Lordre: 2021

Will Green ideology inspire the next crusades?

Environmentalism is set to replace the discredited ideas of missionary democracy and militant Christianity as the basis of the next crusades, massacres and wars conducted by the West.

In fact, Russia's UN delegation recently saw through this Grim Reaper's first disguise attempt and sniped it at the UN.

Although it has built up a gentle liberal reputation in recent decades, Europe's history is filled with colonialist patronisation, conquest and bloodlust against its own economic periphery and less developed countries. This is likely to return, under new ideological guises, as it did before.

Utopias and messianic violence

It is not unheard of for pacifistic and revolutionary ideas, like those of Green parties, to be hijacked by militarists and employed to develop messianic reasoning for organised violence. Although this will come to the disgust of many Greens, who are resolutely against war and waste, it is already happening in Germany.

In Germany, the Greens are ascending as some of the biggest zealots of confrontation with Russia. They have even compromised their own core values for this, favouring the environmentally harmful liquefied natural gas (LNG) derived from fracking in the US and transported in polluting ships as an alternative to cheap natural gas from Russia.

In time, Green ideology's youth and optimism will fade. As environmentalist activists' faces wither with time, their beliefs will similarly degrade into a familiar foolish crusade against some countries, increasing war and waste across the world.

America to be discredited as Europe takes over

Next in line to the throne of the liberal order, which has conducted the deadliest crusades of this century, is the European Union. It has often championed the protection of the environment, making this the perfect ideology for it to cite when employing force and seeking mastery over others.

The United States, in comparison with Europe, is losing credibility and many are turning away from its ideals, including itself. Its focus on China, in addition to its own internal divides, are likely to take it out of the game in Europe at some point in the future.

France can already sense the decay of the American military mandate in Europe, and is seeking a more powerful unified EU military instead. President Macron has referred to the US-led NATO alliance as "braindead", and has been hesitant to support it in the confrontations with Moscow.

From the Cross to the Climate

Crusades need justifications. They need images to inspire zealots to take up arms and make sacrifices. Sometimes, these images are even fact-based, such as the oppression of the proletariat or the pollution of the atmosphere, but they are wrongly used to justify atrocities.

There is valid reason to fear that the fact-based plea to stop manmade climate change will eventually morph into a new urgent justification to bomb poorer countries and change regimes. Certainly, many of the likely candidates to be bombed again, from the familiar Iraq to Iran, rely on selling fossil fuels.

Despite their current desire to be friendly, Europeans conducted the worst massacres in history. It is when given a sense of irrefutable righteousness that these crusaders and Teutonic Knights take up the sword. There is ample reason to suspect Europe will take this dark path again, under a new pretext.

The "Great Reset", espoused by the World Economic Forum, is derided by many for being the idea of an elite who are responsible for the world's problems in the first place. But is that really a historical irregularity that deserves condemnation?

Such things as the Peace of Westphalia and the so-called Washington Consensus shape the political and economic models we know and accept. Both are the works of ultra-elite individuals, representing the microscopic affluent minority among us. Everyone accepted such things and went on, believing it was for the best.

When the super elite try to do the same now, they are met with significant opposition and, dare I say, conspiracy theories from many people who see it as some kind of coup. It is seen by some as uniquely diabolic, a usurpation of all authority over our future, removing our control of our destiny.

In reality, for all its problems, the Great Reset is no coup. Those who came up with it were already in charge of most economic policies, including those things they want to change. This kind of elite-driven reform is a continuation of what we have always known since at least the end of the Medieval era and the formation of modern states.

Great Reset threatens democracy?

Absurd. To condemn the Great Reset as a usurpation of democracy, while favouring the existing economic consensus as somehow more acceptable, is ill-informed. The current economic consensus was also arbitrarily set up by a small elite, and is demonstrably harmful to society and the environment.

The existence of nation-states at all was the arbitrary decision of a small elite in 1648, in what is now Germany. The very things supported by the masses are simply constructed by small elites, and the masses acquiesced.

The argument that the Great Reset is a usurpation of democracy seems to have come out of nowhere. Nothing is being cited to support it. The Great Reset seems to be more about altering the economic model and has nothing to do with the political system or appointment of national leaders, or even means of pressuring the states at all. It calls for no change of constitution in any nation, and no realignment of the world's nations with any cause. If anything, it seems to be trying to pressure corporations into agreeing with environmental agendas already declared by all states such as cutting carbon emissions to prevent the catastrophic rise in temperatures that may cause mass extinction.

Because the Great Reset does not posit any alternative to democracy or say democracy is a problem, it is not a threat to it. If anything, it seems to propose tampering with and rewriting the motivations of the corporations so that they really share the state's concerns about protecting the public and environment instead of posting adverts in which they pretend to care.

Claiming corporate overlords will take the place of politicians in the Great Reset seems like a stretch, as there is no literature or evidence whatsoever that this is suggested. The claim seems to be an equivocation fallacy, conflating economic management with political and going on to suggest the latter is imperilled.

Great reset threatens the free market?

Possibly. An argument can be made that the Great Reset is a threat to free markets, because it proposes altering the motivations of the corporations so that they are less driven by profit and more driven by doing good for society and the environment.

It is likely that those most alarmed with the Great Reset are the executives of companies short of those that are sufficiently large to be considered "stakeholders" under "stakeholder capitalism". They want their companies to grow, and that means at least a bit of waste and pollution in the process. They don't want economic growth to be frozen by governments and stakeholders, and social and environmental responsibility added as metrics of company success rather than just profit.

You'll own nothing

No, this does not mean your handbag or pencil case will be taken off you, or that your clothes will be rented each week and forcibly removed from you if you run out of money. It also does not mean people will have to pay for air.

The way this phrase has been misunderstood shows how much people read into phrases and start talking about them before looking up what was actually meant. Sometimes, writers use hyperbole. In this case, the Great Reset meant to advocate against waste.

A form of this would be what already happens in British supermarkets. Cheap, light plastic bags used to be given to shoppers and they would invariably end up thrown away, usually ending up next to railway lines for some reason I couldn't fathom. They are probably still there.

In 2015, the British government made companies add a charge for plastic bags. There was then a shift towards better quality bags - bags for life - that were meant to be reused by shoppers. When it eventually broke, you would hand this back at the shop and be given a fresh one for free, while the broken one is recycled.

The owning of nothing isn't necessarily all-encompassing or meant to suggest measures to confiscate things off people, as is being implied by critics. It is more an alteration of the meaning of ownership, so that things are more readily and easily recycled, reused or reallocated to somebody else when you are done, to cut back on waste.

The idea that we own anything in the first place under the nation-state model is actually something that can be seriously questioned. In a sense, we already own nothing. When you claim to own anything, you are really just borrowing it from the government or other highest authority in the land and pleading for them to act as if you own it for a while. In the UK, if you die and have no next of kin or any known relatives, the Crown inherits your property, as the Crown is a kind of supreme owner and final arbiter of who owns anything. Everything is de facto government property and territory. Already, ownership of anything is merely a temporary right, granted out of the government's generosity or some paperwork it is obliged to respect, and not because of you.

Homes and cars may be passed around with a different model of ownership that reduces the waste of resources. If electrical cars in future are all rented, or are simply part of an AI-driven public transport grid that has done away with all vehicle ownership, there is no reason to complain. You don't own a road or railway, nor do you influence the traffic control systems that keep you alive on the road. The sense of freedom and agency while driving is an illusion.

