Most people understand violence as ghastly acts perpetrated by an individual or group of individuals. While this is true, the most potent form of violence is Structural violence. I suggest you to read Dr Bandy Lee’s book. But there’s a certain shortcoming on part of experts who describe Structural violence as an ‘invisible’ form of violence that is perpetrated by Structures (political, economic, Sociological, geopolitical) rather than individuals. Experts usually attribute Poverty, inequality, patriarchy, racial sexual & ethnic discrimination etc as main components of Structural violence that are created by our SYSTEMS. All this is true, but Structural violence is not just ‘invisible’ acts that are not readily detected. Structural violence is also organized form of overtly visible & most brutal form of violence that’s created by our systems.
People see acts of serial killers (like Ted Bundy) as the most grotesque form of violence. But our systems commit overt violence probably a million times worse in terms of scale and human destruction. The wars, the conflicts, the incarceration industry of America, the policing etc are all Structural violence that are of overt nature. You don’t see them as violence at all because of how your thinking is nurtured (conditioned) from an early age and accustomed to these types of violence.
Bert Waldron was an American military Sniper with over 100 Kills, Chris Kyle was American military sniper with over 150 kills. What differentiates them from Ted Bundy? A PCL-R test? These soldiers having a ‘stable’ psychological profile compared to serial killer Ted Bundy? But end result is the same - a soldier in military carries out enormous violence like a serial killer. Now Ted Bundy was a sadistic Psychopath and military soldiers are not (let’s presume so). But think deeper. What’s normal, in itself, is a political & social construct. Why is that the military service which creates violence is a justified, accepted and even glorified norm?
There’s another level of thinking. A soldier doesn’t see his acts as violence at all or he recognizes his violent actions but able to justify them due to psychological conditioning - the military training. He is trained with utmost discipline that he’s defending great values of country, liberal way of life and American democracy. Soldiers are not intellectuals, they are …. well …. just soldiers. They’re trained to follow orders and not to think. What about serving the country and protecting American way of life? It’s mostly a propaganda. American troops fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam or X Y Z third world country aren’t fighting for America. Perhaps for profits of Exxon Mobil or Raytheon or Lockheed Martin? Perhaps for no purpose at all.
If you take apart the psychological conditioning, the propaganda of patriotism and national duty, you will see that military soldiers are just killers. Some nations recognizes it well and don’t have any qualms to ignore the veneer of patriotic propaganda on military objectives. Russia is recruiting military troops from its penal colonies to fight in Ukraine (1, 2). The idea is simple. The unscrupulous hardened criminals in hellish Russian penal colonies are given a chance to ‘redeem’ themselves. They are asked to deliver success on battlefield and in return they will be given amnesty for their crimes.
Let’s look at Air force Pilots, the most disciplined & handsome people in military, and also much glorified. You probably have seen the film Top Gun with actor Tom Cruise. An Air force pilot is modern day equivalent of Nazi Gas Chamber operator. He pushes a button to drop bombs & Missiles on the targets. He also, like a field soldier or a Sniper, is conditioned psychologically to carry out his military service. He’s not an intellectual who can contemplate the consequences of dropping of bombs & Missiles. The Israelis dropped bombs & Missiles on Gaza on a destructive scale multiple times of Japan’s Atomic bombing. A lot of these bombs & missiles are fired from fighter planes. And what are the targets? Civilian hospitals, refugee camps, food aid convoys, civilian infrastructure (like water). In fact, most deaths in Israeli bombings are of civilians and intentionally so. It’s a Genocide - a well intended plan to exterminate population of Gaza.
US has a long track record of killing civilians in various conflicts. And not just accidentally but fully intentionally. Bombing of civilian infrastructure like schools, hospitals, residential buildings, weddings etc by American military is well documented. US attack on Iran school which killed over 100 children is a recent example. The trend of killing civilians goes long back. Recall the US military spraying agent Orange in Vietnam which had catastrophic ecological impact, and which killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, and also producing variety of long term damages like birth defects. Agent Orange even killed hundreds of thousands of American soldiers over time who were exposed to the chemical.
