We forget our own history too. Am currently reading Jonathan Healey’s account of the English Civil War: “The Blazing World”. I had forgotten (or never knew) just how important religion was to the conflict. This included momentous decisions such as where the altar table should should be placed and whether it should be railed off. Nor had I realised the extent to which religion pervaded the whole discussion of the King’s powers and whether or not he could tax without consent. Then in 1660, as far as I can understand, the Parliamentary army that had triumphed in the First Civil War simply melted away and chose not to fight when Monck marched south. It’s maybe not so different to how the Syrian Army melted away last week!
The West today has no idea either what existential conflict means or what people do when they genuinely think that is what they face. The people who lived through that are pretty much a departed generation. In July 1940 we in the U.K. turned viciously on our erstwhile ally France, sank their fleet, killed many sailors and denied their government’s right to exit the war. Then we bombed German cities in the full knowledge that civilians would be killed. Our failure to remember this and other events (or to whitewash them) often prevents us from putting ourselves in Israel’s (or perhaps Russia’s) shoes and realising that many of her people feel that they are in a permanent existential conflict for survival. We then do not understand why they behave as they do but many people are happy to condemn. None of this is seeking to condone or condemn either, but we can only address it if we bother to understand the reasons first. Which (usually) are not simply one side “good” and the other side “evil”.
Thanks for the essays this year. They are always thought provoking.
Maybe you enjoy the reading of Peter Turchin works. He talk about the importance in long-term History of social cohesion and the perception of "holy" (or existencial) norms, beliefs and goals. He also put special attention on how the elits are or not filled of this "values", considering the cohesion and behave of elits as more important (because they have more power and can produce more change) that the one in the population, but without denying the need of this "tie" shared by both groups.
I do. Think there is a lot of truth in what he writes. Although (as he says himself) one has to be careful of being too deterministic or mechanical in applying it.
Of course, any reductionism is unuseful for understanding the reality. That is one thing that likes me a lot of Aurelien: that usually offer a direct attack on certain reductionist explanations of things.
But, in the changes on the region of Middle East since the falling of Otoman Empire (that will remerge in a way or other) and the actions of British and French (here an exemple of foreign intervention that is, in some minds, used in a reductionist way) creating the new countries, I can see how Islam (and also Judaism) has been so important in the sense that Turchin mention, and how a lot of the developments in the region can be partially explained in base to asabiya and the ethnogenesis and development of it.
Oh, the wst "understands" Israel very well, the "existential" threat that is under. Which is a hypocritical cover up of its "choosenism" that was gifted by god with the territory... Didn't American use to say that God put their oil under Arab lands...?
Entirely depends on who you mean in the West though. Support that is not influenced by money, coercion or other incentives is by no means universal. AIPAC needs to spend money for a reason. European governments by and large toe the line they get from Washington on most foreign policy issues because they are vassals. European populations are far less supportive or even hostile. US opinion especially outside of the Beltway is deeply divided too. After all, the campus protests were not pro Israel. Very limited attempt to understand the full situation though, which is the subject of the piece.
Some European contries might toe the line, others are condemning Israel (a minority) and others are accerbic supporters (UK, Germany; Canada and Hungary have even filed legal arguments at ICJ supporting Israeli illegal occupation, Hungary on camera, Canada off camera, so that thir public cannot see the level of depravity of their government)
Right. You are agreeing. Western governments are not the same thing as Western people. Even with so called “democracy”. Hence, my comment: it depends on what you mean by The West.
It is incredible how frivolously people talk about war in countries like my own, Spain. Our Minister of Defence at some point this year said that we were "at war" with Russia. Several months later there were very large floods in the east of the country with 200 dead in the Valencia area. The water came from the sky but the constructions in flood zones and the refusal to carry out essential works in the riverbeds as a consequence of the policy of renaturalisation of river basins did the rest. But the most exasperating thing was that it took 5 days for the first official aid to reach the devastated areas. In fact, armies of volunteers arrived before with shovels and mops to help. And in these pitiful conditions we are supposed to be "at war" with one of the largest military powers in the world. Indeed, it is difficult to understand the world.
