Two key points the discussion has mostly missed:

1) It has been a bipartisan Justice Department policy for years to attempt to establish that the First Amendment does not apply to non-US citizens

2) Why has the Trump administration chosen Mahmoud Khalil out of thousands of potential victims; about as problematic a test case as can be imagined?

First Amendment Protection

The outrageous arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil by Immigration Control Enforcement is a new front in the widespread attack on free speech on Palestine in the USA. Indeed free speech on Palestine is under severe attack throughout almost the entire western world.

There is no shortage of excellent commentary and analysis on the Khalil case and its multiple ramifications. The characterisation of criticism of Israel as anti-semitism, the fake narrative of a threat to Jewish students, the denial of the right to protest, the attack on academic freedom, these are all aspects of the case which shed a horrifying light on the devastating effect on civil liberties of explicit Zionist control of the political system.

The same can be said of the arbitrary detention, the lack of access to lawyers and the characterisation of dissent as “terrorism”.

But it has not been much discussed that the central legal issue in the case – whether non-US citizens have First Amendment rights or whether free speech only applies to US citizens – is not an innovation by the Trump administration.

That non-US citizens are not protected by the First Amendment was the key issue pursued by Biden’s Justice Department in the extradition hearings of Julian Assange.

Indeed it was the insistence of English Court of Appeal judge Dame Victoria Sharp that the US must confirm that Assange did have First Amendment protection, that led directly to the Biden administration dropping the case and agreeing a plea deal, rather than give the assurance which Sharp requested.

Key paragraphs of the relevant judgment are here

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The British judges took the view that not to apply the First Amendment to non-citizens would breach the principle of non-discrimination (as guaranteed in the European Convention of Human Rights), and I am sure they were right.

This is a very worrying doctrine which the US Executive is attempting to enforce. But Trump did not initiate it – Biden tried it too, on Assange.

Why Mahmoud Khalil?

Thousands of foreign students in the USA have spoken out and demonstrated against the genocide in Gaza. I am sure that amongst them there will be one or two individuals who can plausibly be depicted as jihadist, who may indeed have actual anti-semitic tendencies and who are only in the US on a student visa.

So why pick on Mahmoud Khalil, who is none of these things?

He has a pregnant American wife and is in possession of a Green Card residency. Those factors may conceivably play into the First Amendment argument in his favour, if judges are looking to fudge the issue.

In addition to which, while he undoubtedly was in the leadership group of protestors at Columbia University, he appears to have played a responsible role in liaising with authorities. The cherry on the cake is that he is a former British Government employee, having worked in the British Embassy in Lebanon, on Syrian affairs.

This is where the story starts to become very murky. I was told by Resistance-linked contacts in Lebanon that not only was Khalil not viewed as pro-Resistance to Israel while there, he was believed to be involved in UK government attempts to undermine the Assad regime by promotion of jihadist groups.

Free Palestine TV, which is Lebanon-based, has the same information.

It is important to understand how deeply the UK has been involved in anti-Syrian activity in Lebanon. Training and equipping of al-Nusra/ISIS/HTS units was carried out by British special forces based at Rayak airbase in the Bekaa Valley, who were certainly still there in January after HTS conquered Damascus.

Contrary to some reports, Mahmoud Khalil would not have worked for MI6 in the Embassy. MI6 stations do not employ foreign nationals. He would have worked for the Political and Information Sections, under diplomats who cooperated closely with MI6 or in some instances were active “undeclared” members of MI6.

Middle East Eye describes Khalil’s role in the Embassy as a “programme manager” running Chevening scholarships. I know this programme extremely well. While I have no reason to doubt Khalil did this, it would amount to no more than 10% of anybody’s time and would not require the UK security clearance which the article states that Khalil received.

The simple truth is that anybody working in good faith in the British Embassy in Lebanon can be no friend of the resistance to Israel. Everything the British Embassy do in Lebanon is intrinsically linked to the overriding goal of promoting the interests of Israel, particularly through weakening Hezbollah, and this is especially true when it comes to programmes into Syria running out of Beirut.

So how did Khalil move from British government operative to Palestinian student activist?

And then, why on earth did the Trump regime pick him for its first high-profile deportation?

I can see three plausible explanations for Khalil’s behaviour:

1) He was never pro-British but was infiltrating the Embassy for the Palestinians

2) He was never pro-Palestinian but was infiltrating the protest movement for the British government

3) He was not very political but was moved recently to activism by the genocide in Gaza

Of these, option 3) seems to me the most plausible, though all are certainly possible.

It would be a delicious irony if the Trump regime had arrested a British agent by accident, but this seems to me unlikely. I do not think MI6 would run a Palestinian agent in the USA without informing the CIA – although they may have done if there were a specific concern that the CIA would leak the identity.

If Khalil were a British agent he could have been arrested for protection if there were concerns he had been “made”, or he could have been arrested because the Americans found out and were furious at not being informed. But I do not think these are the likely scenarios.

It seems to me much more probable that a once-complacent Khalil changed his mind and became more – righteously – radical due to the genocide in Gaza.

In which case the motive for choosing him as the target for arrest is very plain. Both the US and UK will be worried about revelations Khalil might make about support to jihadists in Syria from his time working on this in Lebanon. Whisking him into incommunicado detention, whilst maximum pressure is applied to persuade him to keep silent, is then an obvious move.

It is important for freedom of speech and for the rights in general of immigrants in the USA that Mr Khalil is free. It is obviously profoundly important for him and his family. I do not want anything I have written to detract from that.

But the puzzle of why such an extremely complicated target for the test case was chosen, when there exist far lower-hanging fruit, is one that needs to be considered. I hope I have offered some possible lines of thought you find useful.

Biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy stirred up a political firestorm not long ago when, in attempting to defend the importation of foreign workers through the H-1B visa program, he criticized America’s native culture as one of “mediocrity” and “normalcy.” Calling for “more math tutoring” and “fewer sleepovers” for America’s youth in order to render them employable, he declared on X that “‘Normalcy’ doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent.” Jumping into the ensuing debate, Elon Musk offered an alternative analogy, portraying America as a global sports franchise that ought to contract the best players no matter their origin. “Thinking of America as a pro sports team that has been winning for a long time and wants to keep winning is the right mental construct” for Americans to hold, he wrote.

Unsurprisingly, neither proposed mental construct landed very well with President Trump’s populist-nationalist base and Ramaswamy was soon duly shuffled off to a term of exile in Ohio. In the one view, “America” is merely a glorified economic zone, just one part of a “competitive global market” in which labor and capital flow freely. In the other, America is a professional franchise whose sole objective is to maximize winnings. In both cases America is viewed as analogous to a corporation. In such a corporation, management’s only responsibility is to profits; it has no inherent responsibility to employees or their wellbeing, something of interest only insofar as it translates into productivity.

The corporate machine views employees merely as interchangeable human resources, to whom it owes no loyalty. Indeed, if it is to effectively devote itself to profit maximization the company can afford no permanent relational bonds with any of those who work for it, as it must be able to fire or replace them based on cold utilitarian calculus. There are thus few experiences employees find as irritating as that common workplace psyop in which management proclaims the corporate office to be a “family.” Employees know implicitly that it is natural affections and iron-clad mutual loyalties, or at least strong relational bonds, that are precisely what distinguish a family. Their corporate employer, in contrast, won’t hesitate to dump them by the wayside the moment they fall into the wrong column of a spreadsheet. For their part, employees are liable to return the sentiment and retain no lasting loyalty to the company – though perhaps plenty of resentment.

What angered people about the two CEOs’ comments was that – like so many of today’s elites – they displayed no sense of loyalty or obligation to Americans as a nation. A nation is not a corporation. A nation is a particular people, with a distinct culture, permanently bound together by shared relationship with place, past, and each other. A house becomes a home through relationship with the family that lives in it, a connection forged out of time and memory between concrete particularity of place and the lives of a specific group of people present, past, and yet unborn. We can say this house is home because it is our home. In much the same way, a country becomes our homeland because it is ours – and the we of that “ours” is the nation, which transcends geography, government, and GDP.

Unlike a corporation, a nation really is much like a family. And, like a family, it is characterized by strong relational bonds that are covenantal, not contractual. It establishes moral obligations of solidarity and subsidiarity that cannot be simply abandoned. Much as we naturally would, and should, put our own children’s lives and wellbeing ahead of others’, a nation is obligated to distinguish its own from others and to put the wellbeing of its own first. If it fails to do so then it can no longer remain a nation any more than a family could remain a family were it to try to extend the fold of its care equally to all humanity. Only once our immediate duties to those closest to us are fulfilled can concern for the good of others be rightly extended further outward. And though we may choose to adopt a child into our family, we cannot as readily toss them aside. We cannot, say, swap out our child for a different one who is more likely to get better grades in math class or is willing to perform chores for a lesser allowance. A nation-state is no more justly able to replace its own people or neglect its unique obligations to them simply because doing so seems more profitable or convenient.

Yet a family is hardly built on obligation alone. A healthy family is founded, ordered, governed, and sustained by love. It is love that binds its members together, forges their sense of responsibility, guides their conduct, and directs their proper care for one another. And it is love that directs us to rightly set our concern for these particular people above others, in the proper ordo amoris, or order of loves.

Love is not, cannot be, universal. It is born in particulars and defined by distinction. Should we say we love our neighbor, yet we do not love him for himself – with, or despite, all his unique eccentricities – but only insofar as we claim to love all people in the abstract, then we do not really love him. We cannot love our wife because she is a woman; we can only really love a particular woman. Thus believers must have faith that even the infinite God loves each of us in particular, numbering the very hairs on our heads; for his love to extend no further than to the mass of humanity as a species, as to a mass of sparrows, would be cold comfort indeed.

We love those people and those good things which are distinct and special to us, and those that are particularly our own all the more, but this hardly implies that we must then automatically hate all others. We do not hate other families’ children just because we love our own. Still, this twisted logic is today widely ascribed to one important expression of love: love for our own nation. For this is indeed what it means to be a nationalist: to love one’s own nation – in much the same way (if not quite as deeply) as one loves one’s own family.

As C.S. Lewis observed, patriotic love for one’s nation grows organically from that which is most local, familiar, and meaningful to us – from our love for our family, our land, and our community. From “this love for the place there goes a love for the way of life” of our nation, in all its many common particularities, all tied up together. In the case of Lewis’ England, “for beer and tea and open fires, trains with compartments in them and an unarmed police force and all the rest of it.” It is from this particular sense of love that he seeks to conserve his country. As Lewis reminds us (paraphrasing G.K. Chesterton), “a man’s reasons for not wanting his country to be ruled by foreigners are very like his reasons for not wanting his house to be burned down; because he could not even begin to enumerate all the things that would be lost.”

None of this implies that we then desire to impose this particular way of life on the rest of the world. But we should not be surprised that men might lay down their lives to defend their own nation as their own, and not for any other reason. They do so for the same reason they would lay down their lives to defend their children, or their friends: because they love them. Common loves are the source of common loyalties, and of common life.

A scene practically indistinguishable from fascism.

Yet, at least among our ruling classes, this natural reciprocal love between citizen and nation, which sustains our countries and our societies, seems to have long since frayed. This is no great shock, given that in our age the very idea of nationhood is itself decried, or outright denied, the nation-state stripped of the nation, the world reduced to a network of special economic zones. A man cannot love a special economic zone. Nor can its administrators possess any special feeling for its temporary inhabitants.

This grim status quo is no accident, however. It is the result of a deliberate, 80 year conspiracy against love, conducted out of fear. As I’ve argued before, after WWII, with the trauma of war and totalitarianism haunting the world, the American and European leadership class resolved that these evils should never again threaten society. And they concluded that the emotional power of nationalism had been the central cause of the 20th century’s catastrophes, leading them to make anti-nationalism the cornerstone of the liberal establishment consensus that came to dominate culture and politics after the war.

The philosopher Karl Popper, in his sweepingly influential 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies, denounced the idea of national community writ large, labeling it disastrous “anti-humanitarian propaganda” and smearing anyone who cherished his particular homeland and history as a “racialist.” Theodor Adorno, who set the direction of American psychology and education policy for decades, classified natural loyalties to family and nation as the hallmarks of the “authoritarian personality” that drove the common man inexorably toward fascism.

But the aversions of the post-war elite ran deeper than a philosophical anti-nationalism. As R.R. Reno writes, the visceral imperative became to fully banish all the “strong gods” that fueled conflict, meaning all those “objects of men’s love and devotion, the sources of the passions and loyalties that unite societies.” Strong bonds and strong loves of any kind – of family, nation, truth, God – came to be seen as dangerous, as sources of dogma, oppression, hatred, and violence. The peaceful and prosperous “open society” the post-war establishment set out to instantiate would, as Reno puts it, “require the reign of weak loves and weak truths,” with all dangerous sentiment subordinate to the rule of cool rationality and tepid impartiality.

In this belief post-war leaders embraced the legacy of Thomas Hobbes, who had viewed the wars which upended his own century as a product of the state of nature – the “war of all against all” – that constantly threatened to emerge from the pride and spiritedness (thumos) of mankind’s base natural personality. He saw the solution to this risk as man’s submission, out of fear, to the absolute power of a political leviathan – but also to an anthropological project, a program of metaphysical reeducation to turn man’s eye away from any summum bonum and downward toward only the fearful summum malum of struggle and death. As Matthew Crawford has succinctly explained, Hobbes believed that “any appeal to a higher good threatens to return us to the horrors of civil strife and must be debunked,” all our spirited passions and “vainglorious self-assertion” drained away so that we can consent to rule by Leviathan, “King of the Proud.”

With Hitler having firmly established himself as the summum malum of the post-war order, the liberal establishment embarked on their own version of Hobbes’ political-anthropological project. Seeking to dissolve the traditional “closed society” they feared was a breeding ground for authoritarianism, this “open society consensus” drew on theorists like Adorno and Popper to advance a program of social reforms intended to open minds, disenchant ideals, and weaken bonds. New approaches to education, psychology, and management sought to relativize truths, elevate “critical thinking” over character development, cast doubt on authorities, vilify collective loyalties, break down boundaries and borders, and free individuals from the “repression” of moral and relational bonds. Soon only economic prosperity and a vague universal humanitarianism became the only higher goods that it was morally acceptable to aim for as a society.

As government joined forces with post-war psychoanalysis, this program of subtle social control solidified into the modern therapeutic state – a regime that, as Christopher Lasch noted, successfully “substituted a medical for a political idiom and relegated a broad range of controversial issues to the clinic – to ‘scientific’ study as opposed to philosophical and political debate.” This removal of the political from politics lay at the heart of the post-war project’s aims. Its central desire was to reduce politics to mere administration, to bureaucratic processes, legal judgements, expert committees, and technocratic regulation – anything but fraught contention over such weighty matters as how we ought to live, organize society, or define who “we” are.

Public contention over genuinely political questions was now judged to be too dangerous to permit, even – indeed especially – in a democracy, where the ever-present specter of the mob and the latent emotional power of the masses haunted post-war leaders. They dreamed of governance via scientific management, of reducing the political sphere to the dispassionate processes of a machine – to “a social technology… whose results can be tested by social engineering,” as Popper put it. The operation of such a machine could be limited to a cadre of carefully educated “institutional technologists,” in Popper’s words, or rather to Hegel’s imagined “universal class” of impartial civil servants, able to objectively derive the best decisions for everyone through the principles of universal Reason alone.

The result was the construction of the managerial regimes that dominate the Western world today. These are characterized by vast, soulless administrative states of unaccountable bureaucracies, a litigious ethos of risk-avoidance and “harm-reduction,” and a technocratic elite class accustomed to social engineering and dissimulation. In such states the top priority is the careful management of public opinion through propaganda and censorship, not only in order to constrain democratic outcomes but so as to smooth over or avoid any serious discussion of contentious yet fundamentally political issues, such as migration policy.

Meanwhile the common people of such regimes are practically encouraged to live as distracted consumers rather than citizens, the invisible hand of the free market and the inducements of commercial and hedonistic pursuits serving not only profits but a political function of pacification. It is preferable that the masses simply not care very much – about anything, but especially about the fate of their nation and the common good. That sort of collective consciousness, transcending self-interest and seeking higher order, was after all identified as a foreboding mark of the closed society.

Here, then, can we see the long historical roots of the open, neoliberal state pointed to as an ideal by Ramaswamy and Musk. Innocently or not, these libertarian-leaning businessmen’s conception of the polity is almost indistinguishable from the “post-national state” that devoutly left-wing leaders like Canada’s Justin Trudeau have set out to devolve their countries into. The “globalism” so often decried by populists is neither left nor right but the logical product of the rationalist universalism embraced by the 20th century’s post-war consensus. It is the inevitable result of treating people, and peoples, as interchangeable units in a mechanical system – that is, of regarding them without any distinguishing sense of love.

But, as is increasingly obvious in our turbulent 21st century, these loveless machine-states are deeply unstable. It turns out that attempting to remove all bonds of affection from politics introduces some fundamental problems of political order. Most importantly, it has left us a leadership class essentially incapable of responsible leadership.

The noble classes of the pre-modern world’s closed societies were still capable of displaying a real sense of noblesse oblige: of having a sacred obligation to and responsibility for the people they ruled. Though modern cynics may dismiss this sentiment as a myth, it was often genuine. It is a striking fact, for instance, that the last real generation of Europe’s aristocratic elite was disproportionately savaged in the trenches of WWI, the flower of its youth voluntarily marching off to die leading from the front in defense of their nations at a significantly higher rate than ordinary soldiers. Eton, the nursery of the British aristocracy, lost more than a thousand of its students during the war – a 20% casualty rate compared to the army’s national average of 12%.

Today our elites no longer betray any similar sense of special obligation to their people. But then we can hardly expect them to, given that all the strong bonds of loyalty that once tied them to their countrymen, transcending divides of wealth, education, and class, have been severed. They conceive of themselves as meritocrats, of no special birth and therefore no special responsibility. More importantly, they have been taught from birth that they ought not even conceive of their nation as particularly their own or to love it any more than any other portion of humanity; their self-conceived domain is one without borders, the global empire of the open society.

Whom does government serve? This is perhaps the most pressing question of politics. In theory the leadership class that rules us is supposed to represent and govern on behalf of the common people and their best interests. This is meant to be precisely what distinguishes our regimes from tyranny, “tyranny” in the classical lexicon meaning rule for private gain rather than for the common good. But no one can truly represent or act rightly for the wellbeing of another if they bear no particular concern for them. It is love, and only love, that can really guarantee that anyone acts in the best interest of another when they could do otherwise. Love is the only force capable of genuinely liberating us from selfishness.

It is a modern conceit that those with power are kept restrained, uncorrupted, and ordered to justice and the common good primarily by lifeless structural guardrails, by the abstract checks and balances of constitutions and laws. The ancients would have maintained that it is far more important that a king be virtuous, and that he love his people. And is this not plausible? Fundamentally, a father doesn’t treat his children well, refraining from abusing or neglecting them and raising them rightly, just because he obediently follows the law or some correct set of rules and standard operating procedures. He does so because he loves his family, and from that love flows automatically a spontaneous ordering of all his intentions toward their good. He would do so even in the absence of externally imposed rules. Love is an invisible hand all its own.

It is this invisible hand, not that of the market, that is so glaringly absent from the heart of our nations. If ours seems a cold and callous age in general, our ruling class characterized by its indifference and our societies by division, dissolution, and despair, surely this lack is the real cause. As Reno writes, “the greatest threat to the political health of the West is not fascism or a resurgent Ku Klux Klan but a decline in solidarity and the breakdown of the trust between leaders and the led. Fearful of strong loves and committed to ever-greater openness, the postwar consensus cannot formulate, much less address, these problems.” With today’s elite “unable to identify our shared loves—unable even to formulate the ‘we’ that is the political subject in public life – we cannot identify the common good, the res in the res publica.”

The enlightened man, the conservative Russell Kirk once observed, “does not believe that the end or aim of life is competition; or success…” Nor does he hold any foolish political “intention of converting this human society of ours into an efficient machine for efficient machine-operators, dominated by master mechanics.” What he recognizes instead is that “the object of life is Love.” And so he knows, what’s more, “that the just and ordered society is that in which Love governs us, so far as Love ever can reign in this world of sorrows; and he knows that the anarchical or the tyrannical society is that in which Love lies corrupt.”

If the countries of the West are still capable of renewal, that renewal will come only when our leadership classes recover an uncorrupted love for the particular people – the nation – over which they govern and commit to placing their wellbeing first. We will be fortunate then if, in the hearts of some at least, this recovery may have at last begun.

The great unspoken fact of the 1930s was that the world was drifting to war, a trend that nobody knew how to stop.

The great unspoken fact of the 2020s is that the global economy is in the process of inflecting from growth into contraction, and, again, this is a process that no-one can halt, still less put into reverse.

Logically, countries, groups and individuals must strive to work out how to fare best in an economy that has become a less-than-zero-sum game. Their relative success or failure in this endeavour will be a function of how much they know about it, and how early they are in gaining that knowledge.

What do they know?

This leads to a question that often arises here, which is that of how far ‘the powers that be’ are aware of this.

It seems logical to assume that somebody, somewhere, must have figured this out. Getting to the facts of the situation isn’t exactly rocket-science. All that’s really required is the kind of cool objectivity that rejects consensus wishful-thinking, and repudiates, as unrealistic, the orthodox notion that we can be assured of ‘infinite economic growth on a finite planet’.

With global economic inflexion understood, the issue becomes one of competitive advantage.

Seen strategically, America is in the midst of a gigantic economic gambit, the bet being that extreme fiscal stimulus can re-shore and expand important industries to a point of critical mass before the burden of soaring public debt either cripples the dollar or, more probably, calls time on super-gigantic stimulus.

Nobody can imagine that the current trajectory of US government borrowing is sustainable. But an important strategic advantage can be seized if lenders – and overseas lenders in particular – are willing to fund what is, essentially, a competitive, national-advantage economic agenda

There is, by the way, nothing wrong with pursuing national economic advantage – it’s what governments do.

The counter-gambit is that the BRICS+ countries are trying to build a competing economic bloc strong enough to defend its member countries from the aggressive economic strategy of the United States.

These are examples of move and counter-move in the wholly new context of involuntary economic de-growth.

To a significant extent, countries outside these completing blocs have to decide where their own best interests lie.

The energy key

It should be beyond obvious that energy is critical to these issues. Our reliance on fossil fuels has created two juxtaposed vulnerabilities.

The first is that we may inflict irreparable climatic and ecological damage to the Earth’s environment, and this will have economic as well as human consequences.

The second is that the diminishing economic value of oil, natural gas and coal is putting economic growth into reverse.

Anyone clever enough to figure out the realities of economic inflexion must also be smart enough to realise that renewable energy sources can’t provide a complete, like-for-like replacement for the energy value hitherto sourced from oil, natural gas and coal. Renewables expansion is simply too materials-intensive for this to happen, and the requisite raw materials can only be obtained through the agency of legacy fossil fuel energy.

To anyone who has reached this conclusion, the deceleration of energy transition – and the corresponding slowing of the move from ICE to battery-powered vehicles – will have come as no surprise at all.

This isn’t to say that renewables (and their transport ancillaries) don’t have important roles to play in the economic future. The manufacture of wind turbines, solar panels, grids, power-storage systems and EVs are important industries, certainly in terms of employment, though improbably in terms of profit. If we’re going to build these things anyway, it’s better that the building of them takes place at home rather than overseas.

But it’s one thing to try to corner as much energy-transition activity as you can, and quite another to believe that renewables are capable of taking over from fossil fuels in an economy that carries on growing.

Crisis management, or the art of pretend-and-extend

To a significant extent, politics is a matter of crisis management, something in which participants are successful if the eventuation of crisis can be pushed out far enough into the future that it doesn’t happen on their watch.

This explains much of the apparent madness now visible in global economic and financial affairs.

Various instances illustrate these processes.

In the United Kingdom, a large and rising proportion of home-buyers are now taking out mortgages whose terms extend beyond the borrowers’ dates of retirement. This may seem both irrational and dangerous, but it’s part of a financial mechanism dictated by political choice. There’s no divine diktat which says that a country must push the prices of homes out of the reach of most of its own citizens, but policies which would deflate the property price bubble haven’t attracted sufficient political support to become feasible.

It seems safe to conclude that somebody in the corridors of power must know that Britain has become a post-growth, credit-dependent economy. Over the past twenty years, and with everything stated at constant 2023 values, the government has borrowed £2.1tn, roughly half of which has been backstopped by the net-of-QT money-creation of the central bank. Private borrowers have been more cautious, but have nevertheless increased their debts by close to £800bn. All of this is reinforced by rapid credit expansion in the NBFI or “shadow banking” sector.

The result of all this credit-bingeing and money-creation is an economy that’s only £625bn, or 30%, bigger now than it was in 2003, and most of that “growth” is itself the cosmetic effect of spending borrowed money.

The immediate need is to walk a tight-rope between interest rates that are high enough to prop up the currency, but low enough not to burst the real estate bubble. Assurances of ‘growth’ are pure PR-exercises in an economy that can’t, nowadays, house its population, bring down colossal health-care waiting lists, or stop polluting its rivers and seas with untreated sewage.

In short, the British authorities are playing extend-and-pretend.

But they shouldn’t be taken too hardly to task for that, for two main reasons. First, many other countries, arguably most of them, are doing exactly the same thing.

Second, there are no good alternatives to ‘extend-and-pretend’.

Likewise, the United States reported real-terms growth of $675bn last year, but the government had to run a $2.4tn fiscal deficit to enable this to happen, and is now adding public debt at the rate of $1tn every hundred days. Nobody in his or her right mind could contend that this is sustainable, but America has the advantage of a currency that’s the least-dirty shirt in the global laundry-basket.

China, meanwhile, is trying to manage the implosion of a gigantic real-estate Ponzi scheme, but nobody could imagine that this event came unexpectedly, out-of-the-blue. Like Britain, China’s total borrowing over the past twenty years has far exceeded reported growth, in this instance in the ratio of 4.4:1, with the difference that private entities, rather than the state itself, have undertaken most (almost four-fifths) of this borrowing.

Japan is persisting with monetary policies which have halved the dollar value of the yen since the inception of “Abenomics” back in 2012.

In short, much of what looks like madness – British mortgages, US Federal debt, Chinese real-estate, and the monetary policies of the Bank of Japan – turns out to be exercises in ‘extend and pretend’.

Getting to the real

Those of us who want to work out how things are really unfolding are perfectly capable of doing so. Stripping out credit-effect distortion from reported GDP brings us to a calculation of underlying or ‘clean’ economic output (C-GDP) which correlates remarkably closely to the quantities of primary energy used in the economy.

The further deduction of surging ECoEs – the Energy Costs of Energy – provides a calculation of prosperity which is a pretty good fit with what’s been experienced in recent times.

On the latter calculation, the World was 28% more prosperous in 2023 than it was in 2003, but population numbers increased by 26% between those same years.

We can, if we so wish, make corresponding calculations about the future. As ECoEs carry on rising, and as renewables prove incapable of providing a complete replacement for the energy value hitherto sourced from fossil fuels, aggregate material prosperity will fall, gradually in the balance of the 2020s but much more rapidly in the 2030s.

In comparison with 2023, the world’s average person is likely to be only about 7% poorer by 2030, but fully 25% worse off by 2040.

At the same time, the real costs of energy-intensive necessities will carry on rising, applying leveraged compression to the affordability of discretionary (non-essential) products and services.

Where the financial corollaries of these material economic trends are concerned, we can assume that ‘extend-and-pretend’ will remain the only game in town, meaning that debt and quasi-debt will carry on rising – and the spending of this credit will carry on being presented as “growth” – until the credibility of money has been destroyed.

The strategic aim isn’t to side-step this process, but to ensure that your currency doesn’t win this ‘race to the bottom’.

The rate at which credit will rise will force the authorities back onto the path of QE, ZIRP and NIRP, because there’s no other way of maintaining the fiction that the economy is capable of servicing these soaring debts.

We can, on these same lines, work out which sectors will face the most severe compression, and figure out which countries and which currencies are leading the race to the bottom.

We can do all of these things and, if we so wish, we can share our findings.

But we can’t expect any of this to make us popular.

The first weeks of the second Trump administration have been a wild ride. Like many, I’ve been blown away by the speed and scope of the blitzkrieg that Trump and his team have unleashed on the permanent managerial state in Washington. He has already fulfilled many of the priorities I outlined two months ago in “The Counter-Revolution Begins,” the most significant of which was to reject being conservative about institutions or the exercise of legitimate power. With its “you can just do things” energy, Trump 2.0 seems to be the first administration serious about delivering on democratic demands for real change in American governance since FDR.

In fact, the blows continue to fall so fast that it’s honestly hard to keep track of it all. I’ve therefore found it difficult to say anything about the specifics of what’s happening. To try to do so here would be to be overtaken by events almost immediately. But amid the furor kicked up by a dozen different world-shaking moves – from trying to annex Greenland, to the closing of borders and imposition of trade tariffs, to the dismantling of USAID – I think we can begin to glimpse a much bigger picture that is now coming into view.

There’s a 2018 quote by the late Henry Kissinger that’s circulated recently, in which he mused about whether “Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses.” If that wasn’t true in 2018 it certainly is now. I believe that what we’re seeing today truly is the end of an era, an epochal overturning of the world as we knew it, and that the full import and implications of this haven’t really struck us yet.

More specifically, I believe Donald Trump marks the overdue end of the Long Twentieth Century.

The Long Twentieth

The 125 years between the French Revolution in 1789 and the outbreak of WWI in 1914 was later described as the “Long Nineteenth Century.” The phrase recognized that to speak of “the nineteenth century” was to describe far more than a specific hundred-year span on the calendar; it was to capture the whole spirit of an age: a rapturous epoch of expansion, empire, and Enlightenment, characterized by a triumphalist faith in human reason and progress. That lingering historical spirit, distinct from any before or after, was extinguished in the trenches of the Great War. After the cataclysm, an interregnum that ended only with the conclusion of WWII, everything about how the people of Western civilization perceived and engaged with the world – politically, psychologically, artistically, spiritually – had changed.

R.R. Reno opens his 2019 book Return of the Strong Gods by quoting a young man who laments that “I am twenty-seven years old and hope to live to see the end of the twentieth century.” His paradoxical statement captures how the twentieth century has also extended well past its official sell-by date in the year 2000. Our Long Twentieth Century had a late start, fully solidifying only in 1945, but in the 80 years since its spirit has dominated our civilization’s whole understanding of how the world is and should be. It has set all of our society’s fears, values, and moral orthodoxies. And, through the globe-spanning power of the United States, it has shaped the political and cultural order of the rest of the world as well.

The spirit of the Long Twentieth could not be more different from that which preceded it. In the wake of the horrors inflicted by WWII, the leadership classes of America and Europe understandably made “never again” the core of their ideational universe. They collectively resolved that fascism, war, and genocide must never again be allowed to threaten humanity. But this resolution, as reasonable and well-meaning as it seemed at the time, soon became an all-consuming obsession with negation.

Hugely influential liberal thinkers like Karl Popper and Theodor Adorno helped convince an ideologically amenable post-war establishment that the fundamental source of authoritarianism and conflict in the world was the “closed society.” Such a society is marked by what Reno dubs “strong gods”: strong beliefs and strong truth claims, strong moral codes, strong relational bonds, strong communal identities and connections to place and past – ultimately, all those “objects of men’s love and devotion, the sources of the passions and loyalties that unite societies.”

Now the unifying power of the strong gods came to be seen as dangerous, an infernal wellspring of fanaticism, oppression, hatred, and violence. Meaningful bonds of faith, family, and above all the nation were now seen as suspect, as alarmingly retrograde temptations to fascism. Adorno, who set the direction of post-war American psychology and education policy for decades, classified natural loyalties to family and nation as the hallmarks of a latent “authoritarian personality” that drove the common man to xenophobia and führer worship. Popper, in his sweepingly influential 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies, denounced the idea of national community entirely, labeling it as disastrous “anti-humanitarian propaganda” and smearing anyone who dared cherish as special his own homeland and history as a dangerous “racialist.” For such intellectuals, any definitive claim to authority or hierarchy, whether between men, morals, or metaphysical truths, seemed to stand as a mortal threat to peace on earth.

The great project of post-war establishment liberalism became to tear down the walls of the closed society and banish its gods forever. To be erected on its salted ground was an idyllic but exceptionally vague vision of an “open society” animated by peaceable weak gods of tolerance, doubt, dialogue, equality, and consumer comfort. This politically and culturally dominant “open society consensus” drew on theorists like Adorno and Popper to advance a program of social reforms intended to open minds, disenchant ideals, relativize truths, and weaken bonds.

As Reno catalogues in detail, new approaches to education, psychology, and management sought to relativize truths, elevate “critical thinking” over character, vilify collective loyalties, cast doubt on hierarchies, break down all boundaries and borders, and free individuals from the “repression” of all moral and relational duties. Aspiration to a vague universal humanitarianism soon became the only higher good that it was socially acceptable to aim for other than pure economic growth.

The anti-fascism of the twentieth century morphed into a great crusade – characterized, ironically, by a fiery zeal and fierce intolerance. By making “never again” its ultimate priority, the ideology of the open society put a summum malum (greatest evil) at its core rather than any summum bonum (highest good). The singular figure of Hitler didn’t just lurk in the back of the 20th century mind; he dominated its subconscious, becoming a sort of secular Satan, forever threatening to tempt mankind into new wickedness. This “second career of Adolf Hitler,” as Renaud Camus jokingly calls it, provided the parareligious raison d'etre for the open society consensus and the whole post-war liberal order: to prevent the resurrection of the undead Führer.

This doctrine of prevention grants enormous moral weight to ensuring that open society values triumph over those of the closed society in every circumstance. If it’s assumed that the only options are “the open society or Auschwitz” then maintaining zero tolerance for the perceived values of the closed society is functionally a moral commandment. To stand in the way of any possible aspect of societal opening and individual liberation – from secularization, to the sexual revolution and LGBTQ rights, to the free movement of migrants – was to do Hitler’s work and risk facilitating fascism’s return (no matter how far removed the subject concerned from actual fascism). It was established as the open society’s only inviolable rule that, as Reno puts it, it is “forbidden to forbid.” Thus a strict new cultural orthodoxy was consolidated, in which to utter any opinion contrary to the continuous project of further opening up societies became verboten as a moral evil. Complete inclusion required rigorous exclusion. We are familiar with this dogma today as political correctness.

The end of the Cold War then sent the open society consensus into overdrive. Far from moderating its zeal, the fall of Soviet communism (liberalism’s last real ideological competitor) seemed to validate the moral and practical superiority of the open society, and the post-Cold War establishment doubled down on the belief that the whole world could and should be rebuilt in its image, ushering in the end of history.

The crusade for openness took on for itself a great commission to go and deconstruct all nations in the name of peace, prosperity, and freedom. This conviction was only reinforced by the 9/11 attacks of 2001, which seemed to help demonstrate that the continued existence of closed-minded intolerance anywhere was a threat to tolerance everywhere. As one hawkish politician quoted in Christopher Caldwell’s book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe put it not long afterwards, “We [now] live in a borderless world in which our new mission is defending the border not of our countries but civility and human rights.”

If you’ve been wondering why USAID was spending $1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbian workplaces, $500,000 to “expand atheism” in Nepal, or $7.9 million to catechize Sri Lankan journalists in avoiding “binary-gendered language,” this is why. It’s the same reason the U.S. government was pouring millions into funding “charities” dedicated to breaking U.S. immigration law and facilitating open borders migration: they believed they were fighting the good fight against the closed society in order to stop zombie Hitler (while skimming a whole lot of cash on the side for their good deeds). It’s also why, for decades, anyone who’s objected has been automatically tarred as a literal fascist.

