INCERTO
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INCERTO

A Clash of Two Systems

The war in Ukraine is a confrontation between two systems, one modern, legalistic, decentralized and multicephalous; the other archaic, nationalistic, centralized and monocephalous

Ivan the terrible.

Offensive vs. Defensive Nationalism

This conflict shows a harmful confusion, among the Russians and their supporters, between the state as a nation in the ethnic sense and the state as an administrative entity.

Coordination for Mafia-don Like Protection

There are now two imperial models: either a heavy model, like that of Russia, or a coordination of states on the model of NATO. We will see which one will emerge victorious from the current conflict. This war not only pits Ukraine and Russia against it, it is a confrontation between two systems, one modern, decentralized and multicephalous, the other archaic, centralized and autocephalous. Ukraine wants to belong to the liberal system: while being Slavic-speaking, like Poland, it wants to be part of the West.

Adam Smith vs Napoleon

What is it that We Call the West?

What we call “the West” is not a spiritual entity, but an administrative system first and last. Is is not an ethno-geographical ensemble, but a legal and institutional system: it includes Japan, S. Korea, and Taiwan. It mixes the thalassocratic Phoenician world of network-based trade and that of Adam Smith, based on individual rights and freedom to transact, under the constraint of social progress. In the United States, the difference between Democrats and Republicans is minor when seen from a different century. Both sides wants social progress, but at different rates of growth.

Phoenicianism: multicultural thalassocratic, and non-colonial

States vs Individuals

These sloppy thinkers such as Mearsheimer and similar handwavers conflate states with individual interests; they believe that there is only a balance of power between powers — for Mearsheimer, Putin is only reacting to undue progress by the West on its ground. But the reality is quite different: what Ukrainians want is to be part of what I would call an international “benign” order, which works well because it is self-correcting, and where the balance of power can exist but remain harmless. Putin and the “realists” are the wrong century, they do not think in terms of systems or in terms of individuals. They suffer from what I call the “Westphalia Syndrome” — the reification of states as natural and fixed Platonic entities.

Solzhenitsyn

Solzhenitsyn clearly saw the diabolical aspect of communist society, but believed that Western society was just as harmful. But being naturally multicentric, the West aims to be like Switzerland — it’s bottom-top oriented in spite of occasional concentration. Furthermore, the “West” is evolving; it does not have fixed centers of authority. Certainly, there are disproportionate influences in the West, as today’s Google and yesterday’s General Motors, but Google or General Motors are not the center of it — these multinationals do not even control themselves.

An Error Correction Mechanism

A stable system requires a decentralized and multicephalous organization, which makes it possible to correct errors and avoid the deleterious effects of certain risks by confining them to the local level. After the 1918 war, the French destroyed Syria by centralizing it. Conversely, when the new Germany was formed, the French insisted that it be federal under the illusion that it would weaken it. Deprived of a center of gravity, Germany no longer thought of waging war, but of making… money. Butter, it turns out, works better than guns. Germany became an economic power thanks to federalism — and it appears to be natural as it spent its history in fragmented states before the Prussian takeover. For Russia, such a decentralized organization would be impossible: if let go of ballast, it would immediately find itself facing the secession of 20 small states — Chechnya, Ingushetia, Bashkiria… It therefore tightens the screw in the other direction.

Alas, the EU is Centralized a bit too much…

Subsidiarity was not respected, hence the departure of the United Kingdom. But the appropriate model is that of NATO, which exists in the area where organized joint action is necessary — military reaction — while letting countries do what they want under constraint not to attack each other. And I am grateful to the European Union for having succeeded in starting the concept of nation to think more in terms of regional coordination.

How can Russia enter the modern world?

Only if it fragments into separate states. Some Russian groups have always been irredentist, the Cossacks, the Kulaks (localist farmers), and the Siberians. There are also many minorities. More broadly, because of this Westphalia complex, it is forgotten that the Russians do not necessarily have the same interests as Russia. National interests are abstract things, and people end up believing in them even when they conflict with those of those populations they encompass.

Orthodoxy and Minor Patriarchs

The Patriarch of Moscow was also Patriarch of Ukraine. But in the Orthodox world, whenever an ethnic or language division occurs, a “minor patriarch” is appointed in the country that has become independent — this is the case in Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania. This is why the Patriarch of Constantinople, the most important, assented to the request that the Metropolitan of Kiev becomes a minor patriarch in 2019. Because of this separation, the Russian Orthodox Church felt amputated. The Patriarch of Moscow, Cyril, supports Putin. The Patriarch of Antioch, close to Assad, does the same.

Multicephaly did not help in 2014

It takes a while for a collective and distributed system to react. It takes a lot of sheep to fight a wolf, and in 2014 we were too few sheep.

Napoleon vs the English Shopkeeper

All the English initially wanted was for their products to arrive safely. Napoleon’s views did not interest them. While Napoleon thought in terms of the glory of France, they thought of the wallet of the English shop owner. But the English grocer won and, with the Phoenician trader, it was he who made the modern world — the Anglo-Phoenician world of mercantile cosmopolitanism. This is what means, for example, that today Germans are more interested in exporting cars than in Germany’s geographic expansion.

I am not Against Modernity; I am for its Improvement

The modern liberal system makes mistakes, yes. But when I criticize it, I don’t aim at destroy it, but at improving it. And it is a good system because it is self-correcting. I criticize naive Western interventions because I think about their consequences: I was against the war in Iraq, and experience justified my fears; I am against intervention in Syria, because if we get rid of Assad, we do not know what will replace him; I have nothing against Brexit, because if the British think they can manage to be part of our system without depending on the Brussels bureaucratic machinery, it is their right.

Pseudo-Libertarianism Inviting Tyranny

I have trouble with many people, often naive libertarians, who think I’m like them because they like my books. But some of these want to destroy our system rather than improve it: many are full of resentment.

How I Found Out About Disinformation

I began to spot Twitter accounts called “Linda”, pro-Trump who, in protesting against inflation, used the sign of the ruble instead of the dollar. When the same people support both Canadian truck drivers and Vladimir Putin, there is a problem. In a way, I came to defend Ukraine because the same fools who attacked me on Covid also defended Putin.

The Long Peace

We didn’t wait for this war to realize that Pinker was wrong about the decline of violence. There is no such a thing as Long Peace, largely because the past was not as violent as Pinker claims. My colleagues and I refuted Pinker’s calculations in our research. His errors come in particular from the fact that some data he uses overestimate the number of deaths in past conflicts. Pinker wants to play the guardian of modern liberal thought, but it is the American BHL: he knows nothing about his subject.

Ending the Ukrainian War

If you give Putin even one finger, he will have won the war. Russia’s leadership must therefore be humiliated, and the only way is for it to retreat. We need a repetition of the 1905 Russo-Japanese war. In this case, Putin will be overthrown from the inside, because, historically, people who accept autocracies do not like the weak. A weak Putin is no longer Putin — just as a nice, tactful, and thoughtful Trump would no longer be Trump. For this to continue, it takes a lot of suckers to keep feeding the narrative — and if the suckers begin to doubt the story, it will be the beginning of the end.

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Chapters in Progress from The Incerto Collection (The Black Swan, Antifragile, etc.)

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