Throughout modern world history, great powers, empires and civilisations have succeeded each other. No one has stayed on top indefinitely – there is a birth, the new thing grows creatively and materially until it reaches a peak and perhaps begins to relax, and then sooner or later it goes downhill – in relation to new powers that emerge – only to lose the leadership role completely and become one among many in a new world order.
This is the natural law of global society – of humanity – and it is quite inexorable. The downturn can have many (combinations) of causes, here are some of the classic ones in macro-history:
- weakening innovation and economic growth;
- over-militarisation and lost wars;
- wanting to rule the whole world but lacking the necessary leadership capacity;
- declining legitimacy in the eyes of others;
- others learning from us but coming up with new social constructs that work better.
It also goes downhill fast when you only arrogantly lecture others but don’t want to learn anything from them. And if you are also a system based on mission – on getting others to do what we want them to do or become like us – then everything goes downhill much faster.
There are essentially two ways to go down.
Typically, you maximise the type of power dimension where you are relatively strong. If you have a weakening economy and a lack of innovation but you’re still strong in the military sphere – you maximise the military, but that only accelerates the decline because militarism and war are directly detrimental to the civilian economy.
Other players who invest more wisely in social and economic development will then gain in economic status, i.e. create a better life for the many – which, as we know, militarism and war cannot do. It all becomes self-destructive, a vicious circle – and addiction.
Empires can go down quietly (implode from within) or with a bang (explosion, confrontation, war – lost wars). The old Soviet Union imploded in the late 1980s, and we have the Russians and their last president Mikhail Gorbachev to thank for that.
Because what do you do when/if you realise that the game is over – that our time is up?
The smart one adapts to the new and future world order – ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ and contribute to the emerging new community in which they find their new place. But the stupid deny reality (like an alcoholic who refuses to recognise the addiction to the bottle) or develop what social psychologists call ‘groupthink.’
Groupthink occurs when a small group develops a shared understanding of the world over time, gradually shielding themselves from any information that doesn’t fit their shared beliefs and values, eventually believing that they are infallible, the only ones who can think and know the whole truth.
At that very moment, the group makes a rash self-assured decision that turns out to be catastrophically wrong. They were in the box with no contact with reality – in a situation where they needed outside analyses more than ever. Typically, the group decides to go to war because “we” are right – cannot be wrong, the others are; “we” are strong and we want to win. And then you – the “we” – lose. The empire is over with a blast of stupidity instead of undergoing a smart adaptation.
The smart one fines a role and position in the new global structure, while the stupid one becomes a periphery no one wants to interact with: War, genocide, arrogance, confrontation, demonisation, militarism, we-alone-know, censorship, exclusion, lies, (self-)deception, propaganda, threats, proselytising with either a Bible or with a sword – well, what a good thing that they finally landed on the dustbin of history!
If you thought above that this was a current diagnosis for the Western world, USA/NATO including small states like Sweden and Denmark, you’re right.
The prognosis is dark because of the incurable denial of some kind of shared reality that prevents smart policies that could lead to healing. You may also formulate it this way: The self-pleasing narrative has become so detached from the reality that there is no way back; you’ll continue to make decisions within your groupthink box and suffer the – accelerating (self)destructive consequences of consistently make counterproductive decisions.
That is why I have argued, for a few years now, that international developments can no longer be understood by traditional academic disciplines such as political science or international relations. Rational modes of understanding cannot grasp the real nature of irrational, (self)destructive, narrative—and emotionalist-driven behaviours.
To understand the West’s ill-considered policies, we must resort these years to disciplines such as psychology, theology/eschatology (end-game views), philosophy, and psychiatry and borrow insights from literature, including dramas and other cultural expressions.
