Terrorising the world and its people

cc. Alastair Crooke’s article, published at the beginning of October, anticipated what is becoming increasingly clear to impartial observers: for major powers such as the United States, but also for regional powers such as Israel, might is supposed to trump right. This is demonstrated by Israel’s terrorisation of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, by the new US security strategy and by the violent reaching of South America. It is also becoming increasingly obvious that the EU is disregarding its proclaimed rule of law. These are all examples of the destruction of the international regulatory framework based on principles of international law, as agreed in 1945 in the Charter of the United Nations – after the horrors of two world wars.

Creeping, thunderous changes are underway in the West. A new political doctrine has taken root: Western Conservative (and younger) populist thinking is being rebuilt as something rougher, meaner, and far less sentimental, or tolerant.
  It aspires to emerge too, as “dominant”, deliberately coercive, and radical. Throwing components of the exiting order into the air to see if they can be landed in a beneficial way (i.e. greater rent revenues)¹ for the US.
  The so-called Rules-Based Order blueprint (if it ever truly existed beyond narrative) has been ripped up. Today it is war without limits – without rules; without law; and in complete disdain for the UN Charter. Ethical boundaries, more particularly, are dismissed in parts of the West as “weak” “moral relativism”. The point is to leave opponents stunned and frozen stick figures.

Deliberate disregard for rules

In parallel, something profound has re-shaped Israeli and US foreign policy: Ignoring rules purposively to shock. Moving fast and breaking things. Over recent months, Israel has struck with military force in the West Bank, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Qatar and Tunisia – besides Gaza. In June, these two nuclear states bombed the nuclear facilities of a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty under IAEA protection – Iran.
  This “moving fast; breaking things” phenomenon was clearly evident when Israel, with US support, launched its sneak attack on Iran on 12 June. It was also evident secondly, in the bureaucratic speed which took many by surprise, as the “European 3” members of the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015², – effected the “Snapback” of all JCPOA-mandated sanctions on Iran. Iranian attempts at diplomacy were swept aside remorselessly.
  The invocation of sanctions Snapback was clearly rushed through to pre-empt the imminent “sunset” of the entire JCPOA framework on 18 October – after which the JCPOA will be ‘no more’.
  Whilst Russia and China view the US-orchestrated snapback ploy as illegal, procedurally flawed and, in their perspective, an “act” that legally never took place – the reality is chilling. It funnels Iran inexorably toward an US-Israeli ultimatum that it either capitulates fully to the US, or faces an overwhelming military onslaught.

Moving away from
the Davos Consensus

This new power doctrine has emerged from a West in financial crisis – but being born of desperation, it may well fail. The wider western crisis of opposition to the establishment, however, is not as many Progressives or bureaucratic Technocrats think – simply resulting from an upsurge of regrettable “white” pushback.
  As Giuliano da Empoli³ has written in the FT:
  “Until recently economic elites, financiers, entrepreneurs and managers of large companies relied on a political class of technocrats – or aspiring technocrats – from the right and left, moderate, reasonable, more or less indistinguishable from each other … who governed their countries on the basis of liberal democratic principles, in accordance with market rules, sometimes tempered by social considerations. That was the Davos consensus”.
  The collapse of global liberalism and its illusions, together with its technocratic structure of governance, has – in the eyes of the new élites – simply confirmed that the technocratic “expert” sphere was neither competent, nor grounded in reality.
  So the “umbrella strategy”⁴ of the Rules-Based International Order is over. The new era is one of coerced dominance – whether by Israel or the US This doctrine is centred on Israeli “dominance” – to which others logically must “submit”. This is to be achieved either by financial or military pressure. And is symbolised in the shift of nomenclature in the US from Department of Defence to the “Department of War”.

The role of the US technology elites

“The new American technological élites, the Musks, the Zuckerbergs and Sam Altmans of this world, have nothing in common with the technocrats of Davos. Their philosophy of life is not based on the competent management of the existing order but, on the contrary, on an irrepressible desire to throw everything up in the air. Order, prudence and respect for the rules – are anathema to those who have made a name for themselves by moving fast and breaking things”, da Empoli elaborates.
  By their very nature and background, the Tech overlords are more akin to nationalist-populist leaders (the Trumps, the Netanyahus, the Ben Gavirs and Smotrichs), and in a different way to the Evangelical faction (from which Charlie Kirk emerged), rather than to the moderate political classes of Davos whom they (collectively) despise.
  Kirk believed that his calling from God was to be a fighter, a combatant in the culture wars. “Some people are called to heal the sick,” he once said. “Some people are called to mend broken marriages.” Kirk declared that his call was “to fight evil and proclaim truth. That’s it”. One commentator called it the politicisation of Evangelism to secure the domination of Jesus.
  Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, has said that “the day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts. And that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand”.
  What is the common vision to these seemingly disparate western factions now embracing this rougher, meaner, and far less sentimental, or consensual political doctrine?
  What is the aim of tossing all the Middle East pieces up into the air with such brutalised effect, as is evident to the world from Gaza? Israeli regional hegemony and US control over the region’s energy resources. Is that the aim? Certainly – yet it is more than that.
  The new doctrine of Team Trump, the Israeli Right, and the Jewish billionaires supporting him, nevertheless have an overriding “war aim”. This is not just about Israeli “dominance” and others having to “submit”, as US Envoy Tom Barrack insists. It means “getting Iran under control” too – hence the Snapback is preparation for the “big war” to subjugate Iran.

A comprehensive hegemony project

One US Jewish billionaire, speaking earlier at a Zionists of America conference, was picturing a wider war extending to inside America: Robert Shillman’s said his ample funding of ZoA was intended for “confronting enemies of Israel and the Jewish people [wherever] – defending against Islamists who wish to destroy Israel – and radical Leftist Jew-haters who wish to destroy the Jewish people”.
  Does this maelstrom across the Middle East nevertheless tie in with Trump’s apparently separate and distinct bellicosity towards Venezuela (and the coincidental sweetheart deal with Argentina)? Yes – the point is to bring the shale fields of Argentina⁵ and the huge oil reserves of Venezuela under US control – to give US global energy dominance with which to mitigate the threat from growing US deficits overwhelming the US government.
  The Venezuela standoff connects to the Middle East project through being another aspect of a wider hegemonic project – consolidating the western hemisphere into America’s domain of interest, alongside the Middle East.

Anarchistic radicalism …

How did the West reach this bellicose, dominance-seeking point? The key underlying metaphysics of the shift towards anarchic radicalism (seemingly) owes to a period of American thinking about greed, fairness, liberty, and dominance. As Evan Osnos argues in “The Haves and Have Yachts,”⁶ over the past five decades, the Oligarchs and Tech overlords have increasingly rejected constraints on their ability to accrue wealth, disavowing the notion that their great resources entail any special responsibility towards their fellow citizens.
  They have embraced a libertarian ethos which casts them simply as private individuals, responsible for their own fate, and entitled to enjoy their riches as they see fit. More significantly, they have not, however, forgone the prerogative of using their money to shape government and society to their techno-autarkic vision. The resulting pattern, traced in Osnos’ book, has been a “simple arithmetic – of money making money”.
  The lesson the Tech overlords have assimilated is: when a state or any other entity becomes incompetent, the only historical cure for such political sclerosis is not dialogue, nor compromise; It is what the Romans called “proscriptio” – a formalised purge. Sulla knew this. Caesar perfected it. Augustus institutionalised it. Take the élite interests, deny them resources, strip them of property, and compel obedience … or else!

… and megalomania

The Trumpian and Tech élites of today are enamoured by the ancient notion of “greatness” – individual greatness – and the contribution that greatness can “offer” to civilization. Typically, in this concept there is always a strong element of the “outsider” being some kind of anarchic transgressor, who brings a new measure of energy into play which ‘expert’ insiders just cannot provide.
  We all think “Trump” as we read those words. There is clearly a not-so-secret affinity between today’s populist conservatism and anarchic radicalism. Which begs the question: Wild policy swings, constant uncertainty, erratic posts on Truth Social – is this in fact desperation as US greatness visibly ebbs? Or are we being prepped for something yet more contrarian, more radical still – some attempt at a global financial makeover?

‘The only mission: War fighting’

“From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly-restored Department of War is this: War fighting; preparing for war and preparing to win – unrelenting – and uncompromising – in that pursuit”, the US Secretary of War told his gathering of Generals in Washington on Tuesday.⁷
  The world is on fire, and fear is being ramped up in Europe to high volume. It is “Russia, Russia” everywhere, “under every bed”. Are we being truly “prepped”, or is this simply European scare brinkmanship intent on enlisting the US in a project to weaken and dissolve Russia into distinct parts?
  The collapse of the Soviet Union gave “old” Europe – the great European nations – the huge markets of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and of the former USSR – and also gave Europe resources and cheap energy too. The EU project per se, effectively was bought with the smell of money – the enticement of easy affluence.
  As that affluence pops (and Trump just markedly accelerated the bust), and without Russia’s market dismemberment, what price France, Germany or Italy retaining their former political clout or global influence? More to the point, European leaders are asking, “however can I get re-elected now”.
  The Russia “threat” brinkmanship⁸ is being pushed into the “red zone” by Europe. But neither Europe nor the US seemingly possesses the mettle for real war. And certainly, neither do their publics. •

 Notes (by Karin Leukefeld)

¹ Oxford Languages; meaning of tribute: payment in money or goods, levy that a defeated people in particular must pay to the victor.
² The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is an agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme that was signed on 14 July 2015 by China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and Iran.
³ Financial Times of 26 September 2025; How tech lords and populists changed the rules of power (paywall)
⁴ https://umbrellastrategie.de/: The UMBRELLA strategy is a global equity investment strategy based on the selection of companies with high innovation potential, particularly in the pharmaceutical and new technology sectors.$
⁵ Vaca Muerta, oil and gas-bearing shale fields. https://taz.de/Fracking-in-Argentinien/!5927002
⁶ Evan Owans, The Haves and Have Yachts. Dispatches on the Ultrarich. (The rich and their yachts – reports on the super-rich by Evan Osnos). Only available in English.
⁷ https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4318394/hegseth-announces-war-department-reforms-in-sweeping-speech-to-top-military-bra/
⁸ Brinkmanship: “The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war” – former US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in a 1956 interview with Life magazine on diplomacy in foreign policy for the enforcement of one’s own interests. https://www.britannica.com/topic/brinkmanship

Source: https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/10/08/moving-fast-breaking-things-a-new-doctrine-takes-root-a-new-era-of-coerced-dominance/ of 2 October 2025; slightly edited according to the German translation in globalbridge.ch of 7 October 2025.

* Alastair Crooke is director and founder of the Conflicts Forum based in Beirut. Previously, as a British diplomat, he was an advisor on Middle East issues to Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief. He is a member of the Global Experts of the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations.