An Unstable World? Part One: Russia

Some folks have lately asked why I seem so calm, when every week brings news of yet another brewing disaster, with the world apparently spinning into chaos.  So much for Francis Fukayama's famous line - around 1990 - that the rapid and unstoppable spread of liberal democracy would soon bring an "end of history."

A few years earlier, I had made a different prediction. That the Cold War and the communist empire would soon shatter... (few believed it even remotely possible)... but that our struggles would thereupon move on to strife between a rising world-liberal culture... and one branch or another of machismo... traditionally male dominated cultures upset over the prospect of seeing their women become like ours.

At the time, I could not say which it would be... Latin, Hindi or Muslim machismo, though I guessed the lattermost of these. With the saving grace that - thereupon - the other two would swing our way.

But never mind that. Lately I've heard a lot of: "Brin, you warned us, way back a year ago, that 2014 could be world-shaking! You said the last three centuries began in their fourteenth year! Aren't these ructions around the planet signs that you're right?"

Well... yes... perhaps.  But here's how to tell when someone really is in the future biz.  He doesn't wed his ego to any one forecast! Or any twenty! I am in the line of posing possibilities to explore. Being proved right? I'll leave that for others to judge.

In fact, looking at the crises of the moment, I have not yet broken a sweat. Maybe I'll tell you why, later in this series.  But first, some specific trouble zones.

== What's up with Russia? ==

Fascinating! The pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk (eastern Ukraine) are resurrecting Soviet symbols, incantations and methods, even collective farms -- and (as described in this article) the same thing was happening in other disputed territories like South Ossetia and Abkhazia. 

We already know that Russian President Vladimir Putin -- a former official in the very-communist KGB -- called the breakup of the USSR "History's greatest tragedy." But... but... he's also supervised the most spectacular rise in oligarchic-moneyed inequality since the days of Ivan the Terrible. So... what gives?

I have to tell you that I lay 30% odds that Vladimir may turn out to be something that almost no one on Earth suspects. Sincere. And faithful (deep down) to the memes of his youth.

I may be alone in thinking that is possible -- on a "minority" or three-to-one wager. But lonely observations are what I do.

(Another example. Why does no one even consider what I deem a 20% possibility: that the absolutely uniform chain of destructive-to-America outcomes from the GW Bush presidency might have been deliberate or "manchurian"? I only give the possibility 1:5 odds, despite it being the only explanation that fits all facts. Indeed, it does parsimoniously fit all Bush Administration outcomes, far better than the standard theories: dogmatism, venality and stupidity. But the truly curious thing is that absolutely no one will discuss a lesser-odds option, even just to have it on a corner of the table.  But... back to Putin.)

What do I mean by sincere? Ah, well, if you ever actually read Karl Marx (which I assume no member of my generation has ever done), you'd realize how easily the present situation in Russia is "adaptable" in Marxist-Leninist terms. So, a couple of hundred oligarchs have consolidated all wealth, capital and power in a few hands? That is actually a well-described Marxist phase. The penultimate pre-revolutionary phase. When the time comes... 

...but I will leave that as a what-if hint. Remember, I only laid a 30% on this one. But it fits.

Of course, there are other Russia-related items, like the effects of plummeting oil prices. But the most important from our perspective is... our perspective.

== We talk ourselves into idiocy ==

Take the utter love fest for Vladimir Putin that surges across America's right wing media, especially Beck, Limbaugh and Fox.  "If only we had strong and savvy leadership like that!" The fellow is shown shirtless on Fox more often than a Playboy centerfold.

To listen to our media... both right and left... Putin is a master player who has won round after round against the feckless democratic leaders of the West, especially Barack Obama.  After all, he grabbed Crimea, only suffering some sanctions as a result.  And now he has nibbled off portions of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as quasi-Marxist-Russian enclaves with considerable autonomy from Kiev.  Spectacular gamesmanship!

Except... um... am I the only one who's noticed that, in the last year, Putin ... lost Ukraine?  What had been an almost wholly-owned satrapy of over forty million skilled people, with vast resources, turned decisively westward. Does that fact weigh on anyone's scales?

To be clear, Putin himself kvetched that this revolution was the direct result of western/european/american scheming. So why do his admirers in US media not take him at his word?

If european/american governments, led by Barack Obama did scheme/support/facilitate the westward swing of 90% of Ukraine, it was a geopolitical coup of stunning aggressiveness and effectiveness, about which the Kremlin could do little more than whine a bit, and nibble-back a few crusts where the population was overwhelmingly Russian in background, and clearly preferred Putin's land.

And... your complaint about all this... is? 

It is like the mad-right proclaiming hatred of the "socialist George Soros, who is so scary he toppled 8 foreign governments!" Never mentioning which foreign governments the Fox/Beck/Limbaugh nuremberg rally credits the lefty Soros with toppling.   

Likewise, amid what seems a huge victory for the west (if you insist on viewing a simple act of self-determination by Ukrainians in such primitive terms), all these propagandists and their cretinous viewers can do is focus on a few nibble-back "defeats."

Truly, we live awash in silliness.

Oh, one last item.  Look up this fellow: Fyodor Dmitrievich Berezin is a Ukrainian science fiction writer. In the Ukraine Civil War he currently serves as the deputy Defense Minister  of the People's Republic of Donetsk.  His sci fi always features virtuous Russian or revived Soviet forces destroying decadent-smug American hegemons.  Wowzer.

== So where's the optimism? ==

Sorry, not this time. You'll have to wait for me to plumb the "ISIS-Crisis." And the endless disappointments between Israel and Palestine. And Ebola! 

And so many other modern ructions that make it seem that I was right about the "fourteenth year."

Well, sure... I might be right.  Or I might be crazy.

But I am starting to perk up a bit, imagining that... I might be wrong.  

== Continue to Part II: China