The Last World War: The U.S. To Move and Lose
Book Notes #27
The Last World War by Sergey Glazyev is a combination of geopolitics and economics that contains a well-thought out model of future wars and economics based on cyclic technological and economic paradigms. It alternates between theory, history, and contemporary events in Ukraine. It can also be described as a study in Russian Boomer Truth, which will become evident shortly.
This review will mostly be summary and not commentary, since the perspective is alien and mostly on subjects outside of my expertise. There is plenty of content in the book excoriating the West and describing its debauched tactics, but you’re not here for rank punditry like that, so I’ll mostly try to pull out the useful parts of the “Russian perspective” from this 500-page book.
https://eec.eaeunion.org/en/comission/member/glazev-sergey-yurevich/
Glazyev is well-versed in economics and geopolitics, referencing the Heartland of the World Island theory, for example, in the Introduction (p. 12):
“Russian geopolitics has always been substantive and was determined either by internal needs ("to cut a window through to Europe") or by external threats (to accept the oppressed fraternal peoples under the protection of the White Tsar). Therefore, the abstract constructions of Western political thought seem enigmatic and obscure to the Russian mind.”
The Russians basically have their own “Boomer Truth Regime” that centers on WWII and the “eternal anglo.” Summarizing his historiography:
“As for Britain, it has always remained outside the combat operations zone, actively participating in them on foreign territory. Likewise, the inhabitants of the U.S. also escaped the horrors of two world wars, considering themselves nonetheless their winners. One cannot help wondering about the secret of the Anglo-Saxon geopolitics, which allows them for more than two centuries by now to dominate the greater part of the planet, to wage wars on all continents, and never once during this period to admit the enemy on their territory.
This question is not quite simple as it could seem. At least twice – Napoleon in 1812, and Hitler in 1940 – the adversaries of Great Britain had enough power to crush it. But they attacked Russia instead, leaving their back open to the British. . . .
As a result of the defeat of Napoleon’s Europe, Britain took control of the European market and became the "queen of the seas," eliminating its main competitor in the struggle for overseas colonies. The First World War resulted in collapse of all monarchial empires that remained in Europe, the territory of which, with the exception of Soviet Russia, was left completely open to be developed by English capital. . . .
Of course, historians will find many explanations to all these events. Nevertheless, the fact remains that they represented a striking success of British geopolitics on the one hand, and the Russian losses from involvement in it on the other hand. This concerns other countries as well, for which a cooperation with the British turned into disasters. As was wisely noted by the Russian geopolitician Alexei Edrikhin (Vandam): "There can only be one thing worse than enmity with an Anglo-Saxon, that is, friendship with him"”
None of that is particularly objectionable in terms of the historical facts, but you can see how the specter of Great Britain lies behind all the historical events that negatively impacted Russia.
On Russia’s relationship to its clients, Glazyev writes (p. 16):
“Tsars responded to pleas of the oppressed peoples, accepting them as their subjects and helping in development. Russia considered itself responsible for the entire Orthodox and Slavic world, sacrificing many Russian soldiers to protect Georgia from the belligerent Caucasian tribes and free the Balkans from the Ottoman yoke. And it completely lost its head getting involved in the world war because of the Austrian threat to Serbian autonomy, and the obsession to drive the Turks from Constantinople and the straits. The USSR was waging a grueling struggle to build socialism on all the continents of the planet, helping the communist parties, national liberation movements and socialism-oriented developing nations. In the end, it got stuck in Afghanistan in order to neutralize the dubious threat of interception of control over this country by the U.S.
In other words, Russian geopolitics has always been directed toward helping the fraternal peoples. Unlike the English, who practiced slave trade in their colonies, the peoples of the territories that joined the Russian Empire were not discriminated against, and their leaders were included in the Russian ruling elite. In the USSR, the priority was given to improvement of its remote parts – indeed, the Soviet empire was the only one in the world that developed its "colonies" at the expense of the center, and did not derive super-profits from them, as was done by the British in India, China, Africa and America.”
This is pretty typical Russian Boomer Truth, the likes of which you see from Alexander Dugin. Most Americans would laugh at this historiography, but of course they believe in the just as ridiculous inverse of this narrative. The idea that the Americans or Russians are unequivocally the “good guys” and the other side the “bad guys” is ridiculous no matter which way you slice it.
Glazyev also displays the typical Russians Boomer Truth obsession with “fascism” as well as conspiracy theories about how British and American secret services were responsible for bringing down their empires (p. 18):
“The Anglo-Saxons behaved differently. While the Russians shed blood dragging German forces from the Western Front in the First World War, the British secret services were preparing a revolution in Petersburg. Pulling the Russian emperor into an alliance and into a war against Germany, the British simultaneously planned his dethronement. Entangling the Russian establishment with Masonic networks, recruiting generals and politicians, seizing control over the media, discrediting and physically eliminating influential opponents, British geopoliticians made considerable progress in manipulating the Russian nitty-gritty of politics. The assassination of Stolypin opened for them the way to prepare the Russian ruling elite to the war, and the elimination of Rasputin by an English spy – the way to revolution. All the fatal mistakes made by the Tsar were played against him as slick as slick can be. By killing the heir to the Austrian throne in Sarajevo, the organizers of the war unerringly triggered the decision of the Russian Tsar to mobilize, unleashing a ultrapatriotic hysteria through the media. Likewise, two and a half years later they provoked a riot in Petersburg and a conspiracy of the military and political elite against the Tsar, which ended with his abdication and subsequent collapse of the monarchy. Thus far, enough data has been accumulated to confirm the critical importance of British geopolitics in unleashing the First World War by manipulating the ruling circles of the countries participating in it, as well as in organizing the February Revolution in Russia. The conduct of Anglo-Saxons was not any better on the eve of and during the Second World War. Favorably taking the seizure of power in Germany by the Nazis, the U.S.-British oligarchy continued to invest heavily in German industry, having pumped in its modernization about 2 trillion USD, in terms of modern prices.”
I don’t think I need to spend any effort here directly addressing that.
“However, the U.S. did not have time to help Germany, as the Red Army was advancing too fast. . . . Despite the fact that the German troops, as is known, did not put up a serious resistance against the Anglo-American troops, the rapid advance of the Red Army towards Berlin thwarted these insidious plans. Nevertheless, Yankees let many fascists remain in the ranks to prepare for a new war against the USSR. Likewise, they rescued tens of thousands of Nazi collaborators, taking them out of Ukraine to be used against the Soviet Union. They proved useful, however, only after its disintegration, to nurture Ukrainian Nazism in order to draw Russia into a new war with the Europe united by NATO. The very collapse of the USSR involved an active participation of the U.S. secret services. It is enough to read the book of P. Schweitzer "Victory, to be convinced of the fundamental role of the U.S. secret services in the USSR collapse. Again, we have to marvel at their artful and systemic approach as opposed to our naïveté and helplessness.
The reasoning that the Soviet Union collapsed under the pressure of internal problems has not a leg to stand on. The recession which first occurred in its centrally planned economy in the late 1980s, is not to be compared with the collapse of the early 1990s. Discontent of the population with shortage of essential goods and queue lines pales in comparison with a drastic drop in consumption and living standards after shock therapy in the transition to a market economy. After the Chinese economic miracle, it can be reliably asserted that if the Soviet and then the post-Soviet leadership had chosen a gradual path of successive formation of market mechanisms and creation of conditions for private entrepreneurship while maintaining state control, ownership and planning in basic and infrastructure sectors, including the banking sector and the media, then the disaster would not have happened. Not China, but the USSR would have become the nucleus of the formation of a new world economic paradigm based on the theory developed by a number of Soviet and American scientists of the convergence (combination) of capitalist and socialist economic development mechanisms premised on harmonization of private and public interests under government control.”
He then writes how the Russian elites were seduced by “universal human values” and “human rights” from the West; how Gorbachev was set up to be paralyzed and make way for the American secret service backed Yeltsin.
I don’t think I need to spend much time addressing this either; suffice to say, yes, certain concepts at a high level were brought into the Soviet Union from the West, by the doing of the likes of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. But to say this collapse was not because of internal problems, which necessarily leads us to assume it was external problems, is obvious the historical take that “has not a leg to stand on.” Even admitting the “externality” of these ideas, the Soviet leaders weren’t “seduced” or “tricked” by Western ideas, especially at the hands of American secret services. The previous book I reviewed on this contains quite a bit of information on the real internal problems the Soviet Union had. Was it destined to collapse? No. It certainly collapsed at that time due to Gorbachev’s actions; but I think I need not belabor this.
We should also note his use of the term “economic paradigm” above, which is actually quite an essential concept to his overall theory. More on that later.
