US: from Nation-Building to all-out War

"Billions spent on the Kennedy School, grand strategies seminars, and the Georgetown School of Foreign Service has bought us an elite that's about to blunder us into a Ukraine war."(J.D. Vance)

In a few days from now, President Biden will host German Chancellor Scholz in Washington. The expectation of Washington neocons is that he will succeed in pressuring Germany to join a pan-European alliance against Russia. 

To be sure, the German refusal to send weapons to Ukraine - and thus help ignite a fratricide war between Ukraine and Russia - makes sense. Germany was right in refusing to join the neocon-inspired war against Iraq in 2003 and is even more justified in refusing to join NATO in sponsoring a war against Russia now.

Unfortunately, France is no longer led by a president as experienced or astute as Jacques Chirac: Macron seems willing to send troops to Romania, regardless of how pointless this is from a military point of view.

Since 2001 the US have embarked in quite a few military interventions or coups around the world, which were followed by a disastrous drive to promote nation-building: in Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Libya (2011) and Ukraine (2014). All these ill-conceived nation-building efforts have backfired miserably. Undaunted, the Washington neocons who have monopolised American foreign policy for the last two decades are now promoting a war by proxy, encouraging the Ukrainians to fight the Russians.

Since 2007 onwards, Vladimir Putin has cautioned the West against pushing the boundaries of NATO eastwards. His pleas went ignored and - at the NATO summit in Bucharest one year later -  the George W Bush administration officially announced the intention of the US to include countries like Georgia and Ukraine in the alliance (these efforts were thwarted by the refusal of France and Germany to endorse the expansion). In 2014, the US engineered a coup d'etat in Kiev, replacing Yanukovich with an American puppet regime that ultimately bled Ukraine dry and is at the origin of today's crisis.

Unfortunately, after 14 years of unsuccessfully calling for a stop to NATO's eastward expansion, the Russians were deliberately left with no other option by US negotiators than to put a stop to this expansion through military action against Ukraine. 

The fact is that the treaty they are seeking to guarantee Russia's security can only be concluded after fighting a war, not before.

Since the Age of Enlightenment, Western intellectuals have elaborated projects aimed at achieving "perpetual peace". Some of the fruits of this labour have been the multilateral institutions such as the League of Nations and the United Nations. Sadly, however, humanity has been confronted with some of its biggest and most devastating military conflicts regardless of such well-intentioned efforts. To this day, no lasting peace treaty has been able to be concluded without fighting it out on the battlefield first.

The recent, ill-conceived US nation-building efforts abroad have coincided with a period in American history when consensus has evaporated, the nation is deeply divided and American society itself is in danger of internal collapse. Sure, the Pentagon and the US Defence Department are against a war breaking out in Ukraine, but the neocons in Washington and their supporters in the military-industrial complex want it and will most probably get it. 

As long as the American polity remains unable to expunge from their ranks the neocons putting America's future in jeopardy, however, the string of military and nation-building failures experienced by the US is set to continue.

Vladimir Putin's Take on Russian History

 

British historian Dominic Sandbrook tries to explain to Western audiences bored with the study of history that for the nations of Eastern Europe history matters enormously.

He claims that Vladimir Putin is by no means the successor of Stalin - who was Georgian - but that he considers himself as a successor at the helm of the Russian state built by Peter the Great . Thus, in a historical essay published on the website of the Russian presidency, Vladimir Putin states unequivocally that the Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians all have the same origin and hail from the Ancient Rus, even if throughout history there have been divisions between them.

Romanians can very well relate to this approach to Russian history. For at least two centuries, all Romanian intellectuals have stated with one voice that Moldovans, Wallachians and Transylvanians "all hail from Rome", that they belong to the same people, sharing a common origin and language. Putin says exactly the same thing about Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians, and I - as an historian - don't think he is wrong .

In other words, Putin is not a kind of post-Soviet leader like Nazarbayev, for example, eager to rebuild the USSR, as the recent neocon campaign in the US would have us believe. No, he is a nationalist leader and is mainly interested in restoring unity to the Russian world. That's why I don't think Putin is a danger to the former Soviet satellites, like  Romania . Bringing the USSR back to life in a  new form is not on the Kremlin's geopolitical agenda.