Building back better

The adoption of the Great Reset's "build back better" as a campaign slogan in the US and Canada is enough to refute the idea that a corporate coup is taking place in Western countries under the Great Reset. Politicians are actually campaigning for this, showing that they are seeking a democratic mandate.

In addition, the publication of documents like Klaus Schwab's The Great Reset (2020) is also a refutation of the idea of a cabal secretly taking over. This stuff is publicly advertised, and its virtues are being extolled by these people.

The desire for a Great Reset of capitalism is the result of a planet and society tired of waste, pollution and the externalisation of costs by greedy companies. It is possible that hitherto dominant corporate overlords are offering terms of surrender to the public and trying to save their own necks by advocating the Great Reset, much as France's Louis XVI was compelled to accept the Rights of Man.

Come up with alternatives if you don't like it

The world left had the seemingly now-dead World Social Forum as an alternative to the World Economic Forum. Being the origin of the phrase "a new world is possible", it at least tried to offer alternatives to neoliberal economics. Opponents of neoliberalism continuously suffered from an inability to propose a viable alternative, instead just ending up complaining about the status quo while voters in the biggest Western economies refused to risk voting for their candidates such as Jeremy Corbyn. Attempts to implement alternatives in some countries like Venezuela resulted in economic chaos.

Rejection of the economic system can only provide a sufficient basis to govern a country, if faced with the utter failure and collapse of the existing system to the point of famine. This is what happened in both the French and Russian revolutions, in which mere critiques of the old system led to the rise of the new economic models of bourgeois capitalism and Soviet socialism respectively. The advice from these revolutionaries would be: to overthrow the Great Reset, first let it fail.

Whatever the case, netizens and conspiracy theorists will get it all wrong and succumb to abject confusion because they didn't simply visit the WEF website or read the primary sources before reading opinions about them. An idea might be to get Klaus Schwab's book and criticise it from a fresh perspective, rather than hastily siding with other people's opinions.

The lack of any Covid-19 vaccine exemptions granted on religious grounds for US troops is troubling. This suggests we have reached a point in liberal democracy where faith is so derided that it could be given no consideration at all by the authorities.

Such a course by any government threatens to alienate much of the population. It may show a lack of understanding of a political association - of what a country even is - distorting it into a management structure run by technocrats and rationalists whose purpose is to herd the irrational multitude below.

Authorities unrepresentative

To call oneself democratic, yet decry the wishes of the people as irrational and show contempt for them, is a contradiction. Yes, the people are unruly and must be checked by structures of order that ensure safety, yet their sensibilities must not be insulted and trashed by those in power.

Outright contempt is now apparent on the part of US authorities towards much of the population for its right-wing religiosity and devotion to traditional sources of wisdom. In the handling of the pandemic, Federal authorities seem to believe any risk to their own legitimacy with a vast number of people is in any event less severe than the risk posed from the illness.

The limits of the government's ability to manage safety could soon be reached as the effort to pressure the public into the right choice encounters a brick wall. The divided country could edge close to a crisis-ridden social 'hell on earth', made worse by vaccine mandates, that could ravage it for decades after the disease. The will be no vaccine for riots and arson between divided sectors of the population.

America idolises the overthrow of tyrants, curtailing the government's ability to get the public to understand strict rules or be obedient.

One form of expertise doesn't negate others

Fact-based though vaccines are, medical science isn't the only discipline from which good advice can be gained for the ruler. Owing to the crisis posed to health services by the pandemic, it seems as though medical advice may be overruling all other advice, including advice about threats equally perilous.

People's beliefs are facts. They are facts about how people will react to things. They are facts about people's sensibilities. They are facts that must be treated with extreme caution and taken into account when responsibly governing human affairs.

Someone who ignores others' beliefs cannot possibly represent them as required, or have any valid mandate to govern them.

Approaching illegality?

Religious values are values that cannot be ignored. Religious leaders' pleas must be taken into account. Religious exemptions must be granted, or the authorities risk perilously approaching a form of persecution.

To ignore or overrule someone's religious commitments or requirements is a violation of the freedom of conscience. For authorities to display contempt for or disregard certain religious requirements while respecting others is discrimination.

An article at Foreign Policy last month conceded tearfully that the Houthis will prevail in Yemen. After half a decade, each defeat looks worse for the UN-recognised regime. Could the success of the revolutionaries trigger a domino effect, meaning regime change in Saudi Arabia?

A humiliating defeat for the Saudi-led coalition and the entrenchment of a revolutionary state in Yemen might encourage new forms of resistance to the Saudi monarchy. How significant would this result be, and could it threaten the Arab kingdom's downfall and transition to an Islamic republic?

Saudi Arabia certainly seems to regard what it calls Iranian expansionism (including its support for the Houthis) as an existential threat, likely because of the Islamic Republic of Iran's own origins in the ashes of a once-revered monarchy that resembled Saudi Arabia. But is there really a threat to the House of Saud, if they lose their war?

Forms of uprising

The worst threats for the House of Saud include a coup or ethnic-based uprisings in parts of Saudi Arabia disloyal to the regime. A renewed uprising in nearby Bahrain is also possible, just as the previous uprising reacted to international events, only to be crushed by foreign intervention.

Ethnic-based uprisings would occur in the country's Shia areas, and could derive support from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia groups, and a victorious Houthi movement in Yemen.

There is no way that Shia and Persian revolutionaries could dominate majority-Sunni Saudi Arabia. It is likely that Iran has no illusions of dominating the Arabian Peninsula in this way. Rather, any transformation or change of constitution would have to come at the initiative of the Arabs, and to serve the interests of Sunni Arabs. Otherwise, it is impossible.

Factors against an uprising

Uprisings typically require a total failure of economic performance, which, on the contrary, seems quite good in Saudi Arabia. The reliance on oil exports is sufficient to create affluence. This may not benefit most Saudis, but there are other factors like low taxation and benefits for the population that would make the people indifferent to a corrupt or despotic regime.

The scenario of ethnic-based uprisings also would entail a significant portion of the population, namely the Sunnis, siding with the regime in the event of such disturbances. Owing to the population being majority-Sunni, this means a strong ethnic component and a lack of general economic woe in an uprising would keep the regime in power.

Saudi Arabia is based on little other than the monarchy. A republic would be highly unstable, more like Egypt. In contrast with the republics, Arab kingdoms have generally been peaceful internally, with Jordan being another example.

A wise course is keeping the monarchy in the interests of stability and prosperity, even though support for the war in Yemen is unwise. Even if republican fervour grows in Saudi Arabia, it may be responsible to reject it.

The military coup

The problems with the other forms of uprising makes a coup the most likely kind to happen. The military failure in Yemen could be a significant contributor to this, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was personally involved in directing the failed military efforts in Yemen. At least, this is the image we are given.

A Saudi coalition defeat in Yemen may reflect especially badly on MBS, and a coup could be even more likely if the conflict in fact persists and he refuses to end it. He is likely worried that his authority will be undermined by ending the conflict in failure, but it could be worse if it continues.

Saudi military leaders would be best placed to rule the country in the event of removal of monarchical rule. It would be as simple as forming a council for the defence of the nation and placing the former regime figures under arrest.

Following that hypothetical development, the ruling council could oversee the transition of the country to democracy. However, it is fraught with risk. The social and economic effects of removing monarchies are unpredictable. The new state could be stuck in a cycle of coups, dictators, violent uprisings and economic woes.

The purge

The most likely scenario is that Mohammed bin Salman himself will lead the revolution. He will clean house. In this scenario, he identifies those who failed in Yemen and those responsible for the war, and punishes them. He rejects the former Yemeni regime that he had been backing up in the war.

This option would ingratiate MBS with the Yemenis, allowing him to start over with the country and pose once again as a benevolent neighbour. Many in Yemen have come to hate him, and that is unlikely to change, but its effect on foreign relations can be subdued for practical benefit.

We already see MBS trying to start over with Iran, showing something of an acknowledgment that Saudi Arabia pursued the wrong course before. Even more reconciliation could already be secretly underway, but requires clever PR to prevent it looking like Saudi capitulation after their previous rhetoric. The Saudis are quite good with PR, and could do this easily.

Although it may seem like an extreme comparison, recall that the Japanese Emperor Hirohito was responsible for directing the Japanese war effort in the Second World War, even continuing to do so from a bunker. Yet, for all his involvement, his high status as a royal figure spared him from any consequences and he himself ended the war, ultimately prevailing over those who wished the war to continue. Although originally a warmongering figure, thanks to Allied mercy, Hirohito managed to prevail as the peacemaker when it mattered most and saved his country from total destruction.

I consider this to be the most likely change in Saudi Arabia if the war effort in Yemen ultimately fails. In short: MBS will be convinced to bring the end to the war, fire his advisers, and alter the nation's foreign policy position on Yemen as well as Lebanon and Iran. The wrath of Saudi Arabia, in the event of these developments, would be turned away from fellow Muslims and either subside entirely or be turned against Israeli occupiers in the Palestinian territories.

We have the example of Turkey already, which altered its confrontational approach toward Russia after purging foreign ministry officials in response to a failed coup.

What would change in Saudi Arabia mean?

With the status of Jerusalem in question, and the right of Muslims to worship at a holy place jeopardised, it is increasingly urgent for Saudi Arabia to change course and stand with other Muslim countries in protest against Israel.

When it comes to its foreign policy, Saudi Arabia is currently viewed with contempt by many Muslims due its betrayal of the Palestinians and its direction of all its military resources against fellow Muslims. An apathetic population, living off the country's oil wealth, is all that keeps the regime in power.

The best course for Saudi Arabia includes not just a more democratic system but partnership with Iran and Turkey in the region. As American power recedes in the Middle East, Muslims are destined to eventually take the resolution of the Jerusalem issue into their own hands.

What better way for bureaucrats to prove their strength than to poke a bear and see what happens? Surely, an angry bear with its back to the wall, cornered in its own den, is the best one to safely poke as it can do nothing?

NATO's defiance of Russian pleas to avoid further expansion are making Russia feel cornered. While this may cause some in the West to gloat over Russia because NATO is growing seemingly invincible, a Russian reaction could be serious.

Should Georgia and Ukraine join NATO?

NATO candidates Georgia and Ukraine have ongoing territorial disputes and Russian troops within their internationally recognised borders (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea), motivating their desire to get NATO membership so the alliance can kick the Russians out. If they join, Russia and NATO will be claiming the same territories as their responsibility. Adding these countries to NATO would lead to regular NATO encounters with Russian civilians and soldiers while Russia's entire armed forces watch from nearby. Russia already complained of NATO's near misses with Russian civilian aircraft and vessels. This could mean an extremely grave and perilous situation that might delegate more and more responsibility for keeping the peace to frontline soldiers and even civilians, removing it from the politicians who created the situation.

Is it good for NATO if airline pilots and merchant captains are responsible for preventing World War Three? Does this make the alliance more powerful, or a step closer to the Stone Age?

Russia is now spoken of dismissively in the press and among leaders, as some minor threat that can be eliminated by sending a few rocket artillery to Ukraine or imposing some financial penalty. Russia, meanwhile, believes the stakes are extremely high and that its national security is in jeopardy.

The encroachment of NATO close to Russia does not create any possibility of interdicting Russian missiles and making the West safe from Russia. In fact, it may crowd the Russian border with missiles threatening both sides and increase the likelihood of a Russian first strike because the stakes are higher for them now.

NATO suggestions about countering Russian nuclear weapons in Europe without nuclear weapons are perplexing. If true, this would put NATO at a significant disadvantage to Russia. The Russians express a lack of trust, meaning they think NATO is lying or is itself deceived.

An accidental nuclear war on the horizon?

If NATO is lying about whether nuclear weapons will be sent to the Russian border, we're in trouble. The Russians being unaware of the types and yields of the weapons being deployed against them could cause an accidental nuclear war, since they won't know this type of weapon is in the area. For Russia to even think NATO is lying entails the same problem.

In fact, being dishonest may be incompatible with NATO's entire mission as an openly declared alliance, making it unable to achieve deterrence. If NATO is dishonest, then the adversary cannot even perceive what it is doing, much less be deterred by it.

This was the problem with the alliances of World War One, whose secrecy made them ineffective at preventing a world war. NATO was meant to be an alternative to this, a clearly defined alliance with its own flag.

NATO troops on Russia border are paralysed by escalation risk

Russia officially reserves the right to a first strike if its statehood is threatened, which could even be short of an actual attack on its territory, if the enemy is at the gates. In a border conflict, Russia would be very resolute about removing an enemy force they say is menacing their civilians, just as the UK or America would be.

Finally, what NATO risks doing if there are tensions at the Russian border is placing soldiers who aren't even authorised to shoot in the direction of their opponent if they take fire. An attack on Russian soil is out of the question, to avoid the risk of escalation into a full nuclear war. This will paralyse NATO troops' ability to do anything, while the Russians have permission to do as they please.

So, what starts like a brilliant plan to corner the bear could instead just end up tying the hands of NATO troops so this bear can eat them.

And now the whole world is infected.

The United States' values, exported so confidently to the world, may be contradictory and confused when practised by such a powerful central state. They really are the values of a non-state militia, which the US government originated as.

The United States was founded by people who committed treason and riots. Since then, America emerged from a long isolation and into the fortunes of war and conquest, and then began presenting its anti-state values as a model for states. As such, not just modern liberal interventionism but even the values of 1776 are at fault for confusing and undermining other countries.

US allies like Britain, dependent on American military and economic power to look strong, pretend we share American values. We don't, and even promoting them verbally and repeating the rhetoric is incredibly foolish of British authorities, but that is a matter for another time.

America's presidents are encased in bullet-proof glass to protect themselves from their own ideology.

The right to overthrow tyrants

The American right to bear arms is, in the current view of Americans, meant to defend against an abusive government. In keeping with it, America stands ready to provide arms to people in other nations to help them overthrow their apparently oppressive rulers.

To teach someone that your country (the state) is for freedom (revolt against the state) produces such problems for a state as whistle-blowers who expose its war crimes and gunmen eager to shoot politicians. Although the former can be obviously beneficial to the community, neither are conducive to a super-state's effectiveness or power.

Even Julian Assange and other "anti-American" publishers, silenced by the US government, acted on values related to countering excessive government authority. Those are values that originated in the creation of the United States. They are eating one of their own children. Assange isn't motivated by the values of Russia, China, Germany or even Britain. In these countries, if you break the law, you are bad, and that is the end of it.

British authorities reacted more harshly to whistle-blowers and activists than even the Americans, just as they act more harshly towards any mockery of the government. The British authorities really are horrified simply at the idea that anyone might break the law under any circumstances, even if nobody gets hurt.

