The series of ideas of Peter Frankopan from his three books directs from the central thesis of the economic silk road of the past and up to today’s modern trade policies and agreements. In my previous blogs I always made his narratives as my references to my topics in terms of the new silk road economy that China is always eager to reconnect Europe, Asia, and the West in terms of economic mobility. There are so many academic literatures discussing about the cultures inside the route of the Silk Road but the narratives of Peter Frankopan cover the natural environment of the Silk Road region and the evolution of culture, education, science, and the natural resources around the region. In this sense, Frankopan’s ideas towards the future of the silk region is but relevant to the geopolitical challenges that are occurring at present and the probabilities of the future of the silk road region. In his book the “The Earth Transformed” covers the economic probabilities of the region considering the moving variables of nature, culture, education and the advancement of science.
In the first part of the book Frankopan discussed the evolution of men and the philosophical religious beliefs of the said culture of that time. As mankind’s desire to know its origins from the cosmic, Frankopan even quoted the bible in Genesis 1:1 to embrace the philosophical belief of mankind and the evolution of the natural habitat in the region. The change of climate during that early years of our earth had made mankind drive the intelligence of humans to create scientific inventions that made humans survive until today. Old volcanic eruptions during that time (c.4.5 bn-c.7m BC) allow the mapping of the region changed. The event of Great oxidation made life during that time harder for travelers and farmers to survive with their economic knowledge and technology. Having said that, the evolution of mankind also evolved in parallel with the evolution of the environment. During the Ordovician period, 444 the sudden cooling created the tectonic shifts that created the Appalachian Mountains. The sharp fall of temperature initiated the evolution of animals in the ocean that most of the planktonic and nektonic species also adjusted the congruency between the organism at sea and the ocean habitat as a whole.
Some survived, and some vanished like the dinosaurs but the given fact that humans and its ecosystem that comprises the whole economic heartbeat of global economy is still existing until today. Many challenges of many Kingdoms in the history of the silk road relates to the chaotic event in the region that are related to ecological catastrophes that causes economic geopolitical discontent resulting to many wars in the silk road. What Frankopan is trying to suggest in his academic writing is the relationship of ecology, human survival, and the desperate war of the world. His previous writings also suggest that if the intelligence of humanity cannot neutralize the global dilemma in terms of climate change then there is a probability that mankind will vanish in this earth. To give an example of this philosophical and hypothetical idea, from chapter 21-24 the book focused in our modern understanding of climate change and the use of our education and applied science as a whole to survive as human beings. The “bottleneck” of addressing the ecological challenges of our times is in the legal chambers of our world governments. The practice of science and the scientist are all clear and concrete with their data collections to address the exact and real time situation of our global aging dilemma that human survival is attached to the consequences of our aging environment.
But governments are compromised with so many ideals that is so unrealistic to the definitions of the academics and the scientists. So many scientific evidences that Frankopan wrote in his narrative according to time and the overall history of mankind. But one of the concerning scientific evidence that Frankopan used that even the campaign of UN and Mr. Leonardo de Caprio is addressing many years already is the constant rise of water temperature. Given this ocean temperature problem what is very clear and alarming that most of our earth’s occupied space is not the dry land but the ocean or the water. Thus, food and agriculture is the first to be affected at this time that human science and intelligence related to agriculture must address before hand. This is not an overnight cure of diplomatic power to address the problem but it requires a long planning and collaborative action from the overall human society. UN is just very slow to address these policies knowing that it is global and our national policies are always contradicting to each other that many wars already since the start of our civilization killed massive number of humans since World War 1 and 2 and the many wars in between. These political conflicts resulting to war shows the impasse of human intelligence related to politics and economics. But on the contrary war also brought some of the national economies during World War 1 and 2 into an economic revolution that to give an example after World War 2 the economy of United States of America created a massive global economic performance in terms of industrial production. After World War 2 the Ford Company created Ford model T that later Japanese car manufacturing bought about 4 units for the purpose of copying the technology and later in the 90’s and 2000 Toyota became the number 1 car in the US market.
Having said that, it will conclude that global economy is relative to the environment and how humans adjust to this chemistry that sometimes it will result war or advancement of human intelligence and science. These evolution of our habitat and human science and intelligence are well discussed by Mr. Frankopan with so many scientific examples that we can apply in our present dilemma of today. In chapter 5 of the text, one interesting subtopic that Frankopan discussed about is the risks of living beyond one’s means. This philosophical concept applied to national and international politics and civilization allows us to realize the risk of human cravings of national and international hunger of political power that is present in our world geopolitical conflict of today. Easier said than done, cultural values and religious teachings tries to curtail the animalistic instinct of humans according to the definitions of Pinker. These cravings of power fueled many Kingdoms in the history of civilization to go to war. The writings of Graham Allison proves that war is a culture of our civilization since we created our world community. These wars created new worlds and civilization’s advancements. But as of today, scholars and academics realized that war will not bring any good for humanity but rather extinction. With the advancement of military science, the world is not enough to swallow the number of nuclear warheads fired from north pole to the south pole of the earth.
