The institutions strike back | thearticle

Putin’s ideas of a Ukraine quickly crushed under his jackboot have all but evaporated. The West has tried to facilitate this by arming Ukrainian forces, but we can’t take much of the credit.

The massive custard pie currently being smashed into Putin’s face is largely because of the heroics of the Ukrainian people and the incompetence of his war machine.  However, the idea that

Russian forces will be chased back over the border by a victorious Ukraine is fanciful. The West holds the keys to victory, if the ultimate objective is to not have a single Russian boot on

Ukrainian soil. It will be done by mobilising all state and private institutions against Putin ’ s bear. This is a big call, as Western democratic, economic, religious and cultural systems

have been in retreat for the last 20 years. They have been hit by tsunamis of scandal and mismanagement, creating a breakdown in trust between institutions and the people they are meant to

serve. From Brussels to Washington, the institutional bodies at the heart of the Western political system have lurched from crisis to disaster. Distrust in politicians has spread like a

virus, epitomised in this country by the 2009 MPs expenses scandal. The people who governed us took the system for a ride to fund their lifestyles. Similar political scandals and mistrust is

found across the Western world. Up until the 2008 financial collapse, bankers were seen as intelligent, if somewhat objectionable characters necessary for the smooth running of the

capitalist system. The global financial crisis changed this in two ways. First, “masters of the universe” turned out to be just stuffed shirts gambling with our money. Second, these

financiers, who rejected any state interference, ended up having to be bailed out by the taxpayer. Subsequently, the public had to deal with a decade of austerity, while the banking system

seemed mostly unreformed and unrepentant. The politicians stole millions, the bankers billions — but the media seemed complicit in the stitch up. Editors and journalists were found to engage

in illegal activities, such as phone hacking, while pursuing political agendas of tax-dodging billionaire owners on the Right or commissioners of woke on the Left. The “Mainstream Media”,

from the BBC through to the _Daily Mail,_ became sources of distrust and polarisation, feeding into conspiracy theories propagated on social media.  All the institutions in the West that

created wealth, power, or authority seem to have been on fire at some point since the turn of the century. Universities trampled on free thinking. The churches were guilty of hiding

paedophiles. Charities and NGOs were run by white-saviour whoremongers. Sporting institutions were bribed to do the bidding of dictators or became the petty playthings of oligarchs. We found

ourselves in a Western world dominated by institutions of the corrupt or faceless trying to tell us what to think or rip us off.  And into the fray came the populists, with the aim of

kicking down any institution they saw fit. Understandably, support was easily gained. You and me vs the bankers, media, academics and liberals. Us vs one homogeneous, corrupt elite. For a

lily-livered centrist, it was all rather crushing. Humanity is meant to be at its best when it cooperates. The collective is supposedly more powerful than the individual. But all the

institutions that optimised this collective sprit, whether in commerce, government or charity, were falling in on themselves.  When it seemed all was doomed, two things happened. First,

Western institutions did pretty well in the face of Covid. Now hear me out as I go beyond the disgraceful visits to Barnard Castle and parties in Downing Street. When the pandemic first hit,

we were meant to be too busy warring about culture to do anything serious; it would be left to the authoritarian regimes to sort the whole thing out. Russia could lock down its population

and it would be accepted. China could pump billions into state owned labs and would find a vaccine. But, amazingly, it was the West and the brain power of independent academics who created

not just one, but multiple vaccines. AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna ran with those vaccines and mass produced them. Thanks to the state, we efficiently managed to put

the medicine in the arms of the population. Western academia, business and government pulled in the same direction and sorted the issues out. Then that Botox-fuelled dictator from Moscow

invaded Ukraine, and as so often, Western democratic leaders found something upon which to unite their hot air. Surprisingly though, they went one stage further and managed to do something

about it, through a wave of cooperation and good sense. Democratically elected Presidents and Prime Ministers seem to be navigating the tightrope between trying to win a Second Cold War,

while not triggering World War Three, really rather well. Even the EU and NATO look focused, purposeful, and formidable. But the West ’ s knockout blow will come from outside the State.

Banks and financial institutions are progressively creating an economic blockade around Russia. It is slower than many would like, there are those who will greedily buck the trend, and some

will cynically use this as a “good bit of PR”. But the economic battle is being won; if you ’ re sceptical about this, just wait until the Russian stock market eventually opens again. Even

the likes of BP and Shell tell us they are trying to disentangle themselves from Russia. Ikea, McDonalds, Disney, Ford, Airbnb, Est é e Lauder and Unilever, to name just a few, are all

examples of institutions outside state control exerting Western might against Putin.  Culturally the West is also fighting and winning its first real war. Independent media seems to _mostly_

work when truth battles control; even stalwart critics of the BBC are seeing its value. The International Olympic Committee, FIFA, Formula 1, and most other international sporting

institutions have pulled out and ostracised Russia and its athletes. The cultural figureheads of the West are united in condemnation of Russia: the Queen (as represented by Charles and

William), the Pope and even Hollywood stars have come out to support Ukraine. Meanwhile the oligarchs are starting to be spewed out of our institutions: Roman Abramovich, sanctioned and

forced to sell Chelsea, being the most high-profile example. (The relevant authorities might soon start taking an interest in his yacht, pictured above.) Russian money has infiltrated the

top of Western society and as the loot is pulled out there will be scandals as we find out where it has been hiding. On the other side, Western economic, business and cultural institutions

have percolated throughout Russian society. They too will line up against Putin’s state. I am not na ï ve (or ideological) enough to think we are now sailing back into the Clinton/Blair era

of the 1990s. The way Western institutions interact with the people they purport to serve is still, in many cases, flawed. But, to misquote Churchill, those democratic institutions are less

flawed than all the others. In such dark times, that must be at least a little heartening. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We

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