In May of this year, our community lost one of its founding pillars, my friend and mentor Don Edward Beck, the genius who brought forth the work of Clare Graves that made all this possible. Don’s work in applying Spiral Dynamics and the Gravesian framework to issues of geopolitics, global inequality, and climate change are unmatched among his peers. It is the passion with which he approached these issues that have made me a believer in the possibility that Spiral Dynamics and Graves’ seminal work can change the world. This entry is dedicated to Don’s memory and the gift he gave the world which keeps on giving.
I haven’ t had the time this year to write my full end-of-year Gravesian assessment of macroeconomic and geopolitical issues. As I take a break from working on my next book, I wanted to share some of the topics I’m writing about which make for an executive summary of the year in review. Most of these pressing issues have been with us for a while, and seem to have either gotten worse in 2022, or have reached an inflection point from which there seems to be no return to the old normal. Most of these matters are existential in nature and we will continue to face them well into 2023 and beyond.
To me 2022, was a toss-up between these five major existential forces that behave like complex systems and are moving at different speeds and in different forms with different content that will continue to threaten our future for years to come:
The continued decline of the virtues of democracy around the world and the rise of autocratic leadership.
2. The continued realignment of the global economy based on value system congruence and compatibility as we experience more stress with supply chain issues, recession, inflation, sovereign debt defaults, asset devaluation and untenable levels of debt in Western economies.
3. The acceleration of planetary destruction due to the effects of climate change that continue unabated.
4. Putin’s war with Ukraine that now seems to be at an inflection point that could involve NATO and a wider engagement as the US and Europe commit to providing the Ukrainians with more sophisticated weaponry.
5. This one is a bit more detailed due to its ubiquitous and stealthy nature. The digital world that seems to be the largest technological catalyst of the Green system, continues to disrupt the non-digital world in a stealthy way and at an exponential rate. It is removing the filters and the editorial scrutiny that was housed in the hierarchal structures of the non-digital world. It continues to be a catalyst that spreads misinformation and radicalization with utter indifference to institutions and the rule of law.
Meanwhile the creators of Green technologies in Silicon Valley have shown no sign of letting up in their contempt towards the non-digital world as they continue their march to fully disrupt it. As they do that, they continue to line their pockets by selling our personal data, allowing hate speech and misinformation to go unchecked while thumbing their noses at our clueless regulators and our weak and obsolescent institutions.
My call for a Smart Government, one that is designed from the Second Tier of values has not changed in over a decade of writing these assessments. Only Yellow systemic intelligence can address these issues, but sadly these calls continue to fall on deaf ears.
Geopolitics on the Spiral – Six Years Later
I wrote this piece before Donald Trump took office six years ago as the 2016 end-of-year assessment of geopolitics. It offers a Spiral Dynamics analysis of the value systems that were present in our geopolitical alliances and institutions and the people who led them. While I overestimated Trump’s Red stamina and his competence for full Alpha Red leadership, Putin has proven to be exactly the Red Alpha leader I describe in the piece.Â
I will remember 2016 for the times I outraged people when I said the biggest danger facing the world today is a flaw inherent in our most advanced stages of development. This affliction festers under the surface of Western countries that are centered in or moving into the Egalitarian Green Value system. While most of the virtues of Green seek harmony and the restoration of our ecology, its Achilles’ heel lies in its inability to see the murderous intent and the supersized ego of the Red system. Red is hell-bent on destruction if it doesn’t get its way. It stands tall and makes statements like “after me the deluge”, or “I alone can fix it’. Through field applications, we have seen not only the blind spot that Green has for Red, but its defense of it when it victimizes it and blames its misery on the current system of establishment rules. Today, much of the Western world is suffering from Green fatigue, and, sadly we still refuse to acknowledge our blindness to a Red menace that is taking hold of the world and placing it on a very dangerous path.
When it comes to Red, the Green pattern of thinking goes something like this: If choking societal rules and Global standards of behavior were removed, Red will stop its killing and other insolent behavior and express itself fully so we can all live in peace and harmony. After all, it’s all about unrestrained non-judgmental self-expression according to the Green worldview. It is in that view that I find the biggest danger facing the Western World today. In my opinion it is the primary reason why Western cultures are moving to the right. Green Egalitarian ego that sees no value system hierarchy is like a blind virus that destroys all Second Tier efforts and prevents cultural emergence at the highest levels possible.
The danger from Red is no longer a perceived threat. It has worked its way into the White House and made the world more vulnerable in part due to President Obama’s naĂŻve Green underpinnings. One of the hallmarks of his legacy is his policies that wound down the US’s role as an interventionist world power. After the disastrous Bush policies, Liberals around the world hailed this as a new and evolved era in world diplomacy. So much so Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 barely 10 months into the job. This would’ve been a global evolutionary trajectory if the entire world was centered in both the strategic-scientific Orange system and the egalitarian-humanitarian Green system, but alas, Green sees no hierarchy and no evil. Like the Europeans who granted him the award, the President understood that no more world police meant that competing powers around the world have the right to self-expression regardless what stage of development they were in and whether that stage poses a danger to world security. Military might was associated with our savage past and on to the Post American Century we marched. Dialogue and (perceived) mutual respect replaced sanctions and military threats. The signal to Red was clear: the US will no longer stop you from whatever savage activity you want to initiate.
Green mistakenly sees Blue as a foreboding and rigid hierarchy and a hurdle that unfairly stops Red. It doesn’t realize that more than 40% of the world lives under RED Life Conditions and that Blue is their next and most important stage of development. That is the power of institutions that form the cornerstone of modern culture, not the individual Red ego that leaves it vulnerable to destruction. Transition from Red to Blue has historically been the toughest transition in human history. Green doesn’t grasp that when you dialogue with Red and dangerously closed theocracies (False Blue) like Iran, the big stick, a militarized inspection task force, the Sixth Fleet, and a formidable military have to remain the ominous specter watching Red’s every move. These are the necessary conduits that keep Red on the straight and narrow path towards Blue. With Red, you can’t threaten with consequences, you promise punishment and the immediate delivery on that promise. You arrest Mullahs who prevent you from preforming inspections. You bomb Russian columns if they don’t heed the warning before they invade sovereign countries. Yes you have to be that tough with Red or the consequences will be frightening.
In the absence of a big stick, Red leadership will immediately move to fill the vacuum created by Blue. It has a strong detector that immediately sniffs out weak Blue and propels it into action knowing there will be very little consequences. It acts impulsively without worrying about having to deal with the punishment. Immediate gratification, muscle flexing and acts of heroism are what matters. When the consequences come they are dealt with not through corrective evolutionary actions but with more coercive, Blue-busting lawlessness.
It is no secret that the biggest Red threat to world security today is Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Before you begin to angrily color him in higher value systems, pose the same questions that Dr. Graves posed to his subjects to determine their true value system center of gravity (COG). Ask WHY? Find that person’s most visible actions and the reason for taking them and you will quickly come to the answer. Mr. Putin’s COG is Red and all the other intelligences he possesses are in service of his Red system.
Putin’s quick and brazen invasion of Crimea was the first defiant act in the face of a NATO shifting to Green. After the invasion President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry were quick to label his actions in terms like: “this is not 21st century behavior”. Then economic sanctions were imposed on the Russian people in the hope that Putin changes. Well, the Russian economy tanked, and Putin became more popular. His support for defying NATO has increased. He found kinship with other murderous Reds like Assad who also has a good detector for weak Blue and knows the US in its Post American Century will be nothing more than a punching bag for Red of all shapes and sizes.
Green doesn’t understand that the verbal reprimand given to Putin is a sign of weakness. It doesn’t understand that people like him Assad and the Ayatollah’s of Iran do not value the lives and the civil liberties of the people they govern as much as Green thinks. Sanctions are nothing but a hurdle to overcome through any means possible. Global Blue changing to Green means the disappearance of rules to them, especially when it shows signs of weakness.
