The coming midwinter will bring a reckoning. Western governments must either invite economic misery on a scale that would test the fabric of democratic politics in any country, or face the fact that energy supply constrains the means by which Ukraine can be defended. – Helen Thomson, Cambridge University, Professor of Political Economy [My emphasis]
Introduction
In my previous article, I took an unflattering look at some of The West’s many geopolitical entanglements, arguing that they drive its rapid unravelling into stubborn incompetence and metastasising dysfunction. Its descent, I reasoned, emboldens the rest of the world to seize its chance to create a multi-polar order that can supplant US/Western hegemony.
The recent turn of events in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which is perhaps the expression par excellence of The West’s decline, casts fresh light on The West’s prowess at using PR optics to nudge history where it will. This light offers us an opportunity to attempt a finer grained analysis of where humanity stands right now.
A shallow reading of my position as an advocate of idealism – everything is consciousness – might suggest I would be a fan of optics. After all, everything is perception, right? Not exactly. Our earthly existence is a consensus ‘illusion’, not a solipsistic one. So, though a nation or civilisation may be adept at and possess sufficient resources to powerfully influence the optics around any particular event, those optics need to tally closely with the actual details of that event if they are to have a lasting effect. And while I believe it is indeed feasible to nudge history in a direction counter to the needs and wishes of a people using optics management, if that direction runs counter to common sense and health, there will be an inevitable correction to a healthier state, at some cost, at some point.
If, on the other hand, those optics-based strategies nudge people in a healthier direction, then their effects will prove longer lasting and be more beneficial.
(What I am a fan of is authenticity, honesty and love. These principles are synonymous, in effect, with health, where by “health” I mean a homeostatic health of all interdependent systems.)
The Russia-Ukraine war, as all wars, involves optics, tactically and strategically. Wars are fought on the battlefield primarily, but also on the field of perception through how battlefield events are reported. I understand that Churchill said that in times of war, truth is so precious it must be hidden behind a fog of lies.
A nation’s capacity to prosecute a war to victory depends on many things, one of which is its people’s belief the war is winnable. Optics influence their sense that victory is within reach, and therefore influence a nation’s capacity to support its troops and endure hardships on the path to victory. Optics are thus very important.
It is said that The West is masterful in optics manipulation and management, with Russia lagging far behind in this regard. This article looks at the possible long-term consequences of this cultural difference, and also examines how my steep learning curve concerning this conflict has informed my interpretation of what is going on globally.
The realities
You can’t win a war with optics alone. Even if country A has a militarily impregnable press but no army whatsoever, while country B has a shoddy, recalcitrant press but first-class army, sensible money would bet on B’s quick and comprehensive victory. A’s people would see one thing in their newspapers and on their TV screens, but learn quite another from the reality on their streets and in their homes.
On the other hand, in the case of evenly matched armies between A and B, with A boasting vastly superior optics management, sensible money would bet on A.
What can we say about Russia and The West?
For a start, it is of course far more complicated than the stick-man sketch above. The US may possess superior military technology and a larger war machine than Russia, but can it deploy effectively in Ukraine, even if geopolitical circumstances were to permit US boots on the ground? Russia borders Ukraine, the US does not.
NATO could deploy EU/UK military might (less than Russia’s by all accounts), but again, not with the ease with which Russia can deploy its military assets.
So, in terms of what can be deployed quickly on the ground, Russia has the advantage regardless of the relative strengths of the combined forces each group of combatants has on paper. (I’m ruling our nuclear war in this assessment; in that case all bets would be off.)
As I argued in my previous post, it boils down to the devilish details of the pragmatics that define the very complex situation that is Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Firstly, Russia has not declared war. It is conducting what it calls a “Special Military Operation” (SMO). This is essentially a list of objectives constrained by specific terms drawn up by Putin and issued to Russia’s military. The terms stipulate that Russia will not acquire Ukrainian territory, but rid Ukraine of its fascist elements, protect the Russian-speaking peoples of eastern Ukraine and enable them to function as independent republics free of threats and danger from Ukraine.
Whatever your view of the sincerity of this contract, Russia has stuck to it quite rigidly, by all accounts (until Sunday 11 September 2022, more on which below). My understanding is that part of this SMO’s appeal to Putin is as a hearts-and-minds campaign to win over as many countries of the global south as possible. Success in this objective would help the BRICS nations advance a multi-polar global order to replace US global hegemony. If Russia had deployed its full might against Ukraine from the start, it would have appeared unpredictably aggressive to the rest of the world; the Russia-BRICS ambition could thus have been dead before arrival. Russia may well have defeated Ukraine more quickly, but might have been isolated internationally.
Secondly, Russia has no interest in further antagonising the Ukrainian people against them. Wars (and SMOs) end at some point, and peace negotiations begin. Were Russia to have wantonly destroyed civilian architecture, bombed all Ukraine’s major cities to rubble and caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, it would have transformed Ukraine into a time bomb, thereby only postponing its threat to Russian territorial security.
