The Russian Color Revolution

White, blue, and red -- the colors of the Russian flag.  Apparently there's been a tremendous outburst of patriotism: Patrick Lancaster  Also:  Scarlet Sails Graduation.  Incredible patriotism, and no mean-spritedness to be seen.

mmm

Realism, Morality, and the Leviathan

I believe in the concept of the Leviathan, and that it's immoral to encourage people to physically attack when death and destruction at the hands of the Leviathon are certain. But there are many instances where there is no clear Leviathan. The correct moral choice may indeed depend upon the correct assessment of military / police strength.

Reassessing Western Democracy, Part 2

 Clash of Civilizations

A month ago I wrote Reassesing Western Democracy, Part 1.  Since then, I've read a couple of books which shed further light on the subject:

• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 1996 by Samuel P. Huntington

• The Declassification Engine, What History Reveals About America's Top Secrets, 2023 by Matthew Connelly

These two books help immensely in consolidating my world view. Basically, I believe Western democracy has become dysfunctional and is ripe for extensive revision.

The Clash of Civilizations clarifies the nature of our world. There are approximately 10 major civilizations.  Absent the apocalypse, these civilizations will endure and develop independently.  Technology will spread, but the cultures and institutions will remain distinct for the foreseeable future.  Civilizational leaders would be wise to respect the other civilizations to preserve order in the world.

The Ukraine War shows what happens when there is a lack of respect for other civilizations. Russia (historically Orthodox Slavic Christianity) is one of the world's major civilizations. Prominent leaders in the West (Lindsay Graham and John McCain) have dismissed Russia as "a gas station masquerading as a country". This has been a bipartisan affair in the West, with Democrat Adam Schiff calling for us to fight Russia in Ukraine so we don't have to fight them here.  President Trump was impeached for hesitating in supplying weapons to Ukraine.  The mainstream media in the West has been united with the political and cultural leadership in denigrating Russia and encouraging military confrontation on its historical territory.

Other civilizations are siding with Russia against the West.  

Assessing the Alternatives

If Western civilization is failing, what about the alternatives? What do we know about Russia, China and east Asia, the Islamic World, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa?  I have been impressed with Putin.  Russia under his leadership is providing a much needed intervention with regard to the dysfunctional West.  China under Xi also seems like a credible alternative.  

Thanks to Russia, in my view, no country need feel ashamed of its leadership.  Almost every non-Western country has traditionally been seen, at least in the West, as being inferior to the Western democracies.  Francis Fukuyama even posited the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.  The 21st century has not been kind to this world view.  From the Iraq War in 2003, to the great financial crisis of 2008, to the Trump presidency in 2016, to the Ukraine proxy war in 2022, Western democracy now appears weak.  No one could admit this until Russia took on the West militarily.  

The list of countries that have broken from the grip of the Western empire since Russia stood up to them, with the support of China, is impressive: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Pakistan have joined pariah nations such as Iran and Venezuela in asserting their independence and refusing to join the West in sanctioning Russia.  Modi, Erdogan, bin Salman, Ramaphosa, and their brethren are no longer second class world leaders, shamed by the West as imperfect democracies.  Rather it is the Western "democracies" that, in my view, stand out as unpopular and hypocritical.  The Western intelligence agencies (chiefly U.S. and Britain) have longed subverted democracy at home and abroad.  Nowhere is this clearer than in Ukraine, and suddenly people recognize that this has been happening around the world since WWII, including in their own countries.

So every country is now a potential alternative to our broken system of government.  But I'm a believer in Huntington's view of civilizations and the legitimacy of different approaches to national / civilizational leadership. Obviously, the Saudi or Iranian styles would not work in the U.S. Likewise the Chinese or Russian systems.  We need to go our own way, while recognizing the limitations of our current ideology.  

1. The deep (permanent) state is powerful for a reason. No country can survive a complete set of policy turnovers every 4 years.  Perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Russian and Chinese models where leaders lead for 20 years or more.  

2. The dark (secret) state is powerful for a reason. No leader can lead effectively without a certain degree of control over the press.

Without a revolution, we can come terms with the limitations of our current system.  The 2-party charade is just that.  We have an establishment and it's not really up for election every 4 years, for better or worse.  The First Amendment is one of our great strengths, but our system of manufacturing consent is no longer working (if it was ever a net positive). We need to tone down our bluster, while addressing our free speech deficiencies, in my opinion.  In other words, we need to focus on what our real problems are and stop trying to scapegoat China, Russia, and other civilizations or factions within the West.

