THE PROMISED LAND

I have reviewed a number of cultural historian Nicholas Hagger’s books on these topics, notably concerning World Government, a World Constitution and, most recently, the Fall of the West. He brings to bear encyclopaedic historical contextualisation with a detailed and informed analysis of current geopolitical events, a mystical vision with background experience in intelligence services and knowledge of their covert operations. In these books, he also combines travel with his more general reflections on current trends, making his own forecasts of likely future developments. An important influence behind the scenes is what Nicholas calls ‘The Syndicate’, his term for the western elite mega-rich families (notably the Rothschild and Rockefeller families) who control the West’s banking, oil and natural gas and who have been working towards a ‘New World Order’ for many decades, including the creation of the Trilateral Commission in 1973. One of the principal architects and strategists in this respect was the late Henry Kissinger.

Much has been written about the causes and strategic aims of the war in Ukraine, which Nicholas considers in detail. My own view is broadly aligned with that of Jeffrey Sachs and Alfred de Zayas, who both quote an article by former Secretary of State George Kennan in the New York Times in 1997 to the effect that expanding NATO contrary to assurances given by George Schulz to Mikhail Gorbachev would be a major foreign policy error. Some readers will recall the peace dividend touted at the end of the Cold War, but this has been undermined by unipolar neoconservative policies that have led to a series of disastrous wars and costly interventions. Russian leaders in the 1990s aspired to be included in pan-European security arrangements, but the war machine needed to recreate an enemy. US arms manufacturers and their investors are currently making a great deal of money.

Since 2007, President Putin has been warning that NATO expansion reaching Ukraine would be a red line. The current war effectively began with the CIA-supported coup against the Russia-friendly government in 2014 and the subsequent persecution of Russian speakers in the eastern part of Ukraine. In his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard – American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, US Government security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski had already identified Ukraine as strategically pivotal. NATO rhetoric of good versus evil claims that the invasion was unprovoked when certain factions have been poking the Russian Bear until he reacted. A further factor analysed by Nicholas and tacitly admitted by none other than Victoria Nuland, one of the architects of the 2014 coup, is the existence of US Biolabs in Ukraine doing similar work to Wuhan in China. Russian Foreign Ministry to this are nevertheless dismissed as disinformation and propaganda.

Nicholas provides a summary of reasons for the Russian invasion, which incidentally also include new gas deposits that threaten to replace the export of Russia’s natural gas. He provides sources where Putin compares himself to Peter the Great with ambitions to recreate a Greater Russia with a view to bringing in a Russian New World Order in collaboration with the Chinese. Kissinger did not take this possibility seriously, but questioned the US government-stated strategic aim of the Ukraine war to weaken Russia. Lavrov is surely right when he says that the conflict is a proxy war with the US, and indeed Russian security proposals from December 2021 and early peace proposals in March 2022 were undermined and dismissed. The people of Ukraine are paying the price for this move on the grand chessboard, along with an enormously disruptive exit of refugees, as was also the case in Syria.

Putin has given speeches about a Multipolar New World Order, while the Americans are seeking to maintain their unipolar influence and neoconservatives are now preparing for war with China. The current situation in Ukraine and Israel looks like overreach, as suggested in a recent article in Prospect. The Syndicate has all options covered, including a Chinese New World Order where the Rockefellers were instrumental in helping create the current technocratic system, as explained in the work of Patrick Wood. The Chinese Belt and Road initiative is economic rather than military by choice, and gives it enormous influence. If the Great Reset is added to the western New World Order, it will usher in an authoritarian technocracy. American claims to defend freedom and democracy are belied by the growth of authoritarian censorship and the idea that dissent amounts to domestic terrorism. Nicholas also observes that, through the banking systems, the Rothschilds are funding all three potential NWOs.

His proposal is for a supranational democratic world government within a partly federal, multipolar World State confined to seven goals (p. 141). He summarises the proposed structure in both books, but wonders if the first iteration is more likely to be along the lines already planned by the World Economic Forum in alliance with the UN which will be discussed in September 2024 involving centralised emergency powers that are also likely to be vested in the WHO in May. The work of Jacob Nordangard shows how this path to elite world government has been in the works since the late 1940s and how biosecurity, health and climate issues would be weaponised to create sufficient fear in the general public so that they would welcome the proposed authoritarian solution. A further acute crisis in this direction (see also States of Emergency by Kees van der Pijl) could be an engineered cyberattack.

The Promised Land brings the dimensions of Nicholas’ universalism to bear on the coming world state – mystical, historical, literary, religious and political – which he sums up in a declaration of 12 propositions (pp. 80 ff.), which would have far-reaching reverberations for the renewal of culture. He also summarises 10 primary aspects of universalism and 10 corresponding principles and commandments. These include living in harmony with humankind, seeking a centre-shift within yourself to experience the unitive vision, the spreading of kindness and love, and working for world peace. The prophetic promised land of the title is embodied in Nicholas’ vision of the seven goals of the world state fulfilled, an inspiring and potentially achievable prospect envisaged by many great thinkers, and his metaphorical comparison of himself with Moses as he stood on Mount Nebo is nothing if not self-confident of his eventual vindication. Only time will tell.