The era of Apopis

The presidency of Donald Trump can be of big historical importance. This is because of decisions taken during this period. It is even more because of the precedences created. And worst of all, it can be of immense importance because it may change the course of history.
Already before this president it was evident that our civilization, the West, would not avoid the destiny of the previous civilizations: decline, chaos, wars and the stage of one or two universal dictatorships. We have missed the last opportunities for stopping these developments.

But this is only the overall trend. The exact course and the gravity of these developments are not given as a law. It is influenced by political decisions and pure coincidences. And here the phenomenon of Donald Trump is a such coincidence, one which potentially can have a major impact on the path of history. This is of course in combination with the decision by leaders of the GOP not to contain the phenomenon early enough. Now it is too late. Obviously the Republican Party can not now abandon a man with a backing of 90 % of their electorate and an overall approval rate approaching 45 %.

As said it is largely a coincidence that a man of this type arrives at the present time, a man Who can act as a focal point for both the marginalized victims of the post-industrial and globalized age, the Evangelical fanatics and the extreme right. And that this man is not bounded by any conventions of decency or the burden of wisdom and knowledge. But it is a tragedy. It can create the precedence of a considerably lowered level of politics in the United States on both sides and this for decades. We risk that the exact path chosen within the broad trend set by history will end by being one of the worst possible. Even more chaotic and uncivilized than our late modernity needs to be. The Republicans have a heavy responsibility for this.

Leading Republicans may see Trump as a useful idiot who can be contained for one or two presidential periods. Looking at his blunders in foreign policy this has only partially succeeded. It is not obvious that a such containment will suffice to hinder larger problems. What is worse, it looks as if also upper sections of the GOP are beginning to identify with the actions of their president. The party is gradually being transformed to useful idiots for their president.

Eight years of this will drive the already grave polarization of the country to extreme levels. The type of behavior displayed presently will infect both parties. As said in other posts extreme tensions between the parties can lead to the breakdown of the Constitution and to violence and to fracturing between the institutions and the states. More and more, presidents will appeal directly to voters bypassing the political parties which will be unable to stop potentially disastrous decisions. It is in these ways that the presidency of President Trump risks being a turning point. A point narrowing the broad trend of history into an ugly path through the next decades.
 
Clearly much of this would have happened also without the appearance and acceptance of Donald Trump. But this historical coincidence does mean an aggravation. Thresholds on the way down are exceeded. And thresholds which have been exceeded downwards are difficult to retreat from. Most parts of a modernity are characterized by a breaking down of conventions and morals and self-restraint. Psychodynamically we are talking about a weakening of defense mechanisms against primitive drives, a de-sublimation. In the short and medium term defense mechanisms once weakened are difficult to rebuild. The dams have collapsed. This is even more the case in the present late modernity where defenses, not least those against aggressive and humiliating behavior, are generally broken down as clearly evidenced in the social media. Thus the exceeding of thresholds under the present presidency and its acceptance is not easily reversed. Indecency and extreme conflicts can become the accepted new order in both parties.
 
If we apply my usual comparison with the Roman Republic, a corresponding turning point may have been the use of deadly violence against the politician  Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC as reaction to his reforms. From this point the polarization and the tensions between the “Republican” Senate Party and the “Democratic” Peoples Party aggravated and culminated in the murderous proscriptions under Sulla and Marius. Also here thresholds of indecency and violence had been exceeded irreversibly. We must hope that the levels of violence between the two American political  sides will not reach similar murderous levels.

Foreign competing powers should not feel too amused about these developments affecting their rival. Neither should the small countries feel reassured concerning their independence. The two sides in the United States seem to agree in an ever harder line against Russia and China. They certainly agree in an increasingly arrogant view of their allies as useful idiots which can be trampled upon and simply subjugated. What is worse, parties and presidents will compete in aggressive foreign policies.

But hostility against and alliances with competing powers can quickly be changed by future strong incontainable presidents overruling their party…
 

How much longer ?

How much longer will the Republicans let Donald Trump continue on his way?  Violating the constitution and ruining the strategic position of the United States in the world.

We are witnessing the two oldest democracies fighting to survive serious threats against their political system, i.e. precisely their democracy. It will be interesting to see the result of these fights. In the UK the main risk is Brexit and disrespect from the PM for Parliament and the laws and not least Supreme Court. If this is not stopped and thus creates precedence, democracy as we know it will cease in the UK.

In theUnited States the main threat is a Republican party caring too much for power and positions to oppose an unfit president. This combined with the extreme polarization. The Supreme Court in the States will be of limited value in the fight for the old American democratic system as long as it is de facto taken over by one political side.

In both America and Britain we see one man trying to take more control of the administration than the constitution entitles him to. The tendency towards increased personal power is typical in late modernities. In the West of today we see it everywhere from the United States and Turkey to China. But of course it must look strange when the leader strengthening his power is clearly unqualified.

The historical comparisons show the trend toward greater personal power both in the late Roman Republic and in the first Chinese modernity up to 221 BC. In the last case combined with a long time strengthening of the political discipline of the states. This last trend is today matched in the Chinese part of the Western civilization, but certainly not in the United States.

In the end of modernities, also in ours, one-man-rule will win. And even though this process is often driven by personal wish for power, in a deeper sense the purpose will be to strengthen the state against internal chaos and/or external threats in the form of competitors. The purpose is not to allow a PM to stubbornly implement ruinous self-defeating decisions or to let a president make and enact erratic decisions or election promises no matter the concrete circumstances.

Shape Part 3 - Digression and goal

After WW1 the author of The Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler, wrote the little book Preussentum und Sozialismus (Prussianity and Socialism). This book is strongly colored by German nationalism, but nevertheless contains interesting points. According to Spengler the end-fight for final hegemony in late modernities in each civilization or high culture involves a choice through fight and competition between two political modes. These modes are embodied as states and often also formulated as philosophies and ideologies. They have characterized the civilization for centuries under different names and were and are represented by different countries. In the Western modernity around 1920 Spengler talked about Anglo-Saxon Capitalism vs Prussian Socialism. Socialism is here explicitly not understood as in Marxist terms, but is a term for a society where the efforts of the members including that of the rulers serve the society as a whole. The success of this society is the driving goal. This as opposed to Capitalism where the will to wealth of every individual in unregulated competition is the driving force.

Spengler follows these and other basic political modes through Western history and traced them back 1000 years. Comparable phenomena have been seen in all civilizations. Several state models or rather practices existed throughout their history. Sometimes formulated as a philosophy, but not always.

Spengler distinguishes between 1) anarchic modes which in the West are exemplified in France and in Renaissance Italy, and 2) organized modes like in Spain in its colonial time, in England and in Prussia. Each general mode can come in different specific versions. Spengler assumes that only states under organized modes are fit to fight for the final hegemony over a civilization.


I would here like to enlarge and generalize this basic idea by Spengler to fit a world where not only Europe takes part, a world where Hitler has destroyed Prussia.
The state forms in a civilization may be generalized into three types no matter their concrete names. They represent a hierarchy of increasing state control and discipline and at the same time one of decreasing personal freedom.

1)) Anarchic
What is covered by this term is in general a political mode with limited long term planning and stability over time. There can very well be a level of organization, but this is in practical terms not always respected and it is always subject to change through revolutions or new constitutions. France since 1789 is a good example. From the beginning of the Great Revolution it has had 10 new political shapes, five monarchies and five republics. As comparison England has only had two major shifts for an even longer period: the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the present rapid decline. Present days America is another example of the anarchic mode. In the extreme version this mode is utterly chaotic. The late Roman republic is an example of this. The United States could presently be heading the same way. Generally, the society imagined by Adam Smith, undisturbed Capitalism is in the anarchic mode.

2)) Organized
The opposite is the political modes characterized by stable lasting organization, strategic long term planning and concern for the functioning of the whole country. Present Germany is a good example. Old Egypt is another. Clearly, many societies are mixtures of the mentioned two modes. Well organized countries may on the economic level be market-oriented in such an extent that their economics function in anarchic ways with little concern for the poor. The United Kingdom through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is an example of this.

3)) Legalist
At the extreme end of the organized political modes we have the harshly disciplined societies. The anarchic and the organized modes exist in all civilizations. Legalism is only seen in some cases. It exists in certain civilizations with especially brutal end-fights like Old Mesopotamia and Old China. The mode is not simply equivalent to dictatorship, but rather means that almost all parts of  society and almost all individuals are enrolled as if they were soldiers with only one purpose: serve the state. Old Sparta, the Aztecs and several countries in war condition in the twentieth century are examples. Applied to old China (before 221 BC) the three modes are represented by the anarchic southern (“Taoist”) state Chu, the organized northeastern (“Confucian”) state Qi and the legalist northwestern state Qin.

Typically one political mode wins the end-fight and establishes a universal empire ruled by a figure which is de facto emperor despite a possible republican title. Most often it is the most disciplined state which wins. More controlled states will win over less controlled. Legalist modes become relevant when the competing powers are strong and well-organized. An even more disciplined mode is then introduced to defeat them.

Also in the universal empire when established, a political mode will become dominant. It can be, but is not necessarily the same as the one which won the empire.
In old China Legalism won, but Confucianism became lasting in the empire.
In old India the aggressive Maurya state won, but under Emperor Ashoka peace-loving Buddhism became state philosophy.

Like in these examples we often see that the philosophy which dominates the universal state after the victorious first emperor is a milder one than the often harsh mode, which won the world or prepared the ground. In old China the legalist state of Qin conquered the rest, but its extreme suppression and anti-cultural policies made it end in insurrections leading to the Han Dynasty. Legalism was now replaced by a Confucianism adapted to an empire.

The second Mesopotamian civilization is another interesting case. Here too we see three systems or in this case unnamed philosophies. The more anarchic around Babylon was defeated by the extremely well-organized suppressing “Legalist” state of Assyria, corresponding to Qin. But in this case this state was overrun by insurrection from the oppressed states, Media and Babylonia BEFORE the first emperor. Still, Assyria had prepared the ground for him. He came in the form of Cyrus the Great. Like with Confucianism he represented a third philosophy or rather state form milder than the Assyrian.