Systems creates violence most efficiently and brutally
A while back I read William Shirer’s Rise and fall of the Third Reich which mentions an interesting incident. Nazi policy on eastern front was extermination of Slavic people - Poles, Russians, Jews etc. Prisoners were executed in cold blood. In 1941, Heinrich Himmler was overseeing the murder of prisoners captured in Eastern front. Killings were organized by firing squads. The scene was chilling and greatly disturbed Himmler when he witnessed the brutality of murders first hand. The soldiers who committed these brutal murders in excess suffered from psychological trauma. Himmler wasn’t concerned about morality of these murders but psychological impact of these killings on German soldiers.
Later Nazis built more efficient ways of mass murder, most notoriously the gas chambers at extermination camps. The extermination camps was a SYSTEM of mass murder where everyone just followed orders. The chemical companies manufactured poison capsules. The trains and locomotive systems carried prisoners to extermination camps. The prisoners were asked to take bath and enter the gas chambers (which they believed to be shower hall) where they suddenly find themselves locked in. The poison capsules were dropped in chambers which produced the deadly gas. The dead were later removed from chambers and burnt in mass graves or in special crematoria. The whole SYSTEM was organized like a clockwork with every person in the chain having fixed role. The chemical company itself didn’t kill the prisoners, it only sold Poison gas capsules to German forces. The drivers of locomotives and Trains that transferred the prisoners didn’t kill them, they only carried them to extermination camps.
Nazis thus built a SYSTEM of extermination of people. Who owns the responsibility of mass murder in such SYSTEM? Shirer also mentions an interesting fact that chemical companies who manufactured poison gas capsules were later able to evade from their culpability in mass murder. That’s how systems work. Various moving parts of system don’t decide what they are doing. They sometimes don’t even know what they are doing. SYSTEM compartmentalizes the whole thing into routine tasks which people follow as their job.
A while ago, I wrote a comment on Dr Bandy Lee’s Substack about Joe Biden’s culpability in Gaza Genocide. The amount of bombs dropped on Gaza are multiple times the Atomic bomb dropped in Japan in terms of destructive power. UN and ICC also recognize that Bibi Netanyahu is committing Genocide in Gaza. Israel drops Missiles & bombs on Gaza and so its culpability is clear. But doesn’t America gives Israel much of those Missiles and Bombs as a part of military aid? Doesn’t America protect Israel in UN security council? Without US weapons aid and diplomatic support, can Israel commit all these crimes? Hence Biden was also an accessory to Genocide committed by Bibi.
But blaming Biden is not sufficient. The real problem is SYSTEM of which Biden is just one VARIABLE. What is the system? System comprises of long standing inertia of foreign policy, written & unwritten geopolitical conventions, influence of foreign lobbies which have corrupted politics, the enterprises of defense industry and their unscrupulous pursuit for profits etc. Politicians and bureaucrats are just variables embedded in this whole system who pursue their routine tasks. Tasks which are mostly pre-decided for them.
Dr Lee says Presidents should be given a PCL-R test to check for psychopathy. Trump may fail a PCL-R test but Biden & Obama may pass it easily. Crimes against humanity were also committed by Biden & Obama regime, and past regimes before them in some capacity if not directly. If PCL-R test was administered on LBJ, he would pass it easily yet he embroiled US in catastrophic Vietnam War. A war with millions of casualties and war crimes.
Impersonalization of War
Why the wars & conflicts of 20th and 21st century have been so deadly? Is it only because the world is now ruled by Psychopaths? You may say so about Hitler & Stalin or Putin today but can’t extrapolate this narrative to everyone. Was Harry Truman a Psychopath, for he ordered the Nuclear bombing of Japan? Were British Generals psychopaths, for they ordered the carpet bombing of Dresden? Were US politicians and Generals Psychopaths, for they ordered the dispersal of Agent Orange in Vietnam? What about people who pull the trigger on orders that come from above? The pilots who drop the bombs or people with trigger who press it to launch Missiles - Are they also psychopaths?
US military dropping Agent Orange in Vietnam
Historian Eric Hobsbawm explained why Wars of 20th century were so brutal and resulted in enormous amounts of civilians deaths. Here is the excerpt from Hobsbawm’s book The Age of Extremes.
