“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
– Samuel P. Huntington

The White Empire took Asia by taking and remaking its forts, using superior cannon and siege weaponry. The Portuguese took the Strait of Hormuz in 1515 and the British took Perim in Bab el Mandeb in 1799 and they are only now being wrested free. How? The same way they were tooken. With superior forts, cannon, and siege weaponry.

Iran and the Axis of Resistance have redefined forts as being underground. Under entire mountains, as in Iran and Yemen, or even under a concentration camp as in Palestine, these have proven to be superior. We had forts before, but the colonizer always wrested them. Now the modern underground fort has been tested in war, and bested them.

The Axis of Resistance has also redefined cannon. While the Empire drifted away from land-based cannon, because they were always bombing people far from home, the people of the land innovated on them. Now Iran and Yemen have 'cannon' that can be fired from its mountain fortresses and quickly withdrawn, and the 'cannonball' can find their targets from across continents. It's a brave new day and the cowardly colonizers have little or nothing to do with it.

As Samuel P. Huntington said, the White Empire won the world by its superiority in applying organized violence and it loses it the same way. To superior, well-organized violence. A 21st century shift in weapons and tactics that they're on the wrong side of. The Empire occupied and monopolized trade around the world using fortresses and cannon and they lose their occupation bases and monopolies to superior cannon and fortress. As the Axis of Resistance has proven.

Historical Background

I will speak somewhat from memory here because Sri Lanka is dotted with forts (Galle, Matara, Jaffna, Mannar, Colombo), still with their cannon. I have a lived memory of them, and know how they changed hands over and over. First the Portugeuse, the Dutch, then the British. The cannon always pointed outwards, because they fought amongst each other, but the fortress was always there for our plundering. Now the Americans do it from a giant embassy, but it's the same thing. These forts have been here so long that it's easy to think that this is the only way to trade. Like that new Jewish saying, 'if I don't steal it, someone else will.' But this tyrannical sort of trade is, in fact, profoundly unnatural.

People traded fine around the Indian Ocean before the White Empire fortressified everything. We had Tamil sailors manning Chinese boats, coins from the Roman Empire, goods from the Muslim World. I'm not saying that people didn't fight, but there wasn't a monopoly of violence across the entire ocean. It's not some natural law that you need to trade this way, it is, in fact, a historical anomaly.

Speaking from Sri Lanka, the entire Indian Ocean has a longer history of trade that was just, trade. Zheng He (a Chinese Muslim) came here in the 1420s and gave us stuff. Ibn Battuta came even earlier in the 1300s, marking our connection to the Muslim World. We have had trade with India since time immemorial. None of these traders set up forts to violently extort us because they were traders. They had stuff and exchanged it, quite often more stuff than us. Zheng He really just left gifts and bounced. Unlike broke-ass Europeans (not coincidentally turned white because they had so little solar energy), people in what's now called the Global South had plentiful energy (recorded on our coincidentally colored skin) and could trade amongs ourselves without depending on coercion. Always remember this, we didn't come looking for them, they came looking for us.

When the energy poor Europeans came here they actually didn't have much to trade with. All the violent tribes of Europe had to offer us was superior violence, so they took. Beginning with the Portugeuse they locked down trade using violence, such extraordinary violence that it required extraordinary cannon and forts. Then they monopolized our trade amongst each other (White people don't even use spices) and started sucking the profits (ie, energy) north. The Whites fought amongst each other for this monopoly trade so long that we think this it the only way to trade, but it's not. Such unnatural trade was only held in place by artificial violence. But nature is healing, inshallah.

What Iran is establishing is trade outside of this monopoly of violence. All Yemen wants is the same, the right to move around and exist on their own terms. Same for China, same for Russia, North Korea, Cuba, et cetera. This is what unites all of the White Empire's enemies, not their political systems, not their religion, not freedom or human rights or any other such marketing phrases used by inveterate slavers and inhuman corporations. The White Empire is run by Corporate AI, not humans, and it's never been personal, it's strictly business. They want a monopoly on trade and they attack any independent nation that threatens this.

When they first arrived, we hadn't evolved the organized violence to fight them because for centuries we hadn't needed it. Why would China need to violently impose trade with Sri Lanka when they had more stuff than us? They could just come here and trade stuff normally, which they mostly didn't because they simply weren't interested. Why would the Muslim World pepper us with forts? We were happy to trade pepper for their fancy system. It's only when broke-ass Europeans came that they broke the system, and quite effectively played us against each other. There was a huge amount of energy released by them networking the continents (in their desparation) and for a brief period (500 years) they were able to profit from being middlemen with superior violence. Other people had, of course, evolved mostly land-based violence, but no one else was this aggressively amphibious (and later, avariciously avian).

At the beginning Whites (their energy poverty reflected on their skin) had little to trade but organized violence and weapons, which is to say they didn't trade they're terrorized and took shit. Remember, they came looking for us, we didn't come looking for them! Much of the trade that enriched Europe wasn't between us and them, but between ourselves, with them monopolizing the profits. For example, the Whites grew opium in India to violently force on China. Warmer peoples never resorted to such lows as inter-continental drug dealing because we were not that broke. We were really not prepared for the violence that came out of the Asian ghetto called Europe.

I can still see that violence dotted around my island as forts, and the historical lesson I learned over and over was that they fought over these forts, and whoever held the fort won. That's how Sri Lanka passed from the Portugeuse to the Dutch to the British to now the Americans (their Embassy is horrifyingly large). They violently controlled trade not just with them (which was negligible at first) but with each other (which was a lot, literally the world). The controlled trade with sieges then, now with sanctions, but it's the same phenomenon. Coming to its natural denounement. After many millions dead and the climate burning, unfortunately. Shout-out the whales, also, they got it the worst.

That's why what Iran, Yemen and the Axis of Resistance is doing is so important, led by the heroes of Palestine of course. They are taking the Empire's forts, one by one. They very physical occupation they girded us with. And they are outshooting the Empire's cannon, silencing the guns they used to extort the world. What Russia and China are doing is also important, one in hot war and the other trade war, a revenge best served cold. They are showing us that trade and development is possible with or without the Empire, and even against its worst intentions. It's taken long centuries but the natives are relentless and nature is healing, inshallah.

Present Foreground

That's the historical background, I guess, did I digress? Let's connect it back to the present, the rise of Bab el Mandeb to the Yemeni and the Strait of Hormuz to the Iranians, long centuries since losing them. Previously, I've spoken about how the Axis of Resistance is winning the missile and tunnel wars, ushering in a new paradigm of warfare. But is it really so new? What is a missile but a cannonball and what is a tunnel but a deeper fort? Yes, it's still just cannon and forts, the age-old battle betwixt shield and sword. The Persian Gulf is lost the same way the Portugeuse took it, through cannon and fort. This was how they held power and how they lose it. This is the only language colonizers understand, superior violence.

The great innovation of 21st century warfare has been tunnel forts and smart missiles (and drones). Palestine first showed it, in their daring escape from and resistance from under the concentration camp the Whites made of Gaza. Then Yemen showed the same model when they defeated the US Navy in the Red Sea. And Iran demonstrated the same thing when they not only held Iran but destroyed all the US bases surrounding them. The Portuguese conquered Hormuz in 1515 and it's taken over 500 years to get it back! But we got it, homies, we got it. And these guys have changed history.

Can you believe it? I see the same damned Portugeuse Fort in my own country, built by slave labor, passed among Whites so they can rape us, and I have to pinch myself. It's really happening. We're finally beating them. In West Asia, sure, but I'll take it as an Asian.

The White Empire today is still dependent on 20th century weapons which are, in many cases, worse than 15th century ones. Modern American forts are exposed containers and just regular buildings out in the sun. Their old forts were stone while the new ones are basically cardboard. And they do not have much modern cannon at all, they got so used to strafing the poor from air cavalry that their missile technology has barely evolved.

For many years the Empire has ruled by fiat, not forts, sanctions, not sieges. I usually say it's the same thing because it has the same effects, but these are not the same causes. The White Empire has ruled for decades not by the consent of the government but by the lack of concerted opposition. Iran accepted American bases across the Persian Gulf and other countries accepted American sanctions. People, more than we should have, forgave and were content to live under the White Empire. Iran wanted to lift sanctions through negotiation, Russia broached joining NATO, China preaches win-win at ever occassion. Despite them being degenerate thieves and rapists, we gave the White Empire every chance to preside as elder statesman, but they can't do it. White supremacy is the only content to White Empire and they have to go out the way they came in, violently. They know no other language.

Since the White Empire monopolized global trade it was held by force, literally by forts. And if you didn't like it you didn't get missives, you got missiles down the throat. This was the deal and they held it even after they lost the power to enforce it, by sheer inertia. I think there remained that foolish idea that Whites could become human and just trade like normal people if we gave them long enough but they can't and they won't and they forced the point themselves, by starting multiple land wars in Asia. The force was implied, but the minute they made it explicit, everyone could see that they were a spent farce.

Now they're losing fortress Ukraine in North West Asia and every base in South West Asia and can't even start in East Asia, though I don't put anything past them, who knows. They monopolized global trade using superior violence, made real through unassailable forts and assault weapons, and they lose their monopoly the same way, to superior tunnel forts and missiles and drones. But lose to what?

What Comes Next

The common thinking among even avowed anti-imperialists is still basically imperialist. They think some empire has to replace this one, like the succession of Portugeuse, Dutch, British, inscribed in Sri Lanka's historical forts and collective trauma. If I don't steal it, someone else will, as the new Jewish saying goes, or 'the dark forest theory' of Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem books. But this thinking is a historical anomaly we need to think beyond now. You can't be an anti-imperialist imperialist, but you can try and be yourself, in your own land, without hegemony imposed by air and sea.

Land-based empires, forts, trade wars, fine, that sort of fighting goes on all the time. But networks of naval bases to monopolize global trade? That's an anomaly that's seen its time. No one monopolized trade in the Indian Ocean the way the Whites did. Violent trade monopolies are not a necessary evil, they're just evil. I'm not saying there weren't trade disputes and that there wasn't violence and conquest, I'm saying that there wasn't a monopoly of violence sold as peace and a monopoly of conquest sold as freedom. There wasn't one energy flow with most surplus going north (the unipolar world), there was lots of trade going across, in a multipolar world. And that is what we can and inshallah are returning to.

Iran is not replacing the Persian Gulf bases (though I think those borders certainly need to be redrawn, make UAE Oman again and, hell, make Saudi Yemeni). If you look at the way the Axis of Resistance is structured, it's not proxies and buffer states like the Empire does (and accuses everybody else of). Iran is not trying to dominate Yemen, on the other side of the horn. And if you look at the way China operates, they're not monopolistic with its Belt and Road. And Russia isn't owning the new Arctic route. Everyone is trying to just do their own thing, and what the vanguard in Yemen is saying is either everyone can trade or no one can trade. This is kinda the way it was before. And this is possible.

This is what is at stake in World War III. The White Empire is fighting to hold on to the world by force, and the world is struggling to be free many different ways at once. There is no particular alliance between everyone fighting America, but they are all fighting for the same thing. Freedom. Freedom from what? Freedom from a monopoly of trade, that says everything has to go through them. And how is that freedom won? The same way it was lost, through cannon and fort.