The Arab Unemployment Time Bomb

Here is another reason to worry about the inevitability of Word War III:

quote:

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(AP) Jordan's Queen Rania has warned that rising unemployment among Arab youth is a "ticking time bomb" that has to be defused before it causes unrest.

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Rania says the number of unemployed people under 30 in the Middle East could increase from 15 million today to 100 million by 2020. The region already has the highest rate of youth unemployment in the world.

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At Sunday's gathering of Arab and international business leaders, Rania proposed making school curriculums more work relevant, encouraging innovative private-public employment partnerships and offering internship opportunities as ways to tackle the problem.

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And 2020 is less than 12 years away. I hope BHO makes good friends with Queen Rania and invests in her school curriculum proposal. It could save us a lot of $$$ and lives down the road.

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The first lesson of philosophy is that we may all be mistaken. ”Will Durant

Queen Rania fears a war, I think, maybe a global war. It's scary to recall that October 1929 was 79 years ago, fitting nicely with generational predictions that large-scale human affairs revolve roughly on an 80-year cycle.Can a global be far behind? I fear it can, but what do I know? My best guess, though, is that the war I fear most will be internal to the United States, and that it will be some awful class war again, but what do I know?I know this much: massive unemployment is a time bomb, and it's been about 70 years since Hitler invaded Poland. The next decade should be interesting times.

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The first lesson of philosophy is that we may all be mistaken. ”Will Durant

You DO bring up some interesting points, but my question is: Why so negative? Have you no faith in the evolution of the human animal?

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"All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."--C.S.Lewis
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“The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”--General Omar Bradley
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"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." -GK Chesterson

If not, i don't get the reference to WWIII.Unemployment IS high in the Middle East, there is, however, positive economic growth allover.

Faith? Well, if I had any faith in evolution I'd also have faith in extinction, and >99% of all species known to inhabit this planet have gone extinct.

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The first lesson of philosophy is that we may all be mistaken. ”Will Durant

Queen Rania didn't mention WWIII; that's my conjecture. But a hundred million unemployed Arab youth are not going to help prevent WWIII. My conjecture, for what it's worth, is based more on historic cycles that seem to repeat themselves. Just as we seem to coming up on the next Great Depression, we may also be cycling around to the next major war, if not a global one.

15 million to 100 million? Let's see what the population of the middle east is.According to this list by Wikipedia (List of Middle Eastern countries by population - Wikipedia) the total population is 315,138,706, or just greater than the United States. 15 million is 4.75% unemployment of the total population. Assuming no population growth, 100 million is 30% unemployment. Unfortunately, I don't really feel like trying to dig up the average rate of population growth for each country. However, in 12 years I highly doubt they'll add all that much to population (what, maybe 30 million maximum?).100 million is an extremely high number. Very few countries have reached a percentage of unemployed that high, never mind for a specific group.Maybe if the middle east had more democratic government such a situation could be more easily difused. You'll probably want to bring up the Wiemar republic as a case example of why that won't necessarily work, but the Wiemar republic had more against it than high unemployment (hyperinflation not matched by even Brazil in the 90s for one).No, arab unemployment won't lead to WWIII. It could lead to mass riots, the collapse of government in the region, and a severe security crisis, but not a world war. For that to happen the middle east would have to be a significant military power and politically stable. Most of the middle east is not a significant military power (though still painful thorns in the plans of neo-cons), and riots do not lend themselves to political stability.Tell me, have you actually thought through how high unemployment in the middle east could lead to WWIII, or are you just pulling stuff out of your ass?

Here is the out-of-my-ass reasoning I used: WWII was preceded by massive unemployment worldwide. It was part of the Great Depression and a signal of the coming world war. Add to that the 80-year generational cycle comprising a saeculum. Thus empowered, predicting WWIII by 2020 seems like a sure bet to me.

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The first lesson of philosophy is that we may all be mistaken. ”Will Durant

That does indeed seem to be Out-of-My-Ass reasoning.You seem to have no regard for reality or actual history what so ever.

