Only 25 years after the end of the Cold War, the Western-dominated global order is fading and our hopes that liberal democracy would spread and bring world peace are evaporating. 

While the West is increasingly preoccupied with its internal problems, threats to global peace have fundamentally changed: wars among nation-states and their alliances, once the dominant scourge of humankind, have almost disappeared and are replaced by a triple threat from intra-state armed conflicts, the failing of nation-states and the rise of belligerent non-state actors. The global peace we felt within our reach in 1991, is escaping us. 

Michael von der Schulenburg

On Building Peace
Rescuing the Nation-state and Saving the United Nations

On Building Peace seeks the answers that the UN Charter can no longer provide. Once meant as a guarantor for peace, the Charter was never designed to deal with intra-state conflicts and today its core principles are eroded. The book makes two rather simple, but possibly unpopular suggestions for preserving future peace: first, we must rescue the nation-state, not despite but because of globalization, and second, we must not further undermine the United Nations, but expand its Charter for dealing collectively with this triple threat.

The struggle for survival in a world of limited resources and environmental degradation will deepen intra-state conflicts. We must prevent slipping back into a new round of Cold War-type confrontations and focus on finding collective solutions for building peace. For the sake of billions of people of future generations, we cannot get this wrong.

https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789462984271/on-building-peace

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZoedYExYhM

Today I’ve got the great honour of talking to Michael von der Schulenburg, a German member of the European Parliament.

In his youth, Mr. von der Schulenburg escaped communist rule in East-Germany, then studied in Berlin, London and Paris, after which he started working for the United Nations, including as UN Assistant Secretary-General. He served in many of the world's trouble spots, such as in Haiti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and many more.

He also wrote the formidable book “On Building Peace: Rescuing the Nation-State and Saving the United Nations”. Unsurprisingly, he is also an outspoken critic of the belligerent politics the EU and its member states are currently engaged in.

SOME OF THE PROBLEMS WITH "LIBERAL DEMOCRACY" ARE THAT IT IS HARDLY LIBERAL WHEN TRYING TO IMPOSE ITS WILL VIA FORCE, GREED AND PLUNDER... THESE ARE THE ROOT CAUSES OF FAILURE...

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.