……… Another reason, however, was the new impersonality of warfare, which turned killing and maiming into the remote consequence of pushing a button or moving a lever. Technology made its victims invisible, as people eviscerated by bayonets, or seen through the sights of firearms could not be. Opposite the permanently fixed guns of the western front were not men but statistics—not even real, but hypothetical statistics, as the ‘body-counts’ of enemy casualties during US Vietnam War showed.
Far below the aerial bombers were not people about to be burned and eviscerated, but targets. Mild young men, who would certainly not have wished to plunge a bayonet in the belly of any pregnant village girl, could far more easily drop high explosive on London or Berlin, or nuclear bombs on Nagasaki. Hardworking German bureaucrats who would certainly have found it repugnant to drive starving Jews into abattoirs themselves, could work out the railway timetables for a regular supply of death-trains to Polish extermination camps with less sense of personal involvement. The greatest cruelties of our century have been the impersonal cruelties of remote decision, of system and routine, especially when they could be justified as regrettable operational necessities.
So the world accustomed itself to the compulsory expulsion and killing on an astronomic scale, phenomena so unfamiliar that new words had to be invented for them: ‘stateless’ (‘apatride’) or ‘genocide’.
The ongoing Ukraine Conflict is so brutal and deadly. Why is it so? Because it’s largely an impersonal war fought mostly with remote high tech technology. The battlefield is like a Video game where both sides are exploiting Drone warfare to the fullest. Recall that Drones were first mobilized by America in war on terror in early 21st century to carry out assassination of terror suspects in South Asia & Africa. But now Drones are much perfected, miniaturized and economized (a lot cheaper to build on mass scale). Each wave of drone attack comprises of hundreds (or thousands) of Drones which are sent on enemy targets including civilians & public infrastructure.
Ukrainian Drone operator
Dan Davies wrote book The Unaccountability Machine which explains how our institutional systems - governments and corporations - generate undesired and sometimes even fatalistic outcomes. Davies explains how these outcomes are product of SYSTEMS and not individuals that man the systems. In such systemic failures, nobody is responsible of the outcome and everybody is responsible at the same time.
While overt violence - the drones, the missiles, the bombs - are used extensively to mass kill people, people can be also killed by economic blockades and sanctions. In Gaza, a lot of people were killed because of blockade of relief aid enforced by Israel. Before US sent troops to bring regime change in Iraq (on lies of WMDs), America used the pressure of economic sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Economic sanctions are as deadly as bombs & missiles. The logic behind sanctions against unfriendly regimes is that it will create economic misery and cause internal revolt in those nations. But in reality, the brutal regimes weather sanctions easily while common people die.
The economic sanctions are designed by technocrats and bureaucrats of government. They are psychologically healthy people who will pass PCL-R test easily. Yet, their routine office work will consequently lead to mass deaths in some foreign country. When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked whether hundreds of thousands of deaths were worth it to bring a regime change in Iraq. She said ‘Yes’ without flinching.
Environmental violence is also among the most potent forms of violence. The attack is first carried out against the natural ecology and since humans are embedded in ecosystem, the humans ultimately bear the catastrophic impact. Dr Lee describes Nuclear attack as an environmental violence in her book. Similarly, Agent Orange was an environmental violence. Environmental violence today is orchestrated on a large scale by our economic industrial systems, not individual psychopaths. Man-made Global warming is prime example of environmental violence orchestrated by our economic industrial systems. Almost all of our economic growth in 20th century is built on fossil fuels. By end of 20th century we started to see the consequences of the mindless consumerism of market economy.
We can develop alternate source of energy and in fact renewable energy has become quite economical. Yet we find it very difficult to make the transition because we are in a market economy. Energy transition means junking of fossil Capital (Oil & gas fields, internal combustion engine technology etc) which is proving difficult because the economic industrial lobbies care more about their profits than the health & survival of this planet. The fossil fuel companies have thrown enormous amount of money in political lobbying to protect their interests. This again is a Systemic problem, not just of individual CEOs or shareholders of fossil fuel companies. The fossil fuel companies wanna maximize their profit - a simple philosophy of Capitalism. A planet dying in the process doesn’t enter into profit-loss equations and balance sheets of oil & gas companies.
