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20 YEARS AFTER THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL: THE STORY CONTINUES
Mikhail Gorbachev
OCTOBER 2009 (IPS) - Twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world has not become a fairer place: disparities between the rich and poor have grown while the crisis of ideologies now threatens to become a crisis of ideals, values, and morals and strengthen the atmosphere of political pessimism and nihilism, writes Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union from 1985-1991, Nobel Peace Prize 1990 and president of the World Political Forum (WPF).
In this article, Gorbachev writes: Clear proof of the irrational behaviour and irresponsibility of the new generation of politicians is the fact that defence spending by large and small countries alike is now greater than during the Cold War, and strong-arm tactics are again a common feature of international relations.
Though world war is no longer an instrument of deterrence between the most powerful nations, terrorism has become the 'poor man's atomic bomb', not only figuratively but perhaps literally as well. The uncontrolled proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the competition between the erstwhile adversaries of the Cold War to reach new technological levels in arms production, and the presence of the new pretenders to an influential role in a multipolar world all increase the sensation of chaos in global politics. Moreover, it is clear that Western capitalism, deprived of its old adversary and imagining itself the undisputed victor and incarnation of global progress, is at risk of leading Western society and the rest of the world down another historical blind alley.
(*) Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union from 1985-1991 and Nobel Peace Prize 1990, is president of the World Political Forum (WPF).
//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN THE UNITED STATES// (END/2009)
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