Permanent war/Mentality

Permanent war/Mentality (paranoia,  mentality,  learned helplessness,  psychosis?)
A form of paranoia associated with high stress and aggression, low empathy.

Permanent war mentality is a form of paranoia that concentrates on enemy images. A reaction to trauma, it is associated with high levels of stress and aggression, low levels of empathy. Permanent war mentality allows no possibility of global peace, a phenomenon which was, briefly, anticipated after the end of the cold war.

Integrity Initiative

Full article: Integrity Initiative

The Integrity Initiative was, until 2018, a generally unregarded UK group that appeared to be a charity aiming to oppose "Russian Propaganda" by "countering disinformation". Reading of the leaked Integrity Initiative documents reveals many of its members seem preoccupied with tackling a "Russian threat". Leaked documents make almost no mention of peace or negotiation, but instead speak the language of war, specifically of a New Cold War.

Chris Donnelly, IfS director, wrote in 2018 that

“But because this is not a shooting war like 1939-45, we in “Western” countries have not adopted the “wartime mentality” essential if we are to cope with the instability which drastic change inevitably brings. We are now trying to cope in a wartime situation but with a peacetime mentality, peacetime institutions and peacetime procedures shaped by the last 70 years of living in a stable, secure, rules-based environment.

...

The qualities we now need in our public servants

So, if we consider what qualities and characteristics we need in those whom we select for leadership today, in a period of rapid and profound change, in all sorts of institutions – government departments, big companies, the NHS - the conclusion is that we need to look for people who have abilities that suit a wartime environment rather than a peacetime one.”
Chris Donnelly (2 February 2018) 
Emphasis in original

Euan Grant wrote that “The character of conflict has changed in recent years. Today, we are seeing a new level of competition among State and non-State interests. It is self evident that success in this hypercompetitive world, to a large extent, will depend on a nation’s ability to develop and deploy new forms of power, including indigenous skills in the Cyber, Signals and Electronic Warfare spheres.”

COVID-19

Full article: COVID-19

Many commentators use war imagery when describing the COVID-19 pandemic, and it can be understood as an example of a permanent war. The natural process of virus evolution (faster spreading, but less deadly mutations tend to prevail) was presented as if the virus were an intelligent enemy. The "fast spreading" part was relentlessly repeated (and used as a pretext for lockdowns), but the "less deadly" was omitted, often implying (or sometimes, saying) that new virus strains would likely be mode deadly.

 

Examples

Page name	Description
"Cyberdefence"
Document:Establishing a modern perspective - Nation-State vs Network State	"The...requirement is for the organisation to be able to get its message across, to ensure that the Government and the people understand that they are actually engaged in one (or more) instability, like it or not." Chris Donnelly believes “we are at war, but with peacetime attitudes."

 

Permanent war/Mentality victims on Wikispooks

Title	Description
Tom Cotton	The most Hawkish senator in US Congress. Elected, funded and guided by AIPAC, advocates war crimes, jailing kids and aunts for "corruption of blood". Tried very infamously to sabotage the Iran Nuclear Deal.
Chris Donnelly	A UK Deep politician who set up the Institute for Statecraft (amongst other groups).
Eric Longley-Cook	Director of UK Naval Intelligence who told the government that "all-out war against the Soviet Union was not only inevitable but imminent"
Paul Nitze	US deep politician, hawkish United States Deputy Secretary of Defense.
Colin Powell	US officer and politician heavily involved in the deep state Iran-contra affair. He is particularly remembered for his dramatic lies in the UN Security Council before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, claiming Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Robert Schweitzer	Spooky officer who was part of Iran-Contra operation. Moved from public post after Dr. Strangelove-like predictions of imminent Soviet attack.

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Paul Keating	“The Albanese Government’s complicity in joining with Britain and the United States in a tripartite build of a nuclear submarine for Australia under the AUKUS arrangements represents the worst international decision by an Australian Labor government since...World War One...And that approach was to have the United States supply nuclear submarines for deep and joint operations against China... And how did this come to be? The answer lies in Anthony Albanese’s reliance on two seriously unwise ministers. Penny Wong and Richard Marles....Labor’s valiant three fell immediately into line – they would join the neo-cons in the Office of National Intelligence, ASPI, the country’s principal US apologist, the security agencies and the hapless Defence department.... Indeed, two of our major dailies, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, have for five years now, argued the notion of war against China. Or readiness for war.”	Paul Keating	15 March 2023
Love	“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”	MLK
StopFake	“[StopFake] has been criticised for a monomaniacal fixation on Russian hybrid warfare, but its work has been widely praised.”		June 2018
War party	“The Americans want war. The people that Biden has appointed have an emotional hatred of Russia. I’ve spoken to government people who are close to the Democratic Party, and they’ve told me that there’s a pathological emotional desire for war with Russia, largely stemming from the fact that the Tzars were anti-Semitic and there’s still the hatred about their ancestors: “Look what they did to my great-grandfather.” And so they’re willing to back the Nazis, back the anti-Semites in Ukraine. They’re willing to back today’s anti-Semites all over the world as long as they’re getting back at this emotional focus on a kind of post 19th-century economy. I’ve met these people. Their emotion is one of hatred and anger. You can look at their face and see what they’ve become. This is really dangerous. They are crazy. And Putin is quite right. America has got its power by breaking contracts.”	Michael Hudson	24 March 2021

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