What is happening now with regard to Ukraine is therefore the consequence of Putin's nationalist approach to the history of Russia, which in his view involves a multidimensional effort aimed at restoring in time the economic and political unity of the Russian world, in the sense that it was first achieved  by Peter the Great in the 18th century.

A NEOCON FOREIGN MINISTER IN TITULESCU'S COUNTRY

 

 I have lived to see this one too! In Titulescu's country, they have installed as  foreign minister a certain Bogdan Aurescu, who acts abroad as if he were an employee of the US State Department and his boss were Blinken, not the president of Romania.

On January 24, Aurescu proposed - without his EU counterparts paying any attention - that the next regular meeting of EU foreign ministers be held in Kiev, in an apparent show of "solidarity" with Ukraine. Without mentioning a single word about the Ukrainian government's policies of denationalization through the language suffered by the 500,000 Romanians who actually live in the middle of the Ukrainian nightmare, Aurescu is worried about the fate of Ukraine! (I won't mention here the fact that in 2015 the same Romanians living in Ukraine complained that the Kiev authorities were forcibly recruiting them and sending them to fight the Russophones in the Donbas.)

As a matter of interest, in 1998 - anticipating trouble in the region - I sent a letter to Romanian President Emil Constantinescu, advising him to try to relocate the Romanians from Ukrainian Bukovina to the villages in Transylvania left empty after the massive migration of Transylvanian Saxons to Germany after 1989. Naturally, the former president turned a typical deaf ear , as if those Romanians did not exist for Bucharest. President Iohannis can find the letter in the archives of the Presidency and could try, as a fellow Transylvanian Saxon, to save willing Romanians of Ukraine from  Kiev's nationalist excesses in the way I proposed back then. He could consider that, of course, once the ski season comes to an end...

As for Aurescu, a resignation of honour would be the most appropriate exit from the scene, even more necessary than that of Prime Minister Ciuca. I am sure that just as the Ukrainians have found a job for the former Georgian president Shakashvili, Aurescu too would be able to find a job over there with the help of American neocons, maybe even as Kiev's foreign minister.

An Analogy Between Scotland and Ukraine

  The United Kingdom and Russia have more things in common than they think: a glorious imperial past, loss of international clout and a troublesome rogue province each

Analogies between the history, geography or culture of nations are used to illustrate both the similarities and differences between them, in order to better understand historical realities.

Since 1991, following a referendum, a new state - Ukraine - has appeared on the map of Europe. Detached from Russia, of which it was an integral part since 1654 - at the request of Bogdan Khmelnitsky's Cossacks - the new state is in fact only a rebellious province of Russia which decided to abandon the Russian Federation in order to join the EU. For Russia, the most contentious decision made by Kiev was that of applying to join NATO.

Ukraine's population is 40 million, or about a quarter of the total population of the Russian Federation before the separation. Ukraine's economy is based on coal mining and heavy industry, especially steel or aluminum production. Agriculture is also an important branch of the economy. Ukraine is the poorest state in Eastern Europe.

In 1996, Scotland became an autonomous province within the United Kingdom, of which it has been an integral part since 1707. Since 1999, Scotland has its own parliament. Scotland covers a third of the UK land area, but only has about a tenth of its population (5.5 million). The Scottish economy was based on coal mining and heavy industry for decades, especially shipbuilding.

Until 1560, Scotland was a staunch ally of France for 250 years and fought the English armies on numerous occasions, including during the Hundred Years' War. Scotland was also the northern gate through which French armies came to the rescue of their Scottish allies fighting the English for independence. For the English kings, subduing Scotland and incorporating it into Great Britain represented their main national security concern for centuries.

At the beginning of this millennium and about a decade before Brexit, Scotland tried to secede from Britain by referendum, and it has failed so far. However, being one of the poorest areas of Western Europe, the exit from the British common market in favour of its EU membership would cause a significant drop in the living standards of its citizens, just as the Ukrainians experienced after they left the Russian Federation.

The analogy between the two provinces - one Russian and the other British - reveals that leaving the economic, political and military structures of which they have both been an integral part for centuries is not only very risky, but can result in a failed state, like today's Ukraine.

As for the current British political leaders' interference in the problems between Russia and Ukraine, I refrain from commenting. I am sure however of one thing, namely that the British authorities would react quite violently if Russia intervened on the side of Scotland in its campaign to break the current arrangements linking it to Great Britain ....

UKRAINE AND THE END OF PEACE IN EUROPE

In an unfortunate turn of events, it seems Ukrainians are intent on finalising their nation-building at the expense of European peace.

Today Romania celebrates 163 years since the double election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as ruler of the United Principalities of Moldova and Wallachia. The double election capped a 3-year diplomatic offensive by Romanian intellectuals in leading European capitals, aimed at securing  international recognition for the new state - formed through the unification of Moldova and Wallachia - by the great powers of the day. 

Cuza's double election was the gimmick used by the founders of the modern Romanian state in order to circumvent the restrictions imposed on the unification of the two principalities by the European great powers during  the 1856 Paris peace congress . The unity of the new Romanian state was thus obtained peacefully, albeit by defying the will of Western and Central European rulers, most notably those of Great Britain and the Austrian empire. Less than a decade later, the Romanian state became a kingdom and in 1877 it obtained its independence from the Ottoman empire.

This outstanding example of diplomatic skill and statecraft allowed the new state to survive and prosper. At the end of WWI, the Romanian kingdom more than doubled its territory and population, reuniting within its borders all the Romanians hitherto living in Austro-Hungarian or Russian empires. To this day, for all its shortcomings, Romania is a functioning democracy, a stable and peaceful nation of Europe.

Europe is unfortunately witnessing today the different saga of yet another new state, Ukraine, at its doorstep. The evolution of Ukraine since 1991 has not matched Romania's peaceful model in any way shape or manner. The initial Western enthusiasm from the 1990's having evaporated, Ukraine is barely functioning and looks set to put an end to peace in Europe - a peace that has lasted largely uninterrupted since 1945. 

In my professional view, this is happening because Ukraine lacks a patriotic elite. Sure, there are pro-western politicians and parties, as there are pro-Russian parties and politicians. What Ukraine badly needed, however, is a breed of politicians and intellectuals who are pro-Ukrainian, that is, exclusively dedicated to advancing a purely Ukrainian agenda on the international stage. 

The lack of such an elite was and is currently being used by interested parties, like Russia and the United States. Their geopolitical designs, however, have very little to do with the core interests of the new nation. Sadly, however, the Ukrainians have failed to prove to them both that they have what it takes to build a strong and peaceful nation.

The very latest developments are a case in point. In an open-for-all-to-see international conspiracy, some politicians from the UK and the United States are using the Russian military build-up on the Ukrainian border to sell rumours and unconfirmed stories to the Western public about Moscow's intention to install a puppet regime in Kiev. Echoing the London or Washington storyline, current Ukrainian authorities have vowed to round up all the local politicians who might be part of the plot. In so doing, they seem to overlook the fact that they behave as a puppet regime of the West themselves. Moreover, Ukrainian leaders are showing a bizarre willingness to send their own citizens to the slaughter , by beating the drums of war with Russia on behalf of the West.

In truth, taking part in a conspiracy against peace in Europe is not the way to advance Ukrainian nation-building. As an historian, I am more convinced today than ten years ago that what we are dealing with in Ukraine's case is the failed launch of the new state. In other words, over the past 30 years Ukrainians have proved to the rest of the world that they are not mature enough to have their own state and to govern themselves peacefully , with only minimal foreign interference.

Unfortunately, as Ukrainians rejected neutrality out of hand - which is the only realistic solution to their problems -  they are running the serious risk of disappearing again from the map of Europe as an independent state. In case that happens, they will not be able to blame Russia or the West, but only themselves.

The Failed Presidents of Eastern Europe

  With each passing day, I am more and more convinced that the Ukrainians have fallen into the same political trap as Romanian voters did when they elected Iohannis as president in 2014.

To be sure, Iohannis did not have the necessary national political experience : until his election, he was the mayor of a Transylvanian city atypical for Romania, nor was he a member of the Liberal Party (he had been active in the German Forum). No, he was elected because Romanian voters thought that by endorsing a Saxon they would get a better treatment in Brussels and that they would be accepted faster in the Schengen area by the EU:

"The election of Iohannis is undoubtedly linked to high expectations and hopes. But these alone do not fundamentally change the political situation in Romania,"  a leading German CDU MP said. "Doubts about Romania's accession to the Schengen Area persist (...) (Romania) will not achieve this goal in 2015," he added. The reaction of the chairman of the Bundestag Committee on Internal Affairs comes in the context in which, recently, the president Klaus Iohannis declared in the German press that he will make efforts for Romania's accession to Schengen to take place in 2015. "( Adevarul newspaper from 2015)

In turn, Zelensky was elected president without any previous political experience. In my opinion, the Ukrainians voted for him because of the supposed connections that someone of his ethnicity might have in Washington. Ukrainians seem to have believed - wrongly, as it comes out - that the mere choice of Zelensky as president would secure their admission into NATO. ( Unfortunately, neoconservatives of Jewish origin's perceived domination of US State Department structures had created a vulnerability for the United States, which is currently being exploited by the likes of Zelensky. )

Both Iohannis and Zelensky were also elected with a mandate to end corruption, which has not happened. Instead, Iohannis became - ironically for a descendant of Hitler's allies in Transylvania - a vocal champion of campaigns to combat anti-Semitism in Romania ...

The two presidents both belong to microscopic ethnic minorities from Romania or Ukraine, which unfortunately do not have a history of harmonious coexistence with the majorities of the two states. This fact makes their selection for their state's top job  even more inexcusable.

The consequences of choosing the two presidents are worrying, to say the least. Romania's domestic political instability has become chronic over the past year, while Zelensky has managed to endanger peace across Eastern Europe through his uninspired neighborhood policy.

It is obvious today that at the instigation of domestic and / or foreign services, both peoples made a colossal electoral error. I am curious to see, however, how all this will play out in the end.

An Original Interpretation of Marxism

Italian philosopher Augusto Del Noce (1910-1989) succeeded in interpreting Marxist thought from the standpoint of Marx's virulent atheism. Historical materialism and the inexorable evolution of universal history in the direction of victorious communism are therefore shown by him to be the  fruits of Marx's atheism and of the influence exerted on him by Hegel's ideas, and nothing else.

Marx was also the one who subordinated philosophy to politics. In his view, as we all remember,  philosophy was not meant to interpret the world, but to change it. This is also the fundamental reason why Marxism cannot even be considered a proper philosophical system and why Marx is not a philosopher in the true sense of the word: from a melange of  ideas from different philosophers - some materialists, others idealists - one cannot build a truly original philosophical system.

The same can be said of Marx the "economist", who had little to add to Adam Smith's labour theory of value or to the economic ideas borrowed from David Ricardo. The analysis of the mechanism of exploitation of the proletarians by the owners of capital is more pertinent in the work of Eugene Buret, whom Marx plagiarized copiously, and so on.

But Del Noce's analysis shows that the political philosophy of the affluent and technocratic West was also influenced by Marxism, although Western atheism is based on eroticism, not class struggle. ( at this point it is important to note the essential role played by neo-marxists like Herbert Marcuse in igniting the sexual revolution during the sixties in the West ).

Soviet communism - or today's Chinese communism - was therefore only the revolutionary version of Marxist thought, as it was put into practice by Lenin.

Marx's belief that science and technology would emancipate man from faith in God was adopted in the West by liberalism, thus spawning today's technocratic societies. The two traditional enemies of liberalism - revolutionary ideology and religion - were thus eliminated in the wake of an ideological fusion between liberalism and Marxism, whose messianic dimension got amputated. The result, says Del Noce, was the emergence of Western neo-totalitarian societies, which only retain the appearance of democratic societies.

US DIPLOMACY AND THE SPHERES OF INFLUENCE

 Today's American diplomacy refuses to accept the existence of spheres of influence. Both Hillary Clinton and Blinken have unequivocally stated that spheres of influence belong to the past, although the 50-year long peace that characterized the Cold War period was based on the existence of two spheres of influence, one American and the other Soviet.

The United States has consistently pursued a foreign policy based on spheres of influence since the adoption of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, completed in 1904 by the Roosevelt Corollary . Thus, the United States has reserved for itself the status of regional policeman in the Western Hemisphere and the right to intervene militarily in the internal affairs of any South or Central American state.

The hypocrisy of American diplomacy and its current representatives is devoid of pragmatism and could lead to serious military conflicts, which can be avoided by simply acknowledging that there are other great nations in the world - such as Russia or China - with major geostrategic interests in their immediate vicinity.

THE INVENTION OF SOCIOLOGY, MORE BENEFICIAL THAN THAT OF ECONOMICS

 

Working classes and the poor in England and the rest of Europe had a better fate after the appearance of the positivist doctrine of Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and after the "invention" of sociology. Comte's field surveys and positivist philosophy inspired two altruistic British businessmen, Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree, in the late 19th century , who laid the foundations of British sociology.

The two paid out of  their own pocket for sociological surveys to be conducted on the phenomenon of poverty in London and York. The Booth-sponsored survey found that by the end of the 19th century, 30.7 percent of London's population was still living in poverty (according to a World Bank study, the proportion of poor people in Western Europe in the early 19th century was about 84 percent). Rowntree 's survey gave a similar proportion for Yorkshire and set a sociological poverty line. 

Together, their investigations and lobbying led to the introduction by the British government of a system of social insurance and pensions, starting in 1909. In 1909, the report of the Royal Commission on the Laws of the Poor (Majority Report) was based on the findings of the sociological surveys sponsored by Charles Booth. Rowntree - the owner of a chocolate factory - introduced an 8-hour working day, a 5-day working week into his company and decided to increase the salaries of his employees. For his measures in industrial relations, welfare and management, Rowntree was proclaimed as "the British management movement's greatest pioneer" (Lyndall Urwick).

Neither Booth nor Rowntree flirted with socialism, both reformers having been staunch supporters of liberalism.

 It is a well-known fact that Rowntree and Booth were deeply influenced in their actions by the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte. In other words, the father of sociology had a beneficial influence on his European contemporaries, clearly superior to the detrimental influence exerted by the founders of classical economics - Adam Smith and David Ricardo - on most economists and much of nineteenth-century liberal politicians.

 It can therefore be said with some certainty that the new science of sociology arose from the need to counteract the negative effects on British intellectual and political elites of the mistaken or retrograde ideas inherited from the classics of economics.

THE EMBARASSING IDEAS OF THE CLASSICS OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE

 I said in my previous post about Smith / Ricardo that even to this day we collectively have the misfortune to suffer the consequences of an economic ideology developed by people from peripheral and poor regions of Europe. I was referring, of course, to Adam Smith and his native Scotland, who joined the British Union in 1707.

Smith profoundly influenced Thomas Malthus, who in his well-known essay on the principle of population expressed his revolt over the indifference of the English rulers of the time, who dared to ignore the "recommendations" launched in Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," especially those concerning the aids for the poor. (It should be noted here that the only nations with a state welfare system for the entire population in the eighteenth century were only England and the Netherlands. In the case of England, aid laws for the poor were even several hundred years old.)

But here is what Malthus proposes in his essay, re-edited by him in 1817:

"I have been thinking for a long time about the English laws regarding the poor. (...)

... I propose to publish a law refusing parish assistance (in England, state aid was distributed to the poor by law through the network of Anglican parishes) to CHILDREN born from a marriage contracted more than one year after the publication of such laws, and all illegitimate children born two years after the enactment of the same law. "

In 1834, following campaigns mounted against continuing aids for the poor, Parliament decided to stop them ... 