Meanwhile, the development of the open society consensus went hand-in-hand with the universal growth of the managerial state and its occlusion of democratic self-governance. There was a very direct and deliberate connection. As Carl Schmitt noted early in the twentieth century, an “elemental impulse” of liberalism is “neutralization” and “depoliticization” of the political – that is, the attempt to remove all fundamental contention from politics out of fear of conflict, shrinking “politics” to mere managerial administration. This excising of the political from politics was at the heart of the post-war project’s structural aims. Just as Schmitt had predicted, the goal became to achieve perpetual peace through an “age of technicity,” in which politics would be reduced to the safer, more predictable movements of a machine through the empowerment of supposedly-neutral mechanisms like bureaucratic processes, legal judgements, and expert technocratic commissions.

Actual public contention over genuinely political questions, especially by the dangerously fascism-prone democratic masses, was in contrast now judged to be too dangerous to permit. The post-war establishment of the open society dreamed instead of achieving governance via scientific management, of transforming the political sphere into “a social technology… whose results can be tested by social engineering,” as Popper put it. The operation of this machine could then be limited to a cadre of carefully selected and educated “institutional technologists,” in Popper’s phrasing.

Thus the great expansion of our modern managerial regimes, including the American “deep state” that the Trump administration and Elon Musk are now trying to dismantle. Characterized by vast permanent administrative states of unaccountable bureaucracies, such regimes are run by an oligarchic elite class of technocrats schooled in social engineering, dissimulation, false compassion, the manipulation of allegedly-neutral processes, and a litigious ethos of risk-avoidance. The obsessive management of public opinion through propaganda and censorship also became an especially key priority in such regimes, with the objective being both to constrain democratic outcomes (to defend “democracy” against the masses) and to generally suppress serious public discussion of contentious yet fundamental political issues (such as mass migration policies) in an effort to prevent civil strife.

Nor was this managerial impulse toward depoliticization limited to the national level. The creation of a “rules-based liberal international order” – in which all political contention would be managed by quasi-imperial supranational structures (such as the UN and EU) and war between states would become a relic of the barbaric past – was the pinnacle of post-war Western ambitions. Backed by the military power of the United States and its allies, this new international order would show zero tolerance for unauthorized conflict, depoliticizing the world and allowing open societies to flourish in peace.

The Long Twentieth Century has been characterized by these three interlinked post-war projects: the progressive opening of societies through the deconstruction of norms and borders, the consolidation of the managerial state, and the hegemony of the liberal international order. The hope was that together they could form the foundation for a world that would finally achieve peace on earth and goodwill between all mankind. That this would be a weak, passionless, undemocratic, intricately micromanaged world of technocratic rationalism was a sacrifice the post-war consensus was willing to make.

That dream didn’t work out though, because the strong gods refused to die.

Restoration of the Gods

Mary Harrington recently observed that the Trumpian revolution seems as much archetypal as political, noting that the generally “exultant male response to recent work by Elon Musk and his ‘warband’ of young tech-bros” in dismantling the entrenched bureaucracy is a reflection of what can be “understood archetypally as [their] doing battle against a vast, miasmic foe whose aim is the destruction of masculine heroism as such.” This masculine-inflected spirit of thumotic vitalism was suppressed throughout the Long Twentieth Century, but now it’s back. And it wasn’t, she notes, “as though a proceduralist, managerial civilization affords no scope for horrors of its own.” Thus now “we’re watching in real time as figures such as the hero, the king, the warrior, and the pirate; or indeed various types of antihero, all make their return to the public sphere.”

Instead of producing a utopian world of peace and progress, the open society consensus and its soft, weak gods led to civilizational dissolution and despair. As intended, the strong gods of history were banished, religious traditions and moral norms debunked, communal bonds and loyalties weakened, distinctions and borders torn down, and the disciplines of self-governance surrendered to top-down technocratic management. Unsurprisingly, this led to nation-states and a broader civilization that lack the strength to hold themselves together, let alone defend against external threats from non-open, non-delusional societies. In short, the campaign of radical self-negation pursued by the post-war open society consensus functionally became a collective suicide pact by the liberal democracies of the Western world.

But, as reality began to intrude over the past two decades, the share of people still convinced by the hazy promises of the open society steadily diminished. A reaction began to brew, especially among those most divorced from and harmed by its aging obsessions: the young and the working class. The “populism” that is now sweeping the West is best understood as a democratic insistence on the restoration and reintegration of respect for those strong gods capable of grounding, uniting, and sustaining societies, including coherent national identities, cohesive natural loyalties, and the recognition of objective and transcendent truths.

Today’s populism is more than just a reaction against decades of elite betrayal and terrible governance (though it is that too); it is a deep, suppressed thumotic desire for long-delayed action, to break free from the smothering lethargy imposed by proceduralist managerialism and fight passionately for collective survival and self-interest. It is the return of the political to politics. This demands a restoration of old virtues, including a vital sense of national and civilizational self-worth. And that in turn requires a rejection of the pathological “tyranny of guilt” (as the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner once dubbed it) that has gripped the Western mind since 1945. As the power of endless hysterical accusations of “fascism” has gradually faded, we have – for better and worse – begun to witness the end of the Age of Hitler.

Energetic national populism is, then, a rejection of all the core obsessions and demands of the twentieth century and the open society consensus that so dominated it. The passionless reign of weakness, tolerance, and drab universalist utilitarianism being held up as moral and political ideals seems to be ending. And that means the gerontocracy of the Long Twentieth Century is finally dying off too. This is what Trump, in all his brashness, represents: the strong gods have escaped from exile and returned to America, dragging the twenty-first century along behind them.

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Dawn of a New Century

Trump himself is a man of action, not rumination (let alone self-recrimination), and he clearly possesses a high tolerance for risk. He is instinctual, not actuarial. He is relational, not rationalistic, valuing loyalty and possessing a prickly sense of honor. He utters common truths with no regard for whether this offends the sensibilities of others, and has little patience for endless “dialogue” or established procedures. And, an unabashed nationalist, he doesn’t hesitate to wield strength on behalf of American interests, or to put those interests ahead of others’ around the world. He is, in other words, neither cause nor mere symptom of populist upheaval but in a real sense an embodiment of the whole rebellious new world spirit that’s now overturning the old order.

Trump’s policies so far in his second term also reflect this new zeitgeist. His blitzkrieg of executive action has struck directly at the three pillars of the Long Twentieth Century: closing the nation’s borders and purging the state of the latest ideological evolution of open society orthodoxy (“Diversity, Equity, Inclusion”) while inspiring the broader culture to do the same; moving to dismantle the managerial state, including by affirming the elected Executive’s direct, personal control over the sheltered proceduralist (i.e. democratically uncontrollable and unaccountable) bureaucracy; and transforming U.S. foreign policy by rejecting liberal proceduralism in the international sphere as well, putting national interests ahead of the interests of the “international order” and declining to automatically play the role of global rule-enforcer.

The very boldness of this action reflects more than just partisan political gamesmanship – in itself it represents the stasis of the old paradigm being upended; now “you can just do things” again. This mindset hasn’t been seen in America since FDR and his revolutionary government remade the country and established the modern managerial state; no one has dared to so much as jostle the machine he created since the end of WWII. Now Trump has.

Abroad and in Washington, this brash attitude has caused much consternation and confusion (“Why is Trump threatening to invade Mexico, bully Canada, and annex Greenland from a NATO ally? Wasn’t he supposed to be an isolationist?”) But the principle behind all Trump’s behavior here actually appears to be quite straightforward: he is willing to use American might however may benefit the nation, rather than caring very much about protecting the status quo liberal international order for its own sake or adhering to polite fictions like international law. Turns out “you can just do things” on the world stage too. Diplomacy and alliances are logically seen as of value only insofar as they benefit America. This is indeed what “America First” always meant. In this way the Trump Doctrine is simply a rejection of the neurotic, confrontation-avoidant post-war consensus in favor of the restoration of standard muscular, Western Hemisphere-focused, pre-twentieth century American foreign policy, in the style of a president Andrew Jackson, William McKinley, or Teddy Roosevelt.

New Secretary of State Marco Rubio has even explicitly described the idealism of the global U.S.-enforced liberal international order as an “anomaly,” noting that it “was a product of the end of the Cold War” and that “eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet.” This revitalization of the spirit of national sovereignty and international competition seems to already be spreading and inspiring a turn back towards stronger gods around the world. As Hungary’s conservative-nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, recently put it to a gathering of European populists, “Our friend Trump, the Trump tornado, has changed the world in just a couple of weeks. An era has ended. Today, everyone sees that we are the future.”

So while at a surface level the vibe of the Trump revolution might be mistaken as merely marking a return to circa-1990s libertarianism, with its individual freedom and “greed is good” free-market mindset, he represents a far more significant shift than that: back – or rather forward – more than a century. The globalist neoliberalism, interventionist one-world internationalism, and naive social progressivism of the 90s open society is dead and gone. Despite his political alliance with the Right-Wing Progressives of Silicon Valley, Trump’s new world is in a real sense distinctly post-liberal.

Reactionary Remnants

It is little wonder then why Trump so horrifies the aging aristocracy of the Long Twentieth Century: they fear above all the return of the strong gods, which their whole project of moral and political world-building was conducted to preclude.

Note, for example, the appearance of increasingly panicked admonitions (in between or in haphazard fusion with accusations of fascism) about the imminent danger of “Christian Nationalism.” This is a term that welds together two strong gods – nationalism and religion – and so is a particularly triggering phantom. This is also why a certain type of limp conservative (known most politely online as the “cuckservative”) displays particular hysteria about Trump and populism. This type really is a conservative, in the sense that his priority in life is to prevent change to the status quo, decrying any decisive action, including any legitimate exercise of democratic power, that risks disrupting the open society consensus. Although he may mouth selective disagreement with progressive “excesses” that also risk undermining that consensus, at his core such a man is foremost a servant of the weak gods of managerial timidity.

For eight decades now the old elite, left- and right- wings alike, has been unified by their shared prioritization of the open society and its values. Although it may have surprised some Americans to see previously right-coded figures like Dick Cheney side with the political left in the last election, it should not have. Cheney was a radical proponent of the open society consensus – just in the form of neoconservatism, the American church militant of imposing the gospel of openness around the world at the point of the sword. In this he was never that different from dedicated leftists like George Soros, who founded an activist institution named quite explicitly after his objective (the Open Society Foundation) and used its vast network of influence to subvert and deconstruct conservative cultures around the globe, including in the United States.

That both men would do this as powerful scions of the same Western establishment is not contradictory but completely logical, given that what united that establishment was the open society consensus. Even the most radical “counter-cultural” rebels of the 1960s were really no such thing, given that their goals were identical to those of the post-war establishment: to progressively advance the opening up of society. They disagreed only on the pace of change, and the establishment soon accommodated their zeal and brought them into the fold.

Trump and populist-nationalist movements are the first real break from this consensus since its conception. They herald the arrival of a very different world.

A New World Opens

Despite its obsession with “openness,” the world of the post-war open society has in truth always been, in its own way, a strictly enclosed and deeply stifling place. It is a world in which human nature, indeed our very humanity, is viewed with great suspicion, as something dangerous to be surveilled, suppressed, and contained – or, even better, remolded into a reliable cog to fit safely into a predictable, riskless machine. Its dream of a world of perfect freedom, equality, rationalism, and passivity has always been one “in which no great heart could beat and no great soul could breathe,” as Ernst Jünger once put it.

From the very beginning of the Long Twentieth Century, some clear-eyed liberal thinkers, such as Leo Strauss, could foresee that attempting to entirely ignore the realities and banish the values of the “closed society” in pursuit of “a pacified planet, without rulers and ruled” was always liable to end only in rebellion, bloodshed, and self-destruction. Open society liberalism’s dogmatic pursuit of negation would, Strauss warned, undermine the very virtues – like loyalty, duty, courage, and love of one’s own – that all societies rely on to survive and sustain themselves. As Matthew Rose astutely observes, Strauss understood that the strong gods of the closed society “are permanent truths, not atavisms, no matter how unpalatable they are to the progressive-minded.” And, that a “society that cannot affirm them invites catastrophe, no less than does a society that cannot question them.”

Such warnings were ignored, however. The traumas of the twentieth century made ideas like nationalism, or even any clear distinction between “us” and “them,” into taboos that were impossible to discuss seriously. That finding the proper balance between “closed’ and “open” values is necessary to maintain a healthy society was a fact carefully ignored for decades.

Now the strong gods are nonetheless being haphazardly called back into the world as the vitalistic neo-romanticism of our revolutionary moment of reformation tears down the decaying walls and guard towers of the open society. Their return brings real risks, or course – although the return of risk is kind of the point. The thing about strong gods is that they’re strong, meaning they can be fearsome and dangerous; which is precisely why they also have the strength to protect and defend. It remains an open question whether this necessary renewal of strength and vitality can be reintegrated harmoniously into our societies, or whether our world will again be plunged into a time of significantly greater strife, danger, and war.

But we no longer have much of a choice in the matter; the strong gods’ restoration has become inevitable, one way or another. We’re living in a whole new century now. The Long Twentieth Century has run its course, the world it bequeathed to us in the West having proved a wholly unsustainable mix of atomization, listlessness, self-abnegation, and petty impersonal tyranny. Our societies will either accept the offer of revitalization or fade out of existence, to be replaced by other stronger, more grounded and cohesive cultures.

As Reno rightly concludes in Return of the Strong Gods, “Our time – this century – begs for a politics of loyalty and solidarity, not openness and deconsolidation. We don’t need more diversity and innovation. We need a home.” God willing, we can all find that home again as we enter the twenty-first century.

First published on Substack

I propose a new sociopolitical model that I call Voluntary Democracy. You may reasonably ask how I became arrogant enough to even contemplate doing such a thing.

I am no one or everyone, depending on your perspective. I am a very average bloke with some limited life experience, a modicum of knowledge, and sufficient interest to talk and write about the topic we are about to discuss.

I do not profess to have all the answers or even know what most of the questions are. I am just about as flaky as it is possible for a man to be and am undeserving of your trust which is among the reasons I ask you not to place any in me.

I am merely proposing an idea. My only hope is that you consider it. If I’m lucky perhaps you will question it and, if I’m very fortunate, start expanding on it.

We are going discuss some of the problems with representative democracy which is the political model of state preferred by most people I will refer to a statists. I’ll call this model simply the state.

I was born and live in the the state called the United Kingdom (UK). Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to be ruled by a king or his government, but that is the nature of the state. It’s not a choice to be a subject of the state. Though statists claim it is.

Therefore, I will use the current alleged constitutional monarchy, the claimed basis for the UK state, as my test case.

What Democracy Is and What It Is Not

Democracy is a political system first formally established in ancient Greece by Cleisthenes (c. 570–500 BCE). Cleisthenes introduced “sortition”—which is the random selection of citizens drawn by lot. Under his reforms, the Boule (executive) proposed legislation, and the Ecclesia (legislature) would then debate the proposed statute laws and vote on their enactment.

The citizen members of the Boule and the Ecclesia were selected by sortition. Once their work was done, the Boule and the Ecclesia were disbanded. The people would return to their everyday lives. The next time the Boule and the Ecclesia were needed, sortition would again be used and a different group of people selected.

Sortition was also used to form juries, whose citizen members sat in the Dikasteria (courts). The jury in the Dikasteria represented the highest law in the land. Any Dikasteria could overturn the enactments of the Ecclesia. This political system enabled the people to create legislation (statute law) as well as law derived from precedent (case law).

Crucially, Cleisthenes empowered the Dikasteria (the law courts) to overrule (annul) any law that was found to be unjust in a jury-led trial. There were no judges. Magistrates were merely administrators for the court. If the defendant was found guilty, both the judgement (ruling) and the nature of the punishment (sentence) were decided by the citizen jurors.

If the full application of the law (including legislation) did not serve justice, the jury could annul it. The defendant may have technically contravened the law but could still be found not guilty if the jury believed the defendant had acted honourably, without any intent to cause harm or loss (mens rea).

In such a circumstance, it was the law, not the accused, that would be found at fault. Any flawed legislation would be wiped from the statute scrolls and the Boule and the Ecclesia would have to amend or abolish it in light of the Dikasteria’s ruling.

The word “democracy” (demokratia) derives from “demos” (people) and “kratos” (power). Literally translated, it means “people power.” Cleisthenes proposed a governance system whereby the people were sovereign by virtue of exercising the rule of law through jury-led trials. This, and only this, is “democracy” and it has nothing to do with voting or electing anyone.

So-called “representative democracy” is not democracy. In representative democracies the people are permitted to select representatives who make all decisions for them for the next few years. During their rule, the representatives enforce their collective will upon the people.

Representative democracy is based upon the people handing all their decision making power over to a tiny clique of privileged rulers. It is the antithesis of democracy.

We are allowed to elect the legislature, which we call Parliament (Ecclesia). The dominant faction, usually formed from the most popular mob—chosen by those who bothered to vote—then forms the executive. We call this the government (Boule).

Depending on how dominant the ruling mob is—determined by their relative number of parliamentary seats—the executive (Boule or government) can either easily compel the legislature (Ecclesia) to adopt its desired policies (legislation) or engage in some horsetrading with their “opposition” to amend their legislation (policy diktat) prior to its almost inevitable adoption. “Opposition” is a misleading term because the people who actually rule control both the government and the so-called opposition.

The current British government, despite only securing votes from a small minority of the population, enjoys a massive parliamentary majority. The government (Boule) can “whip” its own representative members of Parliament (MP’s) to push through pretty much any policy it likes without bothering to consult anybody.

In the UK’s representative democracy, while statists think they are electing people who will represent their views and prioritise addressing their concerns, Parliament declares itself sovereign over all of the people. Statists actually select their own rulers—of sorts.

Parliament’s claim to sovereignty is false. The British have a codified, written constitution that makes the people sovereign. That doesn’t matter, however, to government as long as the population continues to assume Parliament’s claim is valid.

The advantage of “representative democracy,” from the perspective of the oligarchs who actually rule, is that it allows them to rule in perpetuity. Through lobbying, political party and campaign funding, government partnerships, corruption, coercion and orders issued to puppet MP’s, the vast bulk of parliamentarians represent only oligarchs’ views and prioritise oligarchs’ concerns. Oligarchs aren’t overly concerned about who wins elections.

In the UK’s representative democracy the courts (Dikestaria) are led by the Judiciary. As a Common Law jurisdiction, juries in the UK can still technically “annul” legislation. The judiciary “instructs” juries but never informs them they can annul. Consequently, British juries remain oblivious of their own rights and powers. The judiciary really doesn’t like jury trials in any event, and is working with the government to do away with them if they can.

The state supposedly operates on the comically misnamed separation of powers model. Everyone who lives and works in the UK knows this is total bunk.

The three branches of government comprise of the executive (government or Boule) and the legislature (Parliament or Ecclesia) which together form a single, oligarch controlled rule-making institution. The third branch, the judiciary (courts or Dikesteria), forces the people to comply with the rules and punishes those who don’t. It rarely, if ever, rules against the oligarchs’ rule-making institution and is completely divorced from anything the rest of us might consider justice. The only people who don’t have to obey dictatorial rule are the oligarchs who are above all the rules they impose on everyone else, often because they can buy themselves out of having to comply with any.

This, then, is the state.

Introducing Voluntary Democracy

The problem with “representative democracies” is that they always resolve in kakistocracies ruled by oligarchs. In other words, dictatorships. The people are merely given the illusion of choice through anointment ceremonies called elections where they are invited to crown the next gaggle of kakistocrats who will rule them on behalf of the oligarchs.

I suggest the solution to this is Voluntary Democracy.

Voluntary democracy wouldn’t necessitate reinventing the wheel. The three branches of governance would remain and the process of proposing, enacting, and ruling on legislation would continue.

The executive would be replaced with a body formed of citizens who would be randomly selected by sortition from the whole population and would serve on a temporary or perhaps issue by issue basis. We could call this the Boule or something else. How about “voluntary-executive” perhaps? Let’s use “the Volexec.”

The legislature would be a larger body—selected and serving in the same way—who would then deliberate on and enact legislation proposed by the executive. Again, we could stick with Ecclesia, but let’s use “the Volegis.”

The biggest procedural difference in a voluntary democracy, other than the selection process, would be the abolition of bench trials. All justice would be dispensed by jurors in jury led trials and judges would be replaced by conveners whose only role would be to facilitate proceedings.

The most important difference would be that all juries would be sovereign. Juries and only juries would represent the supreme rule of law in the whole jurisdiction and their only concern would be to ensure justice was served. We shall call these voluntary Dikasteria “the Volcourts.”

Through jury-led trials, these sortition selected groups of citizens—jurors— sitting in Volcourts across the land, would have the united and annexed power to annul any and all legislation and set case precedents wherever they deemed it necessary. In the event of annulment, the Volexec and the Volegis would need to either amend or abolish the faulty legislation accordingly.

There would be no government and no resultant state in a voluntary democracy. Voluntary societies would be jurisdictions without rulers, not jurisdictions without rules. Nor would voluntary democracy necessitate the existence of nations, though people could form them voluntarily and call themselves whatever they liked. Therefore, as we proceed to Part 2 and move away from the UK based example to broader considerations, I won’t reference the concept of nations but rather use “jurisdictions.”

Voluntary democratic jurisdiction won’t be perfect and they won’t solve all our problems. Nonetheless, I think they could resolve many of the injustices we currently suffer. Not least of all by effectively removing oligarchs’ political power.

To realise the promise of a voluntary democracy we would all need to work through a major philosophical shift. Our fundamental belief and value systems would need to change. For example, obedience would no longer be a virtue but rather a failing. Initially, individuals would have to start by learning to think differently. Ultimately, if we wanted to operate voluntary democracies at the macro scale, all of us would need to develop and adopt a new political philosophy. Statists, who form the majority, all currently share essentially one political philosophy so there is no reason why voluntaryists couldn’t do the same and become the majority themselves. We’ll expand on this in Part 3.

So I hope some will be sufficiently intrigued to read Part 2. If not, thanks for voluntarily reading this article.

Please consider supporting my work. I really need your help if I am going to continue to provide the research and analysis that you value on a full-time basis. You can support my work for less than the price of a cup of coffee via my donor page or alternative become a paid subscriber to my Substack. I extend my gratitude to my editor, who has provided invaluable contributions to my articles since October 2021 (but who, for personal reasons, prefers to remain anonymous).

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Related posts:

Voluntary Democracy – Part 3 Voluntary Democracy – Part 2 Some Call It Conspiracy Theory – Part 1 Some Call It Conspiracy Theory – Part 2

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

Donald Trump will become the 47th president of the United States and given the host of global debacles the US has its hands in—ranging from the genocide in Gaza, to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Iran to the Ukraine war—nobody is quite certain what direction the country will take with the former president at the helm again.

Joining host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report is Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. With his extensive insights and expertise into the Middle East and American foreign policy, Wilkerson provides a valuable understanding into what a Trump presidency may look like outside of the borders of America.

Wilkerson predicts Trump will stay true to “his disdain for war,” emphasizing “it's genuine. I don't think he likes war. I don't think he likes starting wars.” Regarding Ukraine, Wilkerson thinks Trump will shut down the war effort. But when it comes to the Middle East, that commitment clashes with one of Trump’s long standing loyalties: unwavering support for Israel.

War with Iran seems increasingly likely by the day despite, according to Wilkerson, resistance from the Pentagon and prior administrations. In the case of Trump, however, “you wonder how long that resistance can hold up if the president of the United States is intent on—and this is the one place where Trump really worries me—doing everything in his power for Israel,” Wilkerson notes. He adds, “Trump has made it quite clear that that's his policy, that's his belief, and I think he's being honest about it.”

Citing war-game simulations, reports, personal sources as well as his own expertise, Wilkerson lays down the reality of potential war with Iran: sheer disaster. With sources saying that the IDF is already taking heavy casualties in Lebanon, any sort of escalation with Iran would compound the suffering of the US and Israel. “Iran will top $10 trillion, take 10 years to pacify, if it's even moderately pacified, and cost a fortune in blood and treasure,” Wilkerson warns.

Transcript

Chris Hedges  

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, retired and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. He is a Vietnam War veteran, who attended Airborne School, Ranger School and the Naval War College, and who as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam logged over 1,000 hours on combat missions. He went on to serve as deputy director of the Marine Corps War College at Quantico and was executive Assistant to Admiral Stewart A. Ring, United States Navy Pacific Command and Director of the United States Marine Corps War College. His disillusionment with the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East followed the revelations of detainee abuse, the ineptitude of post-invasion planning for Iraq and the secretive decision-making by the Bush administration that led to the invasion of Iraq. At a congressional hearing recorded on C-SPAN in June 2005, he gave his analysis of the Iraq war's motivation: "'I use the acronym OIL,' he said, 'O for oil, I for Israel and L for the logistical base necessary or deemed necessary by the so-called neocons – and it reeks through all their documents – the logistical base whereby the United States and Israel could dominate that area of the world.'" Wilkerson has said that the speech Powell made before the United Nations on February 5, 2003—which laid out a case for war with Iraq—included falsehoods of which he and Powell had never been made aware. "My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life,” he has said. “I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council." He called the U.N. presentation "probably the biggest mistake of my life.” He has taught at the College of William & Mary and George Washington University. He is a Senior Fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network, a group of former military, intelligence and civilian national security officials who describe themselves as  offering "alternative analyses untainted by Pentagon or defense industry ties" and countering "Washington’s establishment narrative on most national security issues of the day." Joining me to discuss U.S. foreign policy, the conflicts raging in the Middle East, including the genocide in Gaza, and the fate of the American empire is Lawrence Wilkerson. 

Let's begin with the election and its effect. I mean, you saw the intelligence community, Milley, all sorts of figures essentially joined the Democratic campaign in support of Kamala Harris. Let's talk about why Trump triggers such deep animus within the Pentagon and the intelligence community, and what you see happening during a second Trump administration.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

I think the animus was created—within my community anyway, I still call it that, the Pentagon, the military in general—because they don't see any concerted effort on his part to express a strategic appraisal that agrees with theirs. Theirs being the one most parroted by the New York Times, for example, and others of their ilk, who are simply spokespersons for the military industrial complex and for the national security state, which we have most assuredly become. And so they're worried about anyone who would come in and threaten to break the china. And that's what Trump that's what his forte is, starting to break the china. And they're very protective of their china, just as are the national security agencies in general and the 16, I guess it's 16 now, entities that we have that are supposed to be our intelligence eyes and ears, led by the CIA. Not led by the DNI, because he still has no real power over the CIA, but led by the CIA. I would say Bill Burns is the most powerful guy in the United States with regard to intelligence and what goes to the White House and what doesn't go to the White House. So that's part of the reason they just don't know this guy, except from the first term. And the first term would not, through Kelly and Milley and other people's eyes, give you much hope if you were a Pentagon member of the bureaucracy, if you will. The second reason, I think, is because he's so mercurial. He's all over the map, and the military doesn't like that at all. They like constancy, even if it's incorrect constancy. They prefer constancy to change and mercurial nature. And I think that's a problem with them. And there's a third reason too, and that is that they're worried about what I call Christian nationalism, some of them anyway, others are aiding and abetting it. And what that means, in essence, is not just this far flung, but very ripe and alive effort by certain Christian groups in America to make Christianity the national religion, to change the Constitution in that effect, or to discard the Constitution with regard to religion, but they're worried that they have flag officers in the military who are very much Christian nationalists. We have an occasion right now that we're looking at it, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Mikey Weinstein's group out in New Mexico, where the [inaudible], the three star general who is the chief of personnel, the personnel man for the Chief of Staff of the Army is married to a woman who rolls in the aisle and speaks in tongues. And Mikey's obtained a video of this general in uniform being at one of her gatherings with this group. That's just the surface, if you will. There are people like General Flynn, for example, who are still in the military. So that's disconcerting for the bulk of the military that doesn't subscribe to this theory or this desire to do away with the Constitution when it comes to freedom of religion. Those things are bothering them, and Trump has shown a propensity to use the Christian movement in this country for political gain and to not have much in the way of regard for what that might mean otherwise. So that's disturbing.

Chris Hedges  

Yeah, I graduated from Harvard Divinity School and wrote a book on the Christian right a little over a decade ago, called American Fascist: The Christian Right and the War on America. And of course, I know Mikey's work well. Let's just unpack that. Why do they see Christian nationalism—it's interesting that you raise that as an issue—why do they see that as such an important issue? Just explain, in their vision, and perhaps yours, how that could roll out in a really negative way. You're

Lawrence Wilkerson  

You're talking about the way the military looks at it, yeah, at least those who aren't... Yeah, I think they're most concerned about it in terms of what it might mean for the tyranny that would have to come along with it, and they're having to enforce that tyranny, because if you make Christianity the national religion, and that's their ultimate goal, is to not just put Bibles in classrooms and stop abortions completely, not those social issues that always loom up, and paint them with their brush. The secret that they want no one to know until it happens is they do want Christianity to be the national religion. In that regard, we even have a branch of American Catholics who are working on this. If you look closely at what's happened in the last 50 years, in particular, with the Catholic Church. My wife was Catholic, so I'm aware of some of the things in the Catholic church that I wouldn't have been aware of had she not been. She's passed away now. But if you look closely at it, there is this behind the scenes movement in America to create an American Catholic Church. We don't like it being in Rome, its head being in Rome. We don't like Francis in particular. We despise Francis. And when I say, "we" I'm using a rhetorical device to describe these people. We'd like to have our own Pope and our own Catholic Church. And there are people, some would say, one or two on the Supreme Court right now, are of that mind too, and would work for that, or might be working for that, were they given the occasion to do so. You put that together, that Roman Catholicism, Opus Dei like Roman Catholicism, and the other people who are, for example, like John Hagee fund funding millions of dollars to West Bank settlers in Israel, even now. And you've got a real fear on the part of rational military people, this might get out of hand Be more specific, in what way? If you make Christianity the national religion, and you do all the things that you would have to do, constitutionally and otherwise, or just totally disregard the Constitution in that process. What you get, as we have just seen probably enough Americans behind you to do it, then you have a whole different ball game for the military. Because the military then is called on, domestically and otherwise, and most Americans don't understand the domestic missions that the Army in particular, but the military in general, has to defend that, and they don't want to. They think that's fractious, they think that's unconstitutional. They think that's something that would cause more harm than good. And I'm glad to say that there are still some people like that left in my military.

Chris Hedges  

Well I mean, Trump has an ideological void, of course, but we saw in his first term that he filled it with these Christian nationalists or Christian fascists, Betsy DeVos, Mike, Pence, Bill Barr and others. Certainly it appears that they will fill that void again. I want to talk about Ukraine.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Let me add one other thing. This is not just Trump. Remember, I served in the George W. Bush administration. I cannot tell you how many times I had to deal with the White House personnel office over such things as this man can't go to Iraq. Why can't he go to Iraq? Why can't he serve in Iraq? He's not a Christian. Talk about counterintuitive.

Chris Hedges  

Let's talk about Ukraine. I mean, Trump has deviated from the establishment consensus on Ukraine, I never understood, perhaps you can unpack it for me, the whole Ukraine policy, other than as a kind of proxy war to degrade the Russian military and isolate Putin. I was in East Germany when the Berlin Wall came down as a reporter. I was there when the promises were made to Gorbachev not to extend NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany. And of course, as you know, the Soviet Union had to acquiesce to the reunification of Germany. And that was the promise made. And I'm not defending the invasion, obviously, of Ukraine, but we certainly baited the Russians and Putin. But let's talk about Ukraine. I don't see how any military strategist seriously could think that in a war of attrition, the Ukrainians could dominate, but explain what's happening and then how you see if there isn't going to be a difference, how you see a difference in a Trump administration's policy towards Ukraine and Russia.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Let me say, first I was there too. I was special assistant to Chairman Powell, and the change that took place with the advent of Bill Clinton was absolutely disastrous, and I attribute to William Jefferson Clinton a lot of the problems we're living with today, including the violation, major violation of that promise not to expand NATO. That's a longer story, better enough for another time. I think what we're looking at in Ukraine vis a vis Trump, or Trump vis a vis Ukraine, is his—and I think Doug McGregor, for example, is right about this, I just watched him on Judge Napolitano's show—is his disdain for war. I think it's genuine. I don't think he likes war. I don't think he likes starting wars. I don't think he would be a president who... He'll go off and kill someone like the Iranian IRGC member or other people whom he's told are terrorists or whatever. But I don't think he wants war. [inaudible] war, and so he's willing to shut down Ukraine. Now there's another reason too. I think he detests NATO for different reasons than I. I don't like NATO much either. I think it's well beyond its sell by date. And he sees NATO as being—and he's right in this—as being an aider and abettor, Brussels is, of the war in Ukraine, as Washington is, led by that perfidious [inaudible]. And so he wants to shut that down. And I think his ultimate goal is to not abandon NATO per force, but he wants to get the United States out of its relationship with NATO, which he thinks we pay for everything we do, all the heavy lifting they do very little. Come back to the United States, as it were, and say you've got our nuclear envelope, but everything else you do because we're not with you anymore, and of course, save the money that that saves too. I think it was part of his first term, and he just didn't get to do it the way he wanted to do it. So those, I think, are the major reasons that he will be positive with regard to Ukraine. Because you're right, Ukraine is a disaster right now. Yeah, and most apparently, for Ukraine, they're dying by the dozens every day now, and they have no people left. They're having difficulty, they're having to impress young people, bring them into the military to get them to fight. And they're lucky if they don't desert within the first week, because either going over to the Russians or running away wherever they can go. It's a disaster. And we don't have generals in the Pentagon saying this. Now we have Lloyd Austin, he's right there with Joe Biden. But we don't have generals in the Pentagon, in my view, anyway, who are expressing these kinds of views that generals on the outside are expressing like David Petraeus and Barnes and other generals, who are saying, well, Russia is losing. They're lying through their teeth. They're lying through their teeth, either that or they're just stupid and incredibly dumb, really, not just stupid. So I think Trump would shut that down. And I'm looking forward to that. I hope he does. I hope he shuts it down forth with,

Chris Hedges  

Well, they should have read the history of Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. Stalin would send out a million men who would either get captured or die, and then he'd just send out another million, kind of the Putin strategy.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

And people don't realize that the Wehrmacht—right after it invaded, really, the first 14 months—began to lose almost immediately, partly because of its repine as it moved along, it made enemies of everyone in its path, even Napoleon wasn't that stupid. And partly because they overextended and partly because the rule of thumb that Hitler thought would work, his food minister told him it would work, that all that food coming from Ukraine and the steps of Russia would feed not only the Wehrmacht forces going that way, but Germany, too didn't come true.

Chris Hedges  

Yeah, that's because the Russians destroyed everything, scorched earth policy, we can do another show on World War II, which I have an obsession with, but he also split his forces because of Stalingrad. Let's talk about the Middle East. What will be the difference between a Biden administration and a Trump administration vis a vis the genocide in Gaza, in Lebanon, the attacks in Lebanon, which I want you to talk about, because they're not going particularly well for Israel. And then this knife's edge we're sitting on between Israel and Iran.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

I could get very complicated and complex here and try to describe what I think is going on over there, and I've made as much of an effort as probably anyone in this country to keep up with it. But let me just say right now what I'm concerned about with Trump coming in. I'm concerned about something happening between the time that this is all consolidated, which won't be long, apparently, and the inauguration and what the Biden administration does this. 

Chris Hedges  

Let me just interrupt you, Larry, what do you mean by consolidated?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Well, there's going to be some court cases and other things, I'm sure, but it's going to be pretty quick. I think, because the margin of victory is so great. May look razor thin, but it's pretty great, from what I've seen, popular vote and electoral college. So all those things that the election task force I was a member of, for example, were worried about with a razor thin margin aren't going to happen. So we're going to get satisfied, and the votes to the Electoral College, and the process complete pretty quickly. I don't think the Democrats will be like the Republicans would be had it been the other way around. And I'm a Republican, so I can get away with saying that. I'm worried about what's going to happen because I think Bibi [Netanyahu] is still intent, and firing Yoav Gallant was indicative of this par excellence. He's still intent on going after Iran, but he's intent on the United States going with him. And the force deployments that we've made, the force deployments we're making right now, the number of troops we're sending actually to Israel right now, indicates to me that we are cognizant of this fact. We might not be yet ready to go along with it, but we are cognizant of it to the point where we're putting the forces in place that we think will be necessary. I think we're wrong. I think we're going to get our rear ends handed to us if we do what Netanyahu wants to do with regard to Iran, which is full bore war. We're going to find out how weak we are when we do it. If Iraq and Afghanistan weren't sufficient, this will certainly seal the deal. But I'm worried about this interim period, and what the Biden administration might actually do in this interim period, not just to do what Bibi wants them to do, and what I think Joe Biden is inclined to do, but to mess Trump up. I mean, what better way than for the inauguration takes place while we're involved in a huge war in the Middle East, and it would be a huge war if we go at it big time the way Bibi wants, and we discover immediately that we can't do what we think we're going to do in a short period of time. It's the old bugaboo again. You know, air power, air power, air power, air power is not going to defeat Iran. It is not going to stop their nuclear program, it's not going to defeat them. So you wind up with a choice, you either invade or you stop. And that's not much of a choice, very bad choice, as a matter of fact.

Chris Hedges  

So my understanding is the Pentagon was always reticent. They did not want, they blocked, I mean, there was a huge push in the interim between Bush and Obama to go to war with Iran and you know more about it than I do, my understanding is the Pentagon just said absolutely not.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

They are saying that now, but you wonder how long that resistance can hold up if the president the United States is intent on—and this is the one place where Trump really worries me—doing everything in his power for Israel. And Trump has made it quite clear that that's his policy, that's his belief, and I think he's being honest about it. Of course, there's the AIPAC business and the money involved, and Trump is, if anything, a transactional, "I want the money" man, but I think he's committed to it in a way that Miriam Adelson, for example, indicates in the amount of money that she gave.

Chris Hedges  

She's his largest donor, I think, $100 million, right? Well, what would be the difference, then, between a Trump administration vis a vis Israel and a Biden administration? Can't get any worse for the Palestinians in Gaza. What would be the difference?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

I agree with you, although there was, I think, and perhaps this is applicable on the other side too, but there was some political space opening up for Harris. I think she was made aware, vividly aware, of how much the Gaza policy, if you will, with regard to the Biden administration, had harmed them. I would say it probably lost them almost a quarter of the progressives that would have voted for them otherwise, particularly in some of the battleground states, key states. And that political space opening up, might have changed policy with her somewhat. I'm not saying it would be a [inaudible] but I am saying it might have been a more mellow policy with regard to Israel, and a harder policy on Netanyahu and a complicit policy—and we could do this if we wanted to—to get him out of there. We have the power to get him out of there if we wanted to use it. He's his own worst enemy in that regard. But we're not. We're not doing that. We're leaving him in there, partly because we know that those around him who might replace him would be just as bad as he, but with maybe a little bit better record and a little bit better outlook on things, especially getting the hostages back. And we've got some hostages that are left alive there too, so that political space would have given her room, I think to change policy somewhat, to meddle our policy a little bit. I don't think Trump will do that. I think Trump is in for a penny, in for a pound for Israel. And that's dangerous. I just was looking this morning at the meeting between the Saudi National Security Advisor, Blinken and Jake Sullivan and others, and very indicative of what's happening right now. The Saudis were very forceful about not making a deal until there was a Palestinian state deal that looked like it might have some viability politically, if not in reality. Now they are here, and he just inked the deal, so to speak, making a bilateral relationship go. Israel's not even in it, a security relationship. And this adds to the one we just did with the UAE, we just did with Bahrain. All of them are different deals, but they all amount to almost non-NATO major ally status. We just did one with Qatar, where  Al Udeid is, the biggest Air Force base in the world, and it looks as if the GCC, the Gulf Cooperation Council, is sort of being wedged aside and we're doing all these bilateral treaties, if you will, with these countries. They don't have the force of treaties, but they're executive agreements for defense cooperation and so forth, and so that means Mohammed bin Salman is now playing the typical Saudi game of "I like Russia, I like China, but the United States is my old haven, and I need the United States," so I'm gonna make a bilateral deal with them. If that's happening, they're worried about Iran, even though they're talking more with Tehran than they've done in the past, as are all the states, they're worried. They're worried about what might happen. They're worried about what Iran might do if Israel doesn't attack Iran's oil facilities, because Iran will wipe out all the oil facilities it can in the Gulf region, 20% of the world's oil supply. It won't make any difference that we're 22 million barrels a day now if they do that, because the price of oil will go to $300 a barrel, insurers won't insure and shippers want ship, then we'll have a real problem. And the Saudis know that, that's their nest egg, that's their future. They don't want to put that in jeopardy, so they're back with the United States. Now this is a very strange meeting, in my view, because the words were not there to support it, and then suddenly he's here doing this. I'm worried. I'm worried that we might be walking into a war that we cannot walk away from because of Netanyahu.

Chris Hedges  

But the Saudis, Qatar, they've all made it very clear that the US is not allowed to use these bases if there are strikes against Iran.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Well, the prime minister in Baghdad did too, but we went ahead and let the Israelis fly over Iraq. And I'm told that the King of Jordan said no. Then we did it anyway, and rather than looking like a fool, he said he had grudgingly given permission, so we don't seem to care about what they think. And if it comes down to it, as this visit has just testified to I think, if it comes down to it, and they have to choose, they're going to do what we want to do.

Chris Hedges  

I want to talk about what a war with Iran would look like. The Iranian Air Force, as I understand, is pretty decrepit, not very effective, outdated fighters, many going all the way back to the Shah. I don't know what their air defenses are like. Certainly it would start out as an aerial bombing campaign. Would it look like the bombing campaign that we carried out under the Clinton administration against Iraq during the sanctions? Well, what's it going to look like?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

It's not going to look anything like that. In fact, it's going to look quite different. And it's principally because of China, but more so Russia. I think the Israelis, in this last attempt, they're lying about it now, and I have that from very good sources, they're lying about it. They're propagandizing it. They didn't do any damage at all to speak of to Iran, and the reason they didn't was because they ran into a buzz saw of Russian provided air defense systems. They didn't know what to do. They didn't know how to read the radars. They didn't know how to jam the radars. Their suppression of enemy air defense, SEAD, did not work. They took a few out, but it didn't work enough to where the pilots thought they could go any further. So they launched all their missiles, as I think was the plan originally, for the first echelon. After the SEAD got through from outside Iran, they were deterred from going inside, and they would be deterred again. And there's every reason to believe that there might be some S400s, as well as S300s on the ground and the S400, sorry Lockheed Martin, sorry, Raytheon consumed by Lockheed Martin, is the best air defense system in the world. That's another thing that's happening right now that's disturbing our defense contractors, Chinese and Russian equipment is out doing in Ukraine and in the Middle East, American equipment, which is three or four times as expensive. One of the reasons India is back with Russia again for its armaments and such, despite what our protests are. So we're looking at a situation where we will think that aerial will be all we'll have to do, that is to say bombing. Israel is going to think that, Israel really can't do anything other than bomb Iran, ballistic missiles and bombing, air launched cruise missiles and such as that. It's not going to do it. It's not going to work. It's simply not going to work. There'll be some damage done. There will be some toll in Tehran and elsewhere, in the outlying territories where the nuclear facilities are and such. But it's not going to work. So what do you do then? I've war gamed this. I war-gamed it with the Lieutenant General in the Marine Corps who took great censure from his own buddies in the Pentagon. He was retired at the time, but he used to be my boss when I was down at Quantico War College, and he said we would lose. He ran the war game two times just to prove that the computers were not wrong. I think he's right. I think one of the things the Iranians will do is take out a US aircraft carrier, that's 5,000 US souls on the bottom of the sea or in the water. And incidentally, we now have so few escorts for our CVs, our aircraft carriers, that let's say there are 2,000 sailors in the water, we couldn't rescue them all because we don't have birth space on the escort ships. Interesting development there. We can't even man some of our ships because we're so short in terms of recruiting. I think it would be a disaster. And what do we do when we get into a disaster like that? It's America. We don't back away. We don't retrench. We don't check our six and look around and say, maybe we made an error. We double down. That's what we'll do, and then it will be a full fledged war. And if you like Iraq, and you like Afghanistan, Iran will top $10 trillion, take 10 years to pacify, if it's even moderately pacified and cost a fortune in blood and treasure. 

Chris Hedges  

You're talking about ground forces going in?  

Lawrence Wilkerson  

That's the only way you rid the country... 

Chris Hedges  

Yeah, that's true. But where do they go in from? Iraq?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Well, you'd have to sit down and do what we did in the Pacific when we were... I actually had the war plan for taking on the Soviets in Iran. You recall, we were very worried about them, looking for a warm water port around [inaudible] a typical Russian Empire thing to do, go back and check the history of the Russian Empire. We thought that was the case. So out in the Pacific, the force provider for all of this, we were war planning for fighting the Russians, the Soviets, inside Iran, in the Zagros Mountains and elsewhere. I know that terrain really well. It's not Iraq, very different country. Great strategic depth, 53% Persian. Great homogeneity amongst that 53% lot of problems around the periphery, but basically a homogeneous population, 10 years, $10 trillion and you still haven't solved what you wanted to solve, which was to defeat the nation anymore than...

Chris Hedges  

I'm just curious, where would the ground troops go in from? I have a hard time believing the Iraqi government, which is...

Lawrence Wilkerson  

We are illegal, illegal under international law and under our own domestic law. We are illegally present in Syria right now.

Chris Hedges  

That's true.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

We're there protecting oil going to Israel.

Chris Hedges  

Which Trump said, got him in a lot of trouble, but was an honest statement.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Yeah, and we would go through Syria without batting an eye.

Chris Hedges  

Yeah, let's talk about how it might start...

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Incidentally, when we were doing the war gaming out in the Pacific, our major invasion was amphibious. That'd be a little difficult today, we had a lot of amphibious bottoms. The ones we have today are broken. Ask the [inaudible] Marine Corps, and we don't have many.

Chris Hedges  

How would it start? So there would be an Iranian strike on Israel with significant Israeli casualties. What do you see as the trigger?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

The debate in Tehran is heated right now, I'm told. This is about 48 hours old, but Doug Macgregor sort of confirmed it this morning. The debate is between the different groups of security personnel in Tehran, the IRGC, The Guardian Council, the Ayatollah, the new president, so forth. Do we continue with our previous plan? And the previous plan was we're going to smack them and we're going to smack them really hard. Israel has seen nothing like what's coming. Much in the way they're seeing real casualties, significant casualties in Lebanon right now. The debate as to whether to go ahead and do that or not, because they don't want the new president in particular, doesn't want war with the United States. They got enough problems. They don't want war with the United States. I don't know how that debate is going to fall out, but if they decide, and Netanyahu wants them to decide this, I'm quite confident of that, to go back whole hog at Israel and do some really significant damage that his propaganda machine cannot hide, which he has done a lot of up to this point, like, for example, hiding the casualties in Lebanon. The casualties are enormous in Lebanon right now, for the IDF, they're enormous.

Chris Hedges  

Have you heard a figure? I have not. Have you heard a number?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

I've heard 4,000. And here's the kicker, modern armies do not show loss or win by KIA [killed in action], battle, tactical, operational, whatever. They show it by WIA [wounded in action] because they have such sophisticated battlefield surgery and such sophisticated hospitals that... look at our casualties in Afghanistan, what you have is high rates of WIA, the WIA is over 4,000. That's missing arms, missing legs, you know, whatever. So when you're looking at a modern army fighting on interior lines in Israel, it's very interior lines. No evacuation route, hardly at all. You look at the WIA, not the KIA and the WIA in Lebanon are screamingly high right now, particularly for the IDF. I think you'll see them leaving very shortly, you'll see them leaving or moving.

Chris Hedges  

They haven't moved very far. 

Lawrence Wilkerson  

No, not at all. 

Chris Hedges  

In terms of interior lines, they haven't gone very far into Lebanon.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

What they're doing is precisely what they do almost every time they encounter this kind of resistance, though they've never encountered this stiff resistance, they bomb the hell out of the cities and the infrastructure, right? They killed Lebanese,

Chris Hedges  

They got driven out in '82 and of course, that's the invasion that created Hezbollah. I remember Sy Hersh telling me a little while ago that the reason that Netanyahu wants the United States to engage Iran is because he needs the US to take out Iran's air defense systems, which seems to be in agreement with what you said. Would that be correct?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

I think so. But I think we are going to get a rude surprise too, when we lose F-35s, extended range F-15s, F-16s and other flights that will come out of Al Udeid and off carriers, F-18s and such. We're going to lose a lot too. The war game said 30% attrition.

Chris Hedges  

And is Israel's motive the same as pushing us to invade Iraq, which is Iran is a powerful center within the region that it wants to essentially cripple the way it crippled Iraq, is that the motive behind the Israeli push for a war with Iran?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

I think that's the major motive behind it. They see Iran as the last impediment to their hegemony in the region.

Chris Hedges  

Let's talk about Israel from a military perspective because you know so much more about this than I do. How do you look at Israel in the Middle East from a strategic point of view, as a US ally?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

As a total liability. A strategic liability of the first order. And right now, at this moment, right now, I would say Ukraine, notwithstanding, they're the greatest strategic liability we have.

Chris Hedges  

Explain why. Why?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Because there's no positivity to it. Everything is us, nothing is them.

Chris Hedges  

But we took out a lot of those missiles coming in from Iran.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

We did. We depleted our supplies to the point now where I'm not sure even if we decided we were going to do a major aerial attack on Iran, we wouldn't run out of munitions very shortly.

Chris Hedges  

And the genocide. I mean, I think we supply 68% at this point of munitions to sustain the genocide in Gaza. Is that correct?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

At least that much. If you look at the entire panoply of things we've given Israel, I'd say, Gideon Levy at Haaretz is right when he says, you share 50/50 responsibility for every death in Gaza and, for that matter, in Lebanon too.

Chris Hedges  

How do you see it playing out in Gaza? I've actually been in the Middle East quite a bit in the last year, in Egypt twice, spent much the summer in Jordan, was in Qatar, was in the West Bank. And everything I can glean, Israel, of course, wants to push them into the Sinai. In the Egyptian military, I was told by Egyptian journalists in Cairo, has just been adamant, has told Sisi that there's no way. A Palestinian is, in fact, according to them, if Israel attempts to push the Palestinians into the Sinai and Sisi accepts them, he's finished. That's what they said. But how do you see it playing out? We know what Israel's intent is, which is, of course, depopulating, annexing northern Gaza. They're largely towards that goal, creating a humanitarian crisis in the south, but eventually ethnic cleansing, these genocidal tactics are now increasingly being used in the West Bank. How do you see it going? The US must be completely aware of what Israel's intent is. But where do you see that developing?

Lawrence Wilkerson  

There are two sets of thoughts, I think, or beliefs, strategic goals in the US, and it depends on what body of people you're talking about. Are you talking about Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and a host of others, Lindsey Graham? Or are you talking about saner people, I would say, on the other side of the aisle, or even in the Republican Party. They think that Israel is doing our job for us, as Bibi Netanyahu is want to say if Israel was not killing or ridding the region of these Arabs, Palestinian or otherwise, and think about how MBS must think about this, we'd have to be doing it. And so he's doing us a great favor. He's doing our dirty work for us. He even has said that publicly. The other side says, No, Israel is our ally and our friend, and we have to stand by them no matter how heinous Bibi is. We'd like to get rid of Bibi. We'd like to put a different picture on Israel, but he's there, and he's in charge, and he's doing what he needs to do. And then there's the group that I belong to, I think, that says this is horrible, what we're doing. And we all warned about this in the military, we warned about this. David Petraeus even testified to Congress one day and let it slip that Israel was a greater liability than a strategic asset, and maybe we ought to think about rearranging the relationship. After that got out, of course, he walked those remarks back, as David is want to do, but the military understands how much a strategic liability Israel truly is, especially down in the ranks, where people have actually had a chance to look at it, to study it, to look at the history and to understand what's happened and understand the real history of it, which is often propagandized by the Israelis and the US for consumption by the public. But the military understands that history. The military understands [USS] Liberty, for example, they understand that those sailors were machine gunned.

Chris Hedges  

Now we should explain. That was the ship that the Israelis attacked and killed, was it 36 or something? I can't remember. 31 US sailors were killed.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Yeah, and a bunch wounded, and I don't think there's any question, having looked at some of the investigation and some of the obscuration of that investigation, there's any doubt in my mind that Israel did it intentional.

Chris Hedges  

That was the '73 war.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Yeah, I don't know whether it was because they thought we were picking up information that they were uploading an atomic weapon, or they thought we were sharing some of the information we were picking up with a very sophisticated spy ship, which Liberty was, with Moscow in an attempt to bring pressure on Israel. I don't know what the reason was, because they wouldn't let the investigators get into the real nitty gritty. President cut it off. But I do know that Israel knew what they were doing.

Chris Hedges  

Israel had carried out a series of massacres of captured Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai. That was one of the theories. And the ship obviously would have known about that.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Well, you remember in the London Times, I think it was reported. And then, when the London Times was a good newspaper, and it was reported by the BBC, on Panorama, by the I can't remember his name now, terrible short term memory. I was just reading his piece last night where he's having the conversation with Golda Meir. He sent her a dozen or two or three red roses every time before he went to Israel. And she really appreciated that. So she'd give him the first interview whenever he was there. This time, she wouldn't give it to him. She said, I have to give it to the Americans, I'm sorry. And he just sent her the roses and everything. Anyway, he did talk to her on the telephone, and he reported this in that article in the London Times and on Panorama. He asked her, point blank, would you use the Samson option? I don't think he used that phrase. He said, would you use a nuclear weapon if Israel's existence were in question? Without batting an eye she said, of course. And he said, you understand what that means? And she said, Yes. Now was that for public consumption so that people would understand that Israel was serious about winning this conflict, a conflict they started? The Egyptians didn't start the '73 war.

Chris Hedges  

Yeah, I know. That's another myth they peddled.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

But I do think that Netanyahu, if his back was to the wall and he were forced to do so, the big question, of course, that was being asked was, even if you knew you would be taking the world into a nuclear holocaust, would you still do it? Yes.

Chris Hedges  

I mean, how much damage do you think Iran can inflict on Israel? Israel's a small country. I think it has a population of 6 million. What does Iran have 90 million? I mean, I can't remember.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

If you're talking about between the river and the sea, about 14 million Israeli citizens. 7 million plus are Palestinian and 7 million, not quite as much, are Jews. Very small, not as small as Gaza, no bigger than the Greater London, or smaller than Greater London. Gaza is where they're dropping all that ordinance, just putting the military template on it and saying, how many casualties, how many casualties have been... that ordinance, that concrete, that rebar, those streets, those buildings, the template puts down on the terrain and says, with great accuracy, how many casualties? It's 200,000. Guarantee it's not 40 or 50,000. The template says it's well north of 100,000 and we'll not know, because you won't find some of these people, they're buried so deeply under rubble. If Israel were to really be attacked by the full weight of Iran, it would be a nightmare for Israel. It's becoming that way just with Hezbollah. You're never going to get those Israelis to go back to their homes. They're going to evacuate Israel eventually. I was told the other day by a friend in Tel Aviv that already, by his count, a million Jewish Israelis have departed.

Chris Hedges  

Since October 7, yeah, that's numbers they've hidden. But I've heard 500,000 but certainly a significant number have just left the country. And these are often the best educated, they tend to be the secular part of society.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Putin was exercising his prudence and strategic verve by offering any of the Russians who had immigrated to Israel: come back, we need you, you're our brain trust.

Chris Hedges  

Yeah. I mean, one of the things, just to talk about the Israel-US relationship, is that [Jonathan] Pollard who gave Israel all sorts of intelligence information, he gave them information on CIA and Russian assets, which allowed the Soviets to roll it all up but he gave it to Israel, and then Israel was giving it to the Soviet Union in exchange for the release of Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union. But it destroyed the, obliterated the intelligence operation of the US in the Soviet Union.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

And Pollard is now, I'm told, I learned this 24 hours ago, Pollard is now instrumental in and very important to Bibi's propaganda effort with regard to Gaza and Lebanon. A traitor, and we let him go, and Bill Clinton did almost as much damage as Trump in that regard with Pollard. Bill Clinton pardon Marc Rich as his last ignominious act in office. I think it was David Rothkopf, or someone, said that was the most ignominious use of the pardon power by the president in the history of the country. I think they were right.

Chris Hedges  

You should explain who he was.

Lawrence Wilkerson  

Marc Rich really ran a company that, a huge company that sold, amongst other products, discounted price oil to Israel, and was responsible, in large measure, for Israel's economic success under the finance minister named Bibi Netanyahu, and then later, as he became prime minister, interrupted only by his fellow mate, Ari Sharon. Marc Rich made sure that Saddam Hussein's oil in the UN Oil-for-Food Programme was stolen and shipped to Israel. He also made sure that the pipeline in Syria, the one we were just talking about, was pumping to Israel. And he made sure that, eventually, the pipeline out of Kirkuk, out of northern Iraq, which has always had a problem with Baghdad, was shipping to Israel. So one of the reasons Israel's neo... what do you call their system of capitalism? It's not quite what ours is, but they have more billionaires per capita than we do. He made that happen with that discounted oil and now look at what Netanyahu has done. He had inked an agreement with Lebanon for the richest gas field in the Mediterranean thus far. That's abrogated, it's all belonging to Israel. Now there was a deal that Gaza had the second richest gas field in the Mediterranean for its own. That's gone, he's got that too. 30 years of the future needs of Israeli energy are contained in those two gas fields. He's got them both. Yeah, they're off the coast of Lebanon and Israel. That's an important point that's often missed in terms of the occupation of Northern Gaza, because they need the coastline. Let's just close by talking about the institutions themselves, the CIA, the Pentagon, which, and I mean, I'll characterize it, but you can correct me if I'm wrong, these institutions appear hostile to a Trump presidency, especially the intelligence community. How much can they damage, constrain, control Trump? That's an excellent question. First of all, the intent has to be there, and it has to be at some of the higher levels in order to do that. I'm not sure it's going to be particularly because he can take care of those levels if he wants to. But if it is there at the second echelon, so to speak, or the second, third echelons, it can be disturbing of anything that he wants to do as it could any president. It can falsify intelligence. It can lead the president astray with regard to serious national security issues. Right now, one of the most serious issues Trump's going to face, I think, I'm no economist, but I know a lot of economists, and they're telling me, the bond market right now is what we should be looking at, not the stock market. In fact, the stock market is euphoric and for the rich. The bond market is saying Trump is going to have one of the worst economic situations by midterm in our history. Our aggregate debt is also saying that. CBO released a report saying it's $50.2 trillion in a decade, decade and a half. The interest payments on that debt are already the defense budget equivalent, almost a trillion dollars, this year, almost a trillion dollars. By the end of that period, the CBO looked at about 10 to 12 years, and they think they're being optimistic, it's going to be 2 trillion. It's going to be the equivalent of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the defense budget combined. We cannot sustain that under anybody's rules of gerrymandering the financial system in the world or whatever, we just can't stand that. And when the American people understand some of this intuitively, and the crisis of confidence comes with that understanding, and many are saying it's going to happen on Trump's watch, he's going to have a real problem, and he's going to have to retrench majorly. I don't know what they're going to do. I don't know what we're going to do as a country when this comes to bear with full force.

Chris Hedges  

All right. Well, that was Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. I want to thank Diego [Ramos] Sofia [Menemenlis], Thomas [Hedges] and Max [Jones] who produced the show. You can find me at Chris Hedges.Substack.com.

What if there simply is no alternative to America's permanent war party?

[The firing of an Iskander ballistic missile. Photo Credit: By Mil.ru, CC]

What if politics in America plays out not so much via presidential elections, but through a constant, if often obscured, struggle between the permanent war party (the hawks) and, well, everyone else?   If this is the case, then it is not going to be enough to just hold our breath and wait for a more peace-loving Trump to assume office on January 20, at which time, supposedly, the threat of WWIII will be called off.  Instead, a strategy must be devised that hard-headedly accepts that the permanent war party is not going anywhere, even after January 20, and therefore a strategy must be devised which accepts this tragic circumstance, while still giving us a chance to survive.  Such is the conceptual framework which political historian Victor Taki uses as his starting point for discovering a response to the Ukraine war. -The Editors

In the old Soviet anecdote, Radio Armenia is asked about the likelihood that a Third World War will take place. Upon reflection, Radio Armenia declares that a Third World War is unlikely, but it expects such a ferocious fight for peace that not a single stone will be left standing. This joke about Soviet-American relations at the time of the (first) Cold War acquires an uncanny relevance today, now that President Biden’s permission to Ukraine to use American missiles for strikes inside Russia has shifted the discussion from possible scenarios for building a stable peace to ways of avoiding WWIII.

Paradoxically, an ostensible willingness on the part of the nascent Trump administration to end the war in Ukraine has helped the globalist hawks to secure Biden’s consent to take this highly provocative measure. Its limited potential impact on the purely military aspect of the Russian-Ukrainian confrontation has long been emphasized by this policy’s opponents. After all, the Russians have already placed their bombers out of range of those few ATACMS missiles and launchers that Ukraine currently has. However, any analyst who attempts to describe the actions of the Ukrainian leadership and its Western backers in terms of purely military rationality will necessarily miss the intended political and psychological effects of those actions.

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For almost a year the theme of “permitting” Ukraine to use the ATACMS and Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles for strikes into Russia’s interior has served as clickbait to offset Ukraine’s steady loss of ground. It has helped create the impression that it is Russia’s and not Ukraine’s fate that hangs in the balance, and that the articulate representatives of smaller or bigger (East) European nations can decide this fate by convincing the American president to call Putin’s bluff. After the clearly disappointing results of the US presidential elections from the perspective of Zelensky and his American and European backers, this “permission” becomes the last trump card to be thrown on the table in a reckless attempt to thwart Trump’s announced pacification of Ukraine.

The move is Machiavellian enough. In view of Putin’s September announcement that “authorization” of such strikes would be tantamount to NATO’s entry into the conflict, it will indeed be difficult for the Russian leader not to retaliate without losing face once these strikes actually take place. Russia’s retaliatory measures will in turn make it difficult for Trump to continue presenting Ukraine as “Biden’s war.” Apart from the danger of nuclear escalation that this scenario harbors, it will surely bury the prospect of a stable peace in Ukraine, however much the returning American president and his unchanging Russian counterpart would like to see it happen. 

The desire of some to stop the war turns out to be what gives others the opportunity to continue it. Given this circumstance, the doves might have to focus on ways of keeping the conflict within acceptable limits and forsake for the time being the different peace formulas meant to bring the war to a rapid end. Even if some variant of the “Vance Plan” (i. e. Ukraine’s neutral and demilitarized status plus the [existing] frontline as the new de factor Russian-Ukrainian border) could ultimately be accepted by Moscow, last Sunday’s news demonstrates that the global war party will not step back and simply let such an outcome materialize. 

Conclusion 

When an escalating provocation becomes the only way for the sidelined hawks not to lose badly from a prospective peace, the doves might need to reappraise their attitude towards the conflict itself. Continued within certain limits, the conflict represents the lowest common denominator between the otherwise incompatible interests and stakes of the different parties involved. At the same time, once the conflict becomes routine, the logic of de-escalation is likely to eventually prevail, if only because of the implacable law of universal entropy.  

Taking this into consideration, the doves’ strategy should be the opposite of the strategy of the Sicilian aristocracy at the time of Risorgimento, which was famously expressed in Giuseppe Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard (1958). Lampedusa’s characters repeatedly state that “[i]f [they] want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” By contrast, today’s doves should realize that if they want things to change, things will have to stay as they are. This minimalist approach to conflict resolution in Ukraine might strike some as cynical in light of the daily losses of hundreds of soldiers on both sides of the frontline. However, a straighter road to peace contains the even deadlier traps that have been set by those who would rather flip over the grand Eurasian chessboard than admit their defeat.

A guest post by

Victor Taki

I am a historian interested in imperial Russia’s Balkan entanglements and the intellectual history of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. My latest book Russia’s Turkish Wars was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2024.

As a rule, no American election means as much as the shouting immediately afterward might lead you to think. Every four years, with a regularity that clockwork rarely matches, the supporters of the winning party pile all their daydreams of Utopia onto their candidate, while the partisans of the losing side howl that this time the jackboots and armbands will show up for certain. Then the new president is inaugurated, and something close to business as usual resumes.

These have been getting plenty of use since November 5.

This time, granted, the yelling is unusually loud. Some of that is an unintended byproduct of the losing side’s demonizing rhetoric during the last weeks of the campaign. Having convinced themselves (if no one else) that Donald Trump is literally Hitler, many Democrats are quaking in their shoes, sure that he must now act out the role they assigned him and throw them all into camps. Those camps have featured so relentlessly in recent rhetoric that I’m starting to think that the people who babble about them actually want to be flung into some such institution, where Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, will personally spank them with a riding crop or something. The return of the repressed really can take strange forms.

Then there’s the Twitter campaign now under way to encourage Democrats never to use Donald Trump’s name in speech or print. In one sense that’s a reflection of just how terrified they are of our next president—am I the only one who remembers how the cowardly characters in the Harry Potter novels were afraid to speak Voldemort’s name aloud?—but it’s also revealing in a deeper sense. It speaks of the Democratic establishment’s desperate longing to return to the world before 2015, before the working classes found ways to speak up for their own needs and interests, in place of those it was convenient for wealthy liberals to put in their mouths.

For a majority of Americans, on the other hand, November 5 was a very good day.

I’m beginning to wonder, though, if the current example may be the exception that proves the rule.  Get past the giddy excitement of the winners, the fainting fits and dismayed shrieks of the losers, whatever dubious longings might be shaping our national rhetoric around those vividly imagined camps, and the rest of it, and what remains is a sense that something may have shifted on a deep level in American life with Donald Trump’s comeback election. Partly, of course, he confounded the stereotypes by taking a commanding majority of the popular vote as well as a huge lead in the Electoral College.  Partly Trump and his inner circle are promising sweeping changes in some of the core policies of the bipartisan consensus that, in recent decades, has done so much to run this country into the ground.

To my mind, though, the most striking aspect of it all is the curious fact that Kamala Harris did everything she was supposed to do, according to the playbook of early 21st-century American politics, and still crashed and burned. She had armies of pundits and talking heads on her side. She had a glittering list of celebrities eager to shill for her.  She raised three times the money the Trump campaign did, and spent it so freely that her campaign ended the election millions of dollars in debt.  Nearly all the big corporate media venues bent over backwards to promote her campaign, to the extent of suppressing news stories that might reflect badly on her while flogging every available story that could be used to assail Trump. She had all these things lined up on her side, and yet she got a world-class drubbing once voters went to the polls.

And of course then there was that laugh.

Some of that, it has to be said, was the candidate herself.  I’ve never met Harris and have no idea what she’s like as a person, but the kindest label that can be applied to her political career is “undistinguished,” and she has an odd inability to speak coherently in public without a teleprompter telling her what to say. That might just be stage fright, but it does not give the rest of us any confidence in her ability to handle the pressures of one of the world’s most stressful jobs. Like him or not, Trump thrived in the high-pressure world of commercial real estate and handled his previous stint in the White House without undue signs of stress. At a time when the US is caught up in two intractable proxy wars and faces a rising tide of challenges around the globe, that in itself may have been enough to settle the matter for many voters.

Here again, though, I think there was more going on than this. All the way through the campaign, it felt as though the Harris campaign was off in a corner somewhere, talking to a small coterie of privileged liberals about issues that don’t matter to most other people, while the issues that do matter to most other people never entered the discussion  When people tried to bring up those issues in Democratic venues, furthermore, they got ignored, shouted down, or told to their faces that things they themselves had experienced weren’t real and they should believe what they were told by the Democrats and their media allies instead.  Meanwhile the Trump campaign was hammering night and day on the issues Harris’s people wouldn’t address.

According to Oswald Spengler, it’s always dissident plutocrats like Julius Caesar who lead the revolt against a dysfunctional kleptocracy. Behold our Orange Julius!

It’s heartening to note that some Democrats have grasped this.  Since the election, in fact, there have been a certain number of essays and talks in mainstream venues talking about why the Democrats lost, and bringing up some of the points just made. Social historian David Kaiser, in a post that ran through a litany of standard accusations against Trump, still took the time to notice that his rise was made possible because both parties had given up addressing the concerns of ordinary Americans in a time of increasingly serious crises. His was far from the only such sign of dawning insight among Harris supporters in the wake of her ignominious defeat.

Yet it’s the pushback fielded by such obviously sensible efforts that is, to my mind, the most revealing thing about our current political life. Nearly all that pushback has focused on finding something to blame for Harris’s failure other than the obvious fact that she never got around to addressing the issues that most Americans care about. Some of it has been predictably petty—I’m thinking here especially of the attempts by Harris allies to blame Joe Biden for what happened, and the corresponding efforts by Biden allies to push the blame back on Harris.

On a much higher level of discourse is this article by Michael Tomasky, which appeared in The New Republic on November 8. I encourage my readers to take the time to read it carefully before proceeding. As you’d expect from an essay in one of the premier liberal magazines in the country, it’s cogent, logical, and clearly written. It’s also stunningly obtuse. As with most examples of really high-grade cluelessness, its weakness lies not in itself but in the unstated preconceptions that underlie it, and the fact that Tomasky doesn’t appear to have questioned or even noticed these preconceptions is far and away the most fascinating thing about them.

The equivalent image in an Asian idiom.  Millions of people in east and south Asia have bought these, and burn incense to Trump’s image to make their businesses, families, etc. great again.

Tomasky argues that the real cause of Trump’s rise and Harris’s fall was the ascendancy of right wing media over the last few decades.  It was only when media venues began to slip free of the grip of the liberal consensus, he insists, that it was possible for a candidate like Donald Trump to attract any attention at all, much less the passionate mass support that saw him easily brush aside Republican rivals in two primary campaigns and spread his appeal widely enough to win the narrow victory of 2016 and the much more robust triumph of 2024.  It’s plausible at first glance. Like so many examples of catastrophic cognitive failure these days, however, it suffers from a peculiar defect:  it fails to ask the next obvious question.

How was it, after all, that the media venues that Tomasky lambastes as spreaders of right-wing misinformation clawed their way in from the fringes to become wildly popular among ordinary Americans? What caused people to listen to these insurgent voices? That’s not a question Tomasky addresses.  The right-wing media appeared, and hey presto!  All of a sudden, for no reason at all, people just started believing them.

There are good reasons why this attitude has become common in recent years.

The unnoticed ironies in Tomasky’s essay get an edge sharp enough to shave with when he proposes that back in the days when Edward R. Murrow was the most respected figure in broadcast news media, the rise of a figure like Donald Trump would have been unthinkable.  Here again, let’s ask the next obvious question.  Why was Murrow accorded the kind of respect that today’s media figures can only dream of having?  Two key factors come to mind. The first was the fact that in those days all broadcast media in the United States was subject to the Fairness Doctrine—the rule, imposed on them as a condition of being licensed to use a share of the broadcast spectrum, that they had to present both sides of politically controversial news stories. The second was that Murrow himself was known as a man of integrity who wouldn’t distort news stories to fit a preconceived agenda.

The Fairness Doctrine went whistling down the wind long ago, however, and so did the standards of journalistic ethics that gave Murrow the reputation he had. It’s a source of bleak amusement that some of the journalists who have been quickest to scream “misinformation!” have been involved in spreading and covering up misinformation on the grand scale. Do you recall, dear reader, when Barack Obama insisted that if Obamacare was passed, you would be able to keep your physician, and your health insurance premiums would go down?  Do you recall when Joe Biden insisted that once you got the Covid vaccine, you would not catch Covid?  Both those statements were false; both of them misled and harmed millions of people.

Sometimes it takes a long time for the obvious to sink in.

If Edward R. Murrow had still been around when those statements were made and disproved, he’d have asked all the hard questions our media avoided, followed up the story no matter what pressures he faced, and crucified the government officials responsible on a cross made of newsprint and radio airtime. He was not the kind of man who would cover up a scandal just because it might hurt the party he favored. His epigones in today’s corporate media, by contrast, lack the ethics and the backbone that earned Murrow his reputation.  They’ve earned a different sort of reputation, for which the phrase “partisan hack” will do as well as any.

Mind you, I freely grant there’s no shortage of partisan hacks in conservative media as well; the absence of the Fairness Doctrine and the collapse of journalistic ethics cuts both ways. Here again, though, we need to go deeper. Over the decades just past, conservative media venues have seen their viewership climb steeply upward, while liberal media venues have had their viewership plunge just as steeply downward. Tomasky never gets around to explaining why this happened. It’s as though he thinks that the mere appearance of right-wing media was all that it took to get voters to turn their backs on the wise and trusted pundits of the mainstream media and flock mindlessly to Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and ultimately Donald Trump.

Notice what’s being left out here. Nowhere in his essay does Tomasky appear to consider the possibility that ordinary people might have taken an active role in this process.  Nowhere does he wonder whether maybe, just maybe, voters compared the mainstream media to the alternatives and came to the conclusion that they had reason to choose the latter.  The idea that American voters might have agency is apparently alien to him. In fact, he ignores one of the most crucial details of the 2016 election in order to avoid dealing with the agency of the ordinary individual.

That first campaign — the First Meme War, as it’s called these days — has earned a legendary status in certain circles. “For a short while, Kek walked among us,” memed one participant. “And it was glorious.”

His article claims that the torrent of dank memes that sent the Democratic party reeling in 2016 came from the right-wing media. This is inaccurate.  Those memes were created by a loose and sprawling network of alienated young men linked by online imageboards, of which 4chan is the most infamous. It was there, in the crawlspaces of the internet, that enthusiasm for Trump’s brash antics built a raffish subculture that embraced Pepe the Frog as its mascot, the Euro-pop song “Shadilay” for its anthem, and Kek the Frog God for its half-serious deity.  This subculture flooded the internet with memes supporting Trump’s campaign and gave him a crucial boost. The rise of the “chans” was one of the most astonishing twists of recent political history—and it is quite literally unthinkable to people who share Tomasky’s views.

Here the bottom drops away and we plunge into very deep waters.

Back in 2002, the BBC aired a documentary titled The Century of the Self, which focused on one of the more dubious offshoots of Freudian psychotherapy.  Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays, the central focus of the documentary, was the man who launched public relations as an industry. He insisted, based on his uncle’s theories, that human beings would respond like automatons if stimulated by the right words and imagery, and he claimed to be able to make this happen for his corporate and political clients.

Edward Bernays. He was always his most important product, and his self-marketing was no more honest than any other PR campaign.

I discussed that documentary in a post here a little more than two years ago. As I noted then, the most interesting thing about it is that the documentary never challenged Bernays’ claims. Rather, it took them at face value, despite the fact that the campaigns Bernays carried out were by no means as invincible as he claimed. (To cite only one of many examples, though Bernays was hired by Herbert Hoover’s reelection campaign in 1932, this did nothing to keep Hoover from suffering a thumping defeat.) I argued that the program was aimed, like most highbrow BBC documentaries, at members of the managerial class, and that it was an exercise in reassurance, meant to keep doubters believing that the corporate-bureaucratic system they served really did have the power to tell the restless masses what to think and how to feel.

Deficient as it was as an account of history, in other words, The Century of the Self accurately reflected the consciousness of the Western world’s privileged classes just when the corporate-bureaucratic system and its reigning ideology—call it “corporate liberalism”—were beginning their long slide down from the zenith of power.  It’s indicative that the same attitude was expressed at nearly the same time by a Washington bureaucrat (persistent rumors insist that the speaker was Karl Rove) who famously told reporter Ron Suskind, “When we act, we create our own reality. We’re history’s actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

It’s one of the supreme ironies of our time that the heirs of the 1960s have turned into the establishment they once fought, and conservative populists are the new, hip, youthful counterculture.

Does this remind you, dear reader, of the ideas splashed across the mental landscape of our time by Rhonda Byrne’s pseudospiritual bestseller The Secret, or by thousands of less efficiently marketed New Age speakers and writers?  It should.  Across the whole sweep of elite culture in the Western industrial nations, and above all in the United States, a set of beliefs took root that treated the individual member of the Western world’s comfortable classes as the measure of all reality, and assigned to everything and everyone else in the cosmos the roles of painted marionettes jerked around by strings to play parts in some childish melodrama.

It’s far from inaccurate to label the era over which this ideology reigned the Century of the Self, because the ideas that gave Byrne, Rove, and her many equivalents their fifteen minutes of tawdry fame did in fact get their foothold a little over a century ago, as the subtler and more reasonable teachings of what was then called New Thought got simplified, distorted, and marketed to a fare-thee-well by figures such as Napoleon Hill.  The idea that we each create our own reality was a central theme in this ideology of the imperial ego, but inevitably it turned in practice into ideas like those marketed by Edward Bernays and his many heirs, in which the privileged call the tune and everyone else has no choice but to dance mechanically in step.

All along, there were alternatives to those empty slogans.

You can see the same thing reflected in the way that, during the Century of the Self, people in the privileged classes assumed as a matter of course that their peculiar subculture, with all its beliefs and prejudices and odd obsessions, was the natural goal of human cultural evolution, and that every person of good will would of course gravitate toward it once they were shown the error of their dissenting ways.  That’s the attitude that put classes in queer theory in universities in Afghanistan during the American occupation of that country, to cite only one tone-deaf absurdity among many, and it also explains the frantic hatred and rage flung against those who fail to fall into line. The ideology of corporate liberalism is so obviously superior to the alternatives, the logic goes, that only the deliberate embrace of evil can explain anybody’s refusal to buy into it. That, in turn, was the attitude that led Kamala Harris and her prodigiously funded campaign straight to electoral disaster.

Thus the change that we’ve just passed through can be described easily enough.  The Century of the Self is over, and the Century of the Other has begun.

All around the world, people who reject the values of the Western world’s privileged classes are in the ascendant. Russia, which shrugged off Western sanctions with aplomb and is nearing victory in the Ukraine war, is returning to its roots in Orthodox Christianity; across the Middle East and North Africa, traditionalist Islam is resurgent; further east, the ancient civilizations of China and India are rising to reclaim the preeminent role in the global system they had before the age of European world conquest. In Africa and elsewhere in the global South, one nation after another is throwing off neocolonial arrangements and establishing social and political forms relevant to their cultures and needs rather than those the liberal elite wants to assign them.

This is how corporate liberals liked to imagine the world — but that delusion has passed its pull date once and for all.

Around the globe, as a result, the Western elites who like to think of themselves as history’s sole actors now face intransigent Others who refuse to accept a role as bit players in someone else’s melodrama. Our would-be lords and masters are confronted by hostile and increasingly confident rivals who reject the values that corporate liberalism considers self-evident, and embrace visions of destiny that are antithetical to everything that corporate liberalism stands for.  The monolithic future imagined by the Western world’s privileged classes has thus shattered into a thousand glittering shards. What is rising in its place is a kaleidoscope of possibility in which the dreams of Harris and her allies are only one option among many.

In much the same way, Donald Trump united a wildly diverse coalition of supporters, embracing Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, midwestern factory workers, Amish farmers, Muslim immigrants, and much more, to bring about his victory. What drew these disparate interests together, more than anything else, was their rejection of the claim by the liberal elite that the reality it likes to imagine is the only one that counts. Harris’s campaign insisted that sky-high grocery prices and mass migration across the southern border didn’t matter, because it was inconvenient to her that these things should matter. To the voters, on the other hand, they mattered a great deal.

Thus the Century of the Other has dawned in the United States as well. The flailings of Democrat pundits as they try to respond to Trump’s election may actually be a hopeful sign, for these might mark the first step in the process of coming to terms with that reality. A principled liberalism of the kind Edward R. Murrow exemplified, one that can explain and defend its viewpoint in the public arena instead of shrieking abuse at those who won’t conform to its fantasies, has an important place in American public life.  Too many of today’s liberals have a long and difficult road to walk if they want to return to that standard, but I hope they make the attempt.

Richard D. Wolff & Michael Hudson: US Next President Faces IMPOSSIBLE ODDS: Middle East & Ukraine
Dialogue Works • 1:19:25 •

NIMA ALKHORSHID: Today is Thursday, October 31st, and we’re having Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff with us to talk about the legacy of the Biden administration for the next president of the United States. And let’s start with Richard. How do you find right now [the] two important conflicts, one in Ukraine and the other one in the Middle East? We know that the next president of the United States should confront these two difficulties. And on the other hand, we’re going to talk about tariffs as well. But when it comes to these two conflicts, what’s your take on that?

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, I think like a number of what I would think of as the most important issues facing this country, the two candidates have little or nothing to say. So, as far as I can tell, there is a slight difference in the sense that there is speculation that Mr. Trump is not so eager to be persistent about Ukraine, and rather more eager to be persistent about Israel and bashing China.

On the other hand, the Democrats seem to think that their success lies in doing what the Republicans do, just not so quickly, not so harshly, but otherwise to take their cue. Therefore, I don’t think it’s going to make all that much difference on these two issues. What exactly happens when you add the social forces that are behind all of this, they will be more important in shaping what the president, whoever it is, does, than anything they say, in general, and anything they say during a campaign, in particular, when, kind of, they say whatever their polls suggest, will get them more votes.

So this is like so much about our elections. This is a theater. I like to call it the theater of democracy, because it’s a substitute for the real thing, which they do not want. Let me put this another way. In my view, what we are experiencing, what we are living through, the three of us plus everybody else on this planet, is the decline of the American Empire. And it takes a variety of forms, foreign and domestic, but I think in the end, the Ukraine War is a kind of gesture, a kind of shadow boxing, in which the United States is trying to convince itself, its allies and as much of the world as possible that it’s the global dominant power that it used to be.

And unfortunately, it is demonstrating exactly the opposite, although they don’t want to face it yet. They can’t allow it to be discussed. And so the two candidates say nothing like that; do not admit it, do not deal with it, do not suggest ways that the United States can rationally deal with the decline of its own empire. They are engaged in a combination of denial and desperate pretense.

And basically, I think that’s largely what’s going on in Israel as well. Israel is trying to hold on to an impossible situation, and the only country that gives it any significant support is the United States, because it has a vague notion that Israel will be its local leader in that part of the world, the Middle East, and is hoping to hold on to the fantasy that that’s actually possible. And it isn’t, in my judgment. I think that’s hopeless. But the desperation is causing a lot of people to die, and having the effect of mobilizing the alliances of Russia and China, of both of them and India, and of BRICS as a challenge to the West. It is accelerating what it was designed to stop. And they don’t see that either, so it’s full-speed ahead doing all of these things.

Now, I could be wrong, of course, but if you ask how I see all of this, that’s the framework within which I see it. You have two political parties who agree on all of the most important things: that Capitalism is the greatest thing since sliced bread; that there is no alternative that needs to be discussed; there is no option; and that the maintenance of Capitalism equals the celebration of Freedom and Democracy; and that everything the United States does in the world, it does to expand the realm of Freedom and Democracy against the evil alternatives that beset this Project.

They used to be called Socialism and Communism, and now they’re called Authoritarianism, but it’s the same game. It’s even got the same players that barely changed their uniforms, so we can all recognize who you mean. And the hypocrisy of it all is right on display, as it always was, and it’s overwhelmed by propaganda, and the two political parties do their part by being utterly silent on all of it.

NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael.

MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, I think Richard and I have been making this point through all of your shows, and I think that a lot of the American voters are in agreement. Certainly they’re in agreement that both presidential candidates are just front men for the deep state, or whatever you want to call it, Wall Street, and their financial backers. And the result of people finally catching on is that what’s coming up next Tuesday is a typical American election: Who are you going to vote against? The question is always the same: Who’s worst? And all that the Harris lady can say is, well, I’m not Trump. And Trump can say, well, I’m not Harris. And the Trump haters are going to vote Democratic, and voters who are disgusted with Biden and Harris are going to vote for Trump. But voters against Biden – two big wars – are going to try to vote for Jill Stein. And I’m sure when it’s all over, they’re going to find the margin of Trump’s victory over Harris (certainly in the swing states) is going to be less than the large, the Jill Stein/third party vote. And the Democrats are going to say, “Oh, we would have won if it wouldn’t have been a third party.” That’s the one thing we can never have in the United States. We have to make it even harder for there to be any real choice of a third party in the United States. There must be no alternative.

And the issue is all going to be personified – that Richard just described as the underlying forces. I think the Democrats are going to lose because Harris has come out as the war party candidate. And I guess you could say the election is going to be which war party, which war do you think is more important?

Harris is defending Ukraine, Trump is defending Israel, but basically the Democrats are the war party. And I think that’s what’s going to defeat her in Michigan, in Minnesota, and other key states, her war party stance. Yesterday in the magazine, The National Interest, General Hodges, (one of the big generals in the U.S.) and another national security general, gave a plea to American voters: You must vote for Kamala Harris, because otherwise Russia is going to march right through to recapture East Germany on its way to the Atlantic. We must stop Russia. This election is over… Wanna stop Russia, or not?

Whereas for Trump, he’s saying this election is over… You want to stop Chinese economic domination of the U.S. economy, or not?

In other words, pick your enemy. It’s the enemy that is defining the candidate because neither candidate has anything positive to offer the people. So all you can do is play on everybody’s resentment against the economy, and try to channel that resentment toward the opposite party. So it’s a purely negative kind of election. There’s no longer an election over what kind of parties you do want.

And I think as Jill Stein said on your show a few months ago, Nima, that she agrees with what Harris is saying, and what the left wing of the Democratic Party, such as AOC, is saying. A vote for Jill Stein, against the war, is a vote for Donald Trump.

And we’re okay with that because I don’t think there can really be any progress beyond the dilemma that Richard is talking about, as long as the Democrats are really in power to sort of pretend to be the alternative to the Republicans.

And I think that if this election ends the way I expect it to, and the Democrats will lose not only the Presidency, but the Congress and the Senate as well, that will mean that it’s not possible for them to win an election again without somehow moving away from their right-wing basis.

There have been some polls that the newspapers don’t talk about, and that is that Bernie Sanders was the most popular politician within the Democratic Party. Suppose that there would have been presidential primaries, like every other party has had for the last hundred years. Suppose people had earlier said, you know, Biden is really senile, we can’t let him run again. We’ve got to let the voters choose who an alternative will be. Harris could not have won a single state, just like in 2016. Bernie Sanders would have won. The Democrats said, we know that’s going to happen. We would rather lose with Harris than win with Bernie. Just as in 2016, they would rather lose with Hillary than win with Bernie. So that shows the rottenness of the choice that’s put before the American people. Because the election is not going to be about the problems of American militarism and the empire and the domination of Wall Street that Richard and I’ve been talking about on your show for the last few months.

NIMA ALKHORSHID: Do you want to add something, Richard?

RICHARD WOLFF: Yes, I want to throw an idea out for you and for Michael to play with. And I’ll be blunt, so I won’t be able to develop the nuances of this. A very short time ago the head of Apple, Mr. Cook, went on a trip to China. He’s made many trips to China but more than one this year, but he recently made one. And it was crystal clear by the very warm reception he got, and by his own very enthusiastic, positive commentary on China, that – and here comes the jump – that there are sections of America’s most important, biggest businesses that do not want a war with China. They do not want this conflict. They have become the giant successes they have been because of what China enabled them to do. They know it. They don’t want to lose that. There is nothing to substitute for what they get out of China which, to be blunt, is cheap labor and the biggest expanding market on earth. To give those up is to risk their entire business operation.

Okay, now at some point – especially were Mr. Trump to win – these people are going to possibly begin to think like Michael just spoke. They’re going to say, These two parties are a disaster. They are involving us in one dead-end war, or conflict, after another. And while it may be good for the Military Industrial Complex, we are after all a bigger section of this economy than they are: we, the high tech industries; we, all the rest of the economy, other than the Military Industrial Complex.

At which point an immense conflict breaks out in the ranks of capitalists: Those who want to cut a deal with China and the BRICS work out how we live and let live with one another on this planet; who don’t want war and who don’t want nuclear war and who don’t want Jake Sullivan-type people playing around that problem – versus the Military Industrial Complex and those who are won over by them.

It will be a split, bitter conflict over which way American foreign policy goes. It will be decided in Congress. And so each of those two wings will begin to appeal to the public for mass support to their two different programs: go the way we are, sabre-rattling down the road, or go in the alternative direction: work out a deal with Russia, China, the Arab world, and so on – at the expense of the West, including Israel, Western Europe, and so on, no question.

Do we do that, or do we – and pardon my humor – have a capitalist – peace movement alliance which actually wins? Why? Because the peace movement can be the most popular base, and that wing of the capitalists will fund the creation of that base into a voting majority. If I’m right, that’s the next step of American political life which will burst on the scene because of the crazy things that are going to happen next in Ukraine and in the Middle East. No matter who wins, that will force the thing I’ve just described – which will either happen, or it won’t. But it is a possible scenario that has come into my mind, as I watch the lunacy.

And just one last thing. I know you mentioned we might discuss it. But if Mr. Trump has to carry through the notion of putting tariffs on everything (which is what he said he is going to do), with the uptick in inflation… (I don’t know if you saw it in today’s data, the inflation is back) but that’s nothing compared to what would happen if you actually did that tariff-stupidity.

And I also begin to think that the United States is beginning to recognize what somebody ought to call the Hegelian Moment of American Politics. And here it is: The culmination of the Cold War and the years since, that aimed to isolate Socialism, isolate Russia, isolate China, is reaching its peak, which takes the form of the isolation of the United States.

MICHAEL HUDSON: Yeah, if you isolate everybody else, and you end up fighting them altogether, and you’re isolated – that’s exactly right. So this is a new kind of isolationism. In the past the isolationists were always against the war. Today, you’re saying…

RICHARD WOLFF: the opposite…

MICHAEL HUDSON: …the isolationists have led the war.

RICHARD WOLFF: Yeah, because the war is a self-delusional gesture. It’s the person who is losing the battle who, well, I’ll give you an example from the Ukrainian war. The Ukrainians are losing, and they take their best troops and invade an unimportant corner of Russia. I mean, that’s pure symbolic gesture. That can’t work, and it is now coming to its pathetic end, as anybody who paid attention would have presumed it would. That’s an act of desperation, as would be sending missiles into the heart of Russia – which Mr Zelensky wants to do. He’s desperate, which I understand – that he’s desperate. And these are the behaviors of a desperate character, but they’re not to be taken seriously on their face value. He calls it a Victory Plan. That’s hysterical! A what?! You have no plans at all, let alone… your plan is how to get out of that country in time, when the troops arrive. That’s the only plan left for you.

NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael, do you want to add something?

MICHAEL HUDSON: Yeah, why on earth would Zelensky have invaded the Khursk area. The answer is, it’s all about the narrative. He didn’t invade to win the war. He invaded because he thought that that would convince – somehow – the egotistical, narcissistic American cold warriors that this enables a narrative to be said: Ukraine has fought back. Russia invaded us. We’re going to invade it. There’d better be a peace, and if there is a peace, there’ll have to be a ceasefire and Russia cannot continue to mop up, and continue the plan that Putin has announced of de-nazifying Ukraine and protecting itself against NATO.

So it’s the fight over the narrative and nobody… on this show, Richard and I naturally are saying, what is in the capitalist interest? What is in America’s interest? What is in foreign countries’ interest? And there are people who are not interested in America’s interest. They’re interested in their own interests. And to distract people’s attention from the American national interest – if there is an American election – they have to have a different narrative, a narrative in which they’re protecting the weak Democratic Ukrainians against the Authoritarian Russian invaders who are not going to stop at Ukraine, but are just going to continue to march West over the rest of Europe.

Somehow there’s a belief of the American cold warriors that they can create a narrative that will convince people to somehow find the fight between Good and Evil – as seen depicted by the CIA and the American military – more important and certainly confuse people [about] what the real world’s fight between Good and Evil, between Civilization and Barbarism, is. And I think the ideas that Richard and I have said on your show is that the new force of Civilization that is taking place – in isolation from the West – is the global majority in the BRICS. And Barbarism is the attack on the BRICS – the U.S.-NATO attacks – trying to preserve this defunct American power that is only predatory, not productive; only extractive, not productive, not leaving living standards; only polarizing, not democratizing. So I think that this is the military wars that are going on: wars between two narratives, and what is good and what is evil, what is black and what is white.

NIMA ALKHORSHID: Richard and Michael, when it comes to these two conflicts in the Middle East and in Ukraine, we want to see what’s the difference between the Democratic Party and Republican Party. Donald Trump, in his recent interviews, he was just talking, I’m going to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine in 24 hours, as he put it out. And in the Middle East, he said, I’m not interested in a direct conflict, in a direct war with Iran. J.D. Vance, in his latest interview, he mentioned the same thing, that Israelis are trying to drag us into a war with Iran, but we are not interested in going to war with Iran.

This is one side of the story. On the other hand, Donald Trump is talking about Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Tom Cotton, these people are going to be in his administration, if he wins. Here is what Mike Pompeo said on Fox News, specifically about the conflict in Ukraine. He says, Donald Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

[NEWS CLIP BEGINS]

MIKE POMPEO: I don’t know what he’s talking about. I do know that we were able to deter Vladimir Putin from doing precisely what he did, invade Europe. He’s killed innocent Ukrainian civilians. That didn’t happen on our watch. Putin takes a fifth of Ukraine under President Obama – not an inch while I was Secretary of State – and then goes at it again, as soon as we leave. So I’m convinced we could have convinced Vladimir Putin not to have done this. Putting it back in the box is going to require real American seriousness, real American leadership, the preparedness to help the Ukrainians do the things that they need to do…

[NEWS CLIP ENDS]

NIMA ALKHORSHID: Yeah, put him back in the box. It seems that they can do whatever they just desire to do. Richard, jump in, please.

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, you know, this has deep roots in the United States. Very deep roots. Going back to our start as a colony, the Puritans, this way of thinking: that the world is to be captured by a great struggle between Good and Evil. This obliterates all the complicated relationships that make things happen. It reduces it. And they know that. They know that. But we don’t, we don’t tell our people what the issues are. We don’t explain. We have no history of it. We barely do it in the university with the tiny minority of people that even bother to go to the university, and the tiny minority of them who actually read and listen to what goes on. I spent my life in the university. I did the best I could, but I’m not crazy. I know what my students did and didn’t do.

And I learned what holds them back from learning. I’ll give you an example. There’s this need to demonize the enemy. Everything is about Mr. Putin. I got news for you. Like any other leader, he is very much shaped by the situation he’s in. He’s not some free actor, somebody like a devil, in the notion of God versus the Devil, somebody who has no constraints. Obviously, God, if he is all-powerful, should have gotten rid of the Devil. But he couldn’t. I guess something happened that made the Devil survive the God. And we know the stories. We can learn them when we’re little. And so we have these great actors who are acting out their intrinsic social role, but there’s no analysis of why they do what they do. So, everybody is free to define the devilishness.

So, for Mr. Pompeo – he’s not original in this, by the way, he’s not original in anything else either – he has picked up the story that Mr. Putin wants to march to the ocean. That’s right! Instead of Ukraine, he’d like to have a rebellion of the French and the British and the Germans and the Italians and the Scandinavians, altogether! He can try to, he can barely control Ukraine. What a joke that he could control the others, who are better armed, better equipped than the Ukrainians ever were! I mean, this is so silly that it works, and it works because it touches the good and the bad, the good and the bad. And when people reason like that, it never stops. That’s why Mr. Pompeo can then seamlessly go from the Bad Putin and the Good Us, to the Bad Us and the Good Us: the Bad Democrats and the Good Republicans. (We’re God. The Democrats are Junior Devil. That’s why they made a deal with the Senior Devil and…) This is childish! This is reading the comic book instead of reading the book about which the comic book was written. This is a childish substitute for real politics.

That’s why clowns like Pompeo… and Nikki Haley?? I mean, please, help us! There’s nothing there. Nothing. There’s a thing, you’re in the air… which way is the political wind blowing among the mass media… and takes her cue. And I don’t mean to pick on her. She’s no worse, or no better, than Mr. Pompeo. This is a game inside the United States: You paint your enemy as the Devil, for MAGA supporters…I don’t know… Kamala Harris, or the others, they’re devils. They talk like that! They’re at least honest enough. They talk like that.

And for the Democrats, you hear that Mr. Trump and all of his people are immense dangers to Democracy. Look at the language. That’s why you don’t hear much about this or that program. What’s the point? You can’t have an anti-capitalist program because then the media will destroy you in ten minutes. So you fasten on other issues where you’re allowed to say something, like abortion, or gun control, or immigration. And you pick that, and then what do you do? You picture your enemy as a devil. So the people who don’t agree with you on immigration are evil people abetting the invasion of the… that’s the way they talk!

But listen. As with any therapy, what we’re doing is we’re trying to understand what’s behind the language. There’s no point in dismissing the language. The language is our clue. The clue here is that you allowed yourself – and you had the luxury in the United States, by the very distance from Europe in the beginning, by the importance of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean separating you – to cultivate a notion that you really are in God’s Chosen Country. That’s part of why there’s a vibration with Israel. They too think they’re God’s Chosen People and they’re in the Chosen Country, and the Chosen Book – the Bible – said it was their real estate, not all other people’s real [estate]… What is going on here?

And so you’ve had this way of thinking, and now the chickens are coming home to roost because this way of thinking – We are the Exception, you know, American Exceptionalism, God created us – our politicians have to be talking to God all the time. Politicians in European countries don’t do that. If they stood up and said, I’m talking to God, there’d be a paddy wagon come to pick them up and take them to the sanatorium! Nobody wants to hear this and these are countries that have the same Christian religions that you have here. But you can’t do it here because everything is infused, and now that the dénouement – the chickens coming home to roost – you’re killing yourself, you’re destroying yourself, by turning that language onto one another.

And now we are a country split, in which each side thinks it’s God versus the Devil. And they’re going to destroy each other. The Soviet Union didn’t disappear because another country overwhelmed it. The Soviet Union imploded. That should worry people as the politics of America becomes unlivable. Are we headed down that way? That’s a conversation we ought to have, but of course, we won’t. Each side will see the Devil in the other – not in the relationships – because if you understood that this is a language game, you’d have to ask the question, why are we playing the game? But the people that we’re talking about (Harris, Trump and all the others), they are so into that game, they can’t see it as a game.

The great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein understood, and wrote reams of material, about the games: “Language is a game.” And that metaphor is really helpful because you can then, maybe, take a step back and ask yourself, why are these language games so powerful? Or, to use Michael’s language, why is this narrative the one that’s embraced by people? That’s the first step to getting out of this hole, is to understand that you’re in a hole. Just like going to Alcoholics Anonymous, they require you to say, “I’m an alcoholic.” You have to begin recognizing where you are if you’re ever going to get out of there.

MICHAEL HUDSON: What does it mean to be a devil? It really means the Other. You mentioned the roots in American settlement itself. The Other, at that time, were the Native Americans. What did you do? You wanted to put them on reservations. So, I think the strategists – the neo-cons and the militarists at the top of the planning pyramid in the United States – may not take themselves as good and evil. That’s just to tell the religious sector of the voters. What they think of as the Other: the people who do not submit to us; the people who want to maintain their own autonomy. Just as you wanted to put the Native Americans on reservations, America’s policy is, in words that you almost said literally, put Russia back on the reservation. Isolate it. Put China on a reservation. When you put everybody on a reservation, you have a situation pretty much like when you put many of the Native Americans on reservations.

All of a sudden, they found that oil was under these reservations. All of a sudden, you found that they were very rich. What do you do with that? Well, all of a sudden, you want to grab them. I think the Koch brothers made almost (I’m told) all of their money stealing oil from the Native American reservations. They were about to be exposed by the government when President Clinton had the affair with his assistant, and her dress. So the deal was: Okay, we won’t impeach Clinton, get rid of him, if you don’t move against the Koch brothers. That was a turning point, certainly, in American politics.

Well, America has isolated almost all of the global majority. As we said earlier, we put it on a reservation; they find that they have oil; that enables them to be independent. They’ve also found that they’re immune from many of the Western laws, from the rules-based order, and can make their own international law and order. And I guess for the American reservations, we can have gambling casinos and clean up with the frustration of the Americans. I think the higher planners, who are really behind making this aggressive policy that you talked about, think the only thing that we can do is prevent [it]. This is a war against anyone who is trying to maintain independence from the American Unipolar World Order. Of course, that means everybody’s the enemy. Well, they’re not going to say this is their strategy to the American voters. They’re just going to say, this is good versus evil; us versus the foreigners.

And all of a sudden, what has catalyzed the recognition of (certainly) the global majority is exactly what’s happening in Israel; the fact that they say, God gave us this land and we must exterminate everybody, all the enemies: they’re all Amalek. And it’s a war for the Destiny of Civilization. And all of a sudden, the rest of the countries of the world saying, well, when the Americans are coming in and have the National Endowment for Democracy-sponsored regime change, and color revolutions, they’re going to try to get one of us to die “to the last Ukrainian,” to die to the last Georgian. (If they could have been able to overthrow the Georgian government – yet again – they would like Georgia to fight to the last Georgian against Russia. Who, which of the BRICS, can they pick on next to fight to the last of their citizenry against? America cannot fight militarily. It has to somehow convince one of its designated opponents to fight among themselves. This is the kind of crazy [lockstep] in diplomacy that we’re in.

RICHARD WOLFF: Yeah, let’s add, just to take Michael’s point another step, to make sure people get it. The whole world is watching what Israel is doing in Gaza. Okay? Now, what Americans have to understand is what’s going through the minds of all of those people around the world. The United States is funding and arming what the Israelis are doing, in order to hold on to its influence – through Israel – in that part of the world. Everyone is wondering, will there be another country, a neighbor of mine, another Latin country, another Middle Eastern country, another Asian or South Asian country, another African country, that will be chosen by the United States to play that role over there? Will they be armed, and are we dealing here with the risk of this happening to us?

And they’re terrified by it. And they’re worried that the United States is, in its empire decline, going to reach out. If the BRICS keeps picking up more and more Muslim countries – it’s got most of them – if it’s going to pick up the remaining Muslim countries – and the United States is identified everywhere as the enemy of the Muslim countries – will the United States pick one of them, make that its ally, and have that be “the Israel” of another place?

And that is becoming part of the mentality of the United States, which is looking for those countries; was very upset when Niger, a small country in the middle of Africa, basically said, You have to leave, Americans… and brought in the Russians. Okay, this is for them a terrible sign of where things can go.

Like the election in Georgia, or a hundred other elections, or movements, or problems… And those countries are worried now, not only that this might happen, but the Israelis are showing them how far the United States is willing to go to protect its “friend” in the area. Whoa. That’s a little different from Ukraine. That’s another issue. Similar, but this is going into an area with a bunch of different countries, making one your bosom buddy and then enabling it to become dominant. Wow. Wow. And are there people in many countries who would like to play that role for the United States? You bet! Is that already happening? I would guess so.

And what that does to everybody else is to begin to do the worst nightmare of the United States, which is that the world decides that there is one Number One rogue country, and it’s the US. Not North Korea. They’re not endangered by North Korea. They’re endangered by the United States. And at that point, where are they going to go as there’s a burgeoning conflict between the United States, or the G7, on the one hand, and the BRICS?

You’re watching in slow motion the decline of an empire. When the Roman Empire collapsed, for a hundred years, the conversation in Rome was about “the Barbarians,” the language, I believe, Michael used a few minutes ago. You viewed the people moving in on the empire, the Frankish people (in what we call France now), the Gaulish people (another part of France), and so on. They weren’t barbarian, but they were for the Romans, because they were the manifestation of the decline of an empire that couldn’t stop the decline. We all read those books about the end of Rome. They are wonderful insights into what’s happening here.

NIMA ALKHORSHID: Yeah. You two mentioned that the situation in Middle East is far more complicated. Here is what the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia recently said about the conflict in Gaza, in the West Bank, and Israel.

[ALEKHBARIYA NEWS CLIP BEGINS]

FAISAL BIN FARHAN AL SAUD: The normalization with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not just a risk, it’s off the table until we have a resolution to Palestinian statehood. But I would say more than that, I would say that it’s not just the issue of normalization with the kingdom that is at risk. I would say that the security of the region as a whole is at risk, if we do not address the rights of the Palestinians, if we do not find their way to a pathway that leads us to a Palestinian state, because that’s the only way we can ensure that we can focus on the future, that we can focus on co-operation, that we can focus on integration.

So I would hope that the leadership of Israel sees that it is not just the right thing to do, it is not just the moral thing to do, it’s not just the just thing to do to give the Palestinians their rights and their state, it is also in the security and strategic interest of Israel to do so. And that’s, I think, up to them to decide.

[ALEKHBARIYA NEWS CLIP ENDS]

NIMA ALKHORSHID: Do you see any sort of understanding in terms of, because when we talk about Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, we know how close they are to the United States right now. How do you find the way that he’s talking about the conflict in the Middle East, Michael? Do you think that it’s possible?

MICHAEL HUDSON: Ten years, or maybe thirty years, or 75 years too late. There is no way there can be a Palestinian state alongside Israel anymore. The way that Israel has structured the whole region is a prison camp. How can a state have its own authority, the power?

The only way you can have a Palestinian state is for Netanyahu to kill all the Palestinians, except maybe 200, and it will put these 200 on a reservation and call that the Palestinian state. There is no way in which Palestinians and Israelis can live because the Israelis say the Palestinians are not human beings. We have to make Israel for the human beings only. We can’t have non-human beings – or the barbarians – anywhere around us. This is a fight for the death for them. Certainly Pompeo says, “Yes, we’re all for that because when the fight is for the death, Jesus will come and he will take all his true followers up to heaven.” Pompeo is this religious nut, on top of all of his craziness. So I don’t think there’s any hope for a Palestinian state anymore. The question is, what are you going to do with the Israeli Zionists who live in Israel? How are you going to get them out of Palestine? They cannot live in Palestine if there is to be a Palestinian state, or if there are going to be any living Palestinians left. Where are you going to put the Zionists? Where can they go in the world?

RICHARD WOLFF: Yeah, the way I read his statement is the way I read what Saudi Arabia does in the world. And for me, it is a wonderful case. They are hedging their bets. First of all, Saudi Arabia is in the BRICS. So, we know that the United States is not encouraging anyone to become a member of the BRICS; it is encouraging everybody not to do so. Okay. I’m sure… I don’t know, but I’m sure that they encourage the Saudis not to do that.

Well, that didn’t work. The Saudis went ahead and did it. Every country’s leadership is now assessing what has to change in their foreign policy to take into account that the global economy is now split between a larger and a smaller group of nations. And I mean larger and smaller in terms of total wealth, or total output (GDP, or whatever you want to use). All right? The BRICS is now the larger of the two. It wasn’t before. The two lines crossed in 2020 and the gap between them is getting wider, each passing day. And that means if you’re a company, where you source your inputs has to be re-thought because you’re going to criss-cross this new global situation. If not directly, then indirectly, which can be just as devastating. You have to re-consider where your exports are going to go. You’re going to have to re-consider your credit situation. You’re going to have to consider who to insure with, what banks to use, how to split your accounts, so that you’re not maybe too much in one or the… Everybody is shifting, and in that shifting, the West loses what it had before and the BRICS gain relative to – more or less, and maybe some exceptions. And the Saudis are busy doing that. And there’s a dance here. And the dance is, don’t make the adjustment too quick because the United States might then do to you what is happening to Palestine, or Lebanon, or Syria, or Libya (or fill in the blank). So you can’t go too quick, but you better not not go either because that’s very dangerous, and becoming more dangerous with every step.

Yesterday, the United States announced more sanctions, a whole new bunch of sanctions, on companies and countries that are allowing other companies to function there because those companies also sometimes do business with Russia. Okay. Most of the countries on earth are doing business with Russia, and more of them will be in the years ahead. They’re facing sanctions. The United States ironically keeps forcing decisions that are going to go against them. So there’s a dynamic here that feeds on itself, and that cannot help the United States.

That’s why the word “rogue” nation, because the rest of the world is slowly coming to an awareness that out of its own desperation at being a declining empire, which is always hard for the empire that’s in decline… (It was terribly difficult for the British. It was terribly difficult for the Dutch before them. The French didn’t go quietly; you know, they’re still trying to hold on to bits of their empire. So it’s very hard.) But what the world is observing is that the American empire – partly because it was a global empire, more than anybody else, even the British, had achieved (the United States has those 700 bases around the world), it really was a global empire. Because that makes it that much harder, the United States, busy with its defensive gestures, is actually making the problem worse.

If I could pick a dangerous metaphor: If you’ve ever taught swimming, one of the lessons you teach a swimmer is if you’re having trouble swimming, don’t flail your arms around because it’ll make it worse for you; it’ll make it harder for someone to save you. Don’t do that. Someone ought to tell the United States, that’s what you’re doing. You’re going to go down faster, further because of your refusal to deal with what your situation actually is, and the desperate ways you’re holding on.

MICHAEL HUDSON: You mentioned the Roman Empire before, as it declined. There are a number of differences. Many of the Romans kept leaving the empire to join the barbarians because they thought the barbarians were more civilized. I can imagine American engineers, German engineers, others emigrating to Russia, China, the BRICS countries, where they want to do that. That’s one similarity. But also many of the Germans began to become the Roman empires. There were fights among rival Roman empires and they would hire the Germans as their troops, and the Germans ended up as the Popes.

The equivalent there would be if America expanded to China and Asia and the BRICS, if there was some kind of reciprocal investment here, that somehow the BRICS would invest in the United States, which is what the United States is trying to get Taiwan and other countries to do. I don’t see that happening because there’s so much of a hatred against the barbarians here that really didn’t exist in Rome. By about the fourth century, you had Roman philosophers saying, well, the barbarians have many qualities that are more civilized than are in our own country: They have a more balanced economy. They have mutual aid. They don’t have the kind of financial oligarchy. The Romans began to idealize an original society where people were equal and mutually supportive. Today we’d call that Communism. They began to try to develop that and that became, in a way, Christianity. But as that developed, the center of the Roman Empire moved northwards. It moved northward to Milan; then it moved up into the Germanic tribes. Finally, it moved to the new Rome – Constantinople. The whole center changed. I don’t know where the American Empire could somehow move its center to, certainly not Europe because part of the real fight against BRICS began with the fight of America against Europe – against Germany, and against any potential European industrial rival. Those parallels to Rome can’t exist: America has sort of boxed itself in. It can’t immigrate to, at least as a government, to foreign countries. If America were like Rome developing Christianity, it would develop Socialism.

As you put it at the beginning of the show, if politicians represented actual voters, of course, it would be good for the economy. Then this would become an ideal that would lead to a universal world. It will, I think you said earlier, there’s going to be a real crisis first. What you’re describing as a positive potential outcome will be triggered by the absolute disaster that’s going to be caused either by the Warmonger Harris, or by Trump and his tariff disasters and his economic libertarian disasters for the United States. It will somehow lead, you’d think, the large corporations to say, we’re boxed in here. We can’t go to the British countries because of the sanctions that have been spurred by this nationalist fervor against the Other. There’s nothing we can do except to create a new society. This, I guess, would be America’s version of Christianity. And, of course, that was poisoned soon enough, by the fifth century, by St. Augustine and Cyril of Alexandria (that completely destroyed the Christian feeling that came out of Rome), but that revulsion against inequality spread throughout the Near East. It spread to Persia. It spread to other Near Eastern countries. It was absorbed by Islam, that came up. So we’re going to see some kind of a transplantation of what was America into other parts of the world, but it’s almost impossible to see how this will occur right now, except beginning with a trickle of emigration of people who cannot live in today’s version of Rome, abroad.

But then it will lead, you’d think, to some powerful groups acting in their own self-interest, and at least the American power elite – not quite like the Roman Landlord Creditor class, trying to indebt the whole other country and impoverish it and lead to feudalism. And that’s really the question: Is the American economic model going to lead to neo-feudalism, or is it going to lead to something better that would actually be, in principle, the same kind of rules of civilization that the BRICS countries are trying to create?

RICHARD WOLFF: I think the very nature of this conversation is telling you: we are more evidence of a declining empire. We are beginning to grow up around for either historical models, or theoretical extensions of things we see now, to begin to imagine where this can all go. And that’s already a sign that people are looking.

There’s an enormous revulsion here in the United States against the level of inequality that we have. One of the reasons neither presidential candidate goes near there is because it is so dangerous. The tiny minority at the top are prepared and willing to spend a lot of money to keep that conversation bottled up, not public, not pervasive. They are very interested in not having that conversation go because they are so isolated at the top of the pyramid, with all that wealth. I mean, if you have $200 billion and most people, you know, living paycheck to paycheck, you’ve got a problem. You need to keep the lid on the ideologies of your people. You need to control the politics. Otherwise, the sheer numbers will overwhelm you. And I suspect we’re going to see all kinds of movements against the inequality, questioning the system in all kinds of ways, including a resuscitation of the old Marxian and socialist… That’s going to come back, as it has in the past. You know, the comment that that’s all behind us is silly. That deserves the same answer that the Mark Twain gave when he read his own obituary in the Hartford Courant. He wrote the letter to the editor saying, the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. You know, the same is true for all of these other ideas. You know, the worker co-op is not a new idea. It’s been around for thousands of years, but it is already having a renaissance in part because there is a concrete example, visible all over the place, of people who are getting together in an enterprise to produce a good or a service and not organizing it in the capitalist way – with an owner operator at the top and a mass of dependent servants (excuse me, employees) below. That’s being a problem now. And there are alternatives being groped around to see whether they might fit. But I think everything starts with understanding that we’re doing that.

If you ask that question, then you don’t have a war in the Ukraine. You don’t. You work things out. You take into account the security needs Russia says it has, the security needs Ukraine says they have, and work something out. That could have, and should have, been done. It had been done for years before. It could continue. We can work that out. And the same is true in the Middle East. I understand what Michael is saying. And I think the Israelis have made horrible mistakes in now creating a population: Whatever its animosity was before, can you imagine with me what the feelings of the Palestinian people must now be after a year of that kind of bombardment? I mean, it is beyond. So I understand why Michael can’t possibly imagine how these two people could live together, given what has happened now. And remember, every time the Israelis had a war with the Palestinians, they explained and justified the violence they used on the grounds that they had to do something that would prevent worse violence. Well, it didn’t work. We have that worse violence, much worse violence. And to say now it has to be done to prevent worse violence? You can’t do that anymore. You’ve run out of that one. That one’s dead. So you’ve got to come up with something else. The Israelis will have to face that one way or another.

And there are enormous divisions inside Israel. So it’s not as though there’s all unanimity about what they’re doing. It’s a very particular government. I understand the people have supported their government doing that, and there is no way around that. But there are also big splits and differences that also should be kept in mind in terms of what the future may bring.

But to go back to the way you opened today’s show, Nima, look at how many of the issues we’ve brought up, you, Michael, and me. And even if you don’t agree with all of them, of course not… but these are the issues that could have been, and should have been, raised as this country at this moment in its history chooses its leadership. What do you say about a country that can’t talk about, that we have one president who says I’ll end that war in a week? That’s not serious. That’s childish junk. What is that? That doesn’t solve anything. You’re not going to deal with, you know, even if you thought you could do it, the whole of European politics has been turned on its head by this war in Ukraine! The leadership, the center-right leadership of Europe, is committed to fighting in Ukraine. It will be looking totally ridiculous if Mr. Trump ends this war. And what’s going to happen then? The Left is already preparing to make this point in France, and they’re already the biggest party there. And, I’m talking, a Left that is old, well-organized, knows how to function, theoretically sophisticated, present throughout the society; and I could go on talking about the German, or the Italian, or even the British.

So you’re not in a position. You may think you are, “Mr. Trump-I’ll-end-the-war.” You can’t do that. It’s not available to you. The implications of this war will play themselves out. And you’ll be even less able than you might have been to shape it because you don’t even talk about it. You don’t even allow your society to engage in a discussion that might come up with some new ideas, that might come up with an idea, a plan for how to do it. We’re just three people. I really believe in democracy with a small d. I want more people involved in these conversations. And then we’ll get better answers, if we do that.

MICHAEL HUDSON: You’ve made a very funny comment, Richard. Suppose, indeed, that Donald Trump could make an agreement to say, well, the whole Ukraine war has been a mistake. Look, we’ve lost. Russia has absolutely wiped out most of the Ukrainians, not only population, but also society, and so let’s arrange some kind of peace. It was all a mistake.

Well, where does this leave Germany and the rest of Europe? This mistake for them is not reversible. A few weeks ago, Volkswagen said, we’re no longer really a viable company in the way that we’ve operated in the past. For the first time we’re going to cut back employment, we’re going to cut back sales. We’re not able to compete in electric cars with China, so unless we put huge tariffs on China, which will reverberate throughout the German economy, you know, we’re going under. The German industrialists, the small medium-sized firms, the “Mittelstand” German firms, they’re going out of business. And once the firm is out of business, it can’t be remade. If Volkswagen goes out of business, it can’t be remade. Putin has said that if any missile made by the German Rheinmetall firm ends up in Russia, Russia will not hesitate to bomb the Rheinmetall factory. So there are all of these.

America has created irreversibilities for Europe, while maintaining its own freedom of action. For instance, the grabbing of the Russian 300 billion foreign exchange, that was Europe grabbing it. Hardly any was in the United States, for the first time. Europe has cut its ties with all of these countries. We’ve talked about just America versus these countries, but Europe has been collateral damage in all of this. And I think you’re right. You’d think the hope would be the French Left, and Sarah Wagenknecht’s left-wing party that split off from Die Linke in Germany. But so far, it’s the nationalistic parties, not exactly the pro-Labor parties, that have been grabbing power in Europe. Any party that calls itself “socialist” is usually the far Right, whether it’s the British Labor Party, or Macron’s Party in France, or the other. So we’ve created a mess that looks almost inextricable.

How can you extricate yourself? I can’t figure out. And it is not foreseeable right now. It’s a quandary. A problem has a solution, but a quandary doesn’t have a solution. What is going to happen?

RICHARD WOLFF: I know we’re running out of time, but I would add that it isn’t surprising. I mean, since the Second World War, we’ve had this Cold War, or the legacy of the Cold War, that has systematically demonized the Left: The Communists are the great danger, the Socialists are fellow travelers of the Communists and therefore more or less equally dangerous, and on. So when the great consensus of the center Right – center Left begins to dissolve, when you don’t have yet another American election with a Democrat like George Bush and a Republican like Bill Clinton, but you have something odd, weird and different like Trump, it’s going to be from the right.

The people who are going to break this mold, this consensus that is now so stale, the people who have the idea, this is unbearable, are going to come from the right because that’s what we have, as a society, cultivated all this time. We expunged the Left, the Left were impossible. So the first breakthrough will be on the right. I think that’s not surprising. The Left will now have to understand that the time has come when you’re going to have to do on the left something like what the extreme Right has done on their side. And the middle, the middle, as the great British [Irish] Yeats said, doesn’t exist anymore. The middle is vanishing. The middle class we all know has been eviscerated. Now the middle perspective of politics is also on the way out. What you have is a vast mass, eighty or more percent of the people who feel cheated, who feel hurt. I could add to the story that Michael told about Volkswagen, the detail (which is no detail) that the largest union in Germany is striking Volkswagen. And that’s a bitter strike that’s going to (and I urge you to take a look at the Boeing workers who used to be very docile, who have been on strike and who have now rejected, by overwhelming majority, two of the contracts offered to them). Boeing is a member of that Military Industrial Complex big, big time. They can’t manage their problems.

By the way, the Chinese are producing lots of military aircraft. That too is going to become a serious problem for the United States. I think the Left, ironically, agreed to Kamala Harris. And here I’m talking about Bernie. They agreed because they saw what was happening on the right as a great threat. And they’re right, it is. But the answer to it should have been Bernie, not Kamala Harris. They should have understood that they need dramatic, powerful images of change. When Mr. Trump gets up and says to the suffering American working class, I’m going to protect you from the immigrants, and from the Chinese, that’s a ‘good,’ big image. In terms of economics, it’s silly. It’s a joke. It’s not serious. It’s fake. Well, who cares? What we need is Bernie to stand up and say, we don’t need billionaires. In ten minutes, we can pick 2,000 billionaires and announce to them there’s a wealth tax. Anyone over $10 billion, that’s it. You don’t have it anymore. It’s over. Comparable things like that would have given the people a chance to say, wait a minute. I am willing to desert the conventional parties. Like recent polls show, Americans are interested in third party, but Bernie would have then given them something on the left, comparable to “I’ll protect you from the immigrants:” I’ll protect you by taking the money from the billionaires, which they’re all jealous about anyway. I can do that and I can make a new deal. Here’s what it’ll look like. Everybody will have a job, as a right. That’s the drama that would have overwhelmed Mr. Trump.

Instead, she did the usual, left-of-center: I’ll do this. I’ll help working people there. Those are genuine, but they’re small, they’re old. They’re precisely the kinds of things that Democrats have always done, which is why they’ve never changed the basic trajectory of inequality in this society. But they didn’t understand it. They were hesitant. If Kamala Harris loses, it may be a very important time to make that point.

MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, this is the problem that I mentioned at the very beginning, when I said the Democratic Party’s role is to prevent the Left and to co-opt the Left. Two days ago, Bernie gave a whole attack on the American working class, an attack on the pacifists, saying you must support Kamala Harris. AOC, his popular follower, gave an attack on the working class, an attack on American Labor, an attack on the pacifists. You must support AOC. You must support the war in Ukraine. The function of the Democratic Party is quicksand that just absorbs these people, pretending to be weirdly alternative to the right wing. They will take the people who would like to be on the left like Bernie was when he joined the Trotskyists in 1962, and just sort of absorbed them and made a deal. They told Bernie, we will put you on some committees. You can do all the talking you want. You simply cannot act. We want you to talk. The more you talk, people will think that somehow the Democratic Party has a potential. By absorbing you, we were crushing the potential. People are now disgusted with you, Bernie. They’re disgusted with AOC. They’re disgusted with you supporting the war. They’re disgusted with you supporting Wall Street and supporting the Democratic Party through Harris and her right-wing, not center-left, party with a left-wing rhetoric, to prevent any Left from developing in the United States. So, in a way, the function of the Democratic Party is to sterilize the Left.

I think with the message that Jill Stein was given – she’s not only anti-war, she’s against the pretense that there is a two-party state, that there is an alternative, and that the Democratic Party is different from the Republicans in any way except for its trickster rhetoric.

NIMA ALKHORSHID: Just to share with you, here is an article in Gallup that shows 63% of Americans are in favor of a third party in the United States, and that shows everything. But it’s not there, for the time being. Thank you so much, Richard and Michael, for being with us today. Great pleasure as always.

RICHARD WOLFF: Thank you very much, and I’m very glad to be part of this. I learn, and I appreciate it very much.

MICHAEL HUDSON: I think we’re redefining the quandary in a way that nobody else is really talking about.

RICHARD WOLFF: That’s our job.

NIMA ALKHORSHID: Thank you so much. Bye bye.

Image by GreenCardShow from Pixabay

Huge hubbub surrounds Trump’s rapid-fire picks for key Cabinet positions over the last few days. A great division has ensued, between the two opposing sides, one screaming “betrayal!” at the slew of establishment Neocon Zionists chosen, while the other exults in triumph at the boldly unexpected picks.

Let’s examine what we have first—the longer list so far:

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SO FAR:

•Vice President: JD Vance
•Secretary of State: Marco Rubio
•Attorney General: Matt Gaetz
•Defense Secretary: Pete Hegseth
•Secretary of Homeland Security: Kristi Noem
•Director of National Intelligence: Tulsi Gabbard
•National Security Advisor: Mike Waltz
•CIA Director: John Ratcliffe
•White House Chief of Staff: Susie Wiles
•EPA Administrator: Lee Zeldin
•Ambassador to the United Nations: Elise Stefanik
•White House Counsel: Bill McGinley
•Deputy Chief of Staff: Stephen Miller
•Border Czar: Tom Homan
•Ambassador to Israel: Mike Huckabee
•Government Efficiency Advisors: Elon Musk & Vivek Ramaswamy
•Middle East Envoy: Steve Witkoff Dan Scavino, James Blair and Taylor Budowich will also take senior staff roles in the White House. Just the start.

Now, here is an elucidating post only and specifically from the perspective of the Ukraine situation:

Who the US President-elect has chosen for his administration. Trump's nominees

▪️For the post of US Secretary of State – Marco Rubio

He is an opponent of military aid to Ukraine, known for his anti-Castro and anti-Russian statements. Rubio has repeatedly advocated for launching peace talks and abandoning attempts to return Ukraine's lost territories .

▪️For the post of national security adviser – Mike Waltz

He advocated lifting restrictions on Kiev's strikes with Western long-range weapons on Russian territory, the Washington Post wrote. Waltz also suggests using economic pressure on Moscow to resolve the Ukrainian conflict .

▪️For the post of Minister of Defense – Pete Hagseth

He criticized sending money to Kiev amid domestic economic problems. He believes that in the Ukrainian conflict, Russia is getting its [way] .

▪️John Ratcliffe for the post of CIA Director

He has repeatedly spoken about the dangers of the partnership between Russia and China, and in 2020 he accused Russia and Iran of attempting to interfere in the US elections. However, it was Ratcliffe who dispelled the fake about the Russian trace in Trump's election campaign in 2016.

▪️For the post of Director of National Intelligence – Tulsi Gabbard

Gabbard was in the Democrats' camp, at the beginning of the SVO she even supported Ukraine, then she switched to Trump's side and began to criticize Zelensky, accused Biden of dragging the United States into a nuclear war, and admitted that the United States, under the leadership of the Democrats, is waging a proxy war with Russia.

▪️Elise Stefanik for the post of US Permanent Representative to the UN

In 2022, she advocated for Kiev to be accepted into NATO, but now she thinks differently and opposes financial support for Ukraine and Kiev’s entry into the Alliance .

▪️For the post of Secretary of Homeland Security – Kristi Noem

She is known for her criticism of American aid to Ukraine. In the spring of 2023, she said that military support for Ukraine was a “costly strategic mistake” that only served to strengthen the alliance between Russia and China.

▪️For the post of Attorney General and Head of the Department of Justice – Matt Gaetz

He stated that Ukraine’s goal of “separating Crimea from Russia” is unachievable. Gaetz has repeatedly spoken out in favor of a peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis, and also noted that the United States “has sent enough money to Ukraine.” He also called it a “historically corrupt country.” (ed: he also prefers to bring Russia into NATO over Ukraine.)

▪️Susan Wiles for White House Chief of Staff

Known as the Republican Party's leading strategist, she is known as the "ice maiden." She is said to have been the chief architect of Trump's victorious campaign. She is a private person.

▪️For the post of deputy chief of staff for political affairs – Stephen Miller

He is known as the main ideologist of tough measures in the field of migration policy. His policies are characterized as far-right and anti-immigration.

▪️ Tom Homan has been nominated to serve as the "Border Czar" or "Border Czar"

He advocates for the mass deportation of illegal immigrants, which will likely be Homan's first task in his new White House position, which involves overseeing all immigration and border security issues.

▪️For the position of co-directors of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) - Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy

Both support Trump's policies, including the Ukrainian conflict. Ramaswamy withdrew his candidacy in favor of Trump. He said that the US should promise Russia that Ukraine will not join NATO .

A few things first: some believe that a few of Trump’s picks are either deliberate troll jobs or merely favors for support to people he knows cannot possibly be actually confirmed by the Senate. For instance Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, even RFK Jr.

On the other hand, Trump has tricks at his disposal, such as the infamous ‘recess appointment’ which would controversially allow him to put in his nominees while the Senate is at recess. Some have complained, yet when Obama put in various recess appointments in 2012, it seems no one batted an eye. Also, isn’t it interesting how there was no outcry when Obama considered RFK Jr. for his own Cabinet once long ago?

Now, Thomas Massie has gloatingly confirmed Trump reserves this right:

“You think he’ll (Matt Gaetz) will be confirmed by the Senate?”

“Doesn’t need to. Recess.”

GOP Massie says “recess appointments” when asked if GAETZ can get confirmed by the Senate “He’s the Attorney General. Suck it up!”

Though some thought the nomination of Gaetz was a kind of gag, Gaetz immediately resigned from his House seat, burning the ship behind him as token of his confidence. Even if something were to happen, Florida Governor DeSantis reserves the right to install Gaetz into Marco Rubio’s now-vacant Florida Senator seat, which I believe would last until 2026.

Now some of Trump’s more controversial picks have fired up the Deep State operatives in ways that are extremely elucidating in regard to how the Deep State works and keeps power amongst its own pre-vetted in-house people. John Bolton, for instance, has called Matt Gaetz’ nomination to Attorney General as the most shocking and ‘worst’ Cabinet nomination in the country’s history—how’s that for hyperbole?

Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic Senator from Connecticut, stated earlier today that 10 Republican Senators have already said they will not Approve the Nomination of Matt Gaetz to Attorney General; which if True, makes it very likely that his Appointment would be Rejected.

And this, of course, needs no introduction or explanation:

But the most telling reaction has been for Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Some of the most entrenched establishment figures crawled out the woodwork to waylay Tulsi for being an ‘outsider’ who would be ‘dangerously’ privileged with the most sensitive need-to-know information in the country.

But most revealing was what ex-CIA agent and House rep Abigail Spanberger said about why Tulsi absolutely cannot be allowed to become the DNI—listen closely:

She mentions how it’s the DNI’s job to control the information flow to the president. This is precisely how the Deep State wags the dog by easily misinforming US presidents into officiating any policy they so need. They don’t even have to lie: the main weapon in the DNI’s arsenal is careful curation of facts by omission. The things omitted from the president’s Cabinet meetings are even more powerful than the things said.

In short: this is a Deep State panic and revolt about the reality that they are about to lose their ability to totally puppeteer the US president into doing the bidding of foreign intelligence services, which are effectively who control the US agencies beneath the DNI.

By the way, Avril Haines—the current DNI—is a quite nefarious spook from the Obama days, and Tulsi would be leagues better than her. How about ex-CIA and NSA head General Michael Hayden replying to histrionic Spanberger from the video above, with the suggestive “what can we do” in keeping Tulsi out:

GenMHayden George W. Bush's CIA and NSA chief (who failed to detect 9/11) joins CIA operative RepSpanberger's panic over Tulsi's nomination. He was one of the 51 intel agents who signed the false Hunter Biden letter. These are the people who need to feel threatened and upset by Tulsi’s nomination.

Can you see how the entire Deep State neocon cabal of the Bush-Obama-Clinton dynasty days are in revolt against an ‘outsider’ cleaning house and installing actual patriots in key positions to insulate Trump?

Most people don’t know this, but since the days of Rockefeller, Kissinger, and co., the chief and only role of the presidential Cabinet is as bulwark against a ‘rogue’ president. The Cabinet is entirely selected by donors, financial interests, and foreign intel agencies and its members are essentially “minders” or ‘grey controllers’ whose job is to enforce a series of ‘off limits’ guardrails for the president. How can they enforce this? The 25th Amendment, which specifically gives the Cabinet the power to vote the president out of office due to “incapacity”. In short: if the president goes off-script, the Cabinet can vote to immediately remove him.

Recall that Obama’s entire Cabinet was famously chosen by Citigroup Bank:

“One month before the presidential election of 2008, the giant Wall Street bank Citigroup submitted to the Obama campaign a list of its preferred candidates for cabinet positions in an Obama administration. This list corresponds almost exactly to the eventual composition of Barrack Obama’s cabinet.”

So, Trump got his great Cabinet—everything should be peachy now, right?

Well, not exactly—I’ll leave the arch-Zionist of Twitter to explain:

Virtually every pick is not just pro-Israel, but is of a particularly virulent pro-Zionist stripe in the most cult-like and messianic way possible: Pete Hegseth, Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, Mike Waltz, and last but not least, Kristi Noem, who betrayed freedom of speech by literally signing the ‘strongest hate crime bill in America’ to combat “antisemitism”—a bill which vastly expands definitions of ‘antisemitism’ as guidance to law enforcement agencies in helping them prosecute the nebulous specter of ‘hate crimes’:

So, yes: we know Trump’s Cabinet is basically full of Israel-firsters, that’s no real shock. But the one aspect surrounding discussions that’s missing is the following: Everyone is busy making blanket generalizations because mentally differentiating the nuances is tiresome and time-consuming for most.

But we can clarify Trump’s picks as follows: They are pretty good domestically, and bad for foreign policy.

Obviously, for Americans the domestic issues take precedence, and it’s better to have a bunch of Zionists who will clean out the country, than a rotten lot that will be great for ending foreign wars and such, but completely totalitarian at home—or something to this effect. People must accept the fact that we will never solve all issues at once, and we must take our blessings where we can get them. That means if the next four years can be used to clean up the domestic in large part, there will always be time afterwards to worry about the other huge issues—like the US’ total enslavement to Israel.

The fact is, many of Trump’s picks will do wonders for cleaning up the domestic bureaucracy that has hollowed out the country and turned it into a dystopian techno-fascist panopticon. RFK Jr. can really go to town on Health agencies; hell, just look how Big Pharma tanked on his announcement:

Gaetz replacing the monstrous Deep State traitor Merrick Garland as AG will have incalculable trickle down effects on the Justice Department and every other facet of government. Of course, Ramaswamy and Musk will do a clean sweep on extraneous agencies and begin balancing the US’ check books for once—though it will likely end up being a drop in the bucket.

My colleague at MoA agrees that we should give Trump some iota of a chance and have an open mind for the time being. I think huge strides can be made on the domestic front with his picks, while the foreign stands as always to be 50-50, and has the chance to be usurped by the same old neocon policies of war against Iran, aggression and escalation against Russia, economic terror against China, and the like. But as I said, we have to start somewhere, and cleaning up the domestic bureaucracy could be a springboard for more eventual housecleaning of the foreign-policy neocon remnants.

Case in point: Pete Hegseth is a giant Zionist, but he’s about to patently take the scythe to the triple-headed Hydra of DEI, CRT, and ESG in the US military:

Then look at Trump’s new border czar Tom Homan—the guy is serious about mass deportations which could roll back much of the damage done by the globalist clique of the past couple decades—or even the ‘60s if you want to go as far back as the Hart-Celler Act of ‘65.

And there are other potentially disruptive appointments still coming up:

Don’t you think it’s at least a start? Rome wasn’t built in one day, and the US has been slowly encrusted in bloodsucking foreign limpets since about the early to mid-1900s. They have to be scraped off slowly and carefully, so as not to roust the roost and spark a full-on mutiny. Considering what we’ve gotten for the past several administrations, these appointments on paper appear revolutionary in nature; but as always: that doesn’t mean we must be naive and credulous, expecting them all to work out without a hitch—I myself remain skeptical as always, but cautiously optimistic.

After all, Trump has effected a perfect syzygy of Republican power that can give him a once-in-generations ability to carry out virtually any policy his team desires:

There’s still grave danger that Trump may fall short of accomplishing much of the above, though, particularly since the Deep State is regrouping and re-strategizing as we speak. For instance, here’s Democrat Rep Wiley Nickel openly calling for a ‘Shadow Cabinet’ to be formed in undermining Trump’s new administration and counteracting each of his ‘dangerous’ Cabinet picks:

Apparently committing treason is now “protecting democracy”:

https://x.com/RepWileyNickel/status/1857141802660229224

Like I said, Trump’s picks are strong on domestic and dangerous on foreign relations. Here’s an example—National Security Advisor nominee Mike Waltz describes how he believes Trump can or will end the Ukraine conflict, which is another way of saying how Mike Waltz will advise and militate for Trump to carry out the negotiations; and it’s not very promising or assuring:

Namely: Enforce the energy sanctions on Russia, which is nothing more than a ‘gas station with nukes’, then threaten Russia with allowing Zelensky’s long range strikes—typical hubristic neocon escalation.

As a last note, many astute observers have brought up just how oddly surreal it is that the person on the right is able to simper and dawdle with the person on the left, who he had just recently characterized as a grave ‘threat to the nation’, the new Hitler, et cetera. It beggars belief that one could smugly shake the hand of a man one believes to embody evil itself—it’s what made yesterday’s first post-election White House meeting between the two such a classic study:

The occasion calls for a larger-than-life splash page, as books could be written on the symbolism of this one photo alone:

The hieratic tableau is pregnant with meaning.

The only question is, which initiate level did he confer?

Jests aside: I personally believe Trump more liable to have made a threatening “gun gesture” with his hand at Biden, or perhaps even for cameras as a sort of “gotcha back” or “I know it was you” moment, referencing the hit attempts—made particularly poignant with Biden’s subtle choice of pinstripe gangster suit:

We all know the changing of the guard is just one mafia clique shoving off the other, but just like in the case of the Godfather, where Pacino’s character Michael had a generational plan to clean things up during his tenure so that the future of his family could go totally legit, Trump and his flawed team, too, can initiate some semblance of a move toward the light for the country.

There’s still a hell of a fight left, and we shouldn’t take for granted that Trump will even be allowed to take office. But given the abrogation of true neocon vermin like Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo in exchange for flawed characters with at least an inkling of some promising virtues, we’ve for once got an innings chance for improvement. For now, that makes the outlook considerably better than it’s been for quite some time.

During his first term, President Trump decorated the Oval Office with a portrait of President Jackson.

Almost all commentators do not understand what the re-elected President of the United States, Donald Trump, is doing because they wrongly interpret his actions through the prism of Republican or woke ideologies. However, Trump, who has successively frequented the Democratic Party, the Tea Party, and today the Republican Party, claims to be a follower of a fourth ideology: Jacksonianism. During his first term, he decorated the Oval Office with a portrait of his predecessor Andrew Jackson.

But what is Jacksonianism?

Andrew Jackson, whose family had almost all died as a result of the wars against the English, was a lawyer. In this capacity, he wrote the Tennessee Constitution (1796). It was considered to give too much power to the Legislature and not enough to the Executive (the governor), and it did not establish a Supreme Court. However, it was hailed as "the least imperfect and most republican of constitutions" by the President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson.

Section 1 of Article III gives the right to vote to all free men (white and black), 21 years of age or older, who own freehold property or have resided in the county for six months. There is also a provision giving men serving in the militia the right to elect their officers. The Bill of Rights contained in it states that agnostics and atheists have the same rights as believers. These last three provisions were a direct blow to the puritans of the East Coast.

During the war between France and the United Kingdom in 1812, Paris and London imposed a naval blockade. It was to force the Russian Empire to respect it that Napoleon attacked Russia and because Her Majesty’s Prime Minister confiscated 900 American ships that were trying to trade with France that Washington once again went to war against its former colonizer.

During this "second war of independence", Andrew Jackson, who had become a general, distinguished himself as much by his military as by his diplomatic skills. He managed to maneuver Creek Indians, especially Cherokees. This war was useless because it ended with a treaty that established a return to pre-war conditions, but General Jackson won the first military victory in the history of the United States.

Andrew Jackson later retired to Florida, where he was elected governor. He had two British spies executed, although this was not explicitly within his power, which his opponents called an assassination. He ran for president of the United States in 1824 and won a majority of the popular vote and a majority of electors (designated by the governors), but, following a sleight of hand (a post-election agreement by the two other candidates), he was not considered elected. The electoral college (i.e. the representatives of the governors) nominated John Quincy Adams (as in 2020, it nominated Joe Biden against Donald Trump). Furious, he created the current Democratic Party to rally his supporters. The reality of the election stolen by the corrupt political class served as an electoral theme for Andrew Jackson (as for Donald Trump).

He was elected by a landslide in 1828, when many states had adopted the consultative vote to indicate to their governors the electors they should choose (Reminder: the United States Constitution does not indicate that the president must be elected by universal suffrage, direct or indirect, but by the representatives of the governors. In the words of the "founding fathers", it was especially not a question of establishing a democracy). He was therefore the first president elected, not by, but with the support of universal suffrage. In his inaugural address, he pledged to push the Indians back to the West. His popular base came to cheer him at the White House, but his supporters were so numerous to crowd that they devastated it and forced him to flee through a window.

Jackson had married young Rachel who believed she was divorced, but in reality the act had not been registered. His opponents made a scandal of it, accusing him of living with a married woman. In fact, Rachel died before his second term. He therefore entrusted the role of "first lady" to his niece Emily who married her cousin, Andrew Jackson Donelson, who was his private secretary.

When he formed his administration, Andrew Jackson dismissed corrupt officials. Unable to replace them, he ultimately appointed his relatives and friends. Jackson appointed one of his friends, John Eaton, Secretary of War. For reasons of convenience, he was staying at the White House during the absence of the president. The anti-Jacksonians then spread the rumor of a scandalous life of the Eaton couple.

These sex scandals, all invented by his puritan opponents, caused Jackson to separate from his vice president, who thought like the East Coast elite.

In 1830, Andrew Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act. It was about sharing the territory of North America by placing the Indians west of the Mississippi. 70 treaties were signed for $68 million in compensation. Jackson then opposed the legendary David Crockett (representative of Tennessee). About fifty tribes were displaced, including the Cherokees who also signed a peace treaty. The tribe appealed twice to the Supreme Court to clarify its meaning. The exodus of the Cherokees (the episode of the "Valley of Tears") was particularly hard, a quarter of them died during the displacement. However, this genocide did not take place under Jackson, but under the presidency of his successor. Today, the Cherokees, who, unlike the other Indians, did not question these treaties, are the only tribe that is prosperous.

Andrew Jackson, like George Washington and many others, was a slave owner. Two centuries later, the woke movement presents him as a slave owner and a slaughterer of Indians, an adversary of minorities. In reality, he had adopted as a son an Indian baby, orphaned by war, whom he named Lyncoya. He was therefore accused, by his contemporaries, of corrupting civilization by introducing an Indian to the governorship of Florida, then to the White House.

