The first of a two-part analysis. Here, we dissect the ideological and historical roots of Western elite panic. Next, we examine its material base and the dangerous military doctrines it has spawned.
We stand at an inflection point where the very architecture of global order is being recalibrated. Dmitry Trenin, former colonel of Russian military intelligence, director emeritus of the Carnegie Moscow Center, and astute chronicler of an emergent multipolarity, frames this process in early July 2025 as he observed:
“Many are now talking about humanity drifting toward a ‘third world war’... In fact, the world war is already here, even if not everyone has noticed or realized it. The pre-war period ended for Russia in 2014, for China in 2017, and for Iran in 2023... This is not a ‘second cold war.’ Beginning in 2022, the West’s war against Russia took on a decisive character.”
Trenin's insight is clear: conflict now permeates the global system like fog, diffuse, omnipresent, obscuring the horizon. This article, however, looks beyond the visible eruptions (as critical as they are): Tariffs rise, joint war games hosted by Australia not seen on this scale before, and nuclear sharing arrangements from Washington to London are now announced in the press. Then there are the verbal nuclear tensions, or what KJ Noh, a geopolitical analyst specializing in the continent of Asia, recently called dangerous precisely because it signals movement up the escalation ladder:“The signals themselves are part of that ladder." And most recently, Washington has moved ships and troops into the Caribbean near Venezuela while placing President Nicolás Maduro on a wanted list.
Such events and processes are serious symptoms. But what lies beneath all of this?
Our focus will examine the subterranean frameworks of elite cognition, which have developed over time, that convert economic emergence into an existential threat. When Trenin speaks of a war “already here,” he describes a reality where development itself, technological leaps, infrastructure corridors, and resource sovereignty are seen as weapons by Western (elite) perception. The mist that grows out of these worldviews is obscuring the chessboard, and it is (partly) manufactured. This, then, is a dissection of that fog’s composition:
Elite panic over narrowing resource access and fading ideological monopoly.
Strategic ambiguity: a deliberate weaponization of time and uncertainty that forces rivals to hedge everywhere at once.
Multi-Domain Operations (MDO): the doctrine that stitches finance, information, cyber, and kinetic force into one rolling, low-visibility offensive.
Washington and its closest allies (or vassals) are not even trying to out-develop BRICS on civilian terms; they aim to bleed them, to overextend them, to underpower them: economically, diplomatically, kinetically—before the technological gap flips irreversibly. What we are observing is a desperate game of chance based on the assumption that military attrition can (at least) stall a tectonic shift in the current global order. That choice, rooted in an older colonial logic which framed “non-Western development” as inherently threatening, explains why every Russian drone or Chinese port deal is read as casus belli.
The hourglass drains as Western elites weaponize time itself, turning uncertainty into their sharpest weapon through a fog deliberately engineered not to burn off; for in this manufactured mist, they seek to stall the very shift they cannot prevent.
A quiet, palpable panic simmers beneath the official communiqués of Washington and Brussels. This elite anxiety defies conventional polling, not least because its subjects expertly evade scrutiny. It is deeper, almost existential: a dawning recognition among Western power centers, particularly the United States and its core dependencies, that their entrenched political, economic, and military hegemony is unraveling. Surface manifestations appear frantic, even disorganized, yet this panic fuels a far more perilous response: calculated, systematic escalation. The post-1945 order, engineered for transatlantic dominance, frays as BRICS consolidates influence, sovereign assertions multiply, and critical resources flow beyond Western control.
For elites whose material and symbolic status depends on global primacy, this shift threatens more than markets or ideology; it undermines their foundational position in the world hierarchy. The loss is tangible: energy supplies, mineral wealth, shipping lanes, and the ability to dictate rules of trade and finance now resist their reach. Extraordinary profits shrink, military power projection falters, and coercive leverage over commercial agreements weakens.
This anxiety has roots in history. To understand its depth, we must revisit the contrasts between today’s multipolar challenge and the Cold War era it superficially resembles.
cfgaussian in geopolitics
Weaponizing Time: Elite Anxiety and the Fight for a Closing Window
https://themindness.substack.com/p/weaponizing-time-elite-anxiety-andThe first of a two-part analysis. Here, we dissect the ideological and historical roots of Western elite panic. Next, we examine its material base and the dangerous military doctrines it has spawned.
