In a recent post I mentioned the thesis that in some sense World War 3 had already begun and that this time unlike earlier world wars seen last century it would occur with the superpowers using proxies to battle for hegemony on the world stage. Anyone considering the current Ukraine war and Middle East conflict can’t help but feel that this is the case. Certainly, in both examples these were long term regional areas of great conflict but when one considers how the superpowers have openly and covertly jumped in to play a part in these wars it is clear that this has in fact occurred. Without the support of China and Russia would Iran even with the weak policy of the US ever have been emboldened enough to raise the level of conflict with Israel in the way they have through their proxies? It’s doubtful. And without all the intelligence and military support provided by the US and Western Europe would Ukraine ever have been able to hold off Russia even to the extent it has? Again, it’s doubtful.
However, especially in Ukraine where one of the three most powerful nuclear regimes in the world is directly at war the stakes and tight rope walk of proxy war is incredibly dangerous. One must not, and alas some leaders are doing just that, take lightly the fact that Russia is a major nuclear power. There are those who will tell you, and I believe they are right, that if a full-scale nuclear war would break out all humanity would be wiped out. Not maybe wiped out, but definitely wiped out. Supposedly, when the two nuclear powers India and Pakistan were looking like they might go nuclear against each other leaders in Washington dispatched some of their top scientists to let the sides involved know just how unimaginably severe the results would be in no uncertain terms of a nuclear war. And they listened. This is the apocalyptic “climate change” event of nuclear winter that is not getting enough attention while every small alteration in extreme weather gets nonstop media coverage.
A new generation has taken over international politics in many cases and they have failed to understand the deadly seriousness of the earlier Cold War period. If one was being uncharitable one would say they seem to think it’s like some cool movie or the stakes involved are like a scene from Atomic Blonde or a 99 Luftballoons song—all theater, no super serious reality. The US, and I am certainly not taking Putin’s side in all this, is using the slowly ramping things up approach with Russia where they gradually cross every prudent boundary that Russia has established. The latest one of authorizing Ukraine to use western long-range missile against Russian territory should be a nonstarter but is seriously being considered. Bad idea with a nuclear superpower. Incredibly bad and dangerous idea in fact. Can anyone say Cuban Missile Crisis, please?
In part, it’s because the globalists have bought into the Kojeve/Fukuyama end of history garbage where they have a millennial secular religion instead of a real one that says that it’s inevitable that the West will win in the unfolding of spirit in history. They are doing the same thing of course with populism. Lacking St. Augustine’s crucial two realms that cannot be closed argument that has long underlay the humanism, prudence, and reality principle of the West we are in dangerous uncharted territory. Thucydides and the Real-Politique school has long, I believe correctly, argued that a less powerful country has no choice but to acquiesce to a great power. Perhaps that can be changed to a stalemate if another country that’s a great power weighs in on their behalf, but is the US really ready to fully weigh in all the way to a nuclear war to try to win? The Real-Politique approach starts with the premise that international affairs is a largely lawless space based exclusively on power not moral calculations–a dangerous space, a sort of no rules street fight if you will. Short of an un-winnable all out nuclear war the best Real-Politique result that can be hoped for is a kind of DMZ North versus South Korea situation for Ukraine and Russia that was proposed in the important Foreign Affairs policy journal now quite a while ago. So why are we not moving to this answer and instead seriously considering authorizing long range missile use by Ukraine against Russia?
The deeper problem is that there have always been two schools of thought in foreign policy the International Organization approach and the just described Real-Politique approach. The International Organization approach is based on the idea that the good nations all get together and like they tell children on a school playground in progressive elite schools together oppose the bully. This will defeat the bully. Right now the International Organization school with its endless diplomacy and meetings and chit chat is in total control of foreign policy in the United States and Europe and for them proxy wars and World War 3 in this narrative is like this. All the good countries stood up and defeated fascism once last century the narrative goes. I get it.
The problem though is that this approach which originated in part out of the United Nations post war world may work in ordinary circumstances but it actually horribly misunderstands the brutality of war or the in fact largely rule-less world some times of international relations. It is a very incomplete perspective on war that misses what’s most important Let me put it this way: It might work in say the exclusive Upper East Side NYC Dalton school where the current Secretary of State once attended. The kids don’t like the bully. He feels bad and changes his mind. Although one expects a few of those private school kids gave away their lunch money to street kid bullies on the way to school. But it definitely is not an approach that would have worked at say a super rough public school in the South Bronx in the dangerous 1970s. In this case a lot of kids might just get badly beat up on the playground or jumped after school.
Here’s the key issue: the proxy wars are being run in part by the International Organization crowd. Nothing is more dangerous than when these people venture over into the brutal Real-Politique world and misunderstand that world. During the Cold War while the International Organization approach did some good things, I like in fact a lot of people in this approach, they were always kept in check by the harsh reality of the Cold War and an ascendant Real-Politique overall approach.
After the Cold War ended you had 30 years of mostly International Organization approach and all kinds of keep the bullies in check institutions created, but these people and institutions are woefully unable to correctly analyze the very real dangers of a super rough space. The threat of nuclear war is in fact as rough a space as has ever existed. That nice diplomatic gathering with endless great food and too many desserts is not the rough space of an incredibly dangerous street at 2 a.m. Let’s hope for everyone’s sake that they understand how risky the Cold War nuclear power space they are entering is here and not venture into a part of town they have no reality principle about and then can’t get back out of that dangerous space.
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