It’s about globalism/globalization vs non-state actors.

Some thoughts on the present political polarization, geopolitical rivalries, the G20, and “populist-nationalism.”

The present political polarization represents an effort by the various factions of the ruling class attempting to create constituencies for themselves. Most of the mainstream media represents the dominant centrist and center-left factions, academia represents the furthest left faction of the elite, FOX/GOP/talk radio represents the right-wing of the ruling class. I actually think the Trumpians represent yet another faction that wishes to pursue a new geopolitical strategy devised by Kissinger, but is being thwarted by the dominant faction and the Deep State in the process. https://www.the-american-interest.com/…/donald-trumps…/

One of the many problems with these populist-nationalist tendencies that have emerged in various Western nations is that they are not revolutionaries or even radicals, but reactionaries who resist globalization in the same manner that the anti-modernist movements of the19th century resisted industrialization. The populist-nationalists simply want to turn back the clock to the 20th century model of relatively autonomous nation-states that are middle-class oriented and ethnically, culturally, and religiously homogeneous. They’re not going to be any more successful at this than the Luddites were at blocking the Industrial Revolution, or the throne and altar traditionalists were at blocking the rise of liberal bourgeois republicanism.

In fact, populist-nationalism can easily be coopted by global capitalism in such a way that Trump’s America, May’s England, Le Pen’s France, Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China could be neocolonial empires with their own spheres of influence, but collectively incorporated into the global capitalist system comprised of “a conglomeration of all states, nations, corporations, media, popular and intellectual culture.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(Hardt_and_Negri_book)

Kissinger is a ruling class strategist who is smart enough to understand this, and this is why the Center for Strategic and International Studies (a Kissinger-affiliated think thank that also included Rex Tillerson) is trying to puppet master Trump’s foreign policy, although they seem to have been thwarted in the process. http://www.scmp.com/…/trump-will-try-smash-china-russia…

The real struggle in the 21st century is not between “globalism and nationalism” but between globalism and the infinite array of non-state actors towards which people are transferring their loyalties. Nationalism is an archaic 19th century idea that arose in opposition to the old multi-ethnic royal and aristocratic empires by popular movements that wanted homogenous ethno-states of their own that were unified with others who shared the same language and culture. That model became dominant in the 20th century by means of the de-colonialization process that overthrow the old European colonial empires. But nationalism became subsumed by the neo-colonialism of the Americans and the neo-vassal system of the Soviets during the Cold War. When the Cold War ended, the global capitalist empire emerged, and is still in the process of being consolidated. The right-wing is still stuck in in the 20th century and the Left merely wants a social democratic version of the present system (basically a world government under the UN with Bernie Sanders-like leadership).

Sean Jobst‘s analysis of the role of Russia in the global order seems spot on: http://sjobst.blogspot.com/…/thoughts-on-vladimir… Remember that Russia is a G20 nation, and therefore a partner in the global capitalist empire. Russian foreign policy is about preserving its traditional sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, while forming a Eurasian alliance for the purpose of countering the present hegemony of the Atlanticist-Zionist-Wahhabist axis within the framework of global capitalism. Russia wishes to cultivate Iran as an ally in the Middle East in order to counter the US-Saudi alliance while making its own overtures towards Israel.

A better case can be made that the “rogue states” are genuinely resistant to the global system, or at least they refuse Americanization and the “Washington Consensus” https://www.amazon.com/Beyond…/dp/1910881465/ref=sr_1_2… This puts them in a position of direct enmity with the US, and therefore Washington’s geopolitical rivals within global capitalism such as Russia and China at times attempt to cultivate the rogue states in Asia, Africa, or Latin America as allies or client states, e.g. Iran, Syria, the DPRK, the former Libyan regime, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe,along with non-state actors like Hezbollah, the Houthi, and the wider body of non-state forces within the Resistance Block, or anti-American populist administrations in Latin America of the kind that have existed in recent years in Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil.