THE WILL OF WESTERN EXTREMISTS: MOVING THE WORLD FROM DETENTE TO DIVISION

Without a turning in this path, what hope of peace is there?

Who gains from a world divided into warring camps?

Surely no one truly sane would constantly ramp up threat and fear to levels of division where war (of one kind or another) is inevitable?

What has happened to our divide our world so significantly since the days of detente?

Only a few decades ago it seemed that significant differences had been reconciled between east and west, that we had learned to work together for the common good against the threats that faced us all. Where did that vision, that hope, that heartfelt desire for the good of all go?

Why, after such a watershed moment, are we where we are now?

It cannot be any single factor as geopolitical changes of such a magnitude must certainly be inherently complex. But it cannot be denied that we are in a far more fear-ridden, accusatory and aggression-laden place than we were in recent memory. Why?

The Factors Denying Tolerance and our Hope for Future Peace:

9/11

It is too simplistic to say 9/11 was the primary difference between the then of detente and the now of division, but it is clear that the events of that day created a wave of change that is still with us and that shows no sign of breaking in order to leave space for unity of purpose.

9/11 massively empowered those who had previously and for many decades been seeking to divide the world into good and bad, the righteous and the wrong and in other such simplistic terms.

The Geopolitical Exceptionalists and Extreme Nationalists of the West

Since 9/11 a particular section of elite power within the USA has achieved overwhelming influence. They can be identified by many descriptions, the best known being that of ‘neoconservatives’. These ultra-nationalists believe without question in the exceptional nature of the USA and western culture in general and believe the rest of the world must be persuaded, by force if necessary, to adopt it in all its aspects. They consider that this should be effected without compromise and that any weakening of the push to achieve this through diplomatic agreements would be counter-productive.

NATO

NATO has no future without the existence of threat and a division between purported friends and enemies. Its purpose in the absence of these would dissolve. It would dissolve along with all the many extremely well-paid positions, career paths, plus all the intimate and prospectively very lucrative connections within western elite bureaucracies.

NATO’s upper echelons naturally seek to maintain the existence of their organization and its empire of influence. This naturally entails statements asserting the threat against the West is very real and increasing. At least one nation must be framed as an adversary if not an outright enemy. The NATO leadership plays its part along with all other elite echelons in the West in a self-serving narrative concerning the ‘dangerous other’.

Those political elites of eastern-European NATO states, or who wish to be so, profit in diverse ways via this connection. They are permanently boosted in terms of newfound importance, prestige, income and influence (as long as the threat level remains high). Through their connections within NATO and beyond to the EU and the USA the benefit to these elites is immense, albeit with a concomitant and very real danger to their populations who they pretend to protect.

Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. Any hope that NATO or the elites who benefit from its existence will ever downplay the “threat” it has created, or the explicit division between the east and west it promotes, will be in vain.

The Theater of Economic Warfare

Every nation is doing all it can to increase its economic growth. Many nations have little to play with, are poor and will doubtless remain poor. Others are making steady progress. Whereas those progressing were once extremely reliant upon western goods and services this is now not the case. The most significant change globally has been the economic rise of China. China has a system of governance that eliminates many levels of bureaucratic red tape by central command while creating an environment of dynamic entrepreneurship. China has the capacity to move and build extremely quickly and, using huge cash resources can plan for and initiate huge projects in prime industries and infrastructure to envision an increasingly successful future. This has reached a point whereby in the very near future China will eclipse the USA as the world’s primary economic driving force.

The Administrative Pushback Against Peace

An extremely large proportion of monetary and material resources in the West are claimed by the intelligence, national security and military sectors. Vast numbers of state employees alongside private individuals depend upon constantly maintained levels of threat in order to secure their present and future income. Their livelihoods, status and envisioned career structures cannot be assured without this threat. A coming together of nations to face the challenges of humankind in an atmosphere of cooperation, compromise and peaceful coexistence endangers every aspect of their existence. The possibility of peace breaking out endangers the future income of all those who own or work for corporations within the western military industrial complex. The constant generation of fear works in fact to support a vast number of lifestyles within the broad expanse of the intelligence, national security and military sectors.

