Pepe Escobar, Larison And the State of Contemporary American Oraclism.

Pepe wrote a superb piece on late Zbig and what comes down to an American vast field of geopolitical (on average fraudulent) forecasts at large. In a piece symptomatically titled The Art of Being a Spectacularly Misguided Oracle, Pepe notes:

Over the years, it was always amusing to follow the heights Dr. Zbig would reach with his Russophobia. But then, slowly but surely, he was forced to revise his great expectations. And finally he must have been truly horrified that his perennial Mackinder-style geopolitical fears came to pass – beyond the wildest nightmares. Not only Washington had prevented the emergence of a “peer competitor” in Eurasia, but the competitor is now configured as a strategic partnership between Russia and China.Dr. Zbig was not exactly versed in Chinese matters. His misreading of China may be found in his classic A Geostrategy for Eurasia published in – where else – Foreign Affairs in 1997.

There was nothing unexpected in Zbig's worst nightmares becoming a reality since Zbig was not well-versed not only in Chinese matters, but Russian ones too, not to mention the fact, of which I write non-stop for years, including the latest book, modern geopolitics, or rather what is perceived under this title, has as much in common with purely geography-driven Mackinder's pseudo-science he developed in his The Geographical Pivot of History and, later Democratic Ideals and Reality, as I have genetically with white whales or aliens from planet Zoltar. Here is the deal with all this "geopolitics"-- geography as a function of ranges (distances) and landscape nowadays, say starting circa 1960s, stopped playing a defining role yielding it, finally, to a industrial-technological development of countries which overwhelmingly defines modern "geopolitics".

In Soviet/Russian public schools this "geopolitics" is being taught as a course in Geography, both physical and economic. Here is an example of economic geography exam in Russian schools. This also qualifies to be the part of yet another constituent part of multiplication of pseudo-scientific essences such as Luttwak's introduction of "geoeconomics" being a separate study, as Luttwak insists, from "geopolitics".  So, what was touted in the West as some kind of a separate study and highly vaunted expertise is nothing more than an eclectic approach to primarily an economic geography, history and economics, or those legitimate disciplines' lobotomized bastard child of political "science". And why not? In the academe which counts Queer Studies as a viable academic discipline and Ph.Ds in Gender are bestowed on  people who can barely operate with basic logic, not to speak of vast arrays of complex information, it is absolutely not surprising and only natural, that people of Zbig's or Kissinger's backgrounds would be counted as Oracles, despite them, and many others from a vast cesspool of America's 'geopolitical and political science sinecures, being constantly wrong on pretty much any issue of modern geopolitics and global balance of power. 

Oh, come on, let's face it, the only thing these pseudo-oracles could ever sell was a "reasoning" based on a complete factual BS which was and is treated as a "scientific" fact, while in reality being a figment of imagination of a class of America's fraudulent oracles, whose main task is a development of explanations of why their predictions never become a reality. Ah, those sinecures and pseudo-intellectual magazines serving as Ilf and Petrov once defined as "life-giving springs of remuneration." So, if Zbig, Fukuyama, Kissinger, Huntington or Luttwak never saw their "predictions" to pan out--don't be surprised, I never saw a successful routine appendectomy performed by a local grocery store custodian or even the best electrician from the best local company. Unless, of course, they decided to exchange their 8 years of study and internship in mdeical school for salaries of said custodian or electrician, which under modern conditions may not seem as far fetched. Some good level electricians today make a killing reaching sometimes $90 per hour, and I thought myself about doing this, but then again--I am relatively young and if I need to commit suicide, I have much better alternatives and my body will be still intact, relatively, compared to my sorry ass being turned into the pile of ash, with the only benefit being a free on-sire cremation. But I digress. 

