The Most Profound Revolution in World Affairs in Almost Four Centuries (from Bloomberg 8 Sept. 2014)

Toxic Stew of New Technology, Old Hatreds in World Crises - Bloomberg (excerpts)

...The crises that dominate today’s news -- Ukraine, Islamic State, Libya, Ebola, Gaza, cyber-attacks -- are symptoms of the most profound revolution in world affairs in almost four centuries.

A toxic stew of new technologies, old hatreds, eroding boundaries, tattered alliances, environmental dangers and independent groups are making the world more interconnected and less stable at an accelerating rate, forcing the U.S. and other nations to re-invent their approaches to defending their borders, populations and economies.

“We need to look at the world as it is, not as it used to be,” 

Epochal events of the past century, from two world wars and the Holocaust to the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and China’s emergence on the world stage, all have taken place within the architecture of nation-states.

Kissinger and others say that swelling urban populations, masses of underemployed youth, dwindling food and water supplies and social media’s quicksilver connections are eroding the western European, state-based system that was ushered in 366 years ago next month by the Peace of Westphalia.

“When you look at the world today, there are whole countries where there are 60 percent of the population under the age of 30, 50 percent under the age of 21, and 40 percent under the age of
18,” Secretary of State John Kerry said at the State Department in Washington on Sept. 3.

“We know that all of these young people in today’s interconnected globalized world, with the media that’s available to them -- just look at the numbers in sub-Sahara Africa of young people walking around with smartphones -- they don’t have a job, they don’t have an education, but they’re connected,” Kerry said.

“We know that all of them are, as a result, demanding opportunity and dignity,” he said. “We also know that a cadre of extremists -- nihilists, people like ISIL -- are just waiting to seduce these people into accepting the dead end.”

…“The economic system has become global, while the political structure of the world remains based on the nation-state,” … “Economic globalization, in its essence, ignores national frontiers.”...