Philosophers and scientists have long proposed theories in which duality is the propelling force of movement and progress – the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s dialectic offered a process of change in which opposition between two interacting forces creates a thesis and antithesis to form a new synthesis, while physicist Isaac Newton demonstrated that in the Laws of Motion every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
U.S. foreign policy appears to follows the doctrine of duality, except for one factor – progress is frequently backwards. Exempting the Cold War, U.S. State Department history of the last sixty years has proceeded with bi-polar swings between action and reaction and rarely with satisfactory outcomes. Moammar Gadhafi and his challenges to western dominance are an excellent example of this backwards movement.
Would Gadhafi the authoritative, Gadhafi, the self-chosen defender of the world’s dominated, and Gadhafi the conspirator exist if the western nations, represented most by the United States, treated The Third World fairly and did not interfere in the affairs of other nations for their own interests? It is unlikely he would have any raison d’être.