"Willing Idiots" & Geopolitical Instability
Submitted by Gregory Copley via OilPrice.com,
Nature has often been described in the verse “Little fish have smaller fish, upon their backs to bite ’em; / Smaller fish have lesser fish; / And so, ad infinitum.” We see in it the inevitable, albeit infinitely variable, hierarchy of the natural world.
It follows, then, that regional strategic dynamics are subordinate to, often caused by, greater global trends, even though we, as humans, tend to focus on, and react to, the issues which we feel threaten or benefit us. Of course, the strength of the trends determines some of the outcomes: strong local trends may expand to resist or overwhelm weak global or trans-regional trends. But, in essence, greater is greater. And, as the Cold War saying about “quality versus quantity” went: quantity eventually has its own quality.
So where are we today? What are the essential trends, visible now, which determine long-term outcomes?
Periods of transition between “rising powers” and “declining powers” have been described in terms of the so-called Thucydides Trap, when fear within a static or declining power (historically, Athens) of a rising power (historically, Sparta) makes war seemingly inevitable. The phenomenon today applies not only to the China-U.S. dynamic - as has been widely remarked - but to the Middle Eastern imbalance, the “north-south” imbalance, and so on.
Accompanying this sliding vertical scale of strategic power balance is the sliding horizontal scale of population volatility and movement, characterized by the breakdown of the Westphalian nation-state concept; by so-called globalization; urbanization and hysteria-driven migration; and the peaking and imminent troughing of global population numbers. Thus do we reach the four-dimensional chess game. And we see visible the prospect of a check-mate — from Persian shah mat: the king is dead, or helpless — in the present global game. Of course we also see, then, the prospect, or nature’s necessity, for a “new game”, a new king.
It should not be surprising that these longer-duration mega-trends ultimately drive and dominate shorter-duration regional or mono-cultural trends, although the direct influence may not be immediately perceivable. And so we focus on immediate threats; we react, rather than see the broader, longer strategic terrain.
Right now, much of the world concerns itself with the threat of terrorism as the specter which dominates the question of the survival of Western civilization, or is the precursor to Islam’s “End of Battles”. However, it is worth recognizing the reality that no terrorist phenomenon has ever sustained itself for any meaningful duration — or achieved strategic outcomes — in the absence support from a nation-state or wealth society.
Does anyone, after introspection, believe that the current phenomenon of “Islamist terrorism”, including its metamorphosis into territory-holding entities such as the “Islamic State” or (briefly) Boko Haram, has not been without major state support since before even the al-Qaida movement? Does anyone believe that the leftist terrorism of the mid-Cold War period was not supported by state sponsors, ranging from the USSR and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and their allies? Does anyone believe that the Irish terrorism of that same period was not also supported by states or societal bodies (including criminal organizations)?
There is an entire industry in the security sphere which has as its rice-bowl the study and parsing of Islamist ideology and sectarian differences. The sectarian differences do have strategic importance, but not because of the differences themselves, or the dialectic in which each social group engages, but because — as social groups — they represent the modes of social cohesion which enable populations to exist and manage their affairs in their geographic spaces and environments. This is as much a part of the survival logic — because it creates a political hierarchy — as the terroir dictate of crop rotation.
Now, and for the foreseeable couple of decades, the “Thucydides Trap” means that the world is not only in a period of potentially changing its power balance, or “correlation of forces”, it is in a period of dark uncertainty at very many levels, from global to regional to societal. That means, essentially, that most powers are weak, and therefore are cautious about behaving in a precipitous manner. Or they perceive that there is opportunity (or the imperative to act) because of the weakness of others.
This, in turn, means that sovereign governments will continue, perhaps increasingly, to use proxy forces, such as terrorist groups, to achieve strategic outcomes. In some respects, the desired strategic outcome is merely to achieve paralysis or stalemate in a geopolitical arena. But in almost every instance the guiding hand of such policy is power politics, rather than ideology or theology.
We can - and often do - spend vast amounts of our attention analyzing religious or ideological trends rather than looking at the underlying geopolitics. This is presently the case in the terrorist/insurgency jungles of the Middle East and Central Asia. The main problem is that we listen to what the operational protagonists - the “willing idiots”, as Lenin would describe them - say and believe, and insufficient time analyzing the core motives of their deep sponsors.
Ideology and theology are carrier waves, not the message. Do they motivate “willing idiots”? Without doubt. But to deal primarily with the carrier wave aspect is to be reactive and tactical; not strategic and in control of events.
Who prospers in this “greater Thucydides Trap”? Those who prize core geopolitical principles, including national and civilizational identities; those who preserve strategic self-sufficiency. Those who do what they must for the decades ahead, not what is comfortable for the present.
(7 votes)
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Boris is enjoy fish, but be careful of Escalanto that is make for slippery bowel effect.