Only Americans, or those influenced by them, debate whether breaking their own laws is okay. Admittedly, though, America's influence is so vast that it now reaches all of us - even those who prefer not to admit it.

The "traitor" Edward Snowden was in fact a highly patriotic individual and, on a darker note, so were every American implicated in the treason of the January 6 Capitol Attack. They were firm believers in the US ideology, and it led them to become the biggest betrayers of the US government.

Domestic terrorist land

Unlike in other countries, American seditionists all think they are loyal to the nation, and they are doing as they were told. They were not indoctrinated by a foreign power or terrorists, but by their own constitution, their own government's rhetoric.

Even the wording of the pledge of allegiance allows for Americans to seemingly identify their own politicians as traitors. It does so by stating that you are not pledging allegiance to the state but to a written constitution that has enemies "foreign and domestic".

The US government makes a conscious attempt to avoid its values undermining itself, by shifting all the emphasis on freedom and liberty to an aggressive foreign policy against tyrants abroad while encouraging loyalty and obedience at home. The problem is that these are polar opposite values, and everyone at home is listening to the foreign policy rhetoric too.

If they want, Americans can just turn off the TV when the government appeals for loyalty and obedience, and watch the TV when their government celebrates the death of state officials and "tyrants". People are then left with a lust for the government's blood, thanks to its irresponsibility.

At least on social media, you are likely to find a significant overlap between those Americans who supported the Capitol Attack and those who voiced approval of uprisings in Iran, Venezuela and Cuba in keeping with US aims.

Every time the US government opens its mouth to talk about liberty and rising up against oppression, it is accidentally encouraging its own population to overthrow the government. Such messaging also pervades American culture. American movies extolling the virtues of overthrowing the state encourage them to overthrow the state.

While most states are accustomed to hypocrisy and breathe it to survive, normal citizens aren't. Most people try to stick to the values they hold in their hearts, and Americans are very much like that. They can't help trying to destroy the government if they have been taught an ideology that endorses destroying the government.

This explains the "domestic terrorism" problem. It isn't really new or alien to America, but is what made the country. From the moment those first domestic terrorists took up arms against Britain to gain independence, America was destined to be domestic terrorist land.

Loyalty or liberty?

The contradiction in how the US handles "freedom" is evident in the role the US played in creating the internet and encouraging it in other countries, and the extent to which it now fears foreign influence feeding back through the internet to America.

American engineers and entrepreneurs, who really believed in the values their state preached, actively created ways to encourage freedom and bypass censorship. The US state, however, turned out to be one of the biggest complainers about the internet and independent media, whining that Russians and others were using tiny social media accounts to undermine US democracy in 2016.

Social networks themselves showed signs of becoming state-like despite their anti-state origins too, and are provoking states to wrestle with them. Still, America and American companies demand other countries be "open" to their supposedly benign media influence, while America itself slams its doors to any other country's influence, labelling it as malign.

Militias are present in the US, and talk of opposing the government is commonplace. The groups see themselves as counterparts to fellow Reagan-style "freedom fighters", contras and protesters supported overseas by the machine of the American state.

Repeated US encouragement of overthrowing corrupt regimes and dismissing election results must have at least helped encourage the Capitol Attack on themselves, and the conflicted ideology encouraging disloyalty and loyalty makes it certain to happen again. Many Americans perceive their own government as a pretender, helped by their belief in values that always dismissed authority and celebrated mutiny.

Past isolationism and minimisation of the government's role allowed a country to exist despite its destabilising insurrectionist values. Thanks to their aggressive assertion across the world, such values are louder than ever but risk backfiring.

A curious specimen of belief is that of the person who has converted not to a new religion, but a new nationality. Often, the results are similar.

The person who converts to another nationality will often adopt for himself the most idealised, rosy picture of their new identity. They take everything about their new identity a little bit too seriously, and won't relax.

They don't really understand what they have joined, but they are suddenly a big zealot about it and want to fight for it.

Mr Freedom

Those types of people I am referring to will often go to ridiculous extremes to label themselves as part of their new identity, possibly even having a flag or symbol tattooed on their bodies. Some of them might alter their names to something ridiculous, that they think fits their new nationality.

This may be the case with some Indian converts to Britishness, although I can't be sure and don't want to unfairly caricature a group of people. They may idolise the British monarch and wear jewellery featuring Union Jacks and state symbols - something few normal British people would do.

Worst of all, these new adoptees of the nation will often defend any policy of the government, even if they do not understand it, and will be quick to call others traitors. They become the worst caricature of chauvinism.

Immigrants against immigration

Although they are immigrants, the types of individuals I am talking about will often seek out right-wing groups and denigrate other immigrants. In fact, these immigrants often want to stop immigration, slamming the door on others just like them who would have followed them.

Joining a different community, a different culture, is a bit more complicated than getting a passport or being confirmed in a church. In fact, when people like this adopt the new identity and become militants in its name, they accidentally denigrate and mock their new community.

They turn themselves into a parody of the identity they hoped to join, they mistakenly insult the flags they hoped to wave. They doom themselves to be the butt of jokes, rather than truly accepted into the nation.

Infiltrators

Sometimes, people join a new nation or religion in hope of inciting it to war against those they do not like.

It may also be the case with asylum seekers. Asylum seekers, as opposed to economic migrants, are prone to be critics of the regime in their former country, and therefore may advocate a war against their former country, as Cuban refugees in Miami do. These are not model citizens. Their grudges have turned them into snakes, who imperil their new adoptive country with a conflict not in its interest.

People who remain part of their community of birth seem more likely to be mature, balanced individuals. The best immigrants will still carry their original national identity and pride with them somewhere.

There is a reason why countries are careful about who they accept as new citizens, and why the process often takes long. It is meant to filter out obvious evildoers, but also the unbalanced people and those with false expectations or understandings.

Owing to outrage over top government staff holding Christmas parties while the rest of the country followed Covid restrictions, upcoming pressure might see Boris Johnson kicked out of office.

However, that's only if the Conservative MPs really decide they have had enough of him. And, given that the Conservatives lack any other charismatic (or at least "iconic") figure to take over, getting rid of Boris will probably mean getting rid of themselves in short order.

No confidence vote

If a no confidence vote is lost by Boris Johnson and/or a new Conservative leader is selected, there will probably be another snap election in the UK shortly thereafter to cement legitimacy. This is if we go by past events and assume something similar is due. The Conservatives would be set to lose that election, judging by recent data. So, ironically, the temporary spike in support for Labour amid the scandal may be feared by Tories and cause them to shield Boris during a no confidence vote in Parliament so that he wins, as the Conservatives may recognise that the scandal could see them out of power. As such, Boris's fallout with the voters would have rattled his party enough to save him from Parliament.

We have to remember that Boris Johnson is one of the most controversial Prime Ministers the country has had, and has persistently clung to power and defied calls for him to go. Public protests against him were greatest during the country's efforts to exit the European Union, yet resulted in no victory for his critics.

Outrage over Boris Johnson's initial refusal to extend Brexit during 2019 was more visible than the current outrage at his hypocrisy, and it was even suggested that he could be jailed at that time. Presently, there are no visible protests by the public over the Prime Minister's hypocrisy, and it shows a level of apathy among the public over all that has happened.

