The STEEL-cameralist Manifesto Part Six: The State of STEEL.

 

Contents

1: Imperial Energies.

2: What is on the Other Side of the Hill?

3: Sovereignty is Conserved.

4: Power, Protection, Prosperity, Purpose and Patronage.

5: The State of STEEL.

 

1: Imperial Energies.

Raised by the Revolution to the summit of power, Napoleon endeavoured to prop up by monarchical institutions the throne he had made for himself. The destructive parties, having to do with a man equally great as a statesman and as a general, who knew his country and the spirit of the nation better than any who ever guided the destinies of France, were above all anxious to save from the wreck of their works all they could secure from the encroachments of the Imperial power. These efforts were impotent; but they were not the less worthy of observation.

The Memoirs of Prince Metternich.

Napoleon’s divisional commanders were immediately impressed by his capacity for hard work. Subordinates could never say they would attend to something and then let it slide, and the staff who had been stationary in Nice for four years suddenly felt the pulsating effect of Napoleon’s energy.

Napoleon the Great. Andrew Roberts.

If this is your first time at Imperial Energy then welcome; if not, then you are probably wondering where the hell this is all going.

How do we escape the Minotaur?

For regulars and new recruits alike, now would be a good time to survey our situation and what the plan is going forward.

Our situation is this: we have finished our diagnosis and, crucially, our prognosis is complete.

What comes next is a survey of possible prospects for both Power and power.

The Minotaur cannot be directly fought against – for it only grows stronger. It cannot be checked or weakened by dividing government either.

Nor can you hope to hide from it or live your life without becoming entangled in struggle sessions by minions with their message of Victims (Low sponsored by High) against Oppressors (Middle).

Below, and throughout the next several posts, we will outline three broad investment strategies for those who want protection, prosperity, purpose and power; our main concern going forward, however, is with the theory and practice of statecraft.

 

2: What is on the Other Side of the Hill?

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I called “guessing what was at the other side of the hill.” 

The Duke of Wellington.

How do you see the future of your life? Your family? Your city and your country? Is it a future of hope and change or one of carnage? If you have to guess how the future of your government will develop over the next few years, what do you think is likely to happen?

Do you have faith that your government can resolve the various security challenges it faces?

Are you optimistic about the ability of your government to manage the many economic difficulties you and your fellow citizens face?

Do you have faith in the schools, the universities and the press who are supposed to prepare your children for the future and protect your rights as citizens from the criminal, the corrupt and the powerful?

What is on the other side of that hill? What will emerge from beyond that horizon?

And once you have (prudently) guessed, then where, with whom, how and for what will you invest your time, money and energy in?

Early in this manifesto, we told you that USG was in crisis and so, as a matter of fact, is much of the rest of the world. The American created, liberal (Tranzi) international order is over.

Freedom and Democracy is on the decline.

All progress is indeed change but not all change is progress. Whatever happens – who gets to retain and gain power – in the next few decades it will determine both the domestic and global paradigm of power for the rest of the century. From now on, there will be no more business as usual.

In what follows, we will examine the state of World Order and explore reactionary opportunities, but first we will outline the possibilities for USG and America.

Last time, at the end of the American Minotaur of War we encountered a prophet.

This prophet set forth some possibilities for the future  of America:

1: Collapse.

2: Crack-up/succession.

3: Caesarsism.

There is also the following possibility which our prophet leaves:

4: Civil war.

Of course, the prophet does mention the possibility that “Davoisie liberalism” will continue as “far as the eye can see” (giving us possibility 5) but he thinks that this is unsustainable.

We agree, so that leaves only four options (of course, the world could always end).

How will we round cape horn? How can we fly this plane without it crashing? We have a democracy (really it is an oligarchy) but passengers on a plane don’t get to vote on who the pilot is or how the pilot flies the plane – yet we trust them with our lives. So what is to be done?

We will come that.

First, here is a summary of the situation.

A civil war already exists – and always has existed. Democracy is war by other means and the two political parties of America – Democrat and Republican – have been waging war against the American people and traditional, republican ideals, for several decades now, indeed for nearly a century now. The hollowing out of the America has been a process that has only accelerated since the end of the Cold War.

The long-war waged against America by “elites” primarily consists of two things: 1. Immigration; 2. Progressive Education and Media Propaganda.

