I have seen some clips with scenes from the latest Festival de Musique in Paris. Horrible. The nihilism, it is mind bogling. Nihilism is taking center stage. Emmanuel Todd tries to explain what is going on with the Israel's society as profound nihilism.
The Arab and African emigrants of recent times in Europe must feel deeply this nihilism after their countries have been destroyed and hollowed out by war and/or neoliberalism and by the promotion of the west of compradror elites. This is what capitalism/oligarchy does ultimately: it corrupts, because only corrupting among individuals you can get divided "cities" and, as we all know, a divided city can never stand.
I take the point of the lack of intelectual traying and the closing of the western mind. Claude Levi-Strauss described how in his student youth they had to argue, "dialectically" about a point, from to opposing points, as succesfully as possible. No wonder then that so many leftist intelectuals of the 1950s turned out unbending neocons in middle and lte age, they had the mental training as well as the intelectual chops to do that. Today's midgets (Annalena 360 degrees) Baerbok, new Presdident at UN, not so much.
But the present elite has dug too much and keeps digging in other aspects as well. The ridiculous idea they peddle, that they are democratic, all the while showing crass contempt of the public wishes: look at the treatment of Hungary, of AdF, of Polish right, heck, look at the judicial coup d'etat in Romania, fully supported by eurocrats. The examples abound. And what theu want to do now? To cut social spending (the despised word, being said as a slur, probably equivalent of "cunt" is now "entitlement") for re-arming and re militarizing. Yeh, the elites and the naked oligarchy that is on top in Europe and dreams of the return of good old 1800s or so, needs a military capable to control its own population, after it increased the destitution, and undermined it with allogene population that speaks something else, looks differently, and sees the host society as a mark, as a host to be parasitised and definitely brought down, because it is sick and destructive.
The musings of (and about) the western elites and the associated PMC ultimately are a waste of time and I will try to pay greater attention to the likely increase of the rumbling stomachs that will come upon Europe with all this de-industrialization, change in climate, etc. I think 1848 will look like a walk in the park in not too distant future. Which explains the present push for militarization. The present elites want to keep their seats and control and won't relinquish it easily. As Galbraight said in episode 2 of his 10 episodes miniseries, these elites would rather bring the world down than relinquish control.
This is why Russians are serializing the Oreshniks, improving their nukes, subs, etc., because they see that only massive force can succesfully confront the psychopatic, power hungry, hypocritical west, that (as Putin said) has been engaged in a vampire orgy ball on the rest of the world for the past 500 years... We have all seen Gaza and we have all seen the US/UK/Israel combine acting on Iran. There is nothing they won't do. And the rest of the world has taken notice.
Convincing the present crop of elites to change their tune is pointless. They won't, they can't, midgets as they are. Shortening their actual length by chopping their heads would be just proper hygiene.
"The ridiculous idea they peddle, that they are democratic, all the while showing crass contempt of the public wishes: look at the treatment of Hungary, of AdF, of Polish right, heck, look at the judicial coup d'etat in Romania, fully supported by eurocrats. The examples abound."
Surely by now you know that to sociopaths, truth and lies are of interest solely to the extent that they can be weaponized.
"'Democracy' is good, therefore anything we do is by definition 'democratic'. The enemy is bad, so no matter what they do, it is by definition 'undemocratic'"
I had bene saying something like this for years. Anyway. europe is still holding out hope that the United States will again ride to their rescue. This was ever always only the real plan, admittedly assisted by Russian dithering and indecision. As long as the war continues, they can continue their machinations to this end.
I can guarantee you that a Macron, a Starmer are telling Trump something to the effect that "We supported you in the War On Iran and assisted slavishly in the Gaza Genocide. You Owe Us Big Time Now."
Moreover, europe needs Russia. A Scary Enemy is always a necessity.
1. To justify why we can't have nice things. Healthcare? Infrastructure? Education? We don't have time for that now, don't you know we gotta fight Saddam/Milosevic/Bin Laden/Saddam again/Ghaddafi/Assad/ISIS/Putin/Hamas/Houthis/Iran ad nauseam.
2. To give the rubes a cause to rally around, rather than ask awkward questions.
3. To unify political factions around a common enemy, justify the division of spoils and explain why we can't have nirvana right at the moment, we'd really like to but the Scary Enemy is stopping us and don't you know we gotta focus on this fight, right now!
4. To justify crackdowns on civil liberties. You and your namby-pamby civil rights, you hate our freedom! What, are you on the side of the fascists/communists/Islamicists/Russians/ ad nauseam?
West doesn't need Russia's win to destroy it. West has already destroyed itself with streets that look like Mogadishu and probably less safe (especially for young women). Then again maybe that's the fourth reason they can't quit Russia. Better to focus on a External enemy than in their streets.
"the current western system, full of mediocre greasy-pole climbers and empty of any real ideology" seems to be an accurate description of what we have as an excuse for government.
What I wonder is how we got here. It almost makes the theory of 'something in the water supply now' seem feasible. (And there are actually things in the water supply and in our bloodstreams which weren't there 50 years ago). I can remember a time when (in my rose tinted memory) politicians made mistakes of all kinds, large and small, such as Suez, etc., but they never seemed to be living in a complete Alice in Wonderland fantasy, as they undoubtedly are these days.
People who had fought in the war, like Dennis Healey and Edward Heath had a basic grounding in reality (- although this didn't seem to work for Anthony Eden) even if you found their policies unacceptable. But even if this is true, war experience is not an acceptable method for training politicians.
As I like to remember it the rot set in with Thatcher and the rise of neo-liberal ideology - after that we had clowns like Ian Duncan Smith, Tony Blair (perhaps not a clown, but an unprincipled lying warmonger at best), William Hague, David Cameron, Liz Truss, Boris Johnston (clown and liar) and now the latest and a good contender for the Tin-Ear Award, Keir Starmer. Other European countries (and the US) are no better.
It's not what's in the water, it's who is paying for their water. Remember, this class can afford to eat and live healthy.
I don't know about Europe, but in the US, every single federally elected politician is legally bribed to continue/start war. Some are bribed more than others (e.g. Lindsay Graham), but every single one of them is an empty shell, reading a script written for them by monied interests. They have no practice thinking because they were put up for election BECAUSE they don't think.
I wasn't thinking of their motivation, which is as you say. More the question of the origin of the clunking, ham-fisted, tin-eared lying and blinkered tunnel-vision stupidity which is displayed almost everywhere in the top echelons of the 'west'. Possibly as you say they were chosen for this quality, but it seems to be too widespread to be so easily explained. I mean, it must be quite difficult to find so many plausible but gullible morons. Or is it?
I think you are right that our predicament began with neoliberalism which is a totalitarian thought system that brooks no dissent: TINA "there is no alternative" became their mantra and Hayek their high priest. “This is what we believe!” allegedly said by Maggie slamming their holy scripture, The Constitution of Liberty, down on the table. As Morris Berman says, an idea is something you have; an ideology is something that has you. Maggie and her crew were short on ideas but big on belief.
A must-read - thank you Aurelien. Your ability to articulate precisely what I sense and fear in our current situation, is a constant relief. Not that it solves the problems, but understanding is infinitely better than mere disquiet. I foresee our new PM here in Canada piling into the same pit, shovel at the ready, as his European counterparts - indeed, given his CV, the European pit is the one in which he feels most at home. Unfortunately our alternatives were equally, if differently, incapable, so a Soviet-type societal collapse is pretty much the only future I can envision at the moment. Like most Canadians, I loathe the idea of becoming part of the US, but I wouldn't want to bet my life on that not happening, in reality if not in name. And the chances of our bureaucracy throwing up a leader of Putin's intelligence, stature and ability appear vanishingly small. The Russians still had an excellent educational system, as I understand it, from which possibilities could emerge. I rejoice for them, and in the spirit of a "magical miracle", hope that somewhere in our national backwaters something constructive will arise out of the mess we are inevitably facing. It's the combination of long-building fiscal disaster, imperial fantasy mindset, and military naivete, not to mention entitlement overreach, that seems impregnable. Everywhere I turn, I hear assumptions I know to be pure fantasy, but we've lived off them for generations now. Collapse appears to be the most hopeful option, however destructive in the initial decades. Thanks again!
The claims that Russia's "GDP is much higher than we think" comes from the American created and run World Bank of all places. They bumped Russia's economy to 4th place, past Japan's economy, based on PPP which looks to be a more accurate metric. Moreover, the IMF changed Russia's status to a "High Income" nation. I don't know if these organizations did not get the memo's or just refuse to play along, but it's been fun watching the Russia-Putin haters try and explain it away, but only after initially claiming it was 'fake news'. Once they realized it was legit they put their little hater heads together to come up with multiple ways/versions to explain why it does not matter. This is after claiming Russia is on the verge of economic collapse, everyday for 3 years, and Russian plebs are fighting in the streets over the last cabbage. Alternative reality. Reminds me of climate change deniers after every record smashing, global warming Jacked disaster, coming up with alternate explanations and/or minimizing and normalizing long predicted climate disasters that continue to be more destructive ( sorry kids but towns burning down only started in 2016). It's not just climate deniers and Putin-Russia haters and politicians Most of western civ seems to have come up with various ways to keep their heads in the sand when faced with any one of many predicaments in the so called poly crisis, while still functioning enough to survive (Poly crisis is their way of saying Overshoot without having to say Overshoot).
One of the recons I continue to read your essays is because you are not blaming and advocating in spite of some of your readers being disappointing you are not offering solutions/advocating. They would be false solutions since we are talking about predicament that we are going to have to learn to live with and survive. Stupid is not the only thing that can't be fixed.
*Russia overtakes Japan to become the fourth largest economy in the world in PPP terms*
.
The Russian economy has overtaken Japan to become the fourth largest in the world in PPP terms (purchase power parity), according to revised data from the World Bank released at the start of June.
As bne IntelliNews reported in August, Russia had already overtook Germany to become the fifth biggest economy in adjusted terms. Hit by multiple shocks recently and cut off from cheap Russian gas, Germany is now stagnating and has fallen to sixth place in the World Bank’s ranking.
PPP GDP measurement is preferred by many economists, as it takes into account the difference between local prices and nominal prices, similar to The Economist’s famous Big Mac index: a burger in Moscow costs about half as much as the same burger in New York.
The World Bank has improved Russia’s ranking after revising its data and says that Russia actually overtook Japan in 2021 and has maintained its position at number four since then. Its previous calculations were based on 2017 data but these have now been updated to reflect the 2021 figures.
Previously, Russian President Vladimir Putin set his government the goal of producing economic growth ahead of the global average. Before the war in Ukraine started, Russia’s economic growth was well behind that of the global average and close to stagnation. However, following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the economy has been enjoying a military Keynesianism boost and is currently the fastest growing major economy in the world.
And Russia has overtaken Japan ahead of schedule. Putin explicitly set his government the goal of attaining fourth place among the world's largest economies in terms of PPP earlier this year, and the Cabinet was instructed to prepare measures to achieve this goal by March 31, 2025."
World economic statistics are misleading for several reasons, first among them is that only the gross amounts are reported. For example, the two most important items in terms of national sovereignty (ability to defend oneself). are oil and steel production.
Here are the world output figures in gross amounts:
Now divide those numbers by population to get per-capita production and you find that Russia produces roughly twice as much oil and steel per-capita as the USA. Similar numbers apply for wheat production, which puts Russia first on a per-capita basis.
What this means is that, assuming similar rates of internal consumption, Russia has twice as much oil and steel, and 5 times as much wheat available for export as the USA. Similar numbers apply across the entire industrial and agricultural sectors.
Granted these are back of envelope calculations, but they point to the broader trend. Even given 20 years of sanctions, Russia can still outproduce the USA on vital industrial products per-capita. Another variable is cost of production, which likewise is not included in gross output figures. Much of Russian production is state controlled, which implies lower costs, given that self-sufficiency in vital production is a primary political goal.
Much has been made recently of China’s vast industrial output, which is true, but again, per-capita figures should be used given their large population, plus one has to account for the fact that many of their primary inputs, especially oil and gas, have to be imported, whereas in Russia most can be sourced internally.
This is the part that most economists miss (or intentionally leave out). Russia has a policy of full autarky and is well on its way to achieving that goal. No other nation on earth can make that claim and still project the kind of military power Russia is capable of. From a Western hegemonic perspective, Russia is by far the greater threat, since unlike China, they can’t be threatened with export tariffs or denied access to vital energy and material inputs.
Sorry, but I have serious trouble believing that Western military analysts are not supplying their Defence Ministers with (mostly) realistic sitreps, analyses and prognoses re. Ru/Ukr.
By way of example, let's recall William J. Burns and his famous "Nyet Means Nyet" cable. He nailed it, didn't he?
EU was presented with a perfectly good excuse to call it quits & save face when Trump came to power... instead, they chose to double down.
Here, let me present an alternative view on Western elites' thought processes, and make one humble prediction:
If Ukr collapses, they'll just blame Ukrainians.
Ofc, they'll say out loud, what were we thinking??? We tried to help, we tried our best, but again and again, those inept and corrupt Eastern Slavs failed us - failed to implement our Genius Victory Plans; misused our Wonder Weapons; and stole our Generous Support funds.
And the Western publics will totally swallow it - hook line & sinker.
&Behind the closed doors, they'll say - OK, we took a bet. It was a good bet - had we won, Putin would've been out. As it is, some Eastern Slavs are dead, Russia is pissed, but hey, who cares? Look at this war as a Petri dish: we've learned a lot, and it cost us next to nothing.
It cost them a lot. Look at the GDP growth figures in Germany, carnage in the whole industries and so on. The results are already catastrophic and even a victory achieved by some miracle won't justify the costs, let alone defeat/draw
No, the plan ever always only was that the United States would again ride to europe’s rescue rather than leave its european catamites hanging out to dry.
In any case, I don't quite understand why people paint the Ukraine debacle as incomparably more serious than Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sure, there is "big bad Russia" involved, but everyone with half a brain understands that "Russians marching across the EU" is a completely ridiculous hyperbole. Whether AFU collapses or not, Ukraine fall-out should be the same order of magnitude as Iraq/Afghanistan.
And then everyone will pivot to The Next Current Thing. In fact, with Israel dominating headlines for so long, one might argue they already have.
Emotionally, I often feel that way, but rationally, I disagree.
Pretty much every decisive Russian escalation scenario, if you honestly put yourself in Russia's adversaries' shoes, has much more potential to turn out worse for Russia than the current model. With the current model, Russia is slowly but surely moving where it wants to go, making it progressively harder for the Western elites to fan up popular panic and to justify any drastic measures.
Some argue that the West is out of drastic measures, or that it's digging in for a long confrontation anyway, but honestly, aren't the feelings of fatigue and resignation almost palpable? On X, no one is posting about Ukraine anymore. Zelensky made a minor splash by finally wearing a suit. Russia is still hoping for a (relative) normalization over short-to-medium term, and this hope isn't entirely unfounded.
"Some argue that the West is out of drastic measures, or that it's digging in for a long confrontation anyway, but honestly, aren't the feelings of fatigue and resignation almost palpable?"
Not really. The elites are the only ones who count, and the elites see things as going entirely successfully. Russians are getting killed, no european casualties to have to explain to the voters back home, and Trump is an easily manipulated imbecile.
The air feels like 1917. Once the Americans can be dragged in, it's smooth sailing!
Ok, so how would you escalate if you were Russia? Can we "game" it step-by-step, assigning relative probabilities to various Western reaction scenarios, guessing how it's going to peak and then (presumably) de-escalate?
I am sure you've thought about it a lot; perhaps you've even written about it already?
You need Ukrainians to quit first for this scenario to happen. Ukrainians won't quit and will fight to last man and probably woman too. I think that suits Russia fine too. Thats one way to denazify just depopulate the place.
Oh and they already have blamed Ukrainians for their failed plans calling them "casualty adverse" is why 2023 major offensive failed.
I've heard that Ukrainian public sentiment is to stop the war, to concede. But they're literally scared to say that. The Ukrainian security services monitor social media, and I remember reading a couple years ago that a "like" on a "wrong" post will bring the SBU knocking.
Look at the military abducting people off the street to serve. Look at POW videos of Ukrainians saying the military training camps are mined to prevent recruits from escaping, and if they try to run anyways, they're shot dead.
Aurelian confronts the mysterious and sustained West's "gap in understanding" -- the profound gap between its leaders' illusions (or lies) and reality. This gap is the theme of Barbara Tuchman's March of Folly. She argued (back in the '70's) that the U.S. intervention in Vietnam was a steady march spanning years of denial that had many precedents in history. The U.S. and the West has had several follies since then, so it's clear her book and its warnings were (and still are) ignored. It is now clear that Ukraine is the latest Folly. With the passage of time, as the fog lifts, U.S. support for Taiwan and for Israel have all the earmarks of Folly as well. The long march into Syria ended with the greatest Folly of all -- the "victory" (perhaps temporary) of ISIL/Al Queda affiliated militias.
As to when to "stop digging" -- this depends on what the incremental costs and benefits are, to whom and for whom respectively, and the form they take. For Europe's leaders, the costs have been mostly in the form of degraded reputations and lost elections. For the U.S. it has been mostly dollars. The U.S. enjoys its "exorbitant privilege" of paying with paper (dollars), which enables it to drag on these conflicts nearly forever. My guess is that Trump, with the help of a compliant Congress and media, will allow funds to keep flowing to Ukraine covertly for a good long while even after official budgets are exhausted. Other than that, Trump will suffer some damage to his reputation for Ukraine and Israel being "his" wars. My guess is he'll keep the money flowing to avoid a day of reckoning and pass the buck to the next President. This is how endless wars become endless follies.
The EU could conceivably use the Ukraine Crisis to put the Euro on steroids to fund military expenditures the same way that the U.S. does -- with deficits -- if the EU decided to do so. Indeed, the "fear of Russia" could galvanize major institutional changes in EU finance, so it can have its cake (social safety nets) and eat it too (military expenditures). In the future, deficits may be the glue that keeps the EU together, as they do for the U.S.
Someone (Toynbee perhaps?) once wrote that culture is upstream from politics. I believe Alfred Koryzybski captured the essence of culture with his term 'belief system.' A belief system is, simply put, the things we believe to be true, however, they don't have to be true to be effective, nor do they have to be false to put us at a disadvantage, at least in the short run.
Belief systems, for the most part, are inherited from our parents and consolidated through the education process, which itself is influenced by the exiting cultural belief system, so there's a circularity to the process which is self-reinforcing. This extends to the act of analyzing the belief systems of others, which we view through the lens of our own belief system. Thus for maximum objectivity we have to examine our own beliefs and identify any bias that may be introduced into our analysis of other's beliefs. Not an easy task.
Generally speaking, it's only at a point of failure that we start to reexamine our beliefs in earnest, both personal and cultural, by which time it's often too late to change course. The die has been cast and the enemy is at the gates. This is is the current situation across much of the western world, but the danger exists for those cultures in ascendancy as well. It's entirely possible for an inaccurate or even false belief system to succeed in the short run, only to undermine us in the longer term. I see something like this in the work of analysts of the rise of China, ascribing it to underlying positive cultural beliefs rather than a fortunate confluence of unidentified factors. The same is true for American exceptionalism which operates from a set of beliefs that ascribe some special quality to their national ideology which is more of a myth than a description of reality. Israel is another example, although there are plenty of others.
The trick is to not fall into this trap, which is easier said that done. I'm not offering a solution to the problem other than to be aware that the problem exists. Elsewhere on this board I've posted a list of authors who address these same issues, which have helped in my own understanding and hopefully your own as well.
Very good one. The "system beliefs" works, not by their truth; they work because function in cohesive society. That's the mistake of "militant atheists", when they don't understand the function of religion and read that "system of beliefs" literally. It affects the epistemological analysis that we made about other "systems of beliefs", being unable of think different. Furthermore, we can say that those systems are necessary in order to social cohesion, but that different "contents" works. Also, the succees of a State is not mainly explainable by cultural systems of beliefs (that is idealism, on my view).
I doubt if there is such a thing. People often revolt me with their unexamined acceptance of, for example, eating other animals. This is a very basic thing which commonly passes well below the radar of anyone professing 'objectivity'. So the chances of anyone achieving even minimum 'objectivity' seem to be pretty low.
Thanks Aurelian, good article. The West needs to do a lot of tough thinking.
One of the problems we have is that our politicians are not interested in the wider ramifications of politics but only the practice thereof. They could do A or B but don't care much one way or the other.
Geopolitics is a totally different ball game as they are finding out. They think that they know everything because they have "The Prince " in their library.
Since the politicians and their hangers-on pay no price, no personal price, no professional price, why should they care?
The War On Iraq proved most instructive. Blair still swans around Davos, free as a bird and hailed as a Serious Thinker and a Foreign Policy Heavyweight, in spite of ramming through an unpopular war based on lies and otherwise serving in Number Ten as America's Most Loyalest Little Bitch.
Those who opposed the war were smeared and cast into Outer Darkness.
So the Western political hierarchy, most of which has endured with little change for at least 80 years, seems set to be brought down not by Marxism or parties of what the MSM calls the Far-Right or even by direct military attack by its enemies, but instead by an easily-manipulated, fifth-rate Ukrainian entertainer whose greatest comedic exploit was - as widely reported though I have not seen a video - to play a piano with his penis. Quite apt, really.
Very thoughtful article and analysis. Prof. Jeffrey Sachs has been giving some talks in Europe, including, I believe, before the EU Parliament. He has expressed the need for Europe to delink from NATO and the US, and to build a Europe-centered foreign policy free from those strangling entanglements. From your article, I doubt whether there is any likely world in which this is possible, but is there an imaginable world in which such could happen? Can you conceive of that small glimmer of possibility existing?
This is a wonderfully written essay. Yet: “ Western leaders hope for a miracle ” frames the problem as psychological denial (“too terrible to contemplate”) rather than as a material struggle by identifiable actors who have a lot to lose. However, psychology is part of this whole conundrum, too.
I would add three concrete layers to this analysis:
The alternative (multipolar sovereignty, commodity trade off-dollar, regional security formats, a temporal political void) isn’t terrifying in the abstract: it’s terrifying to those whose careers, networks and portfolios are geared to a unipolar order. And who have been doing so for a long time (at least since the end of the 19th century). What looks like “suicidal policy” for the public is rational cost-containment for an incumbent class trying to keep its asset sheet and prestige hierarchy intact. Something that is highly meaningfulf for them as a social group.
Rather than a mass of “western leaders,” it is about specific organisations (NATO commands, foundation boards, transatlantic think-tank circuits), whose funding cycles and professional incentives reward escalation. A RAND fellow who counsels genuine de-escalation is out of a job; while a fellow who argues for “deterrence” gets a panel slot and a donor.
It is also about a networked reproduction of worldviews: There is an important self-reproducing knowledge loop within these elites: fellowships → white papers → policy internships → cabinet posts. People inside that loop need just enough incremental crisis to keep the loop financed. When multipolar realities threaten the loop, they double-down, not because the alternative is “worse for civilisation,” but because it’s worse for their position within civilisation.
So, we might ask: what concrete resource flows and status hierarchies does this policy track preserve, and for whom? Answer that, and the puzzle of this “irrational persistence” seems to be more tied to a sense of rational self-preservation by a historically-bounded class.
This is a astute analysis, and largely convincing. It explains well the multiple factors of inertia that keep politicians and bureaucrats “digging,” but it tells us nothing about how they got into this hole in the first place. Why this specific hole, and not another? In other words, the essay lacks a theory of change. It is a story without agency.
Who—or what network of institutionally interconnected individuals—set the Atlanticist anti-Russian agenda whose self-perpetuating dynamic Aurelien describes?
There are many ways such questions could, in principle, be answered. The most common approach is to see historical trends as the result of large, impersonal forces. This is surely an improvement over the conspiracy view that imagines a few powerful puppeteers controling everything from off stage, but to see only impersonal forces ignores the reality that abstractions don’t act on their own but through paricular individuals. The middle path between conspiracy theory and agentless abstractions is power structure analysis, pioneered by the likes of C. Wright Mills:
“The view that all is blind drift is largely a fatalist projection of one's own feeling of impotence and perhaps, if one has ever been active politically in a principled way, a salve of ones guilt. The view that all of history is due to the conspiracy of an easily located set of villains, or of heroes, is also a hurried projection from the difficult effort to understand how shifts in the structure of so-
ciety open opportunities to various elites and how various elites take advantage or fail to take advantage of them.” *The Power Elite* (New York: Oxford University Press: 2009) p. 27
I was reminded of this passage while reading a fascinating Substack post by one PhD student who goes by the handle @cymbelmine, who offers a power structure analysis of the Atlanticist institutions that put western governments in the *specific* hole of which @Aurelien speaks. @cymbelmine writes,
“Why are European elites torching their own house? The answer does not lie in pure and straightforward corruption or ideological fervor. It is far more banal and far more effective. The answer also lies in biographies, networks, and institutions. It also lies in hegemony on the level of the functional elite: when ruling ideas become common sense. And in this case, hegemony is not enforced solely through violence but through education, elite recruitment, and ritualized repetition.… [T]he maintenance of hegemony relies less on coercion than on soft incorporation. Elite knowledge networks, embedded in university programs, philanthropic foundations, and think tanks, act as vectors for this soft power. They socialize, recruit, and certify rising leaders…. [T]hese networks define what counts as ‘thinkable thought’ and ‘askable questions.’ The Ford and Rockefeller foundations, RAND Corporation, Brookings, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for American Progress are elite integration machines where, through these processes of integration and socialization, a certain type of knowledge becomes power.”
Just one question: What the hell would be the motives for Russia to make a war against Europe? Don't they have had enough of wars? Something ut to a quarter of a million dead, I've heard. Why continue that?
The most sensible, and the most egotistic, thing they could do would be just to turn their back to Europe and start to develop their own vast country and let the Europeans fry in their own fat. Why waste energy on them?
Well, if "everyone" knows it, why don't we hear more about it?
I know the answer to that: we all are quite content sitting here, like I do, and tell eachother privately, more or less. But doing so draws no water whatever, politically. Only organized collectives can do that. And besides, only organized collectives can work up an enthusiasm enough to make a fuzz.
"Well, if "everyone" knows it, why don't we hear more about it?"
Are you serious? Because Russia as scary boogeyman is politically useful at the moment.
Did you learn nothing from Saddam/Milosevic/Assad/etc.?
As far as the collective action problem, yes, there is one. There also are serious personal and professional consequences for going against the consensus.
It was the same the last cold war. There were heavy consequences for those who went against the Empire in the beginning. By nevertheless lots of people did. And in the end the Empire's narrative looked somewhat ridiculous.
Lawrence Wittner tells for example, in The struggle against the bomb, about a few elderly women who were summoned before the Committee against Unamerican Activities and succeeded in making it seem so ridiculous that they had to disband it.
Well, the first cold war continued over at least ten years so we are perhaps not ripe yet. It takes some time to find a good point of attack. But the heavy rise in defense spending should be a good one, I think. Lots of people would loose from it, and have anough motives to go against it. They already do in Italy, for example.
Nothing is granted, except that "the Empire" is weakter and more vulnerable than it has been for ages. It's for that reason its personnel is so panic-strucken. Let's make use of that. They may use violence against us in the beginning, but as soon as their police forces begin to loose trust in them we win.
Most Europeans don't have much fat left for frying in - certainly not 'deep frying' - maybe a little light basting? Although you could certainly deep-fry Ursula von Der Leyen and pals.
I have seen some clips with scenes from the latest Festival de Musique in Paris. Horrible. The nihilism, it is mind bogling. Nihilism is taking center stage. Emmanuel Todd tries to explain what is going on with the Israel's society as profound nihilism.
The Arab and African emigrants of recent times in Europe must feel deeply this nihilism after their countries have been destroyed and hollowed out by war and/or neoliberalism and by the promotion of the west of compradror elites. This is what capitalism/oligarchy does ultimately: it corrupts, because only corrupting among individuals you can get divided "cities" and, as we all know, a divided city can never stand.
I take the point of the lack of intelectual traying and the closing of the western mind. Claude Levi-Strauss described how in his student youth they had to argue, "dialectically" about a point, from to opposing points, as succesfully as possible. No wonder then that so many leftist intelectuals of the 1950s turned out unbending neocons in middle and lte age, they had the mental training as well as the intelectual chops to do that. Today's midgets (Annalena 360 degrees) Baerbok, new Presdident at UN, not so much.
But the present elite has dug too much and keeps digging in other aspects as well. The ridiculous idea they peddle, that they are democratic, all the while showing crass contempt of the public wishes: look at the treatment of Hungary, of AdF, of Polish right, heck, look at the judicial coup d'etat in Romania, fully supported by eurocrats. The examples abound. And what theu want to do now? To cut social spending (the despised word, being said as a slur, probably equivalent of "cunt" is now "entitlement") for re-arming and re militarizing. Yeh, the elites and the naked oligarchy that is on top in Europe and dreams of the return of good old 1800s or so, needs a military capable to control its own population, after it increased the destitution, and undermined it with allogene population that speaks something else, looks differently, and sees the host society as a mark, as a host to be parasitised and definitely brought down, because it is sick and destructive.
The musings of (and about) the western elites and the associated PMC ultimately are a waste of time and I will try to pay greater attention to the likely increase of the rumbling stomachs that will come upon Europe with all this de-industrialization, change in climate, etc. I think 1848 will look like a walk in the park in not too distant future. Which explains the present push for militarization. The present elites want to keep their seats and control and won't relinquish it easily. As Galbraight said in episode 2 of his 10 episodes miniseries, these elites would rather bring the world down than relinquish control.
This is why Russians are serializing the Oreshniks, improving their nukes, subs, etc., because they see that only massive force can succesfully confront the psychopatic, power hungry, hypocritical west, that (as Putin said) has been engaged in a vampire orgy ball on the rest of the world for the past 500 years... We have all seen Gaza and we have all seen the US/UK/Israel combine acting on Iran. There is nothing they won't do. And the rest of the world has taken notice.
Convincing the present crop of elites to change their tune is pointless. They won't, they can't, midgets as they are. Shortening their actual length by chopping their heads would be just proper hygiene.
"The ridiculous idea they peddle, that they are democratic, all the while showing crass contempt of the public wishes: look at the treatment of Hungary, of AdF, of Polish right, heck, look at the judicial coup d'etat in Romania, fully supported by eurocrats. The examples abound."
Surely by now you know that to sociopaths, truth and lies are of interest solely to the extent that they can be weaponized.
"'Democracy' is good, therefore anything we do is by definition 'democratic'. The enemy is bad, so no matter what they do, it is by definition 'undemocratic'"
And you know what? It works.
Until it doesn't... The saying is The (clay) pitcher doesn't go to the water often.
Rulers have been doing this for millenia.
Yes, and we live in the period of time, last couple of centuries, with the most rulers beheaded/killed by the populations they ruled....
No, most rulers die in their beds.
You haven't seen the roster of Romanian rulers starting with 1300s on...
@Kouros
(Quote)
"I have seen some clips with scenes from the latest Festival de Musique in Paris. Horrible. The nihilism, it is mind bogling (sic)."
----------
I HAD to look up le Festival de Musique based on your description.
https://g.co/kgs/ohk8KsJ
Darn, I was hoping for scenes from a Federico Fellini movie? This isn't even PG.
Have you check what is happening at night?
@Kouros
Nope, I'm on the other side of the Atlantic.
I had bene saying something like this for years. Anyway. europe is still holding out hope that the United States will again ride to their rescue. This was ever always only the real plan, admittedly assisted by Russian dithering and indecision. As long as the war continues, they can continue their machinations to this end.
I can guarantee you that a Macron, a Starmer are telling Trump something to the effect that "We supported you in the War On Iran and assisted slavishly in the Gaza Genocide. You Owe Us Big Time Now."
Moreover, europe needs Russia. A Scary Enemy is always a necessity.
1. To justify why we can't have nice things. Healthcare? Infrastructure? Education? We don't have time for that now, don't you know we gotta fight Saddam/Milosevic/Bin Laden/Saddam again/Ghaddafi/Assad/ISIS/Putin/Hamas/Houthis/Iran ad nauseam.
2. To give the rubes a cause to rally around, rather than ask awkward questions.
3. To unify political factions around a common enemy, justify the division of spoils and explain why we can't have nirvana right at the moment, we'd really like to but the Scary Enemy is stopping us and don't you know we gotta focus on this fight, right now!
4. To justify crackdowns on civil liberties. You and your namby-pamby civil rights, you hate our freedom! What, are you on the side of the fascists/communists/Islamicists/Russians/ ad nauseam?
West doesn't need Russia's win to destroy it. West has already destroyed itself with streets that look like Mogadishu and probably less safe (especially for young women). Then again maybe that's the fourth reason they can't quit Russia. Better to focus on a External enemy than in their streets.
As long as the rulers are safe and snug, as long as police and army will still shoot when ordered to do so, that is all that matters.
"the current western system, full of mediocre greasy-pole climbers and empty of any real ideology" seems to be an accurate description of what we have as an excuse for government.
What I wonder is how we got here. It almost makes the theory of 'something in the water supply now' seem feasible. (And there are actually things in the water supply and in our bloodstreams which weren't there 50 years ago). I can remember a time when (in my rose tinted memory) politicians made mistakes of all kinds, large and small, such as Suez, etc., but they never seemed to be living in a complete Alice in Wonderland fantasy, as they undoubtedly are these days.
People who had fought in the war, like Dennis Healey and Edward Heath had a basic grounding in reality (- although this didn't seem to work for Anthony Eden) even if you found their policies unacceptable. But even if this is true, war experience is not an acceptable method for training politicians.
As I like to remember it the rot set in with Thatcher and the rise of neo-liberal ideology - after that we had clowns like Ian Duncan Smith, Tony Blair (perhaps not a clown, but an unprincipled lying warmonger at best), William Hague, David Cameron, Liz Truss, Boris Johnston (clown and liar) and now the latest and a good contender for the Tin-Ear Award, Keir Starmer. Other European countries (and the US) are no better.
It's not what's in the water, it's who is paying for their water. Remember, this class can afford to eat and live healthy.
I don't know about Europe, but in the US, every single federally elected politician is legally bribed to continue/start war. Some are bribed more than others (e.g. Lindsay Graham), but every single one of them is an empty shell, reading a script written for them by monied interests. They have no practice thinking because they were put up for election BECAUSE they don't think.
I wasn't thinking of their motivation, which is as you say. More the question of the origin of the clunking, ham-fisted, tin-eared lying and blinkered tunnel-vision stupidity which is displayed almost everywhere in the top echelons of the 'west'. Possibly as you say they were chosen for this quality, but it seems to be too widespread to be so easily explained. I mean, it must be quite difficult to find so many plausible but gullible morons. Or is it?
I think you are right that our predicament began with neoliberalism which is a totalitarian thought system that brooks no dissent: TINA "there is no alternative" became their mantra and Hayek their high priest. “This is what we believe!” allegedly said by Maggie slamming their holy scripture, The Constitution of Liberty, down on the table. As Morris Berman says, an idea is something you have; an ideology is something that has you. Maggie and her crew were short on ideas but big on belief.
A must-read - thank you Aurelien. Your ability to articulate precisely what I sense and fear in our current situation, is a constant relief. Not that it solves the problems, but understanding is infinitely better than mere disquiet. I foresee our new PM here in Canada piling into the same pit, shovel at the ready, as his European counterparts - indeed, given his CV, the European pit is the one in which he feels most at home. Unfortunately our alternatives were equally, if differently, incapable, so a Soviet-type societal collapse is pretty much the only future I can envision at the moment. Like most Canadians, I loathe the idea of becoming part of the US, but I wouldn't want to bet my life on that not happening, in reality if not in name. And the chances of our bureaucracy throwing up a leader of Putin's intelligence, stature and ability appear vanishingly small. The Russians still had an excellent educational system, as I understand it, from which possibilities could emerge. I rejoice for them, and in the spirit of a "magical miracle", hope that somewhere in our national backwaters something constructive will arise out of the mess we are inevitably facing. It's the combination of long-building fiscal disaster, imperial fantasy mindset, and military naivete, not to mention entitlement overreach, that seems impregnable. Everywhere I turn, I hear assumptions I know to be pure fantasy, but we've lived off them for generations now. Collapse appears to be the most hopeful option, however destructive in the initial decades. Thanks again!
The claims that Russia's "GDP is much higher than we think" comes from the American created and run World Bank of all places. They bumped Russia's economy to 4th place, past Japan's economy, based on PPP which looks to be a more accurate metric. Moreover, the IMF changed Russia's status to a "High Income" nation. I don't know if these organizations did not get the memo's or just refuse to play along, but it's been fun watching the Russia-Putin haters try and explain it away, but only after initially claiming it was 'fake news'. Once they realized it was legit they put their little hater heads together to come up with multiple ways/versions to explain why it does not matter. This is after claiming Russia is on the verge of economic collapse, everyday for 3 years, and Russian plebs are fighting in the streets over the last cabbage. Alternative reality. Reminds me of climate change deniers after every record smashing, global warming Jacked disaster, coming up with alternate explanations and/or minimizing and normalizing long predicted climate disasters that continue to be more destructive ( sorry kids but towns burning down only started in 2016). It's not just climate deniers and Putin-Russia haters and politicians Most of western civ seems to have come up with various ways to keep their heads in the sand when faced with any one of many predicaments in the so called poly crisis, while still functioning enough to survive (Poly crisis is their way of saying Overshoot without having to say Overshoot).
One of the recons I continue to read your essays is because you are not blaming and advocating in spite of some of your readers being disappointing you are not offering solutions/advocating. They would be false solutions since we are talking about predicament that we are going to have to learn to live with and survive. Stupid is not the only thing that can't be fixed.
*Russia overtakes Japan to become the fourth largest economy in the world in PPP terms*
.
The Russian economy has overtaken Japan to become the fourth largest in the world in PPP terms (purchase power parity), according to revised data from the World Bank released at the start of June.
As bne IntelliNews reported in August, Russia had already overtook Germany to become the fifth biggest economy in adjusted terms. Hit by multiple shocks recently and cut off from cheap Russian gas, Germany is now stagnating and has fallen to sixth place in the World Bank’s ranking.
PPP GDP measurement is preferred by many economists, as it takes into account the difference between local prices and nominal prices, similar to The Economist’s famous Big Mac index: a burger in Moscow costs about half as much as the same burger in New York.
The World Bank has improved Russia’s ranking after revising its data and says that Russia actually overtook Japan in 2021 and has maintained its position at number four since then. Its previous calculations were based on 2017 data but these have now been updated to reflect the 2021 figures.
Previously, Russian President Vladimir Putin set his government the goal of producing economic growth ahead of the global average. Before the war in Ukraine started, Russia’s economic growth was well behind that of the global average and close to stagnation. However, following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the economy has been enjoying a military Keynesianism boost and is currently the fastest growing major economy in the world.
And Russia has overtaken Japan ahead of schedule. Putin explicitly set his government the goal of attaining fourth place among the world's largest economies in terms of PPP earlier this year, and the Cabinet was instructed to prepare measures to achieve this goal by March 31, 2025."
.
https://www.intellinews.com/russia-overtakes-japan-to-become-the-fourth-largest-economy-in-the-world-in-ppp-terms-328108/
Congrats on your increased readership. Your sucess is well deserved.
Keep in mind that a lot of the Russian economy is in the "gray" market and hence not amenable to ready measurement.
World economic statistics are misleading for several reasons, first among them is that only the gross amounts are reported. For example, the two most important items in terms of national sovereignty (ability to defend oneself). are oil and steel production.
Here are the world output figures in gross amounts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production
Now divide those numbers by population to get per-capita production and you find that Russia produces roughly twice as much oil and steel per-capita as the USA. Similar numbers apply for wheat production, which puts Russia first on a per-capita basis.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wheat-production-by-country
What this means is that, assuming similar rates of internal consumption, Russia has twice as much oil and steel, and 5 times as much wheat available for export as the USA. Similar numbers apply across the entire industrial and agricultural sectors.
Granted these are back of envelope calculations, but they point to the broader trend. Even given 20 years of sanctions, Russia can still outproduce the USA on vital industrial products per-capita. Another variable is cost of production, which likewise is not included in gross output figures. Much of Russian production is state controlled, which implies lower costs, given that self-sufficiency in vital production is a primary political goal.
Much has been made recently of China’s vast industrial output, which is true, but again, per-capita figures should be used given their large population, plus one has to account for the fact that many of their primary inputs, especially oil and gas, have to be imported, whereas in Russia most can be sourced internally.
This is the part that most economists miss (or intentionally leave out). Russia has a policy of full autarky and is well on its way to achieving that goal. No other nation on earth can make that claim and still project the kind of military power Russia is capable of. From a Western hegemonic perspective, Russia is by far the greater threat, since unlike China, they can’t be threatened with export tariffs or denied access to vital energy and material inputs.
Sorry, but I have serious trouble believing that Western military analysts are not supplying their Defence Ministers with (mostly) realistic sitreps, analyses and prognoses re. Ru/Ukr.
By way of example, let's recall William J. Burns and his famous "Nyet Means Nyet" cable. He nailed it, didn't he?
EU was presented with a perfectly good excuse to call it quits & save face when Trump came to power... instead, they chose to double down.
Here, let me present an alternative view on Western elites' thought processes, and make one humble prediction:
If Ukr collapses, they'll just blame Ukrainians.
Ofc, they'll say out loud, what were we thinking??? We tried to help, we tried our best, but again and again, those inept and corrupt Eastern Slavs failed us - failed to implement our Genius Victory Plans; misused our Wonder Weapons; and stole our Generous Support funds.
And the Western publics will totally swallow it - hook line & sinker.
&Behind the closed doors, they'll say - OK, we took a bet. It was a good bet - had we won, Putin would've been out. As it is, some Eastern Slavs are dead, Russia is pissed, but hey, who cares? Look at this war as a Petri dish: we've learned a lot, and it cost us next to nothing.
It cost them a lot. Look at the GDP growth figures in Germany, carnage in the whole industries and so on. The results are already catastrophic and even a victory achieved by some miracle won't justify the costs, let alone defeat/draw
Sure, but they'll still say that - remember the "cost us peanuts" headline? https://share.google/DqTCfGyBSBtitRiWu
So, they'll say it's still peanuts compared to the cost of letting Russia grow unchecked.
We all know how those points are argued.
No, the plan ever always only was that the United States would again ride to europe’s rescue rather than leave its european catamites hanging out to dry.
This plan is proceeding accordingly.
In any case, I don't quite understand why people paint the Ukraine debacle as incomparably more serious than Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sure, there is "big bad Russia" involved, but everyone with half a brain understands that "Russians marching across the EU" is a completely ridiculous hyperbole. Whether AFU collapses or not, Ukraine fall-out should be the same order of magnitude as Iraq/Afghanistan.
And then everyone will pivot to The Next Current Thing. In fact, with Israel dominating headlines for so long, one might argue they already have.
Because the West sees Russian dithering and indecision and it smells blood.
Emotionally, I often feel that way, but rationally, I disagree.
Pretty much every decisive Russian escalation scenario, if you honestly put yourself in Russia's adversaries' shoes, has much more potential to turn out worse for Russia than the current model. With the current model, Russia is slowly but surely moving where it wants to go, making it progressively harder for the Western elites to fan up popular panic and to justify any drastic measures.
