As the US hyperimperialism gets overextended with US Israeli attacks in Iran and the assasination of its supreme leader (as well as numerous civilian victims) with the aquiescence of the majority of EU, and we are seeing the effects of both the imperial boomerang at home (ICE raids), the so-called Rules-Based Order turns out to be nothing else than an experssion of unilateral hegemonic rule, with various kidnappings in Venezuela, the siege of Cuba, shouts for “regime change”, it is high time we return to Baudrillard and his analysis of the war as a simulacrum during the first Gulf War. I remember distinctly that period, being still a teenager, just one year after the Romanian televised revolution (check Ujica’s and Harun Farocki’s Videograms of a A Revolution for a very apt take on that) you are glued to the screen for the night vision almost like old terminal greens and rockets without any connection to the actual events. This disconnect was already anticipated in the anti-terrorist craze during the 1989 revolution where everyone was suspecting either loyal securitate or arab/friendly Arab nations “terrorists” protecting CeauČ™escu from the wrath of the people and the army that switched sides. All the alliances with Saddam or other ex Socialist connections with the Arab world seemed suddenly forgotten in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And this was just the aperitif for the Shock and Awe.
These terrorists were mostly invisible, or some kind of scapegoats being nearly lynched or killed in friendly fire. So when US retaliated after Saddam’s bungled and sincerly self-defeating attack on Kuwait, Romania was already dreaming to be a base for the US army, seen as a liberatory democratic force back then, ideologically propped by lots of Rambo and Chuck Norris movies and the vision, before Orange Revolutions became a thing and ‘peaceful’ CIA coups sounded just what Eastern Europe needed. If you do not live on the moon you realize you and your family and your friends, and your friends friends and countless others are at the disposal, arbitrary violence and whim of one single element: the 800+ US bases around the globe and their trigger happy. And nothing can protect you.
I recommend listening to the discussion that revisits that controversial text and compares it with today’s ridiculous and cringe Dubai US influencer and troll-led reporting, as well as the constant feed of wilful destruction and blatant abandonment at any pretense of international rules. Adam Tooze also wrote in the Chartbook substack about the hyperreality of the US presidency, while (as some in the comments section sharply observed), there is no rupture with the previous brutal regime change style of the US hegemony. Whether you call it hyperimperialism or hyperreal, the hyper is hard to get rid of. The LIVE feed, the cine-verite is even more accute – when even the allies or the actual members of the public nor the staff were in the loop, no one gets notification of the last military campaign till the last minute or the “target” is eliminated.
For me, it is incredibly telling that the situation at the UN had a total reversal (who was the aggressor during the Cold War era Korean War) is today the one upholding these crumbling international rules, while in new institutions such as the so- called Board of Peace seem to make a total mockery of peace negotiations and the idea of diplomatic solutions.
So the war did take place but the constant race btw war reporting, media collusion and advertising, at the moment of complete US dominance, evacuated all the dirty and horrific side of it, transforming it into a sort of infomercial. Today with US the biggest military superpower bringing havoc, destabilizing, and uncertainty around the world – one can feel that this lack of plan is the plan. The only result seems to be further upping of speculative bets, rising oil prices and crypto profits in plain sight.
“In this episode, we revisit Jean Baudrillard’s The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991), a text that diagnosed the emergence of war as media event, non-event, and managed spectacle. Joining us is friend and returning guest Cameron Carsten, a graduate student in continental philosophy whose work explores the state, power, and the production of reality across Baudrillard and Deleuze. Rather than treating Baudrillard’s claims as prophetic or obsolete, the conversation puts them to work against the present—testing the fate of hyperreality in the age of Trump, AI-mediated images, and escalating political violence. What emerges is a question that now presses harder than ever: has the simulacrum collapsed, or has the real returned with a vengeance?”
TimeSpace Warps 