Every ruling order assumes its permanence. The regimes of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries were no exception. From the vantage point of the 1990s, the Western-led order appeared unshakable, triumphant, eternal. The Soviet collapse left the United States enthroned as global hegemon. The great ideological conflicts of the Cold War had given way to a consensus in which market liberalism, democratic governance, and technocratic administration were to be the universal model. The vocabulary of that time—end of history, unipolar moment, global village, indispensable nation—was not merely rhetoric but the creed of an age.

This order was built on six interlocking peaks of power. Peak Unipolarity enshrined American hegemony. Peak Globalization integrated the world’s economies into a single marketplace. Peak Neoliberalism provided the ideological blueprint of deregulation, privatization, and financialization. Peak Neoconnism guided military adventurism and imperial assertion. Peak Democratism sanctified electoral institutions as history’s final political form. And Peak Totalitarian Humanism clothed managerial elites in the mantle of cultural legitimacy through a new orthodoxy of progressive universalism.

From the 1990s through the early 2010s, these Six Peaks defined the contours of political, economic, and cultural life. They framed the enemy, structured the acceptable, and mapped the horizon of possible thought. Yet the very height of their triumph concealed the seeds of decline. By the mid-2010s and accelerating into the 2020s, each peak revealed its fragility. Wars ended in stalemate or defeat, markets convulsed, electorates rebelled, and the cultural hegemony of progressive liberalism provoked a populist insurgency.

The Six Peaks are now in decline. Their collapse is not a singular catastrophe but a process of erosion—steady, uneven, but undeniable. In their place arises a world of multipolarity, fragmentation, and competing centers of legitimacy. For a project committed to anarcho-pluralism and pan-secessionist decentralism, this transformation is not only confirmation of prophecy but a call to revision. The Attack the System (ATS) paradigm, forged in critique of the Peaks at their zenith, must now be recalibrated for the post-peak age.

II. Peak Unipolarity: From Triumph to Multipolar Erosion

The first and perhaps most visible of the Peaks was unipolarity. With the Soviet Union dissolved and no rival of comparable scale in sight, the United States stood as the world’s singular power. The 1991 Gulf War was the inaugural pageant of this hegemony—precision-guided munitions broadcast on CNN, a coalition assembled under Washington’s direction, a quick and decisive military outcome. NATO expanded eastward, international institutions functioned as extensions of U.S. foreign policy, and the American dollar and military shielded the global order.

Yet this moment of supremacy proved transitory. The neoconservative wars of the 2000s overreached and exhausted the unipolar empire. Iraq and Afghanistan did not yield quick victories but long, grinding occupations that revealed the limits of American power. Libya collapsed into chaos. Syria withstood regime change, albeit temporarily. Russia reasserted itself in Crimea. China rose from manufacturing hub to technological rival, building a parallel architecture of influence through the Belt and Road Initiative. The BRICS bloc, once dismissed as a footnote, became a pole of coordination for the Global South. By the 2020s, the unipolar moment was no more.

For the ATS paradigm, this decline vindicates its critique of empire. Yet multipolarity must not be romanticized. The fall of one hegemon does not mean liberation but the multiplication of imperialisms. Russian authoritarianism, Chinese state capitalism, and emerging regional powers represent not freedom but rival centers of domination. The task of anarcho-pluralism is to resist all imperialisms equally, rejecting the temptation to align with one empire against another. Multipolarity opens the field, but only as an opportunity to build local, voluntary, and decentralized alternatives in the cracks of the great powers.

III. Peak Globalization: From “End of Borders” to Local Resilience

If unipolarity was the political dimension of the post-Cold War order, globalization was its economic counterpart. The 1990s and 2000s were the age of integrated supply chains, open markets, and the gospel of free trade. NAFTA bound North America into a single economic bloc. The European Union expanded eastward and deepened integration. China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 symbolized the irreversibility of global economic integration. The metaphor of “McWorld” captured the spirit: borders were relics, national sovereignty a provincial obstruction, and the future was a seamless global marketplace.

