Bruce Charlton's Notions

Everybody loves geopolitical explanations! - at least, everybody in the mass media, and most people else where. 

And yet, using geopolitical analysis, which sounds hard-nosed, and (sort-of) objective... Everybody reaches a different conclusion!

This should serve as a warning, a Red Flag; that we are dealing with some-thing that is evil; and evil not by its usage but by its very nature. 

In other words; we engage in evil when we use and believe geopolitical discourse to discuss and analyze 'world events'. 

Geopolitics is wrong for two main reasons - or classes of reason. 

The first and most fundamental wrongness is that geopolitics is materialistic in its assumptions: geopolitics excludes the reality of God, creation and all that is of the spirit. 

Because these are excluded, and yet these are real and primary; geopolitical discourse misses-out most of what is most important. 

Secondly geopolitics is wrong because it has too many, too subjective, too imprecise, variables.

For a start; geopolitical analysis is based upon evaluating "interest" - in the sense of benefit. In other words, asking who benefits-overall from options X versus Y or Z. 

Yet this matter of what interest means, or what benefit is overall most important, is utterly vague and conjectural. 

Because we cannot perceive another's motivations, all such imputations are - at bottom - little more than guesswork and assumption; that can neither be confirmed nor refuted, because in practice all possible outcomes are compatible with all imputations of interest. 

Any person - and more so any institution, corporation, ethnic group or nation - has many things that might be called interests, many possible ways in which (we suppose) they might benefit (money, power, fame, sex...); and many more ways in which they might wish to avoid harms and suffering (poverty, humiliation, pain, confinement...). 

We can't ever be validly-confident concerning which interest is actually important, or most important, or how the various interests might interact? 

And there will surely be other genuine interests we do not know, have not thought about, or which we under-rate. 

This fundamental and fatal imprecision in geopolitics is compounded by further variables; two in particular - time-scale, and interest-group-boundaries.

Timescale

What is best in the short-term of here-and-now, is almost never the best possibility in the longer-term. Conversely, the best long term possibilities are nearly-always associated with immediate disadvantage or serious risk. 

So, geopolitical analysis has vast - and fatal - wriggle room in identifying self-interest and other kinds of interest; since almost any timescale can be used to 'explain' things - from the immediate and tactically useful, to many and various longer term and 'strategic' advantages... 

Ultimate long term benefit can be assumed for anything from days, weeks and months ahead, to years or even decades ahead; and such assumed benefit  can therefore explain almost any activity leading to almost any outcome.  

Interest-group-boundary

On top of all this, there is the question of who exactly is supposed to be benefitting? Such benefit comes at every level between extremes of the individual, and the entirety of the human population. 

Some specific individual (such as a monarch, president, or dictator); or also their family and minions? Or should it be assumed that some rival person or faction stands to benefit. 

Are we talking about a class (like Marxists)? or are we talking about a race or religion? 

Or maybe it is a corporation or some other social institution like a profession of a branch of government like the military?

At a larger scale - are we talking about a whole nation's interest; or maybe some larger alliance of nations? Or it is the globalist perspective that is being promoted - with multinational organizations?  

Or maybe the interest being sought is that of a secret cabal or conspiracy? 

I hope it is, by now, sufficiently clear that geopolitics is so imprecise and slippery a discourse that it can  explain anything in any number of ways; can blame anyone (or nobody) with equal pseudo-validity! It can impute almost any kind of motivations and intentions, across almost any time-frame.

And, in sum, I hope it is clear that geopolitical analysis is a fake!

So, why do we all so easily and often fall into it (I do not exempt myself). 

The reason is that geopolitical discourse is ultimately a demonic temptation; and (as Jesus told us) we are all sinners! Many of us will fall tpo the temptations of geopolitics - especially when so many other people are doing it, all the time. 

Geopolitics is inescapable, because geopolitical discourse functions - at high levels of power, where people take such matter seriously, to justify anything to anyone. 

Consider a war, as an example. 

Geopolitics can appeal to the interests of people on opposite sides of wars, to all kinds of rival factions within those sides and crossing those side - and reference interest across all timescales*... 

Such that every-body and every-group (at least all with power) may simultaneously believe that he is pursuing his interests by starting a war, escalating a war, pursuing that war!  

Now; imagine that - behind all the geopolitical discourse was some person or group - call him Satan! - who wanted war, or societal destruction - starvation, torment, disease... Wanted these for their own sake, from sheer spitefulness, because they made him feel good... because that is his nature.  

"Satan" could pursue his destructive goals via geopolitics; by identifying powerful individuals and groups, and encouraging them all to pursue particular kinds of self-interest... different groups, different benefits, different timescales...  

So - in the end - lots of people and groups were following Satan's agenda of destruction; but each and all of them were under the impression that each was pursuing his own self-interest! (Various kinds of interest, over some various time-frames). 

Such is the nature our world - and increasingly so. 

We cannot cease to sin altogether; but we can recognize and repent our sins - and that is what we ought to do in relation to geopolitics. 

We can recognize that geopolitics is a fake discipline, that provides fake explanations to-order; and is therefore used to manipulate people towards underlying goals of which they may all be unaware. 

Because behind geopolitics lies the spiritual war of this world; and that (not geopolitics) is where we should be looking for explanations and guidance. 

*To clarify: those who desire to trigger, sustain or escalate the destructiveness of war; will typically try to work using individuals and groups on both sides of the conflict; agents who - using geopolitical arguments - can both simultaneously be convinced that war will be in their own interests - of one sort or another (power, money, religious), in one timescale or another (but - in war - usually short-medium term). 

Regular readers will know that I have fairly recently become very interested in the aircraft of World Wars I and II - which is the re-ignition of a similar "craze" when I was aged about 11-13. 

I have never known or understood much about WWI except that both sides had dubious motivations; but I did think that I broadly understood WWII - especially since I remember and had read a fair bit of historical material from before the massive distortions of the 1960s began to bite. 

But this re-visitation has been one major eye-opener after another; at the end of which my main conclusion is that my previous understanding of WWII was very defective and that I am not-at-all-sure my present understanding is correct either!

What is clear is that HUGE facts about the war - which were often once widely known (some, in a sense, that I did know but misinterpreted), really ought to have been either obvious, or were easy to ascertain - have made an equally-huge different to... well, if not my understanding, then to my confidence in my understanding. 

Naturally, given my starting point, most of these revisions have been at the expense of a previous stance of confidently regarding the British (and allied) side as clearly "superior" in some general sense. This has not reversed, but neither is it secure. 

There have been many surprises - but I will just outline one here. A particular aspect has been the strategic bombing of Germany - by Bomber Command. In a sense I was familiar with the criticisms of the strategy of bombing German cities - both the idea that it was not very effective, and that it was morally... dubious. 

What I had not realized until recently was that strategic bombing was By Far the major British war effort and expenditure - dominating all RAF policy, consuming most of RAF expenditure, and using more resources than the entire British Army and Royal Navy put together! 

Think about that for a moment... 

The major and (literally) overwhelming British strategy to win WWII was - for most of the war - quite simple: that Britain could destroy the German capacity to wage war solely by means of heavy bombing - after which the Army could essentially just stroll-in, and take-over.  

This was the extraordinary conviction of the RAF, and of Churchill. I say "conviction" but it had more of the attributes of a delusion - in the sense that the doctrine was not true, there was no actual evidence to support it (and never had been anywhere or at any time); And Yet belief in the doctrine held with absolute conviction and was immune to the evidence of experience. 

Britain crippled her war effort overall, almost lost the war at least three times* and bankrupted herself for decades afterwards, in pursuit of a delusion! 

This doctrine of The Bomber as a war-winner dated back to pre-war times, and its strength came from the fact that it was the major military justification for maintaining then expanding the RAF into by-far the most resourced UK military service. 

The delusory nature of the Bomber strategy was perfectly obvious at the time to empirically-minded people who studied the accumulating and consistent evidence of gross inefficiency and lack of effectiveness of bombing at its task destroying the German "war machine" such that Germany would collapse. 

In the early years of the war, there inaccuracy of bombing (and the inadequacy of the aircraft and bombs) meant that precision bombing of military targets was impossible - and night bombing meant that even hitting particular cities was not reliably achieved. 

