Dr. Strangelove Is Among US Once Again

 The post-World War II era, characterized by proxy wars between imperial powers, might have been a mere interlude before a more definitive global “arrangement,” with the atomic bomb losing its deterrent effect as technological advancements make its use more feasible. The military-industrial complex might have found ways to deploy such weapons without catastrophic repercussions, echoing a dangerous logic where technological solutions are used to address the very problems they create. The inadequacy of legal and philosophical frameworks to address this shift reveals a world where power dictates reality and institutions meant to mediate conflicts are increasingly powerless. This reality leads to an unpredictable and fear-driven future, where state power is eclipsed by global economic and technological dynamics. The old methods of warfare may no longer suffice, and real victory may depend on technological, administrative, and cultural advancements rather than traditional military triumphs.

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by Massimo Cacciari

So let’s ask ourselves – since perhaps in the face of catastrophe we might try harder to avoid it: was the non-war, or proxy war between the great imperial powers after World War II, just an interlude? Nothing more than a pause to better prepare for the final “arrangement” of the planet? Even the atomic bomb, this formidable balancing weapon, seems to have lost its deterrent power. Perhaps in some laboratory within the vast military-industrial complex, they’ve discovered a way to use it without ending up underground.

Just as they invent viruses and then vaccines, bacteriological weapons and then antidotes. It is well known that only Technology can, according to common belief, solve the problems it generates. If we are sure we can use the Bomb without it backfiring like a boomerang, why not use it? Who said Dr. Strangelove is dead? And who says it would end badly today? Can you do it? – says the common belief – Then do it.

What Judge, what third-party Authority, could prevent the logic of (still) undeclared but ongoing war from unfolding “iuxta propria principia”?

If philosophy leaves wretchedly, from a world where only the will to power speaks, legal science fares no better. Not long ago, it dreamt of the juridification of political conflict. It contributed, through its leading figures, to the creation of High Courts of Justice, international criminal courts. It fought to give the UN real supranational powers, overcoming the veto procedure. And our jurists even cited philosophers to support their theories of international law: Rawls and Habermas – cursing the grim realism of Miglio and Schmitt.

Great politics has reasserted itself in all its tragedy. Will to power against will to power. And crushed in between are the institutions that were supposed to judge and even sanction their actions. These institutions are now explicitly regarded as “nihil” by those wielding actual power. Concrete nihilism: any subject not endowed with actual power is nothing, simply non-existent. It speaks, declares, but words no longer have value. Not even the veil of hypocrisy covers the reality that the prevailing law is the law of the strongest. But this is precisely the problem: who is the strongest? How will it be decided?

Philosophers are silent, jurists mute, parliamentary assemblies reduced to ghosts. Will there be no other arbiter, then, but armed conflict? Will the decision be up to the victor alone? So it has always been, and so it seems destined to be again, if all mediation institutions, all places of discussion and compromise are dismantled.

When the course is no longer set by the will for dialogue and compromise – or when pursuing it no longer seems to align with one’s interests – the normal shifts into the unpredictable. The norm becomes the succession of exceptional situations. Local viruses lurking everywhere can at any moment explode into a Pandemic. This multiplies the demands for control, surveillance, the spasmodic reinforcement of all kinds of barriers, and the concentration of executive functions.

Either we escape the war among the great imperial spaces, or this dystopian prospect will inexorably develop. Uncertainty about the future breeds fear. There seems to be nothing around us capable of shaping the future. A great 20th-century writer, Elias Canetti, spoke of this situation in memorable pages: “This cathedral with its eight hundred years could be reduced to dust by tomorrow night… this city teeming with life could collapse in fifteen minutes.” If we do not perceive the reality of the danger, we cannot overcome it. If we understand it, however, the possibility of salvation may grow.

The increasing uncertainty in our lives is also due to the fact that we can no longer look to State power as the ultimate regulator. We still “pretend” that government is constituted within the system of the State, but in reality, the Authority that decides results from an extraordinarily complex series of acts, mediations, conflicts among global economic-financial oligarchies, in which the functions of Research and Development and particular administrative-bureaucratic dimensions of state apparatuses or groups of States, such as the European Union, are embodied.

This is the “place” of the Political today – a “place” that involves not only the planet’s ship but the space in which it still navigates. Is this situation “bad”? Observing the resistance of the old European state governments and the senile jealousy with which they protect their ancient privileges, one would say yes. But perhaps it is precisely the global nature of the techno-economic confrontation and the mix of interests it produces that contain and curb the hegemonic appetites of those few States still able to pursue their own policy, i.e., the great Empires. Perhaps it is precisely the gap between state power and actual political power that keeps us on the edge of catastrophe.

But this cannot last if the Empires do not question what war means today, what victory means for them. Is it possible to win the War? Must wars necessarily be fought through massacres and destructions? War cannot be won. Wars can, but without necessarily resorting to the old, cruel, barbaric game of arms. What does military victory lead to? What did it lead to in Iraq? No victory “by fire and sword” can lead to the submission of the defeated nation. Imagine in the case of great cultural spaces, of millennial Empires, if their humiliation is conceivable. The “method” can only be that of competition on the overall level of Technology: development, innovation, administrative efficiency. And also cultural and legal models. On these levels, victory can be real, hegemony effective. As long as there are men, there will be enemies, said the humanist Petrarch. But it is not at all necessary for enemies to be so blindly hostile as to think they can only win by risking self-destruction with War.

La Stampa, July 29, 2024