This vision unraveled under the weight of its contradictions. The 2008 financial crisis revealed the instability of an economy built on speculation and interdependence. The hollowing out of industrial economies fueled populist backlashes from Trump to Brexit. The COVID-19 pandemic shattered faith in just-in-time supply chains, as nations scrambled for medical supplies and vaccines. The U.S.–China rivalry disrupted assumptions of cooperative globalism. Talk shifted from liberalization to “decoupling,” “reshoring,” and “economic security.” By the mid-2020s, globalization had ceased to be an ideology of inevitability and had become an arena of contestation.

For ATS, this decline validates the critique of global capitalism as a machinery of homogenization and domination. Yet the collapse of globalization cannot be celebrated if it merely yields authoritarian nationalism or protectionist states. The alternative is localism: communities reclaiming economic autonomy, regions cultivating resilience, and voluntary networks supplanting bureaucratic regulation. The project is not to preserve globalization nor to reverse it with statist nationalism, but to transcend it with pluralist decentralism.

IV. Peak Neoliberalism: From Washington Consensus to Post-Liberal Flux

The Six Peaks were not only geopolitical and economic structures but ideological orthodoxies. Chief among them was neoliberalism—the doctrine of deregulation, privatization, financialization, and technocratic governance. Emerging in the Reagan-Thatcher era, neoliberalism was codified as the Washington Consensus and exported worldwide through the IMF and World Bank. By the 1990s and 2000s, it was the unquestioned template: government as regulator rather than provider, market as arbiter of value, efficiency as the supreme good.

But neoliberalism generated its own crises. Inequality reached obscene levels, hollowing out the middle class and fueling resentment. The 2008 crash discredited the infallibility of markets, revealing the state as guarantor of private capital. Austerity politics imposed suffering on populations to stabilize financial systems. By the 2010s and 2020s, the neoliberal consensus fractured. Populist right and socialist left alike denounced its inequities. Even mainstream regimes shifted toward industrial policy, subsidies, and intervention to preserve legitimacy.

For ATS, the decline of neoliberalism is an opening to critique both the market-idolatry of its apologists and the statist authoritarianism of its opponents. The alternative is neither technocratic managerialism nor state capitalism but voluntary economies rooted in mutual aid, cooperatives, and decentralist production. Human flourishing is not measured by GDP or corporate profit but by autonomy, dignity, and the freedom of association. The post-neoliberal flux is fertile ground for experiments in anarcho-pluralist economics.

V. Peak Neoconnism: From Imperial Ambition to Imperial Exhaustion

The neoconservative ascendancy of the early 2000s embodied Peak Neoconnism. Articulated in the Project for a New American Century and enacted under the Bush administration, neoconnism was the marriage of unipolar ambition with missionary zeal. The 9/11 attacks provided the pretext for wars of choice—Afghanistan, Iraq, interventions across the Middle East. Military supremacy would enforce global order, remaking entire regions in the image of liberal democracy.

The result was catastrophe. Iraq devolved into sectarian war, birthing ISIS. Afghanistan became the longest war in U.S. history, ending in a chaotic withdrawal. Libya descended into failed-state status. Syria survived regime change attempts until finally being overrun by Takfiri insurgents. The American public grew weary of “endless wars,” and the aura of invincibility surrounding U.S. arms dissipated. Neoconnism, once dominant, is now widely regarded as a discredited doctrine.

Yet the temptation of interventionism remains, rebranded in humanitarian or democratic terms. For ATS, the lesson is clear: all imperialisms must be opposed. To oppose Washington’s wars while excusing Moscow’s or Beijing’s is to abandon principle. The anti-statist must resist empire in all guises, recognizing that “humanitarian intervention” is but a new mask for domination. The exhaustion of neoconnism creates a vacuum—but only anarcho-pluralism can fill it with a consistent anti-imperialism.

VI. Peak Democratism: From Triumphalism to Disillusionment

The ideological counterpart to neoliberal economics and neocon foreign policy was democratism—the belief that liberal democracy represented the final and universal form of political order. In the 1990s, democratism was triumphant. Eastern Europe democratized, Latin American juntas fell, and the “Third Wave” of democracy spread. The 2000s brought “color revolutions” and the Arab Spring, celebrated as the inevitable march of democratic governance.

