[geysersam]

This is just a typical conspiracy theory to explain the mess that is reality. It borrows aspects of the real world: 1. Predatory resource extraction from poorer countries, 2. Cases where western militaries / intelligence agencies have helped overthrow democratically elected governments, Etc

But! Then it fuses these pieces and makes it seem like they are part of a larger plan. A plan where "someone" has incentive, lack of ethics and almost all powerful capability to manipulate events.

Thing is, masterminds don't exist. Opportunists do.

*It doesn't serve developed nations interests to keep everyone else down.* Look at globalization. How much money has western companies made from utilizing manufacturing in Asia? More than they would extracting some minerals mined by child laborers...

[blagie]

My experience is different. These things are planned. There is a grand plan. The planners are incompetent nincompoots, though, and things rarely go according to plan.

I've been in enough power positions to see that grand plans and grant ambitions do exist, as do lots and lots of conspiracies. It's just that the external conspiracy theories rarely line up with actual conspiracies. What's going on inside is usually far, far stupider than even the conspiracy theory.

[smallerfish]

> far, far stupider than even the conspiracy theory

That was my big takeaway from reading a bunch of "insider" books after the 2008 crash. The banks thought they were getting away with an great scheme (not a conspiracy, per se), but had the common human inability to properly model out the logical chain of implications over the long term (and perhaps a touch of "emperor's clothes" preventing proper risk assessment within larger organizations). Meanwhile the market punters were caught up in a frothy bubble ("this time is truly different!") which clouded their perception of reality, which led to all kinds of bullshit hype in the media. There were outliers, of course (e.g. I rememeber an eye-opening article in Harper's in ~2006 which was extremely dire in its outlook, and of course there were various people who were fortunate with their shorts), but the folks bought into the alternate reality tended to ignore warnings, given that their money was invested in the fever dream (also perhaps trusting the authority of the banks to have put together a low risk product, without truly understanding it).

In short, there's no need to conjure up an illuminati when you have all of the various standard fallacies of human thinking to work with.

[giantrobot]

> In short, there's no need to conjure up an illuminati when you have all of the various standard fallacies of human thinking to work with.

You definitely don't need an Illuminati-esque mastermind when the participants in the system have similar goals, motivations, and capabilities. In retrospect an event might look coordinated but really it's just an aggregate of every participant acting entirely independently but according to similar constraints.

[jollybean]

a) Nobody not even POTUS is in a position to even have such a 'Grand Plan' in this regard.

b) Yes, some 'Grand Planners' exist, and fully agree that they are often a mess.

c) There is no plan to destabilize Africa. Totally the opposite. The plan is definitely to bring stability, because everyone wins there. It's in that endeavour 'they fail' in 1000 different 'unforeseen' ways. Those systems are arguably inherently chaotic and will be for some time.

[blagie]

There were plenty of well-documented plans, mostly by oil companies, to destabilize African countries. The idea is to keep a level of corruption high enough to where you can get lucrative profits through bribes, but not high enough to have an open war zone and where contracts you made are enforced.

This isn't a conspiracy; it's well-documented.

Good book: Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil

[jollybean]

Nobody wants chaos, especially not corrupt people.

Saudi Arabia is effectively 'fully institutionalized corruption backed by the US Army' and it's almost 'model'.

The Oil Flows, the Leader does whatever he wants with his cut, as long as there is stability and order.

Instability leads to failed contracts, downfall of leaders knocks over dominoes, attracts attention, people are arrested and go public, war etc..

This idea that somehow 'an Oil Company' could actively keep something a bit broken but not fully broken gives way, way too much agency to them. They are not that smart or powerful.

They would all be happy just to pay 'The Guy' his cut in perpetuity.

Arguably, Russia is such a country. Putin et. al. take their cut, the plebes get some scraps, everything is cool.

Everyone was willing to look the other way at his minor intransigence.

Until he crossed the line, and now he has to be dealt with.

All he had to do was take his billions and literally not invade anywhere. He could do anything he wanted in his borders.

As you can see all of Europe is roiling as the result of chaos, nobody wants it - not Putin, not Europe, not any Oil Company.

[blagie]

Saudi is ideal, but a Nigeria is better than a Norway. You can't always get to a Saudi.

