Kings and Pawns; Emperors and Fools
Napoleon Bonaparte allegedly once said, “In life, we are all either kings or pawns; emperors and fools.” This wisdom applies from domestic politics to geopolitics — and sometimes even in personal relationships, but we will skip that. The problem is that the pawns don’t see themselves as such. As Mark Twain said, “It’s easier to fool people than convince them they have been fooled.”
An interesting observation is that Napoleon didn’t talk about “masters and slaves.” Instead, he talked about chess, a game that involves brain, not brawn. This is because, by the 19th century, Europe was starting to master colonialism, which was made possible not just by guns but by manipulation, deception, and an understanding of human psychology.
Think about the ratio of colonizers to indigenous people. It’s astounding. Perhaps 1:1000 or worse. Guns and cannons can win battles and wars. However, it’s supreme wit that enables the conquerors to successfully rule afterwards. Europeans and Americans had to convince the defeated rulers and the conquered people to cooperate every day.
The techniques of control have been polished and improved over the last two centuries, especially since WW2. Now Empires stay hidden in plain sight! Modern empires are primarily made of central banks, corporations, technology, and media. Military also plays a major role — like the 800 American military bases in 140 countries — but the US does a great job of justifying them or better yet prevent discussions of them.
This is why most people around the world cannot even acknowledge the existence of an American Empire. Or realize how they are still controlled and manipulated by Western empires.
For example, every time you Google something or go on Facebook, the content you see is rigged — “curated” — by hidden hands to control your thinking. Social media act as the Orwellian thought police and constantly ban people every day to keep the discussions within a narrow acceptable range — also known as the “Overton Window.”
There are also influencers paid by governments, Big Pharma, and the military industrial complex who can make the masses not only accept but clamor for whatever the elites want.
Those who don’t understand the workings of the world are pawns and fools.
Geopolitical Pawns and Kings
The most tragic geopolitical pawns right now are Ukraine and Europe. Ukrainians are fighting Russia on behalf of the US — very similar to how Afghans fought the USSR in the 1980s. As for Europe, it should never have agreed to the American plans to expand NATO into Ukraine. At the worst, the EU could have stuck to just arming and funding Ukraine.
Instead, European leaders went along with the unprecedented anti-Russia sanctions, which have left Europe without vital oil and natural gas. Electricity prices have gone up sixfold, and it’s just September. Vital European sectors like automobile, steel, aluminum, fertilizer, glass, and paper are being devastated now.
Deindustrialization of Europe
Europeans even face food shortage since greenhouses are being shut down and refrigeration has become too expensive. Even production of bread is becoming unaffordable.
Winter defeated Napoleon. Winter defeated Hitler. And winter will defeat Europe once again.
Europeans used to be masters in divide-and-rule. However, having been under the US/NATO for 75 years, European leaders seemed to have forgotten geopolitics and have turned into fools and pawns. The only one to win from the EU-Russia conflict is the US, which kills two birds with one stone, and prolongs the American Century.
In 2008, the EU’s GDP was larger than that of the US. Add in the UK (which was part of the EU at that time), the European Union beat the US handily: 30.2% versus 23.1% in terms of the share of global GDP.
Soon, the EU’s GDP flattened, and then the UK left the EU. By 2021, in terms of GDP, the EU was 25% smaller than the US and was even smaller than China!
The incredibly shrinking Europe
So, the destruction of the EU must continue because in geopolitics, the US needs to be the absolute king. A multipolar world where Europe and China are equal to America is not acceptable.
And certainly not a world where Europe can cooperate with Russia and China. The prospect of a prosperous Eurasia absolutely terrifies the American Empire.
Hence the disruption of Europe’s relations with Russia … and soon with China. The controlled demolition of Europe will continue unabated.
So, what’s the plan afterwards? When Europe’s economy collapses, American corporations will swoop in and “rescue” Europe by buying industries and banks for pennies on the dollar. It should be familiar to Europeans who have used the IMF and the World Bank rob developing nations for many decades.
India as a Pawn?
How is India doing in the geopolitical chessboard? It may not be a pawn but more like a bishop. India still enjoys some strategic autonomy, as seen in its purchases of Russian oil, gas and coal, in spite of American objections.
However, India is being groomed as a tool to contain China. The Indian justification for depending on the US is that China is too powerful. However, India is paying a heavy price for this dependence — Indian economy is being colonized by the US.
Here are some examples.
Look at e-commerce in India, which is dominated by a duopoly of Amazon and Flipkart. Amazon is, of course, all-American Amazon. As for Flipkart, it is 72% owned by Walmart! There are 166 billionaires in India, but nobody thought of buying such a vital startup?
How about FinTech in India? Pretty much all owned by Americans again. Google Pay and PhonePe own 80% of India’s mobile payments market share. And … PhonePe is owned by Walmart!
And social media in India are all dominated by American companies. Most popular social media platforms: Instagram (503 million users), Facebook (490 million), and Twitter (25 million). And Google owns almost 100% of the Search Engine market.
India’s 5G is also 100% foreign, mostly American & European. Here are the real owners: Nokia and Ericsson (hardware) — Google (cloud and smartphones) — Cisco (network) — Intel and Microsoft (servers) — Qualcomm (chips) — Samsung (smartphones). Reliance Jio is just a service provider.
India bans Chinese TikTok but allows the US to dominate sectors that are lifeblood of Indian economy. It’s because the narrative is that “America is an ally.”
However, there are no allies in geopolitics. Only pawns and kings, fools and emperors.
Conclusion
In the sensible version of history, the world will be multipolar. A continent like Asia with more than half of the world’s population and plenty of natural resources will be a key center of global economy. And Europe will be aligned with Asia, creating the supra region of Eurasia. That EURASIA now comprises of 66% of global GDP:
This is why the the Empire of Chaos — a.k.a the United States of America — is ripping apart of the fabric of Eurasia. Brexit, Russia-EU war, India-China conflict, attempts to decouple Europe from China etc. are all part of this game.
Remarkably, the US with less than 5% of the world’s population has managed to hypnotize much of the world into submission. Europeans and Ukrainians are willingly dying for the American Empire. Only a few powers like Russia, China and Iran are the lone challengers to America’s full-spectrum dominance over the globe.
As British writer and Nobel-prize winner Harold Pinter described America’s ruthless foreign policy and hegemony:
“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
“U.S. foreign policy is best defined as follows: kiss my arse or I’ll kick your head in. It is as simple and as crude as that. What is interesting about it is that it’s so incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinformation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which are very persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies. It is very successful propaganda. They have the money, they have the technology, they have all the means to get away with it, and they do.”
