Anglo-Saxon discipline has for years provided the global scene with fresh concepts to mark what is known, but not easy identifiable and defined.
British global Relations investigator Mark Leonard promotes the concept of "connectivity". late his book entitled “Age of anxiety. Interdependence as a origin of conflict” (Warsaw 2022), which allows us to better realize why asymmetric interdependence is simply a origin of anxiety. They are utilized to fight and harm each other, as well as to build hierarchical systems of power and influence the strong on the weak.
What has been recognised until late as a blessing of global union and permeation of worlds, people, markets, ideas and technologies, is becoming a curse before our eyes. All the alleged theories of democratic peace are losing meaning, as ever-increasing links and interdependencies between people do not translate into common understanding, expanding trust and building a peaceful community. On the contrary, tensions between large powers are alternatively a consequence of interlinking alternatively than separation and distance. In the light of the benefits of close relations and interdependence, especially in the field of trade and complementary global industrial production, the war, according to the Liberals, was to vanish from the face of the earth.
It turned out that neither law nor various global institutions were able to restrain conflicting rivalry and ruthless, greedy pursuit of profit. These provoke fighting and aggression. The nations do not have much to say in this area, as governments, peculiar services, media and large corporations are being manipulated. The worst part of this madness is that provoked from many sides of tensions each year brings the planet closer to a global war confrontation.
On the corporate bar
This is best seen by the United States of America, where the state became a hostage, but besides a contractor for the interests of large corporations. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman or Pratt & Whitney These are arms corporations, the largest manufacturers of weapons and aviation equipment, which do coconut business in the Ukrainian conflict. The increase in orders from the U.S. Department of defence and the expanding stock marketplace listings mean a growth in prosperity that has not been there in a while. It's a pity they don't say much and compose alleged free media. After all, it is possible to insult Russian oligarchs (about Ukrainians a bit forgotten!) for the concentration of power and capital, but US multi-billionaires, influencing Washington's political decisions are beyond suspicion and beyond specified academic curiosity.
The dialectics of conflict and cooperation have been accompanying humanity for centuries. The integration processes go hand in hand with disintegration trends. Unification, unifying and integrating initiatives are countered by the elements of fragmentation and decay. This complex dialectic has in past responded to the change in periods of peace and war. But the age of atomic weapons taught the decision makers of atomic powers any restraint. The ban on the usage of weapons of mass demolition has become a conscious imperative of the era since the end of planet War II. However, no 1 knows erstwhile and how, in changed globalization, power will again prevail over the law, madness over reason and common sense. Increased divisions on this subject in the context of the war in Ukraine show clearly an increase in unrest caused by the threat of breaking this rule of restraint.
The ongoing war in Ukraine is prolonged indefinitely due to the cynicism that the minds of decision-makers of each organization have mastered. The place of effective diplomatic initiative has been unprecedented in terms of scale, mobilisation of solidarity and organisation of assistance to the affected state. The phenomenon is even greater due to the fact that Ukraine is neither an ally state of the West, nor has it met any criteria of a democratic state. In addition, he states Fr Prof. Waldemar Chrostowski in a Christmas interview in the weekly magazine “To Things”, Americans along with their military support export to Ukraine an ideology that is alien to the Orthodox world. Dressing cynical interests in the rhetorical frame of the conflict for freedom has nothing to do with reality. The war in Ukraine alternatively of freedom and dignity carries further waves of humiliation and degradation of the position of millions of people.
Calling for peace for Christmas and fresh Year means, in fact, supporting the interests of American arms companies, which are earning more and more in this terrible and absurd war. After all, the administration in Washington does not hide that supporting financially and militarily Ukraine, not only earns money from war, but besides avoids the hazard of sacrificing the blood of his own soldiers. Joe Biden He defined it that way in May 2022 during a speech to Lockheed's employees at the Alabama factory.
Confusion of concepts
At present, there is confusion between concepts and the applicable permeation of war and peace. Whether in the field of trade, finance or migration, via the Internet, propaganda campaigns, blockades and sanctions are taking place on a scale of universal war, which can be called "conactive". They have no authority in the law of war or armed conflict. If they take on the character of armed clashes, they are hypocritically called "special operations", "substitution wars" (proxy wars), or "humanitarian missions".
The language of the description of the global order has besides changed. During the "cold war" period, it was widely known what the threat of interlock confrontation was and why it was crucial to keep a universal "armoured" peace. The language of conflict and war now dominates, and the political and strategy election is re-established with an enemy category that can be both a large power and a group of criminals, and even individuals, specified as dangerous terrorists. They lost sense of any calls and calls for peace. Social peace and pacifist movements are a origin of embarrassment and shame alternatively than an expression of social activism and courage against war-torn militarism.
The victims of the “conetive” wars are mainly civilians, suffering from unemployment, hunger, deficiency of water, electricity and wellness care, forced to flee their permanent residences. Social obstacles caused by common harm and harm to states and all non-state actors cannot be clearly estimated. However, more and more observers are aware that in the 21st century the number of deaths of the “coneactive” wars is much higher than the number of victims of conventional wars. People are victims of destructive cyber attacks, trade wars, breaking supply chains, financial crises, as well as the plundering of natural materials, demolition of nature and climate. The manipulation of technological advancement leads to unpredictable disasters, specified as the creation of pandemics.
“Conclusive” wars are the consequence of increasing paradoxes – the more humanity becomes a “global village”, the greater the waves of frustration, envy and jealousy destruct the existing forms of coexistence and interaction. The rivals go to the means of a vast arsenal of common harm. Only a solid diagnosis of the existing state of affairs and a collective effort to halt the escalation of tension and common fear could reconstruct any hope for blocking the demons of destruction. But how can this be done erstwhile the absence of a wise and independent political leadership capital, and the intellectual world, as never before, has divided itself in the sphere of distinguishing fact from falsehood and indicating rational ways out of the crisis?
West Hegemonization
Contact does not modify the rivalry of geopolitical powers. In addition to conventional motives for the establishment of zones of influence and addictions, the United States has now developed an intense hegemonisation of the West. In order to prolong the impossible conflict in Ukraine, they gradually weaken the geopolitical positions of their European allies. Especially in the field of energy safety The European Union seems to have been implicated in the geopolitics and geoeconomics of Washington. The torpedoing of European-Russian gas cooperation shows how easy it was to intimidate the governments and politicians of the Old Continent with threats from Russia, offering in return more costly American gas (LNG) and imposing the logic of open hostility towards the power, which has for centuries been an irrefutable part of Europe's achievements of civilization.
The United States has achieved in the global strategy the top advantage that no power has always had in modern history. The dominance and coverage of the US currency in the financial accounts of the full world, as well as the control of the net let this power to penetrate and surveillance the full planet. It is an illusion that modern media are utilized to advance freedom and defend human rights. Thanks to the information collected, it is common to manipulate human behaviour and the perception of the private lives of citizens becomes the norm. We are dealing with the expansion of the powers of states and capital that work closely together to regulate freedom, based on ideology, manipulation and propaganda.
The expression of consistency in global relations has become akin to political systems, which until late were considered completely incorruptible. Western Liberal democracy is moving towards full human control, a feature of its opposing systems. China erstwhile imitated America, now America imitates China in many areas. There is simply a unusual phenomenon of convergence that long ago was predicted by visionaries of the collapse of communism. According to the American multibillionaire Peter ThielChina and the USA become "mimetic doublesIt’s okay. ” In competing for a primacy in the planet of power, they have been copying their strengths for years. As similarities increase, there is an expanding antipathy among them, which can turn into hostility and aggression. "China and America have embarked on a deadly journey in which consistency leads to comparison, which in turn increases competition and creates many disputes. The more competitive the relation becomes, the greater the temptation to imitate. This makes the spiral of competition even more exciting" (M. Leonard, p. 66).
