Bhumics 12: The Pauper, Part 5 - The Receding Tide
From this article in 1843 Magazine (published by the Economist):
Little Diomede, which was sold by the Russians to America along with the rest of Alaska in 1867, has been the American sentinel on the Bering Strait ever since the cold war. Climate change is now giving its residents new reasons to stay alert. Across the Arctic there are vast quantities of energy, minerals and fish that were once considered locked away by ice. As it melts, the region is opening up to sailors, speculators and predatory superpowers. A new Great Game is afoot.
The Bering Strait could become the new Suez Canal:
Even if Trump continues to thaw relations between America and Russia, the Bering Strait is likely to remain a site of geostrategic competition. Ships use this narrow chokepoint to venture towards northern gasfields; it’s also an essential leg of the Northern Sea Route, which the Russians hope could eventually compete with the Suez Canal as one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. There are already three times more ships passing through the strait than there were in 2008. The province of Chukotka in Russia’s far east has seen investments quadruple in recent years as plans for ports and infrastructure projects take shape.
Not that the locals benefit from this great game:
Little Diomede’s population, which for generations fed itself with locally caught seals and walruses, has shrunk by more than half in 30 years as worsening weather and thinning ice make hunting dangerous. Those who remain are living in small homes which could collapse at any moment as the permafrost beneath them melts and buckles. Many families have fallen apart under the pressure; alcoholism and domestic violence are not uncommon.
While climate change requires us to cooperate at a scale never seen before, I’m increasingly of the view (Polyconflicts ☹️) that we are as likely, if not more, to use it as an expanded arena of competition and conflict. Nothing like the end of all days to bring out the best in people. With today's essay, I am going to weave in a loose argument I've been toying with for a while.
We have known for a while that all politics, even local school committee elections, are now national. This is a consequence of social media consumption and the presence of Trump (and Obama and Modi etc) on every screen all the time. But why stop with the nation - the underlying technological control mechanisms are international at their core, so all politics is international - the worldwide debates about migrants, genocides, wokeness and tariffs are the most obvious signs of the internationalization of politics.
Whatever the state of democracy within countries, the international system has never been one, and can in no sense be classified as a liberal regime. The more politics becomes international, the more liberalism suffers. The US might have thought at one point (90s through 9/11?) that it will act as a global Leviathan, imposing a liberal regime on everyone. Now it is the biggest destabilizer of that goal, possibly because of sour grapes.
With planetary competition becoming the dominant global mode of engagement, international politics between nations helmed by authoritarians resembles drug cartels and mafia families more than ever. Politicians, Energy and Tech moguls are peddling substances more addictive than those sold by El Chapo.
This is how planetary colonization works.
The common narrative tells us that modernity marked the state's rise and the church's fall as society's ultimate authority. But Machiavelli reveals something more nuanced. The Church never relied primarily on military power. What truly declined wasn't just its institutional influence but the very concept of moral authority itself.
What would shock Machiavelli's contemporaries—but seems normal to us—is how "The Prince" treats morality as practically irrelevant to governance. Today, we can hardly imagine a world where divinity permeates everyday experience. We might pray before work, but when we ride a bus, we simply ride a bus—we don't experience it as a divine chariot. This loss of what I call "moral immanence"—the direct experience of cosmic order in daily life—preceded and enabled everything we associate with modernity: secularism, church-state separation, and religion's retreat to the private sphere.
In this moral vacuum—where neither Church nor cosmic order constrain behavior—a particular type of governance emerges that resembles what we see in criminal networks: the prioritization of power and profit above all else. Just as drug cartels operate according to pragmatic self-interest rather than moral constraints, modern states in our "securitarian globe" often function according to similar principles under a thin veneer of legitimacy.
The international order Machiavelli foresaw is one where, like in criminal organizations, might makes right and the pursuit of advantage trumps ethical considerations. When morality receded, what rushed in to fill the gap was not purely rational governance but a system where, as in criminal networks, power accumulation becomes its own justification.
Commentary on Chapters 13-15
Machiavelli's advice on military matters reveals the receding tide of moral authority in stark relief. His core argument in Chapter 13 is brutally pragmatic: never rely on mercenaries or auxiliaries. Mercenaries are "useless" - disunited, cowardly when faced with danger, and loyal only to money. Auxiliaries (borrowed troops) are even worse - if they lose, you're ruined; if they win, you're at their mercy.
In themselves, these auxiliaries can be capable and effective, but they are almost always harmful to those who use them; for if they lose you will be ruined, and if they win you will be at their mercy."
Therefore, anyone who wants to be unable to conquer should use such troops, because they are much more dangerous than mercenaries: for with them ruin is complete. They form a united force, and are used to obeying others.
Instead, the Prince must maintain "his own troops" - citizens or subjects directly loyal to him. This mirrors how successful criminal organizations operate today: they create their own enforcement mechanisms rather than outsourcing violence. Just as drug cartels establish loyal security forces and avoid dependence on outside protection, Machiavelli's ideal prince builds military capacity that answers only to him. Modern authoritarian states follow this pattern, creating security forces with personal loyalty to the regime rather than to constitutional principles. Machiavelli cites numerous examples, including Cesare Borgia who succeeded precisely by disbanding unreliable forces and creating his own army—a strategy not unlike how criminal kingpins consolidate power by eliminating middlemen and building personal loyalty networks.
In Chapter 14, Machiavelli continues his secularization by insisting the Prince should "have no other objective and no other concern... except war and its methods and practices." Even in peacetime, the ruler should hunt to learn terrain, study military history, and contemplate strategy. Divine protection is irrelevant; only practical knowledge matters.