Constructive Ideas 

Arms Control

Scott Ritter is my inspiration for this. See Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.  It seems obvious to me that humankind will destroy itself if we don't learn to control our weaponry.  The major powers would only benefit by a return to the days of arms control treaties.  These worked well for decades, but seem (in my view and elsewhere) to have been undermined by the hegemonic impulses of the U.S.  We the people should make this our number one priority.  

The renewed Cold War and escalating arms race is abhorrent.  The U.S. is driving this, in my view.   Of course, Russia and China have their own deep, dark states and propaganda operations along with soaring military budgets. But the U.S. led West outspends these competitors by an order of magnitude (10 times).  We are the leader in the arms race and are in the best position to bring it under control.

Multipolar United Nations

The United Nations has always been a Europe-centric institution.  Of late, it has been compromised by the West and consequently unable to fulfill its mission. Its archaic and corrupt.  

No institution is perfect, but a better United Nations can help with many of the world's problems -- from arms control to climate degradation.  Jeffrey Sachs has a lot of good ideas in this regard.  

Xi and Putin talk about this all the time. Perhaps we can engage constructively on this issue.

History Lab

One of the great things about the West is that freedom of speech is a core value.  As discussed above, this right is not as absolute as we pretend.  Classification of documents for national security purposes is pervasive, and selective leaks and enforcement of secrecy laws has been weaponized for imperial and partisan purposes.  To some extent, this is unavoidable as there are tradeoffs between government efficiency and freedom.  

But we can work to strengthen this great value of our culture.  Leadership may need to come from the private sector, given the practical constraints our politicians face.  The History Lab is a team of scholars, designers, scientists, and engineers building tools to preserve the fabric of the past and provide lessons for the future. 

Election Reform 

Approval Voting

Approval voting is a single-winner voting method that allows voters to choose any number of candidates. The candidate chosen the most wins.  Benefits include:

• Tends to elect more consensus winners.  there will be incentives for candidates to cooperate in the sense of not bad mouthing other candidates.  This is "gaming" the system in a positive sense.

• Alternate candidates get a more accurate measure of support.

• Simplicity: 

• Ballots look the same, except the rules indicate that you may vote for any number of candidates

• Results are still easy to understand: a simple list of the candidates along with how many votes they received

Steve Randy Waldman is someone who has given specific changes a lot of thought and proposed constructive incremental changes.  You can find his ideas at interfluidity.com and drafts.interfluidity.com.

Conclusion

Obviously, these constructive ideas just scratch the surface of what we can do if we stop fighting one another and cooperate to improve the world. 

 

Thoughts of the Deep, Dark State

The Deep Dark State - definition. The state is a set of governing institutions. The deep state is the set of permanent institutions and employees, i,e, those not subject to change due to elections. The dark state is the set of governing people and institutions who have access to classified documents.

The deep and dark states need not be monolithic, just as the state itself can have various factions. 

However, the monetary incentives for the deep and dark states have a clear bias in supporting the status quo, and against competing civilizations.  The amount of money involved goes beyond the military-industrial complex to the overwhelming bulk of the economy. Thus, for example, people and institutions supporting Putin in the Ukraine War would not get far with the deep and dark states. Similarly, Bernie Sanders was for the most part opposed by the deep and dark states.

Good, patriotic intentions may be influenced by the need to earn a living and the desire to have greater agency.  There is something of a continuum on a line from patriotism to corruption.  This is true in every country.

The quesion, then, is: To what extent is one's worldview and culture based upon the more corrupt (or dysfunctional) end of the spectrum? How does this vary among countries and civilizations?

One possible conclusion is that all countries are equally corrupt and delusional.  Therefore, no war is justified.  Alternatively, one might argue that one should always support one's own country if it is impossible to judge who is right and who is wrong.  My personal opinion is that the details matter.  Some wars may be justified and others folly.  To the extent I still believe in democracy, I believe it is important to discuss the details.

Mother of all Losers

 The Biden Admininistration's foreign policy, in cooperation with NATO, is the worst ever.  

GOAL: Weaken Putin

RAND Corporation released a concerned report that Russia is learning how to fight NATO while modernizing its own army, and NATO is not getting any real, on the ground, hands-on experience themselves, at least nothing comparable to what Russian soldiers are getting through this conflict

In May 2023, over 80 percent of Russians approved of activities of the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The popularity level was five percent higher than in September 2022, when it stood at 77 percent.