What a pompous and pretentious writer. So many mouthfuls to say this: America lost to Russia >> http://bit.ly/1PSXaoK
FLASH: Man swallows dictionary, survives, becomes economist
OK, so I read the article and now, Boris, or anyone, please tell me what I, as an individual lover of liberty, should do. I don't want to kill Muslims or Jews or liberals or tyrants. I just want to be left alone.
Evil people are determined to NOT leave me alone. So now what?
If you say prepare, I am doing that. But how do I make the people determined to ruin my life through terror, stop?
If you're truly feeling cornered, you have to either call Simon Black, or contact the Los Angeles Underground (ask for "B.A.").
No, I'm not buying Simon's fictional Xanadu. I live in Texas and I ain't running. Why run? You'll just die tired.
The crimes against humanity by this Fed must be accounted for by the U.S. legal system. Their actions must be audited to understand the true extent of what they are doing, and what they have done behind the publics' backs and without authorization. Then the appropriate people there need to be prosecuted. They should face Chinese-style punishment.
When someone commits a financial crime in China, they are put to death, and beforehand they are forced to wear a sign which tells the public what crimes they have committed.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-white-collar-criminals-death-sentence-2013-7
The only way they will face a death penalty is when someone walks up to them and puts a bullet into their cranium.
Standard Disclaimer: Will you be one of the 3% when the time comes?
You are live in Great Republic of Texas!? Fear is not, soon Texas, follow by Idaho and Utah is secceed from nation, join by other liberty minding state. Already Texas is write legislation for enable seccession and governor is call for Article V Constitutional Conference of State. You are be patient, please!
If Texas or any other state were allowed to secede, not only would they have thier current dollar denominated debt, but they would also be forced to assume their share of the federal debt. In Texas that would probably be about $1T, and not new Texas dollars but the Empires dollars. They might be able to convert some of the old state debt from dollars to new Texas dollars, but not their share of the federal debt.
From the moment of secession Texans would be debt slaves like the Greeks. Unless she fought her way free. Good luck with that, and don't forget what the empire did to the south during reconstruction in 1865-70 and what the empire to did to those who dared to name the jew during the second German genocide from 1945-1948.
Seems somehow Escalanto effect is analogous (not is pun intended) to transformation from orange roughy to brown smoothie.
ISIS IS US: The Shocking Truth Behind the Army of Terror
by George Washington Blog et al.
Link: http://amzn.com/B019RXBP7Mx
As long as we have governments and central banks, we will have to suffer wars.
It's fairly straight forward.
Please provide chart showing horizontal and vertical stuff .......
why? so you can masturbate? you pervert!
Someone has been on a tear trying to push up CU the past couple of nights to try to stem off the margin calls.
A good point or two, but "4D chess" tells you 1/2 of why it is useless :
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/high-dimensioned-games/
And problems of 'abstract analysis' in world affairs is the rest :
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/warning-ideas-are-dangerous/
this battle seems more fundamental, good vs evil. the zionazis are clearly evil. the good guys are mobilizing. because of their hubris, the evil side doesn't know how weak it is making it much more than dangerous. the good guys have been feeling around for like minded people because the evil ones have made dissent expensive. enter putin to lead the good guys. we are at war now, an asymetric war, but war. the longer the good guys have to consolidate the more powerful the good guys become while the cognitive dissonance of the evil side makes itself weaker by the day. these two sentiments will converge in a hot war.
Willing Idiots,Is there any better way to say it.I think not.
So so many historical errors in this article. Here are 2 examples. First, it was Athens that was the rising power, not Sparta. Second, leftist terrorism for the most part was NOT the work of the USSR, as the writer naively assumes--it was the work of the CIA and its sisters in the UK and Israel. This terror has a name, that even Wikipedia is forced to admit: Operation Gladio.
Moral: Those who think they know history because they read a few books of captive historians should NEVER write history.
I have a friend, a historian, who submitted a superb article to ZH. The answer was NO. Actually, there was no answer. But no problem with this biased history. Live and learn!
Thucydides. WTF a freak war in 400 bc how it relates today ?
Gosh. Thucydides, Westphalia and the latest phase in the fourteen-hundred-year-long Jihad against the Kafirs.
My 'civilisational identity' is wilting.
It wasn't fish, it was fleas.
Ya moron!
A 1400 year ongoing war to the death between Sunni and Shiite, with the Sunni’s enjoying US support and the Shiite’s occupying the land under which the majority of the oil resides, coupled with the larger geopolitical meddling of the three great powers today; China, Russia, and the USA (listed in alphabetical order, not in order of severity of influence), all of which have religions that the more radical elements of Islam would wish to conquer, and the result is a bloody mess no matter which way you try and spin this.