Omicron variant measures

If anything, there are more likely to be street protests over Boris Johnson's decision to introduce more measures to combat the novel coronavirus in light of the Omicron variant. Yet such restrictions are actually supported by the Opposition and a vocal part of the news media who have been condemning the Prime Minister's hypocrisy. The anti-lockdown advocates also resent Boris's apparent hypocrisy.

The only reason Boris Johnson may be kicked out is due to his own party being fed up with him, rather than public outrage. However, if it results in a snap election, Conservative MPs would soon regret voting against him in the no confidence vote, because right now the voting public has no confidence in them either.

Impact on next election

Boris Johnson is a hypocrite and there will be nobody rushing to his defence, including in his own base of support. However, in the long term, we have to remember that the next general election is in 2024. The public will have moved on to other issues than Christmas parties by that time, so it won't take much of the wind out of the sails that kept the Tories in power.

The half of the population desiring reactionary politics, Brexit, and relaxed policies on Covid has not gone anywhere and may even have grown a little. They will still support Boris Johnson in the event of an election, because the alternative would seem worse to them.

If Covid is still a factor in the 2024 election, the public will likely be sick of hearing about it and vote for a party more dismissive of it, which would likely once again be the Tories. If there is a successful no confidence vote, a Tory leadership contest, and a snap election while the scandal is fresh, Labour could take over.

If the Tories calculate the same, they will keep Boris Johnson for now.

Barbados has ditched the Queen as head of state based on a parliamentary vote, but this change likely does not reflect the wishes of the population.

According to a report, the reason Barbados did not hold a referendum on the issue of head of state is because the population would have rejected the change. The parliament sidestepped asking the population, knowing the population would vote against them.

There was good reason to think the people of Barbados would not accept removing the Queen as head of state. When the question was posed to Australia, Tuvalu and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, these countries all voted by a majority to retain their current system.

Sometimes, specific parts of a territory even want to stay under the colonial vestiges and it is right to let them stay as long as the populations still wish. This is the case with British Overseas Territories and French overseas departments such as Mayotte, which dissented from the Comoros when it gained independence and remained French.

Barbados as an unnecessary republic

If you compare Barbados with the way countries became healthy republics, there is a difference. Republics became republics as a founding act in their country's history and it defined their national identity, often alongside adopting a state religion. Such was the case with Pakistan, for example, where being a republic was a necessary part of the constitution. The prime historical example of France became a republic as it transitioned into a nation-state rather than a fief.

Barbados was already a democracy and an independent nation with an established and stable identity in 1966. The head of state was just a vestige, only important when it comes to the perception of authority, perhaps compelling the politicians to act as servants to the nation and not masters. There seemed to be a reason for it.

What happened only seems superficially good at this moment, through a simplistic anti-colonial lens. Without that rosy factor, or had this change been anything else of a similar significance, such as adopting a state religion or a new monarch, it would have elicited outrage.

Power votes for power

Those who organised the vote, the representatives in parliament, want to be perceived to have more authority and to be masters of the nation and its identity. Their vote was about themselves, not the population. One hundred percent of them voted for themselves to have more authority, which should surprise no-one.

It was only natural that the normal population would not get any say in the matter. Most of the time, ordinary citizens don't sympathise with power-hungry politicians and tend to block their aspirations.

If anything, sidestepping a referendum on an issue concerning identity and the definition of the authority in their land is a cause for Barbadians to be a bit worried rather than happy. What other kind of power will these politicians vote for themselves to have, in future? We can only hope that they are well-intentioned and do not vote for unlimited terms in office and bans on criticism of their majestic authority.

If you put the question to politicians about whether they would like more power and authority, they are prone to say yes. Instead, a referendum should have been held in Barbados.

This is a short explanation of what is happening in Ukraine, looking at the country's conflict from a neutral perspective. The war in Ukraine originated in a political crisis in 2014 and has sometimes shown signs that it will become very intense and violent.

The pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych was deposed through the Euromaidan street protests in 2014. Following this, pro-Russian elements of the population in the country's east and Crimea rebelled against the new pro-European Union administration.

Russian troops sneaked into Ukraine during the crisis in 2014, taking over Crimea and assisting armed rebellion in the east of Ukraine. Crimea was subsequently declared as part of Russia following a referendum rejected by Western countries, creating an intense standoff that lasts to this day.

False alarms

Fortunately, each time the conflict looked like it would result in a full-scale clash with Russia, the situation quickly calmed down. It happened earlier this year, already. In April, alarm was raised over a Russian build-up in preparation to invade Ukraine. The Russian troops withdrew, and it turned out to be a false alarm.

By November, we began to hear reports of Russia building up troops to invade Ukraine once again. These reports have continued as we entered December and so far there is no report of any withdrawal of troops.

What is really happening in Ukraine is that the country wishes to restore complete control over its territory. It states this as its goal, referring to the Russian-claimed Crimean Peninsula as temporarily occupied and claiming it will retake the Peninsula by force in the future, although this is just grandstanding.

Russia is against the Ukrainian government going on the offensive in the eastern zones and most likely has objectives limited to protecting that area, deriving popular support due to the high Russian-speaking population there. Russia. whether cynical or sincere about it, most likely assesses that an eventual Ukrainian offensive will cause a lot of civilian deaths. If a certain threshold is reached, it can launch its own large-scale attack on Ukrainian troops and present it as a limited response aiming to protect civilians.

Some may see the US as being behind the escalation in Ukraine, but this is unlikely (barring their involvement in the original events of 2014). The US is heavily focused on China. Being distracted by a major conflict in Europe would put an end to the attempted pivot to Asia. Lifting of targeted sanctions to allow US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland to visit Moscow may represent one of the attempts to somewhat mend ties as the US tries to form alliances against China.

The most likely outcome is that the US will convince Ukraine to stand down, following which the Russians will also stand down. The same happened back in April.

Russia's secret plans for Ukraine

A Russian attack could begin with vague objectives in eastern Ukraine but could secretly be entirely open-ended, allowing their military to accomplish anything it deems possible, including the total occupation of Ukraine. Although this could not be a Russian goal in 2014, it now may be one of their goals.

NATO suggestions about moving nuclear weapons into Europe, potentially to the Russian border, alarmed Moscow. They most likely demand a very heavy response from the Russian side and there is already the offer by Belarus to host Russian nukes in response. The Russian military may have demanded access to Ukrainian territory so nuclear weapons can be stationed there in response to NATO.

Although NATO nuclear deployments were denied by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, it could be too late as the perception now exists that NATO wants nukes close to Russia. NATO failed to keep its plans secret: it wants nuclear strike capability close enough to Moscow to deny Russia the chance to retaliate. If Russia is going to respond to this, Ukraine has no hope.

Ukraine should not attempt to restore its control over the eastern parts of the country or Crimea. It especially should not offer to host US missile defences or nuclear weapons. Such actions would trigger Russian intervention and Russia would be able to enact its own plans for Ukraine.

Russia may choose to enact its plans anyway, feeling compelled to respond to the NATO nuclear weapons that could otherwise be positioned at its border. The decision may have already been made to secure launch sites in Ukraine at all costs.

During the course of any Russian intervention, Russian troops could get very close to Ukraine's capital city, Kiev. They could suddenly decide to decapitate the Ukrainian government in such a conflict, even if it was not their original plan.

The reality is that Ukraine is much weaker than Russia and cannot count on NATO support. The best thing for both sides to do would be to maintain the status quo, not start any offensive, and wait to see if changes of government in Kiev and Moscow in future result in better relations.