He approved of the "Monroe Doctrine" which meant, at that time, that the European powers abstained from colonizing the Americas while the United States forbade itself from intervening in Europe. This principle was only twisted half a century later to allow the United States to colonize Latin America without European rivalry.

In 1832, he vetoed a law extending a private/public Central Bank of the United States (initially created by Alexander Hamilton). Similarly, in 1836, he vetoed the creation of the Federal Reserve (today’s Fed). In the meantime, he made sure to repay all of the country’s public debt. This is the one and only time in their history that the United States was not in debt (the public debt is now $34.5 trillion, or 122.3% of GDP).

Andrew Jackson, who symbolizes in the popular imagination the resistance to the power of financiers, appears on the $20 bill. The Democrats wanted to remove his image to replace it with that of a black woman symbolizing the dignity of minorities.

His opposition to the central bank crystallized the conflict between the elites and the farmers. He believed that this bank had monopolistic powers and played a role in political life, implying that it corrupted parliamentarians so that they would vote against the interests of the people. Andrew Jackson managed to broaden the electoral base in many states so that at the end of his mandates, seven times more citizens could participate in the electoral consultations. His re-election, in 1833, was triumphant: 55% of the popular vote against 37% and 219 electors against 49 for his rival (Reminder: in the United States the president is not chosen by electors. The popular vote indicates to the governors the color of the electors that he asks him to choose. It is only these electors who designate the president). His opponents accused him of populism.

Then came the dispute over customs duties, which would turn into a civil war 25 years later (which, contrary to official history, has nothing to do with the abolition of slavery that both sides practiced). South Carolina decided not to apply federal customs tariffs (sectionalism). Andrew Jackson, presenting the danger of a civil war, condemned these actions as well as the idea of secession. He threatened to kill those who took this path. The president managed to restore calm and preserve the unity of the nation by successfully proposing a middle position between that of the southerners (free trade) and that of the northerners (protectionists).

Andrew Jackson was the first US president to be assassinated. At that time, presidents had no personal protection measures.

Andrew Jackson always defended the central power against the governors, not out of a centralizing principle, but out of distrust of local elites. He tried to prevent civil war by appealing to the people. In his view, the interests of peasants and early workers coincided, while those of large landowners and captains of industry diverged. In this conflict, the central bank played the main role by speculating internationally and making the US economy dependent on fluctuations in foreign markets. It was therefore he who concluded tariff agreements with the United Kingdom, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. He designed a vast network of means of communication across Latin America to export US products to the Far East. He negotiated with the European powers for indemnities for the Napoleonic Wars. He was intractable with the French king, Louis Philippe. He failed, however, to buy Texas from Mexico, probably because he surrounded himself with bad diplomats. Although the expression is later, Andrew Jackson began to think of the "manifest destiny of the United States" ("To extend ourselves over the whole continent which Providence has allotted us for the free development of our millions of inhabitants who multiply every year"). However, it was only after him that this concept justified the extension of "the perfect form of government" throughout the world.

Jackson’s puritan opponents presented him as an atheist fighting against the Churches, as a manipulator of the populace against the educated elites.

On July 13, 2024, an individual linked to the US Intelligence services in Ukraine attempted to assassinate candidate Donald Trump. The Secret Service, responsible for his security, acknowledged a malfunction, but none of its members were sanctioned.

Jackson and Trump

The example of General Jackson has become a doctrine under the leadership of the President’s private secretary, Andrew Jackson Donelson. It is organized around two strong ideas:
• From a tactical point of view: move the conflicts opposing the federated states to the federal power towards the division opposing the people to the puritanical elites of the East Coast.
• From a strategic point of view: substitute trade for war. Tactics For example, during his first term, President Trump pushed the Supreme Court to refer the issue of abortion to the responsibility of each federated state. This led to his woke opponents, including Kamala Harris, wrongly accusing him of banning abortion, even though it is legal in 38 states.

Tactics

For example, during his first term, President Trump pushed the Supreme Court to refer the issue of abortion to the responsibility of each federated state. As a result, his woke opponents, including Kamala Harris, wrongly accused him of having banned abortion when it is authorized in 38 states.

Andrew Jackson tried to reform the electoral system in order to give the right to vote to all males, regardless of their skin color. He only succeeded in imposing universal suffrage for the election of senators. Donald Trump intends to extend universal suffrage to the election of the president by eliminating the electoral college designated by the governors.

Let us remember that the Constitution was designed by large landowners who wanted to found a monarchy without nobility and especially not a democracy. In their minds, and in the text they wrote, there was not supposed to be universal suffrage. Contrary to what we think, the debate on the 2020 election refers first to the ambiguity of the text of this constitution and not to the counting of the votes cast. The massive re-election of Donald Trump has proven that the reality of the popular vote has nothing to do with the impressions of the ruling class.

Trump, like Jackson, has consistently relied on the popular vote. Both have designed “populist” election campaigns, meaning, in their case, that they respond to people’s expectations rather than endorse the solutions they imagine. Trump has relied on Steve Bannon’s Cambridge Analytica techniques: scanning social media to analyze what people think, then targeting specific profiles with messages designed for them. In contrast, his opponents have relied on Cass Sunstein’s behavioral and cognitive techniques.

A quick note on crowd reactions. Andrew Jackson’s supporters who came to cheer him devastated the White House, not because they wanted to destroy it, but because there were too many of them. Similarly, Donald Trump’s supporters damaged the Congress buildings, not because they wanted to destroy them, but because there were too many of them. There was never an attempted coup as their opponents claim, but rather a mismanagement of the crowd by the police as Joshua Philipp (The Real Story of January 6) has shown.

Strategy

Andrew Jackson wanted to end the Indian wars by compensating and deporting the tribes, with the mixed success that we have seen. It is to be feared that Donald Trump will approach the Israeli-Palestinian question in the same way by compensating the Palestinians and forcibly displacing them to the Sinai. However, this would be to put on the same level the “manifest destiny of the United States” and the expansionism of the “religious Zionists”. This risk exists, but for the moment, there is no evidence that this will be the case.

Andrew Jackson expanded U.S. trade around the world, negotiating bilateral (not multilateral) deals. Donald Trump, a businessman, has withdrawn from multilateral trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). While his predecessors were about setting standards with their economic partners and then imposing them on China, Trump has no use for international standards as long as the U.S. can penetrate markets.

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, both re-elected with strong popular support, will soon meet. They are already discussing through special envoys. They resume their old relationship, except that now Russia is stronger militarily than the United States.

International relations are changing extremely quickly on several fronts at once.

The last two weeks have shown that Iran has abandoned its revolutionary ideal and distanced itself from its Sunni allies in Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and even Shiites in Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi and Yemeni Ansar Allah [1]. These points are largely confirmed by the meeting during which Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated by the IDF "thanks" to Iranian information, the confusing statements of Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq, and the measures taken to prevent the assassination of Abdel Malek al-Houthi in Yemen [2].

Then, we showed that the BRICS, at the Kazan summit, affirmed their attachment to international law against the “rules-based order” of the Anglo-Saxons [3].

This week, Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the US elections marks the triumph of the Jacksonians over the Democrats, but also over the Republicans, although Trump was supported by their party. It should follow that the United States will cease its wars in Ukraine and the Middle East in favor of an all-out trade war.

On the European continent, we witnessed in the United Kingdom the fall of Rishi Sunak and his replacement by a member of the Trilateral Commission (i.e. support of US business interests), Keir Starmer. We expect, in Germany, the fall of Chancellor Olaf Schloz and, in France, that of Prime Minister Michel Barnier, without knowing who will replace them.

In the West, these events have the same meaning everywhere: neo-conservative ideology and woke religion are condemned in favor of the defense of nations. This is a revolt of the middle classes. These, who are not xenophobic, no longer accept being sacrificed, in the name of the specialization of the world imposed by Anglo-Saxon globalization.

Generally speaking, in the coming years we are moving towards abandoning both the imperialist will of the Anglo-Saxons and the anti-imperialist will of Iran. At the same time, we should see a strengthening of international law, although it is not recognized by the Jacksonians. However, they admit, in commercial matters, the importance of signatures. It is likely that Washington will push the Three Seas Initiative into Central Europe after forcing Ukraine to admit defeat to Russia. This will result in the rise of Poland to the detriment of Germany and a weakening of the European Union. The United States and BRICS will agree on the need to cooperate, but will clash over the reference status of the dollar.

These important changes are still hidden from us because we do not understand the way in which each of these actors think. We misinterpret what they say and do based on their place in the ancient world.

We are particularly blind towards the United States, which we continue to consider as our masters. We only know the neo-conservative doxa and we imagine that the United States thinks this way even though it has just freed itself from its rule. The election, or rather the re-election, of Donald Trump, his overwhelming victory for the White House as well as for Congress, marks the revolt of the US middle classes against the Western intellectuals who had all united against him.

Let us recall that Donald Trump, while a real estate developer in New York, was the first personality, on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, to question the official version of the supposedly Islamist attacks. Subsequently, he financed, within the Tea Party, the challenge to the legitimacy of President Barack Obama. Finally, he took over the Republican Party despite resistance from former Vice President Dick Cheney (who was a member of the “continuity government,” what Trump called the “deep state”). He campaigned in a new way based on observation of social networks and responding symbolically to the expectations of the middle classes. Upon his election and even before he took his seat in the White House, the Democratic Party launched a global smear campaign against him [4]. Throughout his mandate, he had to face his own collaborators who did not hesitate to lie to him and do the opposite of what he ordered them, then to brag about it. However, he managed, alone against everyone, to interrupt the "endless war" in the Middle East and the CIA’s military and financial support for Al-Qaeda and Daesh.

On the contrary, Joe Biden assembled his team from staff at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), the Rand Corporation, and from General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. He restarted wars in the Middle East, then started a new one in Ukraine.

We do not know whether Donald Trump will attempt to continue during his second term what he undertook during his first. He now knows the pitfalls of Washington and has put together a team that he was without the first time. The only unknown is what he had to concede to be able to win this time. His policy in the Middle East was to replace war with trade via the Abraham Accords. It was misunderstood because his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was responsible for implementing them, is deeply racist. He also moved the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, implying that it was the capital of the only Jewish state. During his campaign, he accepted considerable donations from the widow of Sheldon Adelson, an unconditional supporter of the "revisionist Zionists". No one knows whether he is committed in return to supporting the State of Israel or the colonial project of Vladimir Jabotinsky.

Donald Trump’s victory will not end the clashes, but will move them from the military battlefield to that of the economy. Be careful, to analyze his policies, the political categories with which we have been thinking since the 18th century will prove ineffective. He does not intend to choose between protectionism and free trade, but between economic sectors: the products that he will defend with customs duties because they will not be able to compete with those of his competitors, and the products that are capable of flooding the global market. Donald Trump is not the friend of all entrepreneurs, far from it. He opposes those who live off the State by selling it bad products, as the American military-industrial complex has been doing for thirty years. The notions of right and left, interventionist and isolationist are all equally obsolete. What is happening today is of a different nature.

Does Donald J. Trump have an ideology, and what it is? The first part of the question is redundant: every individual has an ideology and if we believe that they do not have it, it is because it might represent an amalgam of pieces collected from various ideological frameworks that are rearranged, and thus hard to put a name on. But that does not mean that there is no ideology. The second part is a million-dollar question because if we could piece together Donald J, Trump’s ideology, we would be able to forecast, or guess (the element of volatility is high), how his rule over the next four years might look like.

The reason why most people are unable to make a coherent argument about Trump’s ideology is because they are either blinded by hatred or adulation, or because they cannot bring what they observe in him into an ideological framework, with a name attached to it, and to which they are accustomed.

Before I try to answer the question, let me dismiss two, in my opinion, entirely wrong epithets attached to Trump: fascist and populist. If fascist is used as a term of abuse, this is okay and we can use it freely. Nobody cares. But as a term in a rational discussion of Trump’s beliefs it is wrong. Fascism as an ideology implies (i) exclusivist nationalism, (ii) glorification of the leader, (iii) emphasis on the power of the state as opposed to private individuals and the private sector, (iv) rejection of the multi-party system, (v) corporatist rule, (vi) replacement of the class structure of society with unitary nationalism, and (vii) quasi religious adulation of the Party, the state and the leader. I do not need to discuss each of these elements individually to show that they have almost no relationship to what Trump believes or what he wants to impose.

Likewise, the term “populist” has of late become a term of abuse, and despite some (in my opinion rather unsuccessful) attempts to define it better, it really stands for the leaders who win elections but do so on a platform that “we” do not like. Then, the term becomes meaningless.

What are the constituent parts of Trump’s ideology as we might have glimpsed during the previous four years of his rule?

Mercantilism. Mercantilism is an old and hallowed doctrine that regards economic activity, and especially trade in goods and services between the states as a zero-sum game. Historically it went together with a world where wealth was gold and silver. If you take the amount of gold and silver to be limited, then clearly the state and its leader who possesses more gold and silver (regardless of all other goods) is more powerful.  The world has evolved since the 17th century but many people still believe in the mercantilist doctrine. Moreover, if one believes that trade is just a war by other means and that the main rival or antagonist of the United States is China mercantilist policy towards China becomes a very natural response. When Trump initiated such policies against China in 2017 they were not a part of the mainstream discourse, but have since moved to the center. Biden’s administration followed them and expanded them significantly. We can expect that Trump will double-down on them. But mercantilists are, and Trump will be, transactional: if China agrees to sell less and buy more, he will be content. Unlike Biden, Trump will not try to undermine or overthrow the Chinese regime. Thus, unlike what many people believe, I think that Trump is good for China (that is, given the alternatives).

Profit-making. Like all Republicans, Trump believes in the private sector. Private sector in his view is unreasonably hampered by regulations, rules, taxes. He was a capitalist who never paid taxes which, in his view, simply shows that he was a good entrepreneur. But for others, lesser capitalists, regulations should be simplified or gotten rid of, and taxation should be reduced. Consistent with that view is the belief that taxes on capital should be lower than taxes on labor. Entrepreneurs and capitalists are job-creators, others are, in Ayn Rand’s words, ”moochers”. There is nothing new there in Trump. It is the same doctrine that was held from Reagan onwards, including by Bill Clinton. Trump may be just more vocal and open about low taxes on capital, but he would do the same thing that Bush Sr, Clinton and Bush Jr. did. And that liberal icon Alan Greenspan deeply believed.

Anti-immigrant “nationalism”. This a really difficult part. The term “nationalist” only awkwardly applies to American politicians because people are used to “exclusive” (not inclusive) European and Asian nationalisms. When we speak of (say) Japanese nationalism, we mean that such Japanese would like to expel ethnically non-Japanese either from decision-making or presence in the country, or both. The same is true for Serbian, Estonian, French or Castellan nationalisms. The American nationalism, by its very nature, cannot be ethnic or blood-related because of enormous heterogeneity of people who compose the United States. Commentators have thus invented a new term, “white nationalism”. It is a bizarre term because it combines color of the skin with ethnic (blood) relations.  In reality, I think that the defining feature of Trump’s “nationalism” is neither ethnic nor racial, but simply the dislike of new migrants. It is in essence not different from anti-migrant policies applied today in the heart of the socio-democratic world, in Nordic and North Western European countries where the right-wing parties in Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, and Denmark believe (in the famous expression of the Dutch right-wing leader Geert Wilders) that their countries are “full” and cannot accept more immigrants. Trump’s view is only unusual because the US is not, objectively by any criteria, a full country: the number of people per square kilometer in the United States is 38 while it is 520 in the Netherlands.

A nation for itself. When one combines mercantilism with migrant dislike, one gets close to what US foreign policy under Trump will look like. It will be the policy of nationalist anti-imperialism. I have to unpack these terms. This combination is uncommon, especially for big powers: if they are big, nationalist and mercantilist, it is almost intuitively understood that they have to be imperialistic. Trump however defies this nostrum. He goes back to the Founders’ foreign policy that abhorred “foreign entanglements”. The United States, in their and in his view, is a powerful and rich nation, looking after its interests, but it is not an “indispensable nation” in the way that Madeleine Albright defined it. It is not the role of the United States to right every wrong in the world (in the optimistic or self-serving view of this doctrine) nor to waste its money on people and causes which have nothing to do with its interests (in the realist view of the same doctrine).

Why Trump dislikes imperialism that has become common currency for both US parties since 1945 is hard to say but I think that instinctively he tends to espouse values of the Founding Fathers and people like the Republican antagonist to FDR, Robert Taft who believed in US economic strength and saw no need to convert that strength into a hegemonic political rule over the world.

This does not mean that Trump will give up US hegemony (NATO will not be disbanded), because, as Thucydides wrote: “it is not any longer possible for you to give up this empire, though there may be some people who in a mood of sudden panic and in a spirit of political apathy actually think that this would be a fine and noble thing to do. Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go”. But in the light of Trump’s mercantilist principles, he would make US allies pay much more for it. Like in Pericles’ Athens, the protection will no longer come for free. One should not forget that the beautiful Acropolis that we all admire was built with gold stolen from the allies.   

Suzuki Muneo.

Suzuki Muneo is straight-talking, a man’s man. He has spent his career in the Diet in Tokyo and has rubbed elbows with–and rubbed the wrong way–just about every powerful person in Japanese politics over the past forty years. The two descriptions are mutually reinforcing. Suzuki uses power; he doesn’t worship it. He remains as much an outsider now–a Hokkaido patriot in the political maze of Nagatacho–as when he entered the political road in 1983.

Suzuki is unpopular now, as ever, because he refuses to follow the political herd on, above all, the question of Russia. Suzuki, whose home island is Russia’s backyard neighbor, maintains close ties with Russia. This brings benefits to Suzuki’s constituents, but it also wins him few friends in the Japanese political world, or in the media.

In this, our second long interview with Suzuki (first interview here), we ask him about his most recent visit to Russia, and about the future of Japan. Suzuki sees many possibilities for Japan with Russia, but laments that there is no one in power now who can turn those possibilities into reality.

Interview and text by Jason Morgan and Kenji Yoshida.

Kenji Yoshida and Jason Morgan (K&J): How was your visit to Russia?

Suzuki Muneo (SM): It’s been ten months since my last visit to Russia in October of 2023. Moscow is peaceful and orderly. The people of Moscow are out until late at night, strolling through the city. Restaurants are filled with customers. Department stores and other shops are fully stocked with goods. There is plenty of fruit for sale. Plenty of fish and meat.

Not far from this unhurried Moscow scene a war is unfolding, but one would never know it from inside the city. In this, I felt the strength and stability of Russia.

K&J: The West repeatedly imposes sanctions on other countries. In the case of Russia, the West imposed sanctions in response to Russia’s incursion into Ukraine and tried to destroy the ruble. Those sanctions, though, appear to have had the opposite effect.

SM: Russia initiated its special military operation in February of 2022. In May of that year, President Biden imposed sanctions on Russia. Biden said that sanctions would lead Russia to give up within two months. Was President Biden correct in this pronouncement?

It’s been nearly two and a half years since then. In 2023, Russia’s economy exhibited a growth rate of 3.6%. The growth rate for this year is forecast to be 5%. Russia is the world’s biggest energy superpower. It was underestimated by the West, but it has proven to be a strong country. The West, including the G7 countries, made a mistaken assessment of Russia in this regard. Responsibility for this misreading falls heavily also on NATO.

The special military operation started February 24, 2022. In March [of 2022], Ukraine came forward with a peace proposal. On April 15, 2022, Russia was prepared to sign Ukraine’s peace proposal. However, it was Ukraine that then withdrew the proposal. The backdrop to this, we are told, is that then-UK prime minister Boris Johnson interjected himself into the proceedings and pressured Ukraine not to sign any peace deal with Russia.

I think this was a terrible mistake. The United States was apparently also involved. In the Ukraine situation, too, the tendency of the Anglo-Saxons to use force to get their way proved to be a mistake. The war could have been over. An armistice was within reach. But England and America sent everything in the opposite direction.

K&J: For more than a hundred years, the Anglo-Saxons have been using force of arms to impose their will on the world. They seem to believe that they are qualified to rule in this way. It’s arrogant.

SM: In the Ukraine war, Russia seems to have understood the nature of Anglo-Saxon power and decided to have a showdown with the UK-American way of rule. Looking at Russia’s recent alliance with North Korea and also its collaboration with China, India, and other countries, it seems as though Russia is trying, not just to deal with the Anglo-Saxons, but to end their rule. Russia seems to be not passively accepting the Anglo-Saxons’ way but trying to put an end to it.

I am thinking back to the Crimea incident ten years ago. At that time, the president was Barack Obama. Obama was saying that America was no longer the world’s policeman and no longer the world’s financial backer. He took a step back from the world’s affairs.

I think he was correct in his assessment. America had been the world’s leader in everything, but Obama was saying that the United States would no longer be involved militarily in every part of the world, and would no longer be throwing money around everywhere in the globe. Obama was forthright and upfront about this.

And yet, Biden has urged Ukraine to fight on, promising to send weapons and cash. Why?

It has been ten years since Obama said that America was no longer the world’s sole superpower. Biden seems to be operating under the impression that the United States remains the world’s champion nation. Biden has dropped out of the presidential race. But for three years now, I have been thinking that his mental faculties are off. Hence, the mistaken approach to Ukraine.

K&J: Is it only Biden? Biden is surrounded by neocons, and Washington itself has the same outlook as Biden.

SM: Yes, it’s true.

America and England are one thing, but France and Germany have their own reasons separate from the former two countries. And yet, France and Germany were pulled into the present war. I think this way of doing things is behind the times. I have some doubts whether France and Germany can see what is ahead.

The Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came down. Germany was reunited. The Soviet Union collapsed and we now have Russia. History changed completely.

President George H.W. Bush told the world that NATO would expand no further east than the reunited Germany. Then-Secretary of State James A. Baker wrote as much in his book. Chancellor Helmut Kohl told Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO’s eastward expansion ended with the reunified Germany. Baker went so far as to say that he would not allow NATO to expand by a single inch. Gorbachev believed these statements and dismantled the Warsaw Pact arrangement.

NATO repeatedly said, year after year, that it would cut its presence. But the opposite happened. NATO expanded. It was Russia that took history as fact and faced the facts squarely. The West relied on sidestepping and deception. The West spoke of liberalism, solidarity. But behind the scenes it was plotting to weaken Russia. I don’t think this was fair.

K&J: Could it be that Obama laid a trap by appearing to retreat from the world’s stage?

SM: I think Obama made an honest and accurate assessment of America’s economic position at the time. America commanded a quarter of the world’s economic might. Today, that figure has gone down to less than ten percent.

I think Japan is making a mistake on this point. Japan is one of the G7 countries. When the G7 got underway, those seven countries accounted for some eighty percent of the global economy. Now, unfortunately, it’s forty percent.

K&J: BRICS has overtaken the G7 it seems.

SM: Yes. When you expand the G7 to take in the G20, the latter includes Russia, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia, Kazakhstan [occasional guest at G20 summits], Argentina, Turkiye, and so forth. Now, the G20 accounts for eighty percent of the global economy.

The BRICS countries are in control of eighty percent of the world’s energy. Russia, Iran as of last year, Saudi Arabia, UAE–the world is moving to be carbon neutral by 2050 as part of the response to climate change, but for the next twenty-six years we will have no choice but to remain reliant on fossil fuels. Of the fossil fuels, natural gas is particularly important. The most abundant source of natural gas, and oil must also be included here, is Russia. It is essential to look at these facts dispassionately.

Russia is a superior country and is recognized as such worldwide. It is the world’s most important country in terms of energy resources, and also has a formidable might apart from this as well. Russia’s supremacy in energy resources is unwavering in the face of Western sanctions. I find it baffling in the extreme why the G7 and NATO countries do not comprehend this.

K&J: It seems there are many possibilities for Japan in a relationship with Russia. You have just visited Russia and seen for yourself. Are other Japanese politicians unaware of the possibilities that could be realized in dealing with Russia? Japan remains attached at the hip with the United States. Is this a sustainable arrangement?

SM: If America were as powerful today as it was thirty or forty years ago, then it would be understandable for Japan to be pulled this way and that by the United States. But now, even America is saying that America cannot remain the world’s sole superpower, that we have to take the rest of the world into account.

Ten years ago, Obama told then-prime minister Abe Shinzo that the United States would impose sanctions on Russia over Crimea. Obama asked Japan to cooperate. But Abe told Obama, clearly, “No.”

I heard this from Prime Minister Abe directly. He told Obama, “Japan and Russia are neighbors. There are issues between Japan and Russia that must be resolved. A peace treaty must be signed. The Northern Territories. Japan cannot survive if it takes the same position and adopts the same values as the United States. So, I will make an independent decision, for Japan.”

Abe said this straight out. He was correct in what he said. Obama, I am told, hung up on him.

The Foreign Ministry bureaucrats in Japan told Abe that President Obama would not attend the Ise Shima Summit that was being planned for the next year, 2015. The bureaucrats said that Obama also wouldn’t attend the Hiroshima peace memorial event to which he had been invited. The bureaucrats took a pessimistic view. But Obama came to the Ise Shima Summit.

[He also came to Hiroshima in 2016.]

This was proof that, at that time, a national leader with resolution and patriotism, and who had the mind of the people at heart, could expect to be understood. So I cannot understand, at all, why Prime Minister Kishida Fumio cannot do the same with President Biden. [As of September 27, 2024, Ishiba Shigeru is the new prime minister of Japan].

K&J: Russia’s relationship with North Korea has strengthened considerably as of late. The Japanese government has long entrusted to Washington the resolution of the abductions issue, wherein North Korean agents abducted Japanese civilians. But Russia’s influence over North Korea is, presumably, now considerable. What is the possibility that, if Japan were to ask Russia to intervene with Kim Jong Un and ask him concretely what his demands would be in exchange for allowing the abduction victims to return home, Russia would respond favorably?

SM: North Korea is a neighboring country, and is also a member of the United Nations. In light of these facts, it is highly unusual that Japan and North Korea have no diplomatic relations. Japan and North Korea ought to normalize relations immediately. Talks [between North Korea and Japan] must start with this.

Japan must not impose conditions before entering into talks, such as by insisting that North Korea acknowledge that it abducted Japanese citizens, or by declaring that the resolution of the abduction issue will take priority. The abduction issue is one to discuss after a summit meeting has been achieved and trust has been built.

No summit meeting is scheduled yet. Before we even get to that point, Japan’s imposing conditions will serve only to antagonize the other party. Japan will obtain nothing by doing so.

When Koizumi Junichiro was prime minister, he visited North Korea. The leader of North Korea at that time was Kim Jong Il, who admitted, before the world, to the abduction of Japanese citizens and apologized.

I think that this was an opportunity to make a fresh start. But Japan squandered this opportunity because the government, swayed by public opinion, advanced an intractable position. The Stockholm Agreement [of May 2014, in which North Korea promised to conduct investigations into the abductions issue] is one thing, but when Koizumi and Kim sat down together [in Pyongyang in 2002], they spoke with one another without any expectations. I think this was extremely important in building a relationship of mutual trust.

The six-party talks [started in 2003 and addressing security concerns in Northeast Asia, especially regarding North Korea] were underway around the time [North Korea and Japan were discussing the abduction issue]. The first chair country of the talks was Russia. The head of the Russian delegation was Alexander Losyukov [then Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs]. Losyukov was a diplomat I knew very well. I thought it would have been a good idea to ask Losyukov [to help broker talks over the abduction issue]. Russia and North Korea have, historically, a close relationship. Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong Un, used to be a soldier in the Soviet Red Army. Because of these good connections, I still think it would be good to have Russia help [with the abduction issue]. It would have been good at the time, too.

But then the Americans got involved, then South Korea, and then China. There were too many parties involved, and the talks broke down.

Still, though, the only one that can broker and advise on this is Russia. Former prime minister Abe understood my views on this and accepted them. Abe was strongly determined to resolve [the abduction issue] without asking [the United States], but now it’s become such that Japan can do nothing without asking the United States. Therefore, there is no progress made at all.

K&J: Was that not the point of the six-party talks from Washington’s perspective? Far from wanting to resolve the abduction issue, it seems, even now, that Washington’s objective is to draw the problem out for political advantage.

SM: I think that the abduction issue, at the most fundamental level, can be resolved only bilaterally, only between Japan and North Korea. And how to bring about that bilateral engagement is to ask Russia to help [open channels of communication]. That is the only way. But the talks were put at the mercy of the United States in many ways, and things went awry.

Next year will mark eighty years since the end of the Second World War. I think this should mark a turning point on a number of issues, such as for example, concluding a peace treaty with Russia. I think we’re also approaching the last opportunity to resolve the abduction issue.

One often hears in Japan that it was the Soviet Union that unilaterally reneged on the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact [in 1945]. But it was the Americans who incited the Soviets to do this at the Yalta Conference. President Franklin Roosevelt told Soviet leader Josef Stalin that Germany would surrender in May, and that the Soviet Union should attack Japan two or three months later. Stalin took very serious stock of the situation and made his move after the American atomic bombings of Japan.

Taking an objective view of history, I came to the conclusion that when Japan follows the United States Japan’s legs are swept out from under her.

K&J: I find it very difficult to understand why Nagatacho should still trust a Washington which has thus proven itself devious time and again.

SM: The current American ambassador to Japan is Rahm Emanuel. He is butting into the moral values and historical sensibilities of the Japanese people. This is unprecedented. I am worried to see that some people are being led along by him and can see nothing but the United States.

The bill always comes due. And it’s surely going to be a big bill.

K&J: The United States has recently set up a joint-command structure in Japan. The new joint force headquarters is under the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, but is based in Japan. I see this as Washington’s preparing to involve Japan in a major war, possibly over Taiwan.

SM: Japan is, in part, being used for America’s global strategy. Seventy-three percent of America’s military presence in Japan is concentrated in Okinawa. This is not a normal situation.

Russia is a major nation. If there were a Japan-Russia relationship on par with the US-Japan alliance, then Japan could expect to play the role of counterweight between Russia and America. I want there to be a leader in Japan able to make the decision to do this. As things are now, it’s all one-sided for America.

Abe worked well with Trump. He worked well with President Putin. I think that if Japan’s leader was smart about it, then Japan could [work with both sides]. Japan must be firm in its dealings with other countries. We are not nearly firm enough now.

Look at India. India is very strong, but it also balances Russia against the United States very well.

K&J: Is there anyone in the Liberal Democratic Party today that can be that strong leader?

SM: No. There is no one. And it worries me.

On history's repeating itself

Excerpts from the History of the Peloponnesian War

So revolutions broke out in city after city, and in places where the revolutions occurred late the knowledge of what had happened previously in other places caused still new extravagances of revolutionary zeal, expressed by an elaboration in the methods of seizing power and by unheard-of atrocities in revenge.

To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings.

What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one’s unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defense.

Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect. To plot successfully was a sign of intelligence, but it was still cleverer to see that a plot was hatching. If one attempted to provide against having to do either, one was disrupting the unity of the party and acting out of fear of the opposition. In short, it was equally praiseworthy to get one’s blow in first against someone who was going to do wrong, and to denounce someone who had no intention of doing any wrong at all.

Family relations were a weaker tie than party membership, since party members were more ready to go to any extreme for any reason whatever.

These parties were not formed to enjoy the benefits of the established laws, but to acquire power by overthrowing the existing regime; and the members of these parties felt confidence in each other not because of any fellowship in a religious communion, but because they were partners in crime.

If an opponent made a reasonable speech, the party in power, so far from giving it a generous reception, took every precaution to see that it had no practical effect.

Revenge was more important than self-preservation. And if pacts of mutual security were made, they were entered into by the two parties only in order to meet some temporary difficulty, and remained in force only so long as there was no other weapon available. When the chance came, the one who first seized it boldly, catching his enemy off his guard, enjoyed a revenge that was all the sweeter from having been taken, not openly, but because of a breach of faith. It was safer that way, it was considered, and at the same time a victory won by treachery gave one a title for superior intelligence.

And indeed most people are more ready to call villainy cleverness than simple-mindedness honesty. They are proud of the first quality and ashamed of the second.

Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils. To this must be added the violent fanaticism which came into play once the struggle had broken out.

Leaders of parties in the cities had programs which appeared admirable—on one side political equality for the masses, on the other the safe and sound government of the aristocracy—but in professing to serve the public interest they were seeking to win the prizes for themselves.

In their struggles for ascendancy nothing was barred; terrible indeed were the actions to which they committed themselves, and in taking revenge they went farther still. Here they were deterred neither by the claims of justice nor by the interests of the state; their one standard was the pleasure of their own party at that particular moment, and so, either by means of condemning their enemies on an illegal vote or by violently usurping power over them, they were always ready to satisfy the hatreds of the hour.

Thus neither side had any use for conscientious motives; more interest was shown in those who could produce attractive arguments to justify some disgraceful action.

[… the search for truth strains the patience of most people, who would rather believe the first things that come to hand.]

As for the citizens who held moderate views, they were destroyed by both the extreme parties, either for not taking part in the struggle or in envy at the possibility that they might survive.

As the result of these revolutions, there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world. The simple way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps, and each side viewed the other with suspicion.

As for ending this state of affairs, no guarantee could be given that would be trusted, no oath sworn that people would fear to break; everyone had come to the conclusion that it was hopeless to expect a permanent settlement and so, instead of being able to feel confident in others, they devoted their energies to providing against being injured themselves. As a rule those who were least remarkable for intelligence showed the greater powers of survival. Such people recognized their own deficiencies and the superior intelligence of their opponents; fearing that they might lose a debate or find themselves out-maneuvered in intrigue by their quick-witted enemies, they boldly launched straight into action; while their opponents, overconfident in the belief that they would see what was happening in advance, and not thinking it necessary to seize by force what they could secure by policy, were the more easily destroyed because they were off their guard.

Certainly it was in Corcyra that there occurred the first examples of the breakdown of law and order.

There was the revenge taken in their hour of triumph by those who had in the past been arrogantly oppressed instead of wisely governed; there were the wicked resolutions taken by those who, particularly under the pressure of misfortune, wished to escape from their usual poverty and coveted the property of their neighbors; there were the savage and pitiless actions into which men were carried not so much for the sake of gain as because they were swept away into an internecine struggle by their ungovernable passions.

Then, with the ordinary conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion, human nature, always ready to offend even where laws exist, showed itself proudly in its true colors, as something incapable of controlling passion, insubordinate to the idea of justice, the enemy to anything superior to itself; for, if it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not so have exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice.

Indeed, it is true that in these acts of revenge on others men take it upon themselves to begin the process of repealing those general laws of humanity which are there to give a hope of salvation to all who are in distress, instead of leaving those laws in existence, remembering that there may come a time when they, too, will be in danger and will need their protection.

…

People always think the greatest war is the one they are fighting at the moment, and when that is over they are more impressed with wars of antiquity; but, even so, this war will prove, to all who look at the facts, that it was greater than the others.

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, late 400s BC

The Post-Cold War Apotheosis of Liberal Managerialism

First Things has just put out an essay by

Nathan Pinkoski

, titled “Actually Existing Postliberalism,” that I think is one of the most intellectually important pieces to be published in some time, and which I’ll go out of my way to recommend here.  

It is essentially a detailed account of how and why the United States government decided it needed to surveil and control the bank accounts and financial transactions of the entire world in the name of fighting terrorism — and then authoritarianism… and then the hazy universal evil of “hate.” More generally, it’s the story of how Western liberalism’s former separation of public and private spheres of life was torn down, thrusting us into our current hellscape of technocratic “global governance,” in which dissidents are liable to find themselves debanked from the financial system in the name of inclusion.