Nuclear technology today is just a simple technology that modern countries today can replicate or even augment the intensity of nuclear warhead technology of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those are two old model nuclear warhead technology but the story still vibrates across many bookshops and libraries of today. But the advancement of nuclear technology of today will give an exact analogy of the writings of Frankopan in chapter 5 in terms of the risks of living beyond one’s means. In the case of the dramatic upheavals of our society today the temptation to indulge in the cravings of power and technology will result into a double-edged sword. Frankopan further gave a clear analogy on the climate control technology that climate data gathering and analysis of today is a huge money making in terms of raw data gathering. These gathered data from the high frequency detectors will be translated into clear analysis that will relate to modern city governance of society. These rich geological data gathering will not only get information from the weather but also the soil beneath the earth that a spike in magnesium concentrations in the stalagmite record of Go-e-Zard Cave in Iran can improve the scientific advancement of the country.
Not only the middle eastern countriegiven s are enjoying the fruit of raw data gathering from the soil and all its environment but the Chinese and India’s advance science and technology proves that in their resilience in their agriculture industry most of the families are well nourished in terms of good food and nutrition. Although the fight of poverty and famine are still there but the crop failure of the agriculture industry and price inflation in the supermarkets are being lessen. Having said that, science in this regard is of help to the social engineering of the national civilization. But the cravings of traditional power struggle are there to convert these technological advancements into a weapons grade scientific production that will fuel the traditional arms race of World War 1 and 2. War economy during World War 1 and 2 gave some countries in Europe and Asia more power, and even fast acquisition of power that drives tyranny and authoritarian regime made more geopolitical conflicts in all the continents of the world. What Frankopan is trying to tell is that, if world leader doesn’t give precautionary measures to avoid geopolitical impasse, then war conflict will follow. As what other scholars says that war is man made and climate change is not.
As such, some world leaders today are used of
money making in terms of war. War
economy is fast money not like agriculture business that you have to wait for
the yield. But the negative side of war
economy is the scarcity of basic commodity goods that the industrial production
is being disturb usually during war. A
good reference is the long wars of World War 1 and 2. The food and medical industry production
suffered followed by many medical pandemic issues. The example stories of Frankopan from several
centuries ago and relating to the modern geopolitical conflicts in the Silk
Road proves that the relatedness of the natural conflicts as humans and the
world civilization are usually repetitive in nature. The geopolitical functions are the same in a
different timeline. The war in Europe
before is all about land space that the Gaza people are also in a war conflict
at present. History repeats itself as
they say, because our genetic sequence is repeated in our evolution of
life. Are greed and generosity as humans
are much alike from then and now.
In chapter 6 Mr. Frankopan also discussed one important component of our human power that relates to cohesiveness and connectivity. This subtopic in chapter 6 will be related to my recent blogs regarding internet and artificial intelligence. Our power as humans is the analytical intelligence to allow functionality of science to operate in a logical manner that made cities and empires centuries had passed. This power of human connectivity is discussed in chapter 6 that the author further implies this power of human connectivity since (c.2200-c.800 BC) this connectivity of human power allows logistical supports of many industries of consumer goods from then and now. The American rebels who started the industry of cotton after they founded the new world with the intense struggle from the red coats. These wars resulted to a more cohesive economical business communication that drives the American economy into greater heights until World War 2, cold war, & the Vietnam war. Do you think United States will reach their world economic dominance without indulging to the many wars of our history? Same with the Africas, India, and Asia, we integrated our national histories with war and economic progress that sometimes killing is relative to healing and to the overall economic stability of a given country. But on the contrary, many academics argue the danger of indulging to war these days given the fact that technology integrated in war facilities and infrastructures will create a science of weaponry that humanity never seen before. All of these are the fruit of human intelligence applied to science. In chapter 7 the author further touches the discussion of nature and the philosophical divine belief of human civilization. In reference to the writings of A.C Grayling (2019) depicts the history of thoughts and human philosophy from west and beyond.
The collective thinking of a given civilization will define its culture and religious practices that will cause good or bad to a society. From Africa to the East and Asia humans created their own cosmic beliefs just like what the Greeks and the Aztecs are defining their own gods in their own geographical region. Thus, Frankopan discussed vividly the importance of collective human thoughts relative to culture and religion that defines the moral law of the land. Indeed, different nations means different cultural and religious background that sometimes these beliefs and culture are not congruent in the modern society of today due to the evolution of science relative to the modern adaptation of science in the modern society. To give a fundamental exam in which all cultures and society can relate the analogy of the history of medicine. The teachers and academics long time ago needs to open the human body and measure the weight and length of every organ to translate it to a mathematical function to be able to measure the behavior of each involuntary muscle for example that scholars like Leonardo da Vinci applied these given measurements of the body parts into medical science.
These evolution of medical science changes the
beliefs of many groups of society that until the age of the Spanish Flu and the
COVID 19 the advancement of science saved lives during the height of the
pandemic. Advance science created many
new specific data that will drive the modern data revolution at this time. The data revolution 4.0 will aid the old silk
road to a faster and cost saving transfer of communication in all aspect of
movement inside the governments involved in the BRICS. In the previous publication of Frankopan he
emphasized the importance of central Asia as part of the global sourcing for
raw materials for industrial manufacturing in China. China and India are the important players of
BRICS powered by the fuel capital of the world UAE. Africa on the other hand and South America
are the new playground for new technologies applied for business while the
ASEAN market is the new AGORA just like the old AGORA in Mediterranean. This economic chemistry will unravel the discussion
of Frankopan’s first book and second book.
As US will play a role in this movement of commerce, logistical mobility
in Persian Gulf, Pacific, Panama Canal and many more important routes in our
many archipelagos. NATO and INTERPOL have
a huge challenge in securing these important global routes. Thus, DIGITAL SILK ROAD is but important not
only in business purposes but also in securing the global routes for
international business and marketing.
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