The Great Convergence

Lecture Three of Reith Lectures by Jeffrey Sachs- The Great Convergence - now available for download;

"Global cooperation is at risk for three reasons. The most urgent is the ever-present threat and reality of war, born of the darker side of human nature. A second reason why cooperation fails is that in our interconnected world, the collapse of any single part of the world - even a place as isolated as Afghanistan - has implications for all of the world. Cooperation in an inter-connected world must therefore be comprehensive, something that our societies still do not appreciate or accept. We must care, and also act, in response to suffering in Sudan, or Yemen, or Gaza, or Papua New Guinea. A third reason for failure is sheer complexity. Our problems are now of global scale. The world is interconnected in unprecedented ways that require unprecedented strategies for global cooperation. Tonight I will focus on the first of these risks - the threat of war - leaving the challenges of failed and fragile states, and of global complexity, for later lectures.

Our gravest threat on the planet remains the threat of massive war. Our species is drawn to it like moths to a flame. We are not warlike by nature - that is far too simplistic - but we are vulnerable to the allure of war to solve problems. Half a trillion dollars later in Iraq, you might think that we would have been disabused. Yet even our home town press, the New York Times, recently (March 18, 2007) editorialized for a boost in the size of the standing army. This, indeed, would be a recipe doomed to fail. The military will not solve the problems that we face. Our money, training, and effort, can be much better invested elsewhere.

My worry is that we are gambling recklessly with a "2014" to match the year 1914. Let me explain. Nearly one hundred years ago, in 1914, the peace was sundered by the Guns of August, and the 20th century never quite recovered. World War I almost literally came out of nowhere, so much so that historians still debate why the war occurred. A happy march of soldiers to win each nation's honor within a few weeks turned into four years of mass carnage, the Bolshevik Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the Holocaust, and more. Our war in Iraq, our threats to Iran, and even the growing anti-Chinese sentiments in the well of the US Senate all raise the stakes of a similar disaster on our generation's watch...

In President Bush's 2008 budget just submitted, military spending is $623 billion, more than all of the rest of the world combined, while aid to all of Africa is $4.5 billion. Inexplicably, Vice President Cheney accused the Chinese of a build-up of their military budget, though their military outlays are vastly lower than ours."