Some argue that the West is out of drastic measures, or that it's digging in for a long confrontation anyway, but honestly, aren't the feelings of fatigue and resignation almost palpable? On X, no one is posting about Ukraine anymore. Zelensky made a minor splash by finally wearing a suit. Russia is still hoping for a (relative) normalization over short-to-medium term, and this hope isn't entirely unfounded.
"Some argue that the West is out of drastic measures, or that it's digging in for a long confrontation anyway, but honestly, aren't the feelings of fatigue and resignation almost palpable?"
Not really. The elites are the only ones who count, and the elites see things as going entirely successfully. Russians are getting killed, no european casualties to have to explain to the voters back home, and Trump is an easily manipulated imbecile.
The air feels like 1917. Once the Americans can be dragged in, it's smooth sailing!
Ok, so how would you escalate if you were Russia? Can we "game" it step-by-step, assigning relative probabilities to various Western reaction scenarios, guessing how it's going to peak and then (presumably) de-escalate?
I am sure you've thought about it a lot; perhaps you've even written about it already?
You need Ukrainians to quit first for this scenario to happen. Ukrainians won't quit and will fight to last man and probably woman too. I think that suits Russia fine too. Thats one way to denazify just depopulate the place.
Oh and they already have blamed Ukrainians for their failed plans calling them "casualty adverse" is why 2023 major offensive failed.
I've heard that Ukrainian public sentiment is to stop the war, to concede. But they're literally scared to say that. The Ukrainian security services monitor social media, and I remember reading a couple years ago that a "like" on a "wrong" post will bring the SBU knocking.
Look at the military abducting people off the street to serve. Look at POW videos of Ukrainians saying the military training camps are mined to prevent recruits from escaping, and if they try to run anyways, they're shot dead.
Nobody cares what Ukrainians want. You think a farmer takes opinion polls of his chickens?
Aurelian confronts the mysterious and sustained West's "gap in understanding" -- the profound gap between its leaders' illusions (or lies) and reality. This gap is the theme of Barbara Tuchman's March of Folly. She argued (back in the '70's) that the U.S. intervention in Vietnam was a steady march spanning years of denial that had many precedents in history. The U.S. and the West has had several follies since then, so it's clear her book and its warnings were (and still are) ignored. It is now clear that Ukraine is the latest Folly. With the passage of time, as the fog lifts, U.S. support for Taiwan and for Israel have all the earmarks of Folly as well. The long march into Syria ended with the greatest Folly of all -- the "victory" (perhaps temporary) of ISIL/Al Queda affiliated militias.
As to when to "stop digging" -- this depends on what the incremental costs and benefits are, to whom and for whom respectively, and the form they take. For Europe's leaders, the costs have been mostly in the form of degraded reputations and lost elections. For the U.S. it has been mostly dollars. The U.S. enjoys its "exorbitant privilege" of paying with paper (dollars), which enables it to drag on these conflicts nearly forever. My guess is that Trump, with the help of a compliant Congress and media, will allow funds to keep flowing to Ukraine covertly for a good long while even after official budgets are exhausted. Other than that, Trump will suffer some damage to his reputation for Ukraine and Israel being "his" wars. My guess is he'll keep the money flowing to avoid a day of reckoning and pass the buck to the next President. This is how endless wars become endless follies.
The EU could conceivably use the Ukraine Crisis to put the Euro on steroids to fund military expenditures the same way that the U.S. does -- with deficits -- if the EU decided to do so. Indeed, the "fear of Russia" could galvanize major institutional changes in EU finance, so it can have its cake (social safety nets) and eat it too (military expenditures). In the future, deficits may be the glue that keeps the EU together, as they do for the U.S.
Someone (Toynbee perhaps?) once wrote that culture is upstream from politics. I believe Alfred Koryzybski captured the essence of culture with his term 'belief system.' A belief system is, simply put, the things we believe to be true, however, they don't have to be true to be effective, nor do they have to be false to put us at a disadvantage, at least in the short run.
Belief systems, for the most part, are inherited from our parents and consolidated through the education process, which itself is influenced by the exiting cultural belief system, so there's a circularity to the process which is self-reinforcing. This extends to the act of analyzing the belief systems of others, which we view through the lens of our own belief system. Thus for maximum objectivity we have to examine our own beliefs and identify any bias that may be introduced into our analysis of other's beliefs. Not an easy task.
Generally speaking, it's only at a point of failure that we start to reexamine our beliefs in earnest, both personal and cultural, by which time it's often too late to change course. The die has been cast and the enemy is at the gates. This is is the current situation across much of the western world, but the danger exists for those cultures in ascendancy as well. It's entirely possible for an inaccurate or even false belief system to succeed in the short run, only to undermine us in the longer term. I see something like this in the work of analysts of the rise of China, ascribing it to underlying positive cultural beliefs rather than a fortunate confluence of unidentified factors. The same is true for American exceptionalism which operates from a set of beliefs that ascribe some special quality to their national ideology which is more of a myth than a description of reality. Israel is another example, although there are plenty of others.
The trick is to not fall into this trap, which is easier said that done. I'm not offering a solution to the problem other than to be aware that the problem exists. Elsewhere on this board I've posted a list of authors who address these same issues, which have helped in my own understanding and hopefully your own as well.
Very good one. The "system beliefs" works, not by their truth; they work because function in cohesive society. That's the mistake of "militant atheists", when they don't understand the function of religion and read that "system of beliefs" literally. It affects the epistemological analysis that we made about other "systems of beliefs", being unable of think different. Furthermore, we can say that those systems are necessary in order to social cohesion, but that different "contents" works. Also, the succees of a State is not mainly explainable by cultural systems of beliefs (that is idealism, on my view).
"maximum objectivity"
I doubt if there is such a thing. People often revolt me with their unexamined acceptance of, for example, eating other animals. This is a very basic thing which commonly passes well below the radar of anyone professing 'objectivity'. So the chances of anyone achieving even minimum 'objectivity' seem to be pretty low.
Well, I did say that it wasn't easy, so you're kind of making my case.
De Nada! :-)
So the only response that the West can muster is to say that Russia beat us at our own game. Sounds about right.
Thanks Aurelian, good article. The West needs to do a lot of tough thinking.
One of the problems we have is that our politicians are not interested in the wider ramifications of politics but only the practice thereof. They could do A or B but don't care much one way or the other.
Geopolitics is a totally different ball game as they are finding out. They think that they know everything because they have "The Prince " in their library.
.
Since the politicians and their hangers-on pay no price, no personal price, no professional price, why should they care?
The War On Iraq proved most instructive. Blair still swans around Davos, free as a bird and hailed as a Serious Thinker and a Foreign Policy Heavyweight, in spite of ramming through an unpopular war based on lies and otherwise serving in Number Ten as America's Most Loyalest Little Bitch.
Those who opposed the war were smeared and cast into Outer Darkness.
They only care about the next election because they only care about themselves. Is it any wonder their nations are collapsing?
If the elections aren't going as intended, simply cancel them or ban the offending candidate.
The electorate barely raise a peep in protest. Hey Eurovision is on!
"They think that they know everything because they have "The Prince " in their library."
Not likely. I think what they have in their library is 'Noddy and Big Ears Wreck Toytown'.
