Imperium Mundi

Imperium Mundi
Frol Vladimirov
Aug. 2009/Apr. 2012

The present paper is an abridged and revised version of the Chapter 3 “The Transition of the West” [Der ;bergang des Abendlandes] of the  Master’s Thesis in Sociology “A Look Back into the Future. On Sociological Relevance of O. Spengler’s Morphology of World-History” [Ein R;ckblick in die Zukunft. Zur soziologischen Relevanz von O. Spenglers Morphologie der Weltgeschichte] completed in August 2009 at the Universit;t Konstanz, Germany.



Summary of Master’s Thesis

According to the current state of the social scientific knowledge, macro-social processes are considered to be contingent and, in the long run, unpredictable. Spengler’s morphology of world-history was, on the contrary, contrived as a model for social and cultural prognostication based on non-causal symbolic patterns supposedly underlying causal/contingent constellations of events. Cognition of symbolic correlations should provide insight behind these phenomena. Whereas the knowledge of causalities/contingencies is gained through empirical observation and analytical theorization, non-causal symbolic coherencies are cognized through intuitive insights and generalizations. Communication between analytic and intuitive paradigms is facilitated by the fact that many analytical concepts contain intuitive core knowledge irreducible to empirical evidences. Thus, Spengler’s epistemology does not mean a radical breach between analysis and intuition but rather a higher degree of intuitivism in comparison with the established scientific codes. However, since intuitivism is based on cognitive imagination that transcends average perception, production and distribution of intuitive knowledge has quite narrow limits. To determine these limits and mediate between rational and intuitive paradigms, I juxtaposed Spengler’s metaphorically grounded theory of culture organisms—his heuristic tool of intuitive cognition—with concepts borrowed from biosemiotics, transpersonal psychology and systems theory; similarities in descriptions of certain biological, psychological and social phenomena allow to relate Spengler’s metaphor to analytical language by defining cultures as transpersonal organic systems. Following the proposed hypothesis, I apply in chapter 3 of the master’s thesis common developmental stages inherent in this type of systems to the current social and political reality and extrapolate them to future possibilities. Substantiating Spengler’s predictions, the below paper—primarily an array of quotations from the philosopher’s works and contemporary sources—describes the ongoing transition of the Occidental societies from democracy to a post-democratic order in the wake of a struggle for global dominance. 





At the age of nineteen (…)
I raised an army, with which
I successfully championed the liberty
of the republic when it was oppressed
by the tyranny of a faction.
On that account the senate passed decrees (…)
assigning me the right to give my opinion
among the consulars and giving me imperium. 
It ordered me as a propraetor to provide
in concert with the consuls that the
republic should come to no harm.
In the same year (…)
the people appointed me consul
and triumvir for the organization of the republic.

Octavian Augustus


Spengler’s political resistance to the Weimar Republic as well conservative tone of his political writings pose a temptation to subsume his entire social philosophy into an antidemocratic strain of thought. However, ideological attributions rooted in dichotomies such as democratic versus authoritarian, progressive versus conservative, liberal versus reactionary do not embrace the scope of Spengler’s ideas which are settled beyond the binary differentiations of left and right.  Spengler was convinced that political game “remains the same in all late and mature cultures of the world (…): on the left there is higher intelligence, often insecure because of the lack of practical tradition; on the right there is ‘ethos’ as well as administrative and diplomatic experience, yet destined to fail because of the lack of intelligence”. (Spengler 1924: p.15; translation mine) Spengler did not oppose democracy per se but rather its Weimar manifestation. In “Prussianism and Socialism” he asserted: “Democracy is the form of this century — no matter how one might estimate it — which will prevail. For the state there is democratization or nothing”. (Spengler 1920:p.98; translation mine)

On closer examination of Spengler’s political concept, democracy turns out to be, on the one hand, a necessary phase in the organic process of history—its “Destiny”—and, on the other hand, an ideological utopia. Spengler saw a utopian aspect of democracy in a popular belief that constitution, legislative and executive branches of power represent the will of a people and not that of ruling minorities. Moreover, Spengler considered utopian the very idea that a mass of voters could make competent decisions and that media would provide untailored information for independent decisions to be made. In reality, democracy functions as a mechanism of elite selection, more effective than monarchies of the past.

