The NATO-Russian war has been anticipated for nearly 30 years, and various aspects of it, from the use of Ukrainian proxy soldiers to expanding NATO to Japan, were being pushed by George Soros as long ago as 1993 in a piece entitled Toward a New World Order: The Future of NATO, in which he envisioned the transition from the post-WWII world order to the present Clown World Order, albeit one that would literally rule over the entire planet.
The countries of Europe must bear a larger share of the cost and have a correspondingly larger say in NATO. Economic aid to Eastern Europe would provide a much needed stimulus to the depressed European economies. The fact that the present command structure of NATO is too lopsided in favor of the United States is well recognized by all parties; making NATO the pillar of the Partnership for Peace would hasten the process of adjustment. Specifically, it should induce France to reenter as a full member. That would serve as the test of the success of its internal reorganization.
There is only one deficiency in this design: it leaves Japan out of account. Japan should be asked to join NATO. Then we would have the beginnings of an architecture for a new world order. It is based on the United States as the remaining superpower and on open society as the organizing principle. It consists of a series of alliances, the most important of which is NATO and, through NATO, the Partnership for Peace which girds the Northern Hemisphere. The United States would not be called upon to act as the policeman of the world. When it acts, it would act in conjunction with others. Incidentally, the combination of manpower from Eastern Europe with the technical capabilities of NATO would greatly enhance the military potential of the Partnership because it would reduce the risk of body bags for NATO countries, which is the main constraint on their willingness to act. This is a viable alternative to the looming world disorder.
However, what I find fascinating is the way in which, earlier in the article, his theory of history and consequent boom-bust model, the details of which remain undisclosed, tend to apply much more closely to the present Clown World Order and the so-called “open societies” than anything else. This may explain some of the panic and desperation that one senses from Soros and other influential clowns.
My theory of history is based on the recognition that our understanding of the world in which we live is inherently imperfect. We have to act without full knowledge of the facts because the facts are created by our decisions. There can be no correspondence between our view of the world and the actual state of affairs, because the actual state of affairs is not independently given and our view of the world has nothing definite to correspond to. Therefore, there must always be a discrepancy between the participants’ thinking and the actual state of affairs and that discrepancy provides the key to understanding the course of history.
There are times when the discrepancy is relatively minor, and there is a tendency towards convergence between people’s views and the actual state of affairs. That is the case when prevailing institutions are flexible enough, so that they can be adjusted to meet people’s desires, and there are critical processes at work which bring people’s thinking in line with practical possibilities. In these near-equilibrium conditions, the discrepancy does not influence the course of events to any great extent and it can be safely neglected. It is in these conditions that the timelessly valid generalizations of economic theory, perfect competition, efficient markets, the discounting of future expectations, are relevant.
But there are times when the discrepancy between perception and reality is very wide and shows no tendency towards convergence. On these occasions, the course of events follows a totally different pattern and the normal rules do not apply. These far-from-equilibrium conditions arise at the two extremes of changelessness or rigidity on the one hand, and changeability or instability on the other…
I have made a special study of these conditions of dynamic disequilibrium, both in the financial markets and in other settings. I find the boom/bust pattern that is common in financial markets also very helpful in understanding the rise and fall of the Soviet system. But, of course, one must not apply the pattern uncritically.
I shall not go into the details of my theory. The most important point I want to make about the boom/bust pattern is that it is a time-bound, one-directional process but it is open-ended and also characterized by discontinuities. That is to say, a prevailing trend can be reversed at any time; indeed, an eventual trend reversal is an integral part of the boom/bust pattern and the point at which the trend is reversed is not determined in advance. Indeed, in the financial markets, for every boom/bust pattern that becomes fully developed, a great many are aborted in the early stages.
Another important feature of the boom/bust pattern is that it is asymmetrical. The boom is drawn out, the bust is condensed. It is the lack of time that makes the bust so violent. Events happen so fast that it is very difficult to adjust one’s thinking and behavior to changing circumstances. Policies which would have been appropriate in the early stages are ineffective or counterproductive at another. This can be very disorienting, especially when people do not recognize a distinction between near-equilibrium and far-from-equilibrium conditions .
There is no group on Earth with a greater discrepancy between perception and reality right now than the foreign elite presently ruling the United States and presiding over Clown World. They don’t recognize how weak the US military forces are vis-a-vis the Chinese, the Russians, or even Iran, they don’t recognize the way the society over which they preside is rapidly crumbling, they don’t recognize that it is the economic order they dominate that is more fragile than those of their enemies, and they vastly overestimate their ability to control the thoughts of those over whom they have influence.
The seeds of their incipient failure were sown by their past success.
In short, Soros and his fellow clowns are making Littlefinger’s Error, which is confusing influence for power. And while Clown World’s boom has lasted since 1965 – although one could argue for 1945 – the bust is coming rapidly, and as Soros writes, it will be condensed and violent, although we cannot yet know the precise timing, the starting location, or even the fundamental nature of the bust.