Mercouris video on deplomatic relations (excerpts begin at 56:42):

At the G7 meeting Modi did say a lot of other things. He talked again about international law. He says Global Peace stability and prosperity is a common objective. In today's interconnected world, crisis in any one region affects all the countries and the developing countries which have limited resources are the worst affected.  These countries are facing the maximum and most profound impact of the food, fuel, and fertilizer crisis, and that's a clear rebuke to the Western powers. It raises the question as to why we are facing the need to discuss matters of peace and stability in distinct forums (such as G7) and not the United Nations which was established with the very purpose of establishing peace? Why does it often fail to prevent conflicts today? Why even the definition of terrorism has not been accepted in the United Nations? If introspection is done then one thing is clear -- The institutions created in the last century are not in line with the system of the 21st century. They do not reflect the realities of the present -- that is why it is necessary that reform should be given concrete shape in big institutions like the UN. The UN will also have to become the voice of the global South. Otherwise we will just keep talking and the U.N Security Council will become just a talk shop. Why is the United Nations dominated still by the victorious powers of the second World War? Why in effect do the Western Powers -- the United States, Britain, and France -- still have three permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council whereas the global South does not have a permanent representative?

Another leader who was also at the G7 and who was apparently extremely unhappy by the way that he was treated there and that was President of Brazil Lula de Silva.  So what does Lula de Silva do as soon as he gets back to Brazil -- he telephones President Putin...  The president of Brazil shared his impressions of participating in the recent G7 Summit and also outlined his vision of possible mediation efforts to find ways of resolving the conflict in Ukraine.  It's almost as if Lula were reporting to Putin about the G7. I wonder whether that means by the way that Lula in future might not receive invitations. It's been pointed out recently that South Africa, which is very much in the uh West's bad country list at the moment, was not invited to the G7....

We have an interesting contrast in diplomatic styles with Biden and Putin and their respective approaches to Erdogan.  

Putin telephones Erdogan and tells him: 

"We're delighted to see you reelected. You have our warm congratulations. We look forward to working with you on every conceivable issue in our relations." 

It's a warm and friendly call between Putin and Erdogan. 

By contrast, it is a lot more tense call from Biden. The call is purportedly to congratulate Erdogan over his re-election, but in practice is to put pressure on him, bully him perhaps might not be too strong a word, to remind him pointedly that he's a member of NATO and that comes with certain obligations. Turkey should in other words distance itself from the Russians and support the Western position over Ukraine.   The terseness of the Turkish readout confirms that relations between Russia and Turkey have steadily improved over the last couple of years, while relations between Turkey and the United States have steadily deteriorated.

In sum, Russian factories are running all out producing war goods, its military engineers are enhancing its weapons and related technologies, its military commanders are honing their battlefield tactics and practicing against the combined efforts of 31 NATO countries and 10 or more additional Western allies, Putin is more popular than any Western leader in his/her wildest dreams, Russia's economy is strong in the light of closer ties with countries such as China, India, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Iran, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabian, etc, and Putin and Russia enjoy improved diplomatic relations with many of the world's most powerful nations.

This is failure on an epic scale. Time to double down! 

It was reported last week that fearful of leaks, Ukraine has shared their offensive plans with only a tiny handful of people in the West. Apparently Lindsay Graham was one of them, as a new Politico piece reports with joy that Graham has been given a very thorough ‘deep-dive’ of the full offensive plans, which he calls very ‘impressive’. He further says that the Russians are in for a big surprise and ‘rude awakening’.

Lindsay Graham, Friend of Ukraine

Lindsay Graham is one of the good (non-Trump) Republicans:

"It was reported last week that fearful of leaks, Ukraine has shared their offensive plans with only a tiny handful of people in the West. Apparently Lindsay Graham was one of them, as a new Politico piece reports with joy that Graham has been given a very thorough ‘deep-dive’ of the full offensive plans, which he calls very ‘impressive’. He further says that the Russians are in for a big surprise and ‘rude awakening’."

But Graham has already done so much for Ukraine:

"In 2016, the United States committed to arming Ukraine to fight and win a war against Russia. A video, filmed during John McCain’s visit to Ukraine in 2016, has resurfaced. It shows the senator accompanied by his colleague and friend, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. In this video, Senators Graham and McCain assure that the U.S. will give all the weapons necessary for them to succeed in defeating Russia." 

#unprovoked