Have you heard of the White Helmets? They’re touted as first responders, and as an aid organisation, but that’s not at all what they really are. They’re a construct of western intelligence services, and their role is to subvert the role of existing essential services in targeted countries, as well as being able to create media impressions around certain events in order to bolster western government narratives. Their most notorious actions were undertaken in Syria, where they were involved in staging a supposed chemical weapons attack that was then blamed on Bashar al Assad’s government. When you’re in a location before anyone else, you can plant or hide evidence, and create a narrative façade that suits your masters. These people are now being deployed to Venezuela, ostensibly to help with the aftermath of the earthquakes, but their real mission will be to undermine what’s left of Venezuelan sovereignty. The US has called Venezuela a basket case for years, without ever bothering to mention that its was primarily US sanctions that caused their situation. Of course there was corruption, but the sanctions regime has far more negative impact.
Covert missions like this will be deployed in many states that the dying empires wishes to co-opt for its own benefit. The approach is far more subtle than older forms of imperialism, but far more effective in the battle of competing narratives that increasingly drive public opinion, both in the imperial centre and in the target country. Manufactured public opinion is then used to justify more aggressive actions against countries the empire targets for their resources or strategic location. The empire also wants plenty of proxies to fight its wars to maintain supremacy, as Ukraine is currently being used to fight to the last Ukrainian in an unwinnable war to weaken Russia. The European vassal states are now sending back Ukrainian men who had escaped, often at great cost, so they can die for the empire. Next will be Europeans themselves, as their pathetic governments (chosen for that characteristic by the international powers that dictate the policies they’re to follow) are talking themselves into war with Russia despite massive public opposition. Russia is taking the threat seriously, and may feel forced to stage pre-emptive strikes, which would then be used to paint them as the aggressors when NATO has been the aggressive party against them for the last twelve years.
The mask of empire has been entirely discarded under the massively corrupt and infinitely blackmailable Trump. He’s a puppet controlled by kompromat who no longer possesses the mental faculties to understand his own situation or the extremely dangerous one that his prompted actions are creating for the rest of the world. The wars are going to merge and spread, accompanied by energy crisis, financial crisis, and famine simultaneously. It’s possible that this will be the last gasp of an empire caught in Thucydides trap, and that the power that’s shifting inexorably eastwards will continue to rise. However, it’s also possible the the coming polycrisis will destroy modernity entirely, given how many crucial commodities are affected, and how much worse this could get. Once broken, supply chains take a very long time to re-establish, and can only do so if sufficient trust and energy resources exist. International trust takes years to decades to establish, and energy supplies are never going to reach their pre-war level. Relocalising resilience will be essential, but very difficult in a low trust environment where people will struggle to be able to work together. Brace for impact.