We stand at an inflection point where the very architecture of global order is being recalibrated. Dmitry Trenin, former colonel of Russian military intelligence, director emeritus of the Carnegie Moscow Center, and astute chronicler of an emergent multipolarity, frames this process in early July 2025 as he observed:
“Many are now talking about humanity drifting toward a ‘third world war’... In fact, the world war is already here, even if not everyone has noticed or realized it. The pre-war period ended for Russia in 2014, for China in 2017, and for Iran in 2023... This is not a ‘second cold war.’ Beginning in 2022, the West’s war against Russia took on a decisive character.”
Trenin's insight is clear: conflict now permeates the global system like fog, diffuse, omnipresent, obscuring the horizon. This article, however, looks beyond the visible eruptions (as critical as they are): Tariffs rise, joint war games hosted by Australia not seen on this scale before, and nuclear sharing arrangements from Washington to London are now announced in the press. Then there are the verbal nuclear tensions, or what KJ Noh, a geopolitical analyst specializing in the continent of Asia, recently called dangerous precisely because it signals movement up the escalation ladder:“The signals themselves are part of that ladder." And most recently, Washington has moved ships and troops into the Caribbean near Venezuela while placing President Nicolás Maduro on a wanted list.
Such events and processes are serious symptoms. But what lies beneath all of this?
Our focus will examine the subterranean frameworks of elite cognition, which have developed over time, that convert economic emergence into an existential threat. When Trenin speaks of a war “already here,” he describes a reality where development itself, technological leaps, infrastructure corridors, and resource sovereignty are seen as weapons by Western (elite) perception. The mist that grows out of these worldviews is obscuring the chessboard, and it is (partly) manufactured. This, then, is a dissection of that fog’s composition:
Elite panic over narrowing resource access and fading ideological monopoly.
Strategic ambiguity: a deliberate weaponization of time and uncertainty that forces rivals to hedge everywhere at once.
Multi-Domain Operations (MDO): the doctrine that stitches finance, information, cyber, and kinetic force into one rolling, low-visibility offensive.
Washington and its closest allies (or vassals) are not even trying to out-develop BRICS on civilian terms; they aim to bleed them, to overextend them, to underpower them: economically, diplomatically, kinetically—before the technological gap flips irreversibly. What we are observing is a desperate game of chance based on the assumption that military attrition can (at least) stall a tectonic shift in the current global order. That choice, rooted in an older colonial logic which framed “non-Western development” as inherently threatening, explains why every Russian drone or Chinese port deal is read as casus belli.
The hourglass drains as Western elites weaponize time itself, turning uncertainty into their sharpest weapon through a fog deliberately engineered not to burn off; for in this manufactured mist, they seek to stall the very shift they cannot prevent.
A quiet, palpable panic simmers beneath the official communiqués of Washington and Brussels. This elite anxiety defies conventional polling, not least because its subjects expertly evade scrutiny. It is deeper, almost existential: a dawning recognition among Western power centers, particularly the United States and its core dependencies, that their entrenched political, economic, and military hegemony is unraveling. Surface manifestations appear frantic, even disorganized, yet this panic fuels a far more perilous response: calculated, systematic escalation. The post-1945 order, engineered for transatlantic dominance, frays as BRICS consolidates influence, sovereign assertions multiply, and critical resources flow beyond Western control.
For elites whose material and symbolic status depends on global primacy, this shift threatens more than markets or ideology; it undermines their foundational position in the world hierarchy. The loss is tangible: energy supplies, mineral wealth, shipping lanes, and the ability to dictate rules of trade and finance now resist their reach. Extraordinary profits shrink, military power projection falters, and coercive leverage over commercial agreements weakens.
This anxiety has roots in history. To understand its depth, we must revisit the contrasts between today’s multipolar challenge and the Cold War era it superficially resembles.
[Continued in article]
Part 2 here: https://themindness.substack.com/p/weaponizing-time-part-ii-the-global
Video interview with the author discussing the main ideas of this analysis: The West Is NOT Collapsing. It's Rebuilding For Total War
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: