Future: Tense: The Coming World Order?

by Gwynne Dyer

The foundations of World War III are being laid today. American defeat in Iraq is only a matter of time, but how long it takes matters a lot. The fate of Iraq is a sideshow, the terrorist threat is a red herring, and the radical Islamists' dream of a worldwide jihad against the West is a fantasy, but the attempt to revive Pax Americana is real. American military power is not limitless, and the other big powers will not stand for US military domination...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0771029780
• ISBN13: 9780771029783
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Incredibly Informative ...

I have always been a fan of Dyer's columns in our newspaper that we get on the weekend (our little town doesn't even carry decent columnists, so we have to get our "real" news from a bigger newspaper from a bigger town an hour away from us). I have been reading Dyer since I was a young girl. My dad and husband are fans of his writings too. In fact, my dad lent us this book and throughout this entire book, I kept telling my husband that he really really needs to read this. Just recently, Bush announces his intentions in keeping a military base in Iraq. Dyer mentioned this in this book written three years ago. Just recently, there are a series of actions and speeches that was "predicted" in this book three years ago. It is eerie to read something that resonates in today's series of events and realize that Dyer had foreseen some of this years ago. I am not making Dyer out to be a prophet or anything like that ~~ but he seems to be the most clear-sighted journalist out there right now (especially more so since Molly Ivins have passed on). When I read this book, there was a lot of "a ha!" moments that I very rarely get while reading about current affairs. Usually, I end up feeling more confused than I did when I first read a book. Not this time. Dyer explains a lot in this little book that is just chock-full of information, quotes, instances and ideologies. First, he explains what Islamist is and how similar it is to the Fundamentalists in Christianity ~~ except Muslims don't have the same word for Fundamentalists that we have in our language. He then explains the Islamist viewpoint (which most Muslims do not share). He explains bin Laden's goals. He explains the neo-conservatives' goals. He goes over the history of the world in the last 60 years. He explains briefly the history of civilization of the last 6,000+ years and how it changed the course of the world. Like a lot of the reviewers, I had a hard time buying the neoconservatives' explanations for attacking Iraq. I thought at first maybe it was for the oil, but it just didn't jive with everything else. I knew it wasn't going after Saddam because of "what he said about my daddy" ~~ it was too juvenile. (Then again, anything can go nowadays, I guess.) When Dyer explains the Reagan administration, the first Bush administration and the current administration ~~ it all started to make sense. Combine that with the history of the previous world wars and the United Nations formation ~~ it is all starting to make sense. I am not sure why this book isn't touted more in the public view. Dyer isn't writing like a madman spouting off things ~~ in fact, his book is very reasonable. He writes with precision and with a world view that not necessarily is anti-American, but just with a much different perspective and a much clearer foresight than we Americans are getting from our own media and government. I didn't get the impression that the world thinks we're dumb Americans ~~ there is just a perplexed vi

Thoughtful and Concise

This is a thought-provoking analysis of the current world political situation in which the US has decided to go their own way and claim that the UN is slipping into "irrelevance". Even if you don't believe or agree with all the ideas in this book, it is very effective at opening one's mind to the possibilities. Unfortunately, the conclusions are rather frightening and depressing and I don't see much hope coming from the present US government or popular opinion. But this book helps explain what is happening now with historical context that you simply won't find in the mass media. Highly recommended.

Realism meets Classic Liberalism in International Affairs

Gwynne Dyer is an excellent example of a person with tremendous experience of international relations and an uncommon grasp of the broad sweep of history. When he turns his sights on events in Iraq his clear and clean non-ideological logic sees some pretty harrowing things: 1) The war on terror was never part of the agenda in Iraq. It was all about a small clique of neo-conservatives ideologues in the Bush administration that, for the first time had the ability to inflict their vision on universial American dominance on the world, irrespective of the needs and analysis of other countries and contrary to the norms of international law developed since WWI. 2) The Bush administation played directly into the hands of Al Queada by invading a sovereign nation that was no direct threat to the US (iraq), making America the bogeyman of international politics and the perceived oppressors of the Arabs. 3) That Americans have little ability to see that their place in the world has changed: it is no longer the dominant economy and it is no longer the shining beacon of freedom. New countries Russia, and Indonesia and even China are finding the path to a rough democracy. They all are doing it by themselves, they have had no help from America, nor do they require it -- why is Iraq different. 4) That unilateral action of the US undermines the norms of international order build up since WWI and central to any notion of stability in the new century. It is this future stability that is directly threatened by the actions of the US in Iraq. Since the US economy cannot support a war of Pax Americana for a long duration and the US electorate can only tolerate small casualties, the US will inevitably be forced from this unilateral stance in the long run to either isolation and withdrawal from international institutions. The only real question Dyer admits is how much damage will the US and its quest for Pax Americana do to the system of international laws before they are forced to either be isolated or allow themselves to be taken more within the international order of nation states supporting the UN and the rule of law? Sooner is better than later -- hence American needs to lose this war in Iraq. Dyer says that it is in the interests of the world that the US lose the war in Iraq sooner rather than later. It is up to the world to help bring the US back into the international order by offering her a way out of Iraq with inducements and an expanded role for the UN in Iraq, and other hot spots around the world. Dyer is really spot-on much of his analysis, but there is a really troubling point about this book: his cold lucid, non-ideological analysis is something that the rest of the democratic world considers a norm, but it is a style that is absent from the name calling, paranoid world of US Political Culture (if you disagree with me you must be a liberal of a conservative. This is a society where these two honourable terms have been turned into profane names b

Great eye opener

Taking the time to base his arguments in historical context, laying out his logic carefully, Dyer outlines the threat of a new world order that closely resemble Orwell's "1984". He offers a simple prescription to avoid an escalation of unilateralism and the demise of the UN: the USA must leave Iraq now. I have often defended the actions of the Bush administration to my Canadian friends but this book has convinced me that I have to reconsider my position. Those wishing to have an informed opinion on US foreign policy will find this book useful.