The Third World War lasted 26 years. It was launched by a class of transnational financial capital in the 1990s against states unwilling to surrender sovereignty to globalization. It was, therefore, a war between two ideologies: globalization versus national sovereignty. The war began in Yugoslavia, passed through Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Libya, Yemen, and ended in Syria, with the defeat of globalization and the victory (in sight) of the Syrian nation-state. The theater of war, therefore, extended from the Balkans, to the Caucasus, to the larger “Middle East.” These hot wars were wars within a new “cold war”—the containment of Russia and China, viewed by the United States and allies as obstacles to the take-over of the world by financial capitalism.
With this perspective in mind—trans-nation versus nation—it becomes clear now why the American bipartisan political apparatus, which has waged the wars for globalization, is accusing Putin of subverting the world order. He has upset it, indeed, and the planet owes him gratitude because this “world order” they speak of is not—would not be—a “natural,” spontaneous order but one imposed by a tiny but powerful financial class in London and Washington and throughout the world. And, if victorious, it would signify the end of the principle of sovereignty of nations—the end, in fact, of the post-war’s single most important pillar in the legal architecture for the prevention of war—the inviolability of sovereignty. Hitler had run roughshod over sovereignty, invading country after country as though they were his personal hunting grounds. Today’s globalists intended—and did—the same.
Picture this: in late summer 2015, the West’s proxy armies of al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, Isis—tafkiri, Daesh—were about to take Damascus. The Damascus government, headed by President Bashir al-Assad, called upon Russia, Syria’s historical ally, to intervene in the conflict in defense of Syrian sovereignty. Assad’s appeal and Russia’s positive response conform to international law. As we now know, Russia’s military and advisory campaign in Syria saved that nation from immediate ruin and chaos. The Syrian state, its army, its people, its Iranian and Hezbollah allies, defeated the agents of globalization—they defeated the New World Order; they defeated the combined forces of transnational financial capitalism.
The resistance in Syria has finally won a major—perhaps the beginning of a definitive—victory of nation over globalization. And this the US establishment cannot and will not forgive Russia, because this means the end of the “strategy of chaos,” the destruction of every state that refuses to be gobbled up by globalization.
So, then we have Helsinki. Can you imagine how the whole globalist mafia in Washington felt—the bipartisan political class, the hegemonic media, the think-tanks (factories of globalist ideology), the foundations, the boardrooms of corporations and banks, the CIA and its 16 intelligence sisters; the military-industrial complex, the NSA, the whole surveillance apparatus? Can you imagine? A president of the United States meets with the president of Russia, who just lost them the world in Syria. Is the US president a “traitor”? in their eyes, you bet he is. And that is all they have against Trump—meeting with a guy who lost them THEIR precious world order. What they see in Helsinki is Putin tasting his victory and a US president who, instead of waterboarding him, offers him the humble hand of defeat in friendship. Never before had the US ruling class been so spectacularly, so publicly humiliated by their top official, sworn to represent them. That is how they see it. They can’t bear it that Trump met with the man who poked a big whole in their 26-year-old plan of action—their crazy vision of a world without borders for capital.
(Disclaimer: I don’t do personality analysis. I do class analysis. All the same I have to say I don’t like Trump. It’s an obligatory disclaimer in a political space so narrow that one can’t even play a game of sardines.)
Luciana Bohne is an Intrepid Report Associate Editor. She is co-founder of Film Criticism, a journal of cinema studies, and taught at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. She can be reached at: lbohne@edinboro.edu.
