By Alexander Perepechko

Published on May 23, 2015

When I tell my fellow Americans that I study American elites, I often get a bizarre reaction: “How can you, a foreigner, study American elites?” It happens so frequently that a special essay is required.

It is not unusual for foreigners to scrutinize American elites. Just like many other scientific disciplines, elitology in the United States was founded by immigrants. Moisey Ostrogorsky and Pitirim Sorokin, immigrants from the Eastern Europe, were among the founding fathers of elitology in America. Ostrogorsky was a Belarusian Jew. Sorokin’s father was Russian and his mother was Komi. American elitologist and strategist Edward Luttwak was born into a Jewish family in Romania. By the same token, Sergey Kurginyan, one of the founding fathers of elitology in another country – the Russian Federation – is also a “foreigner” there with Jewish and Armenian cultural roots. I often utilize his provocative findings about military and national security elites in my work. Thus, it is not credible to conjecture that an immigrant cannot study American elites.

I am not aware that Luttwak, Ostrogorsky, and Sorokin conspired against the US, or that Kurginyan schemed against the Russian Federation. Their tasks are to interpret texts (hermeneutics), to test hypotheses, to generate new ideas, and to engage the public in a discussion. As a rule, elitologists use in their work unclassified information. This can include i) proven facts, ii) confirmed and unconfirmed records, and iii) legends or myths. Elitologists work with three types of legends. The first type is disinformation, which elites use in their games to manipulate politicians, governmental bureaucrats, and media. For example, disinformation is commonly used in information wars on Facebook, Twitter and the like. I have actively followed these wars during the active phase of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Indeed, an experienced analyst can extract some truth out of sources of disinformation. The second type of legend occurs when elites exchange information using Aesop language – understood only within the elite subculture. The third type of legend is called a hyperlegend (related to a hypertext or hyperlink). Actually this is a message which links a reader to related information but needs to be interpreted in a particular way; only a few readers can do that (Kurginyan, 2008: 101-103).

As a rule, elitologists use in their work unclassified information. This can include i) proven facts, ii) confirmed and unconfirmed records, and iii) legends or myths. Elitologists work with three types of legends. The first type is disinformation, which elites use in their games to manipulate politicians, governmental bureaucrats, and media. For example, disinformation is commonly used in information wars on Facebook, Twitter and the like. I have actively followed these wars during the active phase of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Indeed, an experienced analyst can extract some truth out of sources of disinformation. The second type of legend occurs when elites exchange information using Aesop language – understood only within the elite subculture. The third type of legend is called a hyperlegend (related to a hypertext or hyperlink). Actually this is a message which links a reader to related information but needs to be interpreted in a particular way; only a few readers can do that (Kurginyan, 2008: 101-103).

The subject of elitology is certain open social organizations and closed social systems. These systems always coexist and consist of organizations. The structure of an organization combines hierarchy and network arrangements.

Well-known elite-related methodologies are somewhat associated with the sociology of groups and system theory. Heuristic systematic methods, game theory methods, and methods of dynamic chaos are among the methodologies that elitologists increasingly use.

Thus, elitologists have research methodologies and techniques and work with unclassified data sets. Then, why did elitology not find a niche in American academia? There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, elitologists are not the most liberal people in the world. And social sciences in American state universities are dominated by the left and postmodernists – who are eager to control ideological space on campus and protect their own turf. An elitologist does not have a chance to survive on campus; he or she will be witch-hunted and forced to leave.

Secondly, Robert Michels, Gaetano Mosca, and Vilfredo Pareto – the founding fathers of elitology – lived and worked under the fascist regime in Italy. In the eyes of American academics, this fact automatically puts these elitologists in the category of fascist collaborationists. The American left and postmodernists declare elitology to be “Mussolini’s science.”

Thirdly, many in America sincerely believe and will tell you that elites do not exist in this country. There is even a doctrine asserted that elites existed a long time ago but do not and cannot exist any longer in the United States. If the subject does not exist, then there is no need for methods to study it. According to this strange logic, a person who studies “non-existing” elites in the United States is a conspiratologist subscribed to a conspiracy theory.

Last but not least, elites anywhere and any time do not like to be studied and do not like those who study them. Try to approach a member of the elite and tell him or her that you study elites and need an insight into the government! You might be lucky in the United States but your chances in France are negligible. The French élite is meritocratic and typically recruited from École nationale d’administration (ENA) and Ecole Politechnique, two rigidly selective schools (Kuper, 2013). It is in fact a self-reproducing caste. Its members live in a few select arrondissements in Paris. Children of the French élite attend the same local schools. By their early twenties these future leaders know each other. They meet at breakfasts, dinners, and public and cultural events. They became friends and spouses. They write each other letters of recommendation and offer each other lucrative jobs. They do not seek or receive external feedback. They are bound together by shared confidential information and they cover each other’s wrongdoings. It is not an exaggeration to say that in some situations members of the French élite would rather betray their country than a friend.