The moral tide recedes furthest in Chapter 15 where Machiavelli explicitly rejects idealism: "Because there is such a great distance between how we live and how we ought to live, anyone who sets aside what is done for what ought to be done learns more quickly what will ruin him rather than preserve him." Here, the moral universe collapses entirely into the pragmatic one.
because circumstances do not permit living a completely virtuous life, one must be sufficiently prudent to know how to avoid becoming notorious for those vices that would destroy one's power and seek to avoid those vices that are not politically dangerous; but if one cannot bring oneself to do this, they can be indulged in with fewer misgivings.
For the pauper in our age of Polyconflict, these chapters offer a crucial insight: power operates through material rather than moral forces. Just as criminal networks disregard formal rules while maintaining a facade of legitimacy through their own codes, our securitarian globe runs on similar principles—rhetoric about values and international law masks the raw competition for resources and advantage. Global powers, like sophisticated criminal organizations, exploit governance gaps, create dependencies, and use corruption and coercion while maintaining plausible deniability through complex, opaque networks of influence.
Contemporary Reflections
Machiavelli's warnings about mercenaries and auxiliaries find striking resonance in today's securitarian globe, where relationships between states increasingly resemble those between criminal networks and their associates—transactional, self-interested, and inherently unstable. Consider Ukraine's relationship with Western powers – receiving arms, training, and intelligence but ultimately fighting their own war. The precariousness of this position speaks directly to Machiavelli's caution about auxiliary dependencies. Just as a local criminal gang might receive weapons and protection from a larger syndicate only to find that support withdrawn when priorities shift, Ukraine faces similar structural vulnerabilities. As political analyst Anatol Lieven observed, "No matter how much Western aid flows to Ukraine, its fate ultimately depends on sustaining its own national army and will to fight."
The American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 provides another stark illustration of Machiavelli's military principles. Despite two decades of training and equipping Afghan forces (at a cost of over $83 billion), these "auxiliaries" collapsed almost immediately when their American sponsors departed. The Afghan National Army, intended to be "their own troops" in Machiavellian terms, functioned more like mercenaries dependent on external support – precisely the configuration Machiavelli warned against.
Similarly, the proliferation of private military companies (PMCs) like Wagner Group represents the modern incarnation of mercenary forces, operating in the shadowy space between legitimate state actors and outright criminal enterprises. Their deployment in Syria, Libya, and across Africa exemplifies the hazards Machiavelli identified while also demonstrating how modern states exploit the opacity of these arrangements—much as criminal networks use cutouts and intermediaries to maintain plausible deniability. Like drug cartels that diversify into legitimate businesses, these PMCs blend legal and illegal activities, extracting resources and establishing control in governance vacuums. The 2023 Wagner mutiny in Russia underscored Machiavelli's point that mercenaries can become a threat to the very state they supposedly serve, just as criminal enforcers sometimes turn against their bosses.
Finally, Machiavelli's pragmatic approach to virtue in Chapter 15 is reflected in the realpolitik that dominates international relations, creating a system that parallels how criminal networks operate beneath a veneer of legitimacy. When countries proclaim human rights concerns while maintaining strategic partnerships with authoritarian regimes rich in resources or geopolitical advantage, they embody Machiavelli's recognition of the gap between ideals and necessities. This mirrors how criminal organizations may publicly denounce competitors' violence while engaging in similar practices themselves. The global system's "disregard for formal rules and norms" while maintaining their outward appearance resembles how criminal networks create their own internal codes while operating outside legal frameworks. As Henry Kissinger, perhaps the most Machiavellian of modern statesmen, famously observed, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests" – a sentiment both The Prince's author and drug cartel leaders and Donald Trump would surely recognize.
The Pauper's Perspective: On Self-Reliance
In a world where moral authority has receded and raw power dominates, what lessons can the pauper—the ordinary citizen—draw from Machiavelli's ruthless pragmatism? When the international system increasingly resembles global criminal networks in its exploitation of weakness, creation of dependencies, and prioritization of power accumulation, how should average people respond? Machiavelli's warnings about mercenaries and auxiliaries point to a central principle for our time: true security comes only from self-reliance.
First, beware of "political auxiliaries"—powerful allies who promise protection while extracting dependence. Just as Machiavelli warned rulers not to rely on borrowed troops, citizens should not place their faith in distant protectors or saviors. Whether corporate platforms promising community while harvesting your data, or politicians offering security while eroding your freedoms, auxiliaries will abandon you when their interests change. Build your own capacity instead.
Second, develop "your own troops"—the skills, networks, and resources that cannot be taken away. In our polyconflict world, these include practical abilities (growing food, repairing things, basic medical knowledge), strong community ties, and localized systems of mutual aid. Unlike the prince who needs literal armies, the pauper's strength lies in interdependent networks of capability. When the second wave of the pandemic was decimating India's cities and villages, some of the most important aid was delivered by self-organized citizen groups.
Finally, like Machiavelli's ideal prince who studies war even in peacetime, use this interregnum to prepare. Study the systems that govern your life—technological, political, ecological. Practice governance in local contexts. Build resilience through redundancy and diversity. The securitarian globe, with its criminal-like networks of power and exploitation, doesn't reward naive hope but strategic adaptation. Just as communities in areas dominated by drug cartels sometimes develop parallel systems of governance and mutual protection, citizens in our polyconflict world must create alternative structures of support and resilience.
The pauper can never match the prince's force, but in an echo of the Church back in the day, the people can create domains where that force becomes irrelevant—spaces of autonomy, sufficiency, and collective capability that operate outside the extractive logic of both state power and criminal enterprise, capable of withstanding the storms of a polyconflict world.
