If all countries were governed by women, there would be no wars in the world. There would simply be many countries that don’t talk to each other.
(Famous joke)
Wars have always been and remain a tool for the bandits in power to increase their tribute collection. This can be achieved through the annexation of lands, resources, and taxpayers. Throughout different times, there have been various sources of enrichment for these bandits, and correspondingly, different goals for seizing what they need from other bandits. It is no wonder that the reaction of Western leaders to Putin’s annexation of Crimea was one of bewilderment. He operates with medieval values of “land,” while the world has long since moved on to dealing not just with resources, but with people. Germany, as a prominent example (historically shaped this way) of an aggressively inclined state, has long been living in the 21st century. While some are engaged in conflicts over resources in the Middle East, Germany is taking in people from there who are, as they say now, the “new oil.” In doing so, it actively exercises the “right of the first night,” mostly welcoming the best among them.
Table of Contents
The evolution of wars
The worst manifestations of war have always been world wars. Wars that started without cause or reason, where countries entered not out of alliance obligations, but out of a desire to partake in the division of the post-war spoils. All it took to start a war was a pretext.
World wars, unlike “regular” wars, have always been total in nature. They were not just battles between troops, armies, and fleets. They were battles of economies, battles of attrition.
After World War II, the “Cold” War was invented. A war in which the threat of conflict was used instead of actual fighting. However, it was a world war, both in terms of the number of participants and its totality.
Humans, beings capable of operating with imagination, unlike elephants, chimpanzees, or dolphins, inevitably change the levels of abstraction in the things they deal with. Natural exchange has been replaced by shiny coins, coins by the promise to provide them (banknotes), and banknotes by account entries. Fighting is replaced by threats, and threats are replaced by passive aggression.
The economy as an organism
The human body is a complex system, and the inadequate functioning of one organ can lead to cascading effects and failures in other organs, ultimately resulting in death.
In medicine, there is a term:Syndrome of multiple organ failure (MOF)— a severe nonspecific stress reaction of the body, a combination of deficiencies in several functional systems, developing as a terminal stage of most acute diseases and injuries.
The main method of saving a life in such cases is to reduce the demand on the functions of the affected organ by other organs. This can go as far as putting the patient into an artificial coma. If a person in the mountains is short of air, they need to move less. If a person experiencing oxygen deprivation has a rise in temperature, they will die. A one-degree increase in temperature doubles the body’s oxygen demand. And there is no oxygen available. If they lie down, pulmonary edema will occur; if they stand, they will lose consciousness and fall. If they try to fight the pulmonary edema, other organs will still fail due to oxygen deprivation. By the way, this same effect is observed in severe cases of coronavirus infection. First, the virus settles in the lungs, impairing the body’s oxygen supply, and then, as the immune response develops, the temperature rises, increasing the oxygen demand, and the body fails. Given that the patient is in a lying position, the first thing that awaits them is pulmonary edema.
In today’s interconnected world, filled with numerous trade relationships, if a major global economy suddenly reduces its exports to other countries, the only appropriate response from those countries would be to “freeze.” If they don’t scale back, they will inevitably trigger cascading failures. The economy of each country is a delicate, balanced mechanism. If, for instance, semiconductors stop arriving in sufficient quantities, the first to go bankrupt will be the companies that use them in their products, followed by those that depend on the first group, and then… eventually, baristas and art directors will find themselves on the streets. The illness will also affect the financial sector. Non-performing loans will lead to bank bankruptcies. A mass withdrawal from mortgages and rentals will crash the real estate market. Stock markets will collapse. Unemployment will reach such levels that it will be easier to count those who are somehow still employed. And as the government stops receiving tax revenue, it will be forced to spend money on suppressing riots and combating a surge in crime. A couple of years in this state will breed new criminals, and the mafia will flourish, reaching the heights of power and displacing the existing, by then bankrupt, criminals—unless, of course, they are replaced by someone from outside.
If we just hold still, we can save something. Survive the illness, endure it, avoid collapsing the supply chains, as there won’t be demand for supplies. Prevent banks from going bankrupt and keep people off the streets.
War of the next level of abstraction
What we have been witnessing since the beginning of 2020 is nothing less than a new world war. A total war of economies. It’s just a different kind of war—passive aggression, boycotts, lockouts—whatever you want to call it. It doesn’t matter who declared it. It doesn’t matter what the reason is. It doesn’t matter who is allied with whom. What matters is who can hold out the longest. Of course, wealthy and developed economies will last longer. Yes, just like in other world wars, there will be casualties and losses. But, as a result of this war, the world will be re-divided among the surviving stationary bandits.
Interestingly, the initial reaction of world leaders to the events of 2020 was naive and straightforward; they openly declared that it was a war. Then they fell silent. Because they realized that, indeed, it was a war. It’s curious that during crises, stock markets usually fall, but now they are rising. Yes, there was an initial drop in indices—a panic reaction. However, once those in power and with money figured out what was happening, the markets began to rise again. Just like in wartime, anticipating military spending from the government and looking forward to a share of the post-war pie.
It’s unlikely that conspiracy theories should be involved here. After trade with China decreased by 15-17%, the most reasonable reaction from other countries was exactly as described in the article — to freeze. To reduce demand in order to avoid a cascading failure or…СПОН.At the same time, the “freeze” reaction also has a cascading effect. If, for example, both Italy and China freeze, then Germany and France should freeze as well. If Europe freezes, then America should freeze too, and so on. Yes, there are countries that do not participate in the game, and each of them has its own reasons or opportunities for not participating.
Given that both the antibody tests for the coronavirus are so unreliable that they almost always return a positive result (and no one will know they are false since most of the time they test those who already have symptoms), and the tests for the virus itself are equally poor, yielding negative results in half of the cases with confirmed symptoms, we cannot trust doctors or statistics. Considering that we live in an age of hype, we cannot trust the media or the internet. And since politicians are opportunists who care about maintaining their votes in elections, we cannot trust them either. It doesn’t really matter whether the threat of the virus is real or not. What matters is what is happening in reality. And in reality, we are currently at war. Just like in past world wars, it will not be the one with the larger army who wins, but the one with the stronger economy.