Professor of the Philosophy of Intelligence at the State Intelligence College (STIN)
Introduction
In 2025 we are seeing an increasingly clear three-way struggle in global politics:
- Global capitalists seek to maintain international financial hegemony through rules-based order instruments and international NGO networks.
- Trump's ultra-nationalists and similar movements in Europe are rejecting globalism, emphasizing isolationism, and opposing foreign military involvement.
- China and Russia, along with Indonesia and other BRICS members, are promoting multipolarity with alternative political-economic systems that challenge Western dominance.
As this struggle ensues, mass demonstrations are becoming an arena for proxy battles. Marginalized groups are mobilized through NGO funding to pressure regimes perceived to be anti-capitalist or pro-China, and to undermine the legitimacy of nationalist governments.
Funding Mechanisms
International NGOs act as funding channels, whether through advocacy programs, social assistance, or "human rights" campaigns that are transformed into mass mobilization.
Billions of dollars in funding are disbursed annually by institutions such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI), Freedom House, George Soros's Open Society Foundation, and similar institutions such as the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and USAID. (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6).
These funds are used to:
- Fund the logistics of social protests (transportation, food, communication equipment).
- Provide legal support to activists.
- Train volunteers in digital advocacy and protest mobilization.
From the perspective of the Philosophy of Intelligence, these practices are a form of non-military subversion that is much cheaper than direct military intervention, but whose effects can cripple the target regime.