William Senior, who drafted the text of the decree in question, was also the first professor of economics - the new discipline - at Cambridge. From the outset, therefore, classical British economists proved hostile to wage-earners and to the poor. From a social point of view - keeping in mind the fact that economics is a social science - this legislation represented a huge setback.

Here is how Adam Smith saw the solution to the fluctuations in the price of wheat, which quite often generated hunger among employees during that period:  "Smith made us see clearly that the natural tendency in a year of famine is to deprive workers of jobs of any kind or to force a large number of workers to work for a low wage, due to the impossibility for employers to hire the same number of people at the same price as before. An increase in wages  will only lead to an increase in the number of unemployed and would do away, warns this author (i.e. Smith) with the beneficial effects of a period of moderate famine, which tends to make people more industrious, attentive and economical "  (Thomas Malthus," Essai sur le Principe de la Population ", p. 63)

However, another Scottish economist of the time, Sir James Steuart ( 1712 - 1780 ) - who fully deserves the status of co-founder of economics - was knowingly marginalized by Adam Smith. In contrast, James Steuart was a staunch supporter of state intervention in the economy. Thus, Steuart believed neither in laissez-faire in economic policy nor in the existence of the "invisible hand" that would allow markets to self-regulate. During the debate over the increase in wheat prices in his day, Steuart recommended state intervention to stabilize prices and to ensure the quantities of wheat needed for consumption by the population.   "He proposed an intervention scheme reminiscent of the common agricultural policy (CAP) which was adopted by the European Community ". (Gilles Dostaler, "James Steuart, the fight lost against Adam Smith", Alternatives économique, 5/2010, no. 291 p. 76).

Unfortunately, Adam Smith's ideas still decisively influence the political action of some US Republicans. Members of the Washington DC Heritage Foundation for example - very influential during the Reagan and Bush administrations - wore ties printed with the portrait of Adam Smith at ceremonies, until recently. No other comments necessary...

US Diplomacy v. the Military-Industrial Complex

 The last time the United States achieved lasting peace with its former enemies was in 1945. Since then America has been dragged into an endless succession of regional wars, with its diplomats being forced to play second fiddle to the hawks in various US administrations.

Nowadays it's not diplomats who come up with solutions to solve tensions between states, but the direct or indirect representatives of the American, Russian or French military-industrial complexes, that is - military attachés or secret service chiefs posted  in embassies. The situation arose after 1945 and gradually worsened as the military-industrial complexes in question gained increasing levels of influence over politicians.

Of course, unlike diplomats, the people of the military-industrial complex (MIC) do not aim to settle conflicts between states, but to stall solving them in order to keep the level of arms sales as high as possible.

A recent example from Australia illustrates how toxic a MIC can be for the conduct of normal diplomatic relations between states. Thus, a country like France - hitherto known to have the oldest and most prestigious diplomatic service in Europe - recalled its ambassadors from 2 of its oldest Western allies, namely the US and Australia, simply because the French MIC lost an order to supply submarines to the Australian Navy in favour of the Americans.

The Russian MIC is also a strong competitor to the American MIC when it comes to sales of military hardware.Thus, the Russians have succeeded in selling sensitive military hardware even to NATO members like Turkey. Cash-strapped nations like India are also traditional customers. The huge success of the Russian MIC, however, lies elsewhere. Twenty-odd years ago one of their own - Vladimir Putin - took over the presidency and made sure that no traditional politician will ever gain power in Russia again. The domination of the Russian MIC over state institutions is so complete due to the fact that no alternative power centres have been allowed to exist.