Social networking websites and apps aim to manage almost every aspect of your life, curtail your access to information and take responsibility for your safety. In this regard, they are replacing government authority with their own. But when it comes to a clash with states, can they win?

As some background, Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly said at this year's Valdai forum that social media companies had attempted to take on some form of state-like authority and displace the state itself in this regard, and that they had failed. The remarks are quoted by Russian broadcaster RT.

Unfortunately, the source linked by RT is a more than three hour-long video with an English translation in which Putin does not seem to make the alleged remarks, so it is hard to tell what exactly he meant.

If the RT quote was valid, Putin may have said large tech companies tried to assume some roles traditionally held by governments, and the attempts were "fleeting". He would have claimed, "in the US, the owners of these platforms were taken down a peg or two as it was in Europe as well," with some clarity added that this was due to "anti-monopolisation measures".

So, what did Putin mean?

Antitrust laws

The European Union currently has the Digital Markets Act (DMA) on the cards, which apparently will prevent a tech company from trapping users in an operating system or bundle of apps that solely favours its own services (and by extension news feeds) over any other firm's. It also apparently hopes to make sure users can uninstall pre-installed apps, which presumably means preventing US digital giants from forcing European users to use their apps and look at their news feeds.

Antitrust lawsuits have already targeted large tech companies in the US and Australia, with Amazon and Apple often being in focus. Facebook has also had a hard time in Australia, where the government sought for Facebook to pay news outlets for their content and Facebook attempted to push back against the government with help from Alphabet (who own Google), by carrying out a news blackout. Back at the start of the year, the push from Facebook failed to deter the Australian government and in fact other governments took Australia's side.

Subduing African governments?

Social media companies are uniquely confrontational towards governments, lately seeing themselves as authorities on par with some governments. Silicon Valley-based corporations like Twitter certainly see themselves as more reliable and legitimate authorities than African governments, as can be seen from their enforcement actions targeting government accounts in Uganda and Ethiopia.

Twitter's removal of government communications because they promoted violence is an attempt to de-recognise a state, because the monopoly on the legal use of violence is a defining aspect of a state. It is also an ineffective and failed usurpation of the state's responsibilities, since a state can still commit or allow violence whether Twitter deletes posts about it or not.

Victory over Trump?

Some might consider the banning of Trump to be a victory of social media over the US state, but in reality Trump was always an outsider to the US state and it was the US state that defeated Trump. The other branches of the US government certainly hated Trump, as did a majority of lawmakers. The spectre of these state figures cracking down after the evident electoral defeat of Trump was the factor most responsible for compelling organisations like Twitter and Facebook to kick Trump off social media.

The behaviour of social networks certainly suggests they have or had a willingness to compel governments to do their bidding, yet they have been ineffective. The actions of Twitter in Africa have simply resulted in bans targeting the website. Governments have shown they are willing and capable of pushing back against what are really just weak outfits. Social networks can be forcibly broken up due to laws, taken offline or bankrupted by fines at any moment the state truly loses patience with them.

States as continuous victors

Whether or not Putin was actually making comments like the above or sought to discuss the above developments, I do not know. However, the reported observation that social networks are losing their battle with states is valid. There have been plenty of times when new media, organisations and other actors created upheaval in the internal and international order, but they are ultimately crushed under the tank-treads of whoever wields the real power. At this moment, that still means nation-states.

Sometimes, revolutions and coups occur. These unconstitutional seizures of power violate the rule of law and should always be discouraged. However, when such a coup does occur, the international community eventually accepts it as a fait accompli.

In the Cold War, many such violent transfers of power occurred but typically the resulting government would be backed by the US or USSR. In some other cases, such as that of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, it was China that provided most of the legitimacy to the new regime.

However, on very rare occasions, an uprising would not be backed by any of the superpowers. Examples are the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 and the rise of the original Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to power in 1996. The rise of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan back to power in 2021 is another such event, although Moscow and Beijing were not bothered by the previous pro-Western regime's fall.

Refusing to accept illegal takeovers

Sometimes, the rise to power of a faction will be met with rejection by the supreme body of authority in the world - the United Nations Security Council. The Security Council, representing the victorious countries of the Second World War, provides a kind of "might makes right" verdict on a dispute where the right cannot otherwise be established. It includes the rival Russians, Chinese and Americans and can often be split and indecisive.

Based on the strictest adherence to the rule of law, you would never recognise any unconstitutional seizure of power as valid. It is the duty of the Security Council to condemn any and all violent takeovers and attempt to reinstall the previous regime. Unfortunately, this is not always practical.

In Ukraine in 2014, crowds used violence to overpower security forces in Kiev and bring opposition politicians to power, ostracizing and kicking out the elected government. The former president fled to Russia, but rather than continue backing this president, Russia accepted the new regime's rise to power as a fait accompli. Despite the hostility between Kiev and Moscow, Moscow does not say the Ukrainian government is illegitimate. Its beef with the country is about the treatment of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, not the validity of a government that rose to power illegally.

This brings us to the topic for today.

Who rules Yemen?

In Yemen, from 2014-2015, almost the exact same thing was happening as was taking place in Ukraine. In this case, the offending group that took control was Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis. The president of the country, in this case Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, fled not to Russia but to Saudi Arabia.

Rather than accept the defeat of their disgraced former favourite as Russia did in Ukraine, Saudi Arabia instead formed a military coalition to lay siege to Yemen in an attempt to reinstall the kicked-out president. This is the reason for the ongoing conflict in Yemen.

Imagine if, rather than accept what happened in Ukraine in 2014, Russia instead assembled the alliance of post-Soviet states, the CSTO, to invade Ukraine and restore the former president Viktor Yanukovych to power in Kiev. Imagine further, that this resulted in nearly a hundred thousand deaths, total destruction of infrastructure and outbreaks of cholera, and that Russia was still attempting to reach Kiev, being continuously defeated in the process. That is what Saudi Arabia is doing in Yemen.

The UN Security Council, including Russia, despite it contradicting the way it accepted the unconstitutional seizure of power in Ukraine, still recognises the discredited former regime of Yemen as the legitimate government of the country.

Peace through accepting reality

The Houthis should not have seized power in Yemen, but they did. This reality would be accepted by pragmatists and if the Houthis continue to prevail, it will eventually be accepted. The UN has a duty in this case to stop propping up a defeated regime, and to withdraw recognition of Hadi. The Houthis, like the Taliban, are the rulers of the country they rose to power in whether you like them or not. They have been in power for multiple years despite an international coalition against them. They stood the strongest tests any regime could be subjected to, and are the right ones to hold accountable for the wellbeing of that country.

Attempting to restore an old regime, possibly at the cost of killing everyone in the country, is insanity. We recognise all kinds of governments that we don't personally support, and that is what is needed here.

Images of a military or security robot resembling a dog with a gun in place of a head have elicited dread online. The machine, created by Ghost Robots and Sword International and named the Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle (SPUR), may offer a glimpse into the future of warfare.

A common reaction is one of horror. We have seen all the Terminator and Matrix movies, featuring the robot takeover and enslavement of humanity. In such movies, a common theme is that robots exceeded humanity in their abilities. They became more agile, resilient, and even more intelligent. Ultimately, their fighting ability grew greater than humanity's and humanity was conquered (subverted in the movies, of course, by messianic heroes who can outclass the machines).

Warfare advances and there is no point in complaining. But is it really a matter of man against machine? Or even a matter of better machines against inferior and dated machines? Such thinking may have more in common with movies than reality.

