Picture: small white figure entering a dark future.

I fear the people of Europe will come to regret that their governments failed to act soon enough and take the more long-term view of the refugee and "better-life-seeker" invasion from the failed and semi-failed states of the Middle East and Africa. Those displaced person include the ones trying to escape from the violence of rebellion come from Syria where there was (and still is) an attempt to overthrow government. That attempt was (and is)  backed by powerful outside interests. That beleaguered government, though hardly democratic and with many flaws, might have been pressured instead to make improvements, and at least it had  - over  a considerable time -  ensured stability.

 Saudi Arabia and its "friends", including the United States, offered no refuge for the fleeing refugees, despite the fact that by far the majority of them (as well as other displaced persons from Eritrea and other states) are of the same majority branch of the Islamic faith as the great majority of people in wealthy Saudi Arabia.

The result of the turmoil may please the more militant extremist elements in the Islamic Faith, as inevitable Islam will play a more important and probably a somewhat disturbing part in the future of Europe. The general goal of spreading Islam will take a significant step forward. Unfortunately, that will probably include an advance in the fortunes of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq/Syria. As the picture here seems to me to symbolize, it's dark days ahead for a "diminished" Europe, and not cheering either for the majority of people world-wide.

Disruption of Nationhood on our Planet

The Syai planet includes communities that go their own way largely, but limits are set to cause them never to be a danger to the planetary laws that protect both the main civilization (which is that of the Syai) and the basic natural environment. The unity of this Earth-world can only emerge from (a) sustainable balance of individual freedom and responsibility; (b) from the elimination of all forms of corruption. What the picture symbolizes by the diminished games board (has only six across instead of eight), is the future of our planet. A diminished environment with all the pieces lost because of too many unleashed destructive forces.

The NZ journalist Karl Du Frense reviews George Friedman concerning Europe and the world in general. I am impressed, but draw conclusions that seem to me to follow:
1. Nation states need to embrace cooperativeness, but retain their sovereignty and cultural integrity.
2. Russia needs 'protectable' borders or it will take reactive action.
3. Accumulated oil money in the unfettered capitalistic global system that causes vast differences in wealth both within nations and between nations is destabilizing and giving excessive 'oxygen' to socially illiberal and fanatical forces, some of which seek to justify their violent actions through religion.
4. Sunni Muslims who could be classed as 'moderates' because they are at least open to changes that would adjust their religion to the world as it is now and not as it was 14 hundred years ago - these people need to join many of the non-Sunni Muslims (and Christians) fleeing from the chaos of what has been fostered by the Wahhabi ideology of the Saudi elite, allies and other groups holding the same rigidly extremist views. Europe especially is facing the consequences of this and must change tactics to enable many of the refugees to return to their homelands.
5. As for New Zealand, our prosperity depends on trade and trade routes staying open for us whatever policies we adopt externally or internally. US based 'big business' threatens this freedom, especially as the US tries to tighten its grip in the Pacific region. It is in our interests to protect our trade with China and to discreetly support a balance that does not allow the US to become too strategically powerful over the Pacific region. 

From my "Syai-alien" point of view,this picture looks sinister: a dead-end street of nostalgia, of regressive sentimentality, of greed and cunning?  Could that the the prevailing psychological ambiance of our world at this beginning of the 20th Century? Looking into much of what is going on, especially in the Middle East, its coming repercussions, it may be that ISIS is one of the best indicators of a growing planetary crisis.

The link between the United States and ISIS (‘islamic state’)

ISIS thinks it is going to punish America and bring it down to size. In fact, in its hatred of all of Islam that does not submit to its Wahhabi (and like) version of Islam, it is becoming more and more a tool of the United States’ strategic, economic and cultural ambitions, which tend to centre on “regime change”.

Where there is social-political upheaval in the world, the US power-elite with its close allies will use the upheaval to their advantage.

In doing this there are costs – also in blood – but the US power-elite are generally able to externalize these costs so that they are born mainly be populations outside the US.

A true understanding of what is going on in the Middle East depends on acceptance of the above. One must also accept that those who have ambitions to rise like a fiery phoenix from the deadness of the old colonial order, to achieve world domination, also seek out every way to use the US power- and its allies to their advantage. The main ally of both ISIS and US: Saudi Arabia.

ISIS  - in its advance into the West – can also count on the supportive apologetics of The West’s regressive leftists, who are about all  that is left of the once-powerful freedom-fighting left-wing of European heritage.

There are still a good number of progressive, socially liberal Americans, even some journalists. The US power-elite tolerate them only in so much as they can be kept on the sideline; impotently window-dressing a bogus “democracy”.

ISIS is slowed down a little with a desultory bombing campaign by the US and allies. This strategically fits in with what they are really aiming for: the good old US custom of effecting regime-changes to suit. At this present time: in Syria.

World-wide there are youngish men, disillusioned, disaffected and bored, turning more-or-less fanatical and violent, to give their lives some meaning. Along with some genuine extremist Sunni Islamists, they supply the boots on the ground in accord with the Nixon Doctrine.  ISIS therefore works well for the US power-elite and allies, diverting attention from Israel’s intransigence and making the survival of an anti-US, non-Sunni Syrian regime impossible.