“Democratic” totalitarianism
Although the defenders of liberal democracy separate the Chinese cruel "state of surveillance" from the mild "capitalism of surveillance", the fact is that U.S. government agencies work closely with the IT manufacture and implement technologies on a massive scale, limiting civilian liberties. A powerful alliance was formed between Silicon Valley, Pentagon and intelligence agencies. It can be associated with the concept deep state (hidden, deep state), but this is not a fresh phenomenon. Its beginnings date back to the second half of the 19th century erstwhile the first government-independent agencies emerged, the beginnings of the "fourth branch of state administration". To any extent, this power was besides created by mass media independent of government, which over time became rather dependent on their private powers, linked to the planet of power and politics.
Today we are dealing (here another euphemism) with alleged subnational actors, which merge into a single complex of industrial, military and peculiar services companies, creating an inextricable weave of networks of interests that form imperialist and hegemonic US policies. fewer people undertake investigation into these phenomena, for example due to individual hazard and widespread political correctness syndrome. However, independent voices of experts from overseas scope Poland (e.g. Jenna Bednar, Mariano-Florentino Cuélla, or Nina Hachigian), reasoning and beginning the eyes as modern capitalism disintegrates the existing structures of cooperation, provoking conflicts between nations, not due to the fact that there are differences and contradictions between them, but due to the fact that they have become besides akin and endanger each another by losing separateness.
Does not the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, starting with the "Orange Revolution" in 2004, fit into that reasoning? After all, it is simply a "war for identity". The point is that, with the participation of America and another Western countries competing with Russia, Ukrainian politicians and oligarchs began to be made aware that what they have been associated with the Moscals for centuries, all cultural, linguistic, spiritual and cultural similarities are an existential threat to Ukrainians in the long term. It was so essential to initiate a task to separate Ukraine from Russia and direct its complex identity towards completely different preferences, lifestyles and priorities.. Under the conditions of the ongoing war, it is hard to tell what are the prospects for the success of this "experiment" and what the consequences will be. Experiences so far with alleged westernization of societies, starting with the colonial era, offer different possibilities of response. Especially since the alleged remainder of the planet is loudly asking to regain its subjectivity in the game of geopolitical powers.
The war in Ukraine shows that Russia has been on the side of political elites for a long time, as well as a large part of society has been increasing frustrations due to the feeling of existential threats. For Russia, they became so crucial at any point that its decision-makers decided to initiate an open (although not "full-scale", as it was shouted in Western media, war). Since the West has decided with large determination to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression, we are dealing with a situation where the Anglo-Saxon powers are ready to scope the utmost hazard of dismantling the existing order, even through atomic warfare.
This is sometimes akin to the months before the outbreak of planet War I. Pro-war enthusiasm is expressed not only in the desire to retaliate and punish aggressive Russia. It besides means uncritical acceptance of co-responsibility for the ongoing war, which is allegedly a war of “all of us”, “our war”, a war of defending Western civilization, etc. These absurd interpretations show how to manipulate conactivity, citing duly-provoked public opinion polls.
Return to dialog
According to all the signs, Russia has no intention of invading another states, nor can it afford to face war with Western states. Russia expects them – what possibly the president of France understands best Emmanuel Macron – a clear definition of further expansion into the russian areas. NATO expansion towards Russian borders does not necessarily mean defending the West from Russia. From the Russian position it can equally be seen as a crucial threat to Russia's safety and vital interests. Why, then, is the West not able to make a different way of managing the global system, in addition to the increase in arms spending, subsequent tranches of sanctions and withdrawal of agreements? There is an urgent request for political will and consolidation of elites of different industries to search fresh geopolitical options, involving middle-ranking players who have another philosophies and logic to offer the world, not necessarily based on a game of zero sum.
It is besides essential to open Western and east societies, North and South for debates around fresh safety institutions and normative regulation of common behaviour. If there is no "great awakening" due to the trap of increasing interdependence, conflicting states and nations, there will be no way back from destruction.
The “coneactive” wars can only be prevented by bold politics and by the ruling. present it takes courage Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, François Mitterand and Helmut Kohl, who, leaving the Cold War confrontation, could reverse the insane logic of the inevitability of the Hegemonic War and atomic armagedon. Who of today’s politicians will be able to match their accomplishments and will be pressing?
Prof. Stanisław Bielen
photo public domain
Think Poland, No. 1-2 (1-8.01.2023)
