Does the Anglosphere seek chaos in Eurasia?

As the world inches towards the nuclear abyss, fundamental questions abound: “What is happening?”, “How did things come to this pass?”, and “How will the world pull back from the edge?” Explanations tend to be incomplete, inconsistent, or incoherent.

Do we view the world incorrectly because we are conditioned by decades of terms such as “The West”, “International Community”, “Third World”, “Developing Countries”, “Emerging Market”, and increasingly “Global South”? It appears so.

A more accurate perspective may be available if we set aside notions that have become so entrenched that they are almost genetically encoded in much of the world, through decades of sustained narrative building and consolidation.

The non-Western idea is of “the West” as a cohesive group. Tens of millions of us absorbed and internalised this notion through conditioning in English language schools, the media and the global public discourse—again conducted largely through the languages of “the West”.

In non-Western minds, “the West” is also white. The impression is of a West that has acted in seeming synchrony for most of history. This perception has constructed a worldview in the non-West that is inadequate to understand the world of today.

Look a little deeper, though, and differences emerge. What is thought of as the West, in fact, comprises the Anglosphere (native English-speaking countries) plus the Eurosphere (the European Union) and some aspirants to either or both. (There is another set of white people, the Slavs—let’s call it the Slavosphere—which is alienated from the other two. But let us leave that aside for the purpose of this analysis.)

In fact, the West is a common but non-uniform civilisational space, drawing upon a Greco-Roman (which they now consider “pagan”) and Judeo-Christian heritage. There is also a hierarchy in the West which emerged after World War II, where some states prevail as first among equals—a set apart.

This became clearer when the USSR ceased to exist in 1991. The world became unipolar under the US, the leader of the Anglosphere. It is the most powerful group in the world, but surprisingly little analysis is done of its collective actions.

The Anglosphere

What exactly is the Anglosphere? It is the native English-speaking world, comprising the UK, the US, Canada, Australia & New Zealand. It is a single sub-civilisational space emerging out of the larger European Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian heritage.

The Anglosphere shares historic, cultural, ritual and other affiliations amongst each other, and four of these countries (UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) have the same head of state: the British monarch. (The term “Anglosphere” was itself first used in 1995, in a science-fiction novel . The concept of “intercitizenship” between native English-speaking colonies was first proposed at the tail-end of the 19th century).

The Anglosphere today has a population of about 422 million. It is the largest economic group in the world, with a GDP exceeding $30 trillion per year. Informally known as the “Five Eyes”, because of their deeply integrated global surveillance and information collection platforms, they are more closely aligned geopolitically than most formal groupings, whether it is the G7, G20, Brics or any other of significance.

At the head of the Anglosphere hierarchy, well above the rest in virtually every aspect of state power, sits the US—the global military superpower. Together the US and the UK have more than 800 military bases and installations around the world. The rest of the world put together has much less.

With America as first among equals, the Anglosphere countries have a sibling relationship: the same language, deeply interconnected elite families, economically inseparable intertwining, and militaries so close that special forces soldiers from these countries often attend each other’s weddings. The culture is broadly homogeneous, albeit with strong local and sub-local characteristics.

The Mindset

These linkages reinforce the commonality of mindset, which also vibrates to the fact that these are all “island” states of a sort. The US/Canada is separated from the Eurasian landmass by the Atlantic/Pacific oceans, Britain by the English Channel & Australia/NZ by the Indian and Pacific oceans.

None of these countries have a recent memory or real experience of a land invasion. They can only be attacked by air or sea, a huge strategic advantage—the associated disadvantage being they can also not attack others via land. That is why Britannia ruled the waves once, and why the US has the most powerful navy mankind has seen so far. It also explains the 800-plus military basing facilities overseas.

This island mindset, combined with the historic memory of Great Britain and her colonies, her Empire, is shared by all native English speakers in some sense, and certainly among the elites across the Anglosphere. That includes many people who have made it to the top as immigrants or other grateful additions and believers—mainly former colonials.

The immigrants play a very useful role in broadcasting and showcasing the virtues of the Anglosphere. Many of them are located in and/or very well connected with the former colonies.

After WWII, the strategic weight of the British Empire was substantially transferred to its cousin across the Atlantic—albeit not entirely willingly, and naturally after a brief sibling tussle. The US proceeded to become the biggest superpower the world has ever seen.

This lived reality and memory of the elites of the Anglosphere—of secure distance, of great power and of the imposition of their will on the world—has given them a sense of both impunity of action and immunity from retribution.

This sense underpins the common interest and mindset, apart from the civilisational and cultural commonalities. It enables and underpins a stable hierarchy (US>UK>Canada=Australia>NZ) to sustain the Anglosphere ruling class and its dependents.

These are the Five Eyes, which survey the world and work relentlessly to shape it to their advantage. This approach to the rest of the world has become a habit, undeterred by setbacks now and then.

