Multipolarity

In 1991, the philosopher Jean Baudrillard published a series of essays in Libération and The Guardian entitled The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Baudrillard's argument was effectively twofold. Firstly, since the American military overwhelmed the Iraqi army so easily and barely sustained casualties, what took place for the West was not really a war per se.
Secondly, the new medium of cable news television meant that viewers in the United States were able to watch the war unfold in real time, albeit through a lens of carefully curated propaganda. Viewers were told that they were being given real-time insight into war, but in reality, they were being fed a simulation of war that was, in many ways, more fictional than they would receive from high quality war fiction.
Our guest today, Anon writer and Substack Amerikanets has written a new essay in this genre entitled Virtual War Simulated Conflict in the Trump era (https://www.amerikanets.com/)
In the essay, Amerikanets described the same experience on the morning after the capture of Venezuelan president; a feeling of unreality.
The initial images and news stories available that morning suggested something like a major American military strike on a capital city. But as the smoke cleared and time went on, it became increasingly evident that all was not what seemed.
The war simulation machine appears to have now reached its nadir, but it has not resulted in a unified propaganda net where everyone unquestioningly accepts the American narrative of global conflict.
Rather, it has created an extremely fragmented reality where no one is really sure what is going on. And as Amerikanet’s essay shows, the more you actually understand what happened, the greater the looming sense of unreality becomes.
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Reza Pahlavi is packing his toothbrush again. As protests grow in Iran, the exiled Crown Prince has been popping up for media appearances, from his home in the Maryland suburbs near DC.
As we enter yet another cycle of Persian proto-revolution, we’re saying he shouldn’t count those air miles just yet.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump says that Greenland’s defences are two dogs and a sled. Handy, because America has three dogs and two sleds.
The Danes have been humiliated already – but can anything useful still come from the biggest gorilla in the room turning on his kin? We'll be watching, as Nato slides into the mid-Atlantic.
Finally, when Jerome Powell is putting out hostage-style video statements, you may have squeezed the Fed too hard. Or have you? Whatever the details of the present spat, is there still a place for independent central banking in the Western model?
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They got the Ace of Spades.
The annual dictator kidnapping season got underway in fine style this week as the US bagged a big one, 1.9 meter Nicolás Maduro.
But while the President and his exposer were taking a tour of the Gulf of America by Black Hawk, back on Planet Earth the geopolitical plates were shifting as never before.
In 2026, it looks like we're about to answer the greatest question of them all.
Can you just do things?
We might not like the answer.
Expanding on that thought, do you know the old joke about the economist, how he refused to pick up the $20 bill lying on the ground?
He assumed it was an illusion because if it had been real, in an efficient market, somebody would've already picked it up.
The young bucks at the State Department think they've found a way to hot wire the great game.
We're asking whether there is such a thing as an efficient market in geopolitics?
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And to all a good night.
Need a last minute gift? Or want to treat yourself to something you actually want?
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Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.