"Liberal theory sees wars as mistakes, to be rectified by inclusive peace agreements as soon as possible. Thus the complete incomprehension about the sheer length of the war in Ukraine. Surely the sides must be exhausted, surely there must be a negotiated solution which satisfies everyone, and which everyone would prefer instead of war?"
Dragging on wars in non-Western countries is almost doctrine - and before the Ukraine war, the US elite had made many comments along its objectives of dragging out the war it constructed. What was the USSR-Afghanistan war if not a lesson in dragging out conflict? Or Iran-Iraq? Or....
Peace treaties are never pursued by Liberal countries. Poison Pills are. The problem for them in Ukraine is Russia is not up fro the classic ploys, like ceasefires, long negotiations that exhaust them in frittering way their advantages. This seems more your point, when I reflect on it.
Liberal states insist on long wars for others. They just trapped themselves, all by themselves, this time.
We haven’t just forgotten the roots of warfare, we have forgotten the mechanisms.
The west’s absolute failure to understand the importance of real industry to war fighting potential and conduct is their most consequential failure of the last decade, even if it isn’t the largest misunderstanding that our sociopaths have about war.
One thing I would disagree with is the Western Liberal view of war. While it is rooted in economic and power structures, it is also used to achieve political ideas (or policy). Of course, this is done primarily in other parts of the world where the West doesn't have to suffer the consequences and deal with the issue of "the people" not wanting to see their sons/daughters/fathers die. But seeing other families die to achieve an idea that is appealing doesn't bother the Western leadership at all. Ukraine is a clear example of this.
As such they are schemers, always conniving a ripoff, but they aren't builders. They have big visions but deliver nothing, except more destruction. You'll note that evading accountability is the art of moving goalposts.
I notice I am seeing a lot of parallels to dementia/alzheimers in the current political happenings in the west. Repeating mistakes, inability to learn from them, bellicose, pushy and demanding, without ability to read situations and unable to respond to the circumstances. Some call the political class sociopaths, but what if it is dementia? And the younger politicians are chosen by the dementics to keep dementics feeling fine,. New recruits main job is to keep up the appearance of competence so that the dementics do not need to face their failure. A zombie civilization.
While I agree with Aurelien that the western establishment doesn't understand the times, I can hardly call the abhorrence of war Liberal. For two reasons.
1. In my country, peasants have always detested war. They did what they could to avoid the recruitment officers, and even made "peasant peaces" with peasants on the other side of the border in case of war. And that seems universal, at least in Europe warmaking has been the realm of a mafia called "nobility" up to about a hundred years ago. Only when the alternative seemed even worse, ordinary people have resorted to organized violence, for example in case of being constantly harassed by foreign troops they have lacked all security against. In other words, when war has seemed the least of two evils.
2. Liberals have never shyed away from war if war has seemed profitable (of course I refer to Liberals in power). In fact, according to Dale Copeland war has at least since 1814 been the favoured alternative for a state when the economic competition has seemed to go against it. Which probably lies behind the bellicosity of the US and the EU at the moment, when China seems to be economically all-powerful.
What the Liberals in power in the West can't understand is that they are not Big Brother anymore. That there are more than one center in the world. That they are not all-powerful. This has, it seems, made them panic and resort to the reptile brain.
From the western perspective, turning Syria into a failed state is an eminent desirable and entirely intentional outcome, as such a failed state is of no threat to Greater Israel.
Turkey can be managed, as its rulers wish to continue to enjoy western holidays, do not want their western bank accounts frozen, their shiny western toys seized, their supply of parts for their beloved western military hardware stopped.
