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In the Deep State of U.S. intelligence there are the most war-oriented strategists. Their model is that of Social Darwinism. And yet even in those deep layers of American power, the new administration led by Donald Trump will have to be taken into account. And of the popular consensus he has obtained
Xi and Putin grew up within the Marxist culture, heir to rationalism. In this culture it is elementary that a world war cannot have winners
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have stated several times that “a new world war cannot be fought and cannot be won.”
This is a phrase Xi Jinping repeated to Joe Biden for the umpteenth time at their last meeting in Peru. It is not to be found in official US records – neither in the portal of the American Embassy in Peru, nor in the White House portal. We only know this because it was reported by the Chinese, who know full well that many in Washington believe a new world war can and must be fought and won at any cost.
In another excerpt from their latest conversation in Peru, President Xi tells Biden: “China has always honored its public commitments. If the United States always says one thing and does another, it is harmful to its image and insidious to the friendship between China and the United States.” This part of the meeting is also missing from the US report, while it is highlighted in the Chinese report. However, there is a passage from Biden in the US report, which seems to be a response to this accusation that he does not want to put on record: “We didn’t always agree, but our conversations were always sincere and candid. We’ve never lied to each other. We were honest with each other.” So, the US report continues Biden’s statements, which the Chinese have been listening to for some time to their own benefit: “Competition between our two countries should be competition, not conflict,” etc.
The fact is that Xi Jinping and Putin grew up, more or less, within a Marxist culture that programmatically claims to be the heir to the best rationalism in history, as Friedrich Engels wrote in 1886: “Socialism is the landing point of classical German philosophy.” In this rationalist culture, it is elementary that a new world war can’t be won by anyone. We even know the look on Putin’s face when he uttered that phrase in an interview with Oliver Stone.
When he talks to Biden in Peru, Xi Jinping explains the right way to a stubborn night school student in an almost fatherly and patient manner, telling him: “Today’s world is turbulent, riddled with conflict. Old problems are aggravated by new ones. Humanity is facing unprecedented challenges. Only solidarity and cooperation can help to overcome the current difficulties. Only mutually beneficial cooperation can lead to common development. China and the United States should keep in mind their common interests and bring more certainty and positive energy to this turbulent world. I firmly believe that a stable relationship between China and the United States is crucial not only to the interests of the Chinese and American peoples, but also to the destiny of all mankind.”
The problem is that the American ruling class was not raised in the school of classical rationalism, but in the school of Malthusian and Darwinian survivalism. According to Thomas Robert Malthus, wars, epidemics, and famines providentially regulate the excesses of the human race; Charles Darwin borrowed this central point from him and put adaptation rather than rationalism first. According to Darwin, there is a collective tendency of living beings to produce tricks and deceptions, to mask true intentions in a ruthless struggle for survival governed by natural selection and the elimination of inadequate forms of existence. His favorite cousin Francis Galton invented eugenics for this purpose.
Darwinism is a central and fascinating theme of English-speaking culture; it reveals itself in thousands of unrecognized, disguised, squat versions – and last but not least, it enjoys the highest self-esteem in an underground office near Langley. This is not an office displayed among sculptures, monuments, art galleries, and museums, which is easy to see on a virtual tour of the Agency. The very best is behind the facade, hidden underneath.
Some in Langley are getting their boxes ready as the Trumpian monsters are preparing to burst in as the most terrible thugs. Moving is the uncertainty of the second oldest profession in the world, and Trumpists are more familiar with the first one, as well as with car junkyards; so, it will be a chivalrous battle of world views and back-stabbing.
Yet the Langley office does not fear the uncertainty of moving; it does not fear the arrival of Tulsi Gabbard and the likes. In this office, Russophobia is the paradigm and meaning of life, it is the Ultima Thule, the bastion of Orion where the universe ends. Hidden in this office are quintessential pieces of proven experience: the exaggerated praise of spies that Thomas Hobbes describes in “De Cive” (About the Citizen – ed.) and Francis Walsingham’s creations as 007 in his letters to Queen Elizabeth; on the shelves are receipts for the doubloons that sank the Invincible Armada and pounds from the East India Company’s ledger. The burden of the West was inherited by calm and patriotic Americans: only what is good for the USA is good for the rest of the world.
This office is underground, but it is the cornerstone of the CIA; a church was built on top, as if facing the gates of Hell. Hidden within are long stretches of history contemplating the patient execution of the Great Game. Russia is in the heart of Halford Mackinder’s “Heartland,” and there is only one possible point of arrival at the end of the game: dismember the bear into a thousand pieces and strip it of its succulent resources. Presidents come and go; the Great Game goes on and, with ups and downs, should continue for as long as necessary, even centuries. Just as it took centuries to dismember and strip away the remnants of the Spanish and Ottoman empires.
There are propaganda and deception courses on the upper floors (“not general instructions, but entire courses”), as Mike Pompeo proudly declared. Down deep in that secluded, dusty, brooding office, the various Dr. Strangeloves have no thought of turning the old causes of Western arrogance into toilet paper. They laugh at the idea that Donald Trump might pull the chain in the toilet: if this office collapses, the entire structure above it collapses as well.
