Book Review: The Great Delusion – Liberal Dreams and International Realities – John Mearsheimer

This book was published in 2018, after the Russian annexation of Crimea and before the current war. The essential theme of the book is that after the Cold War ended the US became the sole superpower. It used this status to spread liberalism around the world. However, this project has not been successful and is likely, despite the beliefs of its proponents, to lead to more war and conflict, not less.

Mearsheimer considers three “isms”; liberalism, nationalism and realism. He thinks that liberals overestimate the appeal of their key tenet, rights of the individual, and underestimate the appeal and force of nationalism. Mearsheimer believes that states act based on the survival principle. This leads them to want to become more powerful than other states so as to survive. They do not pay much attention to “international law” when what they see as their key security interests are at stake. In international affairs realism and nationalism outweigh liberalism in the calculations of states. Liberalism works internally; however it does not work as an ideology to mediate relations between states. Realism is not a happy philosophy; according to realism wars are baked into the system of nation states and some wars are unavoidable. But, the liberal project to export liberalism all over the globe in the belief that this will lead to peace is a delusion. It will lead to more wars than a realist policy.

What follows is a brief outline of the ideas and argument of the book on a chapter by chapter basis.

Continue reading “Book Review: The Great Delusion – Liberal Dreams and International Realities – John Mearsheimer”

Why suppress the lab leak theory?

I have long been puzzling over why the corporate media and government agencies (e.g. Fauci) have been so keen to suppress the lab leak theory, trying and failing to characterise it as a “conspiracy theory”. The current state of play on this is that while the FBI and other US agencies have indicated that it probably was a lab leak (not all US intelligence agencies concur) and, apparently in the UK the government has basically accepted this, there is a very active campaign driven by some within the world of academic research and much of the corporate media to push back. Why?

Well – the dangerous research was being funded by a US government agency; that might be one reason. But that still doesn’t persuade me. Nor does the view that Trump was associated with the lab leak theory and this has discredited it.

But look at this. The claim from Moderna is that mRNA type vaccines have wide applicability for all kinds of diseases including a technique of creating personalised vaccines. Pfizer is also apparently involved in seeing what can be done with mRNA type vaccines. Read the article carefully. Imagine the ginormous sums of money that are involved here. Almost as much as if they really were promising eternal life.

Now; would you want that potentially spoilt by it being proved that the source of the pandemic was US sponsored biotech research? Would there not be at least a fear that this revelation would lead to huge public blow-back against virology and genetic technology and all related fields, including mRNA vaccines which were linked to Covid?

Notice the call in the article for “maintaining a high level of investment”.

The reason the lab leak is being suppressed in the West is because they (the corporate world, pharma and academic biotech worlds) are protecting the vast potential profits to be made from this kind of work – playing with genes, or biotech. The next century will probably be ruled by biotech and computing – just as oil and gas has ruled the last. They probably figure; in the great scheme of things what is 6 million (mostly elderly people) dead when you look at ‘what this technology can do for mankind’ (aka. our bank balances).

The lies that lead to war

This example is in itself hardly worth mentioning. It is completely routine. But it is the routineness by which it works.

Crimea has been under Russian occupation since February 2014 and was illegally annexed by Moscow the following month after a mock referendum

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/06/ukraine-talks-crimea-russia-zelenskiy

This appears in a Guardian article reporting on an apparent statement by an adviser to Zelenskii that Ukraine could be ready to negotiate about Crimea.

What is meant by “mock” referendum exactly? It doesn’t really matter – the idea is simply to discredit it – and thus the Russian annexation of Crimea. (When the referendum happened and it was being observed by Western mainstream journalists attempts to discredit became almost surreal including for example a complaint from AFP that officials wrote down voters’ names in purple ink).

But, once again; 60% of the population of Crimea is ethnic Russian. The area, along with the East of Ukraine in general, was much more supportive of Yanukovych who ultimately ditched the EU Association Agreement, and the Party of the Regions than the West of Ukraine. Multiple Western opinion polls confirmed the same figure as the “mock” referendum – 80% of the overall adult population was in favour of joining Russia. Clearly the “mock” referendum was in fact an accurate reflection of public opinion.

It seems to me that this casual dismissal of any facts which counter the narrative is absolutely instrumental in forcing war. The journalists who do this are essentially agitating for war. For people to die. And to die not for truth but for lies. Don’t they think?

That I criticise Western political-media narrative distortions does not mean that I side with Russia particularly. But I do think that if the Western media and political classes would stop trying to deny and suppress all information about the validity of Russia’s position, where that is valid, that would create a space for negotiations. This is why they don’t do it of course.