It is clear that the Sunni / USA coalition is the aggressor, and that the Russia / China / Shiite coalition is the defender, as the US policy has for decades been to control world oil in the name of driving oil supported US dollar hegemony. Interestingly, with North America becoming self sufficient in crude (meaning that the US is treating Canada the same way that England was treating the 13 colonies prior to 1776 in order to cheaply secure their petro resources – can anyone tell me how the minimally extracted WTI can possibly be a true measure of the global value of anyone’s crude), Russia developing a ruble based crude index, and Saudi Arabia considering decoupling the Riyal from the USD by eliminating the peg, the true value of this strategy is failing rapidly, yet it is being pressed with ever more vigor.
And here lies the true tragedy of this strategy; even from the most Machiavellian perspective, this macro game is growing increasingly stupid and wasteful by the day. Don’t you just love the US old family money 30 something Ivy League foreign affairs theorists and analysts at the State Department and buried in the deep State … what a bunch of total twits being played like fiddles by the many deep pocket interests that continue to pursue these policies for their own (and ever more totalitarian) depraved purposes.
"England was treating the 13 colonies prior to 1776 in order to cheaply secure their petro resources"
I'm sorry, but this exposes a giant hole in your thinking, in 1776 England did not even know about oil and oil reserves.
We were treating the 13 colonies as parts of her/his majesties dominions for as long as we could until the essential problem of government without representation became too great, and then we tried to solve that problem militarily - and lost.
Ever since 1776 the English learned that their overseas empire was essentially doomed, as Gladstone wrote to a friend in the 1860's when talking about Canada "when those damn colonists get their independence", the Victorians even had no illusions to its end. While there was foot dragging on the Indian formerly Mughal empire the British inherited (with much active Hindu and Sikh help, I would guess they preferred to side and risk an English overlord than a Muslim overlord), but in the end the lesson learned in 1776 was not forgotten in 1948.
Which is why the London bankers had their American outlets lobby George Washington to appoint Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, so Hamilton could lobby for the creation of the First Bank of the USA, through which the London bankers could reestablish control over the USA by establishing control over its money.
Like the 2000 year old war between the followers of Peter and the followers of Paul.
The Repubs. tonite said that the US should lead a Sunni invasion of Syria with 20,000 US troops because Saudi Arabia demands it. The end goal? To RESTORE DEMOCRACY IN SYRIA. (not a joke) (at the debate)
Well, organizing and backing a Sunni expeditionary force to oust the government of Syria would be the "conservative" thing to do. /s
The Republican Party is led by evil lunatics; it's death is to be greeted with joy. Their only hope (a thin one, I admit) is to nominate Trump, and see what happens....
And put that Saudi Prince at the top of that Sunni force. I heard he is a fearless military leader, who always leads from the front. :-)
It was the other way around. Sparta was the "static" power that feared dynamic Athens' ascent.
Once again Islam is relegated to just a local cause to be played with by great powers, this thinking is completely wrong and has it backwards.
It is great powers that are pushed around by Islam, and they have been for 700 years, every cause or discontentment finds its voice through Islam, the anti-colonial insurrections and more recently the arab spring were all organised through a Mosque. There are always disputes and conflict, but as the US have learned it is very hard to get people willing to fight and die for a cause with their pathetic attempts at forming a secular Syrian rebel army, but see in comparison the ease the Saudi's and Turks have had in forming and pushing an agenda that happens to go in the same direction as Islam.
Tipping point and value systems...
Read Plato and Aristotle for the western value system (ethical foundation). Thucydides was just the scribe who made historical analysis the bedrock of "hindsight thinking"; Plutarch's comparative lives etc. was the fall out in our geo-political understanding.
Alexander tried to get out of the "civilization" trap of Athen's decaying, dynamic and commercial based, hegemonial hold on the "sea people" and Sparta's Oligarchical, militarist tradition based on ethnic retrenchment -- both traditions being inadequate for solving the Greek geo-political conundrum of making compatible new oligarchical (macedonian) power lust and Athenian value systems--through "global war"...aka, he initiated in the Western tradition the subsequent ploy of creating a new front when the home front is in decay.
Something that the Persian Empire had indelibly marked the Greek psyche with, as experienced through Xenophon's Anabasis adventure.
It destroyed the Greek civilization's hold on the Western time-line and favoured the rise of an obscure village called Rome.
Pax AMericana is now in the same trap, having been marked by the legacy of British Empire and Germany/Japan's violent military demise of last century. A new cycle comes to completion.
The year 323 BC was a tipping point moment. But it had huge repercussions for opening up the trade and exchange between teeming Asia and nascent Europe.
From Alexander's conquest rose the eternal fight for the riches of the world in the West's "for us or against us" Imperial tradition of Roman domination and Lex Romana's "to the victors the spoils" mantra -- Carthago delenda est-- that has so marked western history.
The beat goes on even as EMpires fall, others rise.
We may be in 1492 legacy's about turn.