Rubbing the Lamp : The Media or the Think Tanks?
The Media or the Think Tanks?
Publication date: 2021-10-01
A geopolitical commentator for whom I have much respect describes the USA as an "Empire of Chaos". This is true, but I think not so much by purposeful design as accidental.
It should be fairly obvious that the USA's government agencies have access to massive amounts of information. Thank you, Edward Snowden for showing us paranoids that we were not paranoid enough. But, information is not knowledge, or "actionable intelligence" as they like to say. Information requires context, background information, historical, cultural, religious and sociological inputs to create an "informed view" or “knowledge”. This is the role of the combination of the government bureaucracy and the University tenured long term viewers of historical context.
In between this bureaucracy and tenured thinkers are a quite "western" branch of government, the commercially and government funded “think tankers”. The "chaos" is actually a direct product of the interaction between these three.
Just as the "manufactured consent" within the media sphere is a product of personal financial incentive, the same is true for the USA in the government policy sphere. Indeed, it runs rife into the military sphere too with the revolving doors between government and private industry running the full gamut of defence contractors, think tanks and even the academicians. McGovern's "MICIMATT" is well chosen (military-intelligence-congressional-MEDIA-academic-think-tank complex). Yes, Media does the "heavy hitting", but that is "just" public opinion control. To this author's view it is policy control that is deep sixing the USA in both foreign and domestic policy.
The domestic policy problem is very easy. As Aaron Schwartz stunned Lawrence Lessig; no domestic (or foreign even) policy can be negotiated until political finance is controlled. So, USA, until you fix the legalized bribery, nothing else can be fixed. Wake the fuck up!
However, there is a deeper problem that will take longer to fix, which is this relationship between the bureaucracy, the think tanks and the academy. The concept of the flow of ideas is the reverse: Academy to Think Tank to Bureaucracy. But, the financial incentives sits in the middle, the Think Tanks. This is the fundamental problem. Less principled, but intelligent, people move between the "Tanks" and either side (government or academia). There is no natural flow either from one side to the other or vice versa. It all loops via the middle, the Tanks, where the money is.
What is the natural end of this architecture? You are looking at it, right now. The USA does a secret deal with the UK and Australia for 8 submarines which may turn up 15+ years in the future, but will likely be "leased" in 5 to 10 years? (It takes the USA 5 years to make 1 Virgina Class SSN). So, this whole thing is damn stupid, and the USA has royally pissed off the French who are a linchpin in the whole NATO structure.
I'm just saying; mother fucking stupid. And that is because nobody spoke with the French. Why? Brain dead idiots who do not understand the political version of Sir Isaac Newton's Third Law. And why do they do this? Because the political "leaders" have no useful diplomatic or bureaucratic advisers. Just look at recent interactions between the USA and China from Anchorage on down to see the brain death of USA "diplomacy". Build Back Better? Get a Better PR firm.
If you grok this problem, the "think tank middle", it is easier to understand the political ineptitude of the USA. Now we get back to the accidental or deliberate "chaos".
If you wish to delineate differences between the USA and Russia or China, you are indoctrinated to choose political philosophy as the dividing line. Russia and China have quite different political ideologies (not that you'll hear that in "western" media). But, the question is how do Russia, China, the SCO etc. deal with the constantly unpredictable think tank controlled "west"? This is the space into which to place oneself to gather an understanding of geopolitics or "what is going down".
What is fairly clear is that over the last decade and a half, whilst the USA and its NATO allies have been doing lots of crazy military maneuvering in Afghanistan, Syria and Libya those "Friendly Neighourliness" countries have been looking for stable relations based upon stable behaviour. Its a bit weird. The hegemon has backed itself into a corner by being crazy.
I posit that the USA run “western” position is not a deliberate “chaos” but a chaos produced by a structure of financial gain which is antithetical to any coherent national strategy. This explains why the USA national military leadership are the only seemingly useful force in foreign policy. Wag the dog, indeed.
Russia has a top notch diplomatic service. The Chinese are working on it. Their combination of counter-intelligence capability was not a problem until they became a combination.
I hope you can see where this goes. The unity of the combined counter-intelligence capabilities of the USA and UK are now meeting the combined abilities of Russia and China. Us little plebs can only see the edges of this, but the UN is a useful view. Watch carefully the use of UN Security Council vetoes.
The AUKUS silly is a classic end-of-empire diversion. The smarter mission is to get rid of the money-in-the-middle think tank stupidity and reinforce your bureaucracy to provide the intelligence you need to counter emerging rivals.
But, no. Build nuclear weapons, arm the Aussies ... War is a Racket.
Sources
Episode 123 – Meet Smedley Butler, James Corbett, CorbettReport.com, 2010-03-28
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