Contours of Conflict in the 21st Century

ANNEx A – QUOTES DRIVERSinjustice has caused and continues to cause new acts of terror across the planet’. 316‘The second important circumstance is the growing gap between the rich and thesuffering billions of the world. The figures are as follows: the three richest peopleon earth have wealth that exceeds that of more than 47 of the poorest countries; theworld’s 475 richest people control more wealth than more than half of mankind. Asocial explosion is not far off’. 317Climate Change‘A new factor is the climate. The melting of Arctic ice opens the Arctic Ocean fordevelopment and the next round in the struggle for resources, transportation routesand waters’.‘The next crisis will be determined by environmental factors such as globalwarming-related carbon emissions, deforestation and insufficient water on theplanet’. 318‘The next crisis will be determined by even bigger disagreements over what coursethe world should follow (politics, economics and ethics), as well as by the strugglefor natural resources. A number of new factors that will have a profound impacton most countries may play the role of a catalyst, according to some experts.These experts included factors like the problems of environmental pollution, globalwarming, the energy deficit (due to consumption growth), technological stagnationand the planet’s aging population’. 319Geographic Factors‘The global system becomes polycentric, the world becomes multipolar, and theEuro-Atlantic center is becoming just one of the many poles and forces in the316 Oleg Arin, ‘Prognoz razvitija mirovyh otnoshenij v XXI veke’ [A Prognosis for Trends inInternational Relations in the XXI Century], in Космонавтика XXI века (RTSoft, 2010), 483-555, http://olegarin.com/olegarin/PDF/OA2.PDF.317 Modeli postkrizisnogo razvitija: global’naja vojna ili novyj konsensus [Models of Post CrisisDevelopment: Global War or a New Consensus] (Institute of Post-Crisis World, 2010), http://uisrussia.msu.ru/docs/nov/insor/Model_post_krizis.pdf.318 Slipchenko, ‘K kakoj vojne dolzhny gotovit’sja vooruzhenye sily’ [What Kind of War Should theArmed Forces Be Preparing for].319 Ibid.214 Contours of Conflict in the 21 st Century