Policing and incarceration industry
Economists have long studied connection between unemployment, economic opportunities and community outcomes. Communities which faced economic downturn like closure of factories & erosion of jobs have faced devastating social impacts. The crime rate rise, drugs and alcohol consumption rise, incarcerations rise, family structures break down, marriages fall apart and this social crisis become contagious which also drags down the next generations. The story of de-industrialization of rust belt in America and its social consequences are well known. In a way, the seeds of Trump phenomenon lay somewhere in the post-industrial carnage of American communities.
Economists, especially of institutional heterodox strand, contemplate policies that can maximize employment with healthy living wages. These policies contradict laissez-faire / Neoliberal economic philosophy and thus shunned by policy makers and politicians. A failing economy will produce a failing society. Unemployment, social insecurity, increasing debts, homelessness etc increases crimes and civil disorder. Rather than fixing economy & restoring the communities, the government resorts to fixing crime as Law & Order problem. More ruthless policing, longer jail sentences, curtailing civil rights and packing up prisons with delinquents are seen as the solutions. The legal system is not meant to rehabilitate people, it’s meant to isolate delinquents from society. This is the approach taken in America today. The poor, the Negroes, the women, the children, the immigrants etc - the most vulnerable of society - suffer the most.
Economic decline leads to devastating impacts for communities. In 1980s & 90s, thousands of American factories shut down and relocated to China & other third world nations. These factories employed millions of workers in America and when they closed, the communities faced catastrophic effects. Why American business owners chose to move their factories out of America? Not because they were wicked or psychopathic. They simply followed the profit motive of capitalism. The labour in China & third world countries was cheaper which gave them good profit incentives. Such is the nature of our economic system. The economic decisions that cause devastating impact on society often happens not due to some evil design. Rather they are just incidental outcome of profit-loss equations and impersonal business decisions. This is how Capitalism works.
The oligarchy that emerged out of American Capitalism also destroyed American democracy. The politicians today are just agents of oligarchs masquerading as representatives of people and their allegiance lies with interests of economic industrial lobbies. US can more accurately be described as Dollarocracy - one dollar one vote. And since oligarchs own the most wealth, they control the political system including the Courts.
Bad systems produces unfit leaders - People look for convenient scapegoats
Unfit leaders are product of bad systems. Inertia is a strong force and in long running systems people don’t see the systemic failures as what they are. Rather they look for convenient scapegoats. Today, people attribute crisis of America to psychiatric illness of American President. Dr Bandy Lee claims that problem America faces is NOT political but psychiatric. Let’s examine this point.
After 2021 coup attempt, Trump would’ve been sent to prison for multiple lifetimes. He was indicted on nearly 100 criminal counts including espionage, insurrection and defrauding America. Yet all these investigations failed to produce anything. The US Supreme Court gave total immunity to Donald Trump thus compromising the entire system of checks & balances in America. Then American oligarchs poured huge amount of money in his 2024 campaign. Trump was given media and social media platforms to gaslight America once again. In 2024 elections, people chose to vote for Trump despite his criminal and disastrous track record. Trump was thus enabled by political system to come to power.
Even today, Trump can be removed anytime from office by impeachment & conviction if he’s such a disaster. Yet, he continues to enjoy his Presidency. The reality is that American Parliament (Congress & Senate) is thoroughly corrupted and dysfunctional. American courts are thoroughly corrupted. American institutions like Justice department, media, military, State department etc are all corrupted. What America faces is a SYSTEMIC failure of its political system. This systemic failure has been going on since many decades and Trump is the final product of this long process. Tomorrow, Trump may go but problems of America will remain under different set of politicians.
What America faces is a political crisis, a crisis of its liberal democracy & capitalism. It’s not a crisis of Trump’s psychiatric illness although undoubtedly Trump is mentally unfit and has aggravated the pre-existing problems of America. America’s political crisis is manifesting into a psychiatric crisis. Underlying the madness & instability of Trump lies the undisputed fact that American political system put this unfit man into power and continues to keep him there.
Some more questions need answering on which we can speculate. Why would American oligarchs propel a demented madman like Donald Trump into power? Are they also malignant and corrupted? Obviously yes. But more than that, American oligarchs hate ‘rule of law’, system of checks & balances and idea of government itself. The transnational corporations have become enormously powerful, their revenue is greater than GDP of many countries, they own the politicians and media. They don’t want to operate under government oversight or national territorial laws or any societal norms. They don’t wanna be bound by any restraints. What’s the best way to destroy the system of government and rule of law? Make a madman and an imbecile clown like Donald Trump President who will destroy American democracy like bull in a China shop. If I can exaggerate and overgeneralize - Donald Trump is a conspiracy to destroy American State and its public institutions.
Systems spiraling out of control and producing more & more violence
The SYSTEMS - the political, economic, geopolitical setup of institutions - that we built in last 100 years or so have become dysfunctional and failing. Democracy failing in post colonial & third world nations was expected. But the Democracy where it worked well for so long is also now failing. It’s interesting to note that UK - the mother of Parliamentary democracy & birthplace of first industrial revolution, and America - the birthplace of second industrial revolution and beacon of liberal democracy, are now focal points of great political upheaval. The Brexit and MAGA movement are symptoms of this upheaval.
Our economic structures built on hyper-individualism and market society which produced giant transnational corporations is creating great social & political instability. The impact of economic decline & inequality ruptured society. Crimes, Drugs, family breakups and societal anger increased. This was capitalized by extremist politicians like Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a product of disease of which he promises to provide a cure. Trump claimed American dream is dead and he will make America great again. But he plunged America into deeper misery & anarchy. The political violence is rising in America. Some pundits forecast 20 years’ of violent crisis and a possibility of civil war in America.
Our geopolitical system is breaking down. It was never a benevolent system. The order of 1945 - 1991 was based on multipolar power balance which was driven on a cold war where nations built thousands of Nukes. Cold war was not a creation of psychopaths and wicked men but born out of systems - geopolitics, foreign policy and defense industry - which were mostly managed by rational & intelligent people. These people were not mad & irrational, for they ensured that cold war doesn’t turn hot. We still live in the shadow of cold war where although political ideologies may have dissipated but animosity between nations still remains.
1991 - 2016 was a unipolar world order under US hegemony where rule of law started to break down due to US unilateralism, middle east wars and economic warfare (US bullied nations through economic sanctions). Then came 2022 Ukraine war where another superpower & permanent UN security council member unleashed naked aggression. The UN elite members - the five superpowers - were supposed to be guardians of post war world order. What international order world can have when these members themselves started waging wars of aggression? Then came Gaza Genocide by Israel followed up by broader wars in middle east all enabled by US and Europe. The post world war 2 order is now at its brink. We are probably one war away from its total collapse.
Conclusion
It’s true that mentally unfit and malignant leader will produce worst outcomes in a failed system and aggravate the existing problems but even a mentally fit President will be forced to take unfit & destructive decisions in a failed System. The decisions are product of system and President although has great authority is actually constrained to work for the system. Donald Trump is undoubtedly the worst product of the American political system but even mentally fit leaders before him failed in many regards because they were part of system which itself has failed.
When society is faced with tragedies, it avoids to face its real causes. People want convenient narratives and simple solutions. A convenient narrative is that Trump is a psychopathic dictator or a malignant narcissist. This may well be. But it doesn’t explain why or how our System brought him into power. A political system is supposed to be a filtering mechanism that brings most competent & intelligent people into public office. Yet, in last several decades, the filtering mechanism has started working in reverse. It’s bringing the most incompetent, corrupt, charlatans and idiotic leaders into power. Why is it so?
How can we correct our political system is the relevant question. How can we reform our economic system to break the oligarchical control over politics is real question. How do we fix our broken institutions like Supreme Court, parliament and media are the real questions. These are the questions that should be the point of origin to discuss new ideas. A convenient narrative offers convenient solutions. For example, instituting a Psychiatric evaluation of President and a PCL-R test. But what kind of test is there for diagnosing the malignancy and unfitness of SYSTEM?
Suggested readings
Violence by Dr Bandy Lee
The Age of Extremes by Eric Hobsbawm
Excellent essays. Very important subjects. Thank you.