The Chicken and the Egg of Current Geopolitics: Ideological Imperial Needs from Nationalism to Holy War

If you are trying to make sense of the devastating US and Israeli strikes on Iran (Operation Epic Fury, Roaring Lion), you are likely caught between two analytical outlooks.

On one side, geopolitical realist analysis that insists that everything is a cold, rational calculation about oil, shipping lanes, and nuclear deterrence. On the other side, the observations about the terrifying rhetoric of figures like Pete Hegseth (but, indeed, everything that has come out of the Heritage Foundation in the last years). The question then might be: Is the US now run by "religious fanatics", making regime change or geopolitics merely a pretext? Or is regime change and geopolitics accompanied by certain ideological frameworks because how else to carry out and justify such violence?

Is this a war of cold material extraction, or a war of religious fanaticism? Can it be both?

Through the Bunker State Framework, the answer is that it is a structural crisis of an empire that has necessitated a religious fanaticism (or likewise a fervent and hierarchized nationalism of superiority, or likewise all those ideologies that might accompany and be useful to “save” a crumbling empire that consists of different territories with more or less different ideological flavors but with the same meta-framework or total ideology.)

We have indeed left the realm of pure, calculating rationalism. The crumbling empire's (seemingly) sudden embrace of "holy war" is a required feature of its current panic. It is a necessity.

The Death of Pure Rationalism

(Well, was there ever “pure rationalism”? Maybe this is just the irrational rationalism that Max Weber had written about.)

In the Bunker State framework, I have consistently argued that we cannot understand the transatlantic elite by just looking at spreadsheets or classical Clausewitzian logic. We have to look at their orientation and their meta-frameworks.

There are certainly true believers in the US security apparatus, within the sphere of specialists of violence. When commanders invoke the Book of Revelation, or when politicians talk about the "miracle" of the Third Temple, they are playing to a domestic political base, yes, but many honestly believe they are doing God's work.

But this brings us to the ultimate "Chicken and the Egg" problem of current geopolitics: Did religious fanatics hijack the Pentagon and start a war, or did a declining empire elevate religious fanatics because it desperately needs their worldview to survive?

The answer lies in a rule of imperial mechanics: Form follows function. At least in this case.

The Specialists of Violence and the Need for Ideology

The function of the transatlantic ruling strata right now is domination and status retention. They are facing the terminal loss of their unipolar world order (and all that this entails for them). As we have discussed previously (in my note called “The Crime of Geography”, large, (potentially) autonomous states like Iran, Russia, and China are structural threats simply because of their geographical size and their capacity to resist Western exploitation.

To break these multipolar nodes, the US elite must engage in extreme, entropic levels of violence: what we are seeing now with the "pulse attrition" and attempted "Syrianization" or “Venezuelization” of Iran.

But here is the catch: You cannot mobilize a society, a military, or an alliance to commit that level of systemic violence using cold, capitalist logic. If and when extreme violence becomes the primary tool of the transatlantic elite, they will necessarily need specialists of violence (the securitocracy). And crucially, they will necessarily need radicalized ideologues.

Why? Because extreme violence must be justified and motivated. You cannot tell a drone operator or a European public that they must risk World War III to secure shipping insurance rates or prevent China from accessing independent energy. To execute the machinery of the "kill web," the Bunker State requires a potent social emotion. The dichotomous meta-framework of Christian fundamentalism (Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark) provides the exact "software" needed to run this horrific "hardware."

The Frontier Myth Reactivated

This dynamic had emerged in a crystallized form with the birth of the United States.

When the US consolidated its continental empire, it required staggering levels of violence and primitive accumulation. To justify this, it utilized the sacralizing meta-framework of Manifest Destiny. The settlers and colonizers absolutely believed in their divine right, they were true believers, but that belief was activated and rewarded because it perfectly served the material transformations and expansion of early capitalism.

Today, the "frontier" has simply been relocated to Eurasia. When US commanders invoke God to justify the bombing of Iran, they are reactivating the purest form of this dichotomous, sacralizing meta-framework. They are turning the geopolitical "wilderness" into the new "Indian Country."

And let's not forget: this exact same mechanism is being translated for European audiences. Post-Christian Europe won't rally for "Armageddon," so the US exports a secularized version of the holy war: The Defense of Western Civilization. Instead of the Crusades vs. the Heathens, it is the "Garden" of Democracy vs. the "Jungle" of Autocracy. The rhetoric changes, but the structural function is identical.

The Blueprints are Secular

If we want (probable) proof that this is a structural crisis driving an ideology, and not the other way around, we simply need to look at the blueprints.

The strategies and tactics currently ravaging Iran, "decapitation without invasion," the "kill web," , were meticulously drafted over years by secular, geopolitical institutions like CSIS, the Hudson Institute, DARPA, RAND, and the Atlantic Council.

These are the high priests of transatlantic capital. The true believers in the military are simply pulling the trigger on a gun manufactured by secular think tanks.

Inner Decay and Outer Constraints

At this point in history, the structure shifted first. The US-led transatlantic elite realized they were losing their unipolar status. This material panic, coupled with the total lack of inner constraints (massive wealth inequality and democratic decay within the West), set the old meta-frameworks loose again.

To crush outer constraints (multipolarity) and maintain domestic obedience, the elites need this ideology. Ideology is at play, absolutely, and the fanaticism is real, but it is being weaponized as a tool of power and violence by a ruling class desperate to keep its status.

This is a preview of a comprehensive, long-form essay I am working on covering the topics of my recent notes on Iran, the Bunker State, and how territorial size and autonomy equal a rival order.