Rome is an opposite example. The Republic started as disciplined  and Stoic. It degenerated into anarchy and chaos in the late republic. Nevertheless it conquered the countries of the Western world, but only because of the weakness and even more chaotic situation of these Hellenist states. Rome could afford to degenerate into chaos. After the civil wars when the world west of the Parthian empire had been won, the emperors, especially after Nero again turned to the goal of the common good. The anarchic mode could not assure this. The empire again became Stoic and organized.

From these examples we see that the philosophy which come to dominate in the universal state is often a version of the organized mode, a version which has a concern for the common wealth of the whole empire.

Of course also single countries can shift from one mode to another. In the development in modernities we often see a movement to more chaos like Macedonia after Alexander the Great. States can also through deliberate politics make themselves more disciplined like the states in Northern China in the old Chinese modernity. The mentioned legalism in Qin is a prominent example.

Present days United Kingdom is a modern example of a shift between modes. For centuries it was an organised admirably stable constitutional monarchy where rule alternated between Tories and Whigs, later Labour. Now the British not least under the pressure of Brexit are descending into chaos.
 
In the West for Spengler before the Nazis the opposing political systems were two different versions of the organized mode. They were represented by the countries Prussian Germany and the United Kingdom. The first being organized “socialist”, the other organized Capitalist individualistic. Spengler viewed England and America partly as a whole sharing this last mode. Obviously the United Sates has replaced the UK as a global competitor. It is clear that since then both countries gradually have turned more anarchic. Germany has become pacified through the Third Reich and its defeat. But the country has since WW2 still been remarkably organized and stable. It has tried to shape the EU in the same manner, but unfortunately in vain. The specific political mode of the United States is anarchic Capitalism turning chaotic.

The role as organized global player competing with the Anglo-Saxons has been taken over by first the Soviet Union, now China. The specific mode of this last country is an interesting mixture of an organized state and a capitalism which is partly anarchic and partly intertwined with the organized political system. Even though China is thoroughly Westernized, Confucianism still plays a role as ingrown political traditions. This philosophy is an important basis for the well-organized mode. We can thus view the Chinese model as a combination of Socialism with Confucianism, “Confu-socialism”. Obviously it is more stable than anarchic Capitalism degenerating into chaos.

As described in the previous two posts the United States now taking over its sphere is in the same chaotic mode as the Roman Republic in their corresponding phase of late modernity. But as often said, unlike Rome the Americans do have strong competitors. Therefore strictly spoken they can not afford this chaotic political mode if they want to win all of the world. Normally a country in an anarchic mode should lose to a power in a more disciplined well organized mode i.e. China. But because of the enormous military force of the United States and because all-out war would lead to the annihilation of humankind, the World will not be united this time. Instead as said in the earlier posts on the future shape of the world, there will be more than one universal empires in our civilization.

Of these two will be major, one under American control and the other under Chinese. Both will probably in the end adopt a version of the organized mode, a moderately disciplined concern for the common good of the whole. That is where we are heading within the next century.

Globalization and multinational cooperation seemed to be the straight path to this goal as described by Angela Merkel in her brilliant speech at Harvard University in May 2019. But unfortunately it now emerges that since 2016 we are on a digression away from this path. We have some decades of conflict before us. But these reverse steps initiated by Trump and his type everywhere will be a passing digression.

Labor division is typical in the universal empires. Different parts of the empire make different products. Through globalization this was already becoming a fact. In the name of nationalism the present US president is working to reduce this labor division, but in the end labor division will prevail. It remains to be seen whether it will cover the whole world, or the empires as wholes will be self-sufficient and only have their own internal labor division between their parts. Present US trade sanctions looks almost as an attempt to divide the world in two economic spheres isolated from each other.  “ We don’t need China”. Obviously a such divorce implemented now when all parts of the world are already largely interwoven will be extremely damaging.

Still international organization and labor division will prevail, either for the whole world or within each of the resulting empires. But for now the digression of perhaps 7-10 decades is a disaster. The political instability and fight for hegemony can lead to immense suffering through civil wars, Middle Eastern wars, proxy wars, cyber warfare or trade wars. America may become handicapped by internal polarization in its wish for total hegemony, but because of its dominance and immense power in terms of military, technology and not least the dollar, it can cause immense damage. The present US trade war against China is clearly by some American politicians seen as a preemptive strike to finish off China before it gets even stronger, this no matter the cost for world economics, US companies and US consumers. But the trend toward irresponsible decisions and escalations is general in the world of today.

And what makes things even worse is the timing between the need to control man-made climate change and the emergence of populist chaotic politics. Climate change will destroy human habitats and thereby cause conflicts and wars over resources. They will often be local, but  will no doubt be used as proxy-conflicts by the big powers. This adds to the conflict potential we were already entering because of the political decline and the fight for hegemony. We have seen an example of the effects of ecological disaster in the beginning of the Mayan modernity, where it led to terrible wars, the collapse of the classical era and the death or exodus of large populations. Then it was millions, now it may be billions. By then matters should be clear for even the Trumps and Bolsonaros. The coming universal states will do their utmost to secure the habitats.