You could also add in poorly fought wars and multiple foreign policy disasters and mistakes; free trade and the massive expansion of federal and state bureaucracy (the unaccountable fourth branch of the government); the prison-industrial system, coupled with the general collapse of the justice system and the rise of judicial tyranny.

The primary, intentional victims in this war have been both poor whites and poor blacks and the mostly white, Christian middle class. In recent years, this war has expanded to cover the concept of masculinity, men and their role in society.

America and its government – U-S-G – is a house divided against itself as a result of Imperium in Imperio.

Yet, the current crisis of the state – both its growth and its weakness (something that is not at all a contradiction) – also results from the ever-present, inescapable reality of war and the imperatives of war-making.

When you combine the premise of a dysfunctional government structure (Imperium In Imperio) to the premise of war-making (the global Minotaur of War of a crypto-empire), the result will be exactly what we see: governance gone horribly awry.

The Trump election was a coup against the Cathedral (the media wing) that succeeded; nevertheless, the Trump administration failed against the power of the Polygon (the bureaucracy).

Trump failed, but the Cathedral is still down (though not out).

The Democrat Party, however, has been decapitated with the loss of Clinton. Nevertheless, the “Bernie Bros” and the Alt-Left waged a spirited insurgency against Clinton and the Old Left machine and, despite their defeat, they are getting stronger and getting ready for the fight next time – much to the consternation of the older left within the corrupt, crisis ridden, Democrat Party.

The Republican Party, meanwhile, is faced with its own insurgency, headed-up by Steve Bannon.

The military (the subject of last time) however, has assumed a prominence in the decision making and management process of Washington greater than anytime in America’s political history.

Meanwhile, a civil war-cum Cultural Revolution is slowly becoming more violent and certainly more angry and punitive.

The Black List will only get bigger.

Both sides seem to desire violence and are preparing for war.

As for succession, not only is California flirting with it but the sanctuary city gambit is a de facto declaration of independence from the Federal government.

Well, not quite. Sanctuary cities and smashing statues are an expression of dominance. The message being sent is that Trump and his supporters have no power. Even if Trump’s executive orders are lawful, the left (sovereign as they are) are the ones who get to decide the exception.

Law does not apply to the left in other words.

So there already is a civil war and it is likely to accelerate and could turn very ugly indeed.

As for collapse, that is an ever-present possibility – something that could happen (is happening) at any time and the chances of it happening will only increase.

Nevertheless, the 5 possibilities are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they could all happen. A crisis leads to collapse, a collapse leads to crack-up and civil war and a civil war leads us to???

Caesarism.

Someone always rules.

 

3: Sovereignty is Conserved.

August 29, 1823. — There was but one single man in France who understood how to master the Revolution, and that man was Bonaparte. The King’s Government inherited from him, not the Revolution, but the counter-Revolution….

Memoirs of Prince Metternich.

Imperial Energy has a unique argument. Really, it is a prediction.

The causes of Caesarism are well understood and the following book is a useful start on the subject and after that you could have a crack at this book or these three short posts if you are pressed for time.

No. Our argument for why Caesarism is the most likely outcome for USG is not based on immigration backlash, economic decay or even political collapse.

Our argument consists of three premises. The first premise contains within it an entire philosophy of history but can be crisply formulated in the following way:

Man makes War; War makes the State and the State makes War – war waged by a Commander, a Caesar.

Our second premise is also philosophical – metaphysical even. The second premise states that war will not end until it has exhausted its evolutionary possibilities.

And if wars will not end, then neither will the state.

The conclusion then is that sovereignty is conserved.

Someone always rules.

Now, there are only three types of people who could rule:

A: Priests.

B: Merchants.

C: Soldiers.

Merchants do not (almost always) rule.

Only Priests or Soldiers rule.

At the moment, Priests rule. (Harvard).

Priests rule if and only if the Soldiers obey.

Soldiers obey if and only if….????

Our prediction is that, at some point in the future, the military will assume command and control of USG.

This could happen in a number of ways, which we will not explore here.

We do not advocate this and we are no position to either accelerate or oppose this outcome.

What we will explore, however, and what STEEL-cameralism is is a thought experiment: an exploration of political design space.

STEEL-cameralism begins with the premise of military control and then we, via an act of theoretical contingency planning, begins to reason – step-by-step – out the purpose, structure and practice of statecraft or STEEL-craft.