" Russian defense companies do not need to spend money on lobbyists (as their U.S. counterparts do) because key individuals working for them simultaneously hold senior political posts and already take part in high-level decision-making. Thus, Russia’s defense-industry lobbying, such as it is, focuses on access to the federal budget—funds distributed by the government with the active participation of the presidential administration and Putin himself for arms procurement, R&D and industrial modernization programs. " ( Pavel Luzin )

Many analysts and Western politicians have mistakenly compared Putin to the likes of Stalin or Hitler. For a start, unlike them, Putin is not a politician and has never aspired to be one. Secondly, unlike Stalin, he has an excellent working relationship with the top generals of the Russian army, or with the heads of Russia's main secret services like the GRU and the FSB. Thirdly, Vladimir Putin has demonstrated that when his country is backed into a corner, he and his army commanders act as one in pushing back against what they see as trespassers to the Russian security sphere. And finally, Putin and the other top leaders of the Russian MIC take a dim view not only of traditional politicians, but also of the role diplomats can play in solving international crises. In other words, unlike his Western counterparts, Putin is not a politician but the leading PR representative of the Russian MIC.

In the United States, the typical political representatives of the MIC are the  neo-conservatives, the most belligerent of Americans. They are often found in important positions, either in the White House or in the state or defense departments , where they exert a strong influence on US foreign and defense policy. (Two best-known such people are Paul Wolfovitz or Victoria Nuland.)

Even worse, four of the top 5 corporations in the military-industrial complex in the US are run by women , who unfortunately have a dubious reputation for being more aggressive in negotiations than men ...

Whenever the issue of diplomatic negotiations between states  comes up -  such as the planned Biden Administration negotiations with Russia this month - representatives of the mass media associated with the complex fill up the public space with articles describing the diplomatic efforts as being a sign of weakness on the part of the US, insisting instead on the need to send more weaponry to the US' allies.

In other words,  when it comes to extinguishing armed conflicts,  the tactic of ​​the American military-industrial complex is to pour more gas on the fire, in order to be able to provide as many weapons as possible to the conflict zones of the world.

TIME TO GET OUT OF HISTORY

Once economic modernization is completed, all communist regimes have to face up to their lack of legitimacy. The Chinese communist regime is no exception. Taking into account the recent history of communist regimes worldwide, China's current leadership will soon have to make a choice between 2 options. The first is the one Gorbachev chose in 1991. The second is the one that Ceausescu opted for in December 1989. Unfortunately, there is no third option available.

One of Lucian Blaga's brilliant remarks - which referred to the period in which there is an absence of data on the Romanian people in medieval European historiography - is that Romanians "went out of history to remain in history."

Nowadays, I would apply Blagian thinking to the impossible situation currently facing the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. For several years now, the latter have been making furious plans aimed at perpetuating the unbroken political monopoly they have held  since 1949.

Like the USSR communists in the interwar period, the Chinese Communists succeeded in the economic modernisation of China, which in a few decades was transformed from a poor agrarian nation into a strong and prosperous industrial nation.

However, Chinese leaders - like Ceausescu before them - believe that they can stay in power forever with the help of electronic means of mass surveillance or by putting tanks in the streets. They do not seem to understand that the only way to secure a prestigious role in Chinese history is to voluntarily relinquish power - yes, as Gorbachev did - and to allow other political forces to take over and continue China's institutional and political modernization. In other words, to go out of history in order to remain in history.

Any communist society, no matter how economically  or militarily advanced, suffers from a major flaw in the logic of its governing program. When communist governing programs reach this point - like China today or  the USSR in the 1980's - the system goes haywire. The solution chosen by the Chinese leaders - that of strengthening political repression and mass surveillance of the population - only aggravates the situation.

Of course, China's problem is  not the system's lack of economic performance, as in the case of the USSR. However, China urgently needs the demonopolization of its political system, even a controlled one,  as well as numerous institutional and legal reforms that would guarantee, not violate, the fundamental rights of Chinese citizens in their relations with the state.

In conclusion, a minimum of political intelligence should prompt the current Chinese leaders to leave power now, while they are still on top. The growing complexity of the problems facing the Chinese society today imposes this. The intensification of the Marxist education of the population and of the repression and surveillance of citizens are only pseudo-solutions, totally inadequate for this moment in history.

Unfortunately,  the Chinese communist leaders do not seem to be able to understand a simple fact, namely  that their historical role has ended and that  time has come to "get out of history in order to remain in history", since their governing program no longer meets  the needs of Chinese society and has even become toxic.