Britain has faced no punishing recrimination for its centuries of colonial exploitation and slaughter, nor has America been questioned for the last three decades of warfare against other cultures. Both have done this in the name of a morally superior position in service of civilisation, democracy, human rights, etc. Unsurprisingly, hubris has accompanied the Five Eyes closely.

Why the Anglosphere Prefers Chaos and How It Plays Out

The Anglosphere’s foundational feature is that it harkens back to the British Empire, a thinking which continues to inform its present worldview. The Cold War was an interval (of sorts), but this view returned after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

What we see playing out today on the Eurasian landmass is the natural outcome of imperial thinking. Through the 1990s and into the 2000s, with a weakened Russia in the throes of redefining itself, the core Anglosphere recalibrated its worldview for a unipolar world under “Pax Americana”.

If understood in its essence, the Anglosphere’s objective is simple: direct or indirect control over the global resources that sustain humanity, in order to accumulate wealth and remain the most powerful group identity on the planet. To achieve this objective, the Anglosphere will continuously seed chaos on the Eurasian landmass.

It is an unremarkable and instinct-based objective, and it is likely (if not certain) that anyone who replaces the US as a global superpower will have similar ambitions. But such thinking in others will be tempered by the reality of land borders. This is also why the Eurasian powers are more comfortable with a multipolar arrangement. Even the currently hapless EU countries are delicate on the subject.

For the present though, nothing will be allowed to come in the way of the Anglosphere achieving its objective, and every applicable asset will be deployed to bring closer a reality of absolute supremacy.

In the latest indicator of a preference for chaos, Ukraine, the divergence of strategic interest between the Anglosphere and the continental European part of “the West” is clear. The US and Britain—the latter in substance if not in form—will eventually pull out of Ukraine, blame its current leadership and move on. (Their territories are not physically at risk and will not be until the missiles and aircraft start flying into them – and then we will step outside the threshold of conventional warfare).

For the EU member states, Ukraine is an abject lesson on the limits of racial brotherhood, the essence of “the West”—a lesson that has yet to sink in or even be acknowledged. Rather, the Eurosphere will continue to entertain this fantasy of a “collective West” because of a reflexive revulsion to pretty much every other alternative. They, after all, have land boundaries, old enmities, ancient hatreds and tribal inclinations within and outside their national borders.

Despite their reluctance to recognise these realities, with the Ukraine debacle, continental Europe looks to be returning to its historical geopolitical norm. The exception was the half-century of relative peace between 1946 and 1999, when the US launched the illegal bombing campaign against Serbia. Prior to that, for at least about one and a half millennia, Europe was a battleground of ethnic, religious, imperial, tribal and other interests.

These impulses are what the Anglosphere has revived through Ukraine, and it will nurture their growth. To the Five Eyes, the Eurasian landmass is a strategic playground. And only so long as things are under their near-absolute control will it be allowed stability.

Chaos is preferable because, sitting at a distance and insulated from direct violence except by aerial attack, it allows for easy pickings for the Anglosphere across Eurasia. That is also why Russia, which occupies most of that landmass, has been a target of antagonism from the time of the British Empire to its successor in America.

In this context, the idea that any of the following—borders, type of government, loyalty to the Anglosphere, local interests, etc—have any value is a delusion harboured only by the less powerful. The language of morality—couched in the discourse of freedom, democracy and human rights—is merely a tool used for its value in generating acquiescence and because it is a more cost-effective way of securing Anglosphere interest.

This does not mean there is no inherent value in the above ideas for human existence. On the contrary, it is precisely because they do that that they are used in this way. The approach is not born of conspiracy but a calculated promotion of interest shaped by Anglosphere identity and strategic intent.

The guiding elite of the Five Eyes—a permanently morphing combination of governmental, commercial and military interests—sets the path the bloc moves upon. Chaos in the Eurasian landmass is their intention. The break-up of countries and disruption of existing structures benefits them, as in chaos lies opportunity.

The majority of the public within these countries is not aware of any of this, may not be supportive of it, and often is not capable of grasping their own situation in full. The largest part of the narrative control that the Anglosphere elite exercises is to shape the perceptions of their own people towards the path they have decided upon (and even that decision is not necessarily unanimous within the elites).

Chaos in continental Europe has been reignited. Now, using the language of security, democracy, human rights and economic prosperity, the Anglosphere will seek to widen it across Eurasia in any way possible—whether in the Middle East (Syria/Iran), South Asia (Pakistan/Bangladesh/Myanmar in particular so far) or even further in the Indo-Pacific.

Countries that wish to avoid getting pulled into this maelstrom must first become aware and internalise the reality of the Anglosphere. Then they must resolve to balance between these island powers and their targets while minimising over-dependence on any. They should endeavour to keep relationships reciprocal and powder dry, while trusting only the deed and not the word. The extent to which they will nevertheless be dragged into the impending chaos will depend on their size, resilience, flexibility and capacity to reciprocate.

The author is an EU citizen of Indian origin, he has been based in West Asia, Africa and Europe and is a keen observer of Eurasian and South Asian developments. He also writes for Swarajya and Rediff. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.