Toynbee hoped that it could be avoided, but it now looks as if the Western civilization is heading for the same destiny as our predecessors. Nevertheless, our decisions will affect our path. The digression away from the path toward concern for the whole is not a law, but the result of decisions. Such decisions can be reversed or mitigated or be made less all-inclusive.

The rulers of the universal empires constantly have had to deal with and prevent famine and natural disasters. This through things like distributing resources, building irrigation canals, regulating rivers with dams, introducing new crops and collecting surpluses to be used under famines. Of course both to prevent starvation and thereby to avoid resulting insurrections. As opposed to leaders only focusing on their own country and on winning the next elections, our future Augustus or Ashoka and their successors in addition to such measures will also do their utmost to limit climate change, not least by saving the rainforests if anything of them will be left.

Shape Part 2: Hatrið mun sigra

= Hate will prevail

Welcome to the dark age!

“Hate will prevail” or Hatrið mun sigra is the Icelandic song for the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 by the group Hatari. As the title and the text (see bottom of this post) say, we are entering a period of antagonism with the intensity of hate.

The American ruthlessness towards other countries is a bad omen. Not only enemy rivals like China are hit by trade wars and economic sanctions or by punishments justified by some pretext like a postulated IT security emergency (which insofar as it was real should give rise to other types of actions). A leading person of a large competing  company is simply arrested. Millions of telephone users all over the world are taken as hostages.

But also close allies are threatened by economic sanctions simply for not following orders issued by Trump, Pompeo or the US governor residing in the embassy in Berlin, orders concerning policies on Iran and Russia. Soon we may see German cars being taxed as another national security risk. The arrogance and contempt expressed by the US administration towards its allies is shocking.

Unfortunately such arrogant attitudes towards the outside world are not only expressed by the present US administration. Many US politicians in both parties hold similar views. Now the last barrier of moderation and decency has fallen, and such arrogance and contempt will stay a part of US foreign policies in the future. Attempts to order and control what other countries do, will be directed agains the whole world. Especially countries in what the United States regard as their sphere of interest, not least Europe, will suffer and in many cases they will simply have to obey orders.

It is also a bad omen to see how Trump, Bolton and Pompeo are building up tensions with Iran and elsewhere as if a deliberate or accidental war was just a minor price to pay, not a disaster. Creating and increasing tensions  are regarded as a normal part of foreign politics. Such behavior together with the deliberate trade interruptions view the world as a playground rather than the intricate extremely interwoven system it is. A such system can suffer seriously through tensions and barriers. As every country is an integral part of the global system, nobody will be “great again”. Already now American consumers are paying for the trade wars with higher prices.

Particularly worrying is further the building up of tensions inside the United States. A striking example is the extreme anti-abortion legislation introduced in several US states. If it is generalized by the conservative Supreme Court, such laws together with other radical right-wing measures will polarize American society to the brink of revolution. It is especially worrying that the impetus for the polarizing policies not only comes from the politicians, but is rooted in a deeply split American population. There are light years from the Evangelic and other fundamental Christians and the marginalized in the rust belts to the educated inhabitants in the big cities. The polarization in the population and the polarization between the political parties reinforce each other. The constitution is already strained by a president trying to overrule the division of power and the checks and balances. With polarizing policies by extreme Republicans and the to be awaited Democratic reactions and countermeasures, the American Constitution will crumble under the pressure. In the worst case the country can descend into chaotic conditions.

The combination of the developments in US foreign politics and the domestic condition of America is especially worrying for the world. For rivals outside the American sphere of interest internal chaos in America may sound like good news. But its power in military and not least IT and financial matters is colossal enough to make lots of damage. Wars through  trade, IT-exchange and cyberspace and real wars can ruin world economy and destabilize countries and relations. The chaotic conflicts of power between opposing hostile forces in the United States will often be channelled outwards in aggressive actions towards foreign countries.

And for allies within the American sphere the combination of US arrogance and internal chaos may be catastrophic. Such countries can be passive victims of competing US politicians using the American part of the world as just a tool in their struggles as power shifts between them in possibly revolutionary ways. Thus as said in the previous post, unless the EU strengthens remarkably, we like Latin America and other countries in the American sphere of interest may encounter a destiny like the countries in the Hellenist world after the Roman victory over Cartage. Become humiliated and subjugated one by one in internally driven bursts of aggressive American policies.

But globally America will suffer greatly from its internal divisions and struggles. Its rivals will benefit from US weakness and lack of strategy. Thereby the American sphere will become limited in size.


Thus as Hatari sings, hatred will rise. Both inside countries and between countries. The powerless will be trampled down.

