Toppling Tyranny: Hegemonic Hierarchies and How They Collapse
Entry posted by Vladimir
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The question of the great war is upon us once again, this time asking where the next one will come from. As one would expect, there have been a multitude of responses covering nigh every alliance in the known world, while others fall into despair that we may have reached the end of history for the foreseeable future. But no one has yet dared to transcend the superficial examination of alliance relations and enter a scientific analysis of the great war concept itself.
As has been noted previously, a great war is essentially the climax of a revolutionary movement in the process of attempting to overthrow the hegemonic bloc -- that is, the bloc which maintains its place atop the unipolar world. Thus, the coaluetion toppled the NPO, the Initiative toppled the coeluetion, the Unjust Pact attempted to topple the Initiative and was itself toppled by what became the Continuum, Karma toppled the Continuum, and finally C&G toppled Karma. At the most basic level what we can take from this is what has been implicit within most responses: the next great war will be a challenge against the hegemony of C&G/SF.
However, more pertinent to the question is precisely how these great wars came about, and in this we find an interesting consistency: the hegemony invariably enters a civil war. Thus, the NPO fell due to its long-term backers, GATO and Legion, aligning against it; similarly, the Initiative fell due to a challenge by elements within it; the Continuum came to an end as a result of several alliances going over to the other side; and finally, Karma met its demise as it broke into its warring component parts. Indeed, the only great war that wasn't broadly brought about by defection was the second great war between the Initiative and the League, and this can be explained by the extraordinary circumstances of several new and large alliances developing simultaneously in that period and destabilising the power structure -- something that would be impossible today.
To understand this we must first understand how the unipolar world works. It is invariably defined by a hegemonic bloc that controls international politics -- in our case this bloc is the aforementioned C&G and its sidekick, SF. This control derives in part from raw strength, but primarily from the bloc's central position in the treaty web, which spreads its influence to almost all significant alliances.
The way in which this works is perfectly demonstrated by Lord Sharpe's 'BlocNet' (the image at the top of this article), designed at the height of the Continuum's power. In BlocNet we can see that the ruling bloc was largely defined as being made up of the ruling alliances from the various corners of the world, each hugely influential within its own sphere. This parochial influence was then used to create the global influence of the Continuum, which in turn fed back and conferred global influence on the parochial ruler.
This is broadly the social structure of a unipolar world, and through it we can see a clearly defined hierarchy made up of three categories of alliance:
At the top there are the Core alliances, capable of bending the world to their will by virtue of their place atop the semi-periphery -- there is usually only room for one such alliance (eg. GOONS in the Unjust Pact; NPO in Continuum; MK in C&G). This isn't to say they aren't constrained -- they must keep the semi-periphery on-side -- but they are constrained in a different way from others, enjoying an infinitely greater degree of freedom.
The semi-peripheral alliances are those that hold considerable power to bend the world to their will, but are also constrained themselves by the core alliance and other semi-peripheral alliances, each pushing their different agendas. This category is mostly made up of the non-core alliances within the ruling bloc.
The peripheral alliances are the great mass of alliances lower down, usually tied to the semi-periphery and core through a system of protectorates, treaties and blocs.
However, as the above would imply, within every social structure there are contradictions. The core maintains its position so long as they maintain control over the vast bulk of the semi-periphery, while the the semi-periphery has a constant pressure to advance its own interests at the expense of the core (and itself -- the other semi-peripheral alliances). The result of this is a constant, if often blunt, tension, leading to a constant strain on the core alliance as it battles to simultaneously maintain peace within the semi-periphery, the respectability of the bloc, its own authority, and the pursuit of its own unique agenda. With a skilled core this situation can carry on peacefully for prolonged periods, but in the long run it is unsustainable, and the longer the period carries on the more the dual motivators of grievance and ambition begin to build up.
We can therefore begin to understand why the great wars have primarily come from within the hegemonic bloc itself. The hegemonic bloc doesn't rule by virtue of its own power, but rather by virtue of the power of its constituent parts (ie. the ability of the semi-periphery to pull significant sections of the world with them) that is then invested in the core. While an uprising of independent peripheral alliances is nearly impossible due to the numbers required, the likelihood of the uprising being quashed prematurely, and the interfering influence of core and semi-peripheral alliances, it is that semi-peripheral influence that has the authority to shift large chunks of the world at once, altering the very terrain upon which we stand.
We can sum up therefore by saying that all blocs, and indeed, the entire world system, is nothing more than a social construct that exists only insofar as it is perceived as advancing the personal interests of each of its members. The hierarchy inherent to any hegemonic bloc makes it vulnerable to a rapid change in this perception, as the core pushes its own agenda while acting as a mediator for the other major players, in the process holding back and alienating those who inevitably lose out.
The conclusion to this structural analysis isn't, unfortunately, anything so simplistic as an alliance's name. However, it can tell you where to look. If we are to have another great war, the build up and spark for it can only come from within C&G and SF themselves. The only question is: when will the second tier alliances get tired of being the supporting caste and decide to take their destiny into their own hands.
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