After moral objections to the mass slaughter of (overwhelmingly) civilian non-combatants - a major breach of the rules of war - led to arguments that (what we would now call) genocide of the Germans was a valid goal of bombing. This was increasingly achieved as the war progressed and equipment and improved technologies and techniques (such as using radar-guided pathfinders to mark targets, and creating firestorms by phased types of bombs).

However, the fact is that - by the time the ability to annihilate cities was perfected (especially by the USAAF in Japan - where the building were flimsy and wooden) - it was too late significantly to affect the course of the war in Europe.  

The above discovery (or perhaps fuller realization) about Britain and strategic bombing in WWII - which seem to have the status of objective fact attested by multiple credible authorities - by-itself makes a big difference to my attitude to that war; and there have been several other equally major discoveries of a broadly similar nature. 

My take-home message from this is not that I now know the truth whereas previously I was in error; but that I have concluded that the truth about such matters is not something I can be sure of. 

Geopolitics - including war - at the scale of modernity; is by its nature almost-always a domain of dishonesty, and of insufficient and misleading information; whose morality is therefore nearly-always a choice of lesser evils.

This, despite that war is also a domain in which great courage, hope, endurance, comradeship, patriotism, and other human "goods" are probably commoner and more highly achieved.  

But - looking around at a world in which WWIII has apparently begun, I hope to keep these lessons in mind - and (despite the encouragements and temptations) to refrain from making Geopolitics a central feature of my system of values and hopes.  

*First was the Battle of Britain - where the RAF resisted almost until too late the provision of enough fighters to defend Britain - believing that fighters were almost unnecessary, and that the airforce ought to be about attack not defense. And two times more (1940-41, again in 43) when Britain almost ran out of essential supplies due to the U-Boat campaign; while the RAF deliberately starved the highly-effective Coastal Command of adequate resources (CC was a kept-small branch of the RAF that provided aircraft to protect shipping - especially the Atlantic sea lanes) - again on the excuse that nothing could be spared from the task of bombing Germany. The telling point was this happened twice - apparently nothing was learned from the first near disaster. The strong conviction/ prejudice of RAF high command, and crucially of Churchill; was that Coastal Command was an unnecessary and defensive diversion of scarce resources, that ought to go into the vital and war-winning activity of bombing Germany.) 

For most of recorded civilized human history; mankind has been living in A System - but these Systems, like the organisms of biology, were overall orientated towards survival, growth, spread. This is why there is a degree of cyclical nature to history - despite that time is linear, and history never repeats because human nature/ human consciousness is changing and developing. 

But for the past few generations The System has become - for the first time ever - a self-consuming, self-destroying thing. Not, therefore, like a biological organism; but like a host that has been purposively and motivationally hijacked by a parasite without foresight: a parasite that will seek its own thriving until the host is killed.  

The partially-cyclical nature of history is broken in a world of Systemic value-inversion; and thus a world where self-hatred and suicide are baked-in. A world where the "bourgeois" and the "rebels" are two sides of the same coin - and where the "rebels" have indeed been created, shaped, controlled, and promoted to rulership by those who control The System.

All of this means that common sense is no longer operative; including such common sense motivations as deterrence* - or even expedience. Even the idea of "enlightened self-interest" - of medium- long-term selfishness as a prime motivator, is no longer operative - either at the individual or at the national level. 

This applies almost totally in The West; where leaders and the masses alike operate under a combination of extreme short-termism that - in practice - reflects primarily socially-manipulated and malleable attitudes; with a pseudo-long-termism that consists of Total Lies.  

Because the effectiveness of deterrence requires both sides to operate under the same motivational-system; then when the West is orientated against Systemic self-preservation; then the "common sense2 and historical power of deterrence is gone.  

As may be seen in the actuality and trends of geopolitics over the past couple of years. 

There is a still-escalating global conflict between the domination of various old-style self-preserving and traditional organism-like societies; versus the parasite-controlled and self/other destruction-orientated Western civilization. 

And, at present, it is unclear who will win this conflict - although it is much easier and quicker to destroy than it is to preserve and sustain.   

It is biologically difficult and rare to reproduce and raise a healthy organism to maturity, then to maintain it alive - and only a narrow range of options for achieving this; but it is simple and easy to organisms, and by innumerable effective methods.