WWII was the result of massive unemployment worldwide? Okay, if we run with that, why would massive unemployment in just the middle east lead to WWIII?True, WWII was preceded by the Great Depression, but that's not the sole cause of WWII. Look at Germany. What happened to Germany? Why did Great Britain get involved after the attack on Poland (after saying they wouldn't get into war over eastern europe again after WWI)?Personally, I don't see too many analguous situations.Germany was experiencing a massive depression and hyperinflation in the 1920s--when the rest of Europe and the US were roaring. Part of the cause for their depression was the indemnity payments stipulated by the Treaty of Versailles.Hitler's Nazi party found a great persuasive tool--hey Germans, that treaty is too unfair. We should undermine it. Let's build up our military to rescue our economy. When the rest of the world went into the GD, Germany was better off than it had been in the 20s. Germany was politically stable after Hitler took power.Hitler had another great persuasive tool. Hey Germans, how many of you live outside of Germany? Want in? Hitler was focused on expanding a germany for germans, thus his goal to claim the Sudetenland and other german-majority regions surrounding the state. Europe didn't exactly disagree.Okay, now we have a Germany for germans. But shit, how are we going to economically keep on growing? Hey, you know that Polish place? You know, those ethnically inferior polacks? What if we just took their country for our use? Lebensraum.Germany in 1939 was politically stable and militarily powerful. Its economy was better than the rest of the world (relatively, that is). Europe did not want war (remember Chamberlain?). Global unemployment and a Great Depression had little to do with the war. A severe depression in Germany in the 1920s had plenty to do with putting Hitler in power.But let's look at the Middle East. High unemployment. Varying degrees of political stability. Growing economies. Undemocratic governments. Weak state militaries. If unemployment skyrockets, look to the destruction of the Middle East political regime. Look to the end of one autocratic government and the creation of a second. Look for political instability. After all, it took Hitler six years after taking power before he actually declared war on Europe. It took more than a decade after the beginning of a severe German depression for them to manage a war against Europe. Which means that if 100 million are unemployed by 2020 we will not be looking at WWIII, but the reordering of local and regional politics and society. If they build up a strong military to rescue their economies and provide employment we might see wars.I honestly don't think we will. The Middle East of 2020 and now is nothing like Europe in the 1920s-30s.I wouldn't put too much faith in cycles either. Afterall, WWI and II were separated by two decades, and were completely different wars. And eighty years before WWII (1860s) Europe was fighting the Crimean and we the civil war, which had absolutely nothing to do with unemployment.Still, do you have any serious considerations for why a WWIII is coming? Or how it can? Or from where? If you want to use the unemployment shtick, I'd recommend actually showing how unemployment in the middle east will hit 30% and how this will drag us all to war.

Apart from extreme contemporary stresses, which are both historically common and unique, there is the question of historical cycles. Let me drawn from Strauss & Howe, going all the way back to America's Elizabethan roots and England's Armada Crisis:1588: The Spanish Armada Crisis”Spain's fleet tried to invade England and was decimated(101 years elapse)1689: The Glorious Revolution”a bloodless ascendance of Dutch monarchs William & Mary to the throne of England(87 years elapse)1776: The American Revolution”we all know how that turned out(85 years elapse)1861: The Civil War breaks out, a class war not unconnected to other such wars of the time(78 years elapse)1939: WWII breaks out, partly owing to the Great Depression(81 years elapse)2020: WWIII, by speculation on the cyclic forces of history (which, I'll admit, is about as risky as speculating on the stock market)What goes around comes around, ah?

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The first lesson of philosophy is that we may all be mistaken. ”Will Durant

You forgot WWI.
I'll do you one better.The Nordic Seven Years War (1563-1570)War against Russia (1581-83, 1590-95)War with Poland (1600-29)The Great Disorder in Russia (1603-1613)The Kalmar War against Denmark (1611-13)War against Russia (1613-17)The Thirty Years War (1630-48)The Swedish-Danish War (1644-45)The Swedish Polish War (1655-60)Swedish-Danish War (1657-58, 60)The Swedish Brandenburgian War (1674-75)The Swedish-Danish War (1676-79)The Great Nordic War (1700-1721)So obviously Sweden went to war every 5-10 years for 1.5 centuries. Now what the hell does that cycle have to do with anything? Nothing. Much as your Strauss and Howe link has to do with anything.Look me up once you've researched Kondratieff or Wallerstein cycles of hegemony. Even those cycles are a little suspect. Do you know why? Because as much as history has patterns and supposedly repeats itself, history in every instance is recognizably different and not inevitable. That's the great mistake people make in history--they treat the past as if it was the inevitable outcome, and project inevitability into and onto the future.Still, you haven't explained why a WWIII will come around 2020 from the Middle East other than unsatisfactory conjecturing and posturing. Where's the hard-hitting analysis? Or are you just chicken little?Edited by kuresu, : Got Wallerstein's name wrong. Had it spelled as Wallenstien.

Unless you've read their generational theory you wouldn't really follow what I'm saying. (And it's too much for this thread, anyway). Their books, especially The Fourth Turning, are convincing to me. I love to study natural and historical cycles. I can't speak for Swedish cycles, but I happen like what Strauss and Howe say about America's predictable destiny. If you don't like that kind of stuff then that's OK with me.

Vastly interesting move on China's part! I suspect BHO will do something like this. (Didn't the Germans do something like this after they repudiated the Weimar Republic?) Colonialism is over, and it's time to fix the homestead before it falls apart. Are we One World yet? Michael row your boat ashore and kumbaya? Or are we just getting ready for WWIII?”FTF

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I can see Lower Slobovia from my house.

After talking to Jar a lot and hashing out my ideologies (as representative of a class of thinking (or unthinking) U.S. citizens, I conclude that WWIII, if it ever happens, will be started essentially by us and will be due to loss of entitlement and financial dominance which the US has traditionally had in the world. We won't give up our position without a fight!