With this account Pinkoski fills in some important gaps in the record by identifying and documenting some of the key figures and decisions-points that led us to where we are now. In particular, he expertly reveals just how bipartisan the scheme to transform national “government” into global “governance” was, with the twin “neoliberal” and “neoconservative” sides of American politics working hand-in-hand to advance the same ambitious revolution after the end of the Cold War.

This includes uncovering some rather spectacular facts and quotes that I at least was unaware of, such as an open declaration by Bill Clinton’s National Security Advisor that America’s post-Cold War strategy would be to “pursue our goals through an enlarged circle not only of government officials but also of private and non-governmental groups,” including “private firms” and “human rights groups,” in order to fight the “intolerant energies of racism” across the planet and isolate “backlash states” “diplomatically, militarily, economically, and technologically.” Which is exactly the foreign policy chimera we got and still labor under decades later.

Or the fact that it was not some shadowy cabal of Blackrock and the UN that first invented manipulative “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) investing standards, but the George W. Bush administration’s national security staff, who noted that private finance “could drive the isolation of rogue entities more effectively than governments” and predicted that “the banks will fall into line” once “our campaigns leveraged the power of this kind of reputational risk.”

Or the timely reminder that in 1989 the supposedly conservative Wall Street Journal declared its commitment to achieving the following constitutional amendment: “there shall be open borders.”

Hence why we ought not be surprised that in 2021 G.W. Bush would stand beside his erstwhile establishment-left opponents on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and declare that the real threat to America comes from “extremists at home,” from the populist Trump supporters who, “in their disdain for pluralism,” are “children of the same foul spirit” as foreign terrorists — and who therefore necessitate that the same regime of coordinated public and private coercive force be applied at home as abroad.

Overall, Pinkoski’s essay powerfully demonstrates just how dramatically different Western “liberal-democratic” countries are from a mere three decades ago. Its publication is also something I’ve been awaiting impatiently for half a year now, because this summer I was present at the romantically-clandestine underground meeting of dissident scholars (aka a First Things seminar) at which Pinkoski originally presented his argument, then in the form of a much longer academic paper.

I was asked to present my own response to Pinkoski’s paper at the gathering, which I did, and which I will publish here below in case it is of interest. (Note that many of the lines cited in my response will not match the shortened version published in First Things, but I’ve decided to leave them unaltered here anyway.) In it, I make two main arguments: that the revolution Pinkoski describes is best thought of as the expansionary process of totalitarian managerialism (as described in The China Convergence), and — more disagreeably — that what he describes as “postliberalism” is in fact the triumph of liberalism unbound.

Definitely read Pinkoski’s essay first though! I expect and very much hope that he will continue to expand on it in the future, and that it will become a much-cited work in the years ahead.

Response to Nathan Pinkoski (N.S. Lyons, Palo Alto, June 2024)

Nathan Pinkoski has produced a bold, detailed, and compelling case study illuminating what is perhaps the signal phenomenon of our era: the abandonment of any meaningful distinction between state and society, between public and private power, and between public and private spheres writ large. In recent decades we have experienced the rapid rise of Western regimes that transcend any such distinction, and which thus — to cut to the point — grow increasingly totalitarian in aspect.

Pinkoski describes this as the collapse of 20th century liberal civilization and its replacement by something new. He has examined this rupture through the history of recent transformations in international monetary policy and finance. This includes the relentless expansion of the EU as a monetary union and then as a federalist empire, accompanied by the swift intrusion of the state into private finance in the name of maintaining stability and security — a trend also pioneered by the U.S. government’s expansive efforts after 9/11 to use state power to freeze first terrorist groups and then entire countries out of the putatively neutral global financial system. In doing so he traces a direct line of evolution from the neoliberal enthusiasms of the post-Cold War era to what he describes as the West’s “actually existing postliberal” present, in which “the fusion of state and society, politics and economics” means political dissidents and cultural thought criminals can now regularly find themselves de-banked by putatively private institutions in the name of “safety” and “reputational risk.”

With this history I can offer no significant disagreement. But it is only a case study of a larger pattern. And if I have any productive criticism to offer, it is that, in prudently limiting his scope to merely the realms of finance, monetary policy, and foreign affairs, Pinkoski has perhaps not been quite bold enough. Without a fuller picture of the leviathan that menaces us, we risk mistaking but one part of the beast for the whole, mere consequences for causes. In fact, let me posit that searching for the source of our era’s public-private collapse among the shadowy decisions of bankers and national security spooks — as noteworthy and telling as these decisions are — is to risk potentially getting causality backwards and understating larger forces at work.

After all, throughout his paper Pinkoski repeatedly notes that various policy decisions defy explanation in terms of pragmatic national interests. The architects of Clinton’s foreign policy are cited themselves describing taking actions they knew were unnecessary but felt to be of alluring “historical consequence.” The opening of borders to mass migration is described as a “quasi-theological event,” a “repudiation of a core culture or a fixed set of national values,” and “a response to Western guilt.” While in general after 1989, as Pinkoski puts it, “On both sides of the Atlantic, the spiritual principle became a resolve to construct a new national, social, and cultural identity.” From my point of view, such language hints that deeper forces were indeed at work. And it might be most profitable for us to try to more clearly uncover and connect at least some of these forces.

A year or so ago I wrote a long essay titled “The China Convergence,” which I bring up here because I think its main themes are quite relevant. Namely, that the same specific form of oligarchic technocratic governance, described by James Burnham and others as “managerialism,” has today successfully taken over almost the whole developed world, West and East alike.

Managerialism is, in short, the instantiated belief that everything can and should be deliberately engineered and managed from the top down, and that this necessitates an expert class of professional managers whose business it is to do so. Rooted in the techniques of bureaucratic organization and “scientific management” that sprang from the revolution of mass and scale brought on by the Industrial Revolution, managerialism took off with the early Progressive movements and flourished following the bureaucratic explosions produced by the two world wars.

Now, the evolutionary genius, so to speak, of managerialism is that it functions constantly to justify its own perpetual expansion. The larger and more complex any organization or system grows, the exponentially more managers seem needed to manage that complexity and the inefficiencies it generates; managers therefore have a strong incentive to ensure that their organization continues to grow larger and more complex, resulting in greater relative power and resources for the managers as a group within the system; more growth means more managers must be hired, who then push for more expansion by rationalizing a need for their cancerous bureaucratic apparatus to take over an ever-larger range of functions; as more and more territory is surrendered to bureaucratic management, more managers must be trained and educated, which requires more managers… and on and on. I call this expansionary dialectic the managerial doom loop.

But this process works just the same at the level of a country, or even an entire civilization, as it does for a company, non-profit, or government agency. The result, in the case of our societies, has been the exponential growth of a “professional managerial class,” with a permanent interest in seeing the continual expansion of managerial control into every area of state, economy, culture, and even international affairs. In this it has wildly succeeded, producing a new kind of regime — the managerial regime — staffed by a constituent managerial class and dominated by a distinct managerial elite. These elites all behave with flock-like similarity, no matter what institution or part of the world they are located in, because they all have the same basic managerial interests and personality.

To begin connecting this back to Pinkoski’s study, these managerial interests have over time in the West congealed ideologically into what we can describe as a managerial consensus: a unifying system of moral and philosophical beliefs that just so happen to not only rationalize the interests of managerial elites, but also to elevate them to a position of moral superiority, serving to legitimize their right to rule. This ideology consists of a number of core tenets, including technocratic scientism, utopian progressivism, a devotion to the “liberation” of individuals from all former norms and constraints (whether of nature or tradition), and an incentive to flatten any particularity of people, nation, or culture so as to produce more “free” individuals — in other words more predictable and easily interchangeable “undifferentiated human material,” as Renaud Camus has put it. R.R. Reno has similarly described the post-WWII ideological complex as the “open society consensus,” which I think is also accurate and an appropriate name for the same thing.

Now, I’ve rehashed these points from my own essay because I would propose that most of the events and decisions that Pinkoski observes in his history can actually be best explained as products of the sweeping advance of managerialism after achieving victory in the Cold War — or rather the victory of one particular form of managerialism: liberal managerialism.

We might divide the ongoing managerial revolution into roughly three eras, the first running from the French Revolution’s Cult of Pure Reason through to WWII; the second through the “post-war” era until 1989; and the third dawning with the end of the Cold War, alongside the concurrent emergence of the digital revolution. The end of the Cold War proved a transformative moment because, with the collapse of the Soviet Union — but before the rise of China — the Western liberal managerial regime appeared to have triumphed over its last remaining major competitor. The world had once contained not one but three rival ideological forms managerialism: liberalism, communism, and fascism. Fascism was crushed in WWII, but for decades Soviet communism still remained a competitor to liberalism. With its fall, however, liberal managerialism was effectively liberated from all restraint, the last dam was broken and the way opened for it to rush into the global power vacuum and seek complete domination.

Pinkoski argues that “1989 unleashed the revolutionary impulse in Western elites.” I concur completely. But what was the nature of this revolutionary impulse, exactly? He writes this in the context of resurgent appetite for both a new European monetary order and a new American security order. Which, true enough, are among the things that Western elites rushed to achieve. But I think these were only expressions of the full revolutionary impulse unleashed within the managerial elite: a giddy urge to fulfill their manifest destiny by expanding the mandate of their managerial apparatus to an unprecedented, truly global scope.

Whereas once these managers’ drive for technocratic control, social engineering, and cultural bulldozing had been largely restricted to the national level, these impulses could now be advanced to their maximum extent — i.e. to the whole world. And so we see the managerial elite almost immediately declare the nation-state obsolete once grander supranational opportunities beckon. The objects of managerial ambition become “global problems” necessitating “global solutions” and indeed “global governance.” Suddenly issues like the flow of “human capital” (aka mass migration) become complexities to be managed at the level of a global system, removing them from the legitimate concern of mere nations. This is the true meaning of the “globalism” which happened to appear at this moment in history: not free trade or anything so utilitarian, per se, but the conceptual expansion of the managerial elite’s eager, grasping reach to the entire planet.

In this context, the American managerial regime’s compulsion to begin attempting to surveil and manage the bank accounts of the whole world is wholly unsurprising — indeed it was essentially inevitable, as was the EU’s thirst for imposing monetary, regulatory, and ideological unity across the whole of Europe (and now beyond, as Elon Musk and others have discovered); as was the reckless expansion of NATO; as was the near-universal transformation of representative democracy into “managed democracy,” and so on. These things happened for exactly the same reason that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” apparatchiks invented themselves and burrowed into all our institutions, and why we now face the emergence of a transnational “censorship industrial complex” determined to minutely manage every word uttered on the internet: managerialism is a cancer, and cancers metastasize, it’s just what they do.

Before I conclude, however, let me address what I expect is one key difference in perspective between Pinkoski and myself: that is, the question of whether or not this managerial regime should be described as “liberal.” Pinkoski calls our actually existing regime “postliberal” on the view that “the cornerstone commitment of liberalism is to a meaningful distinction between society and the state.” But from my perspective that isn’t really a particularly liberal commitment at all; rather, liberalism has always been first and foremost about “liberation” (which is, after all, right there in the name).

Now, I’ve already described liberationism as a key part of managerial ideology, but this is perhaps to understate its centrality. For any managerial regime there is no more important task, no higher calling, than to relentlessly seek to crush the only real threat such a regime can face: any other social force able to compete for the loyalty and obligation of citizens. Any independent social sphere — any guild, association, church, tribe, or family, and any home town, region, or today even nation — is an obstacle to universal management (and to the universal proliferation of managers). For managerialism, all such communities and attachments represent competing power centers, and thus all barriers must urgently be dissolved, all bonds broken, all distinctions homogenized. All bottom-up functions once performed by other social spheres, from insurance against the risks of life to the achievement of personal fulfillment, must be replaced by top-down bureaucratic management. The managerial ideal is the perfect frictionless mass of totally liberated (that is, totally deracinated and atomized) individuals, totally contained within the loving arms of the singular unity of the managerial state. To achieve its utopia of perfect liberty and equality, liberalism requires perfect control.

This ideal is, of course, the very essence of totalitarianism. Yet if we wonder why the distinction between public and private has everywhere collapsed into “the fusion of state and society, politics and economics,” this is the most fundamental reason why. Perhaps, for that matter, this is also why the U.S. and EU now habitually sponsor LGBT groups in Hungary or India, and finance human-trafficking “human rights” NGOs in Central America and the Mediterranean: because managerialism’s blind crusade to crush any competing spheres of social power has gone global.

Did liberalism ever really stand in opposition to this crusade for total liberation? I honestly can’t see a time that it ever did; in fact, it seems to have always served as precisely the universal acid employed to do the job. Dissolving traditional bonds and limits has always been the heart of the liberal project. Thus I’m not sure we can say that liberalism ever held back the invasion of the public into the private; the progressive collapse of that distinction was actually its inevitable outcome. And so I think it’s fair to argue that we don’t yet wander in a postliberal age, but at liberalism’s apogee.

If a new, truly alternative civilization is ever to arrive, it will only do so in the wake of liberal managerialism’s self-induced implosion, and will have to be deliberately constructed — or, rather, reconstructed — out of the very same kind of strong communal and spiritual ties and identities that liberal managerialism has always sought to tear apart and devour.

Twentieth-century civilization has collapsed. It rested on an essential tenet of liberalism: the state-society, public-private distinction. The state-society distinction reached its apogee in the mid-twentieth century, when the triumph and challenges of the postwar moment clarified the importance of defending social freedom from state power, while ensuring that the public realm was not taken over by private interests. Over the last few decades, this distinction has been eroded and finally abandoned altogether. Like it or not, the West is now postliberal.

This is not the same “postliberalism” that we are accustomed to hearing about. Postliberal thinkers from Patrick Deneen to Adrian Pabst have exposed the conceptual problems inherent in liberal theory. Liberals justify the separation of the public realm from the private sphere by appealing to value neutrality. This notion of separation involves a certain moral and metaphysical thinness. The commitment to neutrality is thought to prevent states’ coercing belief through law and force. It protects the private sphere, so that individuals and associations can live out their creeds. Yet by promoting civic neutrality, liberalism socializes us to moderate our ambitions for public life. Against this view, postliberal thinkers argue that the liberal state’s rejection of a substantive vision of the good hollows out politics and civil society. Liberalism produces a state bent on driving tradition and religion out of public life, an atomistic society in which money is the only universally acknowledged good. Postliberal intellectuals contend that if our ruling classes relinquished their liberal commitment to neutral institutions in favor of a substantive vision of the good, we could renew our civilization.

The Brexit referendum and Trump’s election in 2016 revealed the extent of the West’s malaise. Eight years ago, the postliberal critique seemed exciting and relevant, even as liberal intellectuals mounted impressive counterattacks. But these disputations have little to do with how we are actually governed. Governments long ago breached the barrier separating the public and private realms. Nor is the state the only danger, for the supposedly liberal institutions of civil society have given up on neutrality. Cancel culture is ­corporate and academic culture. The financial and tech giants pry into the private lives of ­citizens and punish them for their words and deeds. For quite some time, a substantive vision of the good has already been ruling over both state and society.

Leftist intellectuals were among the first to recognize the collapse of the old liberal separation between state and society. In their view, neoliberalism was to blame. Under Reagan and Thatcher, the private sector began to take over the public one; corporate power took control of the state, and economics captured politics. But this analysis gets ­reality backwards. The state has not been suborned by economic interests. Rather, political interests have come wholly to dominate economic and financial interests, fusing state and society together.

The triumph of the political is most evident in the way today’s debates about liberalism proceed. They are invariably concerned about connecting liberalism to international politics, the postwar liberal international order. To save liberalism, centrist stalwarts call for America to defend the “rules-based” order set up after World War II. It’s a familiar story: In the aftermath of the war, international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were commissioned to establish the bases for an impartial system of economic competition. But because of communism, postwar liberalism had a limited reach. The fall of the Eastern bloc changed that. The end of the Soviet empire vindicated liberalism, and after 1989, liberal institutions could truly become international. Neutral, procedural mechanisms would coordinate divergent interests on a global scale. Now, however, Russia’s military aggression and China’s ascendancy are straining this globalized system. Populists undermine it at home. So laments the narrative.

Faced with recent events, liberal intellectuals allow that they were too optimistic about the prospects for global cooperation after 1989 and may have oversold the benefits of economic freedom. Many concede that the critics of neoliberalism are right, at least in part. Yet questioning the economic decisions of the past thirty years does nothing to undermine the mythology of a continuous postwar liberal international order. Accepting the neoliberal critique allows the stalwarts of the center to shield geopolitical ­decisions—­often their own decisions—from deeper criticism. Their modified narrative—­mistakes were made in implementing a universally acknowledged global good—conceals the fact that the liberal principles that centrist intellectuals urge us to defend had already been abandoned in the international realm.

The international situation tells the tale of postwar liberalism’s breakdown most clearly. Neutral institutions, particularly financial ones, have been weaponized to serve political ends. In this realm, the erosion of the distinction between state and society has been quiet and subtle, yet startlingly effective. The political transformation of world finance has driven domestic upheavals and reordered the way we are governed. It is the engine of the West’s great transformation from liberal modernity to something new—to actually existing postliberalism.

The first sign that we don’t live in the old postwar liberal international order is that the economic system underwriting it has long ceased to exist. In August 1971, Richard ­Nixon decided to suspend the convertibility of the dollar to gold. The change shattered the economic system established at Bretton Woods during the final stages of World War II. Nixon’s decision initially shocked the global financial system, but it laid the foundation for American financial ascendancy. The dollar replaced gold as the backstop of global finance. Thus, as the United States entered the first stages of de-industrialization in the 1980s, American economic and political power did not decline, as experts anticipated. Nor did anyone really comprehend the tremendous political advantages implicit in the transition from a gold standard to a global economy based on America’s fiat currency. The American political classes were, at least at that time, only dimly aware of their own capabilities. They were focused on other objectives.

On July 3, 1989, months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Wall Street Journal affirmed its commitment to the following constitutional amendment: “there shall be open borders.” The surprise events of the following November provided the opportunity to implement this vision of a truly global economy committed to the free movement of goods, capital, and labor. But just as the Wall Street Journal editorial had opined that more minorities were needed to help Americans “acquire a renewed view of our own difficult past,” so openness meant advancing the spirit of anti-discrimination further than ever before. This imperative set the transatlantic tone for the next few years. In 1990, Congress raised immigration to unprecedented levels to boost economic growth. It also abolished much of the English-language testing for naturalization and made it easier for homosexuals to immigrate to the United States. That same year, the Schengen Convention proposed the abolition of all border controls within Europe. In 1991, Congress passed new civil rights legislation that cemented in place the doctrine of disparate impact. To abolish discrimination on the basis of sex, the European Court of Justice overturned national laws that prohibited businesses from assigning women nighttime shift work. Open borders, free trade, and the open society: It seemed that neoliberalism’s triumph was complete.

From the vantage point of the 1990s, it looked like the Americans and Europeans were using the opportunity presented by the collapse of the Soviet Empire to construct a genuinely liberal global system. Economic affairs would be liberated from statist, political competition, the crude power contests of the past.

Utopianism of that sort may have animated commentators such as Thomas Friedman, and it’s still the way the stalwarts of the center recall the moment’s aspirations. But this account downplays the political and economic anxieties of the period. 1989 had set off a discreet but decisive geopolitical contest within the West. The Europeans were using the opportunity of 1989 to take continental integration to unprecedented levels, laying the groundwork for the Euro. Led by the French, they dreamed of building a new continental powerhouse that could challenge the United States. German unification was set to be the cornerstone of a single sovereign Europe. Yet George H. W. Bush made American support for German unification conditional on the French and West Germans’ preserving NATO and expanding it into East Germany. It was a cunning move. By keeping NATO alive, Bush forestalled European geopolitical independence. As the Cold War ended, the rationale for military and economic dependence on the United States receded. Yet the first Bush administration engineered events so that American political and economic power over the rest of the West became greater than ever before.

After 1989, the United States enjoyed supreme military power. In the coming years, it would occasionally attempt to exert its influence through these means. These efforts bore mixed results. Bush Sr. would preside over the swift success of the 1991 Gulf War; he would ­also set in motion the events that led to the disaster of Mogadishu in 1993. Yet military misadventures did little to alter America’s role as global hegemon. American financial power became the true engine of dominion. The United States took charge of the globalized economy and turned it into a powerful weapon.

When Bill Clinton took office, he continued the pursuit of openness. In 1993, he ratified NAFTA and relaxed the ban on homosexuals in the military. However, he made it clear that the old liberalism was not enough. Eager to extend the reach of democracy and confront foreign enemies who stood in its way, his administration developed new tools to advance America’s global power. In September, National Security Advisor Anthony Lake outlined a new paradigm. His speech, “From Containment to Enlargement,” bespeaks a political revolution. It provided the blueprint not only for the foreign policy agenda of nearly every U.S. president since then, but for the convictions of every right-thinking person. Lake’s speechwriter was Anthony Blinken.

Lake began by denouncing neo-isolationism on the left and right. Its source, he asserted, lies in misguided economic anxiety. The speech contained the usual promises that global free trade would bring prosperity for all. But the economic benefit to American citizens was an afterthought. The speech focused on America’s new global political program. With the elimination of the “big, red blob” of communism, the United States would focus on expanding the world’s “blue areas” of market democracies—on regime change.

Yet the policy of enlargement was not just about using American military might to expand liberal democracy. Enlargement, Lake argued, had a second meaning. It was about developing and enhancing state-society partnerships. The Clintonians were learning from domestic politics. In that sphere, they were launching a revolution from “government” to “governance,” what Christopher Caldwell describes as the “great innovation of the Clinton administration.”

Borrowing from management theory, the Clintonians wanted government to expand to involve social actors. These actors were not held to the same rules of conduct as state actors were, and therefore could act much more effectively. By leaning on social actors, leaders could bypass state actors responsible to the electorate and could get good results. Domestic lessons set the precedent; after all, the civil rights revolution was conducted as a state-­society project. Court decisions had established the significant liabilities facing private organizations should they fail to be vigilant agents of anti-­discrimination. And private organizations learned to become very effective agents of this new political project. They had their vision of justice and wanted to achieve it. It was too important to leave that task to slow-moving governments. By the early nineties, there were now legions of NGOs, corporations, philanthropic associations, academics, entrepreneurs, journalists, and bureaucrats who expected to have a say in politics. They did not see themselves as bound by national loyalties, restricted by certain borders, or subject to rigid accountability structures. In the new era of “governance,” this dispersion of control was something to celebrate. It’s no surprise that Lake’s speech targeted “centralized power” as the enemy hindering the spread of the “blue” hue. Globalization’s interpreters, wedded to narratives about the obsolescence or privatization of the state, passed over the true significance of these changes. What was really happening was the deformation of the state.

The Clinton administration saw that achieving their foreign policy revolution would require looking beyond the state, just as the civil rights revolution had done at home. “We should pursue our goals through an enlarged circle not only of government officials but also of private and non-­governmental groups,” Lake argued, naming a range of social actors, from “private firms” to “­human rights groups.”

The Clintonians were offering the first theory of global management directed to geopolitical and moral objectives: a substantive vision of the good. State and social actors would be coordinated to fight the “intolerant energies of racism” abroad. They would confront what Lake called “backlash states,” isolating them “diplomatically, militarily, economically, and technologically.” Although he didn’t go into detail, Lake also portrayed America’s “financial” resources as “national security resources.”

Those resources were quickly put into action. As Clinton adviser James Steinberg said, “We succeeded in something that had been tried ­ever since the early seventies, which was bringing the economics into the heart of national ­security decision-­making.” Over the next few decades, the Clintonians and their successors would devise increasingly ingenious ways to put economics at the service of politics. They used America’s financial super-eminence to project political power abroad, imposing American aims without risking ­American lives.

The critics of neoliberalism recall the nineties as a time of idealistic, even naive commitment to economic cooperation. That criticism describes the peculiar American submissiveness toward China, but not much else. By the end of 1994, the Clinton administration had decided that Russia must be treated as a political competitor. “Neo-containment” was not mentioned publicly, but it was mentioned privately. Capitalizing on Moscow’s economic weakness, the Americans used their financial power to achieve their vision of enlargement; in this case, the NATO expansion that Mikhail Gorbachev had been assured in 1990 would not happen. “I think Russia can be bought off,” Clinton told Dutch prime minister Willem Kok in 1995. Under Clinton, the ­United States became Russia’s largest foreign investor. Ostensibly neutral international economic institutions were brazenly altered to serve American strategic ends. Seeing Boris Yeltsin as more moderate than the alternatives and fearing he might lose the 1996 election, the Clinton administration persuaded the IMF to give him a $10.2 billion loan, with few of the usual conditions. Yeltsin spent his way to victory.

These measures employed the carrots that American financial hegemony made possible. The sticks were even more inventive. When Yugoslavia fell apart in 1992, ethnic cleansing began, and the Serbians became the chief international pariah. In his last year in office, Bush Sr. had implemented several rounds of state-based sanctions. Clinton changed the paradigm, employing a public-private partnership that would become the norm. In April 1993 the U.S. began its first experiment with “smart sanctions.” The Clinton administration pioneered the move away from targeting states to targeting the individuals who governed the states, hitting their economic and social networks. Sanctions were imposed on Slobodan Milosevic and his entourage, freezing them out of the dollar-based international economy—effectively “unpersoning” them as economic agents. The objective was not just to try to change Milosevic’s behavior or signal moral disapproval of his actions, but also to undermine his popular support and his position as head of government. Smart sanctions looked like regime change on the cheap, changing the leadership of a national government without sponsoring bloody military operations.

The use of “smart sanctions” set a powerful precedent. Targeting individuals and their supporting institutions created new opportunities and fresh justifications for American policymakers to project influence around the world. As these uses of American financial power expanded, however, the liberal foundations of twentieth-century civilization crumbled.

Defenders of the old paradigm intuited that the new state-society partnerships could undermine the neutral reputation of America’s global economic leadership. Because of the dollarization of global finance, the credibility of the global financial system depended on international confidence in the impartiality of the United States Treasury. In the face of pressures from the American foreign-policy and security bureaucracy to act otherwise, Treasury bureaucrats tried to adhere to the liberal principle of state neutrality with respect to economic affairs. In the 1990s, the US intelligence community wanted Treasury to use its knowledge of the financial system to help disrupt the bank accounts of a terrorist organization then operating through Sudan. Treasury said no: The risk to America’s liberal credibility would be too great. The terrorist organization was al-Qaeda.

When George W. Bush entered office in 2001, he did so as a liberal. His signature initiative was supposed to be implementing capital and labor mobility across the whole continent. The summer 2001 Summit of the Americas drafted plans for expanding NAFTA, launching a “Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)” by 2005.

Bush may have dreamt of spreading liberalism more broadly than his father did. But his legacy is the opposite. Under his administration, the ­United States overturned the liberal financial system of impartial rules free of political manipulation. The apolitical neutrality of global finance slipped away. Financiers became willing instruments of U.S. foreign policy, reorienting themselves and their institutions to serve increasingly bellicose political objectives.

Globalization’s theorists often paint a picture of a global village, a decentralized community of relative equals. But globalization was always much more centralized and asymmetrical. Globalization is better understood as a hub-and-spokes arrangement, where emerging markets depend on established “hubs” to connect them to other markets. Because almost all transactions must pass through these hubs, they require the hubs’ approval. This is particularly true with respect to international finance. New York serves as the world’s most important financial hub, not just because of the size of its capital markets, but more importantly because the dominance of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, making access to the American financial system critical. The essential role of American financial institutions in the weal and woe of very nearly every major economic actor in the world confers on the United States government a vast power. Previous officials at the Department of Treasury grasped that power, but they shunned it in the name of liberalism. Under Bush, that would change.

Building on the Clintonian experiments in smart sanctions, some innovative officials working in Treasury agreed that traditional state-to-state policy coordination was inadequate to achieve the desired results. They discerned that private institutions, especially money-center banks, which financed and processed commercial interactions, could achieve the ends of state policy far more effectively than the traditional tools of statecraft. If private sector financial institutions cooperated with U.S. government agencies, great results could be achieved.

After September 11, 2001, the innovators were provided with a unique opportunity to put their proposals into action. To strike back at al-Qaeda, they banished the old liberal mentality and its hesitations about weaponizing the private economy. One of the innovators, Juan Zarate, said: “We realized that private-sector ­actors—most importantly, the banks—could drive the isolation of rogue entities more effectively than governments—based principally on their own interests and desires to avoid unnecessary business and reputational risk.” State actors started this process, but private actors did the essential work. “When governments appear to be isolating rogue financial actors, the banks will fall into line . . . Our campaigns leveraged the power of this kind of reputational risk.”

On September 23, two weeks after the attacks, Bush signed Executive Order 13224. “We’re putting banks and financial institutions around the world on notice,” he declared. “If you do business with terrorists, if you support or sponsor them, you will not do business with the United States of ­America.” The emergency executive order was broad. It enabled the targeting of financial supporters of terrorism, terrorist-owned companies or businesses, and those “associated” with them. Any bank that permitted dubious accounts or transactions to go through it risked having its American assets frozen by the U.S. government. In effect, it would be expelled from the U.S.-based international system, destroying its reputation as a trustworthy financial institution. The order created an atmosphere of ­liability for global financial institutions, just as civil rights laws had done for domestic corporations. A failure to be vigilant brought penalties. The purpose was to encourage banks to be proactive about assessing the risks associated with certain clients. The government was deputizing key players in the private economy to become its enforcers.

As its advocates anticipated, this approach to choking off funding for terrorist organizations was transformative. No bank wanted to get cut off from the U.S. banking system. Moreover, the Bush administration provided a legal framework that invigorated nongovernmental entities to target banks deemed insufficiently proactive. Banks were closely scrutinized for breaches of sanctions.

The Treasury also turned its attention to inducing international institutions to fight terrorist financing. Early on, the G7, IMF, and World Bank were brought into the sanctions regime. These measures, however, did not go far enough. To cripple al-Qaeda’s finances, the U.S. government needed information about bank-to-bank transfers. But this information is held in the databases of a private, obscure organization that serves as the switchboard for most of the world’s financial system: the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT).

The U.S. had tried to get information from SWIFT in the past. Under Bush Sr., a team led by Robert Mueller tried to subpoena SWIFT’s messaging system. But they had no legal authority to do so. In accord with liberal principles, communications among market actors enjoy a presumptive right of privacy. The action produced no results. After 9/11, Treasury took a different approach. It simply asked SWIFT to cooperate and provide the U.S. government with access to its transactions. SWIFT’s CEO demurred. He stressed the organization’s need to remain apolitical and neutral. The system’s ­European clientele were particularly sensitive to invasions of privacy. But SWIFT and the U.S. government developed a workaround. In public SWIFT would proclaim its neutrality. In private it would collaborate, developing a clandestine program for sharing financial information with U.S. officials. To keep SWIFT on board, government officials had to concede to the organization a significant and ongoing role in the design and implementation of the program of monitoring all global transactions. This meant providing SWIFT with classified information about terrorist suspects and their supporting organizations. The public-private partnership became profound.

The Patriot Act provided the Treasury with another powerful tool. Section 311 gives the Treasury secretary the power to label an institution risky in view of suspected money-laundering. The vagueness was ideal for targeting financial institutions. The U.S. government did not need to freeze assets directly, something difficult to do when money-­laundering is only suspected, not proved. Private banks, by contrast, are not legally constrained in this way. They are free to cease doing business with whomever they choose. Section 311 provided a powerful incentive for banks to do exactly as the Treasury recommends, to offload any entity deemed an institutional risk.

New state-society partnerships, erected on a scaffold of post–9/11 legislation, executive orders, and secret SWIFT cooperation, enabled policy-makers in government to wage the wars that American soldiers couldn’t. Beginning in 2003, after the Bush administration had turned its attention to rogue regimes and had boots on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Treasury went much further. In the following years, banks in Syria, Belarus, Burma, and Ukraine would all be hit with the new publicly mandated, privately imposed sanctions. In 2005, a Section-311 action against a small bank in Macau that did business with North Korea, Banco Delta Asia (BDA), turned the institution into a financial pariah. By July 2006, even the Bank of China, concerned to protect its reputation, froze North Korean accounts related to BDA. The final years of the Bush administration saw similar tactics deployed against Iran. The U.S. cut dollarized transactions for Iranian oil out of New York; the European Union followed with similar actions designed for European banks.

In just a few years, the Treasury had moved beyond targeting terrorist suspects to going after financial institutions associated with national governments deemed enemies, to hitting the financial institutions of targeted governments themselves. The Bush administration marked the definitive end of the old liberal financial paradigm. The private sphere would never be the same. The tradition of bank secrecy has been a quiet but obvious casualty. Banks have changed the way they understand risk. Before, banks had given priority to client privacy. A bank that divulged information about its clients was deemed too risky to work with. How can you thrive in the marketplace when your competitors know all about your financial affairs? Now, banks were eager to expose their clients to scrutiny, at first only secretly in accord with demands by government officials, but soon also those of politically engaged organizations. This explains why “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) norms, or “socially responsible investing,” took off during the Bush years. The major banks that helped launch ESG described it as risk management, with risk now defined in political terms: national security, environmental responsibility, and social justice. By encouraging companies to expand their definition of risk, the Treasury accelerated these trends. Compliance with the law was not enough; the objective was to create and expand a new notion of good corporate citizenship. Incentives and liabilities were put in place to encourage the market itself to enforce the new consensus on what risk meant. Private actors might occasionally resist the politicization of economic life, but most often they accepted the new terms and promoted them as “good for business.”

The direction of financial means toward political ends could be accomplished only with the ­cooperation of banks and other private entities. Private actors in civil society did not oppose this cooperation. Rather than check the power of the state, as liberal theorists stipulate, the private sphere of global finance collaborated with the state. Far from limiting the state, private economic actors have enhanced its powers and extended its reach, all the while changing their own understanding of their mission, the requirements of corporate citizenship, and the contours of citizenship itself.

Barack Obama took the new paradigm further. When he made gay rights a cornerstone of American foreign policy, the strategy to ensure their spread relied on state-society partnerships. Hillary Clinton’s signature 2011 speech on gay rights promised to “support the work of civil society organizations working on these issues around the world.” Breaking from prior U.S. practice, these organizations could conceal the source of their funds, hiding their connection to the U.S. government in order to pretend that gay rights was a grassroots movement.

Contrary to his hawkish critics, Obama wasn’t fixed only on “soft power.” In 2011, American conservatives were mocking Obama for “leading from behind” in the Libyan campaign, criticizing his reluctance to use American troops. This criticism was myopic. His administration was setting aggressive new precedents. Using the state-society partnership the Treasury had pioneered, the U.S. froze $37 billion of Libyan assets—at the time, the largest sequestration of assets in history. It marked the first time these financial sanctions had been used with the explicit intention of toppling a government. In January 2012, the Obama administration decided to strangle Iran. It invoked Section 311 against the country’s entire banking sector, including its central bank. This was the first time the measure had been used against another country’s central bank. Soon after, SWIFT crossed a rubicon from neutrality to partisanship in international relations. It sanctioned an entire country, expelling Iranian banks from its system. The Obama administration pivoted to negotiate with Iran about its nuclear program, and the Iranians, under intense financial pressure, were willing to talk.

These years were the high point of sanctions diplomacy. It was far less visible and militaristic than the British Empire’s gunboat diplomacy, but it seemed just as effective. At one administration holiday party in 2011, the director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sang “Every little thing we do is sanctions,” to the tune of The Police’s “Every little thing she does is magic.” The approach seemed invincible. With an array of state-society partnerships, the United States could get whatever it wanted.

