralism.
¶4. e. Goldsmith & Posner (2006) claim that public international law is radically different from domestic/national law, especially in lacking the property of being binding, Goldsmith and Posner state: "The book rejects the traditional explanations of international law based on legality, morality, opiniojuris, and related noninstrumental concepts." ¶4. f. They provide an instrumental account of when and why nations use international law, when and why they comply with it, and when and why international law changes." (Goldsmith & Posner, 2006: 463) (https://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/126.pdf) ¶4. g. The concept of validity-opinio juris-is a prominent element in the concept of law. Is it really true that domestic law or national law could be binding at the same time as public international law is not? When speaking about the nature of law, one often encounters the idea that law is a set of rules that are en- ing mankind. Yet, its claim to universal validity has been a serious issue of contention (Goldsmith & Posner, 2006, Posner, 2009). ¶4. j. One finds reminiscences of the classical antimony in the debate on PIL (realism against moralism), as it has evolved after the Great War (Besson & Tasioaulas, 2009;Dunoff & Trachtman, 2009;Klabbers, 2009;Crawford & Koskenniemi, 2012;Posner, 2009). The augmentation of normativity along with the Open Journal of Political Science process of globalisation has led to a debate about the pros and cons of global constitutionalism (Krisch, 2011;Dobner & Loughlin, 2012). But the recent US change on PIL has stopped the growth in normativity in international relations. ¶4. k. The PIL framework has advanced slowly by means of the principle of "muddling through".
The PIL is not planned or designed as a whole set of rules.
Instead it has expanded in scope and range in an incremental fashion. It    Open Journal of Political Science ¶6. i. Socio-economic determinism will seal the fate of mankind, as rich countries and emerging economies will not relinquish economic growth. World population is set to add 2 more billions: How to feed? Energy is the source of economic affluence, but how to access energy without GHGs? ¶6. j. With 90 per cent of energy coming from fossil fuels, and a further 29 per cent increase in energy demand is in the cards, how can the COP21 Treaty goals be fulfilled? Countries can renege at any time, stating they cannot make it for economic or developmental reasons. The COP21 club is a common pool regime (CPR) that is in reality an ocean PD game with an omni present temptation of defection. President Macron wants other countries to pick up the contribution of the US, meaning that US defection was ration (1-N problem). China or India may not wish to make an enormous sacrifice on socio-economic development by cutting 30 per cent of emissions (1/N problem). ¶6. k. The decarbonisation policies will not achieve the 3 major goals. Instead, the UNFCC would have to take more drastic steps, whatever the consequences for economic growth: 1) Eliminate coal fired power entirely;

Strategies of Russia and China
2) Build more nuclear power plants, safer ones; 3) Do not take out existing atomic power stations but improve them; With this energy mix, Poland is a major contributor to global GHGs. It should change before December 2018. ¶7. c. Germany also employs much coal too, despite its Energiewende-see   i.e. total climate chaos is to rely upon solar energy and use electrical vehicles. Referring to the giant solar power station, Quarzazate as benchmark, Table 1 shows what is necessary for decarbonisation now up to 2030. ¶ 7. e. If or when the COP21 approach fails, each country will have to rely upon resilience, or the capacity to handle the climate change repercussions. Resilience varies very much, as a country e.g. Bangladesh and Vietnam or Kiribati and Fiji or the Saharan countries, has little of resilience.
¶ 7. f. Resilience helps to ward off the worst global warming effects, like rising sea level, hurricanes, typhoons, famine, etc. But as climate change grows into full scale chaos, not even much resilience will do.
J.-E. Lane Open Journal of Political Science global chaos. ¶ 7.i. It is time to stop the meaningless killing and destroying in the Koranic world, from Nigeria to Afghanistan, as well as time for peaceful interaction in the Korean peninsula and Myanmar. All efforts should be concentrated upon anti-global warming policy-making and implementation. ¶ 7.j. The making and implementation of anti-global warming policy should not rest upon the UNFCCC-transaction cost heavy framework, but with the G20 group of nations, responsible for more than 70 per cent of CO 2 emissions. ¶ 7.k. The COP21 project amounts to nothing but all too weak international coordination, and it neglects the coming methane emissions.