Most of you are familiar with the term “geopolitics”, a term taken from John Mackinder and weaponized by Alexander Dugin, who then, through Arktos and the social connections tied to that publisher, spread the concept throughout the right. With the current war in Ukraine, those outside the right are becoming increasingly familiar with the idea. Before contrasting it with planetary politics, a phrase used most famously by Panagiotis Kondlyis, let us briefly say what geopolitics is.
Starting with the root, geo, we see that whatever geopolitics is, it has something to do with the earth. What is the earth? Land and sea. So, geopolitics is the struggle between land power and sea power. It is really that simple. Unlike normal politics, in which a country wrestles over internal disputes, or goes to war with a neighboring power, geopolitics is the conflict between a land power and a sea power. Russia is a land power, whereas America and The United Kingdom are sea powers. What sets the two apart is the emphasis on trade, which the sea power, by nature of having access to the sea, relies heavily on. Relying on trade, the sea power is expansionistic and inherently economic. A land power, in contrast, does not have access to the sea that a sea power does, and is, thus, less economic, less expansionistic, and more focused on solidifying existing structures (culture, language, philosophy, etc.) Water flows, earth stays. Water is connectivity, earth is solidity. England produced industry; Germany gave us Hegel.
Now, “geopolitics” is not always used to describe the conflict between land and sea, but in its original sense, in the sense that the University of Chicago or Moscow State Institute of International Relations uses it, geopolitics is the struggle between land and sea. Even if used differently, perhaps to describe The United States’ relationship to South America, it will reduce to, it will be traced to, a sea power’s relationship with a continent rather than a land power’s relationship with that continent, as it was with the Monroe Doctrine.
If geopolitics has subsumed (national) politics, planetary politics has subsumed geopolitics. Rather than privileging the struggle within, or between, nations, as politics does, or between land and sea power, as geopolitics does, the privileged struggle in planetary politics is between Earth and the impending Martian invasion.
Just kidding. That would be kind of cool though. The privileged struggle is over who will rule the globe. Our friends over at Esoterica Americana penned a piece on The World System that puts this in good perspective. Look at this picture:
The Anglo-Wizardry of Christopher Sandbatch converted the globe into a single system, decked out in the language of Carrol Quigley.
We are beyond the point of geo-factions having lasting rule. There cannot be, as much as Dugin might proclaim, a multipolar world. For economic and spiritual reasons, there must be a world system.
1.) The Economic Reason
As the world is now, the economy of the smallest town in America is connected to the economy of faraway countries. Most restaurants near me source their shrimp and snails from Indonesia, for example. Maybe we do not want our shrimp and snails to come from overseas, or maybe just not Indonesia, but so long as it does, my town’s restaurants have a vested interest in Indonesia staying solvent. Going to other towns, other states, and other countries, similar phenomena can be found. Since any given country has something that it exports, and that this something is important to some part of the world economy, heads of state have a vested interest in making sure that the world stays relatively stable. “Relatively stable” has wiggle room, as you might gather. Dictatorships and riots, to name two, are permissible so long as they do not interfere with the global system. Depressions or civil wars, however, are good candidates for instability and must be stopped, or at the very least minimized.
To add to this, the value of a country’s currency is, not exclusively, but largely, based on what market it is attached to. The USD, for example, opens up the American market. If you produce a car, you want to sell it in America because of 1) its car culture 2) its large middle class and 3) its relatively high trust society. To sell something in America, if you are exporting to the country, you have to use the USD. Since the USD is the world reserve currency, and since the strength of a currency is tied to the market it opens up, then we can safely say that the world wants access to America’s markets. Reworded in terms of the world system: the world economy is based in America for a number of reasons, but two of these are its large middle class and its relatively high trust.
To sum up, the smallest town in America is dependent on markets across the ocean and the markets of the world—the world market to be exact—are dependent upon America staying solvent. Lest the world market collapse (and this means gigadeath folks, it means mass starvation), America needs to stay solvent, and the countries of the world need to stay “relatively stable.” Somebody needs to maintain these two requirements; somebody needs to make sure that Atlas does not shrug.
2.) The Spiritual Reason
It has been a long time since we dusted off Evola (and we will soon see why we put him on the shelf), he has an insight into the spiritual meaning behind politics, geopolitics, and planetary politics. In Men Among the Ruins, Evola says, “The notions of nation, fatherland, and people, despite their romantic and idealistic halo, essentially belong to the naturalistic and biological plane and not the political one; they lead back to the ‘maternal’ and physical dimension of a given collectivity.”1 Nations, the center of politics, or civilizations understood within the constraints of environment or biology, the center of geopolitics, are products of mother earth. It is from the womb or the ground that politics and geopolitics, respectively, are birthed. Maternal politics is contrasted with paternal politics (we could also frame this as Sybillian versus Apollonian), when Evola describes the later as “a bond of men sharing the same idea and loyalty, pursuing the same goal, and obeying the same inner law reflected in a specific political and social ideal.”2 Evola then contrasts Rome with the maternal idea, “Thus it would be absurd, for instance, to call ancient Rome a ‘nation’ in the modern sense of the word: one could refer to it as a ‘spiritual nation’ or as a unity defined by the ‘Roman Man’.”3
Opposed to legitimizing itself by the womb (politics) or the ground (geopolitics), planetary politics, the world system, imperium, etc., legitimizes itself from above, from an ideal that Man is always reaching up towards. What this ideal is depends on the world system and could be anything from Common Law to Christianity to Communism, but it is, nevertheless, and ideal reached up towards, rather than something down in the earth or in the womb.
Kondlyis, coming from the (political) realist school of thought, tells in The Political in the 20th Century, that the overarching idea behind empires is not always as honest as Evola would have us believe:
“The ideological character of these social theories is proved, in addition, by the following fact: none of them has been used until today as the conceptual, at least, context or framework of a serious analysis of the present and the future of our planetary world. They synopsize in terms of theory our planetary world’s ideational (ideal) self-understanding from the Western point of view, and even though, from time to time, they ascertain that between this self-understanding and today’s reality, there exists some sort of distance, nonetheless, they profess that the core and large sections of today’s reality contain clear propensities and tendencies which are capable of leading us sooner or later to the point which the ideational (ideal) self-understanding (of the West) shows. As much as benefits the self-serving (self-interested, self-seeking), the naive propagandize (or: All that benefits the selfish, the naive propagandize). However, the selfish do not only have the legitimizing needs, which the naive satisfy; they have practical needs, they must therefore, in contrast to their intellectuals, act continuously in specific, concrete situations, wherein enormous economic and strategic interests are at stake. When e.g., the American Pentagon draws up its plans, which already reach deep inside the 21st century, they do not of course call upon either Rawls, or Habermas, or moral (ethical) philosophers to listen to and follow their (pieces of) advice. In the carving out and the exercising of politics, the nebulae are dissolved, and the jokes stop, and tangible data and visible trends are weighed up. Universalistic ideologies do not portend the real transition to a universalism of equivalent groups and individuals. Because, theoretically, universalistic ideologies apply to everyone, in practice however, they are bindingly interpreted by the powerful (strong and mighty) and they open for the powerful the doors to whatever interventions the powerful judge as expedient wherever. Whatever “proletarian internationalism” was for Russian communists yesterday, “human rights” are for Americans today. And in the 21st century, as always in the past, whichever Power is in a position to bindingly define for the rest, the content and practical application of the dominant concepts (read: ideologeme(e)s), will determine History.”4
While it is certainly possible that social theories (the overarching idea Evola was talking about) are sincerely believed, even sincerely held beliefs can be used for self-justification. The utilization of ideas does not negate the possibility of sincere belief (maybe proletarian internationalism or human rights are something more than spiritual weapons), but in the messy world of politics it must be admitted that people do utilize ideas and with this admission comes the imperative to be discerning.
Planetary Politics
Even if we do not want to be, we are living in the world of planetary politics. Our world market necessitates it, shows that we are already in it, and lest we revert to Mother Earth, we should desire it. My suspicion is that many (but not all) of those opposed to planetary politics are only opposed in word and use their word to justify their own planetary vision. Dugin’s emphasis on multipolarity, I can only conclude, is a spiritual weapon of the kind that Kondlyis describes, an ideological justification for world domination while maintaining the exact opposite. If Eurasia becomes one, if China and possibly Japan and India become integrated into Eurasia (as they are currently integrated into America’s sphere of influence), then what is America left with besides South America? If Europe and Asia (keeping in mind that should China turn, most of Africa would turn) combine, then what is there to stop the America to come within Eurasia’s sphere? Sandbatch again provides us with valuable insight by telling how the current struggle between America and Russia goes back to the 19th century with The Great Game. Both Anglos and the Rus have been fighting for world dominance and neither look like they will give up anytime soon.
We have only described the current situation here and did not give much by way of proscription. If we are to give proscription, then here are three questions simply to make you think, rather than give any hard and fast answers:
1.) How do we make sure the world system is a force for good?
2.) What idea ought the world system be founded on?
3.) How do we keep the world system functioning?
Evola, Julius. Translated by Guido Stucco. Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of A Radical Traditionalist. Inner Traditions Publishing. Rochester: Vermont. 2002. 127
Evola, Julius. Translated by Guido Stucco. Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of A Radical Traditionalist. Inner Traditions Publishing. Rochester: Vermont. 2002. 129
Evola, Men Among the Ruins. 129
Kondlyis, Panagiotis. The Political in the 20th Century. Anutius Verlag, Heidelberg, 2001. 9
Of course Dugin has no idea what he is talking about, again.