Systemic Adjustment

Discussion of politics and war often begins with a denunciation of the leader of the enemy.  Currently, Putin is overtaking Trump as the vector of evil that must be defeated.  These two devils have been linked in the American psyche since 2016.  Of course, the real "enemies" are not these two individuals, but rather the factions they represent.  These leaders are not the products of indomitable wills, exceptional evil, and/or unique cunning.  Rather, these faces are associated with systemic problems facing our civilization.  Trump represents the crisis of authority.  Putin similarly represents a challenge to Western authority.

The following have become clear to me since the year 2000:

• Western intelligence is unreliable.  (Slam dunk on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction; the 17 US intelligence agencies and Russiagate)

• Russia is strong.  It is one of the few countries strong enough to stand up to the US militarily, and its economy can prosper in a multipolar world, divorced from the West.

Three and a half months into the war in Ukraine, I now see that Russia will win militarily but that there will be no resolution of the underlying conflict between Russia and the West.  We will enter a new cold war following the current hot proxy war.  The international prestige and economic prosperity that followed the US win in the previous cold war will now go into reverse.  Consequently, political instability and weakness in the West will follow.  I see these things as already baked into the pie, so to speak.  

Thus, the systemic problems underlying the Trump and Putin phenomena will continue to drive western politics.  The crises of authority we face will require a more serious response than defeating Trump or Putin.  Economically, we will have to rethink the global capitalist model that has reigned since the Clinton Administration with NAFTA and the entry of China to the WTO.  Politically, we will need to deal with the role that the intelligence agencies play in domestic politics.  Realistically, though not preferably, this may involve more stifling of dissent in the manner of Russia and China.  Authorities will try to solve their crises by combining forces and cracking down.  This process is well underway.

I've sketched my realistic view of the systemic forces underlying current events.  More constructively, I call on authorities and regular people alike to deal with the systemic problems and not focus on scapegoats such as Trump and Putin.   

UPDATE 6/9/2022: The same day I wrote this the NY Times came out with an article saying that the U.S. Lacks a Clear Picture of Ukraine’s War Strategy, Officials Say. We spend as much on "intelligence" as the entire Russian military budget, yet apparently are giving another $40 billion in military aid to Ukraine without even knowing what Ukraine is doing militarily. What could go wrong? See Pakistan in the 1980s, Vietnam in the 1960s. CIA veteran Larry Johnson provides more detail on the apparent intelligence dysfunction.