For all its waning power and apparent internal fractures, the Western imperial bloc remains remarkably united; meanwhile, the Global Majority continues to lack a comparable strategic coherence
Sharp. The declining hegemon doesn't need to win — it only needs to prevent the alternative from consolidating. Permanent destabilisation is cheaper than dominance.
Give credit where credit is due — Trump stumbled into this strategy rather than designed it, but the result is the same.
The BRICS strategic incoherence point is the sharpest part. China's passivity is the most consequential variable — they may not have fully internalised their own leverage yet.
Though the other side of the ledger is real too: Ukraine has shown the limits of NATO power, Iran the limits of American power. The Western bloc is unified but increasingly exposed.
Europeans like being slaves. Just like a dog may want more treats and to be allowed on the couch, but they don't actually want to be Master, europeans are happiest when someone tells them what to do.
This is all very well reasoned I think but I don't think the USA can meaningfully destabilise the emerging new international system without destroying itself in the process, the American economy is a time bomb and the imperial apparatus that sustains it is crumbling
Vladimir Putin once accurately called the United States of America the "Empire of Lies."
This is certainly true.
But the journalist Pepe Escobar once published a book in 2014 that also offered a similarly accurate description of the USA: the "Empire of Chaos."
The Americans understand that if they just keep fomenting chaos, conflict, and wars around the world, they can prevent the emergence of, or at least delay, a multipolar system--and thus de facto maintain American unipolar domination of the planet.
To use impolite language, you might call this US strategy: the F@ck Sh!t Up for Everybody Else doctrine.
This is truly Machiavellian and indeed evil.
But it's not surprising in the the least from the American Empire of Chaos.
Sharp. The declining hegemon doesn't need to win — it only needs to prevent the alternative from consolidating. Permanent destabilisation is cheaper than dominance.
Give credit where credit is due — Trump stumbled into this strategy rather than designed it, but the result is the same.
The BRICS strategic incoherence point is the sharpest part. China's passivity is the most consequential variable — they may not have fully internalised their own leverage yet.
Though the other side of the ledger is real too: Ukraine has shown the limits of NATO power, Iran the limits of American power. The Western bloc is unified but increasingly exposed.
Europeans like being slaves. Just like a dog may want more treats and to be allowed on the couch, but they don't actually want to be Master, europeans are happiest when someone tells them what to do.
https://providencemag.com/2026/05/trump-and-the-domesticated-european-elites/
"A slave dreams not of freedom, but of his own slaves."
-Cicero
"What most men mean when they say that they want "liberty" is that they want kinder masters." - Sallust
This is all very well reasoned I think but I don't think the USA can meaningfully destabilise the emerging new international system without destroying itself in the process, the American economy is a time bomb and the imperial apparatus that sustains it is crumbling
Thank you Thomas for your reflections, although really depressing as they are.
"Controlled Chaos" is what Imperialist Security State does.
In Chaos, a country’s resources are free for grabs and anglo-murican imperialist hegemony is secured.
***
youtube.com/shorts/i790DajfHN8
Doesn’t matter if the world is multi-polar if it’s run by another set of trillionaire kleptocrat global capitalists.
Vladimir Putin once accurately called the United States of America the "Empire of Lies."
This is certainly true.
But the journalist Pepe Escobar once published a book in 2014 that also offered a similarly accurate description of the USA: the "Empire of Chaos."
The Americans understand that if they just keep fomenting chaos, conflict, and wars around the world, they can prevent the emergence of, or at least delay, a multipolar system--and thus de facto maintain American unipolar domination of the planet.
To use impolite language, you might call this US strategy: the F@ck Sh!t Up for Everybody Else doctrine.
This is truly Machiavellian and indeed evil.
But it's not surprising in the the least from the American Empire of Chaos.
Empire of Chaos
https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/19/empire-of-chaos/
Thank you for this excellent interview connecting the points, translated in French here : https://zanzibar.substack.com/p/un-chaos-controle-comment-washington
This makes Trump's entire presidency make sense.