THE FURIOUS EXTREMES

14 August 2023

We all recognise that civil society is being hollowed out and that there are increasingly furious extremes but isn't the same thing the case in international relations?

Thought for today: the hollowing out of the center, where the moderates are forced out or to take an extreme position, we are all familiar with this argument and we see it happening. There is serious civil unrest, two sides opposing each other, neither will submit, each would prefer to see the whole system collapse rather than lose the argument.

We recognise this is what is happening to our civil society with all kinds of moral questions put up to destroy us.

Well, that's for civil society ... but isn't it the same for geopolitics? Look at the neocons in this proxy war in Ukraine.

Once, nuclear weapons were there to preserve the peace, the objective was preservation of the peace, this was the Pax Americana. But for the last 30 years we've had Russia refusing to accept it lost the cold war and what winds up the neocons even more is to see Russia strengthening as it has been doing since Putin began the task of restoring order to Russian Society.

The Neocons, in power in America and Europe, with Victory and Global Supremacy as their objective in International Relations, see the West's grip on global affairs being diluted . The neocons are quite ready to go to war in its most extreme forms, rather than "lose", as they see it, rather than see America lose its global hegemony, rather than concede what everyone else sees: that more and more we live in a multi-polar world.

The BRICS Summit coming up in a week will be attended by representatives from 50 countries though there are only currently five members It is evidently setting itself up to challenge the West the G7.

Not for the neocons, there is no room for negotiation or compromise, or what many would call an acceptance of the emerging new reality - such talk is labelled "appeasement" and the war, hopeless though it is, must continue, the killing and mutililations must continue, until defeat or collapse.

Seems to me now that neutrality is all but inevitable for Ukraine, alongside the loss of substantial parts of its former territory. We have the neocons to thank for this. We have a mediocre leadership in Europe in disarray and fawning behind these neocons in Washington and we have a bubbling and weeping cesspool in Europe's east west crease, where the whole purpose of the NATO alliance was the promise of Pax Americana, a permanent peace.

And next? ...