A Case of the Creation Destroying the Creator? The West’s Many Frankenstein Monsters
Roosevelt and Churchill met in Newfoundland on board the HMS Prince of Wales in 1941 to draft the Atlantic Charter and inaugurate a century of transatlantic cooperation structures
The Cold War was unprecedented in its geographical scope and technological risk. Never before in the history of Mankind had the average citizen been forced to contemplate annihilation on a daily basis. To ensure victory, both blocs introduced new means of warfare. The West chose to employ propaganda against the East, even though by then the Western liberal democracies held higher standards for their own societies. Indeed, RFE/RL was exclusively meant for external consumption and not meant for Americans. A military establishment was built to deter Moscow from further advance into Europe and an economic establishment soon followed to ensure widespread prosperity in Western Europe and vaccinate it against communist influence. Along with NATO and the EEC, a Marshall Plan guaranteed the reconstruction of Europe and the social-democratic model kept social peace. Finally, a network of NGOs and QuaNGOs such as the Soros foundations or the National Endowment for Democracy, were in charge of civil society subversion along with the Catholic Church, to undermine Soviet control of the occupied states and client-regimes.
All these arrangements were set up in the context of a zero sum struggle for planetary hegemony, within a fiercely charged ideological atmosphere. They were by their very nature ad hoc and purely instrumental. Previous wars had depended on loose alliances and minimal civil society involvement.
Similarly, the leaders of the First World War decided to use instruments that would later cause the exponential devastation of WWII such as WMDs, total war, mass mobilisation; and to bring the latter about, ideological propaganda. Indeed, unlike the previous conflicts of the XIX century, WWI was not fought by professional armies, it featured weapons that would later be forbidden and it relied on highly indoctrinated conscripts. Total industrial warfare would then take on prohibitive proportions up to 1945.
The USSR did the same and unlike the West, Moscow was then interested in subverting half the planet on behalf of an ideology (Stalin, Brezhnev doctrines notwithstanding). The roles have however, reversed. Modern Russia is conservative and particularist and it is Brussels and Washington D.C. that seek to evangelise the world with Western values. What changed?
It is certainly the fault of the May 68 generation coming to power and fanatically pushing a progressive agenda but there is a structural component to the entire affair: bureaucratic inertia. Nature hates a vacuum and given that lazy short-term thinking Western politicians were too preoccupied to dismantle the Cold War structures, those same structures took matters into their own hands and kept fighting a war which was supposed to be over.
The capitalist bloc’s soft power arm remained engaged in fomenting colour revolutions and subverting unaligned regimes in the West’s periphery. The bloc’s hard power arm took care to find new enemies gratuitously and expand the list of allies – superfluously. Finally, the founded economic structures moved to exacerbate their competencies by expanding its reach into the political realm and the social-democratic model continued its push towards further governmental subsidisation, eventually putting Western Europe on the brink of bankruptcy.
Ukrainian revolutionary soldiers during the Donbass War
Even in the realm of intelligence, technocratic reactionaries are now attempting to influence domestic politics. Reagan’s big push towards high-tech expenditure meant to bait the USSR into ruin, is now coming back to exert its power on reforming politicians. After the #womensmarch and Antifa violence against conservatives in the US, there are those of us who fear an attempted colour revolution in Washington itself. Will domestic political subversion stop at war-mongering and witch hunts? If an impeachment is attempted with demonstrations outside the White House, months on end, the USSS may be pushed into a corner. This bears eery resemblance to the Yanukovych affair in Ukraine.
In Europe too, celebrating the 60 years of the Rome Treaties, EU leaders who seem mostly subservient to Brussels eurocrats, were egged on by the Pope to fight “populism”. Populism is never defined but seems to encompass any political force that puts the national interest ahead of supranationalism. This then necessarily means that, following the Haider and Wilders precedent, not all political forces are equal. Democracy is only desirable provided the citizenry deliver the ‘right’ votes. If not, then a supranational overseer is put in place (à la Monti) or referenda are organised in succession until the ‘right’ result is achieved. International institutions only serve the agenda of specific – mainstream – parties. Were a communist or paleoconservative party to come to power, the foreign policy of the state and that of supranational institutions, could not possibly be changed.
Imagine Napoleon’s legions dictating to Napoleon; the Comintern lecturing the Politburo on ideology; the crusaders taking power in the Holy See.
Ukrainian revolutionary paramilitary during the Donbass War
What seems certain is that the current climate of radicalisation and mainstream media instigation to violence, is going to continue.
Trump and Brexiteering Tories signified a change in paradigm but they are being undermined by a bloated governmental bureaucracy which leans on intellectual elites for civil society manipulation. If the algorithm turns on the user, at what point will the struggle remain peaceful given the eroding avenues for consented change? Western regimes have expiration dates too but if the end requires a reboot rather than a refresh, cooler heads will not prevail.
The Westphalian Post 