A democratic utopia is an indispensable cover-up for democratic reality. When dominating estates —nobility and clergy that in growing culture organisms represent an active and a contemplative dimensions of life — become “inorganic”, the social consensus inherited from a pre-modern age has to be replaced by a new type of worldview, namely ideologies. Symptomatic for an upcoming transformation is a change in perception of reality at all levels of the society including the ruling minority. In Spengler’s opinion, the aristocratic “form of life ceases to be self-evident” as soon as aristocracy “begins to (…) take notice of criticism with regard to its necessity”.  (Spengler 1933: p.68ff; translation mine) Democratization is a sign of transition from Culture to Civilization—the actual decline—, which is a “phase of several centuries” (Spengler 1918:XV) at whose beginning Spengler believed the West was standing in 1912. The “Third Estate”, in Spengler’s terminology the “Non-Estate” (Spengler 1922: p.334, 396), displaces nobility and clergy as custodians of tradition to generate a new episteme of Civilization. At this stage an active dimension of life finds its symbol in “money” whereas a new reflexive dimension expresses itself symbolically through intellectual “knowledge” of science or journalism.  Democracy becomes a political form of Civilization putting parties in control of institutions and journalism in control of public opinion.

The manufacturing of a democratic utopia commences with the construction of a “people” in whose name bourgeoisie first justifies its “rebellion against the—‘feudal’—powers of blood and tradition” and, after dissolution of the estate order, legitimizes its authority by establishing parliamentarism—a “method by which a newspaper reader is being brought up to believe that he, in the mass, is sovereign”. (Spengler as cited in Felken 1988: p.37; translation mine) Once manufactured, the “sovereign” must be continuously reproduced through ideologies, media, political parties and other means of democratic formation. Press freedom and freedom of opinion are insofar a prerequisite for democracy as the latter depends on the “preparation of public opinion”. (Spengler 1922: p.401f) “The press does not spread ‚free’ opinion”, Spengler insisted, “it generates it“. (Spengler 1922: p.403) Therefore, manipulation of mass psychology is not a negative byproduct of a real democracy but its very essence. Nowadays the skills of democratization management have been honed to become a technique of non-violent regime change. Ian Traynor (2004) from London Guradian summarizes the experience of the US involvement into the elections in Serbia, Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine and concludes: “The operation—engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience—is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections.”

The real democratic social contract implies that voters consume political services provided by professional politicians in exchange, as it were, for legitimation of the existing order. The political elite reproduces itself through party organizations and secures control over the executive and the legislative branches of power by means of election campaigns with a limited range of discussable issues. This makes it possible for the ruling minority to successfully avoid any serious challenges to the continuity of political course, which could possibly be the case if citizens uncontrollably exercised their constitutional rights. But upon the “upspringing of formless powers” of populism, which Spengler (1922: p.404) designates “from its most conspicuous example, Napoleonism”, democratic stabilization of the society turns out to be only a provisionary phase between an aristocratic and a so-called “caesarean” stages of development:

‘With the beginning of the twentieth century Parliamentarism is tending rapidly towards taking up itself the role that it once assigned to the kingship. It is becoming an impressive spectacle for the multitude of the Orthodox, while the center of gravity of big policy, already de jure transferred from the Crown to the people’s representatives, is passing de facto from the latter to unofficial groups and the will of unofficial personages.’ (Spengler 1922: p.416)

Post-democratization—in Spengler’s words “the transition from Napoleonism to Casarism”—constitutes “a general phase of evolution, which occupies at least two centuries and can be shown to exist in all the Cultures”. According to Spengler, the Western caesarian age will cover a period of CE 2000 - 2200. The post-democratic era begins when the “Third estate” converts to what Spengler called the “Forth estate”—the atomized majority whose social acts are determined by increasingly egoistic imperatives. The old nations are replaced by cosmopolitan, post-heroic, de-ideologized populations that elude active involvement into the democratic process. Old elites lose their symbolic authority and are reduced to clans struggling for power. These feuds are nothing but a political manifestation of craving for private gains in all social strata:

 ‘…There are no more political problems. People manage with the situation as it is and the powers that be. (…) Torrents of blood had reddened the pavements of all world-cities, so that the great truths of Democracy might be turned into actualities, and for the winning of rights without which life seemed not worth the living. Now these rights are won, but the grandchildren cannot be moved, even by punishment, to make use of them. A hundred years more, and even the historians will no longer understand the old controversies.’ (Spengler 1922: p.432)

Indeed, the exuberant democratic rhetoric in today’s media can barely hide the ongoing transformation of democratic peoples into ochlocratic populations. The results of a recent public opinion poll conducted in Germany by Spiegel among the 20 to 35-year olds show a generation of disillusioned pragmatists though they are not destitute of messianic hopes:

‘They are apolitical. If they are told this, 83 percent of them (…) do not even perceive it as an offence. They are not interested in the democracy of political parties and the last thing that would come to their minds is to revolutionize the society. In the 2005 parliamentary elections especially many of the18 – 35-year olds stayed away from the polls. (…) They do not feel aversion to politics but they simply have no idea of why they should deal with things that have nothing to do with their lives. (…) However, they think Barack Obama is alright and that he should save the world and the climate, too. 31 percent believe that he can change the world for the better “much” or even “very much”, 59 percent believe — “a little”’ (Titz, Mersch 2009; translation mine)

Erosion of democratic codes provides more room for energetic individuals. To put it into Spengler’s words, the ruler of the future is a private person, “who will have power at any price, and who as a phenomenon of force becomes the Destiny of an entire people or Culture”.  (Spengler 1922: p.418) In this sense the Obama-mania of 2009 can be interpreted as a symptom of the growing demand for a caesarean leader.

Following the trend, political parties have been converting to de facto PR-agencies of the political leadership. This metamorphosis is a result of weakening creativity of the ruling groups superseded by ambitious individuals:

‘In the beginning the leading and the apparatus come into existence for the sake of the program. Then they are held on to defensively by their incumbents for the sake of power and booty… (…) Lastly the program vanishes from memory, and the organization works for its own sake alone.’ (Spengler 1922: p.452)

Post-democratization seems to be in progress on both sides of the Atlantic. The poignant remark, which the progressive thinker Noam Chomsky (2008) made about the Republican candidate McCain with regard to the 2008 Presidential elections, corresponds to Spengler’s forecasts:

‘In one aspect he [McCain] is more honest than his opponent. He explicitly states that this election is not about issues but about personalities. The Democrats are not quite as honest even though they see it the same way. (…) The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.’

This trend can be observed in the Old World as well. British historian Timothy Garton Ash (2009), who can hardly be suspected of the progressive bias against the Western democracy, characterizes the situation in which parties find themselves in Great Britain and Germany:

‘David Cameron's Conservatives are taking (former Prime Minister) Tony Blair's approach, except when it comes to European policy. And there is no decisive difference between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats in Germany, at least not by the standards of the last century.’

 It is individual politicians and not programs that are to the fore of the political management and its communication to the voter. “Thinking in terms of party wings is obsolete”, the former Interior Minister of Germany Wolfgang Sch;uble (2008; translation mine) commented on today’s election strategy. “Earlier we used to run our election campaigns as a team, today we’re focusing on one person”.

Another factor of post-democratic dynamic is hierarchization of nation states within the system of global interdependence that emerged as a result of the World War II and the Cold War. Six years before the Second World War Spengler (1933: p.17; translation mine) wrote:

‘We have entered the age of the world wars. It begins in the nineteenth century and will continue throughout this and perhaps the next century. It means a transition from the 18th century world of states into the Imperium mundi.’

Major resources would be mobilized in order to win the struggle for global dominance. “In these wars … for the heritage of the whole world”, Spengler predicted,  “continents will be staked, India, China, South Africa, Russia, Islam called out, new technics and tactics played and counterplayed. The great cosmopolitan foci of power will dispose at their pleasure of smaller states—their territory, their economy and men alike…” (Spengler 1922: p.429)

The American work on “new technics and tactics” began in 1939 as the War & Peace Studies Project was launched by the New York Council on Foreign Relations. In William Engdahl’s opinion, the Council’s strategy was “to create a kind of informal empire, one in which America would emerge as the unchallenged hegemonic power in a new world order to be administered through the newly-created United Nations Organization”. (Engdahl 2009: p.11)  The objectives of this scheme are clearly seen from the declassified memo which the Director of the Policy Planning Staff George F. Kennan (1948) drafted at the beginning of the Cold War:

‘Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. (…) In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.’