[ganzuul]

I have been trying to take over the Illuminati brand, since discovering that actually no one is in control. Have survived enough psychological trauma to do a way better job than whoever is attempting it right now.

Not an ego thing. I just find it embarrassing that this is the best purported enlightened people can do.

[themgt]

It's also possible to go too far in the direction of seeing only tactics but never strategy, and taking countries publicly stated goals and motives at face value. Zbigniew Brzezinski was one of our most influential contemporary foreign policy thinkers - here's the NYT reviewing his book 'The Grand Chessboard':

Brzezinski ... describes a very forbidding situation in the years ahead if the United States does not make more permanent the dominance it now has over a vast area of the world. "This huge, oddly shaped Eurasian chessboard -- extending from Lisbon to Vladivostok -- provides the setting for 'the game,'" Brzezinski says. "If the middle space can be drawn increasingly into the expanding orbit of the West (where America preponderates), if the southern region is not subjected to domination by a single player, and if the East is not unified in a manner that prompts the expulsion of America from its offshore bases, America can then be said to prevail. But if the middle space rebuffs the West, becomes an assertive single entity, and either gains control over the South or forms an alliance with the major Eastern actor, then America's primacy in Eurasia shrinks dramatically."[1]

In other words, for the US to continue its unipolar domination requires the lack of cohesive blocs dominated by other great powers. Obviously in this context Brzezinski is alluding to Russia and China in the Eurasian 'chessboard', but the logic is broadly applicable around the globe. There's also a difference between controlling events like a puppeteer pulling strings and the more common scenario where our actions help catalyze events we may not have intended but were nonetheless predictable and seen as not worth the effort or trade-offs to avoid.

[1] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/26/r...

[pram]

Brzezinski is a very good example considering his “Arc of Crisis” strategy was to literally keep the Islamic states on the periphery of the Soviet Union destabilized. Not exactly a conspiracy, actual US policy.

[bnralt]

You seem to be misunderstanding what Brzezinski said to and portray it as having the opposite meaning. The point of the "Arc of Crisis" speech was that the U.S. needed to help _stabilize_ the area, because a destabilized region could fall to the Soviets. This was in response to American concerns that instability in its ally Iran could spill over to other allies as well. Here's an article from the time[1]:

> High‐ranking White House and Defense Department officials argue that other key nations in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, are prone to the same domestic disorders that have struck Iran and that Moscow seems increasingly inclined to exploit these difficulties.

> As a result, while some middle‐level specialists in the State Department caution against exaggerating the impact of the crisis in Iran and complain that the White House is in danger of creating a Vietnam‐type “domino theory,” ‘the Administration is said to be fashioning its policy toward Iran and its neighbors in regional terms, treating the area as “an arc of crisis,” a description used recently by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mr. Carter's national security assistant.

> In a speech to the Foreign Policy Association last week, Mr. Brzezinski said “the arc of crisis” stretched “along the shores of the Indian Ocean with fragile social and political structures in a region of vital importance to us threatened with fragmentation.”

> “The resulting political chaos,” he added, “could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to our adversaries.”

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/01/archives/us-reappraises-p...

[frankfrankfrank]

I find it ironic that the very people who dismiss everything they cannot comprehend as “conspiracy theory”, because it does not fit their conditioned frame of mind; are not all that different than the other end of the spectrum that is convinced everything is fake.

It’s similar to how people dismiss that TV (among other things) can be used to brainwash/condition/ manipulate people, while being totally blind to one of the biggest industries in all of humanity exists on that very premise … advertising.

[JKCalhoun]

"I believe everything I see on T.V."

"Everything is a lie."

Both are wrong.

[usrusr]

But when both occur together, they become extremely powerful: once you start buying into "everything is a lie", you are free to pick whatever claim on TV is the most convenient, no matter how much evidence there is for the other side.

[hsgshdhdh]

you are forgeting all the concrete evidence that the opportunists DO have access to power.

look no further than the leaked usa diplomat cables. for example, brazil found new oil reserves. president announces it will be nationalized to pay for new education reform. cables then show conversation about oil companies wanting that resource and that the local diplomats must "solve it". later brazil have a senate coup where president is removed on bogus charges and very first act if new president is to sell rights to the oil reserves bellow market value.

so, yeah, both your comment and the one you replied to are correct. it's all oportunistic, but the opportunists are the defacto masterminds of the power machine somehow.

[dalbasal]

I agree.

That said, I think this type of quasi-conspiratorial narrative building (like parent) tends to exist because there is no credible good guy theory currently.

Flawed as it was the 90s neoliberalish, globalish ideology was... at least it was an ideology. It had a a sense of good and bad. It had some promises of better futures. Etc.

What we have now is "stuff happens, sometimes that sucks."

[elliekelly]

> What we have now is "stuff happens, sometimes that sucks."

I think this is exactly the scenario where conspiracy theories thrive. It’s really hard for people to accept that stuff happens and sometimes that sucks. We need to assign a “reason”. Preferably a reason that makes us feel like it wouldn’t or couldn’t happen to us.

[dalbasal]

I didn't mean that, quite.

I meant, there isn't a current ideological rationale for trade/development/etc. There isn't a vision for where it leads. Etc.

I mentioned 90s neliberalism-ish policies. Well... those were a promise of a better world. So was communism, democratic socialism, etc. They had visions of the future. Rationales for how things get better.

Now... There isn't. Trade or security are just about trade and security. They aren't part of a bigger whole. They aren't about a vision for anything. There's no reassurance that this is good for Africans, or even for Americans. It just is.

[inawarminister]

Islamism, as mentioned up thread, is a powerful ideology that is thriving.

There's also social justice and related movements in the West, but that's internal ideological development in liberalism, not something that can be sold to the world.

China's brand of profit-oriented authoritarianism state capitalism is also spreading around the world, though. Including Africa.

[CyanBird]

It is quite interesting seeing these comments, I wonder what the age of the commenter is, these older fellows in the thread and elsewhere might have longer memories and remember things such as

> "Protecting the free flow of Africa's natural resources to the global market is one of AFRICOM'S guiding principles"

Robert Moeller. Dep Comm AFRICOM 08

https://studies.aljazeera.net/en/reports/2013/05/20135211226...

[DyslexicAtheist]

few problems with your reasoning (and reality is a lot more sinister):

> Thing is, masterminds don't exist. Opportunists do.

I agree. But an incentive, or a grand hidden plan, etc are not required. What conspiracy theorists see as "the man behind the curtain" is just a side effect of the system (this is where they are wrong and fail). This is also the ultimate defense of the system because accusing a single individual/group of a hidden agenda can easily be dismissed (it isn't logic), they are "nutters" etc (and everyone sane will agree). But a system that promises freedom/equality, etc but produces predictable losers of one group ("the global South", "the poor", "the deplorables", "the plebs"), while the other group is able to bastardize them as part of the design is actually more wrong and hypocritical than a system that is doing the same but being honest about how they inflict terror.

"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich." -- Peter Ustinov

...

> How much money has western companies made from utilizing manufacturing in Asia? More than they would extracting some minerals mined by child laborers...

Western companies have been very successful utilizing child labor in Asia and only the most high profile companies are being called out (because nobody cares about a no-name org from the West with only 50 employees being responsible for chemical burns of Bangladeshi kids limbs dying fabric for the fashion industry, ... This story only ever gets clicks as when a company the size of Nike is involved). The power systems in Asia are great at disappearing people silently[1]. Literal slavery still exists in all parts of the world. And there is no industry immune to it, e.g. if you enjoy seafood like me there is no way you haven't eaten fish that was caught by slaves (and if you're vegan you probably consumed fruit and veg picked by slaves)

[1] https://www.oceans8films.com/ghost-fleet/

[erdos4d]

There really is a long established track record of the US government and CIA doing these exact things, especially in Latin America, and in my experience at least, countries are creatures of habit. Why should anyone believe they aren't playing similar games in Africa today? The absence of an easily identifiable "someone" is not much proof to the contrary, especially when actions on the ground match up with the phenomenon referenced.

[imtringued]

>But! Then it fuses these pieces and makes it seem like they are part of a larger plan. A plan where "someone" has incentive, lack of ethics and almost all powerful capability to manipulate events.

>Thing is, masterminds don't exist. Opportunists do.

You are forgetting that everyone is consciously or subconsciously wanting these things. You don't need a single super villain, you just need a critical mass of people who want a benefit for themselves at the expense of people they are never going to meet.

In Germany the amount of people that think they have a god given right to cheap meat and cheap oil is astonishing and they clearly don't care how that end result is achieved, they just demand that their politicians do something about it.

