The Hippy Moment: Why Bernie Sanders is right about Iran, Russia and North Korea

For a brief moment in the 1960s, young people dared to dream of a future full of love and understanding. They were laughed at as quixotic, naive people who wouldn't know reality if it bit them in the ass and had 'reality' written on its forehead. History put paid to their dream as well. Communism, the Vietnam war, the Cold War and endless suffering and strife made hippies look like just a blip of history. And since then, it has been accepted knowledge that anyone who dares to dream of such a peaceful future is nothing but a naive, young, silly thing who knows nothing about the real world.

But in the meantime, the world has really changed. Casting the Middle East aside for a minute, young people today live in a more peaceful, prosperous and sophisticated world than any generation which came before them.They all have smartphones and access to information. They have mobile applications which help them in everything from herding sheep to hailing a taxi. Being a woman or a homosexual has never been as good as it is today. Healthcare is advancing at such a rapid rate that many will live to be a hundred years old. And young people from all around the world have roughly the same dreams.

Vietnam might still be carpeted with hammer and sickle flags but young Vietnamese care more about getting an education, a good job and a nice car than they care about showing loyalty to the Communist Party. What's more, many young people from around the world nowadays enjoy American products (say, iPhones) made in other countries (iPhones are assembled in China). The young people of the world are more interconnected than ever before and this makes a peaceful future this time around much more plausible.

It is this feeling that Bernie Sanders is tapping into and this is why I argue that the 'hippy moment' might have finally really arrived.

All this needs to be taken into consideration when parsing Bernie Sanders's reply to the 'Iran, North Korea or Russia greatest threat' question. On the face of it, Bernie Sanders seemed unprepared for the question and uninformed about foreign issues but it only looks like that because the question posed used the language of a bygone era. Using Millenials' vocabulary, the question would have been dismissed as a result of an antiquated mindset. Bernie Sanders cannot speak about any of those countries being a threat to the United States because, erm, they aren't.

The most powerful countries in the world right now are the United States and China. Although China is a very jingoistic country, its military showmanship is limited to starting arguments with its neighbours over a group of tiny, uninhabited islands in the South China Sea. Also, China recently launched its first aircraft carrier. Not exactly a huge threat to America, is it?

China will not be starting a war with its greatest trade partner in the world, America, any time soon.

Russia, on the other hand, is indeed belligerent but most of its military showmanship is limited to invading a tiny part of Ukraine (Crimea) which is full of Russian speakers and Russia supporters. This is hardly the rebuilding of a Soviet empire. The rouble is quickly losing its value and many, many ordinary Russians are suffering great economic hardships. Russia will not be attacking America any time soon. Instead, it will try to increase trade with any country willing to trade with it.

Although Iran does fund some organisations like Hamas which go on to fight in the Middle East, Iran is still breathing a huge sigh of relief over the lifting of sanctions. Its young people are very highly educated and skilled, its internal market has huge growth potential and its president has just finished a trip to Europe to sign business deals. The last thing that Iran wants is to start a war with America and have sanctions imposed all over again.

As for North Korea, it is nothing but a noisy, little country. Its people suffer greatly but it is no threat to America. Its military showmanship never goes beyond testing nuclear bombs. North Korea knows that if it actually launches a nuclear bomb at America, the Kim dynasty will fall. Besides, that would also anger China and North Korea is heavily dependant on China for money, food and all sorts of other aid.

Then there is the Middle East. When countries want to show how mighty they are, they pile into the Middle East. But bombing Iraq, Syria, Yemen or Libya is like the bullies in the schoolyard ganging up on the tiniest, scrawniest, nerdiest boy in school. He will not fight back because he does not have the means to do so. Big countries can get away with doing anything they feel like in the Middle East because these countries will not fight back. But big countries are not about to start fighting each other. Although the headlines will tell you otherwise, the time of big countries being existential threats to each other is over.

The real threat nowadays is radical Islamists living within American communities but you can no more launch a war against them than you can launch a war against school shooters. These people are not a country and what they need is education, support, social integration and mental health help not to become radicalised in the first place.

The reason why Bernie Sanders finds it so hard to speak about countries being threats is because he does not think in terms of threats but in terms of opportunities, understanding and cooperation. We are too interconnected to bomb the shit out of each other. Take the relaxation of the largely ineffectual embargo on Cuba. Fifty years of belligerence did nothing to bring change to that country but when borders were opened and goods and ideas started flowing in, life for ordinary Cubans immediately started improving. Would it have been better if the United States started bombing Cuba? I don't think so. And years of negotiation have brought improved relations with Iran and engaged it with the world. Barack Obama started this process of reaching out to, engaging and negotiating with other countries and Bernie Sanders will not only continue it but try to speed it up. This is why his worry is about North Korea not being engaged in the world. You cannot speak to or negotiate with a country which is isolated but you can speak to and negotiate with the rest.

The media which wants to sell papers will not tell you this. Governments interested in creating national fervour won't tell you this but the truth is that the hippy moment of understanding and negotiation has truly arrived. Despite what their elders, Hillary Clinton and old world order politicians think, Millenials know that thinking of nation states as threats is not the way forward and Bernie Sanders understands this instinctively. He just needs to articulate it better.

P.S. I highly recommend reading Steven Pinker's (scientist, linguist, psychologist) 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined which argues that throughout history, violence has decreased dramatically and the world has become a much safer and more peaceful place for most of its inhabitants. It sounds hard to believe in an era of 24 hour news stations constantly bringing death and destruction to our living rooms but most of the violence in the world today is nothing more than statistical noise in the grand scheme of things.

Also, you can watch this: https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence?language=en