One of history’s most powerful drivers of change is the so-called law of unintended consequences. It may not be subject to scientific demonstration and theorising, but, empirically, it’s often proven to be true. The rational instincts of modern man tend to make us assume that the course of events in the life of nations are broadly the result of purposeful, planned actions which produce corresponding effects. Retrospectively, we often consider these to have been “inevitable”, on the linear logic of action-reaction. A government makes bad policy for long enough, the country suffers, and eventually there is a “backlash” or corrective action. Nothing captures this simplistic assumption about the workings of history than the “weak men” meme popular in rightwing forums. It depicts a four stage cycle of hard times that create strong men, who in turn create good times, which lead to weak men, leading to back round to hard times and so on.
But it is the law of unintended consequences, or, if you will, the unplanned, unexpected, counter-cyclical run of events that moves the world even more than what this neat cartesian view of historical dynamics assumes.
A prime contemporary example is the use of sanctions and the major ways in which it has backfired. In Russia’s case, it has forced a wholesale reorientation of the Russian economy towards Asian markets, as well as being a blow to Europe’s own economic fortunes. As regards China, America’s attempts to starve the PRC of chips has only forced a surge in Chinese chip manufacturing, while the US resource-heavy push for AI dominance made the Chinese seek asymmetric solutions. The result, in the form of DeepSeek, threatens to undercut a major element of America’s global tech lead – a black swan for Silicon Valley if ever there was one.
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