*By deterrence I mean not only the military doctrine between nations or power blocs; but also the ordinary inter-personal deterrence that (in both types) tends to prevent initiation and escalation of hostilities, aggression and violence. As a relevant aside; deterrence is more-or-less effective - at least in the short-term - among almost all normal humans of the past - except for the genuinely psychotic. Which confirms that mainstream modern Man is literally insane.  

True neutrality with respect to any question concerning values is not a possibility, and never has been; yet degrees of 'official' neutrality used to be conceded, and commonplace - as pragmatic realities in public life. 

While every person and nation will almost-inevitably take sides over any particular question - at least overall, and to some degree - it used to be allowed that people and nations could stand-apart from conflicts, and remain un-declared. 

Even during the massive conflict of World War II, there were several neutral counties in the heart of the conflict (Switzerland) or on its border (Spain, Sweden). 

And, as recently as a couple of decades ago; it used to be quite normal for people or nations to opt-out of taking sides on questions of value in public life. 

This is no longer allowed in The West; because the powers on the side of evil are now dominant, their evil is more advanced; and They have forbidden neutrality. 

Each and every person (with no allowed exceptions) must now - publicly and with a display of enthusiasm - actively participate in celebration and promotion of Litmus Test issues relating to sex, sexuality, antiracism and so forth. 

All must take the side of evil (called good, in the official system of Western inverted-values) - or be attacked as an enemy. 

Anyone - any single individual - who opts-out and tries to be neutral in any of the Litmus Test issues; may be punished by the full force of global media and public opinion mobilized against them; exclusion from work, removal of financial services, demonization of status - and many other possible punishments (officially imposed, and unoffically allowed and encouraged), without limit to severity or duration.  

We are seeing the same phenomenon in relation to the Fire Nation* war. No Western nation has been allowed to remain neutral on this issue - even Switzerland and Sweden have been compelled to abandon long term principles of neutrality. 

Furthermore, active participation in the war is also being compelled - until recently by participation in war-sanctions. And currently by mandatory military participation through sending weapons to the battlefront. 

And this military participation must be done publicly, proudly; and backed with explicit aggressive statements. 

Presumably the next step will be sending military personnel from all nations - with no opt-out allowed. 

This is not about military effectiveness - because from such a perspective it makes no sense. It is about ideological - hence spiritual - allegiance. 

Western nations are being compelled into active support for an open-ended campaign aimed at existential annihilation of the Fire Nation; either its destruction, fragmentation, or vassalage. 

Nations are being forced (by their puppet-'leaders') into making themselves existential enemies - not only of the FN, but of an alliance that (increasing month by month) includes the two most populous nations in the world, and indeed most of the world's population and land mass. 

Those who do not paint a target on their own backs by choice (like the UK did thanks to its cravenly-servile US-obedient leadership); will have it done for them, at the point of a sword.

In other words; the ideology of annihilation of the Fire Nation serves as yet-another factor in the suicidal self-destruction of The West - and all its (compelled-) allies, such as the North East Asian vassal-states of the USA, who are now actively and rapidly being prepared to operate as agents of their own destruction. 

In sum, underneath the cover of fake Geopolitical reasoning and led by the dominant Western power; the whole world is being set-up for an all-inclusive world war - the first ever - which will be sustained for as long as possible, and with as much all-round destruction as possible. 

Such a war will (if it happens) serve the dual purpose of lethally damaging Western civilization, and doing something similar to all those who - in any way - dissent from the Western-leftist-atheist-materialist ideology of the globalists. 

For a Christian; the vital matter is to recognize and remember that this is primarily 'just' the latest and biggest material manifestation of the long-established spiritual war; and that we need to discern and understand what is really going-on in terms of ultimate spiritual values. 

Not, therefore, to become distracted by merely proximate, materialist explanations of the war in terms of Geopolitics, economics, or even of ideology. 

These are merely means to an end; because evil is about damnation, that is about spiritual and eternal death - therefore not only, nor mostly, about physical death.

Note: Anyone confused by any of the terminology I use, here or elsewhere, should do a word-search on this blog (i.e. using the Search box on the upper left extreme corner).  

As I feared; it seems that the Arrakis war has been successfully used to enthuse and inspire the "idealistic" and self-identified radicals of the left, has provoked a resurgence of the evil error of pacifism; and through support for the Fremen has channeled this "youthful enthusiasm" safely into Establishment control. 

