The Latest History (la dernière histoire)
In a history textbook to be written in the 22nd century, this era would be most probably described as a crazy era since we apply nuclear fission to electricity generation.
Indeed, the transition from the 20th century to the 21st century is characterized by ever increasing division between the rich and the poor in terms of material success and spiritual devotion.
SECTION I: Modern History before IT Revolution (till 1990's)
The Vietnam War was finally ended in 1975 as Saigon fell into the hand of North Vietnam while the U.S. troops had already left South Vietnam.
It is well known that the Vietnam War caused a grave social and cultural change in the U.S. It was symbolized by the Nixon scandal called the Watergate conspiracy, while drugs came to be widely used among young Americans.
The Vietnam War was not a simple war between the free world and the communist world. It was rather situated in a long effort for the Vietnamese to get rid of foreign rule. In this context, the Vietnam War could be regarded as the last large-scale war for independence of Asian people from Western power.
Accordingly, the Soviet Union that had supported North Vietnam in the War could not prevail in Southeast Asia after the end of the Vietnam War. China was still struggling in domestic problems, though it started to get at feud with Vietnam while supporting mass-murderer Pol Pot.
Japan, on the other hand, leveraging the special procurement boom due to the Vietnam War and increasing export to the U.S., became the second largest economy in the world. Its industrial power was exceeding the Soviet Union's. The Soviet Union lost a chance to dominate in East Asia forever.
Then on the Christmas Eve of 1979, the Soviet Union started to send its troops to Afghanistan. Subsequently, in September of 1980, Iraqi troops suddenly started to attack Iran. The two wars set the course of the world conflict for the next 30 years.
In 1980, John Lennon was shot to death. In 1981, Diana Spencer married a member of the British Royal Family to be Princess Diana. In 1981, Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat was assassinated. And, it was the first year for the Space Shuttle project with Columbia launched for the first time. With this interplay of light and shadow, the 1980's started for the world to see the great expansion of the Japanese economy and the possibility of the nuclear warfare between the U.S. and the Soviet Union being fading away.
In 1988, the Iran-Iraq War was over. In 1989, the Soviet troops started to withdraw from Afghanistan. The world looked like getting settled in boring peace time. It must have looked so to Mr. George H.W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden. The world was going to develop peacefully and economically. The Soviet Union lost evil aggressive power. The Islamic world was going back to equilibrium of power around Israel and Saudi Arabia. The start of the year 1990 posed no threats to the U.S. at all, except ever growing power of the Japanese yen.
It might have been the most peaceful and promising time for the world aligned around the U.S.: the start of 1990.
SECTION II: Modern History on IT Revolution (in 1990's)
The amount of money generated in the New York stock market grew four times more between 1990 and 2000 while total energy consumption in the U.S. expanded just 1.2 times or so in this period.
What has made the rapid increase of money circulated in the market is development of computer and telecommunications technology or information technology (IT).
Though the Vietnam War was said that it was the first major war where computers were exhaustively used in the US Department of Defense, the level of computing power in this decade grew beyond comparison with that of the Vietnam War era.
The Soviet Union could not compete with the high-tech-based American military power any more, since this American high-tech military power was well exhibited in the Persian Gulf War (August 2, 1990 – February 28, 1991). Subsequently, the Soviet Union was dissolved amid a kind of confusion and debacles among its constituent republics.
Indeed, the Soviet Union was an enemy of America when the Dow Jones Index was less than 3,000 dollars. The U.S. lost an old enemy to encounter another rival Japan. Then, a covert money war against Japan became a major issue for Washington DC. But, Japan was already engaged in globalization of economy. The Japanese industry could not neglect cheap labor costs in China while facing a large-scale competition in ever eased and expanded market. Moreover, the Japanese land could not accommodate more industrial development due to its limited size. So, Japan started to transfer technology and capital to China (today 20,000 Japanese businesses have branch offices, subsidiary companies or plants in China). Yet, the U.S. suppressed possible dominance of Japanese businesses in the IT sector and the financial sector. Under this condition, the Japanese economy entered a long deflation period, which is a rare phenomenon in the history of economy.
In 1990's, China was enjoying great investment from Japan in terms of quality and quantity. The U.S. was leveraging its superiority in the IT sector to apply the new computer/Internet technology to its financial sector. It was rather strange that Microsoft and Intel were not Japanese companies. But, it was intentionally promoted that American businesses held a dominant position. For this purpose, even some political and diplomatic influences were executed by the U.S. Government on Japan.
So, China was busy absorbing Japanese technology, pursing, so to speak, the Chinese Dream; America was busy pursing the renewed American Dream and increasing wealth in the financial market by applying its IT technology while keeping upper hand over Japan. But, some parties on the earth were pursuing a very different dream: justice of their own version of Islam.
SECTION III: Modern History with Terror and Tricks (in 2000's)
(to be continued...)
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Mat 6:25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?