BRICS and Nuclear War

He did not comment on the article or analyze it.

But I will attempt to do so,

As with most articles of this kind, it is always best to start at the end – the conclusion – which tells you what it is really about.

The world is indeed experiencing turbulent times. These are certainly not favorable conditions for the BRICS community to develop in a positive way. One could argue that this is unfair to the Global South, citing the comparatively peaceful post-war decades during which the power structures of the Collective West were able to develop.

But those “born of the storm” are inherently stronger.

Here we see a contradiction.

On the one hand, Hanseler says that geopolitical “turbulence” is not favorable for the “positive” development of BRICS. Then, he says those born of this turbulence are stronger as the winds fill their sails and drive them to their destination faster.

But he is still fearful - for the decline of any empire or hegemony is always accompanied by some degree of chaos, violence, and death.

That was the case with Rome and all other empires. But as Rome fell, other power centers emerged—the Eastern Empire, and various European kingdoms.

 

The West’s economic sanctions and proxy military war against Russia have just made Russia stronger, contributing to a robust and vital society and economy.

The West’s economic war on China has spurred its rise. Ditto: Iran. They are all stronger.

Similarly, the rise of BRICS’s core countries, cooperating with each other multilaterally, diminishes the feudalistic power of the US.

In his conclusion, Hanseler also writes:

However, concepts of fairness should not be used as arguments in geopolitics, because despite fig leaves such as “human rights” and “international law,” it is ultimately the stronger side that prevails—that is all that matters. Nazi Germany did not lose World War II because fairness demanded it, but because it was defeated militarily. This time will be no different.

In this interim chapter, we have established that the geopolitical situation in the world could not be more confusing .

Confusing? Actually not. Most of this is predictable, as I write in my special articles for coffee buyers, in fact, predicted years ago by World Systems analysts like Arrighi and Wallerstein. You probably don’t know who these people are. That’s because the West doesn’t like to talk about them — especially the fact that their writings emphasize that military power depends on economic power and industry both of which are declining in the West. ..

Hanseler fears that the “storm” will bring war, namely WWIII.

World War III is already in full swing. We already made this claim in February 2023 in our article “Sleepwalkers at work: World War III has probably already begun.” The situation regarding Western involvement has become even more pronounced since the article was published.

As I have pointed out many times since 2022, WWIII started years ago. It wasn’t recognized as a “World War” because it did not fit the pattern of the two previous “world wars”, which didn’t involve the whole world in either case and seemed to be primarily military conflicts, defined by an incorrect historical narrative.

As I have written before, every “world” war, is defined by technological leaps that result in new weapons.

In WWI, the British expected cavalry charges but ended up in trenches being machine gunned and gassed while aircraft buzzed around the sky. The fleets battling at sea? That didn’t’ happen except for Jutland. Submarines made a very big difference. And by the end of the war you had tanks on the battlefield.

WWI: Early British "tank"

That war changed a lot. One of its consequences was an epidemic – the Spanish flu’ – which was Spanish but American and spread quickly due to mass troop movements and crowded conditions in trenches and hospitals, which helped the virus spread rapidly. The pandemic killed more people than the war itself.

Hundreds of thousands of men in uniform never made it to the front.

A positive was the liberation of women who had to take men’s roles in industry. And then found themselves free to smoke and read and…and….

In addition, the war accelerated the growth of socialism, transforming it from a slow-growing political movement into a powerful, revolutionary force that led to the Russian Revolution, the collapse of empires, and democratization.

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“Turbulence” indeed.

Fast forward to WWII, which was, of course, a consequence of WWI.

This is where “fairness” comes in. Despite what Hanseler says, “fairness” matters. Just the consequences of un-fairness take time to develop. The “unfair” Treaty of Versailles led to the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany.

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As the “unfairness” of now unstable empires was felt, international stability suffered, with the British and French trying to protect their old ones and the Japanese trying to acquire a new one.

WWII, however, was mostly fought in Russia and China. And again, new weapons changed everything – advanced bombers, tanks, aircraft carriers and submarines. What really mattered was industrial capacity which both Russia and the US had, but Germany and Japan did not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Finally, came nuclear weapons. But WWII was really over by then. These weapons were really developed for the next war. Once the Soviets had them, there was a stalemate. MAD. Mutually Assured Destruction.

 

Peer level war was not longer possible – not if the peers were truly equal.

But the US had inherited an empire which it pretended was “world order”. It defended its primacy with a series of wars, revolutions, and other violent events worldwide. It managed to kill as many as 20 million people – or more after WWII in the Twentieth Century. 

When the USSR collapsed, the US thought its hegemony was complete. Then China rebuilt from the ashes of the Cultural Revolution and Putin resurrected Russia, combining the best of Russian culture, as well as many of the innovations of the Soviet state.