It follows that what is key and essential overall is to not lose sight of the broader war “for the sake of a fine experience.” And of course, allowing the stream to flow was intended to render it “captive” to the kind of frenzied and hysterical and neurotic “passion” that governs and rules over the current and failed whole-of-government policy and its core goal. But as we mentioned before, the war in Ukraine which Russia is waging had an even more profound impact than what many of us may had even deciphered in the very beginning, in the sense that Russia’s war in Ukraine is intended to dissolve the American global order and state in its entirety.
Simply put, none of us were able to “grasp the complexity” of Russia’s efforts on the global stage as of late. To borrow from Andrei Martyanov:
“American power elites are simply not qualified to grasp the complexity, the nature and application of military force. The majority of them have never served a day in uniform nor ever attended high-ranking military academic institutions; their expertise on cutting edge military-technological and geopolitical capacities and issues is limited to a couple of seminars on nuclear weapons and, in the best-case scenario, imbibing the efforts of the Congressional Research Service. They simply have no reference points. Yet, being a product of the American pop-military culture, this collection of lawyers, political ‘scientists,’ sociologists and journalists who dominate the American strategic kitchen which cooks non-stop delusional geopolitical and military doctrines – can understand one thing for sure: a bulls-eye on their backs and foreheads.”
Joel Rubin comes to mind for some reason. Joel Rubin brings to mind the whining and nagging over not being able to extract from entitlement and privilege to the maximum and to the fullest extent possible. But of course, Joel Rubin would be entitled and privileged to whining and nagging over not being able to extract to the fullest extent possible only if his entitlement and privilege did not lead to this kind of Russian diatribe.
Moreover, the Russians are also cultivating or fostering a kind of “Stockholm Syndrome” from within the Trump Administration in particular in quite a brilliant and fanstastic way, considering how the shoe is now on the other foot. Our Russian captors empathize with us, and we empathize with them for empathizing with us. As Martyanov wrote:
“The collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic catastrophe which followed taught Russians a lot, and also left an aftertaste of the humiliation of losing power – a process the United States is going through right now. Speaking in a layman’s lingo, the Russians get it. They, unlike any other people in the world, can relate to what the United States is going through right now. Russians can read the signs extremely well, while the U.S. elite not only has no experience with it but is completely insulated from understanding it. This is America’s tragedy unfolding before our very eyes. Not only is America’s crisis systemic, but its elites are uncultured, badly educated and mesmerized by decades of their own propaganda, which in the end, they accept as a reality.”
America’s oligarchy and the social elite which this oligarchy has propped up are “arrogant and corrupt” and can see the world only through “Wall Street and New York Times lenses” to borrow from Martyanov. All they have in mind is “self-perpetuation” through the same set of failed ideas and thoughts that got them to where they are now, namely, with a Russian bullseye on their backs and foreheads. Moreover, Washington cannot really counter Russia without completely collapsing, hence the crisis and predicament. As a result, the key or the trick becomes one of overcoming a Russian-induced collapse and disintegration of the American global order and state without even really countering the Russians, given the crisis or the dilemma at hand, which is that actually countering the Russians for inducing our collapse and disintegration will ensure our collapse and disintegration.
Adam A. Azim 