When he gets to contemporary history, Glazyev starts to make more sense. Putin stabilized the disaster left by Yeltsin and Western exploitation, and the west is trying to destroy Russia for geopolitical reasons (p. 27):
“It’s not a matter of restraining Russia. The stakes are much higher. This is a battle for global leadership, in which the U.S. hegemony is being undermined by China’s growing influence. The U.S. loses this fight, which provokes the aggression of their ruling elite. Its object has become Russia which, in accordance with the European geopolitical tradition, is regarded as the possessor of the mythological "Heartland," domination over which, according to the conviction of Anglo-German geopoliticians, provides control over the world.”
Now, we get to some essentials. In a nutshell, this is basically the entire concept of the book (p. 28):
“The current escalation of international military and political tensions is caused by a change in technological and world economic paradigms, in the course of which a profound structural reorganization of the economy takes place based on conceptually new technologies and new mechanisms for reproduction of capital.”
We may as well at this point read a summary of his economic outlook, since it also explains what an “integral” or “integrated” economic paradigm is, which is a term he will use frequently (p. 28):
“Modern studies of long-term laws of economic development make it possible to convincingly explain the ongoing crisis processes, both in the global and in the national economy. Such phenomena as hikes and drops of oil prices, inflation of financial bubbles, a decline in production in the main sectors of the economy that led to depression in the advanced countries, along with the rapid spread of new technologies and the rise of catching countries, have been predicted in advance by the theory of long waves. On this basis, recommendations were developed in the field of economic policy, and a strategy of advanced development was defined providing for creation of conditions for the growth of a new technological paradigm.
However, the recommendations of Russian scientists working within the evolutionary economy paradigm were ignored by the ruling elite blindfolded by the market fundamentalism doctrine. The economy went through a series of artificially created crises and lost a significant part of the national income due to the nonequivalent foreign economic exchange, degrading in the aftermath. The scientific and technical potential available in the Russian economy has not been utilized. Instead of a rise on a new long wave of global economic growth, it came off into a crisis, accompanied by a degradation of the remaining scientific and technological potential, and a growing technological lag versus both advanced and successfully developing countries. Among the latter, particular success has been achieved by China, the leadership of which has been acting in accordance with the above-mentioned strategy of outstripping development of a new technological paradigm with simultaneous modernization of traditional industries on it basis.
All the "objective" explanations for the high growth rates of the Chinese economy by its original backwardness are partly true. Partly, because they ignore the main thing – the creative approach of the Chinese leadership to building a new system of production relations which, as the Chinese economy advances to the leading position in the world, becomes more self-sufficient and more attractive. The Chinese themselves call their formation a socialist one, developing at the same time private entrepreneurship and growing capitalist corporations. At the same time, the Communist leadership of China continues to build socialism, avoiding ideological clichés. They prefer to formulate tasks in terms of national welfare, setting objectives to overcome poverty and create a society of average prosperity, and in the future, to achieve the world’s foremost standards of living. In so doing, they try to avoid excessive social inequality, preserving the labor base for the distribution of national income and directing the institutions of economic regulation towards productive activities and long-term investments in the development of productive forces. This is a common special feature of the countries forming the core of the Asian cycle of capital accumulation, or, in our terminology, an integrated world economic paradigm
Regardless of the dominant form of ownership – public, as in China or Vietnam, or private, as in Japan or Korea, the integrated world economic paradigm is characterized by a combination of governmental planning institutions and market self-organization, public control over the main parameters of the economy reproduction and free entrepreneurship, ideology of public welfare and private initiative. Given that, the forms of political organization can fundamentally differ from the world’s largest Indian democracy to the world’s largest Communist Party of China. The invariable constant is priority of national interests over private ones, which is expressed in strict mechanisms of personal responsibility of citizens for conscientious behavior, proper fulfillment of their duties, compliance with laws, and serving nationwide goals. In this context, the forms of public control can also fundamentally differ, from seppuku committed by top managers of bankrupt banks in Japan to death penalty applied to officials in China who were caught stealing. The social and economic development management system is built on mechanisms of personal responsibility for enhancing the national welfare.
The primacy of public interests over private ones is expressed in the institutional structure of economic regulation typical for the integrated world economic paradigm. First and foremost, in the state control over the basic parameters of capital reproduction through mechanisms of planning, credit, subsidizing, pricing, and regulation of basic entrepreneurial conditions. In so doing, the government not so much issues orders as performs a moderator’s role forming mechanisms of social partnership and interaction between the basic social groups. Officials do not try to manage entrepreneurs, instead they organize joint work of business, scientific, engineering communities to form common development goals and elaborate methods for their achievement. The mechanisms for public regulation of the economy are also tuned up to this end.
