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The Trap of Clausewitz – Why Imperialism Fails Even Without Climate Collapse

Internationalist Observer | 31.12.2014 13:33 | Analysis | Climate Chaos | History | World

And suddenly it is gone – once again the ocean swallowed a passenger plane, presumably with a little help from above. It is unknown just like the last time whether there was human intervention on board, which could have steered the flying mass grave away from the likely places to look before the burial, or whether it was crashed by ground control. Yet it appears a notable coincidence or causality-induced appearance thereof that it does again happen at a moment when the calculations of war are ushering toward a dead end. In the first instance, it was the Chinese head-in-the-sand approach to the independence of Crimea which encountered a rude awakening. Then the Netherlands found themselves punished for their complicity with the European fascists in the independence issue. And now Indonesia gets its extra oath unwrapped and fingered by an apparent coincidence. It is as if the “Bermuda triangle” of the past century was reappearing in the cloth of a “Gaia triangle” that can pop up just everywhere and rip a hole into the illusion of normalcy. And there could be meaning in the increased lapses: Like the shepherd that raises its voice in the moment the fire circle is gliding into a shouting match, the holes in the climate-justice-incompatible normalcy do occur like warning shots directed at preventing an irritated Unitednations structure from decline into overt fascism. The root cause of this risk is a system construction that favours power brokers more than fundamental reflection of purpose, and once the flaw becomes “normalcy” the normalcy of the flaw occasionally transforms into a flaw of normalcy, such as in the cases of the lost aircraft passengers. Did they not know that they were using a dead-end technology?

Lenin´s word of imperialism as the last stage of capitalism is true in so far as from the industrial reconstruction onward the role of the pillage economy with other means expanded to the succession of the historical empires. Yet the deeper truth in it is found only when it is being put from its head onto its feet, and said that capitalism is the last stage of imperialism. That implies that of whatever capitalism is now, there have been earlier stages and their incarnations might teach something as to what it is and what can be done about it. The occurrence of capitalism as a geopolitical threat to any hope and survival coincides with the industrial expansion by means of the dead resources. The line from whereon it exists is to be drawn with the overruling aspect in mind that at some point preceding its death the emerging capitalist system goes from exploiting overwhelmingly renewable resources to exploiting overwhelmingly fossil resources. Actually only then what is a mere destructive outgrowth of a corrupt agrarian society becomes the whole of what the contemporaries know as capitalism, which is a paradox in itself as the maturity period of it is already based upon decay, suggesting no good was to be expected from its own decay period when it is to make room for something fresh. And indeed the relapse from overwhelmingly fossil to overwhelmingly renewable exploitation that coincides with the emergence of capitalism as the new imperialism indicates that profound transformation from “outside the box” is necessary to prevent a prolonged suffering by means of a brand of capitalism wired to whip up itself to walk the obvious dead end until the very tip of the triangle.

At this point there is an atomic precaution to be announced, although it better were to remain a historical footnote: When it comes to issues of Unitednations, its veto circle and its “nuclear satellites” such as India or Israel, above the post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki-construction there is the invisible veto of the Juche family. Atomic bombs have already been used for decision making, and though Japan must not reciprocate, Korea which at that point had been Japanese-occupied took the challenge and equalled the balance of possibility, making it the last state of all to disarm although eventually it must as well. The special situation resulting from the determination of local history by the foreign atomic bomb use might bring about that this appears to be the case forever, but once the nuclear fire is extinguished everywhere the shine of it is going to cease as well. Yet out of its inverted reality where atomic power is vital and quitting it suicidal, due to calculations of which the atomic bomb cannot be factored out, it might appear as a lasting condition as it is indeed a circumstance that prevents decline into overt fascism, although it is of temporary nature. Such as that includes the inviolable principle of “no disarmament before revolution” it is however in association with everything else which is to be postponed after revolution due to existential reasons. The atomic age must be irreversibly over for anything fresh to arise, and any premature reinvention of anything must neither be provided nor demanded.

There shall be no illusion though that Japanese imperialism is a mere plagiarism of the European product, such as the swarm of stuff in its fallout, namely the colonialist expansion at the crossing of the renewable/fossil ratio line. Like a sprout grafted on a stump, it had put its own line-crossing on the remainder of the plantation empires that lost significance for European style capitalism as the dead resources gained it. For understanding the momentum capitalism had when it captured the dead resources, and for that purpose went to enslave the deserts, it is vital to perceive the whole of the plantation legacy without which capitalism might have suffocated itself before it became able to suffocate the species. Not only because that historical stage is the key to the current relapse and its catch-up in a survivalist system change to communism as the economic guiding star of a finite Earth, but also because yet before the dialectical implications there is an impact on the evolution tree inflicted by means of territorial displacement of species into monoculture. Plants grown for everything from sugar to rubber were kicked around the globe and plantations far from their natural habitats stole the space of local wild-growth.