So what is the difference between neo and STEEL-cameralism?

Neo-cameralism is where the state is a business that owns a country.

STEEL-cameralism is where the military is the state and the state becomes a business.

The Business of 21st Century America is Business: The Security Business. 

 

4: Power, Protection, Prosperity, Purpose and Patronage.

Napoleon now had dictatorial power in all but name. The people of France had agreed to one-man rule as they desperately wanted peace, stability, consolidation and an end to uncertainty. The royalist resistance, backed by the British, was degenerating into chronic banditry. The Catholic Church was in schism, with anti-revolutionary priests regarded as enemies of the people and pro-revolutionary clerics regarded as traitors by the faithful. The army was badly equipped even while shady military suppliers made fortunes. The Directory had scotched the snake of Jacobinism but not killed it, and seemed violently opposed to liberty, equality and fraternity despite all the blood that had been spilled since 1789. General relief was palpable when a man on horseback appeared with clear-cut goals, a man wedded to authority, hierarchy and order, a realist and a reconciler. The people of France – or enough of them to make the difference – were impressed by Napoleon’s sureness of touch and cared little if he flouted constitutional niceties. Historical necessity, it seemed, had produced Napoleon. No one yet realized that his genius was of the kind that needed constant warfare to fuel it and that all the hopes vested in him were illusory.

Napoleon. Frank McLynn.

If you accept our argument above, or even just consider it a plausible basis for action, what action should you take then?

Depending on your resources – financial, social and physical – there are three broad investment strategies you can pursue. Given your resources and your “station and its duties” you will either be one of the following:

1: An Elite or potential Elite.

2: An Essential or potential Essential.

3: An Expendable or a Potential Essential.

 

1: Elite Strategy.

You are an investor in power and Power is always searching for investors.

To become powerful, you must become a patron. To be a patron, you must acquire clients.

To acquire clients you must be able to:

A: Provide physical protection.

B: Provide prosperity, or guarantee its necessary conditions (protection).

A and B are necessary, minimum conditions. However, if you can provide the following then you will have loyalty as well:

C: Provide purpose (puzzle-solving) and prestige (status ) from successful puzzle-solving.

If you can provide perks then well and good; but if you can provide pussy as well, then you will have not only their life and loyalty but their lust as well.

As Caesar said “with men get money and with money buy men”.

Or as we say, with Guns get Gold and with Gold buy Guns.

And with Guns and Gold?

Get Girls.

2: Essential Strategy.

If you cannot be an Elite – because you do not have the money, the men, the materials, the mind or the mouth – then you can try to be an Essential.

The job of the Essential is simple:

Become essential to the Elite in their task of acquiring and retaining power.

You must search for, select and then dedicate yourself to them.

You must become devoted to your beloved owner.

Can you do security?

Can you manage the money and the machines?

Can you preach the word?

3: Expendable Strategy.

If you are only an Expendable, then you have two options:

A: Become an Essential (who knows you might just one day become an Elite), or at least become essential for an Essential.

B: Become a smart, well hidden, Expendable.

We will have more to say about these investment strategies going forward, but at the minute you can think of the three roles as similar to Lord, Knight and Serf.

Welcome to the future.

 

5: The State of STEEL.

The vast edifice which he had constructed was exclusively the work of his hands, and he was himself the keystone of the arch. But this gigantic construction was essentially wanting in its foundation; the materials of which it was composed were nothing but the ruins of other buildings; some were rotten from decay, others had never possessed any consistency from their very beginning. The keystone of the arch has been withdrawn, and the whole edifice has fallen in. …Such is, in a few words, the history of the French Empire. Conceived and created by Napoleon, it only existed in him; and with him it was extinguished.

Memoirs of Prince Metternich.

Here is an outline of what we will be covering in future posts:

A: STEEL-cam: Next Generation Neo-Reaction.

B: A Storm of STEEL: the Philosophy of STEEL-cameralism.

C: The Structure of STEEL: Cameralist Command and Control.

D: The STEEL-cam Trident: STEEL-craft.

D1: War and Diplomacy.

D2: A Neo-Reactionary Vision of World Order.

D3: STEEL War: Next Generation Special War.

E: STEEL-cameralist Geo-Economics.

F: STEEL Justice: Law and Order, Crime and Punishment in the STEEL state.