[elliekelly]

Is that exactly what parent comment said? It’s not a “mastermind” but “opportunists” taking advantage of the situation.

[slibhb]

The idea that Africa being poor and unstable is related to cheap goods in Europe and the US is complete fiction.

Furthermore, you rate unconscious desires of westerners over the actions of Africans. What would have to occur for you to attribute a coup in an African country to the actual human beings who carried it out?

[galactus]

I would argue two thing:

1) foreign policy doctrines exist.

2) It does serve developed nations interest to keep some other nations in the role of natural resources suppliers and nothing else.

[orbifold]

I am almost certain these masterminds exist. There are just very few countries with these kinds of imperial ambitions left. It doesn’t take much to find examples of French and US intelligence and militaries interfering in various countries in South America, Africa and Indo-China for the purpose of securing mining rights etc. The genocide in Rwanda involved ethnic militias backed by / advised by French and US on either side with the French foreign legion training the genocidaires for example. There are well documented cases where French plots to secure copper mining rights through bribery were uncovered by cia counterintelligence. Most German heavy industry when operating in Africa / South East Asia / Middle East does so by mix of bribery, political interference and cooperation with intelligence fronts like the GTZ. Africa has countries that still use the Franc and whose infrastructure is firmly in the hands of large French cooperations.

We are just witnessing in Ukraine how years of foreign interference can go horribly wrong.

[ericmay]

So Ukraine is the example of where foreign interference (in this case Russia interfering with Ukraine) can go horribly wrong?

[orbifold]

A coup supported by the west in 2014, a color (orange) revolution before that. In both cases there was overt support for the anti-government protests and vetting and planning for the US favored successor (“Fuck the EU”).

A former Georgian prime minister (same that got Georgia into an armed conflict with Russia and who came into power in Georgia by a flower revolution) became head of Odessian Oblast with US support some time after 2014.

Various paramilitary groups were funded / backed by Russia / US / other people. Among them obviously the “peoples republics”.

Years of investment in “pro”-democracy NGOs many of which are known to be affiliated with the State Department and intelligence fronts, to the point that many maidan protesters / organizers were essentially paid to be there.

The Crimean referendum happened under Russian influence obviously.

The whole Nordstream 1/2 project came into existence because Ukraine was annoying to deal with and some German politicians were more than a bit too friendly and open to Russian suggestions.

In turn there was a lot of planning by the US happening to slow down Nordstream 2.

There are a lot more examples like that. Ukraine is an excellent case study how large blocks / nations follow through on their foreign policy goals over decades.

[ericmay]

> A coup supported by the west in 2014, a color (orange) revolution before that. In both cases there was overt support for the anti-government protests and vetting and planning for the US favored successor (“Fuck the EU”).

And what were the events that led up this revolution? Walk me through the details.

> In turn there was a lot of planning by the US happening to slow down Nordstream 2.

And now Nordstream 2 is cancelled. Are you saying Putin is working with western oil and gas companies? Had Russia not invaded Ukraine last month, Nordstream 2 wouldn’t have been cancelled and gas would continue to flow into Europe.

Maybe you can walk me through this one too?

[orbifold]

The 2014 one was basically an association agreement with EU fell through, in part because they / the IMF were unwilling to extend a line of credit without massive cuts to government subsidized gas / energy and Russia threatened to cancel the Tarif agreements between Ukraine / Russia (as they otherwise would have given unrestricted access to EU goods to Russia. Russia instead gave a ~15 billion credit. Various NGOs then followed a typical playbook, occupy a central square, agent provocateurs showed up and created violent incidents, the Kiev mayor ordered a violent removal of protestors in order to install christmas decorations. Some protestor was shot, turned into a martyr, the investigation who was responsible has been inconclusive afaik. Various neo nazi groups (right sector) started arming themselves and attacking security forces, trying to storm government buildings. In total I think roughly ~120 protestors and ~20-40 security forces were killed. Janukovitch narrowly escaped the storming of his residence. Orange Revolution I don’t really remember any details.

[ericmay]

So why did Russia then invade and annex Ukrainian territory? What does any of this have to do with that?