People who were perhaps "in danger of" awakening to the demonic evils of the Global Totalitarian Agenda, are now enthusiastically enlisted in a multitude of Establishment-controlled "protest" and "charitable" activities - just like the (Good Old...) 1960s - Yay!

Thus, the easily-awakening desire of Westerners (and others) to Do Something To Help (to help, that is, a situation of which they are aware only very indirectly and via the major mass media); has inevitably led to working-through and thereby re-validating already-existing Establishment-controlled channels - such as the UN. 

People who, three months ago, would have had nothing but disdain for the totalitarian globalist puppet-masters of the UN, are now pouring all hopes into it, and following its machinations with avidity. 

Geopolitics is sexy again! Pseudo-edgy, covertly-officially-approved Leftist radical protest is back in the mass media spotlight. 

Yet again; the desire to influence this world on a large scale - for whatever reason - is readily subverted and redirected into strategic support for the totalitarian agenda of evil. 

Yet again; Christians are being given a lesson that Christ's Kingdom is "not of this world"; and we are yet again being shown that we absolutely need to fix our hopes beyond mortal life and this earth, and gain a perspective that sees life from a context of eternity. 

Yet again; we are being shown what is our business in this world, and what is not our business: What we ought to be placing as our personal and real priority - and what we should not be misled into thinking we understand, can affect, and ought to be working to change.  

The current intra-left civil war is top-down created and manipulated - both "sides" being manifestations of one will; such that whichever side we "support" in this fight, we shall be supporting the overall totalitarian strategy: the agenda of evil. 

And people have fallen for it yet again.   

A couple of observations... 

In geopolitics, it is clear that the Western world is increasingly dominated in its major policies by agents of Sorathic destruction. They have set-up the global situation such that a full-on third world war is little more than a hairsbreadth away. 

On the flip-side: at the time of writing it has not happened. While the world has been poised and teetering ever closer to the edge of a precipice for the past 21 months or so - the nations have not yet thrown themselves off it (despite quite extraordinary provocations). 

This must (I think) mean that there are powerful agents who do not want all-in world war. 

What I am unsure about is whether these agents of 'restraint' are positively motivated by Good in any shape or form; or whether they merely favour the less violent evil of international totalitarianism - with its omni-surveillance and complete mind-control; and that they recognize that achieving this goal would be disrupted by major wars, and so are holding-back the destruction merchants from irreversible escalation. 

Another possibility is that plans of any kind are constantly being subverted by the selfish short-termism of those tasked with their implementation. e.g. instead of following the strategy of making war, the agents are tempted and distracted into making money.  

Still, what we are seeing is at least consistent-with the operation of covert Good motivations that (to an extent) counteract the much-more-obvious and explicit evil for the major leadership class. 

Further: When it comes to individuals, my impression (and that is all it can be) is that "the side of Good" continues to lose people. 

As The System continues to bring forward more and more Litmus Test issues - it seems that each new wave of challenges is 'failed' by a significant proportion of those Christians who had previously been stalwart*. 

Indeed, claims of an exclusive, church-based Christianity has now itself become a Litmus Test. To believe that Christianity must be institutional - is to fall into the hands of totalitarianism; since They now control the entire institutional framework of The West. 

For instance; whereas I hoped that the post-2020 situation might lead to an alliance of serious Christians of all denominations (and none); this has not happened. 

Way too many Christians still expend far too much energy denigrating other types of Christian, and denying (what they call "proving") that those outwith their chosen-church/ denomination are Christians at all. 

Religious definitions and rules have often become more strict, literal and communally-defined and -enforced; as a way of trying to prevent liberalizing slippage. Thus these stalwart church-Christians become focused on institutional survival and thriving in an increasingly hostile environment, instead of engaging in the spiritual war.    

Those who respond to the triumphant evil of this-world by putting all their faith into obedience to any this-world institution (including any church) have become captives to this-world; and have made an advance vow to follow this-world where it may lead, insofar as this-world control the institution. 

In effect; each self-identified Christian church asserts a formula for maintaining its faithfulness to God's wishes. But, because the church is an institution that exists at the social level, the formula takes some publicly observable, publicly enforceable form. And that is how The System is able to penetrate and corrupts all institutions. 

Only our consciousness and chosen personal relationships stand outside The System; all institutions are inside it.

There is no doubt that the modern world, especially in The West, is a harsh examination; and there is no formula for success - because formulae are exactly the mechanism by which corruption is operative. 

*This is a problem of any essentially defensive strategy. If it succeeds then things stay the same, if it loses then they get worse. People may default from defence, but defence can never be victorious. On the other hand, any positive attitude that depends on institutions, any materially-positive strategy, will sooner or later be corrupted by The System. The answer is to be individually and spiritually positive - and to find a way of doing this that does not ultimately depend on other people. 

The recent business in Afghanistan is something most of us know only via the mass media; which means that the meaning of the events has been distorted in order to manipulate us, and key facts are also certain to have been changed or omitted. 

In what follows I am therefore making the assumption that it is true that the Western powers recently withdrew from Afghanistan in something like the disastrous manner reported (i.e. with extremely rapid collapse of the West funded/ trained state military, uncontrollably overrun by the insurgents, leaving behind significant numbers of US citizens, with colossal capture of US (at least) military materiel, and with a mass population transfer of Afghans (mostly men of military age and experience) into The West.

This has been almost universally regarded as a disaster for the Leadership of the Western Powers, a sudden and catastrophic loss of status as a global power, evidence of a collapse in military effectiveness etc. And ushering in a new period of global 'instability'.

The assumption seems to be that all this happened (assuming it did) against the wishes of the Global Establishment. On those grounds, some Christians regard it as A Good Thing. 

This is what I doubt. Good is not an 'emergent property' from evil motivations!

I see the events as further evidence for the ascendancy of a Sorathic tendency of deliberate destruction, of encouraging chaos; and that this 'strategy' is rapidly taking-over from the Ahrimanic strategy of making the whole world into a 'high-tech', Matrix-like, atheist-leftist-totalitarian media-bureaucratic super-state; where the masses are maintained under close and continual surveillance, and subjected to detailed behavioural control. 

I see this as a further step in the breakdown of the high point of global coordination and consensus which was reached early in 2020, and an increase in the evilness of evil from the domination of 'lawful evil' to more and more 'chaotic' evil of the escalating war of each against all.  

In sum; this 'catastrophe' may indeed both be a genuine catastrophe (i.e. an increase in the domination of evil), and yet it may also be a intended outcome of decisions from within the Western powers to whom the events are 'a catastrophe'. 

As always; even this is (for Christians) no reason at all for increased fear - because fear is a sin, and very obviously what They (the demonic powers) want from us. Nor is it a reason for despair; because Christian hope is indestructible and lies beyond this world and mortal life - and is eternal. 

They also want us to 'think globally', to be deeply interested-in and concerned-by 'foreign policy' and geopolitics; to identify-with nations, large abstract 'humanitarian' causes and commit to ideologies. All these are traps for a Christian. 

Our business is (primarily) with our salvation and theosis, with the love of God then our 'neighbour' which means actual humans beings to whom we have a genuine personal commitment. 

In practice, we cannot help but 'have an opinion' on these mass media 'talking points'; but we need to keep reminding ourselves that all of these (and everything we think we know about them) are primarily attempts to manipulate us in ways that benefit the agendas of one or other of the factions among the evil-serving leadership.   

So - although the above is my interpretation of what has happened, I am not wedded to these conclusions, and my main effort is not to 'care' about matters which I can only be concerned with be falling-into ways of thinking that are specifically designed to corrupt me onto the side of Satan and against God.

My faith should be that God - as the creator - can and will always ensure that I can know from personal experience, by my own discernment and the direct guidance of the Holy Ghost, what I need to know for my task in this mortal life.  

When our faith is solid, we need not deny or defend ourselves against pessimistic projections about what might happen if. 

(Those 'might-happens' picked-out and pushed at us from among the boundless and incalculable possibilities of 'might-happens.)

Our task is with what does happen - All this kind of stuff - as it impinges-upon-us is a challenge from which it is intended we may learn. 

But this learning should be directed at eternal resurrected life; and if it is Not in that context, then we will indeed live in fear and despair, and at the mercies of the worldly-powers.