Nothing that happens in the world makes much sense to me, confessed the famous film director James Cameron, in an interview for CNN with host Farid Zakaria. This nonsense can also be a product of perfected artificial intelligence that captures our minds, so we are already, perhaps, in a transitional period towards life in a simulation - added the creator of a series of science fiction hits.
Indeed, all kinds of global stunts remain outside the utility value of common sense. It's as if we are pushed into them by some kind of machinery for conducting our memory and imagination.
Everything, as it were, is happening for the first time and eludes forecasts - from the specifics of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war in Gaza, to climate breakdowns, pandemics, challenges to democracy, a record increase in social differences, heartless rulers... And what follows - friction over "acceptable doses" of the masses refugees from those and thirty other accidents, whose fate is increasingly used as a coin for bribery in the struggle for power.
Man is no longer safe anywhere - this is a statement that was instilled in me by a teenage wise woman. And which can now sound like a direct rebuke to the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations, because they have just become the main nursery of insecurity.
But, as such, they have embarked on a new type of serving security, suggests this year's study by specialists Shina Greitens and Isak Kardon in the journal Foreign Affairs. Their research shows that great powers, even when they are in uncompromising rivalry, find a way to install different security protections for individual countries at the same time.
They mostly analyze the actions of Washington and Beijing. According to them, the Americans guarantee external and the Chinese internal security, which is what some national authorities are looking for.
Thus, the duel of the powers, which are attributed to stamp this century, turns into an informal strategic duet. Vietnam is one of the countries to which this "double" stuck.
During Joe Biden's visit last year, it was announced in Hanoi that relations with the US had been upgraded to a "comprehensive strategic partnership". Military cooperation is also included in it, as a valuable support for Vietnamese and American opposition to Chinese "expansiveness". Only three months later, Xi Jinping came to Hanoi and there, too, strengthened the "comprehensive strategic partnership". With the aim, as stated by the authors, to prevent destabilization, separatism, "color revolutions" and other threats to the maintenance of communist authorities through joint efforts.
In short: Vietnam receives a shield from the Americans against external aggression, and from the Chinese against internal opposition contingencies. "Dvopek" is also similar, it is stated in the UAR, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Djibouti...
Surprisingly for Europeans - also in Hungary. And she hired a duet duelist.
As a member of NATO and the EU, Budapest counts, of course, that America also guarantees its external security, but it does not hesitate to support its internal security with China. Cooperation with it has been improved, it is interpreted, among other things, in order to relativize reliance on America, whose influence the government perceives as encouragement for the liberal opposition.
At the same time, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is strengthening ties with the American opposition, specifically Donald Trump. He even says that his doctrinal conservatism directly helps Trump's election campaign to take over the White House. At the same time, he believes that, if he wins, this favorite of his would attract the Europeans to an agreement with Moscow, which would keep the occupied parts of Ukraine.
Perhaps we too have fallen into the simulation of the meaning of life. We have become accustomed to simulating democracy, elections, the rule of law...
Here, on the other hand, things are different, although to some extent a replica of the duelists' duet can be seen. The purchase of 12 "bursts" in the arrangement of Emmanuel Macron and Aleksandar Vučić is largely interpreted as Serbia turning to the West and against the widespread influence of Russia.
But, just a little earlier, the local president thanked Russia for "discovering" that protesters against Rio Tinto's lithium mining were actually staging a "color revolution" to overthrow the regime. The leader and his deputies accused unidentified factors from the West, as well as suggestions from Moscow and Beijing, for encouraging these unprovables. The West as a whole, however, supports lithium mining in Serbia and praises the course of our government in that direction.
It turns out, paradoxically, that the local regime is supported by both the West and the East - in order to push each other out of Serbia. For the sake of lithium, "bursts" and other lucrative arrangements, the West tolerates his denigration of democracy, and the East looks down on his rapprochement with the West, as it sees Serbia as part of their autocratic club. In addition, Russia and China are considered guarantors of territorial integrity here, because they prevent Kosovo's entry into the UN, while we, at least formally, strive for integration with the West, which is the guarantor of Kosovo's statehood.
It is our version of a duet with the forces, and a duel with ourselves. To paraphrase Cameron - perhaps we too have fallen into a simulation of the meaning of life. But not under the influence of artificial intelligence, but because we have become accustomed to simulating democracy, elections, rule of law, care for the environment.
Even security itself. For her, the government once said that "we have her for export", but that, in fact, we constantly import her, in the form of both duels and duets.
Bonus video:
