G: “Colonialism is back on the menu.”
M: “This time anti-colonialism will have a harder time getting the upper hand.”
C: “Does that mean terrorism is back on the menu? Colonies have a penchant for fighting back.”
M: “About the peace deal, why would Israel consent to anything? They feel they are winning important gains.”
C: “Why would Iran? They know standing down is the road to economic serfdom.”
M: “Iran was never a colony formally. Granted, they have not always been able to control their own land.”
C: “Colonialism has changed its nature too. Isn’t it colonialism also when we stronghold a country to sell us their oil and open their straits to traffic?”
M: “In some sense, but couldn’t it just as well be argued that the world community demanded responsibility in sharing of resources? Such debates really come without pre-made answers.”
Gerald was reclining in the chair looking attentive while struggling with a feeling that power politics was nothing but a slippery eel that resisted any true grip.
G: “Isn’t that what politics is really about? Brinkmanship to the point that we all have to choose. The choice we make is the real election: The ethical choice that we would never have made, had history not forced our hand. A choice thrusted upon us with no option for blank voting.”
Christine didn’t expect the conversation to evolve so quickly.
M: “In our case, the choice becomes whether we invent a standard and force it upon others, even though they can justifiably argue that that standard serves its originators more than the periphery.”
C: “Gerald, is that a cynical thought or is it something you see as true and just?”
G: “Oh Christine, I may be old but I feel disgusted by politics as much as you do. Perhaps my age has made me see my own hand in the events as well. Ultimately you and I are as much driven by fear as any political leader. How would you characterise yourself: Political realist or idealist?”
C: “Is there a comment about my age waiting in line? I am young enough to believe in peace and old enough to see no clear road to that goal. I am well aware that we are kept in a perpetual state of alarm by cynical governments and oligarchs who prefer us to be emotionally overwhelmed to the degree that our body and brain runs on autopilot.”
M: “Don’t for a second think that world leaders are above that state. A typical think tank will never talk about ethics but necessity. You want an arbitrary example? Mackinder’s Nightmare” is written in 2019 and still you can hear to voices of theoretical minds that harkens back to those same roots that include Karl Haushofer, who in vain tried to explain his theories to Hitler."
G: “Mackinder talks about controlling the Heartland, Haushofer about Lebensraum and Spykman about controlling the Rimland. If you control one or the other, you effectively control the world. There is nothing sinister about those theories. It is when they guide a foreign policy that they become recipes for expansionism. The real question is one of ethics. Having a theory of how to control the world is different from setting out to conquer it.”
M: “The real question is what should we do if we see another country reaching for world domination? Aren’t most power grabs at the core perpetrated by people who live in a them-or-us reality?”
C: “The “Unless we gain control, someone else will and use it to our disadvantage” trope.”
G: “Geopolitics is alive and well today. Already at Spykman’s time the idea of Mackinders land connection was placed next to sea lanes and other means of transport, which is why Spykman saw the key being the coastal areas, not the deep parts of a country. Today it seems to have been expanded to involve abstract space as well, economic space and informational shipping lanes. Conquering land is less essential now.”
C: “But if the same eagerness to secure the space prevails, we can expect that quest to transform into newer suitable domains. Do we? Which country today holds hegemony in the information landscape? Wouldn’t that rather be one or even many non-state actors?”
G: “I’d say that’s a valid point. To me, geopolitics is a way of analysing the urges and yearnings of those involved from individuals to countries or even whole regions or cultures.”
M: “Gerald and Christine, I suspect you both have an odd feeling of losing something along the way of the discussion. To me, it seems more lucrative to ask the question: What is being buried under a given rhetoric. Look at the headlines:”
WHITEHOUSE.GOV:
Americans Agree that Operation Epic Fury Is an Overwhelming Success
CNN Is Lying to Undermine Operation Epic Fury’s Crushing Success
Operation Epic Fury: Unmatched Power, Unrelenting Force of America’s Warriors
C: “Unstoppable.”
M: “We think in me-the-feeble-individual vs them-the-strong-group binaries. Sitting at home with your doubts and reading those statements makes you feel sickly in case you already had moral scruples about the operation. What are you other than a bent cog in the machine? A piece that no longer fits.”
G: “Ukrainian reports on their military technological advances:”
The enemy’s losses from Ukrainian unmanned systems increased by 29% in a month – Syrskyi
Great Britain will sign a “multi-million” contract for interceptor missiles “Shahediv”
Sky veteran: the Shark UAV, which has more than 300 flight hours, was transferred to the War Museum
C: “War is not the scariest. It can be managed as a business.”
G: “The weapons industry has a familiar face.”
M: “Facades. We are categorising facades.”
G: “Which got me thinking. While Trump still dreams of becoming the peace broker in the Russo-Ukraine war, Ukrainians have learned that they can fight back. Their AI drone industry develops alongside with the Russian ditto in a real-life situation rather than a simulation.”
M: “Trump is woefully unaware how the situation on the ground has evolved.”
G: “Ukraine may be torn by war, but the war has also changed pace. It is slowing down, while both Russian and Ukraine are turbo-boosting their drone R&D.
The massive investment in Ukraine by USA and Europe has born a surprising fruit. Now Ukraine may very well end up with a competitive advantage in drone development that will shape the commercial landscape for years to come.”
C: “They need cash. Why give away knowhow when you can earn insanely on drones?”
They gave it a break for now and got up from their seats.
Fear and deterrents
They reconvened the next day for a brief comment.
G: “Middle Eastern history: As a consequence of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the 1956 Suez Crisis war, and probably also earlier events, Jews started to massively migrate out of Arab territories as well.
The moral of the story is, like Miranda suggested a few days ago, that once we gain a political identity, the real trouble begins. Arabs seeing themselves as Arabs in opposition to Israelis will slowly turn on those representative Jews living amongst them until the atmosphere becomes so hostile the latter prefer to migrate.
I myself disagree. Yes, trouble start, but so do solutions. The very reason we gain a political identity is so we can take our lives into our own hands.”
M: “I could raise your critique to a higher level: We are feeble. We are always so feeble in our existence, BOTH as individuals AND as a collective, that we seek to overcompensate. We are always in an EXISTENTIAL struggle. Have you noticed?
One example would be when Israel, one of the victors of the 1948 war, lived in dread that the gains from that war could be reversed. After all, Israel was little else than an umbrella shielding an ever increasing flow of immigrants from all parts of the world. The leadership had to instil confidence in the security of the countryside, otherwise they would all flee to town. So what did they do?”
G: “They tried to combat Palestinian attacks, which they saw as terrorists attack, by striking targets in neighbouring countries. Sorry, Mister Jordan and Mister Gaza. But you seem to house terrorists.
And yet, the logic makes perfect sense if you fear everything in your country can unravel. Notice that: Not an imminent threat, not something that passes the Caroline test. Slow unravel. Weimar-style disintegration. Civil war-style dissolution.”
C: “Why is it that we always seem to think that violence is a deterrent? As far as I can reckon, it is usually when someone resort to violence to “deter” that their opponent galvanises and becomes a future hardened foe.”
Out of words and tired, they couldn’t keep the conversation going.
A talk about journalism.
Next afternoon began even less eventful.
Miranda decided to continue browsing through various media front pages.
M: “Ukraine has earned its independence through fighting an unlawful enemy. That is the essence of the facade you get on this site.”
(2026)
Help or give up: why the West should recognize the possibility of Ukraine’s victory
Scholz: Russia must accept a comprehensive ceasefire and the war must end
(2025)
The Czech president does not believe that Russia is now winning the war
The head of the Estonian Foreign Ministry on the strike on Kyiv: Russia shows no signs of de-escalation
Poland said that the attacks on Sumy and Kryvyi Rih are Russia’s mocking response to peace initiatives
G: “Chiming in with a facade reading: There are setbacks and progresses, but across the hemisphere, Ukraine is supported.”
C: “But, isn’t that true?”
M: “Of course it is. Otherwise it would be disinformation. Note how those headlines constitute a reality all by themselves? They are truly impartial in selection, sober in factuality, above mere propaganda. They represent a section of reality in its sincerest incarnation. And yet, even though the author is beyond reproach, the receiver is changed.”
G: “Violence through reality.”
M: “Gerald is right. The headlines are of course propagandistic, but it is expected propaganda, just like you expect a salesman to believe the car you look at is really damn good. We know what propaganda looks like and of course we see the similarities with Russian state propaganda and US, British, EU and Ukrainian ditto. It’s patriotic, it expresses sympathetic antipathy against foreign foes.”
C: “So we compensate a little bit. We distance ourselves from the content well aware that the truth is “somewhere in between”, right?”
M: “Everybody knows that propaganda looks like. Nobody knows what to do with it. What is going on here? What is scary about admitting that other people hold other grudges and have different takes on where the injustice is in the world? Propaganda is just a conscientious assemblage of ideas about the world such as it can be expected that the consumers of those ideas would expect.”
G: “If I may, Miranda… Read through the front page of a proper news media like BBC, Pravda or any other. How would you picture the person assembling these headlines?”
C: “Balanced, with journalistic integrity, not shy about exposing weaknesses when they appear.”
G: “That is the real work of propaganda: The way we picture the sources of the news.”
C: “That is a ridiculous thought.”
M: “Gerald is pointing out that below the surface we are simultaneously looking for allies, for ones to form sympathetic bonds with. Some prefer the tabloid for their frankness which feels less false than balanced language. Some prefer the opposite, a source of news that is uninfluenced by baser emotions.”
C: “Okay, so let’s analyse like that. Here is an article that show how hardline Israelis are thinking:”
On the morning of April 7, 2026, Eastern US time, Trump declared publicly: “An entire civilization will die tonight […]”
However,
instead of carrying out the fateful threat, Trump retreated.It was a rare window of opportunity. A combination of the entry of the Kurds and other minorities into a ground campaign, together with massive aerial strikes by the United States and Israel,could have stirred the Iranian people to pour into the streets in large numbers and bring about the overthrow of the regime.[…]
The meaning of this move is destructive: in making this decision,
Trump granted de facto recognition to the legitimacy of the extremist regime in Iran.
C: “This to me is exactly the kind of opinion piece that I think we need to treat as dangerous. In the author’s mind, the Iranian regime has no legitimacy. Shake it with bombs and the weak regime will topple and the country’s own citizens will help.”
G: “Right off the bat I agree. It sounds like wishful thinking on his part. The subdued people will hail us as liberators.”
M: “At least he is honest. I’d take articles like his anytime over the wall of indisputability of an EU organ, a Ukrainian Pravda, a NY Times, perhaps even a White House website, which now has made impulsivity a formula.”
G: “I happen to like a dry and serious approach.”
C: “Hey, it looks like Hungary is heading for a change now. Another swing state in the east vs west drama. Looks bad for the former Soviet.”
M: “The wall is closing around us. Indisputability has spoken.”
G: “You don’t believe in utopias, Miranda?”
M: “I don’t believe in simple explanations.”
C: “Why isn’t it a simple explanation that died in Hungary with Orbán? Who has ever accused a conservative of being a sophisticated person?”
G: “See how the good side of the force is even more judgmental?”
Christine ignored the remark.
M: “While I loathe the juvenile pretentiousness of Trump and his cronies, I fear the policies nobody can speak against. Democracy may be backsliding across Europe, but so is personality.”
C: “At least identity is on the rise.”
/ПРИЗРАК