[orbifold]

Nordstream is in many ways just s bargaining chip, strong German and Russian interest in it, US obviously opposed. Instigating as much instability in Ukraine and making sure that German, Russian cooperation becomes untenable, was surely part of the US plan. Germany will now import US / US client states LNG and build corresponding terminals. US imposed various sanctions and the pipeline was held up for various reasons even before the war started. Obviously that doesn’t justify Russian aggression. This is just to say that the whole Gas thing is an excellent example of foreign interference in a country both in Germany (Russia & US) and in Ukraine (Eu & Russia & US). Note how it also played a role in the maidan revolution.

[ericmay]

All of this to say, if Russia hadn’t invaded, Germany and Europe would be moving right along with buying Russian gas.

The problem with this theory is this idea that somehow an EU-aligned Ukraine represents a threat to Russia or Russian energy. It doesn’t. All the foreign interference in the world is irrelevant.

The truth of the matter is that Putin thought that gas supplies to Europe were a sufficient bargaining chip to prevent the EU and an in-fighting United States (thanks China/Russia/Iran, appreciate the taste of our own medicine) from acting while he took over a resource rich and to Putin, historically important Ukraine. Putin tells you this. He wrote about it and has talked about it endlessly. There is no mystery here. No grand “foreign interference” conspiracy. The US has no reason to care if Russia supplies energy to Europe except to the extent that Russia then goes on to cause chaos and trouble elsewhere. This is evident by the actions of the US which have been appeasement after appeasement.

[snurk]

Reporter Julia Ioffe learned first-hand that Euromaidan protestors were paid. https://youtu.be/b1HWNcLDK88?t=4964

[jessaustin]

It's not going so well for Ukrainians, and it remains to be seen for the Russians, but recent events have been a triumph huge success for those particular foreigners whose primary goal is selling more weapons manufactured in USA.

[ericmay]

It’s going much better than even the most optimistic assessment. I fail to see how selling more American weapons (many of which are being given away?) is more economically advantageous than like, not having a destroyed Ukraine. Maybe you can walk me further through the logic here. Who is making these decisions? Was it Trump when he fought to get Nordstrom’s 2 cancelled? Or is it Biden? Or…?

[jessaustin]

Even those weapons that are "given away" are first purchased by USA taxpayers. This whole dynamic was observed long ago by Eisenhower. Probably he could have done something to resist it, but puppets like Trump and Biden have very little say in the matter. The most they can do is pick among options when TPTB suffer from a lack of unanimity: see our pathetic withdrawal from Afghanistan. The last guy who really stood up to this, got shot in Dallas.

A stable prospering Ukraine is of no more value to the actual decision makers than a stable prospering DR Congo.

[ericmay]

Well then there isn’t much to do nor any reason to care is there?

> see our pathetic withdrawal from Afghanistan

Eh withdrawal was fine. Needed to get out of their ASAP. A little chaotic but the military (woah Biden made the MIC do something they didn’t want to do???!) didn’t think he’d actually order them out since everyone has talked about it for years and they were too far invested to cut their losses.

But sure. The Us wants to sell more weapons. So does Russia. The Russian MIC started the war so Putin would have to buy and upgrade equipment. So there ya have it.

[frankfrankfrank]

You are native. I know for a fact that these things are planned, not just in short, but in very long term plans too. You may not plan ahead, but I can assure you there are many people that plan for even the century and beyond.

The farther out the plan, the more likely it will need to be adjusted, but people who plan so far out in advance have an extreme advantage; because people like you do not plan ahead and therefore do not act to affect or are even able to effectively counter the future they have planned for you, you are merely a passenger on a rail that is taking you where others have determined you shall go.

However, you are correct, it is not a “mastermind” even when it may appear so, it is always an organization, one with a life expectancy beyond the event horizon of individual people.

[nebula8804]

Seeing how poorly the US seems to be handling China, it does not look like a long thought out plan. At this point the only hope is that China peters out before their coming population implosion and collapses under that pressure. Essentially a strategy without a plan..or is that the plan all along?

[jessaustin]

USA policy in Eastern Europe over the last two decades seems designed to push Russia into a subservient "little brother" role with China. If China is the "real" opponent, why did we just give them exclusive access to all of Russia's natural resources?

[Dma54rhs]

This is some Q-anon level deep stste conspiracy bs. World is complicated and there are millions of different interests and mutual benefits.

[kilroy123]

Oh really? And how do you "know for a fact"? What "organization"?