A Frantic Search for the Pause Button

When the reality of resource limits meets elite overproduction

Pause, breathe, resume. Image credit: Brett Jordan via Unsplash

With the war in Ukraine in its terminal, conflict resolution phase, and with the economy, the trade war and reshoring critical industries not going as planned, US elites now seem desperate to have a timeout from the geopolitical competition. Contrary to the mainstream media consensus, the new National Security Strategy is not about abandoning European NATO allies, nor making peace with Russia—let alone deescalating tensions with China or in the Middle East. It’s but a proposal to take a three-year breather, during which the burden of maintaining a world spanning western hegemony can be shared more evenly, and after which hostilities could resume at a much larger scale than ever before. But is it even possible to halt the disintegration of the Western world order, load-shedding or not?

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Before we go into the weeds of this topic, it’s important to highlight something very important right at the beginning. Wars and conflicts are as much about elite infighting, as about weakening the enemy. Their beginning and end are often defined by various factions winning political battles behind the scenes, as opposed to clear cut battlefield victories. Written strategies are thus not holy scripts cast in stone, but a representation of the current state of political infighting — it’s more important to keep a close eye on the underlying dynamics, and what’s actually being done, than what politicians write or tell to the public. Wars are waged for profit, gaining control over resources, and quite often: to preserve the status quo, not for defending freedom and democracy.¹ And when they no longer serve any of these unstated purposes—or to the contrary: become a net drain on resources or a threat to the status quo—they are terminated. Rhetoric is softened, peacemakers come to power, and finding an off-ramp becomes a pressing necessity. Peacemaking, however, is an arduous process: conflicts are much easier to start than to end.

“WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.” — Major General Smedley Butler

But what does this has to do with preserving the status quo, or how things are at the moment? All throughout history nobles have sent their sons to battles, leading legions of peasants who had little say in the matter, to settle scores against each other, fight for domination over territories, people and resources. Besides enriching its financiers, wars also culled the ranks of the elites themselves, preventing what historian Peter Turchin called elite overproduction. You see, even in a classical kingdom, there were always more aspirants to power and more heirs than cushy positions, titles and castles. What’s worse, the overproduction of elites, could also quickly become a drain on the economy. Left untreated, it resulted in soaring inequality, economic instability and eventually in state collapse, as all resources ended up in the hands of the few, while leaving the masses immiserated. Over the course of our history, wars were the “natural” solution to this problem, maintaining a delicate balance not only between, but within states as well.

With the advent of colonization the situation eased somewhat, as many of the elite aspirants could be sent overseas to govern foreign lands. This newfound wealth and resources—together with industrialization needed to process those—on the other hand, has produced way more rich people who could no longer be accommodated in the existing power structure. This has resulted in revolutions and civil wars, upending feudalism² and replacing it with a form of governance allowing more room for elite aspirants. The reduction in pressure, however, was temporary at best.

“Analysis of past societies shows that these destabilizing historical trends develop slowly, last many decades, and are slow to subside” — Peter Turchin

Universities, corporations and the growing administrative state, just kept producing people who wanted to belong to the top tier of society. Unlike in previous times, though, when only the offspring of the nobility got a chance trying their hand at governance, a torrent of fresh minds with high ambitions flooded the market. Ranging from the far left to the far right, new ideologies popped up at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and got some pretty serious following. And while WWI and WWII did reduced the numbers of aspirants threatening to upend the capitalist status quo in the West, something had to be done to prevent the renewed buildup of pressure in the system. Viewed from this perspective, the proliferation of western led international organizations including, but not limited to, the UN, NATO, the EU, World Bank, IMF, international corporations, the countless NGOs, together with all those media outlets, innumerable think tanks, universities etc., were all buffers established to absorb those elite wannabees and the offspring of the upper class.

With citizens rebelling against sending their sons to pointless wars to die (as in the Vietnam war), international organizations had to grow exponentially to absorb all the newcomers from the baby boomer, X and millennial generations. Expansion of the administrative state, regulatory bodies, international agencies—and of course that of the EU and NATO—became the primary tool to preserve the status quo and peace at home. Of course it cost a lot to maintain so many unproductive roles and positions, but being the prime economic and military force on the planet, together with a historically unprecedented boom in energy production, the West could allow this luxury—at least for the time being. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern block new markets were opened up, and the expansion could continue. This not only provided an unprecedented sales opportunity to American weapons manufacturers—as all newcomers had to upgrade their weaponry to NATO standards—but a seemingly unlimited source of cheap labor from Eastern Europe, as well as an exponential market expansion for Western corporations. Business was good.

However, all good things must come to an end. By the dawn of this century Europe has begun to run out of countries to absorb into this model built on ‘infinite growth on a finite continent.’ This has put the West on a collision course with Russia which, on the other hand, has started to reassert itself on the international stage, and pushed back harder and harder on the extension of NATO and EU into their sphere of influence. The unstoppable force of Western expansion met an immovable object. The risk was real: if the Western alliance had to stop growing, it would’ve soon run out of resources and cushy jobs to offer for their still rising number of elite aspirants, who could then start to come up with all sort of wacky ideas how to ‘reform’ the system. Taken together with the material and energy hungry nature, and export dependence of their economies, the Western way of life, peace and stability was at stake here. Battered by the 2008 financial crisis, followed by a decade of stagnation with its austerity measures, the EU was not doing well. The yellow vest movement in France and the growing discontent with climate policies have shown: the risk of a violent upending of the status quo was a very real possibility.

The desire to maintain the status quo has started to mean two mutually exclusive ideas: ‘expansion’ for the transatlantic, and ‘preserving security’ for the Russian side.

Russia, on the flip side, could not allow an aggressive military alliance to encroach on its longest boarder with the rest of Europe. (Especially not, after having been invaded from the West innumerable times over history.) After wantonly bombing Serbia and Libya, while maintaining a permanent military presence in non-member states, starting a coup and building up an army in Ukraine, NATO led by the United States started to look a lot like an immediate military threat. Crimea was the first to fall in this struggle for dominance, and from that point on it was only a question of time when a hot war would break out. Fast forward eight years and the civil war, fought over which camp Ukraine belongs to, has grown into a full blown proxy war with NATO—funded, supplied and directed by an alliance of Western states, with US generals at the helm.

After eleven years of bloodshed and four years of brutal war leaving over a million and a half people dead, we now see a frantic search for an exit. The plan to weaken, regime change and carve up Russia seems to be failing. Badly. Following 19 sanction packages, sending entire stockpiles of weapons, spending hundreds of billions of dollars and euros, providing satellite intelligence with targeting data, shooting long range missiles into Russia, attacking their strategic nuclear bomber fleet, refineries and tankers with drones, the West has run out of stuff and ideas how to beat Russia into submission. Short of giving nukes to Ukraine, which would then immediately lead to their use, there is not much left to be done. The following sentence taken from the freshly released national security strategy tells it all:

“It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state.”

The West has completely underestimated its adversary, together with Russia’s military, manufacturing and diplomatic capacities to navigate the crisis. This is not to say that Russia is not hurting—losing men and machines, struggling with a lack of growth and high interest rates—but their economy and society is far better equipped to endure the pain than that of Europe. Having all the mineral resources and energy they need, combined with a state controlled military-industrial complex geared up for a long war (not to mention the manufacturing support of China), its unlikely that they could not continue this struggle for years to come. The West, on the other hand, is being deindustrialized, struggles with high government and private debt levels, and teeters on the edge of a recession for years now. It also lacks the manufacturing capacity as well as the mineral and energy resources (rare earth elements, and in case of Europe: the coal oil and gas) to remain competitive and to be able to rebuild its weapons stockpiles.

The West desperately needs a breather. Yet, despite these facts, and the proclamations of the new National Security Strategy, NATO led by the United States is still in the process of building up a military, industry, and logistics capability needed to fight Russia by 2029… Even if it would come with a complete destruction of the old continent and even if Russia has no such intentions. Remember, the true root cause of this crisis lies in western military-economic expansion—rooted in the overproduction of European elites and an American desire to contain Russia and China as part of it’s global domination agenda. The aim of the 19, 20 or 28 point plan is thus not peace, or finding a solution to the European security dilemma, but to preserve the current state of affairs.