Of course, the cyclic regularities described above might not work out this time. However, judging by the behavior of the U.S. authorities, they are doing everything possible to cede their leadership to China. The hybrid war launched by them against Russia pushes it toward a strategic alliance with China, increasing the latter’s capabilities.”
What he says here may have some relation to the problem of the “over-accumulation of capital,” as he sees most resources on the planet as being drawn into the U.S. debt pyramid. Presumably, this is a serious negative in his view, because instead of servicing U.S. debt, those resources could be used for scientific and technological advancement (p. 32):
“Nowadays, the U.S. financial empire has become such a restraint, drawing all the resources of the planet into servicing of the ever growing U.S. debt pyramid. The amount of their public debt is increasing exponentially, and the size of all U.S. debt commitments already exceeds by more than an order of magnitude the U.S. GDP, which indicates the imminent collapse of the American, and in the future, of the entire Western financial system.
To avoid the collapse and retain global leadership, the American financial oligarchy seeks to unleash a world war. It would allow writing off debts and maintaining control over the periphery, destroying competitors, or at least deterring them. As always in such cases, in the first instance the war is unfolding for control over the periphery. This explains the U.S. aggression in North Africa, in the Middle East in order to tighten control over this oil-producing region and, at the same time, over Europe. But the direction of the main effort is Russia, because of its key importance in the eyes of the U.S. geopoliticians. Not because of its strengthening, and not as a punishment for reuniting with the Crimea, but because of the traditional Western geopolitical thinking preoccupied with the struggle to retain the world hegemony. And yet again, according to the precepts of Western geopoliticians, the war with Russia begins with a scramble for Ukraine.”
We can again see the Russian Boomer Truth obsession with Nazism here (p. 33):
“For three centuries, Poland at first, then Austria-Hungary, Germany, and now the U.S. have been nurturing the Ukrainian separatism. For this, they constructed the Ukrainian nation – the Russians who hate everything Russian and worship everything European. Until the collapse of the USSR, this project did not have much success, limiting itself to a temporary establishment of the Ukrainian People’s Republic at the point of the German bayonets in 1918, and a formation of the Ukrainian nationalist organizations in 1941-1944 that were subordinate to the occupation authorities. Each time, to keep in power the Ukrainian nationalists raised by them, the Germans resorted to terror against the local population. Beginning with the genocide against the Rusyns organized by the Austrians during the First World War, and ending with mass punitive operations against the population of the Nazi- occupied Ukraine during the Second World War. Today, this tradition is continued by the Americans, who established control over Ukraine after the coup d’état they organized on February 21, 2014, that brought to power the puppet Nazi junta.
Discarding conventionalities, the U.S. secret services organized terror against the Russian population of Ukraine using the Nazis they raised. The Ukrainian neo-fascists, led by the U.S. curators and instructors, commit war crimes in the Donbass, and forcibly mobilize young men "to fight the Russians," sacrificing them to Ukrainian Nazism. The latter has become the ideology of the Ukrainian regime, which derives its origin from Hitler’s henchmen convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal as war criminals.”
We now get to more contemporary geopolitics in relation to the Ukraine and what the U.S. is doing in the Ukraine (p. 33):
“The purpose of the U.S. policy in Ukraine is nether protection of its interests, nor its social and economic development. This goal is reduced to use of the people artificially grown out of those Russians who were duped by Nazi propaganda and believed in their own Ukrainianness as a cannon fodder for unleashing a war against Russia, in the hope of dragging their European NATO partners into this war. Both the First and the Second World War in Europe are considered "good wars" by U.S. historians. They ensured a ramp-up of the U.S. economy due to overseas movement of wealth, capital, intellects and technologies accumulated in Europe. In consequence of these wars, the U.S. escalated to the global leader, having established hegemony over European countries and their former colonies. These days, the American geopolitics again is placing its stake on the incitement of a world war in Europe as a tested means of strengthening its power.”
The author also talks about “hybrid war” which you might otherwise know as “Unrestricted Warfare” (p. 34):
“The availability of mass destruction weapons changes the nature of this war. Experts call it a hybrid war, since not so much military forces as information, financial and cognitive technologies are used to maximally weaken and disorient the enemy. And only when the latter is so demoralized that it cannot provide a worthy resistance, in order to secure the victory and make an example of the recalcitrant, military operations are called into play that savor of punitive actions rather than of combat operations.”
