Superpower Vacuum—and the Broligarchs’ Plan to Fill It
Ukraine and Iran have exploded the myth of the superpower.
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born.”
— Antonio Gramsci, 1930, Prison Notebooks
The Superpower Is Dead
If someone told you in 2016 that within a decade, Russia would lose a war to Ukraine and the United States would lose a war to Iran, you would have likely thought them insane.
Nevertheless, Putin is in dire straits—his economy is in a shambles. The Russian army has made no territorial advances in months, while Ukraine surgically destroys Russia’s energy infrastructure and sets Moscow oil fields ablaze. And on Monday morning, the United States signed a deal amounting to total surrender to Iran.
This double loss represents more than just two incompetent narcissists launching wars they couldn’t win. It represents a break in the foundational myth of the post-WWII world order: The myth of the superpower is dead.
While the end of the Cold War was supposed to signal the end of Russia’s dominance over its neighbors, in reality, its status as a superpower never really ended. It was still one of the three countries at the Yalta Conference which recreated the world. And it still had the biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons. With Putin’s rise and successful influence operations over numerous foreign countries, particularly in Eastern Europe and America, Russia worked hard to make itself look ascendant.
But that image is no longer believable. Seemingly every day, as Putin desperately bombs and drones civilians after more than four years of failure, Ukraine reaches another long-range target of Russia’s energy infrastructure. In the last two weeks, Moscow has been turned into a dystopian hellscape with “black rain” from exploded oil tanks falling on the city.
Russia’s status as a paper tiger is being cemented over a long brutal war.
On the other hand, America’s demise as a superpower has been accomplished in just a few months. Donald Trump’s whim that he would take a “little excursion” in Iran cost hundreds of billions, not counting the increase in prices at the gas pump. But the real price was to the geopolitical stature of a nation seen as a dominant force for eight decades—but nevertheless managed to lose a war to the global equivalent of a gas station in a bad part of town.
The humiliation was total—the Iranian delegation disrespected JD Vance and walked out of the talks Sunday after Trump threatened the negotiators with death. The final “deal” was not a deal at all—more like the concept of a plan to surrender—which nets Iran $300 billion. And despite the tenuous nature of the agreement, the U.S. lifted sanctions on Iranian oil for the first time in decades, rendering Iran’s “shadow fleet” legitimate.
These wars represent more than two big countries being beaten by two much smaller countries. They represent the collapse of the most load-bearing beams in geopolitics—twin defeats creating a power vacuum unlike any the world has seen in modern history.
Power Vacuum
“While men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in a state of war.”
— Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
The projection of military power is not just about the ability to apply actual kinetic force; it is even more about leveraging fear. It is about the psychological power to get your way without firing a shot. Prior to 2022, both Russia and the United States retained an aura of near-invincibility, along with China. Trying to take any of the three superpowers on directly, seemed like a suicide mission.
But Ukraine, and now Iran, have changed that calculus, probably forever. Each took the best punch a superpower could take, and emerged in glory—at least so far. Occupied Crimea—the “crown jewel” of Putin’s conquest—is currently cut off from food and gas, while the Russians who moved there are waiting in long lines trying to escape back home.
In America, however, the main story on the news is not losing a war to Iran; it’s the Reflecting Pool being turned into a swamp. It’s people being arrested for putting their hands in the water of a monument kids have been swimming in for decades. It’s the president of the United States blaming his own failure on “vandalism.” And it’s the White House and Pentagon appealing to QAnon believers.
Who on Earth would take America seriously?
The collapse of the Russian Bear, and of America’s ability to act as the world police, have implications that are impossible to predict right now. But one physical law can give us a framework: Nature abhors a vacuum.
The hole where “American exceptionalism” used to live must be filled. The collapse of the Russian claim to empire in Europe will also need to be replaced. If the world no longer fears America and Russia, the world must and will reshape itself. But how?
The Broligarchs Have a Plan
“A country you can start from your computer.”
— Balaji Srinivasan, Network State
Since Putin took over Russia, his “Brain,” ultra-fascist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, has promoted the concept of a “multipolar world” to combat the “hegemon” of the United States. One of the poles in this model would be “Eurasia”—essentially a reconstruction of the Soviet Union, with Moscow as the “Third Rome.” Other poles would include China, India, and the United States.
But Putin’s dream of a Russian Empire stretching from the Pacific Ocean to Germany seems far less likely at this point than Putin being brought down by his own hubris. And the long project of the far-right to destroy “globalism,” continuing with Trump’s dismantling of U.S. soft power, has left us isolated, weak, and vulnerable.
If nature abhors a vacuum, and the superpowers that took up so much space in the geopolitical order are shrinking, who will fill this yawning chasm?
Well, the broligarchs have a plan.
The big idea is that the nation-state itself is a dying concept. The broligarchs do not need to replace the territorial reach of the superpowers. They want to own the infrastructure through which weakened states communicate, fight, and govern.
The techno-fascist movement led by Elon Musk and Peter Thiel religiously believes that the internet and AI have changed the rules so that geography no longer represents the most salient boundaries. Instead they have proposed the network state—a sovereign digital nation run by billionaire—or trillionaire—dictators.
SpaceX is a novel, gargantuan variant.
As I recently wrote, you can also look at the combination of SpaceX, Anduril, and Palantir as an alternate military-industrial complex, a Trojan state within a state parasitizing the government—while preparing to ultimately replace it.
The suicidal abdication of America’s superpower status by Trump’s regime gives this movement an immense opportunity, one which is being exploited at an accelerated pace. These companies are burrowing deeper and deeper, hoping to become impossible to remove by any government, because they want to be the government.
The myth of the national superpower has served America’s interests for 80 years, but that myth appears to be permanently broken. No country that backs itself into a trillion-dollar crisis and has to surrender to Iran, much less one that falsely arrests people for sabotaging a pool of water, can be taken seriously.
Even if we manage to eject this regime and put adults back in the White House, it’s hard to see how America ever returns to its former stature. We have been proven to be untrustworthy.
Our fight is no longer really with Donald Trump, although we still need to get rid of him. Our fight is with the people who deliberately put him there—to break us down into rubble and sell the pieces to the highest bidder.
“In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
— Antonio Gramsci, 1930, Prison Notebooks
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Absolutely Brilliant essay today, Jim. Your closing paragraph is perfect, in that, the biggest word was "IF" we elect an adult. With the help of Corporate Media working with and being owned by Billionaires Monopolies, it's going to be a tough time for the average person to get the information they'll need to make intelligent decisions moving forward. Thank you for this work today, I hope it reaches many, and will reStack ASAP 💯👍