Geopolitical Drama Triangle

As America exits the Ukraine War, it seeks leadership from Paris, London and Berlin. Facing the spectre of defeat, these three capitals are forming a drama triangle, trying to manage shame and blame.

Mexican Standoff, artwork by Rowan Dodds

Actors in social conflicts tend to configure into one of three positions: persecutor, rescuer or victim. Whether it be movie scripts, fairy tales or information warfare narratives, these character patterns, known as the Karpman drama triangle, appear with uncanny regularity. Over the years, while the position of victim stays fixed, the roles of persecutor and rescuer are often rendered by new theorists, seeking a higher level of abstraction, as villain and hero. I will use these new terms interchangeably with the original terms.

In his paper, Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis, Dr. Karpman emphasizes the importance of role shifting within the drama triangle:

Only three roles are necessary in drama analysis to depict the emotional reversals that are drama. These action roles <…> are the Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim <…>. Drama begins when these roles are established, or are anticipated by the audience. There is no drama unless there is a switch in the roles.

Karpman gives as an example the Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH) fairy tale. The story begins with LRRH playing the rescuer role by bringing her victim grandmother food and company. LRRH meets the villain wolf along the way and naively provides him with instructions. After the wolf outpaces her to the cottage, he eats her grandmother and then wraps himself in old lady’s clothes—donning the costume of victimhood to better hide his persecutory ways. As she climbs into bed with the wolf/grandmother, LRRH quickly shifts from rescuer to victim when the wolf eats her. In the Brothers Grimm version, a woodsman enters and rescues LRRH and her grandmother from the wolf’s stomach. At this point LRRH assumes the persecutory role by placing heavy stones in the wolf’s stomach before stitching him back together. Unable to move, the villainous wolf transforms into victim and dies a slow death.

Popular psychologists claim that people assume these drama positions as a way to camouflage shame. While many people do develop a default role, depending on the situation, any of the three masks can and will be donned. As the drama intensifies, roles switch at an increased tempo. The key factor driving the movement is the imperative to keep shame at bay.

Victims start in a “one-down” position which can be described as “I am not OK.” They are looking for a hero to rescue them. In turn, rescuers start from a “one-up” position. Their motto is “I am OK, you are not OK.” A magnetic but unstable attraction develops between victims and rescuers.

Villains are ambivalent about themselves. In a sort of perpetual limbo, outwardly they project “I am OK” but inwardly they know, ‘I am not OK”. They attempt to resolve this tension by grooming a victim to persecute. In drama, as well as real life, if their persecution campaign fails, roles can quickly shift and persecutors can turn to victims.

Geopolitical information warfare campaigns often seek to mould their target audiences through the manipulation of these three trope positions. Following Russia’s “brutal and totally unprovoked” invasion of Ukraine, US media scriptwriters delineated the classic drama triangle positions as follows: Ukraine was the unambiguous victim, Russia the clear and present persecutor and the US played the role of selfless rescuer riding in on a white charger heroically saving the day with sanctions and arms shipments. Anyone who disagreed with this stick-figure dramatic array was siding with the villains and deserved shame.

The US narrative was based on a fixed timeframe, with the opening act of the drama occurring on February 24th, 2022, the date of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In stark contrast, Russian scriptwriters insisted Russia’s invasion was an example of in medias res, an event that occurred in the middle of the plot. By expanding the temporal frame to the point where a defeated Soviet Union meekly surrendered to the West at the conclusion of the Cold War, Russia was able to play the innocent victim role. Gentlemanly Russians had withdrawn all her troops from Eastern Europe on the understanding that NATO would not then take advantage by expanding eastward. Like the ravenous wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, NATO could not be trusted and Western villains starting gobbling up nation after nation in a relentless eastward march towards Russia. This persecution peaked in neocon wicked witch Victoria Nuland’s 2014 coup d'état in Ukraine, which according to the Russians, brought real, existing Nazis to power in Ukraine.

As time passed and the war progressed, Western narratives began wildly careening and colliding—uncoordinated due to a relentless desire to meet short-term goals. Veering into the realm of unreality, one day the Russian military industrial complex was so inefficient that Russian soldiers were reduced to fighting with shovels. Later a suddenly omnipotent Russia was about to deploy terrifying space weapons to zap the life out of so many humble American victims.

