The Age of Inequality: The Philosophy of American Military Power in the 21st Century

Events and developments over the past 30 years have changed the face of warfare forever. The wisdom provided by the classicists such as Clausewitz and Sun Tzu could not have conceived (and did not speak about) the kind of warfare that American forces now experience. A serious reexamination of American military philosophy is needed to meet the challenges of the 21st century, challenges that the classics could never have dreamed of.

Since the 19th century, historians have referred to the various periods of human development by a shorthand borrowed from the geologists -- the Age. These ages were so named mostly to teach students what followed what, to provide a framework for history. However, in fact, they hide a great deal of truth about the Western world (America included) and its attitude towards the rest of humanity. The ages are named to reflect levels of learning, and of understanding the world. Until the beginning of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, the levels of learning were about on par between Europe, the Orient and the Islamic world of the Middle East. Up until then most of the world in communication (this excludes the many aboriginals) was on about the same technological footing. When the industrialization of Europe and North America began in the 1700s they leapt ahead technologically at a much faster pace than the rest of the world. Here, for the purposes of this paper, the Unequal Age began.

All of humanity started in about the same place but at one point certain parts of the world began to pull away physically, economically and technologically. The primates that would later become men originated in one place and spread outward, mostly towards the north out of what is now Africa. When proto-people reached the Fertile Crescent of the eastern Mediterranean they discovered a great deal more cereals, domesticable animals and hospitable climate than they had found anywhere else. Many stayed, some moved further away on the supercontinent of the forming land, much still ravaged by sheets of ice.