We all need to understand the name of the game--it is wrapping an acute ignorance into the veil of seemingly legitimate and respectable "scientific" verbiage. If predictions do not pan out, who cares. Well, in the United States of the last 30 years no "geopolitical" prediction, there were many of them, panned out precisely because of the American geopolitical Beau Monde being "not versed" in the the main constituent parts of good forecasting: modern real (industrial) economy and warfare. Both require a set of knowledge and skills which are beyond the scope of whatever passes today as "education" in geopolitics in the West. It is all fine and dandy to have an excellent background in economic geography, which is a legitimate field of study, but until one understands the impact of these two on US "foreign policy", one will continue to observe such arguments as Daniel Larison tries to make when addressing a complete neocon moron with Ph.D in "public policy" such as Robert Kagan:

U.S. hegemony was an artifact of a very peculiar period in world history that will never come again, and as we move out of that period we need to adapt our foreign policy strategy accordingly. Kagan and Rasmussen are products of that period and cling desperately to it because it is what they know. They are trying to preserve a U.S. role in the world that no longer makes any sense for the world as it is.

No, Mr. Larison, despite validity of your many points, Kagan, Rassmusen et al, are not just "products of that period". This is not it, I know a truckload of people who are "products of this period", me being one of them. The reason they cling to a myth of America's hegemony is because this is THE ONLY thing which dominates America's geopolitical Parnassus infested with people who are utterly uneducated and cannot possibly grasp a scale of the technological, industrial, scientific and military advances in the last 20 years. Kagan has degree in "public policy" and his loyalties are to Israel, Rassmussen has degree in social studies and was a Prime-Minister of the country, which is smaller than the couple of southern boroughs of Moscow, or St. Petersburg. Even if to imagine that they wanted to move on, which they don't, neoconservative-liberal interventionism is now in a stage four in the United States, they can't. They do not have intellectual wherewithal to do so. Can you imagine this fat ass Kagan studying real Operational Theory or how advanced weapons are designed and produced? Come on, let's be real. Look at the modern Europe today, at its degenerate political and media class, same goes for the United States. 

We literally have "humanities-educated" class running things into the ground. As I state non-stop, I am all eyes and ears, rubbing my hands in anticipation, waiting for America's geopolitical Parnassus to produce a viable argument in favor of "learning historic lessons" from Peloponnese Wars as applied to operations of modern militaries, say in dense ECM-ECCM environment. I bet, this thing has way more profound impact on modern geopolitics, than late Zbig or Fukuyama, or Kissinger ever wrote on anything. As I say non-stop, I am not against humanities studies, they are part and parcel of classic education which we all sorely miss today among Western "elites" who are grotesquely uncultured, despite having access to an expensive Scotch and the best golf-clubs in the world. I am terrified of some "human rights" lawyer or Ph.D in "public policy" getting to the levers of a political power and trying to apply that precious little of value which was taught to him to the world which is so complex that it cannot afford anymore the class of "experts" who cannot predict their next own bowel movement, let alone the global transfiguration unfolding in a front of our own eyes. What we have today in the US is a class of people who, as Pepe correctly states, are spectacularly misguided oracles, who haven't got anything right in decades but who continue to push their own opinions and forecasts which are irredeemable both from academic-scientific and human points of view. Ignorance is not an extenuating circumstance in case of American "geopolitics", which in the last 30 years produced one failure after another thus justifying, directly or by proxy, a massive war crime a rotten Empire has committed trying to extend its self-proclaimed hegemonic life by means of robbery and violence. The accounts will be settled one way or another. But even a broken clock is right twice a day, not American geopolitical "academe".  

I Wanted To Be A Superman...

You know like a real deal, with all those super-powers--you can fly both in the air and space, you can lift some things like railroad engines or Boeing-747 with no effort, you can see girls' boobs through clothes and other wonderful things you could do with your super-powers. But, by the tender age of 40 I finally figured out that Superman movies were actually all a Hollywood fantasy and I got depressed. It came about the same time I recognized that Santa Claus doesn't exist. My dreams of super-powers, together with dreams of Jeannie, when Barbara Eden was still drop-dead gorgeous  (my wife still doesn't know about that), were dealt a crushing blow and I had to reconcile myself to a reality, where I reside, with a different level of success, even today. 