International Relations professor Glenn Deisen comments on the historic roots of these double narratives:

https://www.herald.co.zw/how-russophrenia-has-slowly-led-to-major-european-war/

The same dramatic incoherence is in play for Western information campaigns against China—whose economy is simultaneously collapsing while posing a clear and present danger to US hegemony.

These double narratives project the inner Western ambivalence of a wolf-villain disguised as the grandmother-victim. This narrative confusion gives Russia the dramatic space to self-portray as an innocent rescuer to the Global South. Their story goes that Russia reluctantly launched its Special Military Operation in Ukraine only to avoid being eaten alive by the NATO wolf. Russia’s survival will allow it to fulfil its mission of delivering cake and butter to the villainous West’s victims in the Global South.

Russia’s information warfare success helped cement diplomatic triumphs around the world. Russia has not only avoided serious damage from Western sanctions, but is in fact thriving economically—with a higher growth rate projected than for any G7 nation. Russia’s military industrial complex outperforms NATO’s by a 7:1 ratio, not to mention the help it gets from North Korea, Iran, and probably China. This has turned the tide on the battlefield, wreaked havoc on Western narratives, and has led to the US suddenly realizing it has “overcommitted” in Ukraine

The US reaction to the troubling turn of events in Ukraine proves the wisdom of President John F. Kennedy’s saying, “victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.” As things first turned sour in Ukraine, the US pushed their ultra-MAGA Congressional villains to center stage to play so many deadbeat dads to the poor little orphan Zelenski. With conflicts raging in the Middle East, and brewing in Korea and the Taiwan Straits, America the great global rescuer could not afford to get tied down to only one conflict.

.JFK had paraphrased Tacitus’ slightly more clunky original text, “It is the singularly unfair peculiarity of war that the credit of success is claimed by all, while a disaster is attributed to one alone.” A new struggle appeared as the drama triangle started shifting. Who would get the blame for “losing” Ukraine? Since the US directs Western propaganda campaigns, having MAGA-tards play the villain was only ever going to be a temporary solution.

Exit Victoria Nuland

On March 5th, the architect of US policy in Ukraine, the active participant in the Maidan coup d’etat of 2014, and in-law to the powerful neocon Kagan family, Victoria Nuland retired from her position as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

Her retirement represents a bureaucratic coup d'état by American China-hawks against the neocon-led Russia-hawks. China-hawks have long seen the Ukrainian adventure as a pointless diversion of US power. Worse, according to them the war has only succeeded in pushing Russia and China into an ever-deepening strategic partnership.

Nuland started her career during the Clinton Administration but got her big break while working at Vice President Dick Cheney’s side. She contributed to the US crusade to rescue the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein by granting them the gift of democracy.

Her role changed during President Obama’s presidency. Now her job was to persecute the pro-Russian democratically elected government of Ukraine. Nuland led the neo-Nazi-fuelled insurrection at Kiev’s Maidan Square, and added a villainous touch by handing out cookies amidst the violence. Later she advocated for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, opening the Padora’s box in infrastructure terrorism for all her enemies’ future geopolitical calculations.

With her retirement, Nuland completed the drama triangle by reportedly blaming her recent loss of a promotion—not on the geopolitical catastrophe she cooked up in Ukraine—but instead on a glass ceiling imposed upon her sex.

Victoria Nuland’s dramatic role started as a fair maiden spreading US democracy globally but ended as the wicked witch of US rule-based tyranny.

One of Victoria Nuland’s last speeches firmly cemented the neoconservative drama triangle:

Our continued support for Ukraine tells tyrants and autocrats everywhere … that we will defend the rights of free people to determine their own future … and that the world’s democracies will defend the values and principles that keep us safe and strong.

Victoria Nuland’s retirement, and her replacement by a China-hawk, is a powerful diplomatic smoke signal from the US that their engagement in Ukraine is winding down. On March 7th, 2024, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced, with a straight face, “we see a Russia that is now weaker militarily, economically, diplomatically." Blinken’s statement is the 2024 diplomatic version of "Mission Accomplished." It’s true that his failure to deliver his triumphant message in a flight suit dampened Blinken’s heroic intent. Nevertheless, the US has declared victory and dumped the Ukrainian orphan upon the Europeans.

A Fail of Three Cities: Paris, London and Berlin

2024 started with an apparent MAGA rebellion on further funding for the Ukraine war. But as the weeks passed, and a general election came closer, the fortress town of Avdiivka fell. Suddenly it became clear the US had big fish to fry in East Asia. The Europeanization of leadership over the war in Ukraine began. Paris, London and Berlin entered stage left.

With the prospects of a Ukrainian victory now only a distant Messianic dream of the most fervent Russophobes, the dramatic conflict now boils down to deciding who will take the blame for losing Ukraine. For political reasons, the Europeans cannot blame the Americans, at least not while President Biden remains at the helm. They are loath to aid his villainous opponent—their persecutor-in-chief—former President Donald Trump. And so a Mexican standoff, or a triangular firing squad, is taking shape in Europe. Instead of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a shame-driven Karpman drama triangle is forming of the Rescuer, the Victim and the Persecutor. Paris, Berlin and London are now engaged in a dysfunctional dance of shame and blame avoidance over the loss of Ukraine.

Paris: Macron to the Rescue

France has grabbed the hero position, with French President Emmanuel Macron threatening to send French soldiers to Ukraine, if Russian troops approach Kiev or Odessa.

French President Emmanuel Macron met with parliamentary parties on Thursday. During the meeting Macron said he was open to the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine, as announced by, according to French newspaper L’Independant.

Fabien Roussel, a representative of the French Communist Party, said after the meeting that “Macron referenced a scenario that could lead to intervention [of French troops]: the advancement of the front towards Odesa or Kyiv.”

He noted that the French President showed parliamentarians maps of the possible directions of strikes by Russian troops in Ukraine.

Following the meeting, Jordan Bardella of the far-right National Rally party noted that “there are no restrictions and no red lines” in Macron’s approach.

With the Americans now out of the picture, Macron is not discussing a NATO intervention here. Macron has spoken of placing French troops in Ukrainian trenches in order to force Russian decision makers into a “strategic dilemma.” According to Macron, Russian aviation would hesitate about turning Frenchmen into pink mist. Macron seems to imagine that Russia carefully surveys the nationality of soldiers hunkering down in enemy trenches before pounding them with gigantic FAB-1500 glide bombs.

On March 5th, in Prague, Macron’s words reveal the source of the deep shame he is attempting to mask with his new-fangled hero personae:

Earlier in the day, Macron gave a speech in front of the French community in Prague, where he insisted that “we mustn’t be cowards,” drawing a parallel with USSR times:

“Europe was split in two because of (…) cowardness, with one side of Europe refusing to understand the difficulties of the other, abandoning it to (…) totalitarianism”.

Macron is attempting to hide the past century of French military humiliation. Following her ugly victory in World War 1, the French Army was considered the world’s greatest. France’s current losing streak began in May of 1940 as the German Blitzkrieg smashed through weak forces at Sedan, which led to France a few weeks later suing for peace. In 1954 France lost a conventional war against Viet Minh insurgents, getting pummelled by Vietnamese artillery at Dien Bien Phu. Thousands of French soldiers surrendered to the guerrillas. In Algeria the French were so determined not to lose again that they ran death camps, which failed to stave off defeat but did stain France’s reputation for eternity. In recent months, Russia has been gobbling up France’s former African colonial jewels like a stealthy cat burglar pocketing jewels in the night.

Macron’s martial flamboyance is a rhetorical attempt to grind off the shameful “surrender monkey” epitaph, engraved on the collective foreheads of the French military by unappreciative Anglo-Saxon commentators.

Macron’s does not seem to have considered some of the obstacles to launching his invasion plans outside of NATO. Which neighbouring nation will allow columns of fully armed French troops to cross their territory with the express intent of killing Russians in Ukraine? If France tries airlifting equipment or soldiers into France her planes may be shot down and the airports used will come under heavy Russian missile attack. By the time Russia is approaching Odessa or Kiev, the Ukrainian military potential will be all but drained. How large a force of inexperienced French soldiers will Macron need to deploy to halt the Russian juggernaut?

Macron’s talk of intervening only if Russian troops approach Odessa or Kiev seems to imply he is willing to surrender to Russia all of Ukraine sitting on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River. The key city of Kharkov, where there are rumours that many French soldiers have already been slaughtered by Russian missile attacks, seems to not be falling under France’s imaginary protective umbrella.

If Macron sets the precedent that France has the right to kill Russian soldiers in third countries, will Russia not enthusiastically embrace this new rule-based amendment? French troops in Chad, Djibouti, Gabon, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal will all potentially come under fire from Russian snipers “intervening” in these nations.

Berlin: Scholz Wallows in Victimhood

Germany, as always, seeks to expiate its Nazi shame. One unorthodox manner is the gung-ho war-hippy militarism of its Green Party, tacitly implying that enough time has passed for Germany to retake its place among the war-mongering set.

In Germany a new type of shame is coming to the fore. The biggest loser of this war, aside from Ukraine, will be Germany. This was foreseen by most reality-based observers well before the war started. In fact some state the real reason for the Ukraine war was a US desire to deindustrialize Germany. Many, including myself, expected Germany to veto participation in the war—thus cutting the conflict’s lifeblood early. But instead Germany’s political class feigned enthusiasm. Again when the Istanbul Accords, with their supposed “punishing terms of peace,” were negotiated between Russia and Ukraine a several weeks after the war began, Germany missed a second chance to end the war. In the meantime, some combination of Anglo-Saxon spooks attacked Germany’s critical energy infrastructure by sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines. What has followed is economic stagnation, deindustrialization, and widespread pessimism throughout Germany.

While too cowardly to resist a war in Ukraine whose only outcome would be highly detrimental to her interests, Germany has nevertheless not been overly enthusiastic about the whole affair. As the wealthiest nation in Europe, Germany has done its duty in providing far larger amounts of weapons than its two loudmouthed rivals in Paris and London. And yet they in turn attack Germany for not providing long-range Taurus missiles—despite the fact that the French Scalp missiles and the British Storm Shadows have had only a minor impact on the war, with most now being easily shot down by Russian air defense.

In response to Macron’s implicit criticism of Germany, Berlin reacts with victimhood:

But perceptions that Germany isn’t doing enough irk the chancellor, given his country has spent much more on aid than its neighbor across the Rhine.

“I am very irritated by the lack of balance between what is really needed now and the debate about this one system,” Scholz said about the Taurus missiles earlier this week at a conference in Berlin. “What Ukraine lacks is ammunition for all possible distances.”

According to the Kiel Institute, military commitments between January 2022 and January 2024 to Ukraine totaled €17.7 billion ($19 billion) from Germany and €0.64 billion from France. The French government says it has spent €3.8 billion, without providing a breakdown of those figures.

“The issue is that Macron’s position is weakened by the limited amount of military aid France has provided Ukraine so far, that isn’t on par with its profile as Europe’s strongest military power,” according to Rym Momtaz, a Paris-based researcher for the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Germany’s inability to directly confront the US and Britain in the runup to the Ukrainian War is mirrored by her inability to openly confront Paris and London now. Instead Berlin resorts to passive-aggressive moves such as denouncing British and French direct involvement on the ground in Ukraine;

Speaking to journalists in Berlin earlier this week, Scholz justified his continued refusal to send Germany’s Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine by saying it could require German troops in Ukraine to program them.

That would — in Scholz's view — make Germany an active participant in the conflict.

<…>

“This is a very far-reaching weapon,” Scholz said of the Taurus. “And what the British and French are doing in terms of target control and support for target control cannot be done in Germany.”

Berlin lies less than a thousand kilometres from Ukraine’s western border and so it will be the Germans who first feel the wrath of any potential Russian invasion of Europe, as unlikely as this is. Projecting herself as a victim, Berlin rejects pressure from Paris and London to send long-range weapons to Ukraine—just as Little Red Riding Hood should have never climbed into bed with the wolf disguised as her grandmother.

Russia has a long and proud history of information warfare. Russia pounced when its intelligence agencies intercepted German generals conducting impromptu feasibility studies on sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine:

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that "denazification" in Germany has not been completed, warning it of "dire consequences" after Russian propaganda leaked secret talks between high-ranking German Air Force officers.

Kremlin narrative-meisters, putting the drama triangle to practical use, played the Nazi card on a Germany ashamed of its past. The Russian goal is to provoke German shame and roll Berlin back into its usual foetal position in geopolitical affairs.