The revelry was unrestrained
The hangover is endless
Life is meaningless
The emptiness will get us all
Hate will prevail
Happiness will end
For it is an illusion
A treacherous pipe dream
All that I saw
Tears ran down
All that I gave
Once gave
I gave it all to you
Multilateral delusions
Unilateral punishments
Gullible poor fellows
The escape will end
The emptiness will get us all
Hate will prevail
Europe will crumble
A web of lies
Will arise from the ashes
United as one
All that I saw
Tears ran down
All that I gave
Once gave
I gave it all to you
All that I saw
Tears ran down
All that I gave
Once gave
I gave it all to you
Hate will prevail
Love will die
Hate will prevail
Happiness will end
For it is an illusion
A treacherous pipe dream
Hate will prevail


Note
Similar developments as inside America will take place in several countries as we see in the rise of populism, but no country is as globally important as America.

The Shape of Things to Come

Most often civilizations at the end of their modernity become united. The countries become ruled by the one nation which wins the power struggle. The whole now constitutes what Toynbee calls a universal  state and is governed by an emperor-figure.

When we look at our own civilization, the Western, which now encompasses most of the globe, this development may look unlikely. Rather the world is said to become multipolar. Still, there is little doubt that real power as it is typical in modernities, gets concentrated in fewer and fewer more and more dominating countries. But will this continue until only one is left? No, not necessarily.

 Because of the extreme force of modern weapons of mass destruction and the disastrous consequences of a war between the great powers of today, it is unlikely that one will swallow the others. Thus in our civilization we may not see the usual unification of all countries. I have earlier pointed to the fact that this pattern though being the normal does not apply in all preceding cases. An exception is old Babylonia where the successors of the first emperor Hammurabi did not succeed in uniting the areas of their civilization completely. The southern Sealand continued for three centuries to stay independent. In the Oriental civilization the first great sultan or emperor Alp Aslan and his successors had to leave North Africa and Spain outside their empire, and this empire was soon divided by the Seljuk semi-nomadic tradition of dividing a realm between the family members, especially the sons, of a dead leader.

In the typical cases where the world is united, we typically from the moment of the victory of the winning power see an almighty, often hereditary emperor-like government continuing for centuries without much development. In Babylonia of course starting with the mentioned Hammurabi, in old China with Shi Huang and in Rome with Augustus. In the few cases where the whole world is not united, we typically see the same political development in each of the not united parts. Each has its own emperor.

The example which seems most appropriate as a comparison with ours may be the situation between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire. Since Alexander the Great the Greco-Roman civilization stretched  from Spain to West India. Greek kings still ruled in North India three centuries after Alexander. As I have written earlier, the universal state from the time of Augustus could have encompassed this whole area. For two main reasons it did not. Firstly the Romans weakened their power by being torn by internal conflicts between the two major political parties and their power-hungry men, a pattern which closely resembles the developments in the present United States. This meant that Rome could only swallow countries which were exceedingly weak, i.e. all countries west of Mesopotamia. Secondly, the beginning Oriental civilization meant that the eastern parts of the Hellenized world gradually became culturally estranged from the  western parts. This new Orientalization trend affected the Parthian Empire. Also, this empire was not weak as the other Hellenist countries. Therefore it remained independent of Rome.

Also today we may expect that not all areas will be united under the Rome of our civilization, the United States. Like Rome this power is splitting itself, and also now, there are strong powers outside. The phenomenon of a cultural estrangement today applies to Russia,but not to China which is thoroughly Westernized.

Another important difference between then and now is that the spheres of interest of Rome and Parthia were more clearly defined in the century before Augustus than the spheres between the powers of today, the corresponding phase in our case. The victory over Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC only confirmed this. Thus in our case in the next decades we will see the big powers enlarge their spheres of interest accompanied by conflicts over this.

The smaller countries will be subsumed in these spheres. It is unpredictable which parts of the world each great power will take over. This depends on the strategy and tactics employed by the competing powers within int’l politics, economic policies and IT and also on coincidences. And it also depends on political decisions in the smaller countries. In this last case public opinion will play a crucial role. Even though stable democracy may be declining, the idea will continue to be of immense importance for a long time. Even the later absolute emperors will enact “democratic” elections to legitimize their rule. Obviously these de facto emperors will carry republican titles like Augustus and his successors did. Even more presently, and for the coming decades of competition for spheres of interest, powers which are perceived as undemocratic will have a disadvantage in the competition for the opinion of the public and the politicians in the countries which must choose side. A disadvantage which can only partly be diminished by economic offers. On the other hand, more presidencies of the type of Donald Trumps will also certainly not give much sympathy in democratic countries. And the lack of strategy and consistency will frighten also less democratic countries away.

Even though the future limits of the spheres of interest is largely unpredictable, we may be rather sure that the Americans will do their utmost to secure Latin America for themselves, thus enforcing the strangely prophetic Monroe Doctrine. This is the deeper meaning of the present US policies toward the incompetent government in Venezuela and the new sanctions against Cuba. Large parts of Subsaharan Africa may become part of the Chinese sphere. Europe will be a contended area unless the EU becomes much more united and efficient. Clearly the dominant powers with the biggest spheres will be the United States and China. India may create its own smaller sphere while Russia with all means will defend its limited one. Another contended area will be the Middle East. But this is also an area full of tensions which can erupt into explosions anytime without the help of outside powers competing for power, thereby dragging the big powers into conflicts.

Developments will be different in each sphere of interest, not least because of differences in the internal developments inside the big powers. Evidently as said many times, the United States are destroying their cohesion and thus diminishing  their strength. The enormous military budget can only partly reduce the effect of this. The shifts between polarized political forces disturb long term strategic planning. And presidents like Trump even manages to destroy strategies set out by politicians from his own political party.

Therefore in the American sphere of interest the history of the next decades will be comparable with the developments in the Antique world west of Parthia. The chaos then in Rome and now in Washington is counterbalanced by the weakness of the smaller countries in the sphere. The countries in the sphere being taken over by the Unites States will be passive victims of the chaos in Washington. They will be subdued through often sudden eruptive expansions, of course under the disguise of continued independence. I am not thinking so much of military interventions, but rather political threats and dictates, arrests of politicians, economic sanctions and not least cyber-warfare. Latin American nations under left wing rule can be treated the same way or invaded.

On the internal level China will continue to be much more stable, and it will use long term strategic planning. A splendid example is the present Belt and Road project. Therefore the Chinese sphere will develop in a much more planned and systematic way. Countries will be subjugated through investments and a subtle economic dependence. If countries want to escape this, they may try to switch to the Americans who will use similar dependence plus the earlier mentioned means in an unstable and much less subtle way. In parallel with these subsumings of smaller countries we will see the borders between the spheres of interest being continuously moved backward and forward.

There is no doubt that both big powers will expand through internet control. In the future the borders are not so much the geographic ones through the real landscapes, but rather borders between parts of the Internet and the devices coupled to this. Thus an important aspect of the way spheres of interest are being expanded and countries are being taken over, is that the physical landscape is being supplemented by the Internet as an area for fighting and movement of borders. Today every online device is a part of a border to be defended. As I have written earlier, it is irresponsible to let this happen in an uncontrolled manner. This to a high extent concerns countries in the EU and other small nations.

The Americans have or can develop means against IT-penetrance from abroad. The Chinese and soon the Russians are building an effective great firewall. This is a logical choice. If every device, company, institution or system does not have individual effective borders, there must be an effective outer border around the whole country. Of course a such firewall can protect both against espionage, sabotage, cyber-warfare and also against influencing of internal public opinion.

Behind a national firewall, more or less autonomous cyber-subspaces can operate. Without a such border, vital sectors of a hostile or just  irritant country can soon simply be shut down by IT-forces from abroad. This is much easier and cheaper in terms of money and human lifes than sending Roman legions or American marines or even than bombing campaigns. Also without such direct interventions every insufficiently protected system coupled to the Internet can already now or in the near future shift from being within the borders of  a country to de facto being outside these borders. In this way a country can loose “territories”, not at the outer geographical perimeter, but everywhere. Countries can simply piece by piece become depleted loosing control of more and more parts. And here it is not a question of Huawei versus other suppliers of IT infrastructure. Without proper protection and with billions of devices coupled to the Internet, all IT-powers (or hackers) can access points all over your country through these highways. Moreover, many of the services used by privates, the industry and local and governmental administrations use servers based abroad. This too makes foreign control easy to establish.

It is high time the EU considers these dangers.

The Message by Rammstein

Much has happened since the appearance of Rammstein’s song We’re all living in America in 2004. Then it looked like a gradual taking over of the world by the United States, this through dominance in IT, culture, medias and political hegemony. Now Russia has become resistant, and China is emerging as a serious competitor. Finally, President Trump is frightening away politicians and people all over the world except for leaders which need him as an ally.

Now Rammstein has released a new song with a symbol-laden video, this time focusing on Germany. By some the song plus video is misinterpreted as an only commercial or postmodern play with symbols used devoid of their meaning with he only purpose of creating sensation and getting attention. Was that the case, some of the content could be criticized for being too important and painful to be used in such a way. But no, the song+video is a monumental work full of content and message. The misinterpretation is no doubt partly due to the fact that many of present days artists are producing works which are only empty surfaces which do not point to deeper messages. 

The video focuses on mostly dark periods in more than 1000 years of German history. German history from the battles with the Romans 2000 years ago until now. The work looks like a correction to newly emerging German nationalists like the right-wing populist party AFD whose leader Gauland: said  “Hitler und die Nazis sind nur ein Vogelschiss in über 1000 Jahren erfolgreicher deutscher Geschichte”, “Hitler and the Nazis are only a bird-shit in more than 1000 years of successful German history”. 

In fact the song and video could be seen as a narrative about the sins of the whole Western civilization and the ambivalent feelings these (should) give rise to. Germany can be seen as the quintessence of the Western civilization, its most sublime and its most evil sides, from Goethe to Hitler.

In reality a comparable video could be written for other modern democracies. The United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and other nations each have their lists of dark moments and cruel acts in their internal history, in their European wars and in their colonial wars. The same concerns the United States.

 

Of course nations in our civilization should not feel permanently guilty over their crimes. There have indeed been heroic deeds, and there have been marvelous achievements in art and science. There are good reasons to be proud. But the song and the video by Rammstein is a welcome counterweight in times where nationalists in many countries engage in childish self-glorification and only focus on positive events and great achievements. 

If we follow the way of our predecessor civilizations, the next 70-100 years will  see fights for spheres of interest and hegemony between the big powers, internal fights within powers and brutal proxy-wars. All this in a world getting more chaotic as rule-governed internal and international politics decline. New nationalistic self-glorification can only make this worse. Forgetting the crimes of ones own country removes the inhibition against committing new crimes. Do we want to add a crescendo of further decades of darkness in a continuation of the video by Rammstein?

Rammstein’s “Deutschland” is a voice from mature modernity, the period which is ending now if we do nothing. A warning voice from a period where it was normal to have nuanced views, higher ideals and attitudes, important messages to convey.

We have entered a time where attitudes in the public and parts of the political world are becoming:

1) Based on only few pieces of evidence.

2) This “evidence” is often false or chosen or even constructed on the basis of prior attitude. Or on just a headline you happen to see on the Internet.

Generally seen, judgements and attitudes are based on scales or vectors. In a nuanced word-view reflecting the real complexities around us there are several or even numerous of these scales or vectors. Now we see:

3) People and populist politicians use word views with fewer and fewer scales. More complex phenomena are simply being projected on to, measured with the few remanning scales. Thus elite = Washington = taxes = socialism = gun control = abortion = Obama-care = Iran nuclear deal =  anti-Israel = wholly bad. And all the opposites including MBS are good.

4) On the few remaining scales the centers become depleted meaning that there is no in-between, no middle ground. Attitudes are polarized. 

If we only have attitudes based on this sort of thinking or have no attitudes on things which really matters, we are easy prey for the new polarizing demagogues, or we will just let them have their play.

And if you do not understand Rammstein or they seem to express one thing you don’t like, they are the Devil.

Online devices are borders without effective defence

Why is everybody so enthusiastically embracing the possibility of coupling ever more devices to the internet? And this even more as we enter the 5G semi-paradise with its even better possibilities of letting all sorts of things work efficiently and quickly online. It is especially strange that this is happening at the same time as governments and intelligence agencies are fearing espionage and what is worse from Huawei and Putin, and when everybody should know that spying by the Americans has for a long time been a fact.

Every responsible governmental  administration should be aware of the possible dangers. For every new device which goes online a new badly protected flank is added.

Of course it is of limited importance if a coffee machine is hacked or destroyed. But many other devices are more crucial. This could be equipment for medical purposes or the control of transportation, distribution and transmission of communication, administration, mobile phone communication, radio and TV transmission, or drones or cars just to mention some areas. Not least important is the production and distribution of energy.

It is thoughtless and stupid to allow the proliferation of equipment and activities which are depending on the internet. This no matter who is expected to carry out the hacking or to inflict damage. It creates an increased vulnerability for private and public organizations, service providers and producers. Whole societies become more and more easy to hurt (also by things like strong electromagnetic pulses no matter their origin). There is no such thing as a 100% effective defence against digital warfare. It is deeply problematic that politicians  unconsciously let their countries slide into an ever greater dependance on IT accessible from or dependent on cyberspace. Often just because users and providers want it, or commercials praise it, or because it is new and smart.

Thus a government with a sense for the security of important sectors of society  and the whole of the country can not allow the decisions about whether to let devices go online to be made by market mechanisms  or wishes for convenience. In countries with a will to defend themselves a governmental commission with experts in security in the different branches of society must be established, a commission with the task of deciding whether a piece of equipment is too important to be allowed to go online. Guidelines for these decisions should be made. Producers and users which plan the implementation of new online devices or categories of such devices must ask this commission, which should have the  power to prohibit the implementation of such equipment.

Schisms 1054 and 2019

In 1054 the Western and Eastern branches of the church split in the so-called Great Schism. At this time it was a sign that the emerging Western civilization was rising and felt itself unique and distinct from the Orthodox Byzantine civilization, which can be regarded as part of the Oriental civilization.

Recently the Ukrainian Orthodox church gained autocephaly meaning that its break with the Moscow Patriarchate was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. The situation may be seen as similar to the Great Schism 1000 years ago. Not because of the schism between the Russian and Ukrainian churches, but because of the ensuing break of the Moscow Patriarchate with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This is the true new Great Schism. Politically seen the branches of the Orthodox church under the Patriarch in Constantinople have become representatives of the now all-dominant Western civilization. The Russian Patriarchate can be seen as a representative of a potential emerging East European civilization wanting to liberate itself further from the West. Therefore it had to take this step, creating a schism. Just as the Western church to liberate itself from the Byzantine or Oriental civilization broke of from the Eastern church in 1054.

Obviously like in 1054 lots of political and power-related conflicts are mixed into the present schism.

In earlier posts I have talked about the phenomenon called a pseudomorphosis . It is the name for situations where a new civilization is dominated or overlain by an all-mighty older one which in its modernity has expanded into areas of an emerging new civilization. This causes the new civilization to develop in the forms of the older dominating one. If there indeed now is a new civilization rising in Eastern Europe, it has to develop in Western forms. Instead of a feudal order normal for early civilizations we see political forms of the Western modernity. But the dominance is manifesting itself in all spheres, not only the political. A such domination creates a resistance from the dominated, a resistance which can be difficult to understand in the dominating civilization, which believes itself to be in a state (in our case liberal democracy) which is a step in all historical developments and lies on the way to an ever better future. But this state is in the specific form of only one civilization. For others it is alien and creates resistance, a resistance which cannot merely be seen as the result of political propaganda from the state. Two thousand years ago the emerging Oriental civilization was rising under a comparable domination from the old Greco-Roman world. This caused extreme resistance, eg. from the Jews. Only the continuous reduction of the cultural radiance of the declining older civilization permits the new one to exert its uniqueness. This may be what is happening with Russia today. Culturally Russia is still dominated by the West, but opposing this more and more.

The rest of Eastern Europe may be part of the same emerging civilization as Russia. But because of historical experiences and because of the power of Russia, the rise of this civilization with its feeling of new uniqueness strengthens the political opposition against Russia in parts of East Europe. This even though the underlying cultural trends may be the same as in Russia. This political antagonism between Russia and parts of East Europe is worsened because the degree of Westernization is greater in East Europe than in Russia. For natural reasons the political resistance towards Russia is bigger the closer geographically a country is to Russia. We see this in Poland and the Baltic states. This means that the least westernized country, Ukraine, shows the greatest resistance towards Russia.

But the opposition against Western liberal democracy and openness is very clear in East Europe, not only in, but also outside Russia. Thus an emerging East European civilization is part of the explanation for the increasing estrangement between the eastern and western countries of the EU. Obviously we also see populist opposition to this system in the West, but here this development is only a sign of the general political decline in the late modernity of the West. The radiance from our modernity is vanishing causing a contagious spread of decline and a deplorable loss of human rights both within and beyond the core of the Western civilization.

As mentioned there was a comparable situation two thousand years ago in the Middle East where the Oriental civilization was dominated by the Greco-Roman civilization and trying to liberate itself. In this case large parts of the whole area of the new civilization, ie. the area from Egypt and Asia Minor to the limits of India, were culturally dominated by Hellenism. Politically and militarily only the western parts of the large area were under Roman control. Much of the rest was part of the Parthian Empire. The areas under Roman control can be compared to East Europe today, while the Parthian areas resemble Russia. Obviously the parts under Roman control were mostly Hellenized.

Parthia and Russia, even though heavily Westernized, felt/feel it as their mission to defend the emerging civilization from being swallowed completely. Even though as said emerging civilizations normally are on primitive levels when it concerns political and military organization and technology, the need for defense against the civilizations to the west forced and forces Parthia and Russia to match their opponents. Naturally this is especially relevant for todays Russia. The closest we get to the feudal knights typical for early civilizations may be the oligarchs in parts of east Europe and Russia.

Militarily and when it concerns political allegiance from countries, the Western civilization may continue to dominate a few centuries still. But culturally and especially when we talk about political ideals, the West is already loosing its appeal as the political decline and the splitting of the societies get worse.

In the 90es East Europe enthusiastically  embraced the West. Our culture, our stable political systems and our wealth were seen as indivisible parts of a whole. Now this is turning out to be an illusion. Wealth did not result for everybody, and now politics are decaying. This is another reason why East Europe is beginning to find its own way in opposition to both the West and Russia. As the West stagnates and declines further, also culturally, and the new East European civilization gains strength, the cultural influence will begin to reverse and go westwards.

Obviously this does not mean that East Europe automatically will become politically integrated into Russia. Civilizations are not normally politically united. As the West emerged as its own civilization around 1000, it had to break definitively with the Oriental world, ie. the Byzantine Empire and the Caliphates and Emirates of the Muslim world. The Great Schism in 1054 marked this. But except for short periods of unification under the Carolingians the West was split into different countries, not united into one. Similarly the emerging East European civilization will be split into several countries in the area from Poland and Serbia to Siberia. (We may see the short de facto unification from the Iron Curtain to Vladivostok from the end of WW2 as a phenomenon similar to the short Carolingian unification of the West). For some time the Eastern European countries will continue to stay culturally Westernized in different degrees, mostly in the western parts. They will liberate themselves gradually from this Western cultural dominance with the Eastern parts as frontrunners.

This gradual liberation from the West is the true meaning of the schism between Moscow and Constantinople. It is also part of the dynamics in the Russian behavior towards the West and in Ukraine. In reality this is defensive and a result of the Western political and military expansion into its sphere of  interest AND landscapes containing cultural roots of Russia, roots considered holy. In the short term this Western expansion will cause a further Westernization of parts of East Europe, parts which historically were Russian. Religion is of immense importance for early civilizations. Also therefore the Westernization of the Ukrainian church on holy Russian grounds is seen as an extreme provocation.




NOTE
In the above I am talking about trends in the intermediate term. Obviously short term developments are not linear. In East Europe like elsewhere incompetent governments, political demonstrations and elections can mean shifts between administrations following more and less liberal democratic ideals and between pro- and anti-russian policies.