The circumstances of revolutionary events brought with the celebration of the new year January 1st, 1991 a sense of a new pragmatism in solving problems.   The concept of a “new world order”, was presented, in which the world, now fundamentally connected by the progressing information revolution, would settle its differences on a rational political, scientific,  and economic basis, shepherded by the two in tune-super powers, the Untied States and the Soviet Union, and with the peaceful assistance of the emerging economic super powers of Germany and Japan.  The progressive collapse of power of the Soviet Union following the dissolution of Soviet dominated eastern Europe and its post World War II Warsaw Pact military arm, however, made the reality on the ground of a U.S. superpower dominant in a multi-polar world.

Like all considerations for an ideal cooperative spirit, there was some tidying up to do.  The U.S. had used the new world order concept to achieve a spectacular alliance comprised of such disparate participants as Syria and Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, France and Great Britain, to eject Saddam Hussien’s Iraqi forces from Kuwait. After an unprecedented “smart bomb” air campaign, 100 hours of on the ground power in February was sufficient to get the job done, and the United States looked to link this spectacular triumph at the Madrid Conference to finally achieve a comprehensive world solution to the Palestinian – Israeli conflict.

It turned out of course the world was not ready for leaving behind its calamitous martial past for a more cooperative future.   The final dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 left the United States without a state foil, and the many countries reliant on the USSR for support without a “protector” on the world stage.  The result of collapse of a bipolar checks and balances has left the world with twenty years of a new reality, economic instability and bloody local conflicts, and 2013 will likely see the culmination of all that has been wrought in A New World Disorder.

The mistake was likely the idea that the world’s societally under developed nations would accept the concept of ‘Roman citizen’ to the United States as Rome (no matter how understanding this Rome would be).  The two pronounced examples of the collapse of the theorem was the presentation of the Palestinian Israeli conflict solvable in a negotiated fashion.  The aforementioned Madrid conference of 1991 saw Israel and Palestinian representatives seated at the same table, and following secret direct Palestinian Israeli talks, the infamous Oslo accords.  No handshake between former avowed enemies  was going to break the radicalization of the conflict now that balanced super power restraint was absent, and the radicals abhorrent of the idea of rational progress and enamored with the idea of Islamic triumphalism saw their historic opening.  From the duplicitous Arafat’s own Intifada to Bin Laden’s orgiastic terror tidal wave to Hussein’s Iraqi Armageddon in the desert, the lack of world order mechanisms to suppress the worst was absent.  No comprehensive grand alliance or respect for UN resolutions, so much a tenet of the new world order, were available to the second George Bush to remove Saddam Hussein in 2003.  Rather, the cumulative world response to the horrors of 09/11 were empty rhetoric, allies who sought to undermine the U.S. , and a feeble and friable ‘coalition of the willing’.   The equally spectacular destruction of Hussien’s forces and eventual capture and eradication of Hussein and ultimately Bin Laden, has led to none of the hopes of the post-conflict new order theoreticians like Francis Fukuyama, Strobe Talbot, and Brent Skowcroft.

The world as it now exists is a far cry from the hopes and aspirations of the forward thinking leaders of post cold War 1991.  The United States in its role as the modern Rome is the Rome of 379 AD, and  President Obama the modern re-incarnation of Emperor Theodosius I.  Theodosis sought to put  Rome’s outlying responsibilities into the hands of forces who saw each abdication of responsibility as another indication of Rome’s terminal illness.  Internally directed by progressively weakened infrastructure, finances, and collapse of will for the burdens of global direction,  our Theodosis has put forth the oxymoronic concept of “leading from behind”  and the gaping hole that is left is being rapidly filled with the modern Visigoths, Islamic radicals.  The premature withdrawal of U.S. forces by Obama from Iraq, has left the hard won stability of 2007 in tatters, and the radicals again on the rise.  The carefully orchestrated leadership of the first President Bush to achieve a peaceful dissolution of the Warsaw Pact is in stark contrast to the epic fail of the Obama administration to shepard the Arab Spring, leading to the catastrophic handling of Libya epitomized by Benghazi, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the calamitous  destruction in Syria.   The over 50,000 casualties in Syria with no end in site is the pie’ce de resistance of the end of the dream of the new world order concept to solve the world’s disharmony.  A United States true to its need to lead from behind has no influence on the conflict.  Russia, living the fallacy of former capacities in backing the Assad regime, can only watch its death troughs.  The egos and pride of the regional powers of Turkey and Iran are progressively, personally and dangerously tied to the outcome, and Israel watches from its border as the calamity will inevitably involve them.

The result of twenty years of  ineffective diplomatic and collective will accompanying a United States in decline has lead to the vortex of global danger in the Syrian conflict, and 2013 may see the world unable to control its inevitable conclusions. Theodosis I proved to be the last Emperor of Rome as a unified confederation, and the world was hurled into a thousand years of turmoil and rejection of the concept of citizen and civilization.  The pull of history to revisit itself is strong, and the seeds for real chaos is out there.  Watch Syria in 2013. The world’s rational impulses may be put to ultimate test in the 5000 year home of the land of Sargon.