In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea. Stunned, the U.S. leveled up its sanction regime, striking for the first time at a great power. The scale of what was required demanded close cooperation among U.S. agencies and across the European and American financial sectors. It was, to say the least, a messy moment. The Obama administration itself hesitated, troubled by the old liberal voice of conscience. Toward the end of his term, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew worried that the American politicization of the global financial system might turn more countries against it. Moreover, it was ­unclear whether sanctions were as effective as their enthusiasts thought. Though Russia’s economy weakened, this development probably had more to do with to the decline in oil prices. Russia certainly did not withdraw from Crimea.

From his use of tariffs to individual sanctions on International Criminal Court prosecutors ­going after American soldiers, Donald Trump’s foreign policy generated apoplectic commentary: He was destroying the liberal international order! Yet Trump did not invent these tools. His innovations were to use them extensively against China and bring the tools to bear as part of hard-edged diplomatic bargaining. Along the way, his administration was ready to treat hostile legal activists like corrupt oligarchs. That’s why more sophisticated critics of Trump didn’t reject the tools. They planned to use them better than he did.

After Biden was sworn in as president, his administration shelved a plan to overhaul sanctions policy. A consensus held that if the kinks of the past could be worked out, then the Americans and Europeans had all the weapons in place to launch a devastating financial first strike against their preferred targets. Planning began in the first year of the new administration, with Secretary Blinken’s State Department taking the lead. So by February 2022, just as the Russian invasion of Ukraine faltered, the arrangements were already in place. The strategic possibilities seemed limitless. Russia could be brought to its knees; Putin would follow in the ignominious footsteps of ­Milosevic and Gaddafi.

The execution of the strike was dazzling. The scale, especially the involvement of SWIFT and the targeting of Russia’s central bank, caught the Kremlin by surprise. It was ­Barbarossa for the twenty-­first century. Yet the first strike did not yield the promised results. Nor did the second, third, or fourth. Putin’s approval ratings soared, Russia’s industrial output increased, and its military continues to grind away at the Ukrainian army. Despite implementing nearly 6,000 sanctions in two-plus years, the euphoria of spring 2022 (let alone that of the holiday parties of 2011) is long gone. Although American policymakers have said again and again that they have mobilized a global coalition against Russia that has left the country isolated, that is not the case. The map of the countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia closely resembles the map of the countries that have legalized same-sex marriage. Economic warfare against Russia has exposed the limits of the global American empire.

Washington’s “geoeconomic,” sanctions-­driven strategy of “enlargement” failed, and the deep state knows it. In July, the Washington Post quoted a ­variety of active and former government officials who now criticize the excessive dependence on sanctions, including Obama’s deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes. The Post also revealed that the state–society partnership is faltering. The business world has overwhelmed the federal bureaucracy with inquiries about how to implement sanctions and against whom. Corporations are thus forced to make many national security–­related decisions themselves. And the crisis is not just operational. American officials now realize that no reasonable observer believes the American-­led global financial system is still neutral. As a consequence, many countries are building alternatives. In the long run, the rise of alternative financial markets and intermediaries threatens the dollar’s status as a reserve currency and thus the financial foundation of American power.

Does the failure of sanctions against Russia mean a return to the old liberal tradition of public-private separation? Evidence suggests that the answer is “no.” Rhodes sees the foreign-policy problem, but he doesn’t grasp the effects of these changes in the domestic realm. The fusion of political power with economic power seems likely to increase, and as the political friend-enemy lines get redrawn, the application will become more ruthless. In his speech for the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, George W. Bush declared:

We have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within. There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.

Whether the enemy is abroad or at home, whether they are al-Qaeda terrorists or domestic rioters, they are essentially the same, and must be confronted with the same security tools.

In February 2022, just before Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, the Canadian government deployed the financial weapons of war against its own citizens. Canadians who had donated to the Truckers Convoy found themselves barred from accessing their bank accounts and savings. At least 76 bank accounts were frozen, assets totaling 3.2 million CAD. Many were aghast and placed the blame for “de-banking” on Canadian prime minister ­Justin Trudeau—guilty of a dictatorial misuse of the state of emergency, just like his father. But that is obsolete thinking. The measures the ­Canadian state invoked were successfully employed because they enjoyed the enthusiastic ­cooperation of Canadian banks. State and corporate goals had been fused together long before the 2022 Truckers Convoy. Like 9/11, Covid was an opportunity. It enabled states to perfect policies that they were experimenting with and which corporations were encouraging.

Actually existing postliberalism may have advanced furthest in Canada. Yet de-banking has become more and more common in the West. Tactics once employed against al-Qaeda are used against citizens deemed “children of the same foul spirit.” In 2022, the National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF) had its account with JP Morgan Chase closed. Chase said it might consider reopening it if NCRF divulged some of its donors’ names. Although Chase changed its story several times, the bank insists that it is complying with federal regulations on money laundering and terrorism. ­Fidelity Charitable has brought to bear similar pressures to break donor anonymity at the Alliance Defending Freedom. In June 2023, the UK bank Coutts and Co. suddenly closed Nigel Farage’s account. This decision was later exposed as politically motivated, as an internal dossier had concluded that Farage was “xenophobic and pandering to racists.” In the investigation that followed the scandal, the Financial Conduct Authority reports that UK banks are closing almost 1,000 accounts every day, a massive increase over prior years.

After the Farage de-banking scandal, British leftists observed that free speech isn’t the main issue; account closures disproportionately affect British Muslims. They have a point. De-banking is not new in Britain. It took off in 2014, when HSBC started shutting the accounts of well-known British Muslims without providing a reason. Just over a year before, in a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. government, HSBC had accepted internal monitoring to help the bank comply with money laundering and sanction laws.

Widely accepted changes in the domestic legal and financial order have banished liberal norms. As part of ever-­tightening anti-terrorist laws, governments require banks to monitor potential terrorist financing themselves. For banks, de-banking—the euphemism is “de-risking”—is necessary for responsible risk management and regulatory compliance, given present realities. Whether one strikes at conservatives, Muslims, those with ties to Brexit, or those with Russian names, there’s a pattern. Just as civil rights law allows corporations to enforce DEI ideology across the whole business world, so anti-terrorism law allows corporations to enforce political loyalty tests across the whole financial system. We are seeing in domestic life what has been happening at the global level since the 1990s. Civil society, especially its economic dimension, is being weaponized. Those who threaten the regime, or who give even the appearance of being the sort of person who might pose a threat, are at risk of being made non-persons.

As with so much in the era of actually existing postliberalism, the frankest description of its vision comes from Tony Blair. In 2006, then prime minister Blair said that the “traditional civil liberty arguments are not so much wrong, as just made for another age.” Soon after, his home secretary John Reid elaborated. The previous age—the postwar age—began in response to concerns about the threat the “fascist state” posed to individuals, Reid said. Today, the threat comes from “fascist individuals,” not fascist states. This new threat—that of bad actors among us—calls for a new state-society arrangement. “Effective security,” Reid argued, “now relies on the participation of a much wider range of ­actors—from governments and public bodies, to companies and people . . . networks of public and private organizations have a joint role in guaranteeing local, national and international security.” In short, liberalism was a product of the postwar moment. Its time has ended. After the conclusion of the Cold War, British elites traded on the glories of the postwar moment to purify the British people, removing the stains of xenophobia, ­Euroskepticism, and racism. But when pressed, these elites thought the postwar era offered little of lasting significance beyond antifascism. Indeed, according to the new Blairite standards, more enlightened Brits might come to conclude that the whole postwar era seemed like a rather dangerous time. How many fascist individuals had been walking about then? How much fan mail had Enoch Powell received? One shudders at the prospect. Better to trust Blair and his successors, all the way down to Keir Starmer, to lead us into a safer, purer age.

Some revolutionary epochs are beset by the illusion of change. As Alexis de Tocqueville saw, the architects of the French Revolution—the 1789ers—relied on the powerful tool of a centralized state and the freedom of action made possible by a hollowed-out civil society, both created by the old regime. By contrast, the epoch of actually existing postliberalism is beset by the illusion of continuity. Its architects—the 1989ers—came into positions of power and influence just as the Cold War was ending. They knew very little of the war itself and almost nothing of its beginning. But they justified their ambitious geopolitical projects by tracing a long line of continuity back through the Cold War to the Second World War. The West’s victories over communism, fascism, and racism could be stretched further and further afield, isolating and destroying “backward states” and “rogue actors.” On these terms, the ’89ers imagined that they were the next generation of defenders of a continuous liberal tradition. But their actions indicate otherwise. Their substantive vision of the good didn’t just run up against hard limits in the last few years. It devoured liberalism. The ’89ers reconfigured the whole international system away from the liberal principles they ostensibly cherished. In due course, the domestic sphere has been bent to this new order.

The central drama of the last three decades has been the fusion of state and society. The ’89ers ushered in actually existing postliberalism, a society in which governmental power, cultural power, and economic power are coordinated to buttress regime security and punish the impure. 1989 heralded not the triumph of liberalism but its downfall. However, many refuse to recognize—or cannot recognize—how profoundly the West has changed. Our task is to live in the world into which we are thrown, to see it accurately, and to push it in a better direction.

Nathan Pinkoski is research fellow at the Institute for Philosophy, Technology, and Politics.

Famous anarchist theorist, revolutionary and a renowned explorer of Siberia, Peter Kropotkin’s memoirs were published in 1898, written in Russian but originally printed in English in The Atlantic Monthly. They were later slightly revised and expanded, and this final version is what we currently have and which I have just read.

It is a very clearly and, I think, objectively written book. Kropotkin begins with his privileged childhood.  He was born into the house of Prince Kropotkin, one of the most influential aristocrats, close to the emperor, living in a palace in Saint Petersburg. Kropotkin tends to underplay the privileged environment into which he was born, but he does not deny it. The book then moves chronologically: his years at the elite page academy of the Court, decision not to go into the expected military service but to move to Siberia which he explored and about which he wrote several seminal geological and geographical treatises; and then onto the political activity, prison in Russia, escape to western Europe, forty years of life in exile… Since the book ends much before the October Revolution and even before the split between social-democratic and communist wings, these issues are obviously not treated. But the schism between the Marx-dominated faction of the First International and Bakunin’s anarchist faction is discussed. And attacks on state socialism, propagated by Engels and Marx (this was written before the codification of Marxism, so the two famous names are written in an unusual order) are sustained and frequent.  

Kropotkin returned to Russia after the October revolution. The role of anarchists in the Revolution was not negligible but their later fate was not pleasant. Kropotkin however was too old, and died in Moscow in 1921, just days before the Kronstadt rebellion. He was buried in Moscow and it was the last time that anarchists’ black flags were freely unfurled in the Soviet Union. Today, one of Moscow’s metro stations bears Kropotkin’s name.

Politically, the most interesting period treated in The Memoirs is the one after the Crimean War and emancipation of serfs in 1861. He writes about the contradictory nature of Alexander II who oscillated between being the Tsar—liberator and the Tsar—reactionary, and whose very death at the hands of Russian revolutionaries exhibited the conflicting strivings of his soul. Alexander was killed when, after the initial assassination attempt failed, he, alone among all, jumped out of his car to help the injured guard; that provided an easy target for the second assassin, and he did not miss.

Kropotkin’s descriptions of the revolutionary life in the Russia of the 1860s are hyper-realistic. But to the reader today, the entire Russian existence seems to be that of a land of wonders. The relationship between political offenses and punishments meted out is not only a product of arbitrariness (for which a nice Russian word proizvol’ exists) but the outcome of an almost infinite randomness.

To visualize it, assume that your political sin (emancipation of labor, printing of non-authorized literature, attendance of anti-government rallies, violent attacks on police, assassination of the dignitaries) is written on a piece of paper which is then put into an enormous machine that produces the sentence. The machine is geared to produce harsh sentences; sentences that are often written before the crime is committed. Next, let this piece of paper with your crime move to a second, attached, machine which is managed by a capricious God. That second machine revises the sentence; the sentence of exile can become one of being hanged, or, differently, of immediate freedom; it can lead you to a decade in jail or to be released and feted by liberal intelligentsia today. The first machine was described by Kafka in his Penal Colony (inspired by Dostoyevsky); the second is from Borges’ short story in which every individual passes through all possible positions in life, from a ruler to a homeless, entirety at the will of capricious gambling chance. Thus, the Russia of the 1860s, and perhaps the one of today, appears as a blend of Kafka and Borges. 

For a rational mind, it is very difficult to see not only how such punishments help the government, but not to notice that the capriciousness, randomness, and indeed sloppiness  with which punishments are executed become entirely counterproductive from the point of view of the rulers’ own interests.

Take Kropotkin’s case. He was followed by the secret police for “going to the people”, i.e., organizing lectures on socialism and anarchism among workers in St. Petersburg and several other cities in Russia. He would move from his home (probably dressed in the fineries), change into mud-stained boots, short coat (that we learn distinguished the workers from the rich), rough shirt, and move through dark St Petersburg alleyways until he reached a badly-lit warehouse where twenty or thirty workers and a couple of young intellectuals (camouflaged like Kropotkin in people’s attire) would meet to discuss George Berkeley, David Hume, Chernyshevsky, Jesus Christ and human freedom in general. Kropotkin was eventually arrested—but even that arrest had several unusual moments, including being foretold to the potential prey which led Kropotkin to hide and destroy all incriminating evidence; and where the arrest, perhaps because of his family background, needed a clearance from the top powers. Kropotkin is thrown into the infamous Peter and Paul Fortress, in a tiny cell (whose sketch is provided in the memoirs) where he is held for a year in solitary confinement: able to make eight paces only and to see a tiny piece of St Petersburg translucent Nordic-blue or entirely dark sky. But in such a room, he is, after a while, allowed to have his family send him food daily and is visited by the Grand Duke (the brother of the Emperor) who, according to Kropotkin, tries, through apparent amicability, to extract confession from him.

Kropotkin is afterwards, because of his loss of weight and general weakness, sent to a prison hospital that is so poorly guarded that he is able to plot his daring escape with a dozen of revolutionaries, some of whom are also in jail and others free. The plans are made and remade almost daily as if the plotters had access to the modern internet and were totally free to write and then revise various escape scenarios. Finally, in a rocambolesque way, Kropotkin escapes, and while the Klondike-like police chases him, he and his accomplices decide to spend the evening in the plushest restaurant of St Petersburg where police does not do razzias.

What was the crime for which he and his comrades, among whom women played an extraordinary important and brave role (as Kropotkin repeatedly mentions), were accused of? Creating a cultural revolution in the Russian countryside by telling the liberated but indebted peasants that they are no different from the nobles, that they have the right to a free life, and that they should rebel, burn the aristocratic estates and disobey the Emperor. The young educated people of St Petersburg and Moscow who went “to the people” (similar to those sent by Mao into the peasant communes a century later) numbered, according to Kropotkin, only some 3,000 individuals. They gave up all comforts of their previous lives. Many moved to villages, working there as ordinary journeymen or toiling the land, with the goal of bringing Russian peasants out of their millennial turpitude and teaching them how to be free. They, and again particularly so the women, did it with an unbelievable self-abnegation, dedication, courage and seriousness.  

They did not shy of “direct action”. While Kropotkin does not explicitly endorse assassinations, he underlines the reasons that lead to them. The line between the tyrannicide and terrorism was always thin. Kropotkin approves of the assassination of his own relative who was governor of Kharkov and enacted some harsh measures against the revolutionaries.

The West European part of the memoirs is interesting even if less exciting. It takes place after the suppression of the Paris Commune, in an atmosphere of police persecution, hangings, semi-legal printing presses, contraband of revolutionary tracts from Switzerland into France.  Kropotkin is most of the time, living (like Lenin later) in Switzerland, working on political agitation with the famous Association des Horlogers Jurassiens. He criticizes state socialism of German social-democrats whom he accuses of  aiming only at political power while disregarding moral transformation, indeed the cultural revolution, needed to save humankind.

Kropotkin’s ideas regarding the societal organization that would be built in concentric circles from the lowest to the highest level, would abolish the state, and organize production among the publicly-owned cooperatives that would not compete with each other but labor in free association and self-help looks irremediably naïve. It is not surprising that Marxists, and later Leninists, thought it was a fairy tale.

But perhaps that humans, at times, need visionaries, the selfless individuals who produce fairy tales and reading Kropotkin may be a way to try, at least for a moment, to believe in them. A young friend to whom I mentioned reading Kropotkin’s memoirs, and not expecting she would know of him, immediately replied: “We are reading him now to fight climate change and to help self-organization of society.”

In just thirteen minutes, four Kalashnikov rifles, knives, and plastic bottles of gasoline,   discharged by four men,  were not enough to kill and injure so many people as have been accounted for to date in the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow.

More than half those examined so far in post-mortems “died as a result of the fire from exposure to high temperature and combustion products”, according to Alexander Bastrykin, the chief investigator in his public report to President Vladimir Putin on Monday night.  Post-mortems have yet to be reported for one-third of the 139 dead counted by Bastrykin; no analysis of the cause of injuries to 182 of the surviving casualties has been reported yet; 93 of them remain in hospital.  

Bastrykin also reported “two AK-74 assault rifles, over 500 rounds of ammunition, 28 magazines with ammunition, and bottles with remaining gasoline were found and seized at the scene.” A NATO military expert explains: “They didn’t strike me as well-trained, so they lost time changing magazines and their fire wasn’t all that accurate. These data tell me the majority of victims died from some other cause than gunshot.”

Yevgeny Krutikov, a writer with military intelligence sources, reported in Vzglyad: “It can be assumed that the weapons were stored in the terrorists’ cache for a long time and not too carefully – the machine guns sparkled during the shooting. This indicates damage to the barrel or breech (dirt got inside the barrel).”

Recruitment of the shooters; pre-placement of weapons and ammunition; accommodation and advance payment to the gunmen;  purchase of the car they used; communications and coordination; exit undetected in the crowds escaping the building;  and the escape route to the Ukraine border through Bryansk region – the evidence of these details prepared over weeks and months indicate a much larger organization than the four shooters formed with seven others  already arrested and under interrogation.

What they know and will tell is likely to reveal a sophisticated command-and-control system which knew how vulnerable the target was, how to maximize the killing in the shortest possible duration, and at the same time allow escape for the attackers – which is almost unprecedented in the recent history of mass terrorist attacks in Russia. .

That’s to say, the command knew — the shooters and their accomplices didn’t. There was advance reconnoiter of the Crocus City Hall so that the shooters knew the route they followed inside the building and then out under cover of fire and smoke, which erupted faster than they were able to shoot almost half of their ammunition which they left behind.   

Did the command also know that Crocus City Hall and the surrounding mall were operating without adequate fire alarms, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, sprinklers, and emergency ventilation, none of which has been reported by eyewitnesses?  Was the building targeted because the command knew it was constructed without fire-resistant structural supports, allowing ceilings and roof to cave in, choking or crushing those beneath to death?

“Most of the victims in Crocus died not at the hands of terrorists, but from the criminal negligence of the owners and regulatory authorities,” reported Mikhail Delyagin, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, on Sunday evening.  “It is known that many people suffocated with carbon monoxide inside the building. There are already more victims of this kind than those killed by terrorist shooting. Nothing like this could happen in a certified building built according to modern standards for such objects. Why? Because all such buildings are equipped with an automatic ventilation system. These are windows or hatches that fire off automatically if the detector detects an increased level of carbon monoxide inside. Holes open in the roof – and the life-threatening gas goes into the sky. This system works, by the way, without electricity, on compressed air.”

“The way the Crocus burned down shows that cheap Chinese materials (glass wool, plastics, cable braid, etc.) were used in its decoration, which are prohibited for use in public buildings. The reason for the ban? Combustibility. In Europe, non-burning glass wool, plastics, etc. have been used for a long time. They are, of course, twice or three times more expensive than the Chinese equivalent. But they have one advantage: they do not burn in case of fire. And they don’t kill those who are inside.”

Delyagin has publicly accused Aras Agalarov, the wealthy founder of the Crocus shopping and development group, and his son Emin of failing “to formally commission this particular concert hall. As it became known, it is not listed as a properly designed capital construction object on the cadastral map of the Federal Register. Apparently, the amount of bribes needed to receive such a dangerous object exceeded all reasonable limits, and for Agalarov, taking into account the above-mentioned monstrous violations of standards, it was cheaper to extend the status of a building under construction than to put it into operation.”  

Bastrykin has announced “the investigation is checking the possibility of violation of safety requirements and the fire extinguishing system in the Crocus City Hall concert hall.  For this purpose, remote controls, electronic components and control devices for the fire protection system of the concert hall were seized. They are aimed at researching and extracting information about the operating mode of fire safety systems at the time of the terrorist attack. The contents of the fire protection system server are being studied with the participation of experts. To establish the operability and timely operation of all fire safety systems, a fire technical examination has been appointed.”  

Emin Agalarov has issued a press statement claiming he arrived shortly after the gunmen had left. He said he “entered the building 40 minutes after the first shots were fired. He noted that the fire safety system was working and the doors were unlocked…The sprinkler fire extinguishing system was also operating normally. The building collapsed only six hours after the start of the terrible fire. Some rooms remained intact and did not burn down.”  

“If we focus too hard on the minute details which are being patched together, this might clear up some details of assault,” comments a retired senior intelligence source in a position to know, “we might learn something more but not the fundamentals.  These [the four shooters] are no ISIS-K. . The harder New York Times, BBC and The Guardian try to prove they are, the less we have to believe it. They are no jihadists. Just murderers. Mercenaries brought in a month ago.

They are not suicide killers. There are no reports of this ISIS outfit operating away from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Certainly not in Tajikistan. However there are mercenaries at a dime a dozen there who have fought all over. Including in ISIS.”

“At Ukraine entry, they would certainly have been killed, removing all the evidence. The investigation will show they were hired, paid for. A Tajikistan blogger news service reported raids in [Tajik] villages, but then removed it. I am sure their families and friends will be picked up and all connections to jihadists or contractors will be established. They are not migrants, do not speak Russian, and thus cannot claim any ethnic discrimination vendetta [against Russians].”

President Putin claimed in his meeting with the security services on Monday:  “We know that the crime was perpetrated by radical Islamists. The Islamic world itself has been fighting this ideology for centuries. But we are also seeing how the United States is using different channels to try and convince its satellites and other countries of the world that, according to its intelligence, there is supposedly no sign of Kiev’s involvement in the Moscow terrorist attack, that the deadly terrorist attack was perpetrated by followers of Islam, members of ISIS, an organisation banned in Russia. We know whose hands were used to commit this atrocity against Russia and its people. We want to know who ordered it.”  

What Putin meant by “radical Islamists” is unclear; the public evidence of the four individuals who have been charged has yet to confirm a record of their religiosity or any ideological conviction.  

The officials at the Kremlin meeting on Monday: Prosecutor-General Igor Krasnov, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Anton Vaino, First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Kiriyenko, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, Presidential aide Maxim Oreshkin, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov, Minister of Labour and Social Protection Anton Kotyakov, Healthcare Minister Mikhail Murashko, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov, Commander of the National Guard Troops Viktor Zolotov, Chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin, Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobiev, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Source: [http://en.kremlin.ru/](http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/73732)

For the time being, the only evidence connecting the four shooters to the Ukraine is the direction they were taking when their vehicle was stopped by the security forces. In a shootout the car overturned, and three of the gunmen fled into the forest beside the road, leaving one man injured in the car.

The head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Alexander Khinshtein, is the source for press reporting on the site of the interception. That was on Highway E101 about seven kilometres south of the P-120 intersection east of Bryansk city.    From Bastrykin’s report, and from an award ceremony in Bryansk on Monday for the forces who made the capture – Federal Security Service (FSB), Interior Ministry, National Guard, and border forces of the Defense Ministry   — the getaway was being tracked for some time before it reached the P-120 intersection. At that point, if the four men planned to head for Belarus, they would have turned right, followed the south circular road around Bryansk, and then turned left on to the A-240 towards the Belarus border, about 100 kms to the southwest.

Instead, the men drove due south and on the highway near Khatsun, they were about 100 kms from the Ukraine border. There have been reports they were expecting to make a rendezvous with accomplices they believed would guide them to safety over the Ukraine border, and to payday.  Or, as Moscow sources speculate, to their execution by the Ukrainians.

Above: [Google map of the roads and villages](https://t.me/voenacher/63117), including Khatsun, east of Bryansk city.  Below: the view in daylight of the point on Highway E-101 where the gunmen were intercepted about five minutes after they passed the Belarus turnoff, confirming to the security forces tracking the car that they were heading to the Ukraine.   

Speculation, however, including analysis of the cui bono, who gains type, the sequence of statements from Washington, and the history of association between the US, British and Ukrainian secret services and  Tajik mercenaries, creates a balance of probabilities, but not an explanation beyond reasonable doubt.

“Of course, we must also answer the question of why the terrorists, after committing their crime, attempted to flee specifically to Ukraine,” the president said at his meeting with security officials on Monday. “Who was waiting for them there? It is clear that those supporting the Kiev regime do not wish to be implicated in acts of terrorism and be seen as sponsors of terrorism. But there are indeed numerous questions.”  

Public comments to reporters on Tuesday by the FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov  and Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev  have answered with emphasis on the Ukrainians, backed by the US and UK.

Source: [https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin](https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin)  March 26 – 15:34.

Boris Rozhin (Colonel Cassad) has followed their remarks with a detailed statement of the history of the intelligence service operations before the Crocus attack, and a circumstantial detail of Ukrainian border drone operations in the area and on the night the getaway car was headed through Bryansk region. Click to read   – March 26, Min 22: 23.

What is evident so far, including from the line of Tajik accomplices now making formal appearances in a Moscow court, is the absence of ideology or religiosity of the radical Islamic type; and ignorance of  where their orders and money were coming from, and why. This non-evidence points to the Ukraine as strongly as the road the four shooters were taking when they were caught.  

Their subsequent demeanour in brief videoclips after capture, in hospital, and in court confirms what the military blogger Boris Rozhin calls “dumb hysteria…behaviour [that is]  typical in a situation where the actions of terrorists do not have a deep ideological basis. This is the case of the Crocus gunmen, where the sole motivation is only money. Already in the moment of flight, the criminals realized what they had committed and, since the terrorist attack was not supported by ideology, the militants were seized with animal fear for their own lives. Therefore, during the interrogation, they are ready to tell everything, cry and so on, just to stay alive.”  

The Russian intelligence agency investigations now under way, according to Krutikov, are tracing the “Telegram accounts through which the terrorists received instructions, including during their departure from the crime scene. Most likely, it is this branch which directly links the investigation with the Ukrainian direction due to the indication of a specific square at the border crossing.”  

The public recriminations against the Agalarov family are not supported by Alexander Kurenkov, the Emergencies Minister, who told the Kremlin meeting on Monday in a brief, ambiguous report: “The building was equipped with an automatic fire alarm system. This system responded to the fire as expected. There was also a set of four robotized fire-fighting hoses and a software control system, which worked in conjunction with other fire protection systems. They were activated during the terrorist attack, but the arson involved the use of flammable substances. According to experts, the system failed to extinguish the fire due to its wide spread.  This is what I wanted to say. We managed to totally extinguish the fire on wall panels, given the materials they were made of, only at 6.40 pm today [March 25]. The search and rescue operations continue. They are expected to be completed by 5 pm tomorrow [March 26]. This concludes my report.”  

An Emergencies Ministry (MChS) expert has released data indicating the fire covered 12,900 square metres and more than 900 cubic metres of collapsed structures were removed.  In the videoclip the roofless exterior wall can be seen, and the destruction of the  inner auditorium.

Source: [https://www.kommersant.ru](https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6594893?from=top_main_1)

A local fire brigade source comments: “this was a Category-5 fire — Class 5 is an extreme fire hazard —  and the services did an extraordinarily professional job to contain and extinguish a fire of such intensity.” He said the roof “may have collapsed between 2:30 am and 3:30 am.” This corroborates Emin Agalarov’s report of the timing.

The fire expert explained: “If lots of fuel was spilled in the auditorium among the chairs with synthetic fabric and plastic elements, then even low-inflammable things could start burning. They are resistant to high temperatures, but not to extremely high ones. In this case the sprinkler system can be useless.”

The Moscow region governor, Andrei Vorobiev (Vorobyov), was at the site half an hour after the gang had left. “An operational headquarters has been established. All the details will come later.” At 10:39 on Saturday evening [March 23] he reported by video that the roof was still ablaze and that firefighters were pouring water on it from extension ladders.  

Governor Vorobiev is at lower left. Source: [https://t.me/vorobiev_live/6164](https://t.me/vorobiev_live/6164) 

Six hours later, at 04:43, Vorobiev posted a new video clip from inside the building in which he confirmed with firemen that the roof had fallen in. “The collapse of structures continues now,” Vorobiev reported. “There are still some pockets of fire, but most of the fire has been eliminated. Rescuers were able to enter the auditorium, where the temperature had been high for a long time and where, apparently, the epicentre of the fire was. The roof over the auditorium has collapsed, and the debris is still being dismantled.”

Source: [https://t.me/vorobiev_live/6170](https://t.me/vorobiev_live/6170) 

Delyagin was asked to say if he wished to correct his initial report and modify his allegations against the Agalarovs; he has not answered.  

The political repercussions of the attack have been amplified in the Moscow media. But at a meeting of the Prosecutor-General’s Office Board on Tuesday, Putin played down his claim about “radical Islamists” of the day before. “As you know,” he said, “the perpetrators responsible for this mass murder have been arrested, and our law enforcement agencies are diligently investigating the circumstances surrounding this barbaric crime. They are piecing together the details of the attack, determining the roles and culpability of each individual involved, and analyzing the findings provided by criminalists and experts. The Federal Security Service [FSB], alongside other intelligence services, is actively addressing pertinent issues in coordination with the National Anti-Terrorism Committee.”  

The president added: “I trust that the prosecutors, within the scope of their authority, will ensure that justice is served when charging the accused and during the legal proceedings.” This appears to be a response to western media reports that the four gunmen were beaten up and tortured after their capture.

Prosecutor-General Igor Krasnov said to Putin:  “These atrocities have a common goal – to intimidate people, to destroy the unity of our people. Their performers, customers and curators will inevitably be punished. That is why the most important task for Russia remains to achieve the goals of a special military operation.”  Putin had said the same thing the day before: “Their goal, as I mentioned, is to sow panic in our society while demonstrating to their own people that not all hope is lost for the Kiev regime. All they need to do is follow the orders of their Western patrons, fight until the last Ukrainian, obey Washington’s commands, endorse the new mobilization law, and form something resembling a new version of the Hitler Youth. To comply with all of this, they will seek new weapons and additional funds, much of which will likely be embezzled and, as is customary in Ukraine today, put into their own pockets.”  

As more time has elapsed and the interrogations of the attack group have produced no new official evidence, the Russian media have been publishing angry calls to restrict migration into Russia, both legal and illegal;  attacks on ethnic communities like the Tajiks; and on the corruption of Russian officials providing them with entry, residence,  and work permits. The Kremlin has responded with a brief communiqué of a telephone call between Putin and the Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon: “During the conversation, Vladimir Putin and Emomali Rahmon noted that the security services of Russia and Tajikistan were working closely together to counter terrorism and that they would build up their cooperation.”  

Konstantin Malofeev (Malofeyev), owner of the Tsargrad media group in Moscow, has published several policy calls under the slogan, “the internal threat has turned out to be no less serious than the external one”. “There should be no xenophobia towards Ukrainians, Jews, and Muslims,” according to Malofeev. “We are a multinational country. That’s the only reason she became an Empire. Because she is not only strong, but also kind. And xenophobia is the lot of the weak. The strong are not afraid. But a competent migration policy, of course, must be carried out. There should be no migration enclaves. There should be no diasporas which try to replace the government, whom the government consults and fears. Members of these diasporas should not be above the law. If they come to Russia, then the main thing for them should be the law.”

“Imagine what three million ‘hardworking’ migrants would do in Moscow, for example, if they all came out at once… It’s not a bell anymore – it’s a bell ringing, a rumble. It’s time to take up migration legislation. Only in this case will we be able to protect ourselves. Fortunately, I have evidence that the people in power who are responsible for migration have heard this ringing. I hope this will affect our streets and our safety. I hope that we will no longer have to catch Tajiks a hundred kilometres from the Ukrainian border who cannot speak Russian, but at the same time live freely in Russia.”  

Home page of _Tsargrad_ illustrated with a collage of armed Tajik fighters appearing to pose in front of the Kremlin; Konstantin Malofeev is pictured at upper [right](https://tsargrad.tv/articles/vsegda-ulybalis-terroristy-iz-krokusa-okazalis-ne-prosto-migrantami-ubivali-uzhe-sograzhdan_977563).  For more on how Malofeev made his first fortune,  click to read [this](https://johnhelmer.net/the-window-of-opportunity-vtb-accuses-itself-of-ripoff-and-is-told-by-the-uk-courts-to-take-its-case-to-the-russian-prosecutor/)  and the [archive](https://johnhelmer.net/?s=malofeev).  

Putin responded swiftly in his speech to prosecutors on Tuesday; the State Duma followed. “[Prosecutors should] consider implementing a system of additional preventive and anti-crime measures,” the president said, “including supervision of compliance with migration legislation. The situation in this area, which is very important and of great concern to millions of people, must be closely monitored.”  The same day, Vyacheslav Volodin, the Duma Speaker, told a parliamentary session that he is appointing a multi-party working group “that will analyze the entire range of legislation that is relevant to the challenges of today, and legislation in the field of migration.”

Pro-US reporters in Moscow reverse the direction of the crackdown Malofeev and his supporters advocate. “Russians will likely face the security crackdown that, ironically [sic], they have largely avoided over two years of war in Ukraine. That would mean a further tightening of the screws on speech and make it much harder to use public transportation or gather in large groups. Communities of migrant workers will likely face a real crackdown… the tactics once adopted to deal with terrorists became quickly accepted as a new norm to treat political dissent. Thus the torture the Russian security services used against four suspects might be used against all sort of people in the country. This is the most direct consequence of the attack.”  

Malofeev and the Tsargrad group are not alone in saying the Crocus City Hall attack should lead to intensification of the military operations in the Ukraine. “They struck at us, at our civilians” Malofeev has written, “in the very center of our Homeland. This is an act of war. It needs to be answered as we have said many times. It must finally be answered with the massive real use of weapons that will allow us to win this war. We must give the civilian population [in the Ukraine] 48 hours to leave the cities and then strike with all our might. Then the war will end quickly, which means that the sponsorship of terrorist attacks will stop. No Americans and British, without the Armed Forces of Ukraine, without Kiev, without the current war, will sponsor terrorist attacks on the territory of Russia.”

For the time being, there has been no impact of the Crocus attack and the Moscow media debate on the operational or strategic plans under way in the Ukraine. The intensification of the General Staff’s offensive along the line of contact in the Donbass; in the electric war against Kharkov and other cities east of the Dnieper River; and in the missile attacks on targets from Kiev to Lvov – reported here   — commenced before the Moscow events; they are continuing as planned.

“Those in political command who have been favouring an outcome to the war that falls short of regime change in Kiev and extension of demilitarization to the Polish border,” observes a Moscow political source, “have lost their voice since Saturday night.”

Jeffrey E. Paul discusses the deep history, roots, and trajectory of how it came to be that the United States is now on the verge of becoming a “fascistic autocracy” and one-party state. The origins emanate from 19th century Germany and its autocratic collectivist mindset which permeated American academia and government in the late 1800s. These German authoritarian ideologues were the same who later went on to mentor Hitler and the Nazi regime. The clock is fast running out on the American experiment.

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