West under clowns and zealots

Western world has been cultivating a dangerous groupthink that's all but sealed the collapse of their agendas.

When the clash between the combined West and the combining rest eventually winds down, it will go down as one of history's most spectacular and most embarrassing failures of leadership. If Western leaders were capable of shame, they would be resigning their positions in droves. The fact that they’re not is because they were carefully recruited and cultivated precisely so that they wouldn't have such scruples.

The Russians are genetically inferior, OK?

When Russia initiated its Special Military Operation in Ukraine, many of our genius leaders, analysts and journalists eagerly hee-hawed about all kinds of ways in which the Russians were so, so inferior to us: they're incapable of thinking strategically; their military hardware is shoddy; LOL, their GDP is the size of Spain's; the West can outpace Russia ten to one in military spending; their soldiers are poorly trained, poorly organized, their morale is low, and on and on. The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper even said that the Russians were "genetically driven" to deceive and manipulate, clearly an adept of the old hypothesis about the inferior Asiatic genes.

Hee-haw, the Russians are finished!

At the same time, Sir Tony Blair, the Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter gushed on the pages of his extremely important Tony Blair Institute for Global Change about how the West, “impressively united to assemble a vast arsenal of sanctions which will over time collapse the Russian economy." He portrayed Vladimir Putin as an anxious leader, “detached from reality and with no one around him prepared to tell him the truth.”

Others informed us that Putin was mad and isolated at the Kremlin, that he had stage four cancer, that he was falling down the stairs and unable to control his bowel movements, etc. In short, Western leaders were convinced that they had the winning hand. But their faith wasn't based on facts or a well-developed strategy. Ultimately, it was based on the conviction that we are better and that our system is better. That kind of conviction tends to be the great pitfall of ideologues and zealots.

You are with us, or you’re against us

To be fair, the West did have a strategy; but that strategy was essentially a punt, a gamble: we'll take our shot and, fingers crossed, hopefully we win. Someone with an engineering, or problem-solving mindset might formulate a strategy (which will inevitably be based on multiple assumptions) but they'll also ask, "what if our assumptions are wrong?" They'll question those assumptions broadly in order to avoid failing or squandering too many resources on errors. Then they'll formulate contingencies. I believe that any competent military general would think in this way.

But in a world ruled by zealots, asking "what if we're wrong," or pointing out an alternative solution will get you kicked out of the 'cool kids' clique' or fired. That's exactly what happened to Germany's Vice-Admiral Kai Achim Shoenbach for merely pointing out that the low-cost solution to the crisis was to take Russia's security concerns into account and treat Russia with respect. That was in January 2021, before the hostilities began. In retrospect, the Vice-Admiral had a point, but his thought crime was rewarded with an instant dismissal and an abrupt end of his military career. 

Driving and empowering a delusional groupthink

In smaller ways, similar incidents have certainly happened thousands of times over the years in a process that staffed the leadership positions of Western institutions with such intellectual titans like Sir Tony Blair, James Clapper, Victoria Nuland, Ursula von der Leyen, Josep Borrell, Lord David Cameron, Antony Blinken and "the big guy" himself. Same with media editors, journalists, think-tank analysts, corporate executives, military generals, judges, prosecutors, administrators, academics... 

In effect, the combined West has been driving and empowering a dangerous and delusional groupthink that sealed the outcome of the present conflict. Of course, the intelligent and competent individuals are as available in the West as they are anywhere else. For example, someone at the Pentagon finally thought it a good idea to read up on the Russian military strategy. They even found a few dollars in their trillion dollar budget to order some books on the subject. The last few years' trash talk didn't quite work out as desired. 

Vi are folloving ze orders!

But the cool kids in the administration hate the thinking, inquisitive people even more than they hate the dastardly Russians. Just yesterday, we learned that the former Marine Intelligence Officer and UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter embarked on a plane to participate in the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Agents of Antony Blinken's State Department dragged him off the plane and confiscated his passport (free world y'all!). They were following orders, either oblivious, or indifferent to the fact that their orders were illegal. Not only did they violate a fellow American’s constitutional rights in a Stasi-like manner, they even violated the procedural guidelines of their office. Knowledgeable and competent officers would have declined to carry out illegal orders of their superiors. This, again, is why Western nations are promoting mediocrity and punishing competence. When public administration turns lawless, relying on mediocre ignoramuses is far more expedient.

At the same time, Scott Ritter is probably one of the US's leading experts on Russia. The problem is that the cool kids in the Biden administration hate him and what he has to say. The gravity of their transgression was best summed up by the former CIA officer Larry Johnson in this brief video address (9 min.).

Zealots and the power of a narrative

To my mind, the best illustration about the way delusion and groupthink can work out was the case of a Japanese martial arts instructor who developed Kiai, a contactless self-defence technique. Somehow he managed to convince himself and his disciples to go along with it all: a testament to the power of a narrative over a self-selected group of zealots.

They practiced diligently and followed the master for who knows how long. The whole group believed that Kiai was real and that it worked; so much so that the old master offered a $5,000 bounty to anyone who could beat him. He was so convinced of his powers that when a mixed martial arts bloke turned up to claim the prize the sensei invited an audience to witness the event and even had a TV crew record it. In what must have been a surprise only to those under the spell of their groupthink, the MMA fighter took only a few seconds to knock out the sensei. The 3-minute YouTube clip below conveys the whole fascinating story. 

It seems to me that today's combined West is just like that sensei. Tragically, it looks like they won't stop until they're knocked out cold. What’s worse is that besides foreign policy, we’re likely being lead by similar, out of control zealots in other spheres like economics, military, monetary policy, history, art, medicine, education, climate science, law enforcement, justice, academia, technology, migrations and others. Gradually, the rise of zealots is imperceptibly shaping the present and the future of our societies, the phenomenon that’s now even visible in modern art and architecture and audible in modern music. In foreign policy and warfare it’s discernible in massive human tragedies and gratuitous bloodshed.

We have a choice here. We can watch this passively and shrug our shoulders, or we can take action and correct the course. It is high time today for the silent majority of smart, competent people to put the zealots in their place and pull ourselves away from the brink of disaster.

Alex Krainer – @NakedHedgie is the creator of I-System Trend Following and publisher of daily TrendCompass investor reports which cover over 200 financial and commodities markets. One-month test drive is always free of charge, no jumping through hoops to cancel. To start your trial subscription, drop us an email at TrendCompass@ISystem-TF.com

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