Doubling Down in Modern Physics and Politics

Doubling Down in Sweden.

If you feel you are losing a poker game, you may double the bet in the hope of not being called. This is risky but may be the only alternative to losing. Basic examples from modern physics as the fundament of science: 

• Einstein confronted with questions about special relativity and its strange clocks and meter sticks from 1905, which he could not answer, countered by presenting in 1916 his general theory of relativity and then applied it to the cosmology of the whole Universe as a theory of maximal dimension, which could not be called. 
• When the Standard Model of atom physics ran out of steam in the 1970s, string theory was presented as a Theory of Everything on physical scales of size $10^{-35}$ meters way below every possibility of  experimental detection, which neither could be called.      

Examples from world politics:

• At the end of WWII when the Ardenne offensive in Jan 1945 was broken, Hitler doubled down: "I know the war is lost. The enemy's superiority is too great. We won't surrender, never. We can go under. But we'll take the world with us". 
• Nato's proxy war against Ukraine will continue "til the last Ukrainian" towards a WWWIII double down, now supported by once neutral Sweden. Peace negations is not an option for the West.

Rationality was lost in the modern physics of the West by doubling down instead of resolving basic issues. The consequences have been far reaching and irrationality has now taken over Western geopolitics, including that of little once rational neutral Sweden. Is there any hope? 

PS1 Glenn Diesen gives in his latest book The Ukraine War and Eurasian World Order a rational sharp analysis:

• Five hundred years of Western hegemony has ended, while the global majority’s aspiration for a world order based on multipolarity and sovereign equality is rising. This incisive book addresses the demise of liberal hegemony, though pointing out that a multipolar Westphalian world order has not yet taken shape, leaving the world in a period of interregnum. A legal vacuum has emerged, in which the conflicting sides are competing to define the future order. NATO expansionism was an important component of liberal hegemony as it was intended to cement the collective hegemony of the West as the foundation for a liberal democratic peace. Instead, it dismantled the pan-European security architecture and set Europe on the path to war without the possibility of a course correction. Ukraine as a divided country in a divided Europe has been a crucial pawn in the great power competition between NATO and Russia for the past three decades. The war in Ukraine is a symptom of the collapsing world order. The war revealed the dysfunction of liberal hegemony in terms of both power and legitimacy, and it sparked a proxy war between the West and Russia instead of ensuring peace, the source of its legitimacy. The proxy war, unprecedented sanctions, and efforts to isolate Russia in the wider world contributed to the demise of liberal hegemony as opposed to its revival. Much of the world responded to the war by intensifying their transition to a Eurasian world order that rejects hegemony and liberal universalism. The economic architecture is being reorganised as the world diversifies away from excessive reliance on Western technologies, industries, transportation corridors, banks, payment systems, insurance systems, and currencies. Universalism based on Western values is replaced by civilisational distinctiveness, sovereign inequality is swapped with sovereign equality, socialising inferiors is replaced by negotiations, and the rules-based international order is discarded in favour of international law. A Westphalian world order is reasserting itself, although with Eurasian characteristics. The West’s defeat of Russia would restore the unipolar world order while a Russian victory would cement a multipolar one. The international system is now at its most dangerous as the prospect of compromise is absent, meaning the winner will take all. Both NATO under US direction and Russia are therefore prepared to take great risks and escalate, making nuclear wan increasingly likely.

PS2 Listen to Pelle Neroth Taylor show from Sweden in intervju with Dimitri Orlov and Edward Lozansky from April 4th: https://tntradio.live/shows/pelle-neroth-taylor/