What that means, however, is an entirely different matter—depending on whom you ask from the parties involved. For the US, maintaining the status quo means the preservation of its intellectual, political, military, economic, and now energy dominance over Europe—financed entirely by the Europeans themselves. (Think: contributing 5% of their GDP to military spending which, by the way, is at least 10% of all tax revenues…) “Stabilizing European economies” and “reestablishing strategic stability with Russia” thus means preserving Europe’s ability to pay their dues to the military industrial complex, before they completely go bankrupt or blow themselves up. If they have to regime change the current crop of European leaders to do that—by replacing them with a properly co-opted “nationalist” elite—then so be it. Divide and conquer is the name of the game here. (Hence the attack on immigration, EU policies and political leaders.) The more divided Europe remains, the less power they have to step out of this abusive relationship and to find their own place in the world.

For the current crop of EU leaders, however, maintaining the status quo means maintaining the flow of weapons and money to Ukraine. It’s better to have a permanent war, than being ousted. This is why the imminent danger of a Russian invasion of Europe must be kept at the center of everyone’s attention: thereby ensuring compliance with the 5% spending target and the complete subordination of Europe to American interests. And while this might sound reckless, cynical and ugly, these people were not elected for the goodness of their hearts, or for keeping the best interest of their people front and center. Nor were elected at all. Thus, as long as they don’t see cast iron guarantees that they can remain in power should peace broke out, they will insist on their maximalist goals, thereby guaranteeing a continuation of hostilities.

Western leaders face a stark choice here: seek genuine peace and stop expanding the EU and NATO for real (thereby taking on the immense risk that elite overproduction in combination with growing civic discontent over economic decline will eventually lead to a revolution both in Europe and America), or continue on a path for war, risking total annihilation. Should the war with Russia escalate further, or resume after a pause, operations would unlikely to be limited to Eastern Europe and the Baltics alone—a missile barrage targeting NATO bases, warships and military installations all across Europe is a very real possibility. The old continent, as imagined by NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, could then find itself in a state of a long — almost permanent — war on all fronts imaginable. Russians, on the other hand, might decide to cut this short by launching a decapitation strike with hyper-sonic long range weapons—putting an abrupt end to hostilities and leaving Western capitals in ruins.

And this is where material reality interjects. With the world de-dollarizing, the west deindustrializing, and as trade limitations on rare earth elements beginning to bite with peak oil and peak copper looming on the horizon, there is little to no chance for Western military hegemony to be restored. Neither in Europe, nor elsewhere. With western weapons manufacturers solely interested in making profits, as opposed to developing cheap and easy to make weapons systems, the most likely outcome of this re-militarization effort will be the greatest wealth-transfer in human history—enriching the few at the top and immiserating the many across the West. European citizens will be forced to foot the bill of their continued subjugation, even as they struggle to pay their bills, buy groceries or heat their homes.

The threat of war and the symptoms of economic decline are already used by mainstream media to channel their hatred towards external enemies and out-groups within society. Blame anyone, but the true culprits. The resulting violence—either from conventional or civil war—could then be used as an excuse to curb civil rights, ration energy, ban opposition parties, silence critics and to normalize soldiers and military drones patrolling the streets of London, Paris or Berlin—providing a narrow pathway for western elites to hold on to their power. If history is any guide, this wealth-transfer, together with a rapidly accelerating economic decline, cannot result in long-term stability, though. With pressure from elite overproduction slowly building up behind the scenes, and with a financial crash clearly on the horizon, the West is more likely to see a rapid, uncontrolled collapse than a slow transition to a multi-polar world.

Until next time,

B

Thank you for reading The Honest Sorcerer. If you value this article or any others please share and consider a subscription, or perhaps buying a virtual coffee. At the same time allow me to express my eternal gratitude to those who already support my work — without you this site could not exist.

1. Disclaimer: I’m not a historian, but I’m interested in history and how it applies to our predicament. I’m sure professional historians could find plenty of reasons to disagree, which is fine. So, treat what you read here lightly, as a thought experiment if you like, and see if it fits your mental model of civilizations in decline. Exploring the end times is a journey, not a destiny.

2. As George Orwell has observed in his famous novel 1984 revolution were never about popular uprisings bringing about a utopia, but an internal power struggle between the elites (the High) and middle ranks of society (the Middle) wanting to become the new High. “The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim — for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives — is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High.”