Deconstruction of the American Imperium mundi requires sensibility for its dual terminology consisting of technically correct definitions such as “imperial geo-strategy”, “primacy”, “supremacy”, “hegemony” (Brzezinski 1997) the World War III, World War IV (Woolsey 2002) and politically correct equivalents like “stability”, “international leadership”, “free world”, “globalization”, “international community” etc.
The Ally’s victory over Germany in the World War II reduced the number of fully sovereign nations as the globe was divided between the two superpowers — the United States and the Soviet Union. The subsequent US victory in the Cold War, sealed by the collapse of the USSR in 1991, opened the way for conversion of the Pax Americana into the American Imperium mundi.  The supporting strategy plan drafted under the guidance of the US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz argued “not only for preserving but expanding the most demanding American commitments and for resisting efforts by key allies to provide their own security”. (Washington Post report from 11.3.1992 as cited in Engdahl 2009: pp.199f) Five years after the Wolfowitz’s plan the influential strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski (1997:p.39) sketched the priorities of the US foreign policy much on the same lines:

‘In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geo-strategy involves the purposeful management of geo-strategically dynamic states… To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geo-strategy are to prevent collusion and to maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.’   

At the age of caesarism liberal order gives way to what Spengler called the constitution of “formless populations (…) as an Imperium of gradually-increasing crudity of despotism”. (Spengler 1918; Table III.) The growing influence of authoritarian groups within the elite has already been attested by some experts.  So Ray McGovern (2009), the former CIA analyst and advisor to the Presidents Reagan and G. Bush Senior, said referring to the use of torture by the US authorities:
 
‘For the last eight years, the Constitution has been sort of in abeyance with the willing acknowledgment and acquiescence of the legislative branch, which we used to call the Congress of the United States. (…) There are reports that some of the torture is continuing in places like Bagram, in places like Guant;namo with these goon squads. (…) I think the president is afraid of the CIA. I think Leon Panetta is afraid of the CIA. (…) They have been either co-opted or they're afraid, and that's new. I've never seen that in my 46 years in this city, where the chief executive and the head of the CIA is afraid.’
However, the decisive shift towards caesarism occurs when the military becomes involved into politics or, to use Spengler’s words, when “armies will replace parties”. (Spengler 1933: p.153; translation mine) At the age of conscript armies he predicted that “the place of the permanent armies as we know them will gradually be taken by professional forces of volunteer war-keen soldiers; and from millions we shall revert to hundreds of thousands”.  (Spengler 1922: p.429) Spengler viewed this transformation as a step towards gradual privatization of the military. An interesting development, apparently pointing in that direction, is the formation of Blackwater security company that Jeremy Scahill poignantly characterized as the “world’s most powerful mercenary army”. This non-state actor has accumulated considerable resources and is aware of its potential. According to Schahill, “in 2006 (…) in terms of military might, the company could singlehandedly take down many of the world’s governments”. Even though the company is absolutely loyal to the US government, it gravitates towards a role of “an independent army, deploying to conflict zones as an alternative to a NATO or UN force, albeit one accountable to Blackwater’s owners rather than member nations”. (Schahill 2007: p. 343) Politicization of the military will not be confined to private security companies. Nathan Freier speculates on a possibility of a large-scale civil engagement of the military in his memo “Known Unknowns” drafted for the Strategic Studies Institute:

‘Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security. (…) … DoD [Department of Defence] might be forced by circumstances to put its broad resources at the disposal of civil authorities to contain and reverse violent threats to domestic tranquility. Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further DoD would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance. A whole host of long-standing defense conventions would be severely tested. Under these conditions and at their most violent extreme, civilian authorities, on advice of the defense establishment, would need to rapidly determine the parameters defining the legitimate use of military force inside the United States’ (Freier 2008:pp.32-33)

Securitization of democratic societies is possible due to growing post-heroic mentality of the population. Analyzing the impact of terrorism, Herfried M;nkler comes to the conclusion that “direct profits which terrorists can gain from their attack on post-heroic societies are minimal in comparison with the harm that societies may do themselves through enhancement of preventive measures against such attacks beginning with dismantling of the Habeas Corpus Acts to setting up secret prisons, to the development of such a tight intelligence collecting network that privacy of citizens becomes an empty word. Eventually, transformation that would result from an impression made by a series of coordinated terror attacks can be avoided only if a kind of heroic tranquility emerges in the population which, in fact, is not normally the case in post-heroic societies” (M;nkler 2006: p.354; translation mine) Thus, heroic ethos concentrates in mercenary armies and intelligence agencies which take over more and more of political functions and become increasingly autonomous.

For Spengler the crucial question of the coming caecarism was whether the world would be run by “billionaires or generals, bankers or clerks”, whether “trade shall govern state or state shall govern trade”. (Spengler 1920: pp. 67, 97; translation mine) In Spengler’s time the answer depended on what nation would win the right to create the future “International” — Germans with their “idea of the (…) World State” or English with their model of “the World Trust”. (Spengler1920: p.84; translation mine) The rise of the United States— he nation of the Anglo-Saxon origin—as the only superpower brought about globalization of billionaires and bankers.

But Spengler also predicted that in the age of caesarism nonmonetary powers would regain control over the economy:

‘In form of democracy, money has won. (…) But as soon as it has destroyed the old orders of the Culture, the chaos gives forth a new and overpowering factor (…) — the Caesar-men. Before them the money collapses. The Imperial Age, in every Culture alike, signifies the end of the politics of mind and money.’  (Spengler 1922: p. 432)

A portion of the following forecast can be read as a comment on the current economic crisis and its distant political consequences:

‘The dictature of money marches on, tending to its material peak… (…) …But, as it is a form of thought, it fades out as soon as it has thought its economic world to finality, and has no more material upon which to feed. (…) To-day it presses victoriously upon industry to make the productive work of entrepreneur and engineer and labourer alike its spoil. (…) But with this, money, too, is at the end of its success… (…) The private powers of the economy want free paths for their acquisition of great resources. No legislation must stand in their way. They want to make the laws themselves, in their interests, and to that end they make use of the tool they have made for themselves, democracy, the subsidized party. Law needs, in order to resist this onslaught, a high tradition and an ambition of strong families that finds its satisfaction not in the heaping-up of riches, but in the tasks of true rulership, above and beyond all money-advantage.’ (Spengler 1922: p. 506)

The brief review of contemporary social and political trends juxtaposed with Spengler’s key forecasts corroborates the accuracy of the latter. Spengler correctly predicted such dynamics as the growing political apathy in the populations of the Western democracies, transformation of political parties from program-based groups into individual-oriented teams, privatization of the politics, dominance of the financial sector over the real economy, securitization of the society and replacement of conscript armies by professional state forces and private mercenary formations. A clear correlation between forecasts and observable trends serves as a sufficient basis for modeling the globalization along the lines of morphology of world-history.

If Spengler’s intuitive insight into the ethos of the Western Culture is correct, if the “Faustian” man indeed imagines his material universe and designs its social pendent as pure space and energy, then the Imperium mundi—this final creation of the “Faustian” spirit—should be described in terms of  “political fields of force, with cabinets and great diplomats as effective centres of purposeful direction and comprehensive vision”—the cultural phenomena which first manifested itself in the “dynastic states of (…) 17th and 18th Centuries”.  (Spengler 1918: p. 386) Accordingly, the World Trust will not remind of ancient empires with their geographical core areas, conspicuous power structures and clumsy administrative apparatus. The completed Imperium mundi of Western style will operate as a worldwide network of mobile power centers, production hubs, resource fields and military bases controlled by a small elite. The imperial authority will not be affiliated with any particular nation state but it will dispose of nations as well as other forms of social organization to flexibly manage individual societies.
Being an “organic” stage of the Western civilizational development, the Imperium mundi will not become a final political form of the mankind. Its decline will be brought about by inevitable fragmentation of the elite and redistribution of power at the end of the Western imperial age. The question of whether the ensuing neo-feudalism will ultimately lead to a revival of the multipolar world or the global structure will persist, cannot be satisfactory answered at this point of time. The global order may survive if in the wake of political globalization there emerges a panoply of universal symbolic codes to be absorbed by and applied to leading cultures of the future.

Globalization is—to use O’Sullivan’s euphemism—the manifest destiny of the West. But since proclaimed humanistic and liberal values have failed to profoundly transform collective human psyche, the global unification does not promise to be peaceful. Bismarck’s (1862) famous assertion still holds true for this as any other geopolitical transformation: “Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided (…) but by iron and blood”. The “clash of civilizations” (Huntington 2003) is progressing towards another “end of history” (Fukuyama 2002); the global order is looming at the horizon. Yet the risks of imperial integration, even in its mildest form, are clear: free play of the world powers on the “grand chessboard” of geopolitics challenges the familiar idea of the Man exposing the very humanity of humans to a new danger — the Civil World War.


Reference List

Ash, T. G. (15th June 2009) Interview with Timothy Garton Ash. “Obama Is Certainly a European”. Der Spiegel, [Online] (25), 100 Available from: [Accessed 13th December 2011]

Bismarck, O. v. (1863)  Reden 1847-1869 [Speeches, 1847-1869], ed., Wilhelm Sch;;ler, vol. 10, Bismarck: Die gesammelten Werke [Bismarck: Collected Works], ed. Hermann von Petersdorff. Berlin: Otto Stolberg, 1924-35, pp. 139-40. [Online] Available from: [Accessed 15th December 2011]

Brzezinski, Z. (1997) The Grand Chessboard. American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. New York, Basic Books.

Chomsky, N. Interviewed by: Steingart, G. (10th October 2008) Interview With Noam Chomsky. “The United States Has Essentially a One-Party System”. Der Spiegel, [Online] (41), 184-185 Available from: [Accessed 13th December 2011]

Engdahl, W. (2009) Full Spectrum Dominance. Totalitarian Democracy In the New World Order. Louisiana, Baton Rouge

Felken, D. (1988) Oswald Spengler. Konservative Thinker Between Kaiserreich and Diktatorship [Oswald Spengler. Konservativer Denker zwischen Kaiserreich und Diktatur] M;nchen 1988

Freier, N. (2008)  Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‚Strategic Shoks‘ In Defense Strategy Development. Strategic Studies Institute [Online] Available from: [Accessed 13th December 2011]

Fukuyama, F. (2002) The End of History and the Last Man. New York

Huntington, S. (2003) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney

Kennan, G. F. (1948) Policy Planning Study, PPS/23: Review of Current Trends in U.S. Foreign Policy, Memorandum by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Kennan)2 to the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary of State (Lovett), in Foreign Relations of the United States, Washington D.C., February 24, 1948, Volume I, pp. 509-529 [Online],Semi-Daily Journal Available from: http://econ161.berkeley.edu/movable_type/archives/000567.html [Accessed 12th Dec. 2011]

McGovern, R. Interviewed by: Jay, P. Who’s Afraid Of The CIA? The Real News Network. (19th May 2009) [Online] Transcript available from: [Accessed 13th December 2011]

M;nkler, H. (2006) The Transformation Of the War. From the Assymetry to the Symmetry [Der Wandel des Krieges. Von der Symmetrie zur Asymmetrie] Weilerswist

Scahill, J. (2007) Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Nation Books  [Online] Excerpts available from: http://www.progressivewomensalliance.org/images/2008_01.pdf [Accessed 7th December 2011]

Sch;uble, W. Interviewed by: Von Feldenkirchen, M. und Starck, H. (10th June 2008). Spiegel Talk. Disunity Is Poison [Spiegel-Gespr;ch. Zerstrittenheit ist Gift]. Der Spiegel, [Online] (41), 28 Available from: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-60883141.html [Accessed 13th December 2011]

Spengler, O (1933) The Hour of Decision. [Jahre der Entscheidung] M;nchen

Spengler, O. (1918) The Decline of the West. Vol. I: Form and Actuality.  Trans. Atkinson, Ch. Francis, London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

Spengler, O. (1920) Prussianism and Socialism [Preu;entum und Sozialismus] M;nchen

Spengler, O. (1922) The Decline of the West. Vol. II: Perspectives of World-History. Trans. Atkinson, Ch. Francis, London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

Spengler, O. (1924) Rebuilding of the German Reich [Neubau des Deutschen Reiches] M;nchen
Titz, Ch., Mersch, B. (15th June 2009) We Are Children of Chrisis [Wir Krisenkinder], Der Spiegel, (25), p. 53

Traynor, I (25th November 2004) US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev, The Guaridan, [Online] Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa [Accessed 23d April 2012]

Woolsey, J. (16th November 2002) World War IV. A speech by the Honorable James R. Woolsey former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. [Online] GlobalSecurity.org Available from: [Accessed 12th Dec. 2011]