A World No One Can Win — and Why Ideology No Longer Matters

Let's stop pretending ideology still governs the world. It doesn't. Power, resources, demographics, and geography do. The United States, China, and Russia are not locked in some grand moral struggle — they are managing decline, supply chains, and access to sea lanes. Call it a "New World Order" or don't. The behavior is unmistakable.

After the WEF, it looks as though the three powers have kind of agreed on a world structure and territorial assignments based on resources and access to sea rights. No one can win the next global war. Not militarily. Not economically. Not politically. Victory would require annihilation on a scale no society could survive. Weapons can destroy nations; they cannot run them. That reality — not idealism — is what now restrains the great powers.

Middle East & Ukraine: Harsh Realism

The Middle East proves the point. Peace will not come through slogans or UN resolutions. It will require disarming Hamas and Hezbollah, containing Iran's regime, and restraining religious absolutists on all sides. Russia's involvement is not a choice — it is a fact. Moral outrage does not change leverage.

Europe learned this lesson the hard way. Centuries of religious war ended not through enlightenment but exhaustion. Like the Catholics, Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Calvinists learned over centuries — separation of church and state was not philosophical progress; it was a ceasefire. Some fringe elements still push limits on that separation today.

Ukraine presents another uncomfortable reality. Crimea is not returning to Ukraine. Donbas will likely end up under Russian control. This is not endorsement — it is acknowledgment. A post–Cold War security framework should have been negotiated in 1990. Instead, it was postponed for decades, and the bill is being paid in blood. And China, once the US is no longer dependent on Taiwan's semiconductors, will assert more influence there.

The UN, the WEF, and Institutional Paralysis

The United Nations, with a budget of roughly $3.45 billion, is expected to prevent wars, resolve conflicts, enforce international law, and manage humanitarian crises. It is too large to fail and too constrained to act. Veto power has paralyzed it from Gaza to Ukraine to Sudan.

Supporters correctly note that the UN still coordinates aid, promotes human rights, and enforces sanctions. Critics are equally correct that it has become structurally incapable of decisive action. With a new battle brewing — Trump's Board of Peace versus the UN — you would think that addressing the needs of people has a better chance than a global "non-religious" papacy that is itself as conflicted as the rest of the world. Brazil's Lula has even accused Trump of attempting to create a new UN.

The World Economic Forum fares no better. It excels at elite networking and diagnosing problems, but it has failed to resolve a single major global crisis not already driven by state power or UN mandates. Can you name one problem the WEF resolved on a global scale that was not a UN mandate? Perhaps it was the elite versus the normals, the haves versus the have-nots. Newsom at Davos urging Europe to unite against Trump — is he running a global election campaign?

Regional Solutions and the Limits of Ideology

In contrast, regional problem-solving coalitions focused on specific conflicts and needs may offer more realistic solutions. Not replacements for the UN, but functional complements. The concept of a global parliament remains theoretical — power today is regional, not universal.

This shift exposes a deeper truth: no ideology commands a global majority. Not democracy. Not socialism. Not nationalism. Not religious governance. The only true common denominator is material reality: food, energy, safety, jobs, and predictability. People will tolerate almost any system that delivers these consistently. They will revolt against any system that does not.

America's Internal Strain

In the United States, internal disorder is increasingly misdiagnosed as moral awakening. Disruption is confused with reform. The Democratic left — what some call the "elite" or "AWFUL" (Affluent White Liberal Females) — and their presidential candidates are directing the country toward a Port Huron Statement revival. It appears that every 60-some years, the communist party regroups under some new definition but with the same methods.

The Communist Party USA exists, but it is politically marginal. Today's CPUSA is a small, organized Marxist-Leninist party that has recently re-entered local electoral politics and remains active in labor, community organizing, and left coalition work — but it has limited national influence compared with major parties. The greater threat is institutional incompetence, elite insulation, and deliberate chaos disguised as activism.

Disruption can ignite movements, but long-term survival depends on translating disruption into organization, clear goals, and political leverage. Churches and religious organizations remain active in the immigration debate — another front where ideology collides with enforcement.

No One Is Winning

No one is winning this era. Everyone is managing loss. The great powers are negotiating how not to lose catastrophically. The next global order will not be just, clean, or inspirational. It will be transactional, regional, and enforced by necessity rather than belief.

The coming world order will not be shaped by ideology, slogans, or elite conferences, but by who can meet basic human needs while preventing chaos. Power that ignores reality will break against it; institutions that confuse legitimacy with effectiveness will continue to drift. Stability will belong to those willing to accept limits, negotiate interests, and govern pragmatically. The rest will keep arguing about beliefs while the world moves on without them.