So the Western political hierarchy, most of which has endured with little change for at least 80 years, seems set to be brought down not by Marxism or parties of what the MSM calls the Far-Right or even by direct military attack by its enemies, but instead by an easily-manipulated, fifth-rate Ukrainian entertainer whose greatest comedic exploit was - as widely reported though I have not seen a video - to play a piano with his penis. Quite apt, really.
Very thoughtful article and analysis. Prof. Jeffrey Sachs has been giving some talks in Europe, including, I believe, before the EU Parliament. He has expressed the need for Europe to delink from NATO and the US, and to build a Europe-centered foreign policy free from those strangling entanglements. From your article, I doubt whether there is any likely world in which this is possible, but is there an imaginable world in which such could happen? Can you conceive of that small glimmer of possibility existing?
This is a wonderfully written essay. Yet: “ Western leaders hope for a miracle ” frames the problem as psychological denial (“too terrible to contemplate”) rather than as a material struggle by identifiable actors who have a lot to lose. However, psychology is part of this whole conundrum, too.
I would add three concrete layers to this analysis:
The alternative (multipolar sovereignty, commodity trade off-dollar, regional security formats, a temporal political void) isn’t terrifying in the abstract: it’s terrifying to those whose careers, networks and portfolios are geared to a unipolar order. And who have been doing so for a long time (at least since the end of the 19th century). What looks like “suicidal policy” for the public is rational cost-containment for an incumbent class trying to keep its asset sheet and prestige hierarchy intact. Something that is highly meaningfulf for them as a social group.
Rather than a mass of “western leaders,” it is about specific organisations (NATO commands, foundation boards, transatlantic think-tank circuits), whose funding cycles and professional incentives reward escalation. A RAND fellow who counsels genuine de-escalation is out of a job; while a fellow who argues for “deterrence” gets a panel slot and a donor.
It is also about a networked reproduction of worldviews: There is an important self-reproducing knowledge loop within these elites: fellowships → white papers → policy internships → cabinet posts. People inside that loop need just enough incremental crisis to keep the loop financed. When multipolar realities threaten the loop, they double-down, not because the alternative is “worse for civilisation,” but because it’s worse for their position within civilisation.
So, we might ask: what concrete resource flows and status hierarchies does this policy track preserve, and for whom? Answer that, and the puzzle of this “irrational persistence” seems to be more tied to a sense of rational self-preservation by a historically-bounded class.
This is a astute analysis, and largely convincing. It explains well the multiple factors of inertia that keep politicians and bureaucrats “digging,” but it tells us nothing about how they got into this hole in the first place. Why this specific hole, and not another? In other words, the essay lacks a theory of change. It is a story without agency.
Who—or what network of institutionally interconnected individuals—set the Atlanticist anti-Russian agenda whose self-perpetuating dynamic Aurelien describes?
There are many ways such questions could, in principle, be answered. The most common approach is to see historical trends as the result of large, impersonal forces. This is surely an improvement over the conspiracy view that imagines a few powerful puppeteers controling everything from off stage, but to see only impersonal forces ignores the reality that abstractions don’t act on their own but through paricular individuals. The middle path between conspiracy theory and agentless abstractions is power structure analysis, pioneered by the likes of C. Wright Mills:
“The view that all is blind drift is largely a fatalist projection of one's own feeling of impotence and perhaps, if one has ever been active politically in a principled way, a salve of ones guilt. The view that all of history is due to the conspiracy of an easily located set of villains, or of heroes, is also a hurried projection from the difficult effort to understand how shifts in the structure of so-
ciety open opportunities to various elites and how various elites take advantage or fail to take advantage of them.” *The Power Elite* (New York: Oxford University Press: 2009) p. 27
I was reminded of this passage while reading a fascinating Substack post by one PhD student who goes by the handle @cymbelmine, who offers a power structure analysis of the Atlanticist institutions that put western governments in the *specific* hole of which @Aurelien speaks. @cymbelmine writes,
“Why are European elites torching their own house? The answer does not lie in pure and straightforward corruption or ideological fervor. It is far more banal and far more effective. The answer also lies in biographies, networks, and institutions. It also lies in hegemony on the level of the functional elite: when ruling ideas become common sense. And in this case, hegemony is not enforced solely through violence but through education, elite recruitment, and ritualized repetition.… [T]he maintenance of hegemony relies less on coercion than on soft incorporation. Elite knowledge networks, embedded in university programs, philanthropic foundations, and think tanks, act as vectors for this soft power. They socialize, recruit, and certify rising leaders…. [T]hese networks define what counts as ‘thinkable thought’ and ‘askable questions.’ The Ford and Rockefeller foundations, RAND Corporation, Brookings, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for American Progress are elite integration machines where, through these processes of integration and socialization, a certain type of knowledge becomes power.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/themindness/p/elite-capture-and-european-self-destruction?r=145k0&utm_medium=ios
Just one question: What the hell would be the motives for Russia to make a war against Europe? Don't they have had enough of wars? Something ut to a quarter of a million dead, I've heard. Why continue that?
The most sensible, and the most egotistic, thing they could do would be just to turn their back to Europe and start to develop their own vast country and let the Europeans fry in their own fat. Why waste energy on them?
The whole idea that Russia is itching to play Risk! is silly and everyone knows it.
However, this provides an excellent justification for saber-rattling and sky-high military budgets.
Well, if "everyone" knows it, why don't we hear more about it?
I know the answer to that: we all are quite content sitting here, like I do, and tell eachother privately, more or less. But doing so draws no water whatever, politically. Only organized collectives can do that. And besides, only organized collectives can work up an enthusiasm enough to make a fuzz.
I have written exensively about that, for example at http://www.folkrorelser.org/inenglish/we-need-rites.html, http://www.folkrorelser.org/inenglish/only-mobilizations.html and http://www.folkrorelser.org/inenglish/social-media-overrated.html
We don’t hear about because incentives are aligned with the Empire, not against it. Same as it ever was.
"Well, if "everyone" knows it, why don't we hear more about it?"
Are you serious? Because Russia as scary boogeyman is politically useful at the moment.
Did you learn nothing from Saddam/Milosevic/Assad/etc.?
As far as the collective action problem, yes, there is one. There also are serious personal and professional consequences for going against the consensus.
It was the same the last cold war. There were heavy consequences for those who went against the Empire in the beginning. By nevertheless lots of people did. And in the end the Empire's narrative looked somewhat ridiculous.
Lawrence Wittner tells for example, in The struggle against the bomb, about a few elderly women who were summoned before the Committee against Unamerican Activities and succeeded in making it seem so ridiculous that they had to disband it.
Well, the first cold war continued over at least ten years so we are perhaps not ripe yet. It takes some time to find a good point of attack. But the heavy rise in defense spending should be a good one, I think. Lots of people would loose from it, and have anough motives to go against it. They already do in Italy, for example.
Even taking that again as granted, the Empire won.
Nothing is granted, except that "the Empire" is weakter and more vulnerable than it has been for ages. It's for that reason its personnel is so panic-strucken. Let's make use of that. They may use violence against us in the beginning, but as soon as their police forces begin to loose trust in them we win.
Most Europeans don't have much fat left for frying in - certainly not 'deep frying' - maybe a little light basting? Although you could certainly deep-fry Ursula von Der Leyen and pals.
The "Europeans" I referred to was of course the bunch Aurelien writes so acidly about – the ruling clique.