Thirdly, full war against Ukraine risks full war with NATO. With regards peace negotiations that always come at some point, the risk of collapsed relations with The West is not something Russia particularly lusts for. (Now that Russia’s trust of The West has been severely damaged, the initial importance of this point may have expired.)
In other words, Russia probably hoped to complete its SMO quickly and clinically, and then begin negotiations that would have had genuine potential to effect a lasting peace and so secure Russia’s security going forward. Such an eventuality would initially have been more attractive to Putin than prosecuting a horribly destructive war of highly uncertain global outcome.
But – and it’s a huge but – NATO and The West want to maintain US hegemony; US hegemony is, in a sense, their identity, their raison d’etre. Russia’s and the BRICS nations’ ambitions are a direct threat to that hegemony. Of that bloc, Russia represents the biggest threat, has the most enticing resources and is the easiest to dismantle (in The West’s estimation). Ergo, The Wests’ and Russia’s respective situations have driven them into bitter conflict over Ukraine.
In sum, this is an existential, last-chance-saloon situation for The West. For Russia, this is also an existential, last-chance-saloon situation; it cannot advance its preferred historical vector, protect its territorial integrity, and not supplant US hegemony. I’m confident both sides see this.
Hence, the SMO may well be cynical, but not 100% so. It may be that Putin calculated some low chance that Russia could wrap things up quickly – Russia made overtures early in the operation to agree peace terms with Ukraine, but these were scuppered by Boris Johnson – and walk away from the affair with all sides happy, before the operation escalated to war. Worth a shot, right?
Up until now, a confluence of factors has kept Putin true to the SMO. That changed with the Kharkov offensive, which saw Ukraine make large territorial gains in a very short space of time – albeit immaterial gains from what I understand. The West then finessed this into a succulent optics victory for Ukraine, one that has reinvigorated support for their cause and triggered further tranches of aid from Ukraine’s Western backers. Prior to Ukraine’s success in Kharkov, The West had been losing interest, and facing an energy crisis with nothing positive to show for its imminent sacrifice.
Perhaps under political pressure at home on the back of this optics win, Putin has deviated from the terms of the SMO and struck civilian infrastructure. This may well be the opening overture in an escalation from SMO to an “Counter-Terrorist Operation” (CTO). Speculation has it that Russia may soon officially declare Ukraine a terrorist state. Such a declaration would ‘legally’ authorise Russia to attack more civilian infrastructure as well as the Zelenskyy regime’s command and control infrastructure.
If escalation is The West’s aim, its skilled optics management procured a positive outcome. But this escalation must lead to Russia’s collapse if it is to be beneficial to The West, hence the stringent sanctions that have been in place from the beginning. However, the sanctions have thus far harmed only The West. Further, the long-term effects of these territorial gains will be decided by the relative powers and available opportunities each embroiled combatant possesses.
This article begins with a quote from a Financial Times piece I find most apposite. One consequence of Russia having remained true to the terms of its SMO is that the global south has warmed to Russia and cooled to The West, generally speaking. This includes Iran and Saudi Arabia: two major oil producers. If the growing closeness between these three nations grows yet closer, and if Saudi Arabia brings OPEC with it, then The West’s access to cheap, reliable oil becomes uncertain. Its capacity to outlast Russia in this conflict would diminish perilously if OPEC’s and Iran’s strategic loyalties shift to the BRICS bloc, and this on top of Russia having switched off Nord Stream 1.
Apparently, The West’s capacity to equip Ukraine with sufficient munitions to best Russia is also dwindling; armament stocks are now too low for it to continue its largesse. Stocks must now be replenished, which takes time. Furthermore, Ukraine’s success in the Kharkov region, as well as its failure near Kherson, have proven very costly. Russia has sustained a fraction of Ukraine’s casualties. Destruction to Russia’s military equipment is apparently negligible, while Ukraine has suffered significant losses.
Taking all this together, it appears Russia’s military-industrial capacity massively outweighs The West’s; according to Western media accounts, Russia is able to launch endless torrents of artillery fire at enemy lines. If true, short on energy and dangerously low on munitions, The West has next to no chance militarily against Russia in Ukraine (again, I’m ignoring the nuclear option). Sooner or later, The West’s excellent optics management will be rendered immaterial by Russia’s superiority on the battlefield. With the EU/UK teetering on the edge of economic and societal collapse, with Russia’s economic outlook improving, The West is quickly running out of rope.
Why does all this interest Econosophy so much?
Econosophy is, in essence, an examination of the ramifications of resource-based economics. For those ramifications to be more than just idly interesting to a few oddballs, the peoples of the world must first want to pursue that vector. For the peoples of the world to want this, there first needs to be a transformation of global consciousness. This foundational requirement is why I have written so much of late on various aspects of and around idealist ontology. For me, part of what is evolving on earth in the human domain is a profound paradigm shift away from materialism towards Something Else. My bet is on some variant of idealism, but I cannot say what historians and philosophers will call it.
All of this means I felt the topics close to my heart could be reinvigorated by the mass hysteria the covid ‘pandemic’ triggered across the planet. My powers of reason informed me the hysteria was a purging preparation, a softening of the soil for radically different, counter-establishment ideas to take root and bloom. Perhaps that intuition, shared by many, is correct. Perhaps not.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict suggests not, at least not on the timescale I had hoped. And while I find the conflict itself sickening, while I find the tragically fated entanglements that bound humanity to its eruption earlier this year so frustrating, while it does not matter to me which ‘side’ wins as long as termination of this war improves humanity’s chances for peaceful cohabitation, I do want to understand what it means for us all. Two things weigh heavy in my thoughts.
First, does the complexity of global modernity require hierarchical social organisation? Or, does the complexity of global modernity doom top-down rule to messy collapse? The inflexibility on display, both on the part of our putative rulers and the mesmerised ruled, beggars belief. We westerners seem set to demand our immolation because we said we would ‘defend’ Ukraine, whatever Ukraine is, whatever the cost to us, to Ukraine, and to the wider world. We seem hell bent on hating Russia, on forbidding open discussion on the subject, and on forbidding disagreement generally: an outright absurdity. To me, all this seems a direct consequence of hierarchical rule. But only in The West? I’m not at all sure.
Second, how much must come undone before the soil of our many cultural beliefs softens enough to explore new ideas at mass scale? Confounding this question, does the amount of collapse required to effect such a softening mean we simply will not be able to do anything other than blame each other for that collapse? Will the carefully nurtured climate of paranoia, fear and suspicion so important to hierarchical rule brood itself deep into our future?
In The West, our sense of ourselves and what we are entitled to revolves around consumerism and, now, instant gratification. To what extent does the rest of the world desire our lifestyle for itself? Is the consumerist idyl beamed by The West out into the world perceived as real wealth? This is extremely hard to properly assess, but seems possible, even likely.
If the BRICS bloc rises at the expense of The West in the zero-sum game of scarcity economics, will that rise simply import The West’s scarcity dilemma to that bloc? The West faces its demise for fundamental reasons: the end of cheap energy, the march of technological unemployment, the spiritual void of consumerism, and the systemic scarcity price-based economics requires. Does the BRICS bloc see these fundamentals as irresolvable? Does it see them at all? My guess is that if it does see them, it imagines it need only apply a few inventive tweaks to fix them.
Questions upon questions. And to make matters still more uncertain, The West is far from a single entity of hive-mind purpose. The WEF/WHO/Davos crowd advances its bizarro agenda with similarly existential determination. This group wants global control, probably because, in its view, earth’s limited carrying capacity is such that humans, with their insatiable greeds and bestial wisdom, must be tightly kept in line using the panopticon potential of AI, constant surveillance and central-bank digital currencies. Following Tom Luongo’s analysis, the neoconservatives are raining on Davos’ parade by escalating the war with Russia, and in so doing setting the BRICS off on a divergent vector.
Who will end up with what share of the pie? And how stable will that new arrangement be absent a reliable and plentiful supply of cheap energy? How stable will it be with a reliable and plentiful supply of cheap energy?
Conclusion
It seems to me, then, that this end-times battle between the various factions, each vying for its own version of how humans should live on earth, rages on precisely because each power player perceives scarcity as foundational to earthly existence, to life itself. This perception operates powerfully within and just beneath awareness to continually infuse its particular colourings into all optics, regardless of skill level involved. In this way, the mounting escalations, the skirmishes and tensions mushrooming up all over the place are driven by the power of optics to perpetuate beliefs that no longer serve us, that are taking us to the edge of catastrophe.
Human consciousness is shackled, as always, by how its imagination is shaped by culture. And, while there are multiple cultures involved, and sub-cultures within those, there is, I believe a meta-culture binding all modernity together in its conviction about scarcity, price, markets and trade, and how these ‘fundaments’ are true and unfiltered expressions of the human condition, rather than conditional to the civilisational project.
I am still of the mind that a Civilisation 2.0 is in the offing. And yet, something about the Russia-Ukraine conflict has made it recede beyond the horizon. Watching it disappear from view is a sobering experience.
Humans incarnate to learn to become love in extraordinarily difficult conditions. Our successes and failures in this undertaking enhance the music of All That Is in ways we can but dimly understand. It is not for me to say what is going to develop next year, next week, or even tomorrow, but at the moment it looks like there is a long way to go – much breakdown to experience – before humanity develops a cohering desire to take love and health seriously, to structure its future guided by these truly foundational qualities.
[Edited ATO to CTO, "Counter-Terrorist Operation", 15 September 22]
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