Let us discuss two examples of this unfortunate attitude of elites toward elitologists.

In his seminal book Power and Morality, one of the major figures of sociological analysis, Pitirim Sorokin (1959), explored and summed up results of his empirical sociological study of the moral behavior and mentality of rulers and governments in five generalizations:

1) Compared to the morals and mentality of members of the ruled population, the morals and minds of rulers are marked by greater mental and moral schizophrenia. By this Sorokin meant the ambivalent relationship of a human being with other humans. This ambivalence is expressed in the conflict between a declared desire to not cause pain and suffering, on the one side, and the support of practices that cause unnecessary pain and suffering, on the other side.

2) Ruling elites have a larger proportion of the gifted and the mentally ill than the ruled population.

3) The moral behavior of ruling elites tends to be more criminal and less moral than that of the ruled strata of the same society.

4) The greater, more absolute, and coercive the power of rulers – and the less freely their power is approved or disapproved by the ruled population – the more corrupt and criminal the ruling groups tend to be.

5) With progressive limitations on power, the criminality of rulers tends to decrease qualitatively (by becoming less grave and murderous) and quantitatively (by decreasing the rate of criminal acts).

Does any elite in any country crave to publish and publicly discuss this kind of research? Eventually, Pitirim Sorokin, author of 37 books and more than 400 articles, was silently pushed into the background of American sociology…

The second example of the unfavorable posture of elites toward those who study them is more delicate. In this example we will be dealing with the rivalry inside the national security elite (a closed system) – between the Pentagon and the CIA. Indeed, some members of the closed elite do not want their games during the 2003 invasion of Iraq to be studied. And it is not only about leaders in the Pentagon, including Donald Henry Rumsfeld, who “were envious of the CIA” (Norton, 2015: 120), or greedy Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney, who enriched himself and his Halliburton company. It is about the proliferation of French-made weapons-grade uranium and Russia-made cruise missiles in the Middle East.

I spent many hours working with unclassified data pertaining to these issues (for example, in Albright, 2002; Caravelli, 2011: 54; Kurginyan, 2007: 190-198, 244-272, 275; Novikov, 2011; Pacepa, 2003; Sidorov & Reutov, 2006; X-55 Long Range). My data analysis led to three different narratives, from which similar questions for the national security elite arise. I sum these possible scenarios up.

I) Iran’s nuclear ambitions cannot be viewed separately from its missile development program. Far-right Republicans knew that better than anybody else. After George W Bush became president in 2000, the Cheney-Rumsfeld group started looking for contacts within the most conservative circles in Iran. American neo-conservatives had work to do in the Middle East. To be victorious, Cheney and Rumsfeld needed to neutralize Iran, leader of the Shia communities in the Middle East. What could have been more simple than to ask the CIA to be an intermediary in negotiations with Iran? However, the split in the national security elite between the Pentagon and CIA was really bad. So bad that the Cheney-Rumsfeld group probably contacted few top people at military intelligence in Moscow and asked them to play the intermediary role in the deal with Iran… For noninvolvement in operation “Iraqi Freedom” and other American operations in the Middle East, Iran got what it desired the most. In 2001, several samples of Russia-made X-55 long range cruise missiles, capable of delivering nuclear charges, found their way to Iran through Ukraine. That was the payment to keep Iran neutral during US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. How did American surveillance and networks in the Middle East miss this transfer? Did Cheney and Rumsfeld close their eyes on the transfer of these WMD components to Iran?

II) In 1975, France agreed to deliver 72.0 kg of weapons-grade (enriched 93%) uranium to Iraq. In 1980, Iraq received 12.5 kg of this uranium from France. That is enough for two A-bombs. Just before the start of the “Iraqi Freedom” operation, Russia’s most elite special forces group apparently evacuated this uranium and dumped it into the sea in a special container. The goal of the supposed Russian operation (called the “Sarindar” emergency exit plan for Iraq) was to call the American invasion in Iraq into disrepute and to inspire the left in Europe to organize anti-American demonstrations and protests. How did American surveillance and networks in the Middle East overlook this evacuation of the uranium? If this transfer indeed was detected and reported, why did Cheney and Rumsfeld not stop (or postpone) the “Iraqi Freedom” operation?

III) In the Ford administration Kissinger, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz developed the strategy of assisting Iran in creating its own nuclear weapons. But Carter canceled this program. The Iranian nuclear program was revived in 1987, when Iran and Pakistan secretly agreed to cooperate in nuclear research. The Iraqi nuclear arsenal (with French-made weapons-grade uranium) probably was transferred to Iran with Pakistan’s assistance and stored in Isfahan and Natanz. Iran started its military nuclear program in the early 1990s. In 1995, Abdul Qadeer Khan, former head of Pakistan’s nuclear program, sponsored by the Saudis, was involved in obtaining 500 P-1 centrifuges for Iran. How was it possible that these transfers of uranium and centrifuges were not detected by US intelligence or recorded and stored away for future use? Does the recent nuclear deal with Iran have an element pertaining to Saddam Hussein’s nuclear arsenal?

Thus, is there a split in the American security elite? It is hard to imagine that political ideological, personal, financial, organizational, and logistical strains are absent among 16 national security agencies and within each of their hierarchies. Rivalry between various groups in the national security elite has international consequences and affects the grand strategy (Luttwak, 2001: 209-210). The interactions at lower military and intelligence levels – mysterious moves of the military-grade uranium, centrifuges, and cruise missiles in the Middle East – engender consequences within broad settings of international politics and impact nonmilitary relations among states. As Luttwak (2012: 99) states in The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy, “strategy is stronger than politics.”

The grand strategy exists within international politics but does not concur with its boundaries. The grand strategy also exists outside international politics because it includes the highest level of interaction between any parties capable of using force against each other, including terrorist and criminal groups. In our case, the grand strategy in the Middle East is paradoxically manifested in domestic settings (see Luttwak, 2001: 209-210, 216-217) of the United States. Since a state’s monopoly on force is incomplete, the moves of components of the WMD in the Middle East finally brought radical Islamists and terrorists onto American soil. These days, the American ruling class is forced to proceed with the securitization of the country at the expense of democracy and economic well-being of the common person.

Is it possible that citizens of the United States will allow their prosperity to be undermined without trying to create a new elite, capable of protecting their interests in the global economy? Can the network of American, Russian, and French players involved in the moves of the WMD in the Middle East be seen as a prototype of future international alliances of security elites? (See figure 1 in my post published on April 22, 2012.) Was the hypothetical WMD move a step toward globalization of security elites at the expense of the national security of separate states? Or does our example simply demonstrate that we have an “obsolete” (see Luttwak, 1980: 305-312) security elite, which is not up to new challenges?

Foreign elitologists study the American national security elite. So what?

Albright, D. (2002) Iraq’s Programs to Make Highly Enriched Uranium and Plutonium for Nuclear Weapons Prior to the Gulf War. Available at http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/iraqs_fm_history.html

Caravelli, J. (2011) Beyond sand and oil: the nuclear Middle East. Santa Barbara: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Kuper, S. The French elite: where it went wrong. FT Magazine, May 10, 2013. Available at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d76b5fcc-b83f-11e2-bd62-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3Z9K5CMa6

Kurginyan, S. E. (2008) Kacheli. Konflikt elit – ili razval Rossii? [Swing. Conflict of elites or breakup of Russia?]. Moscow: ECC.

Kurginyan, S. E. (2007) The weakness of power. Moscow: ECC.

Luttwak, E. N. (2012) The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy. London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Luttwak, E. N. (2001) Strategy: the logic of war and peace. London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Luttwak, E. N. (1980) Strategy and politics. London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Norton, S. (2015) Lords of secrecy. New York: Nation Books.

Novikov, V. (2011) Iran and its Opponents – The Game Around Iran’s Nuclear Weapons: What it Means. In V. Sood & S. Kurginyan (Eds.), Radical Islam. Perspectives from India and Russia. Delhi: Macmillan: 227-248.

Pacepa, I. M. Ex-spy fingers Russians on WMD. The Washington Times, August 20, 2003. Available at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2003/aug/20/20030820-081256-6822r/?page=all

Sidorov, D. & Reutov, A. Yevgeniia Primakova zaputyvayut v rossiiskii sled [They tangle Yevgenii Primakov up in the Russian track]. Kommersant, February 28, 2006. Available at http://kommersant.ru/doc/653271

Schmertzler, A. (2015) A House Divided Across 150 Aprils, Acrylic on canvas, 30”x40”, viewed May 12, 2015. Available at http://www.allenschmertzler-artist.com/Obama_era.html

Sorokin, P. A. (with Lunden, W. A.) (1959) Power and Morality. Boston, MA: Porter Sargent Publishers.

X-55 Long Range Cruise Missile. Available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/x-55.htm