Yet democratism faltered. In Iraq and Afghanistan, elections installed fragile regimes dependent on foreign troops. The Arab Spring gave way to authoritarian restoration. In the West itself, faith in democracy declined. Voter turnout shrank, polarization deepened, institutions lost legitimacy. The rise of populist strongmen, from Trump to Bolsonaro to Orbán, revealed democratic forms hollowed of substance. The COVID era deepened suspicions as emergency powers circumvented normal processes. By the 2020s, democracy no longer commanded automatic reverence but was questioned, doubted, resisted.

For ATS, democratism was never liberation but another mask of authority. Its decline is confirmation. Yet the danger is that disillusionment with democracy drives populations to embrace authoritarianism. The task is to articulate post-democratic alternatives rooted in voluntary association, local assemblies, federated councils, and autonomous communities. Legitimacy must come not from ballots managed by elites but from genuine self-determination. The fall of democratism is the opening for anarcho-pluralist governance.

VII. Peak Totalitarian Humanism: From Orthodoxy to Backlash

Perhaps the most insidious of the Peaks was what ATS identified as totalitarian humanism: the transformation of liberal humanitarian ideals into an ideological orthodoxy enforced by managerial elites. Under the banner of diversity, equity, and inclusion, a new civic religion emerged. Corporate HR departments, universities, NGOs, and media institutions became its clergy. Dissent from its codes of speech and behavior invited ostracism, cancellation, or professional ruin. Political correctness evolved from cultural norm to managerial apparatus.

This hegemony provoked resistance. Populist movements, dissident intellectuals, and countercultural formations pushed back against the suffocating conformity. What was framed as liberation increasingly resembled repression, and what was declared “progress” often functioned as elite consolidation. By the 2020s, totalitarian humanism faced mounting opposition from across the spectrum—conservatives, libertarians, dissident leftists, even apolitical outsiders weary of cultural policing.

For ATS, the critique of totalitarian humanism is central. Yet the danger is to fall into mere reaction, replacing one orthodoxy with another. The anarcho-pluralist alternative is not reactionary revival but genuine pluralism: the freedom of communities to pursue their own values, whether progressive, traditionalist, or otherwise, so long as participation is voluntary. True diversity is not managerial enforcement but coexistence without coercion.

VIII. Toward Post-Peak Politics

The Six Peaks are in decline. None have collapsed entirely, but all are eroded, cracked, and fading. The unipolar empire is contested, globalization frays, neoliberalism falters, neoconnism exhausts, democratism disillusions, and totalitarian humanism faces backlash. The architecture of the 1990s–2010s is no longer stable. In its place arises a world of multipolarity, fragmentation, and contestation.

For ATS, this is both vindication and challenge. The core principles—anti-statism, pan-secessionism, anarcho-pluralism—remain. But the strategy must adapt to new conditions. Where once the enemy was a consolidated hegemony, now it is a plurality of rival imperialisms. Where once globalization appeared irreversible, now the danger is authoritarian nationalism. Where once democratism claimed universal legitimacy, now populations risk surrendering to authoritarian despair.

The task is to navigate this terrain without compromise or illusion. Multipolarity is not liberation but opportunity. The ruins of globalization are not freedom unless filled with local resilience. The decline of neoliberalism is not emancipation unless replaced by voluntary economies. The exhaustion of neoconnism is not peace unless anti-imperialism is consistent. The discrediting of democratism is not progress unless post-democratic pluralism is built. The backlash against totalitarian humanism is not victory unless pluralism triumphs over orthodoxy.

The Six Peaks are dead, or dying. Their collapse clears the horizon. What remains is the possibility—never guaranteed, always contested—of building a politics beyond empire, beyond state, beyond orthodoxy. A politics of pluralism, decentralism, and voluntary association. In the ruins of the Six Peaks, the project of attacking the system finds renewed relevance, not as nostalgia for a failed modernity but as a revolutionary path into the post-peak future.

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