© Off-Guardian Org
Attempting to determine who is doing what to whom — and for what purpose — within the labyrinth of financial and technocratic geopolitics is akin to trying to locate the exit of a maze while still wandering within its walls, rather than observing its full design from a vantage point above.
The book
The Empire of the City: The Secret History of Financial Power removes the reader from the maze and offers a bird's-eye view of it. This is not because it introduces information that was previously unknown — the book was published in 1944 before the rise of the modern technocratic grifter class — but because it compresses two centuries of wars and military interventions into a remarkably slim volume.
By presenting events in such condensed form, patterns become visible that might otherwise remain obscured by the subjectivity of more detailed narratives.The book lists the wars (p12) as though they are football fixtures - which in essence, they are. The League (of Nations) is made up of multiple teams: England, Prussia, Sweden, France, Turkey, Italy, Greece, Russia, Japan, China etc and occasionally "The Allies" (Charity Cup), while scores oscillate between zero-sum and win-win/lose-lose (1:0 or a draw).
Outside the Stadium are the self-appointed financiers of both the stadium and the game, although the whole arrangement is funded by the supporters whose ticket price funds both the stadium and the game itself without ever giving them a stake in the ticket sales or the stadium.
The financiers care not who wins or gets injured, only that the game continues.Aside from the occasional goalkeeper, defender, striker or manager paid to throw the game,
most of the players genuinely want to win. This is why the spectacle remains attractive and convincing. The strive to win is authentic.Equally, the warring countries want to win, not just for the financial rewards, but because if they lose standing or drop a League, their budgets will be curtailed and the puppets won't get re-elected but will be demoted to the bench. None of which concerns The City.
The puppets are after all interchangeable as the world is never going to run short of compromised narcissists eager to dribble towards the pyrrhic goalposts. And even if the puppets' time in office is far from pitch perfect, there is no red card for crimes committed while in office. With
zero accountability guaranteed, they can continue making a killing from after dinner speeches, backhanders, a seat on the board of an energy company/arms manufacturer and a ghost-written memoir.
Comment: Sri Lanka is wisely staying out of the conflict. They already have enough problems.