Political Expediency, Elite Protection and Self-Interest

Politicians in the USA require funding. This funding comes mostly from U.S. corporations, many of them high fliers on Wall Street within the Banking, Pharmaceutical and Defense industries. There is an incestuous relationship within Washington between these corporations, their lobbyists and both the permanent and transient elites within the U.S. governance establishment. The people of North America are largely left out of the equation due to having undefinable wishes in anything like certain terms. Both major parties pay lip service to what they think the U.S. population wants. However, they know precisely what corporations and their lobbyists want. Due to their financial symbiosis with these corporations it is in their self-interest to provide what they seek while putting on a show of support for the general public.

Mass Media and its Self-Inflicted Limitations

The bought media, i.e. that which is owned by corporations and billionaires has a vested interest in keeping its owners happy. The censorship applied is self-censorship and will hardly ever be vocalized, it needn’t be... it is in the air, it is taken for granted. Certain myths, attitudes, beliefs and narratives are subsumed within its central ethos and the milieu within which the staffs of its organizations reside. True journalism is almost never seen due to the restrictions of the subconscious and barely conscious group thought agreement that exists within these entities. Almost no attention of any geopolitical nature is directed inward, only outward. Therefore, the controversies must be found overseas where geopolitics is concerned and so the inclination builds inexorably to find objections to other nations generating fears to fever pitch while the home team stays pure as the driven snow in relation to its geopolitical intent.

The Self-Serving Inclinations of Intelligence Agencies

Due to the secrecy at the very heart and nature of their industry entities such as the CIA and MI6 have enormous power. To manipulate information that only increases their value, status and continuing expansion is child’s play for them. They can hardly be gainsaid as only they have the access required and all others have extremely limited oversight into any aspect of their structure, methods and data-gathering function or the analysis which filters it. What is known and known without any doubt is that the creation of lies (misinformation, propaganda, psychological operation narratives) are a primary part of any intelligence agency’s day to day work. All empires seek to maintain themselves. The empire of each intelligence agency is no different.

The Might of the Military Industrial Complex

Eisenhower was brave enough to speak his mind about the M.I.C. as he left office. No doubt while in office he found it impossible to do so and it is interesting to speculate on why not. The M.I.C. is hugely powerful. It employs hundreds of thousands and generates vast wealth for what must be a sizeable number of others. Its highest-ranking individuals are often given equally high positions within consecutive U.S. administrations. Its donations to politicians are the most reliable along with the banks and pharmaceutical companies of the USA. The M.I.C. is an integral part of the deepest structure of the U.S. state and what it wants would be extremely hard to resist if any politician wished to maintain his or her position, career path and hopes of still higher office. The M.I.C. needs convincing reasons for sales, in this case, war and the threat of war, just like any company selling a product. Both entities desire an ever-greater number of customers imbued with the undoubted conviction that the products on offer are a must-have accessory to life without which they would be subject to an abiding fear. The M.I.C. knows exactly how to ensure its products are always in demand. Along with all others above it generates the ever-abiding fear of enemies, and there must always be enemies. If not real, then imagined... then forcefully and continually asserted.

All of the factors above combine and conjoin to create the self-serving fear matrix that keeps all of its diverse individuals and entities in their comfort zones. From the Oval Office to the office of the most lowly clerical workers in Raytheon, the fear industry continues to serve up the benefits that stem directly from global division.

This entire self-serving edifice is constantly sanitized using facades of rectitude, patriotic myths and moral righteousness regarding human rights and western liberal values. All duly channelled by a thoroughly conditioned political class and totally compliant mainstream media.

Thus we move divided toward ever more misunderstanding, fear and vulnerability to threats we have in common such as future pandemics and climate change that only through increased global unity of purpose can we hope to survive.