The author describes some basic tacts in this hybrid war, which he will elaborate on later (p. 35):
“On the financial front, the U.S. has a strategic advantage, having the opportunity to emit world money and conduct currency and financial attacks on national economies of any capacity. On the information front, the U.S. reigns supreme over the world of electronic media, dominates the global movie and television market, controls global telecommunications networks. By combining monetary and financial aggression in the economy with informational indoctrination of public opinion, the U.S. can manipulate motives of the behavior of national ruling elites. A key role in this process is played by cognitive weapons, the affection of the consciousness of national leaders by a false understanding of the essence of the ongoing events and the meanings that are necessary for the U.S. aggression.”
He also recognizing that merely knowing about “hybrid war” and its cognitive weapons is not a protection from it, which the same observation made in the book “Unrestricted Warfare” (p. 36):
“Understanding the technology by which cognitive weapons affect consciousness does not give an automatic protection against it. . . . Indirectly recognizing legitimacy of the Ukrainian Nazi regime, we are losing the war on the cognitive and information front as well, handing the strategic initiative over to the enemy.”
The author also observes the basic attitude of U.S. geopoliticans towards Russia (p. 38):
“The space of American hegemony is imminently narrowing. The current ruling elites of the BRICS countries and their integration partners are unlikely to allow themselves to be run by the Anglo-Saxon geopolitics. The secret of its amazing effectiveness, concealed behind the mist of senseless abstractions and high-flown phrases, is very trite – perfidy, meanness and deception. With the exception of Europe and North America, it does not work any longer. Nevertheless, it continues to work partially in the post-Soviet space, making us vulnerable to another Western aggression. This vulnerability gives the U.S. geopoliticians the euphoria of a victory in sight, which makes them extremely self-confident and very dangerous. The Russophobia they inflame can easily ignite a new war in Europe, which will be waged to destroy the Russian World by the hands of Russian people, much to delight of the American and European geopoliticians.”
The author also notes that China is the current leader against the U.S., and that it would be better for Russia to not end up in the same position in relation to China as it is to the U.S.; that is, Second-rate compared to another power. He also makes clear the existential nature of the Ukraine conflict in relation to this, because the Ukraine is critical to Russia being able to build an economic model on its own terms. He describes later in the book how Russia’s economic program is not one of domination but of partnership in a diversified “Eurasian” space, in which Ukraine is a key partner (p. 39):
“Of course, the transition to a new world economic order would not automatically deliver the world from conflicts. The Chinese foreign policy strategy will not necessarily be humanistic, suffice it to read the famous "36 stratagems" to assess the willingness of the Chinese to apply a variety of methods to achieve their interests, including those nowhere near the usual standards of Christian morality. The illusions attributable to the ideology of a radiant communist future for all mankind are alien to the modern Chinese leadership that is building socialism with the characteristic Chinese features, the essence of which is to stiffly pursue own national interests based on the socialist ideology of the public good and the Confucian principles of responsible state government. To some extent, this philosophy resembles the Stalinist ideology of building socialism in one country. Yet, unlike the internationalism inherent in Soviet socialism, the Chinese version of socialism is oriented solely toward Chinese national interests. But at least they are pragmatic and understandable. First of all, they involve developing a medium prosperity society. For this, unlike the Anglo-Saxon geopolitics of world domination, China needs peace and active foreign economic cooperation. It completely repudiates the world war that is being unleashed by the U.S.
Although China has no historical experience in pursuing a global policy, it has a clear development strategy. Russia has the experience of pursuing a global policy, but does not have a development strategy. Without its elaboration and consistent implementation, historical experience will not help. To avoid being propelled to the fringes of not the U.S., but of China this time, an ideology and a development strategy are needed. Such ideology, representing a neoconservative synthesis of religious tradition, socialism, democracy, planned market economy in an integrated system, has been developed in a broad outline. A development strategy that takes into account the long-term laws of technical and economic development has also been prepared. What is lacking is political will paralyzed by offshore oligarchy. Russia can become a leader in the process of forming a new world economic order and go into the nucleus of a new world economic development center. But it is impossible to achieve this remaining on the fringes of the U.S. capitalism. Worse still, remaining on these fringes, Russia provokes the U.S. aggression by making its economy dependent on the American oligarchy and creating for the U.S. geopoliticians the illusion of an easy victory. For us, in contrast to the Chinese winning the battle for global leadership, the hybrid war with the U.S. secret services that occupied Ukraine has gained an existential nature. Either the Nazi chimera created by them will be defeated by us, and the Russian World will be liberated from dissent, or we will be destroyed. Just as in the past two Patriotic Wars with the united West, the question is put point-blank: who beats who?”
Something interesting there is the observation that Russian dependence on Western economies actually provokes the American government to attack Russia, because it sees that as a sign of Russian weakness. Russian economic independence is therefore an issue of national security, and and existential one that that.
The author also clearly understands how the West is able to repeatedly engage in massive wars despite their horror, and also correctly identifies Western attitudes towards Russia, engineered by the media through means such as Russian dash-cam footage and coverage of the aircraft carrier disaster, just to name a few things (p. 44):
“As soon as the generation of the last war’s veterans dies out, they begin to prepare the people for a future war. The anti-Russian psychosis created by the U.S. political engineers is effective because the generation that survived the horrors of the Second World War has already passed away. One would think that after this catastrophe, the peoples of Europe will never take up arms again. But, as the events in Ukraine have shown, the manic urge of Drang nach Osten is easily summoned by political strategists in the subconscious of European elites, who quickly forget the lessons of history. The educational system and propaganda of Euro-American exclusiveness, cultivated down the centuries, helps in this.
If you ask an average Western European or an American who won the Second World War, you will hear the answer that it was the U.S. Many of them have no clue about the role of the USSR that crushed the fascist regime. Similarly, they do not remember the liberation of Europe from the Napoleonic occupation. And one can bet they do not know anything about the heroic resistance of Ancient Rus to the Tatar-Mongol invasion, that saved the peoples of Europe from barbaric ravage in the Middle Ages. They see Russia as a backward and aggressive country, which needs to be restrained and suppressed for its own good. At the core of this negative image is a consistent falsification of history, continuously conducted for more than half a millennium. Since plunder of Byzantium by Crusaders, the continuous aggression of the Western powers against Russia has invariably appeared in historiography as a noble activity of spreading humane and progressive European values among the semi-wild taiga inhabitants, who deserve only the fate of slaves serving the European masters.”
We can see that the basic problem of postmodern Russia historiography is a “working backwards” from the effects to the cause; basically, the author observes repeated hostility from the West, and especially Britain, and then works backwards from the bad events in Russian history to show how Britain (and America) are to blame (p. 52):
“Simultaneously with Russia, Germany united by Bismarck was also developing rapidly, becoming the world leader in machine building. Relying on their institutional features, these countries were spurting into the lead both on the technical level and by the capital concentration scale. Germany relied on the entrepreneurial activity of rapidly learning urban residents, Russia – on its huge natural, resource and human potential. They successfully adopted the technologies and industrial engineering forms developed in Britain, instilling them with an additional depth of cooperation and scope of production. Britain responded to this challenge from the European periphery by unleashing a world war, skillfully playing the two rising superpowers off against one another.
The Russian-German alliance could have formed the most powerful coalition at the time, capable of becoming the dominant force in world politics and keeping the world from the war, not needed for these countries successfully developing on a new long wave of economic growth. But it was Britain that needed the war to preserve its leadership. It managed to destroy the established Russian-German alliance and by a chain of successive intrigues involving physical elimination of influential war resisters to draw two kindred monarchies into a suicidal war.
The First World War destroyed the main competitors of Britain in the Old World, which allowed it to retain global leadership until the mid-20th century.”
And then brining in the United States (p. 54):
“As a result of the First World War arranged by the British diplomacy, the U.S. was the one country to win the most.”
And then the British and American response to the rise of Germany and Russia (p. 55):
“Both countries once again made a technological breakthrough, catching up with the U.S. and Britain that had drawn out. To stop them, the Anglo-Saxons once again resorted to the proven trick of playing the leaders rising from the periphery against each other.
With the help of the U.S. corporations and the British aristocracy, Hitlerite Germany was prepared for war. Having sacrificed its allies, Poland and France, Britain gave fascist Germany a push against the USSR. Just as in the First World War, the U.S. repeated its success by joining the battle in the final phase and appropriating the fruits of victory in Western Europe and the Pacific.”
Obviously, we all know about lend-lease and have hopefully read something like Stalin’s War. The idea that Germany was built up and egged-on by the Allies is ridiculous. The USSR played willingly into the division of Europe with Germany. I could make more points but why bother wasting time on it.
The author uses “technological paradigms” to describe modern history. The “winner” in each paradigm is a world leader in that paradigm. Here he describes the first technological paradigms (p. 49):
“Relying on technologies and institutions for organizing international trade that were advanced for their time, Britain not only became the "queen of the seas" after completion of colonial conquest, but also secured global leadership in the system of world economic relations. This provided it with possibilities of accomplishing the industrial revolution and mastering the mechanisms of industrial and technological cooperation based on machine manufactories that formed the first technological paradigm of industrial society.
The first technological paradigm then evolved into the second technological paradigm, still in the hands of the British. (p. 51):
The system of institutes for organizing business, public and political activity formed in Britain ensured the possibility of concentrating capital on any scale. Under the patronage of the Crown, the East and West India Companies turned into giant transoceanic monopolies successfully getting a handle on the colossal resources of India, China and America. The judicial system targeted at objective resolution of economic disputes ensured rapid development of civil law, proceeding from the protection of private entrepreneurship interests. This established favorable conditions for the accumulation of capital that moved to a qualitatively higher level with the appearance of joint-stock companies. The development of private, joint-stock and state capitalism institutions gave free rein to construction of large infrastructural facilities and creation of industrial plants. Destruction of rural communities and peasant dispossession of land provided these construction sites and plants with cheap labor. Thus, conditions were created for the transition to the second technological paradigm based on steam engine, coal industry, iron and steel metallurgy, inorganic chemistry, railway construction.”
Note that these “paradigms” progress at different rates in each country, leading to those countries that are behind the curve to be less powerful (p. 51):
“The rise of the Russian economy in the late 19th and early 20th century took place almost simultaneously with other advanced countries. This indicates the inclusion of Russia in the international rhythm of economic growth. It should be noted, however, that the economic boom in Russia at that time was to a significant extent based on expansion of the production works pertaining to the second technological paradigm, which in the developed countries was already being replaced by the third one. The Russian industrial development also involved these processes. With the active support of the state, there was a rapid development of electrotechnical industry, inorganic chemistry, electric power industry. Production and consumption of coal grew at a high rate. At the same time, machine-building industry still remained underdeveloped. It satisfied the needs of the country’s economy by about 2/3. A third of civil demand in machines, equipment, mechanisms and appliances was met by their importation.
Rapid development of the basic technological aggregations of the third technological paradigm created prerequisites for elimination of the technological gap and inclusion of Russia in the global rhythm among the leading countries. The Russian industry had sectors that possessed competitive advantages relative to the developed countries, the number of national engineering personnel was rapidly increasing, which created good preconditions for an effective integration into the international division of labor. However, the incompleteness of the life cycles of the first and second technological paradigms along with the outdated political system institutions hampered the industrial development of the country.”
Retreading a bit, here is the development of the third technological paradigm, which took place and before and after the First World War (p. 53):
“The First World War destroyed the main competitors of Britain in the Old World, which allowed it to retain global leadership until the mid-20th century. By this time, the American colonies of European states freed from colonial oppression had formed the United States, the institutions of which were initially shaped on the basis of the interests of big private capital. Released from the need to pay political rent in favor of monarchy and aristocracy, capital gained unlimited opportunities for expansion. The influx of active population from European countries leading endless colonial wars, strangled by agrarian overpopulation and military expenditure, provided the U.S. capital with cheap and skilled manpower resources. The unrestricted spirit of entrepreneurship and private initiative, the possibilities of unlimited production expansion on the basis of free capital concentration, afforded to engineers and scientists opportunities to create industrial enterprises of any size utilizing the most complex technologies for that time. By the end of the century before last, the U.S. had reached an advanced level of industrial development and, simultaneously with Britain, started formation of the third technological paradigm based on electrotechnical industry.
As a result of the First World War arranged by the British diplomacy, the U.S. was the one country to win the most. Like Britain in the era of Napoleonic wars, entering the war at the final stage, the U.S. reaped the main fruits of victory. It not only took part in a new division of the world, but also granted admission to intellects, capitals and treasures that were fleeing the horrors of the world war, subsequent revolutions and civil wars in Russia, Germany and Austria- Hungary. The engineers and scientists who moved to the U.S. provided the American capital with the latest technology for the time. The U.S. became the leader of global technical and economic development. It launched a large-scale construction of energy, engineering and transport infrastructure that would meet the requirements of the third technological paradigm based on chemical and metallurgical industry, electrification and electrical engineering, and further development of railways and shipbuilding.”
The period of the third technological paradigm saw the rise of the United States as rival to Great Britain as world leader (p. 54):
“The institutional structure, focused on capital concentration and large-scale industrial production development, offered to the U.S. capital various advantages over European colonial empires. The cross-flow of capital from them to the U.S. continued. This contributed to the outstripping development of the U.S. economy. But simultaneously with the U.S., Germany and Russia, reborn from revolutionary ashes, again climbed a new wave of economic growth. After radical reorganization of their institutional systems, these countries gained new advantages. Germany, deprived of territorial expansion opportunities, was forced to concentrate resources on its industrial and technological development. The USSR, created on the ruins of the Russian Empire, established institutions of centralized planning and industrial engineering, which allowed to concentrate resources on a scale unprecedented before then. During the Great Depression, the institutions of centralized planning and industrial engineering proved to be effective in comparison with the U.S and Western European corporations stifled by lack of demand and overaccumulation of capital. Both countries once again made a technological breakthrough, catching up with the U.S. and Britain that had drawn out. To stop them, the Anglo-Saxons once again resorted to the proven trick of playing the leaders rising from the periphery against each other.”
The the fourth technological paradigm developed before and after the Second World War and saw the United States supersede Great Britain as world leader, and then rapidly developed the fifth technological paradigm (p. 55):
“With the help of the U.S. corporations and the British aristocracy, Hitlerite Germany was prepared for war. Having sacrificed its allies, Poland and France, Britain gave fascist Germany a push against the USSR. Just as in the First World War, the U.S. repeated its success by joining the battle in the final phase and appropriating the fruits of victory in Western Europe and the Pacific. The colonial empires of European countries collapsed, and domination in the capitalist world passed to the U.S. corporations. At the same time, the socialist world emerged that was demonstrating high rates of development and rapidly catching up with the U.S. The confrontation between the two systems, created by the Anglo-Saxon diplomacy, contributed to the concentration of capital in the U.S. It took the technological lead during formation of the fourth technological paradigm based on internal combustion engine, organic chemistry and road construction. This leadership was consolidated in the course of formation of the next information and telecommunication technological paradigm based on microelectronics and software. It gave the U.S. the upper hand in the course of the arms race that undermined the technologically heterogeneous USSR economy.
Thus, the domination of Britain finally came to an end as a result of two world wars in the last century, that led to disintegration of the European colonial empires and transfer of leadership in the capitalist world to the U.S. After the Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR, with the collapse of the latter the U.S. took the global lead due to its superiority in the development of the information and communication technological paradigm and establishment of a monopoly on the issue of world money. The U.S. transnational corporations with links to the global "printing press" became the basis for the formation of a new world economic paradigm, the institutional basis of which was represented by liberal globalization.”
Note that the author does not use “economic paradigm” interchangeably with “technological paradigm” here. He will explain what “economic paradigms” are later. Here he foresees the sixth technological paradigm (p. 56):
“Currently, the world is on the threshold of a new centennial accumulation cycle. Following the Spanish, Dutch, English and American centennial cycles of capital accumulation the global economic development center is shifting to Asia, where the basic institutions of a new world economic paradigm are being formed. China is spurting into the lead in the wake of upgrowth of the new technological paradigm, and the accumulation of capital in Japan creates opportunities for moving the center of world capital reproduction to East and South Asia.”
With some effort, here is a summary of the paradigms:
Holland—The industrial revolution. Mastering the mechanisms of industrial and technological cooperation based on machine manufactories.
Britain/Russia—Based on the steam engine, coal industry, iron and steel metallurgy, inorganic chemistry, railway construction.
Britain/Russia— Base on the electrotechnical industry, inorganic chemistry, and electric power industry. Machines, equipment, mechanisms and appliances. Technological aggregations. International division of labor. Electrotechnical industry. Chemical and metallurgical industry, electrification and electrical engineering, and further development of railways and shipbuilding.
America/USSR—Internal combustion engine, organic chemistry and road construction.
America/USSR—Information, telecommunications, microelectronics and software.
China/Japan?— Biotechnology, molecular biology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence systems, global information networks, and integrated high-speed transport systems.
To be honest, these “paradigms” seem rather arbitrary and mostly superimposed on history by reversed-engineering when and how Russia was getting its ass kicked by Anglos. I’m also not sure that Russia or the USSR should really be regarded as a “leader” in any of these paradigms. But this is how the author views world geopolitical and economic history, and it’s the model he uses going forward.