While it is noteworthy that this kind of damage is older than the era of the dead resources it is decisive that it has not stopped with it, and deforestation is rampant as monoculture gravitates toward replacing dead resources preserving the lethal business model. It is the former colonies in South East Asia where these large scale land misuses have occurred which now feel the impact of the holes ripped into capitalist normalcy by the mere echoes of its self-proclaimed outlook. As mirrored by the farce of Unitedstates chemical warfare in the 20th century, the impact on the landscape was so lasting that Japan could easily roll up the legacy which dropped into its lap as it chose the dead end. But Japanese imperialism merely was a wet cardboard tiger compared to the century-long devastations of regional biodiversity that laid its foundations. With a similar tactic the Germans aimed to build their successor empire on the conquest of the wrecked colonialist motherlands, as the Japanese eyed upon invading the deprecated colonial plantations for their misguided “wearing of the boots that kicked them.” (see July 4, 2014). Japan chose this aberration sitting in the neck of Korea, whose sovereign side consequentially has inherited the rivalry with the primary instance of capitalism and imperialism as the atomic bomb turned the tide.

It is no one less than Karl Marx himself who has described the plantation economy, when Europe was infected with madcap militarism of the Bismarck type, the Americas busy with their slavery issues, and the impact from the displacement of plant species alone as well as the resulting trade wars was the worst. But it was not so much the blowback against the European territories which also experienced the influx of foreign monoculture such as the potato (see May 4, 2014), as the pharmaceutical ingredient of the colonialist monoculture, namely the opium economy, that caught his attention. At the time colonialist plantations in India produced surplus palliatives for proliferation in China as a lure to break it for market access. The drug was dumped in the same attitude as alcohol toward the natives of North America, leaving a deep-seated resentment against the substance and anything associated with it that is still being exploited for barbarous persecution of plant-related religion by Unitednations.

Marx´ remark of religion as “the opium of the people” is to be read as a description that colonialism used the medication against pain in the same manner as it uses, or more precisely misuses, religion: By trying to push it upon the dissenting spine of others instead of adhering to it for itself and displaying a worthy example. Of course experiencing the same rise of cancer and other painful civilisation disorders as all industrial societies, the sentiment has taken a merely abstract nature. But it can serve as a natural illustration how it comes that the quality of a thing makes it that its forceful introduction cannot be cleaned of evil intent by its good effect. Imperialism is like the tell-tale king who dies of misery because everything he touches turns into gold. Yet before the fossil monopoly arose, where this undeniably is the case, the same thing happened time and again with every product of the colonial plantation economy, making the Chinese experience with the colonial machinations of Britain a showcase model for any later such failure.

The opium trade war of the 19th century can easily be stripped of all substantial connotations when it is being taken into account that the same works with water once there is a monopoly. For the malignant effects of the market power any potential effects of the substance are entirely irrelevant and no conclusion can be made on them from the former. Yet such as capitalism chose opium as its means of disguise it can do with immaterial items like religion. Medically spoken, what is the case there is an obsessive compulsive disorder which merely uses the commodity of opium (or this or that living species or dead branch of the evolution tree) as its vehicle. While true religion cherishes spiritual independence as the predecessor of material independence (such as dialectics is a predecessor of revolution) the kind of religion peddled by capitalism is an entrapment scheme to bring about dependency.

But the agnostic perspective on capitalism, which abstains from any definition of religion for the sake of universal clarity, can only see it as the medical disorder it is as it perceives the hallucination that every idea it touches would be drastically increased in value as if it was real (in fact its usefulness decreases). Marx termed this the commodity fetish. When an idea or substance becomes a commodity, i. e. is subject to trade and speculation beyond its own purposes, then the defect of capitalism that turns everything of any purpose into the same single-purpose stuff comes to perceive itself as an advance, and the result is the obsessive compulsive peddling of deprecated derivatives. So while China is not necessarily a model of a communist society, its export production certainly is one of commodity theory.

Politically, the bottom line of the 19th century pre-fossil trade war experience is of an immediate significance far beyond its economic background. In the Unitedstates/Islamic conflict, or more precisely the triangle it forms together with China, the Chinese opium experience and the Islamic experience with religiously-clad capitalism, resp. imperialism at that stage, are parallel lines that make an important difference to the oil constellation, in which Unitedstates and China are the two slaves at the sides of the current Arab monarch. Yet when it comes to objective interests, China has much more in common with the Islamic revolutionaries than with the American janissaries. Africa is going to be the test case whether China is going to understand its conflict with imperialism and act accordingly instead of merely repeating the past mistakes of the imperialists.

There can be no “ecological relapse” to overwhelmingly renewable capitalism as in its early stage, because the scenario cannot be sustained. The system of renewable monoculture had already ruined itself so much that it was seemingly saved by the fossil boom. It cannot save the remainder of the fossil burnout. Clausewitz, the military icon of symmetric war, lived in conditions where he could not see the origins of the looting feeding the distribution disputes he was trying to mediate. After this position, the idea that the economic system of capitalism was a zero-sum undertaking if it were not for this or that aspect of it is being called the Clausewitzian trap. Whoever believes that is neither aware of the time and limitations Clausewitz lived in nor of these of the current.

The only path out of the Clausewitzian trap is the realisation that under the conditions of “deranged normalcy” outlined in the rise and decline of capitalism as it befalls the living and the dead branches of the evolution tree, increased likelihood of catastrophe does not mean increased chance of change and only total abolition can enable a regeneration period for the whole damage of capitalism to heal and something entirely new to grow. For the plantation legacy both pre- and post-fossil being transformed back into open and biodiverse spaces takes time, and the first thing to achieve it is to bring about unmistakable intent across generations. The elimination of the oil tyranny with its accomplices is merely the beginning of tackling the entirety of global capitalism and the breaking down of its imperialist legacy both where it entirely destroyed itself and all the biodiversity and where it did not yet.

* * *

See also:

- Why Is the Islamic State Morally Right to Debug the Big Lie? (18.12.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/12/518965.html
- The Greatest Mistake in the Existence of „NSA“ and its Counterparts (5.12.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/12/518818.html
- Is Africa Over the Watershed? (27.11.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/11/518763.html
- Can Beijing Fool the Climate Scientists? (17.11.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/11/518689.html
- Oil War: Another Parrot Bites the Sand (11.11.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/11/518666.html
- The Canadian Conundrum – Causes and Consequences of a Containment Catastrophe (3.11.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/11/518616.html
- Has Australia Suffered a Covert Military Coup? (24.10.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/10/518520.html
- Demographic Endgame – IS/UK Relations in a Nutshell (15.10.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/10/518439.html
- Hongkong: Tehran in a Cool Pool (3.10.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/10/518334.html
- Marx, Lenin, Mao and the Futurology of Scientific Anarchism (26.9.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/09/518310.html
- The Anarchist Guide to IS Psychology (19.9.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/09/518183.html
- The Islamic State Messages in the Light of the Climate Catastrophe (11.9.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/09/518121.html
- Atomic Testing in the Digital Age (13.8.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/08/517630.html
- Must Christians in the Islamic State Suffer Another Bloodbath? (11.8.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/08/517608.html
- Double Emergency Alert: Ebola Acceleration, Internet Smokescreen (8.8) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/08/517551.html
- The Gaza Massacre – Implications and Consequences (5.8.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/08/517537.html
- The Japanese Occupation Legacy – A Defining Ingredient of Totalitarian Democracy (28.7.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/07/517363.html
- Gaza – Vivisection of a Death Cult (20.7.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/07/517265.html
- Macropolitical Side-Effects of the Imperialist Occupation of the Philippines (4.7.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/07/517113.html
- Birth of an Independent Hope – the Revolution in West Asia (26.6.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/06/517081.html
- Hindu Supremacism – A Spent Force of Casino Capitalism (30.5.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/05/516814.html
- The German Sustainability Scam and its Fascist Purpose (21.5.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/05/516731.html
- The Pacific Fata Morgana and its Imperialist Origins (12.5.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/05/516662.html
- Boko Haram – An Image From The Future (4.5.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/05/516551.html
- How Deep Is the Atlantic Divide Really? (8.4.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/04/516271.html
- The External Cost of Spying (28.3.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/03/516118.html
- Palestine, the United Nations and the Refugees (21.3.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/03/516041.html
- Why is Poland a Nazi Client State? (15.3.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/03/515949.html
- What does the Invasion of Yalta Mean for the European Peninsula? (8.3.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/03/515828.html
- The Suicide Attack Against indymedia and its Cause (28.2.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/02/515677.html
- Obey or Die - The Pathology of Organised Treason in Europe (21.2.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/02/515538.html
- NATO. Obituary to a Nukepool (27.1.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/01/515002.html
- Triple Treason in the Caucasus (23.1.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/01/514946.html
- The Death of the Inclusion Policy in the East Asian Shelf Waters (16.1.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/01/514789.html
- Why is the Nonproliferation Treaty Failing? (9.1.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/01/514650.html

Internationalist Observer
- Homepage: https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/12/514459.htm

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