Economic Sanctions on Russia and Nietzsche's Will To Power

The economic sanctions on Russia as punishment for its project in Ukraine will never subdue Russia. No matter how much the Western diplomats frame economic sanctions as attempting to subdue Russian power in Ukraine, men and women related to and in-charge of the economy of Russia do not influence what goes on in Ukraine. Hence, the economic sanctions are misdirected, and it is possible that eventually a more political force will have to be utilized against the Russians.

The misdirected economic sanctions are a result of the belief held by westerners that the economic men and women (the 'wealthy capitalists') form the most important component in a nation's power structure. Westerners put a lot of emphasis on men and women of the economy, that is, on the wealthy capitalists, as the figures who could influence the politics of a nation. But, we may notice a weakness in the men and women of the economy, and this weakness is that their object of concern is monetary profit and not power, and precisely in times of conflict monetary profit and political power are not aligned. It is as if, in the west, true politics with a national and/or individual will-to-power has been lost, and the political sphere is only in service of the economy.

The problem is that this focus on the economy is coming at the expense of power. There is no connection between economy and power in the Nietzschean sense. Perhaps for Nietzsche, an economy is a sign of a nation's weakness. True, there is a kind of economic power, where wealthy capitalists can influence politics to a certain extent—but we believe this is simply when matters are concerned with the economy first and exclusively. Men and women of the economy, while themselves not shy of taking risk, do tend to shy away from power (or, they keep their wills-to-power private), whereas political will-to-power will utilize the economy for its aims without shame. The question is: should economic men and women lead the nation or the political ones? At times of conflict, at least, it seems that men and women with strong wills-to-power should come to the forefront: those that do not act in the name of their nation, but who carry their nation forward into new territory, who grasp the nation in their hands (to take it forward into undefined territory) rather than allow it to be a burden. In a true Nietzschean fashion, the nation becomes the backdrop when the game/conflict is between two wills-to-power.  

What is needed, following from Nietzsche's concept of the will-to-power, is a tyrannical form of power, a tyrannic response to the Russian project. This will-to-power is not economic, but political in its expression. The aims of this will-to-power are political interventions into the Russian project in Ukraine. As a side note, we can simply witness the great tyrants of history, such as Alexander-the-Great, to understand that the political aims of power are seldom met as easily as economic means. For one, economic aims are concerned with a fixed territory, whereas political will-to-power wants to act on and dominate another (Ukranian) will-to-power as much as possible...even when the territory is conquered, the political aim motivating the warfare is not final, for subduing the other's will takes a lot of time.  

Therefore, political will-to-power is about people acting on people in its most basic manifestation. And so, at this infant phase of the conflict, we have an undefined group of people, known just as Russian separatists, without a territory or state to their name, acting on the will of the Ukrainian people. At the moment, Russia seeks a hero among the Russian seperatists, one who has a strong will-to-power, a strong striving for power, for whom the conflict itself is just a backdrop to the expression of his/her will. Perhaps we may thus expect a true celebrity figure, a hero/heroine, to emerge at this stage of the conflict. The conflict has not yet moved to a stage where Russia, a named territory, will directly act on Ukraine, for what is at stake at the moment is a political will-to-power rather than economic and other gains. Ukraine will have to be won over in the political sphere before economic agendas and issues are discussed. Ukraine will have to be won over through the passion and drive of the Russian separatists rather than through the military might of their weapons. It is only when a victorious will emerges that conflicts between neighboring countries which share similar histories can be said to be solved. The Ukraine-Russia conflict starts with a rivalry between two wills and it will end when one will asserts itself over another (it is not a war for the territory or the economy, and the westerners understand this). From a military perspective, this battle of the wills looks like a prolonged battle, because the military will not be used constantly and with great might, but it will be utilized only insofar as military might itself stands as an expression of a superior will.  

Economic sanctions on Russia will only go so far as to hit the elements of Russian economy without influencing the overall project in Ukraine. From the western perspective, what may be necessary to show is political power, power which is tyrannical, power which addresses the political sphere of Russian life more fully. It is also crucial that this power attach itself to the Ukrainian resistance, in order that this be a battle of wills rather than of military might. In fact, this 'battle of the wills' may already be in the tactical plans of this warfare. At the moment, the economic sanctions are only showing the Russians the current weakened state of the western will-to-power...and therefore the Russians may act more, wary of this weakened will, than be subdued. As a side note, at this point, the westerners seem to be ashamed of exhibiting their own power, but when western will-to-power is introduced amid the Russian will-to-power, war will become like a game, since both wills are out in the open and there is nothing to hide: there is an unashamed competition among the wills...As a game, the war will become more tactical than chaotic. 

Western Desire for the Decomposition of Peripheral Politics

In a kind of simple world systems analysis, we may say that the world has one pole which is the core (the west), and the other regions (“third world”, “developing nations” etc) collectively known as the periphery. This is a very simplified analysis: for one, it seems to suggest that things from the core flow out onto the periphery, and that the core and periphery are linked by an intimacy in which everything that is present in the core eventually makes its way into the periphery. This transportation of things from the core to the periphery, however, only occurs in the sphere of goods, services and cultural practices, but does not occur in the sphere of politics; rather, the periphery has to fight for true political change, even when it is democracy that they are seeking. It is as if the west wants to dominate the rest of the world in its trade practices, in the sphere of economy, but ceases to intervene when the issue is just the political sphere, the political mechanism and the political apparatus. In any case, even when it does attempt to intervene into the political, its attempts are half-hearted, meaning that it only wants to intervene into politics when trade, commerce and the economy are involved; in all honesty, politics is of a secondary concern to the west.

But, can we go so far as to say that the west wants, in the peripheral regions, an anarchic decomposition of politics? Can we say that the west is waiting for the moment when politics in the periphery is nonexistent, so that it can infiltrate the peripheral territories at will for its more economic ends? No is the answer, for the west may want political decomposition, but it will not get it today, and so we have a Lacanian scenario with regards to the logic of desire: the western desire is political decomposition, but it will not get it, and hence political decomposition maintains as a desire, that is, desire can be sensed between the fantasy of political decomposition and the peripheral resistance to this scenario. The west will not get a decomposition of politics, a death of the political, no matter how much it desires it; or rather, it desires the decomposition of politics precisely because it will not get it. In this reformulation of desire we can note the weakness of western desire today compared to how it led to conquest and violence in colonial times. Western desire is no longer strong, no longer a driving force, rather, a kind of artificial image of western desire is maintained by inserting a fake desire in between the fantasy and the reality.  

The important question is: why does the peripheral other remain as other, to continue to exist and live as other, rather than being completely destroyed through western desire? How does the periphery resist western desire? In today's world, it is not so much the west actively imposing its ideas and practices among people, but rather, it is more about the periphery actively mimicking the western—and mimicking to such a great degree of accuracy that the peripheral region literally re-presents the west: one need only think of how accurately the national capitals of the world's poor places represent western values and aesthetics. Privileged places and populations of the periphery become too accurate a picture of the west. And this mimicry begins at the political level, that is, not at the level of objects of trade such as cars and houses, but at the level of the models of western politics: democracy, authoritarianism, isolationism and so on. This accurate re-presentation is problematic because it implies a form of independence from the west, an independence which begins with the political mechanism and which the west fears will eventually spread to independence in goods and services, in the economy, in commerce, in production....a form of isolation from the west which begins with political mechanisms becoming independent...There is quite a paradoxical situation where independence occurs because the periphery mimics, rather than in the attempt to resist such a mimicry. And hence the periphery can resist desire: by re-presenting the west with its own image, by blurring the lines between self and other, by showing oneself to not be different (and 'female') but same (and 'male'). Western desire is resisted by showing the oppression of the periphery to be a kind of suicide on the part of the west.  

The west assumes, it seems to us, that the political mechanism and political actors of the peripheral population are most easily influenced by ideas of independence and isolation. Hence, the west is divided about how to respond to the political mechanisms of the periphery: on the one hand, it sees these political mechanisms as a joke, as flimsy and weak, but on the other hand, the political is very important because it can influence other social actors and institutions to isolate themselves from the west, for instance, on the issue of free trade. And hence we arrive at an important image: the west has to take the joke (the joke of the periphery's political mechanism) the most seriously, and therefore, what is most serious in the periphery is precisely the joke. In a psychoanalytic vein, as Freud said, the (western) analyst is the one person who does not laugh at the joke.

The (Lacking) Grand "End of Feudalism" Thesis

In reality, in the real social fabric, there is no move which reflects the move in the political historian's text from feudalism to capitalism, or, the “end of feudalism”. For instance, we can notice that the same groups are in power as before, and any change has only been of a trivial manner. We are speaking specifically about feudalism because the modern, objective historian is a birth of recent history and there was no “historian at the present moment” at the feudalistic moment, therefore, in a sense, everything said about the feudalistic moment has been speculated by the historian of today about a moment in which he/she did not live. Even if it may be the case that the political historian was objective in his/her research, the real social fabric does not adapt itself to the terms feudalism and capitalism that smoothly; these terms are abstractions that generalize and make speculations, rather than speak of reality in any meticulous detail; they are grandiose concepts which are difficult to apply for the average citizen in any attempts to change his/her life. Given such a use of terms, it is therefore important to politically situate the historian even if the historian himself may not directly do so. By “political situation,” we are not only speaking about the political orientation of the historian, but rather, we are speaking of the more important matter of the utility of the historian's grand thesis for a politician's rhetoric, as we will do shortly.  

In short, the grand thesis of the "end of feudalism" does not reflect reality, which is full of small gains and losses, which does not completely align to the concepts of feudalism and capitalism. So, in a sense it seems that the job of the historian's text is not to inform, but rather, to enable the general audience to consult these texts on feudalism and capitalism so that this audience may engage with the moment in a manner which subscribes to these texts; always already the purpose is to persuade rather than inform. The historian constructs a mental picture in the audience's mind about what feudalism was like, and this picture is on the most part fictitious, motivated as it is by political aims. Here, we begin to see why the historian is important: because he/she is closest to formulating (but not reaping all the benefits from) a Foucauldian technique of government as he/she has the first role in interpreting history and proclaiming the ends and beginnings of social orders; he/she produces political concepts and symbols at what are considered to be critical and important junctures. But there is a form of corruption in the historian's formulation of such a technique because the "objective" stance does not arrive arbitrarily but arrives only at a politically important moment; we may begin to see to what extent objective historicizing is imbued with biased politics. We see the very important notion of the use of objectivity: no matter how objective a historian may become, he/she does not exist in a neutral and objective space and so his/her thoughts ultimately play into subjective and biased aims of politics. 

For the politician, who is an important enforcer of the techniques of government, the “end of feudalism” thesis is something which enables him/her to formalize the history of the time, to give the times a type of definition, to mark it with more seriousness and weight than other times. Of course such a "making serious" of feudalism is usually motivated by other, more hidden political aims. The "end of feudalism" thesis allows him/her to engage with others who are regarded as rivals, to defeat these rivals in the eyes of the people...he/she uses the thesis as a weapon, and keeps utilizing it for its rhetorical richness rather than for its plausibility, relevance or objectivity: as such, politics becomes dominated by the uses of old theses, as is the case in Nepali politics where the ideas in speeches are often repeated...Using the terms feudalism and capitalism enables a very political reading of the times, infusing the present with excess political urgency and also constructing the future as an important field for politics. However, the major “undercurrent” to utilizing this (and many other) theses is to give strength to the symbolic order, which is understood here as the ordering of social reality by the use of theses. The politician steps in to save the symbolic order, which is especially vulnerable at times of upheaval. Indeed, in the faceless, post-political moment of today, the politician's only true significance must be to perform the bland role of saving the symbolic order...both a bland role but an important (and hence, rewarding) one. Additionally, the politician's motive is to use this thesis to limit the field and context of what is considered political versus what is considered apolitical. "The political" is usually reserved for fast-moving periods of time and revolutions in the contents of the moment, on newness. Ultimately, this focus on the fast-moving, the rapid goes to maintain a certain false rigor in politics, and elicits a shallow excitement towards the political...the political keeps its place in the fashion of the times because it allows commentary on supposed change and transformation. 

What philosophy of history does this subscription to the “end of feudalism” thesis (or text) entail? What is implied by this “end of feudalism” text is that things do not move forward without a symbolic impetus, that is, without concepts such as 'feudalism' to describe the social. It is considered that subjects consistently seek symbols, that they seek explanations, especially political ones, so that they may articulate and construct their own life-trajectories...and this seems especially true of Nepal where the interest towards politics is quite high. With symbolic impetus, social institutions and people move forward within the confines of what the symbolic defines and limits. When the historian speaks of the “end of feudalism,” people begin to enact moments that would come after the end of feudalism, people would begin with a consciousness of feudalism in mind in whatever they do. However, we can also subscribe to another philosophy here: that things are constantly transforming beyond the reach of the text, that the text is in fact the material weight to a human limitation or disability: the disability to keep up with how things change without symbolic impetus. Symbolic impetus only gives an illusion of control. We may believe that people's consciousness of feudalism does not have as much significance as is assumed. We can begin to reduce the importance of the thesis/text on the movement of reality and the social fabric. Reality does not rely on the symbolic order and the historian's play of words, but rather, on the Lacanian symbolic lack, that which cannot be captured by the thesis, the lack of control and the lack of technique of government...it is upon the lack of the symbolic order where reality thrives...From Foucault, if we have derived the historian's powerful role in constructing the symbolic order, from Lacan we have given the authority over the movement of the symbolic order back to the ordinary, post-political citizen.