Red never forgets and it will always look for revenge. The greater the channels and the resources, the deeper the damage will be. In addition to helping Assad flex his bloody muscles against his own people, Putin is taking his own revenge on Chechen Muslims who occupy the highest ranks in ISIS. He hasn’t forgotten 2004, the worst domestic terrorism attack in Russian history by separatists Muslim Chechens. Is the destruction of the entire city of Aleppo enough revenge for Red? Is a quarter of a million dead Syrians a fair price to pay to erase an ugly memory of insolence the Syrian people had nothing to do with?
We shouldn’t ponder these foreign policy questions too long, because Putin’s Red made it all the way into the White House and made things exponentially more dangerous. Driven by “never forgetting” and “seeking revenge” Putin set his eyes on someone from the old guard when it comes to US foreign policy, Hillary Clinton. Obama’s sanctions against Russia were never enough for her, which put her squarely in Putin’s crosshairs. Like the kinship he found with Assad, Putin found kinship with Trump. It was a venture to crush their common enemy regardless of cost because a Trump win will give both men unimaginable spoils.
While a divided America continues to fight over whether or not the Russian hacking effected the election, we are forgetting something far bigger. The undermining of American democracy by a foreign power. Why has this issue been trampled over by both parties? Why is this cyber Pearl Harbor not causing bipartisan anger and street demonstrations against the evils of Russia? Why aren’t countermeasures being put in place to cripple Russian hacking once and forever? The answer is quite simple. To the Liberals President Obama’s statement “I told Putin to knock it off” is enough. It is as laughable to Putin as the President’s previous statement about Red not being a 21st century behavior.
The Republicans on the other hand had all but acknowledged the party’s disarray in the Presidential election. In the party’s downshift to oblivion they have become Red obstructionists in Congress and were getting ready to perform another autopsy that will help them see the light when Trump The Redeemer appeared. There will be no further inward reflection for the Republican Party. It seems that it will stabilize at a COG of RED-to-outdated Blue with a special orientation towards corporate interest. Russian meddling didn’t just give Trump the Presidency; it gave the Republican Party a new lease on life. For that, Putin gets a free pass.
Speaking softly without the big stick has become a symptom of the disease that plagues the Democratic Party and allows for dangerous politicians like Trump and Putin to rise.
How long would Red leadership around the world continue to rise? Well, if the Trump-Putin ego flexing doesn’t get us into World War III the answer might lie in how quickly Liberals own their own Red and accept the notion that blind disregard to the developmental hierarchy is far more dangerous that the biggest thing Red can deliver.
The coming four years will give us an unprecedented opportunity to see if the Democratic Party can evolve. Not necessarily into Second Tier, but enough to realize that in a world that moves forward, its ideologies have become outdated. Blind Egalitarianism without accountability gives us Trump and the Tea Party. The new Democrats need to be as angry as Senator Elizabeth Warren. They need to see through the entire First Tier and articulate the corrosive effects of the values of the last 40 years when only money mattered. This will be an uphill battle that requires the meticulous building of a new Blue system that regulates smartly while awakening Orange’s conscious side that cares for its greater community and the planet, but above all, it needs to let Green know that it’s blindness to Red will no longer be tolerated.
Since Russian President Putin began his military air campaign in Syria, Western media has offered a myriad of half-baked analysis for his motivation. Today’s news agencies are completely detached from the idea of consulting with history. If they were to do so, they will quickly come to the conclusion that all Putin is doing is using the same modus operandi that Russia, Europe and the US have used in the region for decades.
BACKGROUND: THE NEED FOR INSTABILITY
The Arab Oil Embargo of the 1970s taught the West very valuable lessons on the volatility of oil markets: Threaten the supply and the price of crude oil will double if not triple in a short period of time. Since then, it has been in the West’s best interest to keep the region unstable in order to sell the fear that oil supply is under constant threat. This was the lever that many US administrations pulled including Bush/Cheney’s real reasons for invading Iraq. Successive Russian administration went along with this philosophy since it benefited them in both arms sales and as the world’s largest oil producer. As a result of these blood-soaked policies, hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East have died, and the objective of keeping oil prices artificially high was met.
