I’m not so sure. This War World is very similar to the geopolitical game played by the great European - and increasingly US as well, especially in SA - powers in the 19th century. That Belle Epoque was of course what drove the global politics into the first Great War.

Kissinger maintained his goal was to avoid stumbling into another Great War; we may or may not believe him, but at least he took the trouble to rationalize his actions.

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia!

> "Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare"

Neither XJP nor Trump are semi-divine by the benchmark of BB, but perhaps the "political structures" (non-pyramidal) are

Good point wrt BB; I think "pyramidal" was referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oli...

(I have a friend who is a PRC citizen; I don't know her background precisely but her habitus reminds me of nothing so much as the slightly younger women I'd met at a boarding school in Palo Alto, so I think it's safe to say that socialism with chinese characteristics has at least one non-prole class :-)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46493504 has another take on

  inner party    psychopaths  essentials
  outer party    clueless     interchangeables
  proles         losers       everyone else