What does technology mean to war?

The actual relationship between technology and warfare is often misunderstood. Technology has always been more a way for a wealthier power to leverage its wealth to produce military results with greater propaganda effect and at a reduced cost in personnel lives, rather than a silver bullet capable of producing victory. It is just more ordnance put to use against the other side's ordnance, and not ultimately the deciding factor in who will will be victorious. Just take a look. History is filled with examples of wealthier and better-equipped nations being defeated by poorer ones in wars. Technological advantages can be negated a lot more easily than many would think, and humans are a lot harder to kill than their counterparts portrayed in movies and games.

Those times when advanced technology got beaten

Look no further back than the outcome of the War in Afghanistan (2001-2021). Surely, it was a foregone conclusion that the mighty NATO forces would defeat the inferior Taliban forces? It was also a foregone conclusion that the Soviet Union would be defeated by the German military in 1941. What happened?

We might be able to inflict our wrath on people in poor nations as a result of billions spent on advanced weapons, but that act in itself just serves to encourage someone else to pick up an AK-47 and continue the fight. A Taliban fighter is a low-cost means of waging war, driven by faith, willing to sacrifice his life. You only believe killing him is a victory because you mistakenly equate his loss with your own death, when in reality a group like the Taliban has an endless supply of men. You don't have an endless supply of expensive bombs and robots. Worse still, depending on robots means you have absolutely no supply of men willing to sacrifice themselves.

Attrition ultimately can still wear you down, even when you take no human losses. And the unwillingness to take even one casualty just makes that one casualty hit a whole lot harder, when it eventually does happen. The anti-war sentiment ends up being just as strong, nay, worse, than it would be if you were taking thousands of losses in 1940.

Strengths and weaknesses

There is also the fact that a robot soldier may just be forever doomed to be less efficient, less manageable and far less adapted to its environment than the real thing.

Imagine a robot horse. That is a fine thing for fiction, but a real horse operates a lot better in the real world and is better made for it. A normal horse does not come from a manufacturing plant thousands of miles away. It can be replaced very easily using other horses. It can be recharged using grass and water abundant in many normal environments, and does not need expensive and rare power cells that must be transported to it by yet more technology.

Of course, an already good military can be made better by robots, which surely can add to its firepower. These kinds of unmanned rifles are not going to be a replacement for soldiers, but they could certainly be buddies for soldiers and increase the firepower of already effective military units.

An army that still puts a lot of human bodies to use in addition to its mechanical muscle will likely prevail over one that attempts to rely solely on machines. Willing humans will continue to be the more important factor in winning. People and even animals are going to continue to be a more convenient and cost-effective way of getting lots of weapons to the front line, for a long time.

Russia has been accused of hypocrisy by the United States and NATO, after its satellite destruction test reportedly created debris and panic in orbit.

If you have seen the movie Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, you are familiar with the problem. In fact, this recent event was exactly the plot of the movie, including such details as which country did the deed of taking down a satellite with a missile.

Some may even have been irked when Gravity came out, because back then the most recent offender in destroying satellites was China, yet the movie chose to cast Russia as the aggressor as is so often done in American media. Now, it seems, Russia has finally stepped up and played its movie role for real.

The blame game

Of course, Russia rejected claims that the debris created in the test endangered any space installation. Moreover, Russia pointed to similar satellite destruction tests by the US, China and India. Both sides accused each other of hypocrisy, with the US saying Russia's actions directly contradict its words.

When it comes to hypocrisy at this moment, Russia may be somewhat guiltier than America, and so too could be the Chinese when it comes to their activity in space. For something to be hypocritical, one's words have to contradict one's actions. Russia and China have steadfastly stated that they oppose the weaponisation of space. They may be using a narrow definition, speaking of the stationing of weapon systems in orbit rather than the temporary course of projectiles through space, but to send weapons into space to blow things up is certainly not conducive to preventing the weaponisation of space.

It is the presence of ICBMs, which move at such high altitude that they enter into space, that motivated the desire of the US to weaponise space in the first place, dating even back to the 1980s. Since the US has openly created the Space Force as a branch of its military, and declared space to be a war-fighting domain, the US is not breaking its word when it carries out military activity in space. It is doing exactly as it promises. The Russians and Chinese, however, are playing a diplomatic stalling game in which they likely intend to shame American advances in military space technology.

Warfare inevitably advances

The Russian and Chinese position is roughly equivalent to the Spartans decrying the Athenian use of arrows. Complaining about the other side's developments as being unsportsmanlike, appealing to arbitrary definitions and rules about what constitutes the right and proper way to kill people and blow things up, is unavailing in the end. It could also be deterring huge strides in technological development that could ultimately save humanity itself if we eventually come to depend on space colonies to escape disasters on Earth.

Russia can blow up whatever it wants to blow up, but there is no point in Russia crying foul about the other side coveting powerful technologies that could accomplish military supremacy. Russia has very capable engineers of its own and has surpassed the United States in some areas, such as hypersonic missiles. So, too, has China. This should teach these countries that the answer is not to complain about American advances, but to make advances of their own.

Every breakthrough in space is good

At the end of the day, enemies or not, we are all human, and it is in the human interest to fully exploit space for every benefit to our security and colonise the other planets of the Solar System. The stumbling block to this has been funding, and if one organisation on Earth is not short of funding, it is the US Department of Defense.

This is not a call for American conquest of the Solar System, but an acknowledgment that someone has to start the process and it would be wrong to simply stall them.

Maybe as long as ten years ago, I heard about the problem of items and fat accumulating in the sewage system, forming what is known as fatbergs. However, more than just being the problem of the infrastructure - of the state - a similar build-up in plumbing threatens the homes of those causing the problem, so they ought to care.

This problem was always the problem of the individual, in the sense that individuals are causing the problem by what type of waste they attempt to wash away and in the sense that ultimately it will have repercussions for the individual if the infrastructure suffers. However, is it possible that the threat to individual homes is somewhat exaggerated? Authorities sometimes exaggerate or even lie in order to move individuals to action, where they were unmoved by the plight of the collective.

Your country needs you

In the past, it was possible to move people to action through patriotism or some notion of the collective good. The call to do something for your country was one that could motivate people. As the appeal of selfish individualism grew globally, likely through the spread and normalisation of American popular culture, appeals to national wellbeing may have fallen on increasingly deaf ears.

As a result, we now have people in countries like Britain, who fundamentally cannot grasp that problems affecting the state and the infrastructure could have any effect on them. They instead view the state as an unwelcome and intrusive authority, whose problems don't concern a citizen - some sinister big brother with his own agenda.

The ability to maintain infrastructure such as roads and the sewage system, and the ability to provide emergency and medical services are things anyone can scoff at and say they don't need them. Maybe they have a big off-road capable car, so they don't need the roads. Maybe they have experience of camping in the wild, so they don't need the sewage system. Maybe they carry guns and first aid kits, so they don't need the police or any medical workers. Such a person is rare, and they likely still are dependent on something maintained by the state, without being aware of it. The point of this post, though, is not to deride libertarianism or minarchy; most of the work done by states could hypothetically be provided by non-states in a possible future. The point is that many people bafflingly believe a problem isn't theirs until it directly affects them.

You don't need your country?

In the case of the selfish individualist, they soon realise they need a hospital if their child becomes ill, but most of the time this isn't happening, so reading about hospitals closing down probably doesn't bother them. They hear of other people's children getting ill, but their own child seems very healthy, so they don't need hospitals. This kind of thinking is exactly the problem.