"The fact that many parts of the world exist in a state of continuous low-intensity violence, of crime, smuggling, inter-group conflict and occasional outright hostilities, that most adult males have a gun and that there is no real distinction between “combatants” and “civilians...." On my first reading of this sentence, I thought you were referring to the United States. Although, on second thought, the assassination of a CEO who, some say, killed by spreadsheet to boost the stock price, the latest school shooting, the everyday violence of homeless sweeps in Seattle, Denver, NYC, Los Angeles, the excuse of 'drug lords smuggling' to justify military intervention in Central and South America, cannot really be compared to the situation in Ukraine or Gaza or Syria or Lebanon. Give us a couple of years.
Thank you for your essays, often infuriating, often enlightening, this past year.
Where is the world going? Is it into something new? Or with the decline of the West and of liberalism are older patterns re-emerging in slightly different garb? I suspect the latter. Was it 53 countries in the UN in 1945? Something like that and today 190 or thereabouts. today. The European colonial empires spanned the globe. They have receded. The American empire of cash,commerce, and coercion is losing its grip. The spasm of activity recently in Ukraine and West Asia, in Romania, Moldova, and Georgia, in Taiwan and in East Africa look like a last desperate throw of the dice to make permanent a passing moment at the top of the world. I am reminded of an old gangster film, White Heat, which climaxes with James Cagney atop an oil storage tank, which is afire, proclaiming, "Finally made it Ma. Top of the world." then being consumed in the explosion. A less apocalyptic, literary analogy, and I think more probable for the West is from the Dylan Thomas poem: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle into that good night." Ideally the United States could abandon its insistence on primacy and accept its place among the nations, stopping the "war" from exhaustion realizing that the goal had never been in reach. That would be sensible but unexceptional. The empires have receded. Regional movements have or threaten to split apart a nation here, a nation there. What will be the causes? Religion, ethnicity, geography, (We have never liked those on the other side of the mountain.) Where or when will it stop?
The idea of failing to understand as a recent phenomenon seems at odds with what history tells us. I suggest that it is just part of being human. We tend to think that others think like us - we have no other reference, apart from observation of what others do. That requires interpretation, as the reasons for actions can be many and complex. So, projecting our patterns on to others is normal. We try to understand the world through our lens.
As for the 'West' - when you are the biggest, strongest and richest person, people tend to do what you want, and take their cues from you. But if you were such a person, and were now ageing and weakening and not so wealthy, how long would it take for people to stop pandering, or sucking up, and how long before you noticed that your authority was diminished? Would you suddenly change how you thought? Would you dial down the bravado and order giving, or would you carry on until outright defiance and general refusals forced a change?
The premise of your piece is that this is unique to now. But, it is the other way around. Now is a particular set of circumstances which mean that behaviour that once made sense no longer does. Now is unique, but our reactions and attempts to understand it are not. They are what has developed over time, in response to previous eras. The plates are shifting, and it takes time to adjust. But while shifts are usually gradual, there comes a time of slippage, when they happen suddenly. That is the era we are entering.
Russia no more understands in your sense than anyone else. They just have a very clear objective. Ditto Israel. And both are convinced of the existential urgency of achieving it. Hence they pay no attention to international norms or law or rules of war. In less slippery times there might be consequences, but in this now, there is a vacuum as everyone struggles to get to grips with the changing world (dis)order.
The situation in Syria feels to me like HTS is the proverbial "dog who catches the car". The surrounding dogs are all saying to themselves "hey, wait, I want some of that car!".
We forget our own history too. Am currently reading Jonathan Healey’s account of the English Civil War: “The Blazing World”. I had forgotten (or never knew) just how important religion was to the conflict. This included momentous decisions such as where the altar table should should be placed and whether it should be railed off. Nor had I realised the extent to which religion pervaded the whole discussion of the King’s powers and whether or not he could tax without consent. Then in 1660, as far as I can understand, the Parliamentary army that had triumphed in the First Civil War simply melted away and chose not to fight when Monck marched south. It’s maybe not so different to how the Syrian Army melted away last week!
The West today has no idea either what existential conflict means or what people do when they genuinely think that is what they face. The people who lived through that are pretty much a departed generation. In July 1940 we in the U.K. turned viciously on our erstwhile ally France, sank their fleet, killed many sailors and denied their government’s right to exit the war. Then we bombed German cities in the full knowledge that civilians would be killed. Our failure to remember this and other events (or to whitewash them) often prevents us from putting ourselves in Israel’s (or perhaps Russia’s) shoes and realising that many of her people feel that they are in a permanent existential conflict for survival. We then do not understand why they behave as they do but many people are happy to condemn. None of this is seeking to condone or condemn either, but we can only address it if we bother to understand the reasons first. Which (usually) are not simply one side “good” and the other side “evil”.
Thanks for the essays this year. They are always thought provoking.
Maybe you enjoy the reading of Peter Turchin works. He talk about the importance in long-term History of social cohesion and the perception of "holy" (or existencial) norms, beliefs and goals. He also put special attention on how the elits are or not filled of this "values", considering the cohesion and behave of elits as more important (because they have more power and can produce more change) that the one in the population, but without denying the need of this "tie" shared by both groups.
I do. Think there is a lot of truth in what he writes. Although (as he says himself) one has to be careful of being too deterministic or mechanical in applying it.
Of course, any reductionism is unuseful for understanding the reality. That is one thing that likes me a lot of Aurelien: that usually offer a direct attack on certain reductionist explanations of things.
But, in the changes on the region of Middle East since the falling of Otoman Empire (that will remerge in a way or other) and the actions of British and French (here an exemple of foreign intervention that is, in some minds, used in a reductionist way) creating the new countries, I can see how Islam (and also Judaism) has been so important in the sense that Turchin mention, and how a lot of the developments in the region can be partially explained in base to asabiya and the ethnogenesis and development of it.
I agree. Iran / Persia is the other traditional Great Power in the region with a remarkably durable history too. Which also tends to get forgotten.
Oh, the wst "understands" Israel very well, the "existential" threat that is under. Which is a hypocritical cover up of its "choosenism" that was gifted by god with the territory... Didn't American use to say that God put their oil under Arab lands...?
Entirely depends on who you mean in the West though. Support that is not influenced by money, coercion or other incentives is by no means universal. AIPAC needs to spend money for a reason. European governments by and large toe the line they get from Washington on most foreign policy issues because they are vassals. European populations are far less supportive or even hostile. US opinion especially outside of the Beltway is deeply divided too. After all, the campus protests were not pro Israel. Very limited attempt to understand the full situation though, which is the subject of the piece.
Some European contries might toe the line, others are condemning Israel (a minority) and others are accerbic supporters (UK, Germany; Canada and Hungary have even filed legal arguments at ICJ supporting Israeli illegal occupation, Hungary on camera, Canada off camera, so that thir public cannot see the level of depravity of their government)
Right. You are agreeing. Western governments are not the same thing as Western people. Even with so called “democracy”. Hence, my comment: it depends on what you mean by The West.
It is incredible how frivolously people talk about war in countries like my own, Spain. Our Minister of Defence at some point this year said that we were "at war" with Russia. Several months later there were very large floods in the east of the country with 200 dead in the Valencia area. The water came from the sky but the constructions in flood zones and the refusal to carry out essential works in the riverbeds as a consequence of the policy of renaturalisation of river basins did the rest. But the most exasperating thing was that it took 5 days for the first official aid to reach the devastated areas. In fact, armies of volunteers arrived before with shovels and mops to help. And in these pitiful conditions we are supposed to be "at war" with one of the largest military powers in the world. Indeed, it is difficult to understand the world.
Mostly a great analysis except for this IMO:
"Liberal theory sees wars as mistakes, to be rectified by inclusive peace agreements as soon as possible. Thus the complete incomprehension about the sheer length of the war in Ukraine. Surely the sides must be exhausted, surely there must be a negotiated solution which satisfies everyone, and which everyone would prefer instead of war?"
Dragging on wars in non-Western countries is almost doctrine - and before the Ukraine war, the US elite had made many comments along its objectives of dragging out the war it constructed. What was the USSR-Afghanistan war if not a lesson in dragging out conflict? Or Iran-Iraq? Or....
Peace treaties are never pursued by Liberal countries. Poison Pills are. The problem for them in Ukraine is Russia is not up fro the classic ploys, like ceasefires, long negotiations that exhaust them in frittering way their advantages. This seems more your point, when I reflect on it.
Liberal states insist on long wars for others. They just trapped themselves, all by themselves, this time.
We haven’t just forgotten the roots of warfare, we have forgotten the mechanisms.
The west’s absolute failure to understand the importance of real industry to war fighting potential and conduct is their most consequential failure of the last decade, even if it isn’t the largest misunderstanding that our sociopaths have about war.
Efficiency is to do more with less. Until we reach peak efficiency and can do everything with nothing.
Basically trade credits and debts, aka , derivatives.
What happens when the feedback loops don't have circuit breakers. The wiring melts and the furniture catches fire.
One thing I would disagree with is the Western Liberal view of war. While it is rooted in economic and power structures, it is also used to achieve political ideas (or policy). Of course, this is done primarily in other parts of the world where the West doesn't have to suffer the consequences and deal with the issue of "the people" not wanting to see their sons/daughters/fathers die. But seeing other families die to achieve an idea that is appealing doesn't bother the Western leadership at all. Ukraine is a clear example of this.
Of course. The western rulers are not clueless. They are sociopaths.
As such they are schemers, always conniving a ripoff, but they aren't builders. They have big visions but deliver nothing, except more destruction. You'll note that evading accountability is the art of moving goalposts.
I notice I am seeing a lot of parallels to dementia/alzheimers in the current political happenings in the west. Repeating mistakes, inability to learn from them, bellicose, pushy and demanding, without ability to read situations and unable to respond to the circumstances. Some call the political class sociopaths, but what if it is dementia? And the younger politicians are chosen by the dementics to keep dementics feeling fine,. New recruits main job is to keep up the appearance of competence so that the dementics do not need to face their failure. A zombie civilization.
In this respect Biden himself is a perverse ideal of sorts as President of an American empire in its dotage ...
While I agree with Aurelien that the western establishment doesn't understand the times, I can hardly call the abhorrence of war Liberal. For two reasons.
1. In my country, peasants have always detested war. They did what they could to avoid the recruitment officers, and even made "peasant peaces" with peasants on the other side of the border in case of war. And that seems universal, at least in Europe warmaking has been the realm of a mafia called "nobility" up to about a hundred years ago. Only when the alternative seemed even worse, ordinary people have resorted to organized violence, for example in case of being constantly harassed by foreign troops they have lacked all security against. In other words, when war has seemed the least of two evils.
2. Liberals have never shyed away from war if war has seemed profitable (of course I refer to Liberals in power). In fact, according to Dale Copeland war has at least since 1814 been the favoured alternative for a state when the economic competition has seemed to go against it. Which probably lies behind the bellicosity of the US and the EU at the moment, when China seems to be economically all-powerful.
What the Liberals in power in the West can't understand is that they are not Big Brother anymore. That there are more than one center in the world. That they are not all-powerful. This has, it seems, made them panic and resort to the reptile brain.
Thanks for this essay. Here's a haiku I've written for you:
The truth of the matter --
We are yesterday's empire
Ruling over thing's past
From the western perspective, turning Syria into a failed state is an eminent desirable and entirely intentional outcome, as such a failed state is of no threat to Greater Israel.
Turkey can be managed, as its rulers wish to continue to enjoy western holidays, do not want their western bank accounts frozen, their shiny western toys seized, their supply of parts for their beloved western military hardware stopped.
