Third World War: The Enemies of the Global Society

Abstract

Today, the global society encompasses all continents. The challenges vary from region to region. The specific features of plurality find manifold expressions, and also diverse challenges. A global order which embraces the key principles of the open society which Popper had in mind is an order based on the acceptance of common rules among conditions of grave empirical and, at times, ideological contradictions. The world is currently far away from achieving such an objective. To the contrary, the failure of the nation-state and ideological radicalization of Islamic extremism has generated new forms of warfare, individualized concepts of fighting actors and a situation which can be labeled “Third World War”. And yet some experiences have not lost their relevance: a liberal domestic order remains the most predictable base for countries to jointly advance a global open society. The interdependencies between the local and the global as well as the complexity of ideational factors and new actors—influenced by much more than just competing Western philosophies—define the parameters of the world in the twenty-first century.