The Idiocracy of Western Diplomacy

The Idiocracy of Western Diplomacy

Could it be that the so-called diplomats in the West, churned out of the conveyor belt education system, are not just incompetent but genuinely stupid? Not in the sense of lacking vocabulary, credentials, or polished suits, but in the deeper sense of intellectual entropy. A kind of mental fast-tracking toward idiocracy.

Because if you look at them — not just their polished statements, but their actual performance — you notice something unsettling: the inability to comprehend the other side. The inability to grasp nuance. The inability to actually engage in diplomacy. And why? Because the very system that produces them is designed for conformity, not understanding. It rewards memorization of orthodoxies, not critical thought. It molds careerists, not diplomats.

In Rome’s later days, the same decay took place. Once the system of choosing elites stagnated, the empire filled itself with hollow men. Administrators who had no vision beyond extraction, generals who lived on the prestige of past victories, senators who cared more about their own perks than the fate of the state. Rome rotted from the inside, not because the barbarians were smarter or stronger, but because its ruling class became incapable of true comprehension — of seeing reality as it was.

The West today seems to be repeating the script. Its diplomats are less interpreters between worlds and more gatekeepers of a decaying ideology. They are trained to think in terms of leverage, extraction, and superiority complexes. They approach others not with curiosity or humility, but with the assumption that the West is the natural reference point of the globe — a mindset rooted in the Cold War era of unmatched armament and dominance.

But that military advantage is gone. The unchallenged hilltop they once occupied has new climbers approaching from every direction. And yet the delusion persists: that since they “won” the Cold War, the competition is permanently over, the adversaries vanquished, history itself settled. What arrogance. What blindness. The very delusion of empire in decline.

The result is a tragicomic disconnect. When they sit across the table from diplomats of China, Russia, India, Brazil, or even smaller rising powers, there is no true dialogue. One side comes armed with assumptions that no longer hold, a superiority complex that is both outdated and laughable. The other comes with pragmatism, calculation, and the clear-eyed recognition that the balance of the world has shifted.

And here lies the crisis: the West’s representatives, far from being skilled diplomats, are simply provincial actors dressed in global costumes. They cannot fathom that the game has changed because their system has taught them not to. And so, like Rome before them, they stagnate — mistaking arrogance for wisdom, extraction for negotiation, the past for the present.

If this is diplomacy, then it is idiocracy with a briefcase.

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