But my dreams of super-powers, especially mental ones, couldn't have come more useful than today, when navigating an opaque Mississippi of pseudo-academic BS filling this mighty river through numerous tributaries streaming from the American political "science" universe and publications which sell this mental ejaculation as a valid scholarship. But, as I stated above, I long ago reconciled myself with the fact that I will never gain even a minute percentage of Superman's powers, which, as it turned out, is not the case with US geopolitical "thinkers" who are still active in casting their spells, which are as effective as those cast by infantile participants at numerous Comic Con conventions, where they go to exorcise any symptoms of unfolding maturity in order to remain children before going on the social security. Enter a couple of esteemed political "scientists" who, in no less than Council of Foreign Relations very own rag, Foreign Affairs, arrived to this conclusion:

Multiple signs point to a crisis in global order. The uncoordinated international response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic downturns, the resurgence of nationalist politics, and the hardening of state borders all seem to herald the emergence of a less cooperative and more fragile international system. According to many observers, these developments underscore the dangers of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America first” policies and his retreat from global leadership. 

My immediate quarrel with these two is not even this passage, however detached from reality it is (I will elaborate), but with the title of their piece itself: How Hegemony Ends. The Unraveling of American Power. My quarrel with it is the tense in which the title written because American "hegemony", much of it self-proclaimed, ended quite some time ago. So? the proper title should be How Hegemony Ended. It is difficult to precisely pin-point this moment but, and I wrote extensively on that, the first real manifestation was a double whammy first in Crimea and second--Syria. Signs of America's power unraveling were registered even earlier. Now back to quotation. I don't know what "global order" those scientists are talking about but the truth of the matter is extremely simple: the United States could have been in the position of some sort of a global game warden--I omit, for now, the issue of the United States not having resources for that from the inception--if it knew its limitations, and even Russia and China would probably be OK, more or less, if the US would have recognized that. But no. Instead of an order, the United States, due to lack of resources and largely faked own 20th century military history, created one hell of a mess. 

Moreover, it is one thing when when it is a mess outside, but the US cannot govern itself properly. The terms democracy and human rights when used by US side at any international platform create ironic smiles at best, a Homeric laughter--at worst. There is nothing more pathetic than Barbara Jean Trenton trying to relive her 16-mm large screen glory in the times of fast internet and CGI. The US is Barbara Jean Trenton, unsuccessfully, trying to attract young lovers with her wrinkled face and disfigured by arthritis fingers, even with some rings with large diamonds on them. But then again, where are those certificates of authenticity for those stones? Did they ever exist? Not everything that shines is gold or a diamond. To the credit of the authors, they find this proposition erroneous: 

Some analysts believe that the United States can still turn this around, by restoring the strategies by which it, from the end of World War II to the aftermath of the Cold War, built and sustained a successful international order. If a post-Trump United States could reclaim the responsibilities of global power, then this era—including the pandemic that will define it—could stand as a temporary aberration rather than a step on the way to permanent disarray. 

Good for them, but even in debunking these ridiculous a-historic parallels, they arrive to a rather timid retort:

Today, those same dynamics have turned against the United States: a vicious cycle that erodes U.S. power has replaced the virtuous cycles that once reinforced it. With the rise of great powers such as China and Russia, autocratic and illiberal projects rival the U.S.-led liberal international system. Developing countries—and even many developed ones—can seek alternative patrons rather than remain dependent on Western largess and support. And illiberal, often right-wing transnational networks are pressing against the norms and pieties of the liberal international order that once seemed so implacable. In short, U.S. global leadership is not simply in retreat; it is unraveling. And the decline is not cyclical but permanent.   

They, same as John Mearsheimer (my first chapter in the last book addresses his last treatise) do not understand not only a fundamental crisis of "liberalism", a euphemism for financial capitalism, and that "seeking of alternative patrons" came about precisely that instead of order and stability the United States provided for warfare, atrocities, violence, destruction and all that is endemic in the system which now begins to eat itself from the inside. I leave a "largess"  argument for others to ponder--we didn't even start to count how many trillions of dollars this "largess" cost to such countries as Iraq, Serbia, Ukraine, Syria, Libya or Afghanistan, to name a few, in lost lives, destroyed infrastructure, stolen national treasure to name a few effects of this "liberal" order. What they don't understand is that if not for the Soviet Union saving what commonly is addressed as West by defeating European Nazism and Fascism, no serious talk about "liberal order" would have been possible. That is why Russia holds every year Victory Day Parade--not only to honor her fallen, but to remind this very West who and how defeated its very own demons. That is why Putin, in an interview to...ahem...The National Interest stresses this. 

However, the League of Nations dominated by the victorious powers of France and the United Kingdom proved ineffective and just got swamped by pointless discussions. The League of Nations and the European continent in general turned a deaf ear to the repeated calls of the Soviet Union to establish an equitable collective security system, and sign an Eastern European pact and a Pacific pact to prevent aggression. These proposals were disregarded.

It was Russia who bore the brunt and that is why Russia builds state-of-the-art weapons and armed forces. Today, any talk about "democracy", "liberalism", and global "order", unless it is done by a completely brainwashed people--not an uncommon feature among Western "scholars"--cannot and will not hide anymore attempts by Western financial oligarchy, led by US "elites", who think themselves as heirs to Superman's powers, to put a whole world under their control. Including by means of rewriting a history or, on many occasions, just making it up.

Thus, claims as such:

China and Russia are not the only states seeking to make world politics more favorable to nondemocratic regimes and less amenable to U.S. hegemony. As early as 2007, lending by “rogue donors” such as then oil-rich Venezuela raised the possibility that such no-strings-attached assistance might undermine Western aid initiatives designed to encourage governments to embrace liberal reforms.

Are made by people who are either lying through their teeth or, which is equally probable, dumb as stumps. "Liberal reforms" is a euphemism for total deregulation and privatization of national treasures by Western oligarchy. Ukraine is having a blast with those "reforms". While authors continue to bloviate throughout a meandering piece about how US "patronage" collapsed and how international "networks" are being reconfigured, I will repeat myself. They could have spared the space in the magazine and the time for reading by simply stating two basic facts:

1. US lost, with a humiliating score, economic race to China;

2. US lost, with a humiliating score, arms race to Russia.  

These two facts alone explain why the US never was a "superman" and why most of its "superpowers" turned out, such as magic wands of Harry Potter cosplayers at Comic Con conventions, to be as effective as a treatment of the fourth stage cancer with a hydrocortisone topical cream. And here is what I wanted to repeat, considering an infinitesimally small probability that these two "professors" will ever read this: throw your degrees in political pseudo-science into trash bin and start learning real economy and real military balance. Only that may help to regain some connection to the reality and maybe dispose off delusions about super-powers, which were never there, other than of a big screen in movie theater or on TV, especially in the country which cannot defend its sacred symbols, such as monuments, and history against the crowds of radical thugs and their enablers at the very political top. But yes, I dreamed once of being a Superman...and about Barbara Eden when she was Jeannie.  

About "Hegemony". Fast Thought.

Even today, when browsing media--I am not going to give links, they are easy to find--I stumble constantly on definition of the United States as hegemon. Hegemon this, hegemon that and all of this usage ONLY in the context of what Fed will do, how Mnuchin slept last night, and what is the state of banks. I think, using financial voodoo which is being presented as a "science" in Anglo-sphere media and its iterations in, say, Russia among what is known today as Russian liberda circles with appropriate media such as Kommersant of RBC, one is literally forced by narrative to believe that the US is a hegemon because US Dollar is world's reserve currency and everything flows from it. Well, this is a preposterous and utterly incompetent view because even a generic definition of hegemony doesn't support those assumptions in the least, because in real world US Dollar being (for now) global reserve currency is merely an advantage, malignant at that for the US itself, but hegemony is something else altogether:   

control by one country, organization, etc. over other countries, etc. within a particular group 

My latest book, my previous book, my third book which I am writing are all dedicated to a deconstruction of the myth of the United States being a real hegemon, because "control" is a very vague term until one begins to specify elements of this control and here is this slight problem: one cannot define "control" merely by balance sheet, because real hegemony realistically is built around... I know, I know, I am such a bore... tangibles. Or, as I write for years--by actual predictors, overwhelming majority of which are based on real economy and real capability. Let's recall this from more than 4 years ago: 

1. Owns and operates the international banking system;

2. Controls all hard currencies;

3. Is the world's principal customer;

4. Provides the majority of the worlds finished goods;

5. Dominates international capital markets;

6. Exerts considerable moral leadership within many societies;

7. Is capable of massive military intervention;

8. Controls the sea lanes;

9. Conducts most advanced technical research and development;

10. Controls leading edge technical education;

11. Dominates access to space;

12. Dominates aerospace industry;

13. Dominates international communications;

14. Dominates the high-tech weapons industry. 

Out of those 14 points, highlighted 11, that is 78.6%, are directly connected to a very serious manufacturing or, in modern lingo, "real economy". If one throws away BS about "considerable moral leadership" (a delusion still propagated by Huntington's founded Foreign Policy magazine) and the point about control of all hard currencies, this share increases to 11 out of 12, that is roughly 92%.  It is also what makes one a military power. And even this list is still incomplete....

In general, real hegemony without military hegemony is nothing more than exercise in PR and feel-good-about-oneself delusion. In general, hegemony without kinetic ability to prove, by means of power enforcing, of the order hegemon wants to establish is not a hegemony. This military hegemony is based on REAL economy, not on stock market or futures or any other paper issued by any bank. Well, guess what American hegemony was based upon--two myths: alleged military power characteristic of hegemon, myth of US economy based on valuations of financial markets. Once those two myths have been removed the collapse ensued, because trust, deep down, in the deepest recesses of their minds many believed primarily in those two myths. Not anymore, the trust had been broken. It doesn't work anymore, it is either non-existent in some places, in other--is running out and really fast at that. Reason--US cannot enforce Bretton Woods, petrodollar, Eurodollar or whatever the hell other simulacra anyone uses to describe Pax Americana, because to do so one actually needs to perform, especially militarily and technologically. US cannot do that. It couldn't for a long time, but it took some effort and time to "explain" or to convey this simple truth to people who, like majority of the so called "investors", know about fictional financial markets but do not understand anything in terms of actual warfare, how military works, how real economy operates based on tangibles, from R&D to industrial manufacturing. They just don't! It is not surprising that good ol' Henry Kissinger ended up on the board of directors of Theranos fraudulent company or Boeing had on its board of directors people, like Nikki Hailey, who have same relation to aerospace as I have to Kabuki Theater. Plus, of course, one cannot continue losing wars against weak opposition non-stop. The doubt, is a like a slow metastasized cancer--once started and not detected, it will spread and kill patient. This exactly what is happening now: we see doubts being realized on the level of general population, some of which is well-off and are "investors" who are completely at loss with their mostly virtual "papers" which very few will be interested in in coming months. 

Fareed Zakaria Woke Up?

Fareed Zakaria is a demagogue and a typical talking head contemporary American pundit--talkative, shallow and not really cultured. Yet, when even this poster-boy for pop-geopolitics (after all, he was a Sam Huntington's student), a fig leaf covering general ignorance, arrives to such conclusions, it means it is getting really hot down (or up) there, in the corridors of the American temple of geopolitical "thought": 

Sometime in the last two years, American hegemony died. The age of U.S. dominance was a brief, heady era, about three decades marked by two moments, each a breakdown of sorts. It was born amid the collapse of the Berlin Wall, in 1989. The end, or really the beginning of the end, was another collapse, that of Iraq in 2003, and the slow unraveling since. But was the death of the United States’ extraordinary status a result of external causes, or did Washington accelerate its own demise through bad habits and bad behavior? That is a question that will be debated by historians for years to come. But at this point, we have enough time and perspective to make some preliminary observations. As with most deaths, many factors contributed to this one. There were deep structural forces in the international system that inexorably worked against any one nation that accumulated so much power. In the American case, however, one is struck by the ways in which Washington—from an unprecedented position—mishandled its hegemony and abused its power, losing allies and emboldening enemies.

Well, Fareed, while your whole piece in Foreign Affairs is behind the pay-wall, allow me to give a brief review of those factors which precipitated this death. 

1. While the United States, in the wake of the Soviet collapse, remained the sole superpower, it somehow escaped the attention of all those "analysts" that Russia which emerged from the rubble of the Soviet Union still remained a nuclear superpower herself capable even in 1990s to obliterate the United States. Nor ACTUAL US military power, the only element which dominates completely ignorant minds of American geopolitical "academe" was as great as it was heralded after the Gulf War. It was akin to the situation of throwing an undesirable tenant from the room and trying to shut the door after this tenant, only to see this tenant's foot still in the door not allowing to shut it. 

2. United States, its political class, almost exclusively, do not grasp the nature and application of the modern military power within the framework of real economy, not some BS credit driven monetary indexes which hid so well a catastrophe of American de-industrialization, hailed, including by you, Fareed, as a development and proof of American power, while in reality being an exact opposite. In reality, few humanities educated people have a good grasp of the world-class hi-tech military being a first derivative of advanced and large economies. They simply do not understand this connection.

3. Yes, I agree--NO power on this planet has the ability to control this whole planet, especially with some contenders capable to defeat the United States in their vicinity, which, accidentally happen to be in Eurasia--the main prize of this whole game. So much for "hyper-power". Once military issue is settled, the institutional one follows, with American tools of control, from currency to international organizations, to moronic financial rating agencies, being dismantled or discredited as I type this. Davos "civilization" is going down, Fareed, for a simple reason--it has few resources, it is being raped into the multiculturalism and decay and militarily it can only threaten third-rate armies of underdeveloped states. It still can built skyscraper here and there, it still can produce one or the other piece of wonderful technology, but that is about it--it reached its full moral collapse stage and it is facing down into the abyss of social and economic upheaval--a direct result of suicidal economic and social policies of the last 30+ years. 

4. Ah, yes, American elites in general are second rate, not well-educated, hardly cultured and you, Fareed, is one of their best representatives. Lawyers, philosophers and political "scientists" do not make good statesmen. Not to mention that political science is not a science. 

So, it is a healthy process then, when Zakaria begins to recognize a reality, which he for so long tried, very publicly, to deny, or hide. Will he, and his ilk, recognize REAL factors behind the death of unipolarity is yet to be seen. Considering, in general, a dismal American political scientists' record of correctly predicting or forecasting anything, the forecast is...ahem...not good. But who knows. But in general, the United States, in the wake of Soviet collapse and Russia truly desiring great relations between the two, humiliated Russia by unceremoniously shoving her to the curb and unleashed, starting from the rape of Yugoslavia, a sequence of mindless and criminal military aggressions and color "revolutions'. Well, folks, what do you do when you learn that there is a loony armed with the kitchen knife running amok in your neighborhood with police doing nothing about it? Right, you earn money and buy a shotgun, or two. Just in case. Same applies to geopolitics, always did. And especially so to Russia, who knows a thing or two about dealing with bullies. So, here we are.

In related news: this drone, shot by Iran, thing is interesting in terms of dynamics of reactions. What is also important about this whole situation? A single Global Hawk's price tag is somewhere in the vicinity of $200 million and, yes, it is "stealthy". Make you own conclusions what this message is all about.