"The fact that many parts of the world exist in a state of continuous low-intensity violence, of crime, smuggling, inter-group conflict and occasional outright hostilities, that most adult males have a gun and that there is no real distinction between “combatants” and “civilians...." On my first reading of this sentence, I thought you were referring to the United States. Although, on second thought, the assassination of a CEO who, some say, killed by spreadsheet to boost the stock price, the latest school shooting, the everyday violence of homeless sweeps in Seattle, Denver, NYC, Los Angeles, the excuse of 'drug lords smuggling' to justify military intervention in Central and South America, cannot really be compared to the situation in Ukraine or Gaza or Syria or Lebanon. Give us a couple of years.
Thank you for your essays, often infuriating, often enlightening, this past year.
Where is the world going? Is it into something new? Or with the decline of the West and of liberalism are older patterns re-emerging in slightly different garb? I suspect the latter. Was it 53 countries in the UN in 1945? Something like that and today 190 or thereabouts. today. The European colonial empires spanned the globe. They have receded. The American empire of cash,commerce, and coercion is losing its grip. The spasm of activity recently in Ukraine and West Asia, in Romania, Moldova, and Georgia, in Taiwan and in East Africa look like a last desperate throw of the dice to make permanent a passing moment at the top of the world. I am reminded of an old gangster film, White Heat, which climaxes with James Cagney atop an oil storage tank, which is afire, proclaiming, "Finally made it Ma. Top of the world." then being consumed in the explosion. A less apocalyptic, literary analogy, and I think more probable for the West is from the Dylan Thomas poem: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle into that good night." Ideally the United States could abandon its insistence on primacy and accept its place among the nations, stopping the "war" from exhaustion realizing that the goal had never been in reach. That would be sensible but unexceptional. The empires have receded. Regional movements have or threaten to split apart a nation here, a nation there. What will be the causes? Religion, ethnicity, geography, (We have never liked those on the other side of the mountain.) Where or when will it stop?
If Russia wanted to destroy the US, it would drop a few dozen bombs on the country.
If China wants to destroy the US, it will drop a few trillion in treasuries on the bond markets.
When the big tree falls and saplings grow up in the space, foreign policy is between Texas and California, etc.
Good on you Aurelian, I think something better is coming as the West gets mesmerised looking at its own navel as their Empire implodes.
Enjoy your work.
Thank you Aurelien🙏
The idea of failing to understand as a recent phenomenon seems at odds with what history tells us. I suggest that it is just part of being human. We tend to think that others think like us - we have no other reference, apart from observation of what others do. That requires interpretation, as the reasons for actions can be many and complex. So, projecting our patterns on to others is normal. We try to understand the world through our lens.
As for the 'West' - when you are the biggest, strongest and richest person, people tend to do what you want, and take their cues from you. But if you were such a person, and were now ageing and weakening and not so wealthy, how long would it take for people to stop pandering, or sucking up, and how long before you noticed that your authority was diminished? Would you suddenly change how you thought? Would you dial down the bravado and order giving, or would you carry on until outright defiance and general refusals forced a change?
The premise of your piece is that this is unique to now. But, it is the other way around. Now is a particular set of circumstances which mean that behaviour that once made sense no longer does. Now is unique, but our reactions and attempts to understand it are not. They are what has developed over time, in response to previous eras. The plates are shifting, and it takes time to adjust. But while shifts are usually gradual, there comes a time of slippage, when they happen suddenly. That is the era we are entering.
Russia no more understands in your sense than anyone else. They just have a very clear objective. Ditto Israel. And both are convinced of the existential urgency of achieving it. Hence they pay no attention to international norms or law or rules of war. In less slippery times there might be consequences, but in this now, there is a vacuum as everyone struggles to get to grips with the changing world (dis)order.
Εξαιρετικό!!
https://enaasteri.blogspot.com/2024/12/2024.html
The situation in Syria feels to me like HTS is the proverbial "dog who catches the car". The surrounding dogs are all saying to themselves "hey, wait, I want some of that car!".