ENTER THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
In 2008 America voted for hope and change, and with it came the most passive foreign policy in modern US history. The idea that the US will no longer be the RED/Blue global police automatically activated the next Reds in line to fill the vacuum.Putin, intent on reclaiming past glory of mother Russia fired the first shot by invading Ukraine. President Obama countered with a stern speech and several bullet points outlining why in his words “This wasn’t 21st century behavior.”
The US and its allies immediately imposed sanctions on Russia hoping that Vlad will have a sudden attack of conscious and tap into the same delusional Green Kool-Aid the Obama Administration has been drinking from.
Punishing Putin meant crippling the Russian economy, and what a better way to do that than killing Putin’s cash cow; oil. The US and Western Europe flooded oil market with increased shale production in the US. In an unprecedented move, they demanded that Saudi Arabia not reduce its production quota, guaranteeing the complete decimation of Russia’s economy.
The idea that Putin will be forced to withdraw from Ukraine with his tail between his legs is a clear indicator of the West’s inability to assess emerging Red leaders around the world. Putin, a past KGB operative was all too familiar with the principles of Middle Eastern instability.
As the West lifted sanctions on Iran, Russia got the military supplies piece of the spoils. Shortly thereafter, Iran announced that it would partner with Russia to make what Middle Eastern analysts call the “Shi’a Crescent” a reality. For readers who are not familiar with the term, this is Iran’s dream of establishing a Pan-Arabian Shia region that spans from Iran, through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. To Putin, this serves his ego on several fronts: One, he’s providing a new regional military counter balance to the West and two, he’s beating the West in its own game by destabilizing the region to bring up oil prices. The good old strategy has worked yet again. Just since the Russian air strikes began last week, crude oil has reversed a yearlong trend and is up 10% on global markets.
One might also ask why is Russia bombing the Syrian opposition, not ISIL. Putin’s immediate goal is to punish Saudi Arabia for siding with the West on economic sanctions. This is not strategic, its RED eye-for-an-eye. The Saudis and other rich Sunni Gulf countries are the primary supporters of the Syrian rebels and that’s whom Putin is bombing.
When it comes to destabilizing the Middle East, Putin is not as diabolical as the West. He doesn’t hide behind the idea that he’s bringing democracy and the one-person one vote system. No, he’s very clear about who his new friends are. They’re the Arab Shi’a that include Assad’s Alawite sect, which is a branch of Shi’a Islam. Trained Shi’a fighters are seasoned killers, unlike any other Arab groups the West trains as fighters. They have a highly regimented (False) Blue organizational structure which gives them a purpose and that is to fight and die for Imam Ali so Shi’a Islam can prevail. Today, they are being trained by the thousands, thanks to the lifting of sanctions on Iran, which are bankrolling their trainers, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
In the post American century, this is how you divide and conquer the Middle East. It’s done by giving power to a false purpose that ignites the sectarian need to kill. Not by naively promising democracy. As for the idea of a peaceful Middle East? That paradigm might crystallize a few hundred years after oil disappears.
(Syria Civil Defence via AP)
You can file this one under the “Only Money Matters” file. In a world run by the values of the Orange level system where only money matters, the lives of a few million Arabs are reduced to a simple cost-benefit analysis. That analysis is very likely made by a Harvard MBA, who did an internship with Kissinger and Associates, who every night goes home to his wife and kids and sleeps soundly.
Like the Europeans who granted him the award, the President understood that no more world police meant that competing powers around the world have the right to self-expression regardless what stage of development they were in and whether that stage poses a danger to world security. Military might was associated with our savage past and on to the Post American Century we marched. Dialogue and (perceived) mutual respect replaced sanctions and military threats. The signal to Red was clear: the US will no longer stop you from whatever savage activity you want to initiate.
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