Many cheer for the demise of the old order. It has warts and flaws, it is war-like, tyrannical, and corrupt. This is inarguable. However, while there are no real solutions the potential alternative is fraught with dangers of its own. We ought to at least be clear about that, even if we are powerless to ultimately affect the outcome.
There are some fates far worse than thermonuclear global war. I say that as a man who believes it is impossible, theologically speaking, for mankind to utterly destroy all humans. Likewise, while I am not completely opposed to the theory that we could come short of that and set all civilizations back several thousand years I stop far short of believing that it is possible it could create a caveman-level reset. I need to state my bias up front on those points so that everything else I say makes sense.
An existential event involving thermonuclear weapons is, from my theological perspective, impossible. There is something far worse that is possible. Alexander Mercousris and Alex Christoforou discussed today a matter that seems increasingly plausible. There is a potential and a legal mechanism that allows the UN General Assembly to take up an issue that the Security Council fails to address. The Uniting for Peace resolution was adopted in 1950, at the behest of the United States ironically, in an effort to create a mechanism to thwart Soviet veto power. [1] Essentially, the General Assembly could take up the issue of the Israel-Hamas issue and pass a binding resolution despite the objections of any member of the Security Council, the United States Included.
At first blush, such an event might appear as a one-off, as an anomaly, a reset, a safety valve of sorts. I suggest that in light of all the other indicators, events and trends it would be the opening act in a series of subsequent acts that spelled the doom not only of the current hegemonic order led by the United States but of national sovereignty in the Westphalian sense also. There are some, perhaps many, that would read that sentence and proclaim “exactly man, it is the New World Order, we have been saying…”. It certainly would be a new order, but we cannot be certain it is the sort of ‘order’ that people who have feared such a beast for decades envisioned. We cannot be certain that the elites with a will to power in the Global American Empire had this in mind all along. In fact, strong evidence suggests this is the very outcome such people oppose.
There is still much to be said for viewing current events through historical analogies and metaphors. Empires act according to an almost predictable nature. Humans also, to include humans that seek power. It is more profitable to view the scenario above as a new order opposing a less new order. Looking back on this event by several decades we will notice that some of the people that once lived in the older camp reinvented themselves and found positions in the new camp but this will not prove that there was a plan. That merely supports observations about human nature and the sorts of humans that seek power.
It is entirely possible that the US and Israel will proceed along the current trajectory. It appears from all indicators that the intensity of operations has slowed while assets and combat power is assembled in the Middle East. Biden's speech on the 19th of October, which I assess as a road-to-war speech, has been borne out by actions. [2] The US has engaged in no substantive diplomatic efforts geared to resolving the issue and only efforts toward consensus building. Additional military capability builds in the region daily. There are even hints that the US is preparing for a long war. Several US services have updated policies on for instance recalling retired service members to active duty, steps not unlike what the US did in 1940. We are told that the US sustained 24 casualties on the 18th of October, but Biden did not mention this in his road-to-war speech on the 19th. It is almost as if we cannot believe this happened and were told as lie as an afterthought to build consensus. The Israeli government continues to release bold and audacious statements related to their plans for Gaza, yet readily available imagery indicates that very few productive shaping operations have occurred. That dense urban terrain looks as imposing today as it did two weeks ago. It appears, from all indicators that the pause, the delay, the lack of real shaping operations is merely a tactical pause. The IDF is not truly conducting the sort of air and artillery campaign one would expect before a ground operation because planners in the US and Israel truly believe that once such operations commence, the conflict will expand. In short, the US is preparing for war and Israel is delaying the operation in order to allow the US to build a force posture to conduct it.
That is to say, the old ‘new order’ introduced to the world by George H.W. Bush and articulated by Francis Fukuyama, the order of rules-based consensus around a military and economic hegemon appears to see no way out of this crisis except to fight through it. No matter how you slice the pie in relation to solving the problem of Israel and the Palestinians, there is no good solution that the old order can envision that does not further weaken the empire. In such a circumstance empires do what empires have always done, attempt to hold on by exerting force. It is not, as so many claim, irrational. It is incompetence, but it is compounded incompetence, it is the waste of a gift of power and strength over decades. The current circumstance merely sits atop that pile of compounding failures and hubris. Once the hard words and bold statements left lips to become audible, there was no feasible way to walk those back without significant damage being done to both Israel and the American order.
There are many, accelerationists, idealists, and others who welcome this. Not the war per se, but the evaporation of the old order and a move from a unipolar to a multipolar world. A move from the ambiguity of a rules-based order that has spawned so much violence to an international order based upon law. To be fair, there is some appeal to that, all things considered, particularly if one is not an American or one of America's favored allies. However, there is something else.
In the current world order the power elite have to effectively exert sufficient control over the majority of 435 US members of Congress and 100 Senators as well as the White House. This is a feat that most serious observers acknowledge is accomplished via a uniparty of consensus on all the important matters, geopolitics to be certain has been progressive and neoconservative for decades. In addition to that, a handful of nations, close allies of the US, also must consistently elect leaders that differ by degrees but never on the main points. This too has seemingly been easily accomplished. The rest of the world in the current order matters little. When a nation deviates they do so only slightly, the international monetary system backed by the USD sees to that. If a strategic area deviates and does not respond to ordinary pressure, color revolutions are always a nuclear option. [3] It is a beastly system, particularly for non-Western nations subject to the whims of US fiscal policy, these bear the brunt of qualitative easing. There is also something else about the current order. It is Westphalian in that it is focused on the nation-state albeit in this environment an Empire dominates all important matters. It may be beastly and warlike, but it is historical in that it fits perfectly with all that has come before. It never was really that “new” of an order at all.
The current crisis, if resolved by the rest of the world coming together in the General Assembly has the potential to begin unraveling that old order in a way that could cascade rather quickly. If the world collectively decides that the US is willing to take the entire Middle East to war the impetus for change may not merely stop at a General Assembly binding resolution on the Israel-Palestine issue. The very structure of the UN could soon come under serious debate.
Tyrants are tyrants no matter where they rule from. In the first half of the movie “The Patriot,” one of the characters speaking against going to war against Britian for American independence asks why he should fight to replace 100 tyrants 1000 miles away with 1000 tyrants 100 miles away. That question highlights the real potential for harm that a multipolar world could bring, in an opposite way, for some of us, it would move the tyrants just a little further away. Whereas now those with a will to power must capture several hundred members of Congress in addition to a few world leaders in an utterly “democratic” UN one would only need to capture ninety-eight votes. A simple majority could pass laws on speech, the environment, and the economy that would be binding on all nations, effectively ending Westphalian nationhood. Idealistically it sounds more democratic and fair, and in the short-term many people of the world would rejoice. But such a distant and unreachable organization would ultimately be brutal and inefficient and cause great suffering and tyranny.
I say all of the above, not as a man that has a preference. I enjoy my lifestyle and I love the place of my birth as all men of conscience should. My preference in all of this is not a possibility that works within the realm of possibility. I do challenge two notions, first the GAE blob of groupthink is acting irrationally. Historically speaking an expanded war to fight through the problem and perhaps stave off demise is exactly what has always occurred. I also challenge the notion, held by many, that the multipolar solution will be more just, free, or tolerant.
War is coming, and if not, we will witness very soon the American economic empire unravel and with it the rest of its remaining power.