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.

Great Reset is not a coup or even any cause for alarm

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.

In good governance, beliefs can matter more than facts

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.

What next for the Saudis if the Houthis win in Yemen?

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.

Ignoring Russia's demands in Europe could be disastrous

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.

America's domestic terrorism problem started in 1776

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.

The bad choice of national adoptee

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.

Should the Tories kick Boris Johnson out?

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 should have held a referendum on the monarchy

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.

What's happening in Ukraine? Russian secret plan!

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.

States versus social networks

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.