Governments do not manage your life, but manage the lives of millions of people. As such, you can say you don't care what the government wants, but the state is built in such a way that you will suffer the consequences of that attitude if the infrastructure and services break down. The state won't be so rude as to say it does not care about you, but it indeed does not care, and it suffers no consequences for that attitude. Although your life ends with you, the state's life continues with everyone else, so it will always be more concerned about the wellbeing of the collective than an individual's sob story. This is at the heart of the debate over the current pandemic and the issue of vaccinating the population.

An immunised population

The state wants the population vaccinated against this pandemic. It is absolutely sensible, from the point of view of those authorities who manage millions of lives, to do what is best for that mass of people, including those millions who are vulnerable to disease. For an individual with no medical disorder putting them at risk, however, the state's goal appears intrusive.

You, you may say, are not individually at risk. But, the state retorts, what of one person's risk to others? And what of the risk of failing to efficiently manage the health of many millions of people? What of the risk to the medical services, if they should fail? 'Not my problem,' you may then say.

Then, enter the exaggerations and (possibly) the lies.

Noble lies

The state's advocates, being tasked with the health and wellbeing of millions of people rather than the comfort of the individual, are pushed to be economical with the truth in order to convince the individual to do something. If people are too selfish to see the value in any kind of collective or state wellbeing, it is inevitable that authorities will eventually try to convince them that their individual wellbeing is more at risk than it really is.

None of this should be necessary, but it seems as though it is. We are faced with the modern citizen's immature selfishness, poseur individualism and anti-establishment bias, all accidentally inspired by the American global pop culture.

Sound and fury last weekend in Liverpool took Britain by surprise. Almost immediately, it was labelled as a terrorist attack, although this had more to do with the method employed by the perpetrator rather than any kind of motive.

Terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda have not chosen to take responsibility for inspiring the attack, in which a lone attacker detonated a bomb inside a taxi. This is likely due to two factors. One is that the attack failed so spectacularly, causing no casualties other than the person who carried it out. The second is the nature of the target. Targeting a women's hospital, with that hospital having no religious, ethnic or political significance, is of no interest even to the most violent terrorist organisations. At a glance, such a target suggests the perpetrator could have been driven by misogyny, possibly stirred by poor mental health or feelings of alienation rather than ideology.

According to reports, the perpetrator had a history of mental illness. This may put the designation of the incident as a terrorist attack into question, since it suggests that the attacker may have had no religious or political motive. As such, naming it as a terrorist attack could have accidentally focused the state's resources on stirring even more division, conflict and unrest rather than putting mental health in focus.

A way of life under attack?

To talk of the attack as being against our "way of life", as the British government has done, seems to have been in error. The attack was not against any way of life, but against life, in particular the life of the individual who did it. It was an attack by someone fed up with his own life. To talk of unity in the face of people trying to cause division, and to talk of preserving the way of life of the country, could simply be the wrong speech for the occasion and irrelevant to what happened.

The Liverpool attack attempt is something that would have happened even if the so-called war on terror was not taking place. It would have happened even if there were no different cultures cohabiting on our islands. This looks like a case of someone, mentally unstable and enraged at the world, seeking to commit suicide and take others with them. Unfortunately, such things are known to happen, even in countries and societies that are boring, homogenous and not embroiled in any kind of controversy. The perpetrators, enraged at everyone, often even target their own families.

Comparison with the Plymouth attack

Think back to the other recent attack to have disturbed Britain, which occurred in Plymouth. That was a case of a loner who snapped, and sought to take his rage out against the world, including a young child in his path. The acts are evil, as they would have been in Liverpool if the attacker succeeded, but the motive is not one that fits with what we know as terrorism. The motive is simply based on isolation and mental illness. We have a crowded, complicated world that gives rise to false expectations, shattered dreams and mental illness. Sometimes, people die because of it.

More disturbingly, it may be that the attack in Liverpool was designated as terrorism because the perpetrator was a Muslim and of Middle Eastern origin, whereas the Plymouth attacker was not. Yet, in both cases, mental illness played a role. It it seems very likely that both attacks have no political significance and only represent the perpetrators' rage at their own lives, made worse by the disruptions to social life caused by the pandemic.

Perceptions of World War Two still guide many a thought about how to wage war. Many see the Allies as a supreme example to follow to achieve victory, apparently forgetting that the Allies spent the start of the Second World War being picked off and defeated one at a time.

The newest big military alliance that seems to be under construction is the one against Iran in the Persian Gulf, with Israel cooperating more openly with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in the area. It is unlikely that such cooperation would offset the kind of damage Iran is able to do against any specific target in that area such as a ship, naval base or oil facility if it actually goes on the offensive. So, what's the point?

Forming an alliance is the first thing to do if you are scared of taking a lot of damage from an adversary, and would prefer the damage to be more spread out across your broad coalition. If casualties are spread out between different member states of NATO in Afghanistan, for example, each country can brag that it lost very few soldiers while defeating many Taliban. But how does it look when your massive 30-nation alliance gets defeated by a small guerrilla organisation in one country?

Lack of commitment or willingness to fight alone

Another example of an alliance proving absolutely ineffective is the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. The coalition of Arab armies is not only failing to crush a rebellion in the country but running away, surrendering ground to low-tech rebels.

The problem is that alliances are usually formed to cover up weakness in the first place, and that weakness still exists in them. Alliances often lack commitment, and indeed they are formed in the first place by members who lacked the commitment to fight alone and sought an easier path.

Your military alliance helps the enemy target you

For example, when World War Two began, Germany achieved a massive winning streak against the Allies by simply targeting them one at a time. Allies form their alliance because they feel stronger at the thought of standing shoulder to shoulder with others against an adversary, like some propaganda poster emblazoned with slogans of strength in unity, but practical reality often doesn't work out that way. Often, it works out more like a hit list for the opponent, who now knows who to bump off when he sees them alone in some dark alley.

When the Germans formed their own mighty alliance to attack the Soviet Union, the USSR played the same game the Germans had played, targeting the weaker members of the Axis alliance on the frontline as a means of flanking the Germans. Were it not for the Germans' desire for a mighty coalition, and their false sense of security in that coalition, Soviet victory at Stalingrad may have been unattainable. The Soviets needed no allies to turn the tide in that battle, but the Germans failed because of their allies.

A domino effect

It is worthy of mention that NATO's Asian counterpart, SEATO, dissolved almost immediately after America lost the Vietnam War, proving that all it takes to destroy such a military alliance is to destroy one party protected by the alliance. Since an alliance often involves weak members and thoughtlessly adds members to its ranks, including pitiful ones, defeating an alliance member becomes so easy that the alliance's existence is more of a boon to the opponent than a threat. This is why NATO would not add the feeble Afghan regime or any other especially weak government to its alliance, since it might tie the fate of the alliance to that one regime, as was the case with South Vietnam.

In a military coalition, one member is always more vulnerable than another, and another is more vulnerable following the fall of that first one. As such, alliances often fall like dominoes. Unless their individual members are mighty and committed enough to go it alone and take all the casualties for a significant amount of time (like the British Commonwealth, followed by the Soviet Union, in World War Two) a military alliance means little against a strong peer opponent.

In their worst form, alliances are just propaganda, a false parade of flags to lift the spirits of a fool, good for enticing you to go to war in the first place but not for helping you win.

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