London: Villainous Britain

Karl Marx’s quip from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon perfectly describes the relationship between Winston Churchill and Boris Johnson:

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

In assuming their role as villain, the shame Britain hides is their tragic decline from global hegemon to their current lowly status as a near failed-state. Winston Churchill’s long and tragic political career spanned from the peak of British power in the late 19th century through their loss of empire to their political humiliation, at the hands of the US, during the Suez Crisis in 1956. After his death, Britain made a comeback, particularly in the cultural realm. But around the time Boris Johnson started his own career, one based primarily on playing a kitsch version of Churchill, Britain’s decline recommenced.

Since playing persecutor to globalist ambitions by leading the Brexit charge, Boris Johnson has snuggled back into the establishment lap by playing their hero in Ukraine. With Britain facing profound economic problems that predate Brexit, Johnson was looking for any chance he could get to inflict pain on EU economies. What better chance than heavily promoting the Ukrainian War, which would inevitably lead to a crisis within the EU and spark deindustrialization in Germany—whose powerful economy had been the target of much British passive-aggressive resentment?

When it looked as if the war might come to an early end with the Istanbul Accords in the spring of 2022, Boris Johnson rushed to Kiev to convince the Ukrainians to quash the budding agreement and continue the fight. After being deposed from power, Johnson’s even more incompetent replacement Liz Truss reportedly sent an “it’s done” message to US authorities, thus indirectly implicating herself in the diabolical destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. This unprovoked terrorist attack on critical German energy infrastructure will consign generations to suffer the sort of economic decline that Britain has experience over the past decade and a half. It seems economic misery does indeed love company.

Currently Britain is engaging in the classic triangular game of, “Let’s You and Him Fight.” With its own military in a dreadful state, it’s both urging the EU and Russia to fight while at the same time stoking France and Germany towards confrontation. Britain encourages France’s tough talk while agreeing with Germany on not sending troops. At the same time Britain strongly denounces Germany “snitching” on Britain for deploying forces in Ukraine. Britain’s assistance to Ukraine in sinking several Russian naval vessels practically ensures that Odessa will not remain in Ukrainian hands at the end of the war. This pressure simultaneously amplifies France’s rescuer instincts while pushing Germany further into a cocoon of victimhood. In the end, with the spectre of defeat pushing the US further away, a European triangular standoff intensifies as Russia has its way with the helpless orphan Ukraine.

Ukraine: From Victim to Persecutor in Defeat

To be sure, there is more than shame-avoidance driving European actions. Fear of defeated Ukrainian factions turning against their former European benefactors in the aftermath of a Russian victory in Ukraine is also driving the drama triangle in Europe. Stab-in-the-back legends are the preferred plot device for transforming victims into persecutors. The canonical example is Germany after her defeat in World War One. Some German factions refused to accept that Germany actually lost the Great War and preferred the myth that the Jews were to blame. Echoes of this dynamic are heard in the US today, where Ukraine’s approaching defeat is not the fault of warmongering neocons but is really the work of a MAGA stab-in-the-back through Congress’ refusal to send supplemental funding to Ukraine. Similar betrayal narratives were deployed to deny the American defeat in Vietnam during the 70’s.

The historical example Europeans fear most is the Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS) a far-right terrorist group which emerged in the waning days of the Algerian War. When Charles de Gaulle came to power via a coup d'état in 1959, the hard-line generals in Algeria, where France was facing defeat, saw him as a rescuer. He quickly turned into their persecutor when he decided to cut Algeria loose. Their subsequent victimhood of defeat quickly in turn transformed the Generals into De Gaulle’s persecutors as the OAS. Their most famous of many assassination attempts was dramatized in the film, The Day of the Jackal.

Europeans leaders fear the wrath of defeated Ukrainians. These militants, armed with FPV drones or shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, could spread panic and inflict widespread damage to Europe. Ukrainian fighters may one day soon soon realize that fighting weak and disorganized European armed forces is much easier and more satisfying that getting dumped on by massive Russian glide bombs and artillery. Macron, being the most aware of the OAS example, is keenly motivated to play the late-game hero and push any potential Ukrainian OAS groups towards Germany.